Rodney & Quinns: 10 Years in Board Games | AwSHUX 2021

but luckily i kept all of my hair and you grew some more you did as well yeah i agree you know honestly your hair right now is the hair that i hope one day to have and your beard though if if i have your beard something's gone very wrong yes i this beard is it's just it's just teeth you can see through this beard i brought a cane too that's good that's good i wore this beard for my recent descent video and i i got about 30 seconds through the run time before realizing first off all you can see is my lips which is kind of nasty and then just sort of wet hairs blowing i see that yeah it's just it's truly foul oh my god okay it's they just stopped flaking off you know um yes rodney rodney um rodney smith would you like to uh introduce yourself to the shadowstone audience hilariously they might not be able to recognize you give no i'm gonna i'll de-beard oh wait i taped my beard to my headphones one second oh god i didn't anticipate we didn't think this bit through at all yeah oh ah i'll leave it on as a kind of fashion about that okay oh yes thank you yeah i have to introduce myself hi everybody it's me i'm rodney rodney smith from uh watch it played uh a youtube channel about board games as it turns out uh and we didn't know this and we wouldn't know it for many years but you and i actually i guess decided to start our websites in the same did you saw yours in summer 2011 it was yeah i think the first gosh i should go look i think it was june oh oh goodness i think that might even be when the first shut up sits down stop it hang on i'm gonna go through that look well well we're chatting here [Laughter] i think it was though episode one shut up it's down came out on the 8th of july but we'd have been working on it in june yeah i'm just looking now sort by date added oldest let's see here we go oh july july 5th oh my god so we both came out in july 2011 with our first ever pieces of content and now look at us look at that states in the year 2020 remember things that happened 10 years ago no yeah so um we thought uh for everybody watching this um that rodney and i would do a kind of weird double interview um yeah so we've but oh there's so much hair in my mouth rodney you should have gone with a paper beard yeah why didn't i you've absolutely outclassed me um okay so right i i actually i don't want to like launch us into this also sure i found out you were drinking during this so i got yes bottoms up cheers bottoms up cheers okay oh there we go you weren't there we go cheers and cheers everyone watching thank you for joining us for this little introspective conversational piece yeah it's uh we don't know where this chat's going so all rodney and i did we did a preliminary call saying well what should we do for this should we just ask each other questions and we we both agreed yeah we should and that that was kind of the extent of it because as soon as we realized that we can both motor mouth at each other we knew we had to do like zero prep we had to stop because we started in the tech test we just started gabbing and talking about games and things i was like we gotta save some of this yeah we do um so i mean i i i've got a sort of my harder questions come later and there's some there's some real hard ones but to begin with i'm going to give you the what i consider the the softest of soft balls okay this will set the tone on it it might it might this is the soft one we'll see okay how do you like the name smith oh that is a soft one good um i i do like it i do like the name smith um i've always you know the harder thing is is rodney frankly yeah that has been difficult for you well it's just it's just not a common name and so i remember it was at i think the gathering of friends i think you and i were both there and there was i want to say there was two other rodney's in the room that was unusual for me i'm not used to like hearing someone say hey rodney and then it's not meant for me because i never grew up around other rodney's you know yeah yeah well i do i mean unsettling my name is quentin i didn't realize rodney was an unusual name mm-hmm but like i mean my parents were like oh well you know because my sister is one of my sisters is called zena and so i think my parents were like well we've saddled them with this super generic second name let's let's give them a first name just to make sure they get bullied at school interesting interesting yeah i uh so rodney was my grandfather's last name so i think that's really where that came from yeah okay okay good well uh yeah weirdly there's something about smith that i just find kind of classic like it is it's not boring it's like you know there was that you know brad pitt and angelina jolie i know smith smith right yes yeah yeah yeah that's kept it a little bit cool yeah so that was that question didn't really go anywhere i'm not sure where i was expecting it to but i feel like uh did you get teased a lot for your name uh twins uh uh i don't know if the shut up and sit down audience know this but mr clinton i mean i got teased for my accent more than my name i used to speak i used to speak like all five members of the famous five talking at once um like sort of uh you know i'll do my i'll do what i used to sound like when i was seven also americans might not be able to tell that but i i used to speak like this and i was very excited to see everybody i spoke like an english child in an american horror film um that's how i would describe my ex did you did you have to conscientiously change like did you want to conscientiously yeah yeah i i i went through primary school and was fine then as soon as kids started getting mean i was like oh i can't talk like this i've gotta and then round it off all of my i mean i still sound posh to english people because i am yes but uh but yeah but rodney what was i i do want to get to actual board game relevant questions but so your experience growing up as a rodney tell me about it i did where would you like me to start i just say growing up was a little tricky because i i was definitely um well growing up wasn't actually that difficult it just sort of happens to you i suppose but i uh yeah i definitely got teased a lot when i was younger a lot um i think i grew up in a very conservative upbringing like so yeah conservative and so i was i didn't know what was cool or popular or i didn't have any of those touchstones that people did like the movies and the music and everything so i was just it was strange it was odd and i was just funny you know actually i was watching the stream here before uh it started and it it you just finished up um going through one of the games it was cutting to the interlude right and showing the different games that you guys uh have done videos for i think taco bell yeah yeah yeah toku doku and i was looking at that thing and tom's explaining it right and there's like tiles everywhere graphics everywhere dice over a thousand components and he's been talking for about 10 minutes and it's like it's just the time stuff he goes and that's the basics now let's get into the grip and i was like my goodness we are a weird bunch like the video yeah i look at that thing and i just i'm fascinated by it right like i am intrigued i get drawn in and excited about it i guess why did i say that i guess maybe that's a there's a little tie in there like in my childhood i was always drawn to things that were a little different or weird and i felt like a little bit of an outsider that way too so maybe that maybe there's some of that that that connects but in this board game space it's like you find your tribe a little bit yeah yeah i uh there's a there's a um i literally had a therapist help help walk me through some of these revelations but as a kid um i have a very vivid memory of my dad taking me to a hobby a shop in london called leisure games which is still around today um actually has an affiliation relationship with them which i'm super happy for because they have amazing stuff amazing selection in the middle of nowhere in north london but i wouldn't make that pilgrimage all the time because to me i would walk in and it was like an aladdin's cave like there were just so many games and like i knew video games as a kid but the idea that there were all these board games and card games like mine but each each box was like full of possibility you just you just didn't know what ideas or adventures or stories would come out of these boxes but i didn't have really many people to play games with when i was a kid you know i eventually got a couple but by and large like i was always kind of the like i had a super privileged upbringing but when it came to games and people to actually share them with i was the orphan at the glass being like oh maybe one day i'll have this and so there is there is definitely a through line for me to from like kid who didn't have anyone to play games with to adult who will force that to be their entire life and live in this like kind of fulfillment fantasy that isn't actually quite fulfilling but nonetheless is what i'm pulled towards yeah it's a common refrain too like in the comments of uh the videos uh i'll often get comments from people going this game looks really awesome i wish i had somebody to play it with yes and i've been living for 10 years 10 years that's i've been hearing that from yeah but what kills me about that is like there'll be that comment oh this game looks me i wish i had someone to play it with and like first off i've been there literally yes but also that comment will have like it's 18 up thumbs it's like there's at least 19 of you here like you know we can play board games online i feel bad for shut up sit down not looking into all the different ways you can play board games online until covert happens but well look a similar thing for me honestly i the the last year i have played many more games and actually here's the funny thing quinn's i've played more physical versions of my games but remotely so i have uh wait what i haven't i have i'll explain i haven't been as drawn to uh some of the different digital formats i use them but i love we all love moving the physical components around right well i uh well this is going to answer a question i was going to ask you a little later but what the heck um my my uh my interest in board gaming has not diminished over the last 10 years if anything i would say it has has heightened certainly evolved in different ways but also heightened and i discovered a style of game recently that just kind of like blew the doors off of like what i had been experienced in board gaming it wasn't again but it wasn't that my interest in gaming had diminished i just discovered a new style of game i'd never played before and there was that kind of rejuvenating sense of oh this is like a whole new frontier games coin games is what i i i oh you got into them yeah i got them i'd had a couple of them for years just sitting on my shelf do you want to give a quick explanation because i think we might end up releasing this chat as a podcast or a video on youtube yes we have what are coins absolutely so coin is shorthand for counter insurgency and so it's it's kind it's irregular types of conflicts uh sometimes when we think of war we think of like two sides clashing on a battlefield kind of thing like men were 44 style you might think of a war game like that right um call back by the way to your very first episode where number 44 was welcome to review you did not i hope you didn't go back and watch those because oh i did no indeed um we'll talk about that later too okay um but anyway so i i uh so counter coin games take a different approach it's not like two forces meeting on the battlefield it's the way a lot of conflicts actually happen i think or more commonly which is you have a variety of different factions each with their own unique interests but those interests jam up against each other um so for example a very the one i started on i actually have it here um let me this is this is uh this could be a big mistake oh no are you lifting the board oh no okay so this is a coin game this is so this is people listening on podcast i'm holding up a board with wooden pieces on it imagine a board game uh anyway so this is this is a coin game and there's four different factions you got the syndicate they're interested in opening up casinos and making money you've got the directorial which is um interested in overthrowing the government but they're a little more democratic you've got uh fidel castro's crew which is july 26th they have it they want over to the government but they have again a different agenda and then you've got the government who's just trying to hang on to power so these four different forces meaning having asymmetric actions goals etc anyway this is a long story to say when i finally learned how to play it really felt like a very different style of game and it got me very excited and i realized i could play these remotely um they work perfectly so i will take my phone and i will record my turn in a little video message and i'll send it to my opponent or opponents who has the board set up in their homes they'll update the board they get a little message from rodney they update the board and then they make their turn send it back over to the rest of the people and we you know we just on our own time play when we're able to and it's just been fantastic i've been playing game after gameplay game i've got three of those games set up in the other room right now really yeah i've fallen far down this hall i think that yeah no the last two years as horrible as they've been for so many people um really encouraged shut up and sit down crew to discover new games as well you know it like tom uh finding discovering uh uh thousand ten thousand thousand year old vampire yeah i picked that up for myself and my kids off of that review it just seemed so fascinating that was a fantastic review everyone should check that out yeah it's just terrific but um it's it was revelatory for us because you know hey it's like the idea of a journaling game is not something that i thought i would have enjoyed turns out i absolutely do because like i feel like i spend more time oh there's a line i go back to on or think use when i'm reviewing games a lot which is like how much time do i spend thinking or like you know like whether that's daydreaming or envisioning what's happening on the board or calculating my next move how much do i find thinking and it's sitting in in thought versus everything else year old vampire it's like when i imagined a journaling game i imagined you know writing like an essay but actually the experience of playing thousand year old vampire is rolling the dice getting a prompt of like this happens to your vampire what does it mean and then staring into space and just entering a incredible imagination palace and just thinking what does that mean my character could do this my character could do this and it's like the it's like being in a sauna of imagination yeah so evocative but but what i was saying in inexpertly is that the pandemic has allowed us to discover digital games solo games and just the joy of concurrent