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Content Warning this episode for brief mentions of forced sterilization (49:03-49:53) and death of a child (57:40-57:48).
DJ BeeZee brings Everett Nichols to the table. Everett is a union man, through and through, who defends those closest to him.
DJ and I discuss healing from generational trauma, the union history of Appalachia, and how finding player agency in TTRPGs can be cathartic when we lack agency in our lives.
This character is built for Old Gods of Appalachia, a Cypher System game by Monte Cook, based on the podcast of the same name.
DJ BeeZee is an AuDHD Game Master for Hire and Co-Host of One Shot’s Tavern, a TTRPG podcast focused on learning about all of the tools and mechanics that TTRPGs across the spectrum offer in order to become better story tellers, game masters, and game designers.
You can learn more about DJ at:
https://www.characterswithoutstories.com/guests/dj-beezee
The Thorne Files is a Monster of the Week Actual Play podcast filled with twisting mysteries, malevolent evils and character-lead drama.
https://open.spotify.com/show/2zpkCPR5NIFYS2BAxcpKx6?si=d9d9409ec02544a7
Hammer of the Gods is an actual play TTRPG podcast, primarily set in an alternate history home brew world based around Ancient Greece and Greek Mythology. They've has now branched into playing and streaming other games such as Werewolf, Masks, and Eat the Reich.
https:/linktr.ee/Hammpod
Send us a text
Cover art by The Curiographer
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecuriographer
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Website: http://www.characterswithoutstories.com
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Thanks for listening, and may all your characters find their stories!
00:00 - Intro
14:14 - Cypher System
23:44 - Everett Nichols
31:02 - The normal guy
39:07 - Thorne Files Podcast
40:17 - Character sacrifice
47:56 - Family history
49:03 - Content warning: forced sterilization
49:53 - Melungeon history and white privilege
55:13 - Defending what matters
57:40 - Content warning: death of a child
57:49 - Love and loss
01:04:09 - Union man through and through
01:13:54 - In character question
01:14:41 - Outro
WEBVTT
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I would love to stop the bloodshed in the world, but I can't, and I'm going to do anything I can to lessen it.
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It's why I play TTRPGs, really.
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As much as I wish I could change the past, all I can do is kind of do what I can to work towards a better future.
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Reaffirming that journey again.
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By going through that trauma again, and learning to get past it.
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again.
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Let's look at actual history! I'd
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like to give a content warning this episode for brief mentions of forced sterilization and the death of a child.
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If you'd like to avoid these topics, look at the timestamps in the show notes.
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Hello friends, welcome to Characters Without Stories, a TTRPG podcast about the roads not yet traveled.
00:01:28.269 --> 00:01:28.870
I'm Star.
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This episode I'm joined by DJ BeeZee.
00:01:32.114 --> 00:01:40.694
DJ is co host of One Shots Tavern, a TTRPG podcast exploring different tools and systems, as well as a game master for hire.
00:01:40.694 --> 00:01:43.254
DJ, thank you so much for coming on the show.
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I'm super glad to be here.
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DJ, how did you get into TTRPGs?
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My co host and I, he got me into it around 2009, 2010, when we met.
00:01:55.055 --> 00:02:00.334
We just kind of were playing ever since, so we started with Dungeons and Dragons 3.5.
00:02:00.625 --> 00:02:05.793
From there, we ended up transitioning over into Pathfinder, which a lot of people did at that time.
00:02:06.055 --> 00:02:11.104
Basically, it was just a lot of Dungeons and Dragons for a really long time for us.
00:02:11.123 --> 00:02:20.014
He went away for a while, which meant that I had to learn how to game master, so he, like, went off to Colorado, left the friend group, you know, behind here in Michigan.
00:02:20.084 --> 00:02:23.693
And so, in order to keep playing, I had to, like, dive deeper in.
00:02:24.020 --> 00:02:25.030
Back then it was hard.
00:02:26.039 --> 00:02:27.400
Uh, it really was.
00:02:27.400 --> 00:02:30.579
There wasn't a whole lot of tools to use and learn.
00:02:30.610 --> 00:02:34.649
So I've always, I have ADHD, uh, and autism.
00:02:34.649 --> 00:02:41.110
So for me, it's like, I was taking like, oh crap, I don't know how to like interpret these rules.