play when i was done with um uh hostage negotiator career which is right which is this wild absurd 150 uh package that enables you to play hostage negotiator a solo game in a campaign and i know that you know this you're smiling because you have the sequel to that game you have final girl and you're showing it on camera now and i hate you i hate you um so the hostage negotiator is being reimagined is again called the final girl yeah um where players are not negotiating with the hostage but running away from a slasher um and then confronting it as the final girl oh do you you actually killed them after running away the whole time is that well you're you're really like trying to tool up you know so basically it's like you're taking on the role of that you know uh young female compatriot in a group of friends and all your friends are being hunted down and eventually after the fear subsides you realize you gotta like find your resolve because if you don't stop this killer no one's going to and so you become the final girl through this journey type of thing and it's just i've been having just to build off what you were saying i never really played a lot of solo games right yeah and this you know i'm not even into horror either really so those two things were already a knock against this game and i played it and i was just like oh i'm gonna play all these scenarios my brain went like this i'm gonna have this coin game set over there i'm gonna have another little table for solo play a final girl yes so all of this then if we're talking about um because i could tell that you were answering your own question with the question being uh like how has your experience of board games changed over the last 10 years yeah exactly and i i've got there's a lot of different answers to that question for me but the but but related to what you were saying i think i've come to realize that when i started this i thought the hobby was for people who enjoy playing games together that's what you assume that the board hobby is yeah and i i after 10 years i don't know if that's true because i think the people who really stick around in the hobby and get into it are people who enjoy learning new kinds of games interesting for a second yeah think about the cult of the new think about you know how few board games get played more than like three or four times sure think about how much how much more keen any board game is going to be to try something the new hotness if there's one thing that defines the whole hobby it's the hotness sidebar on bgg yes which is basically a lot of people looking at games they haven't played and going i want to play that and i think you know when we talk about you know the last two years um of of covert horror like rejuvenating our love for the hobby i think that makes sense because hey we can't play the kind of games we normally play of course but also it's forced us to engage with types of games we wouldn't normally engage with which is actually a very fruitful way to i don't know to keep your passion alive i think so too and i think i mean there's a little something that happens when you stay in the hobby for a little while i think because you know maybe you discover like for me it was a carcass zone i'd gotten away from board gaming for a while and i discovered carcassonne i was like oh is this what board games are doing these days this seems great you know and because i've grown up playing some board games but um and some of the like more obscure ones but i got away from it got into video games and that sort of thing yeah but i think when you do have those moments of discovery like i also had just recently with coin games it does put you on this hunt for the next discovery right which i think is part of that cult of the new thing i wanna i wanna have that experience again where i open something a box up and something very new hit me in the face like i think there's and that can be a little a little uh misleading's not the word i want um there's a lot of fun to be had in the same game yeah here's what i'm saying like you you can you can you can um achieve a level of satisfaction actually in playing a game you already know more than one time but there was a podcast i mourned the disappearance of um and i didn't listen to it or big enough as much as i should but it was could you remember i think it was called the long view or the yes yeah yeah yeah because the pitch was we're going to talk about one game each episode yeah but in each episode we have played that game like 10 times right and that is so antithetical to how the entire board game press works and so fascinating but sorry i cut you off i just no i think that i think you're going to break that's a perfect dovetail it's the same same thing my point being that when you do take some time to dive into something deeply you can find a level of satisfaction that maybe even supersedes that that that thirst for the next thing which drives a lot of us and i'm a big call for the new person i love discovering new games i think you're right though i think what you said is a really good point one of the things that drives me is i do love opening up that new box and discovering that new thing not just because it's new but because it's a yeah i guess i guess because it's new because it's a surprise like what what is hiding in this box that's very alluring you know yeah and you know so on this subject like i was i i still am like involved in video games but but not as much as i used to be but i was in video games for like i i started writing really young like 16 17 i was freelancing for magazines and then but around like by the time i was 27 so about the time like after 10 years of video games um i wanted out because um it just feels very samey like after 10 years the same like arguments and debates about i'm going to throw some words around here like luda narrative dissonance you know or no difficulty or you know what i just you had them 10 years ago and now another generation is having them again and you're like wait our games aren't like which was way more big in the early northeast and like 90s sure that was a question we for some reason felt we need answering as opposed to the answer being obvious but like i felt like the thrill in game in video games was diminishing returns okay like uh you know you get and i think there's a reason a lot of journalists of like music or movies aside from the low wages burn out and stop doing it and it tends to be a young person's game like whereas board games i don't feel that's true at all i've with board games like like you started this call saying i fee ten years on i don't feel even remotely tired of them because i just keep finding new veins new genres new publishers new ideas like new play counts even like before blood on the clock tower i'd never like right there are maybe two games in charlottesville's history you know which are two rooms in a boom and blood on the clock tower which have seen me engaging with like seriously massive player accounts and both in both those cases when i found those games it just took the top of my head off like yeah i so don't feel bored and i don't know how you feel well you know there's um i got something i wrote down here i quote that i thought was really good it says a universal truth of board gaming which is this how much you enjoy a game a lot of the time comes down to how much everybody cares about everything that's happening on the table where'd that come from that's good that was you that was you in your first episode um and i thought it was such a good point because when i'm in a board game and i'm like really experiencing whatever i call the joy of like what what draws me back to this hobby over and over and over again is that suddenly i care very deeply about a bunch of little pieces of wood and cardboard you know what i mean like i care and when my opponent feels that same depth and they suddenly they're agonizing over that turn and i love when that agony and that commitment is not fixated so much necessarily on who's going to win but that we just care about the journey of the thing you know what i mean yeah um because there's there's a little switch that i i get a little turned off by when i could tell the other person's just carrying very deeply but winning i don't like that as much but when they're really caring deeply about um what's happening on the table that i don't know there's something very magical about that okay if you step away from it's like this is cardboard and plastic yeah what game was like oh you know i was um you know what game it was no sorry sorry i remembered um okay there's a kind of game so i iw games a publisher um i previewed one of their games recently called mythic mischief it's coming to kickstarter i was really impressed by the rule set um iw also did uh moon rakers if you remember that game yes but they have a game that got kick-started recently this year which is i'm coming at this long-winded way sure they have this game which is one of those games where you all play gods and at the start of the game you're all given a card as to which of these heroes on the board you care about but that's secret and then all the players are like manipulating the game state so that some of these humans on the board succeed at their quest and some fail but you're trying to keep hidden which humans you care about um and this is this is a mechanic we've seen in a few um uh a few games right it's this idea that players have a secret thing on the board that they care about they need to keep hidden in order to win yeah and i realized when i was reading about this iw game that i i hate that genre and i was thinking about why and i realized the reason why i hate it is because thank you rodney thank you for your active listening the reason i hate it is because it means all of the celebration you want to do in a game and all of that you guys stifle it you have to stifle it and i realize that's the opposite of how i like to play games people make fun of me but you want to play it out loud yeah when i when i i'm very self-aware when i do this but before rolling a dice that like when like the odds are completely against me i'll say i'm gonna do this every like i'll watch this like i will you know i'll watch this roll the dice and like i'll fail and then people will laugh at me but i knew that was the state that was happening i just said that in order to create a really good moment for everybody and because that creates a good moment for everybody else that makes me happy yeah so it's it's and that's why i i don't know and i it took i've been doing this for 10 years and it took only now did i realize oh yeah that's why i hate that genre because for me so much of the fun is how much people care as you say about everything everything yeah exactly exactly and that's why like i think you know charlotte's down has always had such a soft spot for really dry economic games where i don't know containers the one that always comes to mind but like yes any economic like or euros with like i don't know uh heaven and ale where your monks trying to brew beer and people just end up like really stressing about like i just don't think my hops are to be ready and it's like it's so funny it's so funny and i think jeff anglesen was the person i know who talked a lot about this but but within game design circles it's like this idea of the magic circle it's this agreement we all have we come around the table we're all going to obey the rules and we're all going to care about this and it's almost like how much do we even love the games versus how much you and i have how much is have you and i've been doing this for 10 years because we love the the magic circle and the agreement to care yeah i think you're absolutely right it's funny because i think about sports or whatever which are very popular a lot of people can relate to that you know maybe more so than they can the connection to board games it's a similar kind of fantasy in a way right because it's not like you're the player on the field you're cheering for something you have no control over whatever yeah i suppose it's a similar thing it's just maybe it's a little different with board games because you do have control over it really don't you i mean that's that's a major difference really you you're you're moving the pieces yeah yeah but you i don't know you do and you don't uh so well so how i have a we've talked a bit about well neither of us have asked the question but i think both of us were going to ask which is how has your relationship to chain games changed yeah and i feel like the answer we've both said is it's the same we have the same passion for it as we have yeah yeah if anything just a little maybe even a little more appreciation just for having done it for ten years you know yeah to see um that there's still more to discover is really exciting again to get final girl and and just be kind of like no can you show them oh yeah this is again podcast this is horrible can you show the people at home what the board the cover to that board oh is it they come to the scenario yeah so it's sort of the way you get it is you get a core box which has the main components but to play it you do need a second box which is what they call feature film and so i'm holding up the feature film right now it's just a little it looks almost the size of a little bit larger than a blu-ray kind of size box but then the cover detaches it's magnetized it's magnetized very well by the way and there's your player board that's one half you detach the bottom here and then that's the that's the killer that you're going to go up against and they're really nice quality boards and then inside that box you've got this really beautiful production which is you know all the pieces that go with ponds the killer and you flip it over and all the pieces that go with camp happy trails location so you can then get any of these locations and killers and mix and match them however you want so it's almost like the board game box is itself a component which of course you see but the idea of it like snapping i don't know it jigsawing together like that um i guess the other reason that maybe you and i have the luxury of still feeling good about board games is i think it's no secret that board game design has just been getting better and better and better i think so too yeah i i i mean people will say that there's a lot of like reiteration of things i still see lots of innovation i don't expect every game to like blow my head off you know yeah but i still feel like i find plenty that do you know there are trends definitely that have come in and out of fashion and the thing that i'm fixated on that i i feel like i've mentioned shut up and sit down a couple times recently is like okay dice like you know dice were a big part of games forever literally forever and uh and but now people are like well what if you what if the dice were workers you know what if what if you rotated the dice to show what level they are what if the dice didn't have numbers on but instead had symbols what and it's like yeah we're in this wave of dice innovation but what i've realized recently is like what happened a good old day