00:02:41.289 --> 00:03:28.419
I need to learn how to do this and trying to like get games going and keep games going without any digital tools Which is what I wanted because back then, you know, the iPhone came out and I was like, oh there should be an app for that They told me that there's an app for everything There was not at the time and then eventually there was for Pathfinder It wasn't good, but I mean it was a character sheet which helped From there, I just, I fell off for a couple of years, uh, while I went to college, and then I did like a band life thing for a while, did a bunch of shows and stuff, and then ended up just coming back to tabletop games, and then Andrew came back, uh, from his time away, and we, we started doing weekly games again, as, as a friend group.
00:03:28.748 --> 00:03:43.079
That lasted up until the panorama, the good ol pandemic, uh, COVID 19 in 2020, and into about 2021 when they sold their house and started traveling the country in a RV.
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But! It was kind of perfect because around that time was uh, that transition to everybody playing online.
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Which was, for me, it worked a lot better because I didn't have to travel and it meant that I was going to be there always without having to, you know, have the anxiety of going up and meeting in person.
00:04:00.979 --> 00:04:08.310
As much as I love meeting up in person, uh, I do find that I am far more free when it comes to being online and in front of a camera.
00:04:09.639 --> 00:04:11.150
That's surprising, actually.
00:04:11.219 --> 00:04:11.810
Yeah.
00:04:11.830 --> 00:04:12.840
I don't know what it is.
00:04:12.889 --> 00:04:16.639
Like, I like being around people, uh, but like three people, maybe.
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Whereas online, it's, it's a lot easier for me.
00:04:22.899 --> 00:04:27.930
I think it was like last year Andrew was like, hey, I'm sick of fifth edition.
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Let's try Cypher System.
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It's a game that I've had for a while and I want to learn to play and so we started a campaign and we all fell in love with it.
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And so now I just kind of main two systems.
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It's mostly Dungeons & Dragons and Cypher System now.
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It's been great.
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I became a Game Master for hire after I got fired last year from my job due to the mental health stuff mentioned before.
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Uh, and it's been great.
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I make my own schedule, right?
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I, um, run about six, seven, sometimes eight games a week.
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Varying from Dungeons & Dragons to Cypher System to one shots of various other systems, uh, if I can get them together.
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It's, it's been great.
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Tabletop games truly changed my life for me.
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I'm mentally healthier, right?
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Because I don't have the expectations of sitting in an office or a testing laboratory or wherever any of the other jobs that I've worked in the past where there were these, uh, very rigid, strict deadlines and micromanagements and all the things that my brain couldn't handle.
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And instead I get to play Dungeons and Dragons and Cypher and all these games for a living.
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So that's been my journey.
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Uh, we started the podcast for One Shot's Tavern in January officially.
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And so that's been fun too.
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But yeah, I love tabletop games.
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I have a question because I know some other pro DMs.
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I know that it's pretty dominated by D&D.
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Do you have any trouble getting together a Cypher system on -are you playing on Start Playing?
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I am on Start Playing games, yes.
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It is, uh, moderately difficult sometimes, depending on the system that you are trying to open up, right?
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Uh, there are going to be mainstays in like, super popular games.
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Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, really any of the major publisher games are going to have a lot of an easier time to fill a game.
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I definitely struggled filling Cypher because most of the time when I am running a Cypher game, I'm teaching the players how to play Cypher.
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And because I'm teaching them how to play Cypher, people are a little hesitant to spend money, right, especially 25 a session on a game they don't know how to play yet.
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And I just, I do my best to try and reassure people like, hey, I am going to walk you through this step by step.
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We're going to get you to where you are going to be, you know, really good at this, but it's a process.
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And so I, one of the things that I do is tell people, hey, this is going to be a shorter campaign.
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It's going to be kind of more of an introductory to the system.
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We're going to get you as proficient as I can get you, and that way if you want to keep playing in a campaign with me, or if we want to continue this campaign as a group, we can.
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For the easy money, I post Dungeons & Dragons games.
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Those are the ones that fill up within a couple weeks of posting it.
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You're good to go.
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Ready, ready to run.
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I haven't tried like Call of Cthulhu or anything like that, but I have heard that those games do well.
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But the other thing is building up a reputation first.
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And that's, that's kind of one of the things that a lot of the other game masters for hire suggest is you want to build a rapport with your players in order to get them comfortable and going I will follow this game master into any system They want to run and it's been nice because lately I've been having that a lot of players basically I've been like hey, what do you guys want to play next?
00:07:56.283 --> 00:07:58.913
We're halfway through this campaign, what is it that you want to play?
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Do you want to run another, you know, Dungeons & Dragons module?
00:08:01.644 --> 00:08:02.829
Do you want to try another game?
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And a few of them were, were like, hey, whatever it is, as long as you're running it, I'll be there.
00:08:08.348 --> 00:08:10.259
And I was like, that's gonna make me cry.
00:08:10.329 --> 00:08:19.718
Uh, that, that is the most flattering thing you could tell a game master, especially one that you're paying to run these games for you.
00:08:20.009 --> 00:08:21.949
But it's hard at first.
00:08:21.999 --> 00:08:24.079
Uh, I was definitely really nervous.
00:08:24.079 --> 00:08:25.569
My unemployment had ended.
00:08:25.608 --> 00:08:44.783
And so what I had done was while I was on unemployment and I was doing my job searches, I basically just kind of built up everything I could first, all of my campaigns, all of my assets, anything I could in order to hit the ground running because I had a advantage that other game master hires don't have.
00:08:44.783 --> 00:08:46.365
And that was, I had no job.
00:08:48.575 --> 00:08:50.664
And so it was all or nothing for me.
00:08:50.705 --> 00:08:54.575
What made you decide to make the leap into podcasting?
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You talk about hitting the ground running, and to me, seeing your podcast start up, like, right from the beginning, I was like, oh my god, they were so much better prepared than I was when I started my podcast.
00:09:06.774 --> 00:09:14.355
There's just the amount of stuff that I've had to change since I've started, and you came in with your branding, you had multiple episodes ready to go.
00:09:14.424 --> 00:09:20.534
Andrew is the star on that, because Andrew is a stay at home dad.
00:09:20.554 --> 00:09:24.443
He takes on contract work as a marketing professional.
00:09:24.825 --> 00:09:35.105
So, he's a graphic designer, him and his wife both do marketing campaigns, uh, she's, you know, does like the full time marketing position, whereas he picks up the, the contract work.
00:09:35.434 --> 00:09:43.203
So, having him involved, and basically having, uh, everything ready to go, was a godsend, right?
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Originally, One Shot's Tavern just started off as the branding for my Game Master for Hire.
00:09:49.115 --> 00:09:54.884
Uh, it was going to be the name of my Discord, It was going to be essentially just me doing my thing.
00:09:55.315 --> 00:10:14.389
Andrew started talking about it and he's like, hey, you know, you and I out of all of our friends have the most free time and by most free time, I mean, we had, you know, maybe like 10 hours a week where we could, you know, sit down and do stuff because he's taking care of the kids full time.
00:10:14.429 --> 00:10:17.409
I'm running games, you know, four days a week, five days a week.
00:10:17.450 --> 00:10:18.839
And I still have to hang out with my wife.
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That's very important to me.
00:10:21.078 --> 00:10:28.078
And, uh, he was like, what if, you know, we started this journey last year where we tried out Cypher system.
00:10:28.644 --> 00:10:35.134
What if we continue that journey and we dive in to trying other systems?
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What if there's so many out there and, you know, I was doing the TikTok thing and like, I had already started meeting amazing people like you and Penny, uh, and Adam and just all of these, uh, amazing voices in the TTRPG space that we just really started to get super interested in, well, we could just try as many games as possible.
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And, you know, because of TikTok, we have as many people as we need to, you know, ask and say, hey, does anybody know how to run X system?
00:11:05.104 --> 00:11:06.495
Uh, and I was like, yeah, sure.
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I've got, I've got the time.
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His brain and my brain work completely different.
00:11:11.014 --> 00:11:14.134
My brain is a junk drawer and his is a filing system.
00:11:14.134 --> 00:11:21.335
So we definitely run things different when we're doing interviews.
00:11:21.659 --> 00:11:24.460
He's, he's more prepared with, you know, questions.
00:11:24.789 --> 00:11:26.480
I'm more like, what's your favorite color?
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You know, like, what's your, what's your favorite mechanic?
00:11:29.960 --> 00:11:30.429
You know?
00:11:30.789 --> 00:11:32.190
Ooh, I really like that too.
00:11:32.279 --> 00:11:39.750
I'm the guy who, who just kind of like falls in line and is just like, Oh, I want to relate and I want to get to know you and I want to be friends.
00:11:40.049 --> 00:11:45.769
He also is that way, but for him, it is very much like he's very informational.