why can't i roll dice anymore yeah like and also this is get the beards out let me say the oldest man thing i'm going to say designers today don't have forgotten some really basic dice lessons like if your game sees a player rolling one dice horrible don't do it always have players i mean this is now crazy exaggeration but for me rolling two dice is on a different order of magnitude in terms of pleasure than rolling one dice because there's no noise when you're rolling one dose there's no it just it kind of just flops out of your hand onto the table as opposed to this grand like clatter class clatter role and then they bounce they go in different directions and then you you know it's there's more anticipation there's more yes more tactile there's a little more delay too if you roll multiple dice it takes a little while to absorb after the roll is done you still gotta like look quickly see what you've accomplished there's that little anticipation to get enough points one two three four five six you know what i mean there's even that do you ever did you ever play um games workshop as a kid and have the absurdity of rolling like 40 dc oh it's like but it's like it has the exact same feel of like you know in napoleonic battles where there's all that gun smoke and you can't even see what's happened right like when you're on 40 dice and yeah you're right that's the smoke clearing is after they've played you doing the math on it is the smoke clearing yeah but you look at it and even in an instant you're like oh oh oh maybe oh yeah yeah yeah that's ridiculous but um you know right one of my favorite things in my board game collection because like obviously i'm lucky enough to have a decent board game collection sure but i wish i had more space because americans are always putting me to shame with collections they have like 200 or 300 games whereas i keep it about 140 i don't know anyway but it's the rare things that make me happy and i have an out of print rhino knitsey a book called dice games properly explained i don't know anything yeah it's amazing so it's it's it's where is this from do you know where or when oh yeah like i want to oh i want to say like later 80s early 90s it didn't have a big print run but what it does is it documents all of the dice games that used to be played in pubs but aren't anymore um so it's this amazing exhaustive like encyclopedic document of like here are all the dice games you can like that are kind of like craps and here are the ones you can play sure and like i don't know it just really well first off historically it makes you realize that like cards haven't quite gone away like people still play bridge and poke right sure dice games used to be apparently in the 50s and before and they've just been erased like yeah you're right no one plays them yeah like exactly dice games like i can take a strike maybe beyond the and then i can't think of anything else yeah i mean i don't know yeah i can't really be shouting out a few but i can't imagine shout out to uh the chinese uh any any sort of like uh well obvious i was really lucky i got to get a china when i was uh a teenager and yeah let me tell you the crazy thing about that they play liar's dice in clubs in chicago's dice yeah that's another fantastic maybe if you were asking me what my top 10 games are and if liars dice was in there i wouldn't be surprised because yeah like in terms of simplicity like how much is going on cockroach parker wouldn't be in my top 50 but liars dice would okay anyway sorry i got into this whole tangent about dice but this is kind of what we were talking about right like the reason we're still excited about board games is that there's always a news stream and just when you get tired of something they find someone finds a new way to bring something back to this maybe a little bit um you know something i want to ask you that uh i was curious about is you know you review obviously reviewed a ton of games at this point i knew early on when i was thinking about maybe doing something in the board game media space that i didn't want to review that was something i knew i didn't want to do what what drew you to that what made you want to review board games and what do you ultimately see like if you think of a review that you've done where you feel good about it what did it accomplish in your oh oh okay i got i got a couple to get well the a depressing answer and then an optimistic answer so okay the depressing answer is i got into reviewing because it's what i was good at because it's what i was paid to do because it's you know since i got my first writing career right like my first freelance contract when i was young um i got paid to do reviews and that pays okay and you know it's a kind of you have to like games to do it because otherwise the time money ratio is horrific um oh my goodness rodney i remember being paid to review mmos like you get like that's just wilds like third you gotta play 30 40 hours of an mmo and then write a 2000 word article for that you get like 100 why anyway anyway anyway okay but so we started shut up down because we looked we love board game paul and i love board games and we looked at uh the board game space and we saw a lot of passion but we didn't see any of the professionalism that you i mean that and that's that sounds terrific the point is that every the great thing about board games is that everyone was doing it for the love yeah sure which is which leads to this amazing community and this this unbelievable sort of um tone that the board game community has um which means we kind of came in like jerks because we were like like i don't know uh a friend of mine talks about how um games journalism in england in the naughties was like music journalism in the 90s which is there's so little money in it as opposed to american video game journalism in the 90s so little money in british games journalism the only reason you'd go into it is if you wanted to be really good at it and you really cared about the craft because they were right right you weren't doing it for there wasn't a strong financial incentive yeah yeah no no you only did it because you loved it but what that meant is like i mean the british video game games press like in it was it's like a pit of snakes like everyone judging everyone else everyone trying to do their best work um and and that is actually where matt you know came from matt lee's of course who joined the site almost immediately after it was founded um he was working for official xbox magazine you know reviewing games and being paid to do it yeah um and you know you have to be really good at that stuff you have to be really good because otherwise there's loads of people who want to do the job um so we just developed we had those skills and we did the board game press and we said well maybe we'll bring these skills to board games and that's why we did it but the what i you also asked me like why when do you feel like you did a good review yeah yeah why for you is what are you striving for yeah yes so my wife has a good line on this she was the person who pointed out to me that revue is a part of the media right and media you know is part of the word medium you are the medium like a ghost medium um between people who absorb games and people who make them you are the middle bit and so so there's some like rough and ready stuff that the middle bit has to do like making sure that you know like people who like a certain kind of game can find it right um or if a game say has a horrific manual for example that people know that before they buy it sure um but when you really do your job well i think as a reviewer is when you take a game that a design team has just just loved they put so much love into it and they release that to an audience and you help the audience to love it more you're able to say hey here's stuff you would never even have noticed about this game but this is why it's genius like a good shot up to down review i feel makes the audience feel smarter for even finding the game in the photo and then right it will help them when they get that game to be more excited to be more appreciative and like you know obviously i don't know sometimes i feel like reviewers can become known for negative reviews but that's that's the part of the job we have to do we always prefer doing positive reviews and the best positive review is one where it just brings more joy to the world because it helps that game to find more people and the people who get it have an even better time yeah because they're probably more primed to enjoy it because hopefully having watched a good review like oh these things connect with the things i like about games or this this one seems to hit those those bells and whistles it improves the odds now that makes a lot of sense so i mean i i cannot now imagine so i have a question i had here you know because of course you know you have to how do you know how many videos you've done teaching people how to play games i uh i i i want to head i want a hazardous guest and i'm afraid i'm going to be wrong i'm gonna overshoot and then i'm gonna feel like a fraud afterwards like i haven't done that many i was gonna say 400 tutorials but uh i'm gonna double check while you're queuing i'm glad you gave us the ballpark because that's just fun i'm going to find out it was like you know 150 no yeah 432 is where we're at now oh okay that's pretty good that's a good good guess you're under shot so you were gracious good yeah yeah absolutely you were close um so i've got here crossed out yes the job changed how you feel about games but then that's crossed out and replaced with how has the job changed how you feel about games like i as a reviewer i know how that changes my perception on game i'm i'm more critical i can't turn off the analytical part of my brain right when i'm playing something i'm always thinking about how it'll fit into the content calendar but what does like looking at rule sets so closely for 10 years what does that do to your what has that done to your brain oh you you know what i was going to answer this a certain way and then the way you asked that question just sent my brain off in another direction that i want to answer first how because that has changed that's changed the wiring in my brain it definitely has i you know when i am learning a game uh i think i'm a bad person to have a round in a way i don't know i feel the same i mean i ca i definitely like yeah okay board game meetups where i just i start criticizing a game and then realize everyone's looking at me funny and i'm like oh no no no no so my my hang up is i've had too many times where i've gotten a rule book and then discovered that what's been written in the rulebook is incorrect okay and so i've gotten almost a sixth sense for reading a rule and knowing it's wrong in the rulebook and so if i'm in a conversation with somebody and i'm like well i think this is actually incorrect and then the rules aren't meant to be this way they're like well that's that's not what's there and i'm like no i hear you and i understand why you're reading it that way i understand why you're saying that i'm not doing this because it benefits me i'm doing this because i've i've had this happen so many times that i almost know the things that that frankly publishers get wrong and rules designers get wrong um so uh i'm really i'm going to bet 9 10 that this is meant to be read the opposite of that and then the the 10th time you are just a oh yeah and and i'm also like oh shoot you know you hate being wrong but when you're right it's like it just keeps reinforcing this notion of having a sense i my wiring i read rule books in a very uh uh yeah uh uh analytical way that that looks for things that other people would just gloss over and just keep going with because the problem is with a rules video i don't i i shouldn't say problem i'm happy that this is the uh target for which i'm aiming which is i want you to watch the video and you walk away with extreme confidence that everything i said is exactly true when you read a rule book you're not going to have that confidence necessarily but i want you to have that confidence when you leave the video how do you this is a really dull brass tax question but when you're given a manual that might be wrong or might be confusing how do you know you're teaching it that's a good question so i do take some i do hope that most of the hope is a part of the process yeah but definitely like any so my process i get the rule book i sit down i play the game fully of course and i'm jotting notes furiously throughout the whole process but anything that i have any qualm or question but i take that right to the publisher i get the answers and then all that gets baked into the final video that's where it gets a little funky because the video will come out the video will be correct it'll contradict the rule book and someone watching the videos like but that's not what the rule book says and i have to say every your rule book's wrong but it is kind of nice like the publisher gets a second chance in a way right they get a second chance so the game's been published they've hit print it's already they can't fix the rule book now with the video they get a chance to like fine-tune they maybe have seen some questions on on bgg they keep coming up and we can address that in the video and then hopefully people have a smoother experience but also it is that is that little history of like i can start to anticipate where the questions will come from and then try to answer them you know what my funny one quinn's so i did a tutorial video for monopoly uh two years ago oh i think i know where this is going well it was interesting it was like one of the uh questions the the most common question i get on that video is really one that was kind of fascinating to me so if you anyone who's watching you remember in monopoly in order to start building houses or hotels on the properties you must own all the colors of that set before you can build anything and in the video i say you must own all the colors of the set in order to build a house or hotel the number one question i get on the video from people is then how do i build if i don't have all the colors of the set you know what i mean and it's it's fascinating because like we can't that's the answer you can't right yeah but to non-i'm gonna say non-gamers but i don't mean that uh it breaks something in people's brain a little bit because they're saying they're going but i must be able to build that i bought this property you're saying i can't build a house on it that's right you can't until you have the other ones it's interesting because i'm just used to like all these you know you must satisfy these conditions before you get to do x but especially games like monopoly people are used to breaking all the rules all the time so they bump up against the rules it gets a little bit challenging for them yes i i remember there was a very i was playing a game with matt in um in his front room uh it was like a working placement i forget it was people in the chat will be able to remember what this is but it was a worker placement game that involved getting letters to spell words