00:11:46.193 --> 00:11:58.224
For example, he tried to get me to use Trello, which, for those of you who don't know, Trello is like a, this is, needs to be done, this is what's in process, this is almost done, and this is the deadline.
00:11:58.235 --> 00:12:04.124
And I'm just like, buddy, I'm gonna tell you this right now, I'm not going to use this.
00:12:04.214 --> 00:12:08.354
So you're not, you're not using the Gantt chart that he made for your podcast?
00:12:08.724 --> 00:12:13.774
No, I, I found it better that I can throw things that I need done up there.
00:12:13.774 --> 00:12:13.823
Okay.
00:12:14.144 --> 00:12:19.894
But, personally, uh, I'm just, I'm a very off the cuff person.
00:12:19.914 --> 00:12:26.144
Even my campaigns, for the most part, I run along modules, but most of the time it's bullet points.
00:12:26.144 --> 00:12:30.164
And it's, it's very free flowing improv.
00:12:30.195 --> 00:12:34.109
Anything can happen, depending on where my brain is at in that moment.
00:12:34.490 --> 00:12:46.139
And so, it's, it's just funny because like, we compliment each other very well in that way, we butt heads very well in that way, because it's, it's, uh, it's just two completely different ways of thinking, and that's okay.
00:12:46.629 --> 00:12:57.179
Really what you saw as us jumping in prepared was us being like, oh no, we set a deadline for ourselves and we need to hop on this right now.
00:12:57.470 --> 00:13:05.190
Luckily we found like, Squadcast and Descript really early, so that kind of like cut down on the amount of work that it was going to take for us.
00:13:05.419 --> 00:13:12.580
We did make the dumb decision to jump out the gate with podcast video, which slows things down a lot.
00:13:12.609 --> 00:13:13.870
I still like video.
00:13:13.889 --> 00:13:14.409
It's funny.
00:13:14.409 --> 00:13:18.629
Cause in the beginning I was like, let's just do audio now, Andrew and I have switched positions on that.
00:13:18.629 --> 00:13:24.720
He's like, I think 90 percent of the stuff we do is not going to have video and we're going to switch over to that format.
00:13:24.720 --> 00:13:25.440
I'm like, all right, fine.
00:13:25.690 --> 00:13:26.529
Makes clips easier.
00:13:26.740 --> 00:13:27.779
I can just put a logo up.
00:13:27.799 --> 00:13:28.909
I haven't done it yet, but I could.
00:13:29.990 --> 00:13:46.169
Yeah, I, so I started like completely audio and then lately I've, I've been, you know, I watch, I watch podcasts on YouTube and I'm like, you know, maybe people want that experience, but then I just have a backlog of video at some point.
00:13:46.210 --> 00:13:47.578
Maybe I'll get to editing this one.
00:13:47.580 --> 00:13:49.370
Because it takes so much longer.
00:13:49.409 --> 00:13:49.730
Yeah.
00:13:49.940 --> 00:13:52.379
Especially with the new RSS feed on YouTube.
00:13:52.389 --> 00:13:55.860
So you throw your RSS feed up there and it's like, cool.
00:13:55.860 --> 00:13:58.039
Here's all of my podcast episodes.
00:13:58.039 --> 00:14:01.578
And it's like, you throw your, your YouTube edited versions up there.
00:14:01.580 --> 00:14:03.590
And it's like, oh man, this is just clutter.
00:14:04.070 --> 00:14:05.340
There's so much stuff going on.
00:14:05.350 --> 00:14:06.558
Do I really need this?
00:14:07.408 --> 00:14:08.408
Yeah, definitely.
00:14:09.879 --> 00:14:10.869
But people like it.
00:14:10.870 --> 00:14:12.980
And so it's, it's, it's, yeah.
00:14:14.720 --> 00:14:15.850
Let's get to your character.
00:14:16.389 --> 00:14:20.740
You talked a lot about switching to cypher system and how much you love cypher system.
00:14:20.750 --> 00:14:22.669
What is it that you love about the system?
00:14:23.240 --> 00:14:36.679
It's funny because you look at the state of TTRPGs and you see like there is the very crunchy everything is defined side of things like Dungeons and Dragons.
00:14:36.720 --> 00:14:39.539
There's not as much creative freedom for the players.
00:14:40.104 --> 00:14:51.504
And then you have something on the other end of that, say, a Powered by the Apocalypse game, where the character sheets are much more simplistic, and the things that you do are more implied.