i think i think it was from renegade maybe um but uh you know she walked in and she was like well how does this work um in exactly the same way that my wife will occasionally walk past kind of like a sort of wild like like someone who sees a fox in their in their garden it's like oh i'll stand and watch this for a while but i got sure yeah um so matt's wife came in and looked at it was like oh how does this work and matt explained and she was like well how do you get this and he's like wow so and then what do you do this for oh well if you do that then you get this track and what happens there well then you might get a point and she's like one point you get one it's almost incredulousness right it can't work that way yeah yeah okay so then all right but my question then is okay now i've got it you've got so you've got this analytical mind that is so laser focused that you can notice when manuals are wrong even without playing the game sure we'll call that my superpower uh but feel cheated here's the thing i know that that how many bad manuals there are still in the board games sure yeah so what is it like exposing your robo robo rule brain to bad manuals like can you walk me through what's going on in your head as you're given a manual which is like almost in the way of you getting to the rules um it's frustrating when i see a game that i think is really good and i see the rule book as a barrier i understand that fundamentally in a way it's it's in my best interest for rule books to be bad because then people will come to the videos but yeah but putting that aside i don't want the rule books to be bad i want them to be so good because no matter what board game it is this could be someone's first board game this could be someone's first experience of this larger world that i am like my life is forever changed by this thing that i love you know and that's this could change somebody else's life i know it's just board games but it could you know and i don't want someone to open up a rule book read terms they don't understand yeah and get frustrated and just say this isn't for me like clearly this is not for me i'm an intelligent person but i don't understand and it's you know i don't want that so i want the rule books to be really good um so my frustration if i feel anything is why are you cheating our hobby by making this better that's what i feel and especially because i think a lot of the times the bad rule books you can identify them pretty quickly and it feels like boy a quick blind play test of this rule book would have revealed these problems yeah um if someone had just handed their what they felt was the final rule book to someone who'd never played their game and said hey i'm just gonna sit here quietly and watch you please try to learn my game in five minutes you would have realized oh that's not clear oh i thought that was clear clearly it's not and you could catch so many of those little things because no matter how awesome the production is no matter how amazing the design is you've got to get through the rule book you don't get to have any of that fun until you get past the learning that that is a necessary barrier that's why look i'm just going to rant or not rant rave a little bit more about final girl final girl is a 33-page rule book and it was one of the best rule books i've read in a long time and it was just so satisfying because it's a great production with a game i really enjoyed and it's got a rule book that i found really satisfying to read you know um to me that's like that's a publisher paying attention to everything and i really think the rule books matter because it's just a box of stuff until you read the rules i think that's why i love and have always loved rule books because rule books breathe life into all of those inanimate objects they turn that hunk of wood into the sword i'm gonna fashion on my next adventure you know what i mean like wow yeah that's you know like they're powerful thing i remember um when i first first started i i had the the pleasure of some really good rule books because um we were really into um uh the designs of la la till uh when yeah that started um yeah yeah now most known as the very wealthy designer of code names which is which is which is ridiculous fascinating coming from tonight and all these other like over like really complicated games and i i actually know um i believe because uh phillip of czech games edition who i'm publishing yeah a lot of flutters best games um told me that the reason valid designed major night was that like whiz kids asked him to and i think it was something like he wanted to prove either to himself or to other people that he could design a game with that many rules um but then and then so you made this big game and then you made code names tiny game um but anyway the games i'm talking about uh so the czech games era of vlada that i considered is absolutely golden um you know there's the space uh space alert uh yes galaxy trucker uh dungeon pets um and then at least a couple of other things you've got to figure out lauren to the dungeon lord oh dungeon lords yeah but i always say dungeons instead because i think yeah me too though i prefer that me too anyway but the chair games have had these great manuals at the time in a way what was good about those manuals in 2010 or nine still i don't see in modern manuals which is they were funny like they weren't just clear but they were actually genuinely entertaining and had a sense of humor and also kind of treated what you were doing as intrinsically ridiculous and like i'll never forget if there was a rule that was hard to remember it would have a little pop-up of like dungeon lords had this and i can't though yes it's throughout all of it all of czech games editions of other games but dungeon lords had a rule where dragons couldn't go in the cafeteria or something and it was just like it was an edge rule it's like all that one's just going to capture it unless they're a dragon and there's a pop-up and i the fact that i still remember this rule today that's the power of it i i don't sorry rules wait wait sorry i need to i need to finish this is all irrelevant there was a box out next to that dragon rule which said oh of course dragons can't go into the cafeteria because they start food fights and like and that weird non-sucker to joke means i still remember that rule it's not taking space in my head yes 12 years later yeah that's that's that's i don't want too much uh narrative commentary my rule books doesn't get in the way especially if i'm trying to find a rulebook later but when it tells a little story that puts that little obscure rule into a context for me like that like what you just said that is a beautiful beautiful thing because there's a lot of things you're being asked to hold in your brain when you play a game and if you can give me a few things to hang those things on that's that's fantastic you know it's funny you said something in your when you're just talking that you said about um rule books used to be entertaining and it's funny because yeah i told you i was watching your first episode i don't know if you remember this or not but the text i think the first text that appears on screen while you and paul are standing amongst pigeons and geese i felt the kinship by the way when i saw those geese text comes up a new entertainment entertainment i thought was interesting as a choice of word because um not always has board game media strive necessarily to be entertaining i think that's something that shut up and sit down did from the jump and very effectively um said hey we we can be informative but also entertaining at the same time and that's actually maybe ties a little bit into that rulebook concept of i'm going to teach you some rules but i'm going to try to entertain you a little bit like this doesn't have to be a drudgery you know it can be fun too you know i'm some people say am i i've gotten the comment occasionally why do you smile so much in your tutorial videos or whatever because i'm having fun i'm teaching board games for a living like let's let's have a little joy here you know it's it's a it's a wonderful thing to have the privilege to be able to do something like that you know and games are ultimately a fun hopefully a fun thing you know that just comes from um oh god we had the the fascinating process uh a couple of years ago of um wanting to hire new members of staff um and so that led to the the recruitment of the absolutely terrific uh ava foxbot and tom brewster who have lent this whole new lease of life and energy to the site and they're they're terrific i hope they're not watching this because they can't know that i i feel that no i understand that's horrible um but but the inc but the process of hiring interns and looking for hires was was bizarre because we've been to doing the job on autopilot for like nine years but trying to like explain how to do what we did and be true to the brand was was really weird but i ended up um saying over and over again to several different interns the what we're trying to do with the shut up and stand review is not be funny necessarily but just be as respectful of our viewers time as possible which for us it means like okay we're gonna review the game but is there a reason why we can't make you laugh at the same time like yeah and that's something i ended up saying that is like a rule that we break all the time but like i the ideal joke on shutter puts it down is something that explains how the game feels to play and makes you laugh and is critical commentary but there's right but it's not too difficult because board games are inherently ridiculous to do a joke that does all that at the same time it's true um uh but i don't know but it's i don't know it's um it's it's it's weird to have found the success that we have and to end up in a position where we just tell goofy jokes and um and we have you know so much donations and so much support it makes me feel really bashful when uh when talking about uh the work that we do so i'm gonna get it i'm gonna look for it i'm gonna leave you guys get yourself out of your bashfulness yeah what would you say yeah to if you could send a message or a letter or just a tip back to 2011 rodney what would you oh that's a good question that's one of those classic questions you should always be prepared to answer um yeah i definitely didn't come up with it yeah there's a great oh no well you know huh i had an interesting gosh twins my uh my start to the channel was a little i was fortunate in a way i sat down at the beginning so i did my first uh first video and i think you know it's not like i knew then that i would still be doing this 10 years from now but i think about three weeks into doing it i remember going up to my wife christie and saying wow i think i'm doing something that i really really really like wow i like it i'm sorry i'm sorry how long after the first video was that maybe about three weeks or so the very first video series was was uh teaching and playing through mansions of madness first edition in my uh actually seated in the same place i am now but it was unfinished basement and i was you know teaching and playing i knew that i didn't want to review my my hang up about reviewing uh quinn's was i i i i always struggled with how do i explain why i like fun like i always wrestled with that i didn't feel like i was good at communicating that i'm so glad there's so many great reviewers out there who can do that i feel like i always get tongue-tied around that but the one thing i love doing is teaching games and i discovered that most people don't like learning games yeah that's what i discovered back in 2011 like it was i've told this story before there was a bgd thread someone and i was just getting started back into the hobby and someone asked how do you like learning uh games and i'm like i'm on bgg i know what the answer is going to be people like reading rule books because i like reading rule books and the thread was full of people saying i hate reading rule books i want my friend to teach me and that's when a little light bulb went on and i went oh i love teaching games i can try to be that friend that people are looking for that teaches them how to play games so that's kind of what inspired me to kind of get down that path but um so after three weeks of doing it i felt like man this is something that i'm really i feel really good about doing and it feels like it might suit my skill set or what have you and uh yeah so so i at the beginning though i said if i think i'm gonna try to do this i wrote out like a whole list of sort of rules for myself i guess you could say makes sense i guess a guy likes real but i wrote a few rules to myself this is almost like it was almost like future rodney had sent me a list of things in a way because i i knew i didn't know quite what i was getting into and i knew situations would come up that i'd never encountered before or never encountered before so i wanted to be prepared you know for how to deal with them and have a sort of a core set of principles to follow so i you know i made a few rules for myself they were simple little things like um one of them was to remember that when i'm making a video i'm making it for the individuals who are watching it not for i i didn't have this word for it back then but not for an algorithm i didn't know it was called the algorithm back then but like it i'm if i'm if i teach this properly to one person i am going to effectively be teaching it properly to several people in a way you know what i mean don't get it fixated on everybody get fixated on that person who's watching feels like they're at the table with you you know that's what i want because when i'm being taught a game that's how i want to feel you know what i mean i want to feel like i'm being spoken to whenever i've had a good teacher they made me feel like they were talking just to me you know what i mean and so it's like little things like that along the way um i think but that actually played a lot into um i think surviving youtube a little bit okay i've been challenging for you well you know you get a lot of feedback right uh when you you know honestly to me from my outside perspective uh so i i do want to hear your answer this but it's like i feel like we're the loudmouth brits who are super divisive and like we've always partied through geography felt really cut off from because so much of the of the press and boarding polishes and all the conventions happen in america right you can't get to them it just feels like we're really separated but when i so from my from peering over the fence and looking jealously sure i just see everyone's beloved like you know i don't want to say a vuncula but like but not like i don't because i don't even know what that word right it means sorry as a jerk move from me but like a friendly relative like an older brother sure um yeah and like for your 10th anniversary like for people who haven't seen it there's a 10th anniversary watch it played video which is just all board game like greatest and brightest people just talking about how much they love rodney and how much they owe that was really lovely that was