00:14:51.914 --> 00:14:56.374
You, you kind of flavor them how you want to flavor them, depending on which game you're running.
00:14:56.664 --> 00:15:03.294
Then you have Cypher System, which I like to imagine as being very firmly in the middle of those two things.
00:15:03.344 --> 00:15:20.350
It has very nicely laid out rules, of course, but at the same time, every aspect of your character sheet, from your special abilities to the weapons that you're using, skills, All of those can be flavored how you want them to be flavored.
00:15:20.889 --> 00:15:22.009
I really like that.
00:15:22.080 --> 00:15:27.970
I believe that it gives a lot of agency to the players to kind of craft their narrative.
00:15:28.269 --> 00:15:30.679
Uh, so that's like part one of why I like it.
00:15:31.058 --> 00:15:40.059
The next part is, as a game master, often players can run in directions where they shouldn't be.
00:15:40.434 --> 00:15:42.565
Or more so you haven't planned for.
00:15:42.975 --> 00:15:44.615
Cypher encourages that.
00:15:44.644 --> 00:15:48.894
It is a much more like, theater of the mind oriented system.
00:15:49.374 --> 00:15:53.494
Uh, you might have some like, battle board stuff, but that's gonna be about it.
00:15:53.934 --> 00:16:01.985
Whereas with Dungeons and Dragons, it's like, if you are hanging out in Waterdeep and you wanna go to Baldur's Gate, like, that requires a whole lot of reading.
00:16:02.014 --> 00:16:06.149
And like, jumping around and be like, oh no, this is, you know, like, what do I do?
00:16:06.500 --> 00:16:14.440
They decided they wanted to, you know, teleport and go visit somewhere else, or not continue on with the module yet and go do other things.
00:16:14.509 --> 00:16:28.573
Cypher's system very much allows the players to do that, and it doesn't require a ton of extra prep on the Game Master's behalf, because everything is rolled the same way in Cypher.
00:16:29.205 --> 00:16:39.764
You have a difficulty from 0 to 10, and you multiply that difficulty by 3, and that is going to be the difficulty, the DC, so to say, of the task that you're rolling.
00:16:39.764 --> 00:16:42.924
So if it's a difficulty 5, you have to roll a 15 or higher.
00:16:42.964 --> 00:16:46.414
If it's a difficulty 10, that's 30 or higher, and it's like, oh no, you can't do that.
00:16:46.423 --> 00:16:50.955
That's where the agency comes in, because you have something called effort, you have training.
00:16:51.225 --> 00:16:55.904
All of these will reduce the difficulty by a whole step, which means 3 points on the die.
00:16:55.975 --> 00:17:10.588
And so if it was difficulty 10, and you've If you decide to spend 3 effort and you have training in it, that drops it down from a rolling a 30 or higher down to a difficulty 6, which would be an 18 or higher.
00:17:10.750 --> 00:17:12.959
Still hard, but it's not impossible.
00:17:13.369 --> 00:17:16.900
And I really love when my players get excited.
00:17:16.939 --> 00:17:19.430
I love when I get excited because I'm a player.
00:17:19.470 --> 00:17:24.049
And it's like, cool, alright, we have this insurmountable task ahead of us.
00:17:24.088 --> 00:17:25.400
How are we going to do it?
00:17:26.140 --> 00:17:32.025
For example, say the difficulty of a creature is like, this is a difficulty 8.
00:17:32.345 --> 00:17:33.654
Uh, it's not terrible.
00:17:34.125 --> 00:17:37.164
You only have to use a little bit of training and effort to reduce it down.
00:17:37.174 --> 00:17:38.285
But this is a boss.
00:17:38.355 --> 00:17:42.045
And like, they're scary, and all of these special abilities and stuff.
00:17:42.085 --> 00:17:52.615
And you know that if you hit them, and you spend as much effort as you can on the damage, which increases your damage, it's like multipliers on your damage, you might be able to take them down in one shot.
00:17:53.214 --> 00:17:58.434
Or, you might incapacitate yourself and totally derail the entire thing.
00:17:58.714 --> 00:17:59.204
I love that.
00:17:59.644 --> 00:18:03.534
The other thing is Game Master intrusions are super fun.
00:18:03.564 --> 00:18:10.194
For those who are listening, a Game Master intrusion is an unexpected complication that just happens.
00:18:10.253 --> 00:18:14.744
Uh, and so it's the main way in which players gain experience points.
00:18:14.855 --> 00:18:17.085
For example, a gun could jam.