really nice actually it was really really heartwarming thing i um i don't know how to answer this question because i i've definitely formed some really mean like the most meaningful relationships i've formed you know outside of family and such have all come through board gaming and through doing specifically media in it you know um i've made genuine friendships that will last a lifetime right but i also understand what you mean about that sense of separation a little bit because i feel that like shut up and sit down to me almost feels like again it's it's his own entity you know like you and i will bump into each other at a convention and it always feels friend like when i ran into you at like uh the gathering or gen come like i get to spend a couple minutes this conversation we're having right now is also like when we get talking to the tech test i'm like i'm kind of craving this a little bit because i do feel a little bit like you're removed in a way like but we are like geographically basically you're very yes yeah well i mean it's just we you know because publishers have to go to cons shut up sit down has always been able to be like it's just very tough to budget it you know that's the reason we go to yeah the cons we go to now tend to be the ones that pay for us to fly out there i think a big part of my wanting to get into the board game media space that was i wanted like i craved the connections it was like a desperate i mean again maybe like quinn's going back to start a conversation it may be a little bit about that whole thing about not feeling like i knew where i fit in yeah you know exactly and then finding the thing like i said i went to my i think i found it you know it was kind of that feeling of things locking into place and so i've uh to me a big part of watch it played has been connecting with as many people and other creators as i can um and sort of being inspired by that and being a part of that sort of motion i have no idea what to do no no but that's good though that that's like that's that does justify what i'm what my sort of the fact that there is a degree of connectivity between like you know this is getting inside baseball now but but like i feel that um north american creators have a greater degree of connectivity than than chelsea don't have tucked away in our tiny weird island but i say that it's not like shut up sit down does as all of the networking it could or arguably should in within the uk because there's so many uk events and publishers and people that we don't go to i think basically it's difficult to be a jack of all trades too that's the other thing you know i was talking to a good friend of mine uh i don't think you'll mind me saying this jamie keke of the secret gaming podcast and he was saying like i struggle on social media he said like i don't know how to post or interact sometimes i don't feel as comfortable in those spaces and that's the space where i've always felt sort of comfortable oh yeah and so because i am it that opens up doors for connecting with a bunch of other creators that way too right because i'm you know i i feel a certain comfort in that that space we got off we got off topic because you were talking about uh something that's the whole course no uh you were saying that youtube is a place where you received a lot of criticism oh yeah well one of the things i think certainly there's been i would say by and large more positive than negative okay so i would want to make that clear i think i've been fortunate that way i think also to your point watch it plate is a little more milk and toast it's not meant to be divisive like i'm not coming on there and telling someone that their favorite game is that's not good that's why i'm interested it's like who are these people like what what has been challenging for you you know it's you you get um look you're never gonna be everyone's cup of tea some people again like i said i think i i smile too much or i had one comment that was kind of funny like you're a little too condescending which i thought was funny because i imagine this person being a student in school like okay you know saying to the teacher hey you're a little condescending here yeah but but things like that i mean there's been some things i won't repeat but you know the thing that i think i've been fortunate maybe uh in my wiring is that i hear from some creators that you know they can get a hundred nice comments if you get that one negative comment it really like sits in their brain i think i've been fortunate that i do the opposite if i get 100 nice comments i get one negative i go okay well that gives me context so i'm gonna ignore you but i do try to filter out i do try to filter the information from the criticism i remember one person i've told this story before but i'll share it here one person said to me in one of my videos please shut the f up and just teach the game all right and i feel like there's not a lot of there's not a lot of messing around in your videos i feel like you're pretty you delete there was more messing around in the beginning frankly there was a little more messing around and honestly i took that i didn't particularly feel that was a productive way of expressing his point of view and i am implying it was a he uh but the feeling that what i took from that was yeah you're here to learn something that's why you've shown up here if i want to wax philosophical about the game i can do that in another video or somewhere else so i try to extract from someone's reaction even if it's a bit visceral what's what's the value there the other thing i try to keep in mind and this is a tip to all creators you don't know who this person is whenever i get a negative piece of feedback i have sometimes gone to their channel i found out they have a youtube channel gone to it oh this is a 12 year old like you know i mean like sometimes a very like well-written crafted critique and i realize oh this you know there's a temptation to project or imagine the criticism is coming from a peer or someone you would respect oh again sometimes it's just a stranger who doesn't really have an investment at all or cares about what you're doing and i try to do the same thing with the positive stuff like i don't you know try not to take too much of anything on board good or bad that way there's a whole i feel like i've talked about the site before but there's a whole horrific flow chart when i meet people at cons when i get fans because meeting fans is like categorically one of the best parts of the job like when we do signings um you know and meet like lots of people we always say it's the most tiring thing we do um because it's so energizing and amazing to actually meet these people who are just otherwise just like numbers on a youtube video um and to and to have them say that they like your stuff or you know that what it meant for them when they're in a dark place or whatever but it's exhausting because like for one thing you don't know if they're a donor or not because like they could literally be one of the reasons that we're able to do this for a living or they could be someone who's seen two videos um but either way probably that will be the only time they ever get to see you ever and so you really want to give them a good like a good impression and that is just like so it's it's this super energizing high wire act emotionally and then on top of that you have this thing in board that is unique to board games where they'll always say oh i bought sudden such a game because you told me to but board games unlike video games or movies board games are so reliant on the people at the table you never know if they're going to be like did they have fun because i have no contract did they spend 100 pounds on a game and then invite all their friends over and it bombed because that's yeah that's an interesting point too and you don't know where they're at budgetarily so that hundred dollars to one person is nothing and a hundred dollars somebody else is a big deal i remember the one time i was going to bggcon how are we doing for time here i should be careful oh i i think we we got at least another you know 10 15 minutes i think i'll tell the story quickly i remember the first time i because i i've generally not given any opinions on my channel i've relaxed over the years a little bit more particularly in some of the live content but generally speaking you won't get an opinion in a tutorial video and in most the stuff that i officially make in on the youtube channel but i remember going to bggcon one year and someone had just taught me red seven on the planet oh okay and i really enjoyed it i mean i really thought it was great fun and it's portable and so i had it with me everywhere i was teaching everyone and it did start to kind of ripple through i think the the con a little bit of like rodney's playing this red seven game he loves it he's so people were starting to buy it at the con i remember in particular i was sitting at a table with some friends we were playing a game of something else and i get a little tap on my shoulder and i turn around this is gentleman he's like rodney i just bought red seven on your recommendation can you explain to me why you like this because this game is like terrible oh like it's like this is not fun at all and that's again going back to my whole thing about like i don't know that i i don't know how to quantify to somebody else why i had fun and and why they're not having fun you know and i have no control over are they playing it right even i don't even know that you know i don't know who they're playing it with i don't know what you know they could have just had the worst day of night sleep or something like i have no idea what's factoring into the experience they're having you know but you know that's the part of it i always get a little nervous about because i don't want someone to buy something that they're not going to enjoy uh and i don't i don't want to feel like i've ever suckered somebody into something that they don't enjoy yeah yeah welcome to why our job is is absolutely terrifying at all yeah i think it's way worse for a reviewer that way way yeah i mean we get you know you get there's obviously benefits to being a reviewer and that you know sometimes you'll see uh yes by the way none of this is moaning or complaining like no no i have a charmed life and i'm very happy to be doing what i'm doing i mean look we're both doing the job we're supposed to do stories that's great fun little stories but no it's it's nerve-wracking like i we did you know talking to tom who's of course been doing it's absolutely incredible video reviews on the channel um and you know you want to make sure you're you're there for you know an employee like you know or a co-worker whatever another reviewer you know emotionally but like he we got to warm up like we got to you know start with like you know ten thousand or like i can't remember how many people watched the first episode right but no one cared if we were there wasn't this huge weight of attention um but we built it up an audience gradually and we got used to that audience but tom like and you know whoever else ends up doing video reviews shout outs down in the future now just like their video reviews are in front of like 60 000 views and like you'd better hope that your opinions you know like right right that's it's terrifying it's absolutely yeah yeah watch it played expand a lot in the last year like we have more contributors now and that was something i was very conscious about is because i've seen it happen before where a channel brings in somebody new and just sort of puts them in front of the audience and it's like sink or swim that's not a good way to introduce somebody it's actually it's worse than that i think i think audiences generally uh dislike new things yeah and understandably in a way because you know you when you click subscribe or you follow something you're doing it because something about that it appealed to you and you kind of knew what you were signing up for in a way like if you passed four or five episodes i see what this is i like it and when you suddenly just toss a new face in front of people um without the proper kind of introduction and why this person is now here you're really just feeding someone to the wolves which is not good my wife and i make fun of it i i have sympathy for those audience members though because i'm the kind of person who i don't know why i am i do you have cats don't you ronnie i do now yeah you have a thing i i remember this with cats but i feel like it's if there's a new piece of furniture in the house yes the cat or the dog will sometimes just look at it being like super uncertain um yeah what is this new thing yeah sure about this that's me like literally when we got a new sofa i like or anything new if my wife changes her hair you sit on the floor in the corner just kind of eyed it up a little bit she'll she'll go do you like it and i'll go and i will be that way for at least four days like it's it's tragic and um but but so i under i get it when our audience members are like this new person don't like them and then what's funny is that it operates on a delay because tom's started doing like all of these absolutely i mean he won't be saying this um a whole bunch of absolutely overwhelmingly good video reviews and then he did one which he and i like looked at it was like this is good but it's not as good as the rest and not well no it's like whatever it's the point is he was amazing amazing almost amazing yeah but that almost amazing the commenters were like this video's a mate like this is the best because they will react they were now used to him but they were looking at the video and going well i like this this is the first good one it's like no it's not it you just got used to the guy yes yes exactly very silly yeah we're all like that i suppose on some level really how have you found uh bringing in new uh new hires to watch it played it's been fantastic it has been so good i mean at different times like i started the channel with my children uh luke and andrew like we did the three of us together for a number of years and then they grew up and you know had head lives um they couldn't just dedicate to the basement here with me but um and then i've had uh other co-hosts pep came on for a while and then he left the channel and now i'm working with uh my best friend and and other friends it's it's been just phenomenal because i always enjoy doing a variety of things on the channel besides just doing tutorial videos i always did other videos but the tutorials became kind of the thing that maybe it was best suited for me in some respects but i still want to do other things on the channel i wanted to bring a little more entertainment a little more fun conversational type things to the channel and now we can do that and it's creatively invigorating working with people who just have different better talents frankly than i do in areas and it just makes all of us better and when you and i i imagine this is true for shut up and sit down i feel like i've seen that through you know uh ava and tom coming on i genuinely care about the people i'm working