00:18:17.484 --> 00:18:19.875
Or, maybe the hallway collapses.
00:18:20.045 --> 00:18:24.815
Or, maybe all of a sudden a bunch of new soldiers show up and you have to fight them too.
00:18:24.825 --> 00:18:30.105
Or, You kind of get pushed in the correct direction because you've been going the wrong way.
00:18:30.545 --> 00:18:32.825
All of these things are Game Master intrusions.
00:18:32.855 --> 00:18:34.085
The players can deny them.
00:18:34.095 --> 00:18:37.065
They just spend experience instead of receiving experience.
00:18:37.125 --> 00:18:39.243
Or, there's player intrusions.
00:18:39.244 --> 00:18:41.605
Player intrusions are very similar.
00:18:41.615 --> 00:18:45.450
They're usually, uh, Tied to the type of the player.
00:18:45.480 --> 00:18:53.930
So for example, uh, a warrior might know a guy who just randomly shows up and helps and then, you know, talks for a minute and then leaves.
00:18:54.019 --> 00:19:09.369
Uh, we used that in a campaign that we were, uh, in because we were getting annoyed by the ship combat and we happened to be on the home planet of one of the player characters and we're like, uh, he's like, I know a guy and that guy showed up and all of a sudden it was a two on one battle.
00:19:09.595 --> 00:19:13.214
We finished the battle, had that chat, and then we continued on.
00:19:13.244 --> 00:19:29.325
Cypher gives you all of these tools and all of these ways of genuinely impacting the story, and that is my absolute favorite thing, while also giving me rails and rules to adhere to.
00:19:29.394 --> 00:19:35.434
I don't have to be overly imaginative, but I can be imaginative in the game.
00:19:35.494 --> 00:19:41.744
And so it feels like there are rules and laws of physics on the world while allowing me, you know, agency.
00:19:42.484 --> 00:19:48.294
So you're bringing a character for a specific Cypher system game called Old Gods of Appalachia.
00:19:48.325 --> 00:19:48.605
Yeah.
00:19:48.809 --> 00:19:52.410
Can you tell my listeners a little bit about this particular game?
00:19:52.460 --> 00:19:53.309
Absolutely.
00:19:53.329 --> 00:19:58.720
So it is a partnered IP game for those of you who haven't.
00:19:58.799 --> 00:20:10.669
If you really like horror podcasts, Old Gods of Appalachia is a really well produced horror anthology, light anthology, because there is an overarching story to it.
00:20:11.079 --> 00:20:14.970
About late 1800s, early 1900s, Appalachia.
00:20:15.029 --> 00:20:25.549
It's cryptids, it's, you know, folklore, it's, you know, a little bit of Irish folklore mixed with a little bit of Native American folklore mixed with a little bit of black folklore, right?
00:20:25.549 --> 00:20:27.349
Because that is Appalachia.
00:20:27.950 --> 00:20:35.359
Appalachia is, uh, you know, you talk about melting pots in, you know, the world, uh, and, you know, the United States is a melting pot.
00:20:35.740 --> 00:20:38.150
Appalachia, in my opinion.
00:20:38.519 --> 00:21:09.984
is one of the more very well mixed together melting pots as far as like the folklore and stuff goes basically you have uh the idea that these primordial spirits or these primordial beings these godlike entities uh of magic and And all of that existing in Appalachia, because, I don't know if you know this, but the Appalachian mountains are older than trees.
00:21:10.054 --> 00:21:14.483
Trees did not exist when the Appalachian mountains were formed.
00:21:14.534 --> 00:21:24.970
It is essentially, uh, a mountain range that is so old that it existed in this primordial time where instead of trees, we had giant mushrooms.
00:21:25.069 --> 00:21:35.569
And so the idea is that all of these haints and spirits and good things and bad things are rooted in this mountain range.
00:21:35.619 --> 00:21:41.134
And it's, uh, a really kind of fun fun setting for a horror podcast.
00:21:41.134 --> 00:21:51.233
And so, uh, I don't know if Monte Cook Games approached them or if they approached Monte Cook Games, but, uh, the Old Gods of Appalachia role playing game was born out of it.
00:21:51.284 --> 00:21:54.345
And so in it, you get to kind of explore it.
00:21:54.345 --> 00:22:05.400
And so it's kind of like Call of Cthulhu esque in a way, where it's mostly normal people, or lightly magical people, going through these horrific events.