with and we just i feel that goes in in all directions we all really care about each other and there's something very again magical special i feel very fortunate you know because it is a there is a little bit of a trustful thing that happens when you like you uh first of all putting yourself out there into the public and then you're asking other people to put themselves out in front of your republic um yeah you know the same way so it's you know it's um there's a quote that i i can't remember where it's from but i rely on it a lot which is um good work is done by talented people having fun together mm-hmm and uh i i'll often return to that and use it as a kind of lodestar um but you're but the but it's it's it's really a game of two halves because it's on the one hand you just want to make each other laugh and entertain one another on the other hand we got like 80 000 people who are going to watch any video review we do and judge it mercilessly yeah and it's yeah like i don't know it's it's it's perhaps more so than i don't know yes invigorating and everything but i think there's a kind of hard-edged sort of emotionality that with hiring you which shut up sit down new hires have to go through that i really really sympathize you know because a review is like it's it's an opinion and opinions aren't or what like what am i trying to say here it's just we're on the one hand shut up sit down it's just supposed to be this stupid goofy fun on the other hand if you make a mistake if you have a bad take the audience will let you know it and that can be crippling for your confidence for your happiness that week like if i mentioned it i described it as a high wire act before that's what it feels like and it's a fun however you know we're smiling yeah because we are having fun but if we fall it's not good yeah yeah and so that is the thing right it's there's a level of responsibility that comes with this thing you know again not to speak too highly of it i don't get too natural gaze about it but it you know that was one of the things actually speaking of social media that was one of the things that i think i realized maybe in the last four or five years particularly is but i tend to take a pretty positive approach on social media generally speaking i tend to try to keep it light and positive while still where i can draw attention to issues i think are worth talking about but one of the things that dawned on me is you know if i'm having a bad day twins like before watch it played the people who had to deal with me were the people who agreed to sign up to deal with me my wife my kids my employer you know what i mean yeah if i decide to go on to social media with my bad day i am tinkering with the chemistry of thousands of people meaning i don't know the person who's reading it what kind of day they're having maybe they're having the worst day of their life and then they're reading their twitter feed and suddenly i'm chiming in with like the miserable day i'm having and it just added another layer of pain on their day in some way you know and it's made me realize like oh you have to be careful about how you utilize the platforms that you have because you just don't know how you're tinkering with people's chemistry that way yeah i uh i it's just that's not that's not to say that everything has to be rainbows and sunshine all the time that's that's not what i'm saying just to be clear but i do feel a certain weight of like gotta be careful you know what tools i use to express certain things yeah there's um uh a thing i i can't be on session i've i've i deleted my facebook long ago and i barely post on twitter anymore because i it's just not good for me right i straight up find it bad for my attention and bad for my mood and um it just makes me less happy except for tick tock which i don't post on i just like that the tech talk i mean people say the algorithm particularly so good it's not true it's just there's reasons why it's so good but it will just start showing you stuff that's really entertaining very very very quickly um i'm here for tick tock i'm one of those elderly people on tiktok it's really unfortunate good for you but when you talk about uh oh goodness like i don't know tinkering with the emotional chemistry people that does i uh my favorite thing about my and it's like it was still it was something i loved 10 years ago and it's still my favorite thing to do now one of my favorite things about comedy is and just being goofy which shut us down of course is is when you get serious it goes through your audience like a scalpel like and that to me like you know which has enabled us to talk about things that our reviewers care about like you know thinking and thinking about you know like uh in the uh in the undaunted review deciding to talk about you know like perceptions of world war ii that are very you know like um america like essentially white person-centric or yeah um other bits and pieces but it's like i i love telling stupid jokes but i partially love telling stupid jokes because the tonal shift when you get serious is so powerful yeah yeah and i just i love playing with that so yeah yeah uh but that's what i do instead of getting my jollies in social media because i i i just i can't be trusted with it i really can't well i feel like i should uh turn a question back on you that you asked me earlier you asked me like what tip would i give myself now do you have one that you would give to yourself now oh you're back um uh i always write uh um what's it like oh yeah no i just talk more slowly oh really yeah just i it's true because people can always turn two times speed on yeah yeah no i just i the reason i can't watch a lot of early shut up today and i i i not i can't i could and there's a lot of stuff i really like about it um but my presenting is just it's just motor mouth mile a minute i thought that if i talked really quickly that was the same as doing it well yeah and it's just it's just completely intolerable for me now also yeah it took like three years of doing shut up down until my wife was like have you thought about smiling have you thought about looking like you're having a good time so yeah and i just that's what really gets on my nose but i should understand it's just frowning and talking really really really fast and it's yes just rodney it makes me want to die going back and looking at that stuff because i think maybe that's a good reason not to go back then yeah i just at the time i was charmed though when i was watching that first episode i was i realized as i was watching that i was smiling ear to ear you know what i mean like i wasn't laughing out loud that's not a critique on the jokes what i'm saying is it was filling me with joy there was something about seeing that is a time capsule right it's about seeing people embarking on something very new not realizing 10 years later what they're gonna that they're still going to be doing it like that's an interesting thing right twins because not only when you started running the tape there uh did you know oh 10 years later i'm going to be still doing it still doing it and running an in-person convention and uh a virtual convention and putting out expansions for board games on kickstarter and doing a podcast you know it's how can one you can't anticipate those things you know really uh it's it's the only thing we can do that keeps us grounded i think is continuing to just love games really earnestly um and then just you just pray the rest falls into place and it tends to like i think the the the reason that we you know that first shot you're talking about in the first episode we were surrounded by canadian goose uh love them um the reason you check out and you get your microphone in the rain and you borrow a video camera is just because we wanted to tell people about board games because we care about board games that much and that's still the core of the site and honestly it's really intimidating now to have conventions to have a podcast and to have this business that people rely on for all kinds of different reasons because it still feels fragile that's a weird thing about being a critic it still feels like two horrible reviews away from everyone going oh shut up the dance used to be that's funny i was saying the same thing to my uh partner the other day uh you know really saying like oh yeah same same it's all very fragile it's all very i said like you know i'm doing tutorials today maybe next year i won't be like who knows like it's you just don't know and what makes you think for the the you might not be doing them in a year because i don't know how long people will have tolerance for a canadian guy making tutorial videos you know i just don't know it's not you know what i mean like you just don't know but also like all this requires a certain amount of financial momentum and you don't know if that will be there a year from now and and that's that's hard to but you know i would say too very very fortunate i imagine i could speak for you in this respect maybe i shouldn't say that i'll let you chime in if you want to say that i'm speaking for not but like again very fortunate to have had the privilege to be able to do that in the first place like there was fewer barriers to my entry getting started and not just because of the time when i did it but also just in my life my life i had the freedom i had a wife who's willing to support me while i did that there's lots of great talented people who don't have the same luxuries that i did when i started and um i'm so happy to see that the board game media world is expanding it's growing beyond maybe what it was like even five years ago in terms of representation diversity the types of voices the way games are being talked about the types of games and themes we're seeing aren't just the same thing over and listen everyone's like gets concerned about like the critiques on some of the same themes being done it's not like they're going anywhere you're still gonna be able to play all your traditionally tropey games but now we're seeing even more yes and there's a long way to go on all that but it is i think we're seeing some positive movement there oh absolutely absolutely um but i think you uh you hit on something there that i i think it would it would behoove us i'd say well i use these words i don't even know what they all mean i don't really know what the something about a horse i think but yeah okay we should we should uh hoof it up uh by talking about okay for all the content creators or people who want to get into board game content creation i mean this is a topic that has been done you know like forever but let's do it again what are out what advice would we give people to try to get into board game media creation today and i've got one tip that i always say and i say this to designers as well when designers are wondering like if people want to get into design they don't know how to theme their games the thing i always say is what do you really care about that isn't board games like like i always shot him sit down i feel like likes flam rouge about 18 times more than the rest of the board gameplan rouge is a is a game about cycling but your first indication that the person who made it really cares about cycling is it set in like the 1920s like it's this really weird like after world war one pre-world war ii era with very like idiosyncratic bicycles and costumes and um and then sure enough when i met uh asgar the designer um and realized how much he cared about cycling um i was like yeah that comes through in the game but my the the the the version of that for board game content creators is like what what kind of game do you really care about but also what kind of board game content do you wish existed that doesn't like don't try and copy someone else try and earnestly think about what games and what kind of coverage you want to exist that doesn't exist and give that sounds really obvious what i'm saying out loud but like look into your own heart it's the same touchstone like i was enamored with mansions of madness as a game like adventuring having a character telling a story i knew what i liked and i liked it deeply and i think that is it and i think about some of the new content creators and i think like lord of the board like when he started it was a lot of uh asynchronous games with and he would do videos on if you're playing this faction in root here's strategies yeah you know he liked these kind of asynchronous games asynchronous is that the right word for us oh isometric asymmetric that's what i was trying to say i knew i had it wrong asymmetric yeah exactly and so that that was his passion point right and so that comes through our family plays games you know they're very concerned about diversity in the hobby and seeing that push forward so that becomes part of their passion and motivation and i think you do yeah it's a very good tip you do have to be somewhat passionate about it because you're not going to uh have much more to go on except for that especially initially like at the end of the day it's not like sometimes people say oh you do videos on youtube that must be a lot of fun and listen i have a lot of fun i'm not going to put that down but when i'm staring down the barrel of 13 hours of shooting video that's not fun but at the end of that day i'm very satisfied and that satisfaction is because i'm doing something i'm passionate about at the end of the day yes i i gave her my friend is starting a his own business and um i was briefly able to sound real smart when i described to him that yes people think about you know like how much time do i have and how much money do i have as those are resources when you're starting your own business uh or your own hobby you know boarding content creation but the third pillar of that is how much passion do you have because that is a resource that depending on the kind of work you do it will go up and it will go down but if it runs out that's as bad if not what in fact it's worse because if you run out of time or money those are solvable problems if you run out of passion it's very difficult yeah it's it's you're really going to struggle to get that back my big yeah go ahead no no no no i was going to say my big tip if i was going to give one tip is it's it's sort of similar but mine would be know why you're doing it yeah because if it is let's cause some people it might be four numbers i want a certain number of viewers or might be free games that's okay just know that that's why you're doing it because then you can evaluate if you're not getting that thing you'll know oh this is maybe not for me i think sometimes people get into it they don't know exactly why they're doing it and then when they're not getting what they want they don't even know where it is here's here's something that happened to me i went to you when i hit a certain number of subscribers youtube invited me up to one of their workshop things and i went there and i'm with all people who like have millions of subscribers and stuff right and i was talking to one person in particular this story really stuck out to me she did makeup videos and her typical trend on a video would be like something like this okay like this kind of viewership on it and she and i know for anyone listening podcast my angle i'm pointing up at like a 45 degree angle into the air growth i'm showing growth and she said we wanted to do something different i had this idea for a new type of video and so we did it but it only got this amount of growth i'm now in my hand i have a second hand at 40 degree angle so not as much still growth still it was received well by the audience but not as well and she said so we knew we couldn't do that type of video again i mean what do you mean because it didn't achieve the same views as the other one and i went what do you but didn't you enjoy doing it didn't you like you were doing something new that you wanted to do and people were liking it like yeah but if it's not getting the the views then we're just wasting our time and that's when i went like i left that place going oh wow some creators are like 10 human and 90 percent youtuber oh you know what i mean like they're doing it for a different thing they're chasing a thi is different you know there's something to be learned from that like i left the meeting going you know what maybe i do need to be a little more youtuber like i need to find because i do want my videos to do well and there are strategies you can employ to help with that but i don't want to lose that hey i'm just proud of this thing that we made like and some people liked it and i'm happy that's good you know yeah no i think yeah you and i have done the the two bookends of what is required to be a content creator the first of which is you know like figuring out what you're passionate about and then the other is figuring out where you want to get to with it and then i guess if you have your start point you know if you have a sort of start point which is this is what i care about and that other people aren't doing because i guess within my concept of like you should figure out what you're passionate about presumably if you're passionate about something like if you're really passionate about no pun included like no pun included it's there um so but if you're but yeah so figure out what you're passionate about what you figure no one else is doing that's your start and then figure out what like whether it's you know do you want it for the prestige because i could see like people doing you know making boarding content just to go to the conventions just to meet the people because there's a lot of really great people and that's it yeah yeah exactly you know i think shut up instagram certainly wasn't like it wasn't making money for years and it wasn't making like sustainable money for way more years after that um but we would just have to begin with we were just happy getting free games and to meet people and i think that's a nice you know uh you said earlier when you meet people who are viewers at the shows that can be very rewarding and you don't know if you're talking to someone who's if they've watched a couple of times or maybe they even support financially i i just want to say like quickly because you know we've sort of talked to each other but i know people are watching this right now the support that i i feel like i feel i will speak for both of us here again correct me if i'm wrong the support we've received from people who watch and who care about what we're doing is so deeply meaningful it's very difficult to express and i was i was trying to figure a way to say this the other day because it's not transactional it's not a purely a transactional thing i make a thing for you and then you support a kickstarter or a fundraiser or a patreon like there's that element that's in there but to me um and that element's necessary like the thing doesn't exist without money that's the reality okay that's just a fact of life but what moves me what gets me up in the morning is that that again that nice comment or that interaction at a convention where someone um connected in some way and not only that that sense that i have a connection to them you know that we share this passion for a thing that is still kind of obscure and honestly like daunting you know and we've we've stuck in it and we enjoy it whether you're into party games or war games or whatever the thing is you're into we have this shared language and that again that finding that tribe has been really a important thing for me i think yeah i you know i think that's a really beautiful way to describe it rodney and um you know people who i don't run marathons but people who do yeah we have the brighton marathon right outside my window um okay every however long it is um but the people in my family who run marathon say the thing you don't expect when you show up to a marathon you know you do your training maybe you think you can do it because when you get there on the day every the sheer number of people on either side of the racetrack cheering for you yeah that's what it is you got to run the marathon for no one other than yourself but your commenters who are sending you nice emails or you know just like praising you or thanking you or whatever yeah or just leaving nice comments nice comments are so important like i i've been doing shout outs for 10 years i've just realized we've never asked our audience to leave nice comments because they always do but maybe we should because those nice comments are the people on the side of the marathon who just make it easier i'm running the race for me but all the praise and support is that's a beautiful analogy i will be borrowing that i will be yeah well that was teamwork that's teamwork let me see oh uh hang on wait before so the next panel is a quarter two so we have you know like maybe five more minutes uh i got a i got a couple well no there's there's something it was written down if you were a board game manual which board game manual would you be take it take a second because there's a lot and i do want a specific games manual i know it's gonna be very difficult i don't want to say final girl again but that was like the most recent one you can't that's the one you just keep hammering on about i know i know but also hang on that's that's not why are you specifically the manual for uh van ryder games final girl like that you get because it's good because yeah because i want to be good now right let me think i i'm going to give you another one take your time i'm looking at the shelves i'll tell you the kind i don't want to be okay this happens i've seen this trend in rule books lately that i'm not a big fan of they will try to make the rulebook as small as possible because they recognize from a marketing perspective it's more attractive to say this has a three-page rulebook than to say it has a 13-page rulebook and the problem that i encounter over and over and over again in that situation is that then the rules aren't comprehensive enough to be like they can't comprehend what you're trying to teach me you've left out too many things my feeling is if you want to have a three-page rule book design a three-page rulebook game but if you're trying to design a game that has a hundred different actions you can't make a three-page rulebook you've got the rulebook's got to grow with it if it's going to be of any use to anybody so i guess what i'm getting at there is i want to be a rule book that is what it is trying to accomplish if i'm a if i'm a 10 person rule book i want to be a 10 page rule book you know like i don't want to be i want to be i guess authentic is that right i think that to me that just sounds like a a like an allegory or an analogy or whatever it is for aging gracefully it's like you're uh you're a whatever like 35 page rulebook now and you want to look like a 35 you're you have to look like a 35 i i have a manual hot take for us to get as we're closing out this panel i think i as a manual intermediate i think i know the correct format for a manual now and i'm very curious to put this part yeah please yeah i see this in uvo rosenberg games a lot the correct manual is a manual where every page has a dividing line down the middle and you oh look at did you hear that everybody listen dividing line down the middle on the left is the rules and on the right is like just like mostly examples of exact so if the left is just like the legalese and the right is the exact or sometimes it's like examples and tips or reminders a little summary aliyah does that like and that's a really lovely thing they have the rules down the left side and the right merge and it's here's a quick sentence summary of it which is so lovely when you're going back after three months of it being a shelf and you remember the rules you just need a little handholding you don't want to have to read the whole thing again that's that's a lovely thing do you have that's a helpful rulebook i want to be a helpful rulebook okay i'll be casting okay right you are the helpful rule book of human beings in the board game industry um uh one final question just to make sure we already round this off in a happy on a happy zone okay oh ten years of doing what you played probably this immense service to the board game space you've made so many people's lives so much easier and happier but what is your single happiest memory in 10 years of being in the board game industry when was the like i cause i have a few of those shut ups down but like times where i think i just look back and smile and feel like that was a that was a good like minute or you know hour or whatever like a specific game an interaction what do you think it was i oh gosh this could sound like uh i don't know i better not be the final girl no no that time i opened up final girl it was amazing oh van ryder you're gonna be paying me so much after this no i was gonna say like i don't i don't know how this is gonna sound i don't care how it sounds because it's true i think some of my best moments have been being at conventions there's two different types of interactions that are really really meaningful meeting people who i've admired from afar for a long time or maybe had a long term like interaction with online and meeting them in person for the first time and then discovering that everything about them is just all the reasons why i was just yes and then realizing oh i'm now going to have a relationship with this person for who knows how long maybe the rest of my life like that is not like a board gaming youtube thing but that's that's what that's the best stuff that i've extracted from doing this is meeting people who have a similar passion shared love for this thing and then i want to be in their lives in some capacity you know i mean i i i worked jobs i didn't have that feeling with the people i worked with i was happy to work with them but i didn't like when the weekend came it was like see on monday you know the people i work with now i want to see them all the time i want to see them every day you know yeah yeah so i don't know how to pin that to like one game or one experience but it's also it's all i'll just quickly say like viewers that i've met in person that you know they've shared something you have to be careful if you if you're too kind about the show i will hug you like i just because i don't know how else to express it i want to say like you've you've impacted my life you know in ways that you can't even understand that i can't even understand you know that impacts my family's life like it's you know yeah uh the what's the board game geek uh play through series game night game night yeah game night yeah when i was at uh i was at a convention and i was stood next to this this guy and i was talking to him and i and then suddenly i had this like miniature freak out he was like how do i know this guy when when did we introduce each other and i realized that it wasn't um it wasn't that we'd ever introduced each other he didn't i don't even know if he knew who it was i just assumed he was my friend because he was one of the people from game night who i've watched and i was just but he was so exactly who he was on game night that i was like well he's my friend he doesn't know who i am like but that is maybe if you're thinking about getting into the ballgame hobby take it from two people who have been in it for 10 years that like there's just i think it could be as simple as because you only get into board games if you like being around people and you like silly fun everyone like so many people just seem to be like just amiable friendly social thoughtful like and that's what makes going to convention look there's all kinds of challenges there's all kinds of things that can get in the way it's not perfect that's for sure um and we all have different experiences in that hobby um good and bad but there's a lot of good there's still a lot of good you know and i'm very thankful for the good yeah yeah there's a lot to enjoy through it yeah certainly like maybe it's rich just from two people who've won the like you know diversity privilege olympics of you know meant to be like it's all good and everyone's friendly and you know look i even put my hair away that's how i'm going full i'm going on yeah yeah yeah but uh but certainly still uh it's uh it seems like at least for us a very happy space to be and getting better every day or every month at least every year who knows well i think we all have a responsibility to help make it that way i mean that's the thing i think that's something maybe i felt a little more over the last few years that i didn't realize um and a little late to the game on frankly recognizing that i exist in a space where i'm not going to encounter much friction yep either for my gender my skin color uh my orientation everything like that and that's not the case for everybody so what can i do to help uh lower some of those barriers in my own way you know whatever that can be so i don't know even if you come to it late i suppose you can try to find ways to to assist yeah uh and uh with that sort of like uh stumbled conclusion to realizing our own privilege uh we should wrap this up but rodney this has been absolutely amazing i've had an absolute blast that was like an hour and 40 minutes and it just did not feel like that at all no it didn't at all but we knew this would happen two months well it was it was a real speaking problem privilege to spend the time with you i was really looking forward to this just because i knew it would be a gift to be able to spend an hour and a half just talking about something i know we're both pretty passionate about so you're right i feel like i've walked away with a couple of great analogies that i'll be borrowing and using and i hope the people watching enjoyed or listening enjoyed it i know there were some bets in the chat about when i would if i would finish my drink and i did i did finish so well done i nursed it thank you all everyone watching this in twitch uh for watching you've all been uh great presumably i don't know i've been talking to rodney i'm playing i'm gonna jump into chat now see what they're saying rodney this has been absolutely great uh and uh yeah i guess see you when i see you maybe i'll see you in another ten years imagine that that's chilling it's better than that we'll see yeah okay yeah take care rodney cheers

Channel: Shut Up & Sit Down

Views: 111,741

Keywords: Shut Up and Sit Down, SUSD, SU&SD, Board Games, Board Gaming, Boardgame, Board Game, Gaming, Tabletop, Fun Games, Quintin Smith, 10 Years, 10 Years in Board Games, Decade, Rodney Smith, Watch It Played, BGG, AwSHUX, SHUX, Board Game Convention, Panel

Id: EehobiA6dQg

Length: 96min 13sec (5773 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 23 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/metfansc]

Rodney is what got me into this hobby, and Quinns is responsible for me spending way too much money in it, definitely will watch this when I have a couple hours to spare

[u/langm12]

Legendary move by Rodney setting up Quinns with his own quote from his first video. Rodney is joy incarnate.

[u/8ballslackz]

I need more of My Two Boardgame Dads, the podcast.

[u/ArcadianDelSol]

I really really like Quintin.

But I absolutely adore Rodney.

I cannot explain it nor can I justify it, but here's my best effort: Quintin has some brilliant insights and top class editorial content while Rodney is made out of pure love for games and a joy for sharing them with others.

They both bring very different and delicious dishes to the pot luck, and we're all very blessed to have them both in this hobby with us.

[u/Ras1372]

Rodney looks like he's sporting some frosted tips straight out of 1999.

[u/SadLow1]

Quinn's trying to play down his poshness then casually dropping the word avuncular.

[u/foreigneternity]

There is nothing I want in the boardgaming hobby more than to just spend a day with Rodney playing board games and talking.

[u/WelcomingRapier]

Nice. I was just watching some refresher vids today prepping for Christmas day family boardgame teaches. These guys are great.

[u/Happy_CycleR]

Wow, if they invited Tom Vasel this would be some Wrestlemania level shit!