00:22:05.730 --> 00:22:07.650
Because they are, they're horrific events.
00:22:07.660 --> 00:22:18.305
Things like towns burning down, and coal fires, and, you know, mine collapses, and, you know, hauntings, and All sorts of dark things.
00:22:18.355 --> 00:22:24.884
And so, I really enjoy this setting, because it's like this slight anxiety.
00:22:25.233 --> 00:22:27.314
You know, you don't know what's happening.
00:22:27.314 --> 00:22:28.464
It's all a mystery.
00:22:28.464 --> 00:22:29.943
And it's, it's just fun for me.
00:22:30.345 --> 00:22:33.114
I personally really like it.
00:22:33.213 --> 00:22:35.664
Because for me and my family.
00:22:35.750 --> 00:22:38.130
We are very Appalachian.
00:22:38.140 --> 00:22:56.380
We live in Michigan now, but essentially, uh, if you look at my DNA report, uh, from ancestry.com, it says Kentucky and it's Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, basically what happened was my ancestors, you know, came over from Europe, arrived.
00:22:56.549 --> 00:23:05.950
In the late 1500s, they settled in Kentucky, and West Virginia, and basically all along Appalachian Mountains.
00:23:06.009 --> 00:23:06.690
And that was it.
00:23:06.720 --> 00:23:08.859
That was, that was just where they decided to stay.
00:23:09.900 --> 00:23:10.269
Forever.
00:23:10.638 --> 00:23:17.909
That's, uh, it's kind of my connection to it, is, uh, I really like Appalachia, and I really like the folklore behind it.
00:23:17.929 --> 00:23:23.339
Because my family is, uh, what is called Melungeon, which was just, uh, mixed race people.
00:23:23.659 --> 00:23:25.929
Who, you know, lived in Appalachia.
00:23:26.009 --> 00:23:33.679
It was, you know, a mix of as many different things as you can imagine, but not the one that they always claim, which is Native American.
00:23:33.798 --> 00:23:36.778
It was Arab, Black, and mostly Irish.
00:23:38.148 --> 00:23:42.429
Basically a bunch of people ran into the mountains and hid, uh, and lived there.
00:23:42.549 --> 00:23:43.449
Formed communities.
00:23:44.194 --> 00:23:47.315
Tell me, DJ, who are you bringing to the table today?
00:23:47.335 --> 00:23:47.914
Indeed.
00:23:47.964 --> 00:23:49.265
Everett Nichols.
00:23:49.394 --> 00:23:58.085
Everett Nichols is an amalgamation of several of my ancestors and, uh, more immediate family.
00:23:58.125 --> 00:23:59.805
Nichols is my mom's side.
00:23:59.854 --> 00:24:02.499
It is the very Melungeon side of the family.
00:24:02.750 --> 00:24:08.940
Everett is a coal miner, which many of my ancestors were coal miners in Appalachia.
00:24:08.970 --> 00:24:14.589
They, you know, it was either farming or coal mining, you know, in, in West Virginia and Kentucky.
00:24:14.589 --> 00:24:18.229
So for Everett, he is, he is a coal miner.
00:24:18.279 --> 00:24:20.128
He's not magical.
00:24:20.440 --> 00:24:22.759
He's just a guy, right?
00:24:23.000 --> 00:24:29.398
Uh, he's, he's a hard worker of mixed race and he lives in West Virginia.
00:24:29.490 --> 00:24:34.140
He's, it's just very like, no nonsense, he wants to protect people.
00:24:34.140 --> 00:24:38.443
In fact, he is a scrappy protector who defends what matters.
00:24:38.595 --> 00:24:41.154
That is his cypher system sentence.
00:24:41.444 --> 00:24:47.394
So a, essentially the scrappy part is his descriptor, which is partially his personality.
00:24:47.414 --> 00:24:52.825
The protector is his type, which is closer to akin to like a warrior in other cypher games.
00:24:53.075 --> 00:25:14.259
And then defense what matters is, uh, basically he's got a lot of special abilities that are going to basically allow him that physical prowess while really, I mean, let's be honest, Physical prowess doesn't matter in the face of spirits and haints, but for him, he's very much wants to defend his town and family.
00:25:14.279 --> 00:25:25.369
And I like to call upon some of my family history with that and the various, you know, people that were related to from the Coles to the Gibsons to the Nichols.
00:25:25.420 --> 00:25:26.480
That is Everett.
00:25:26.819 --> 00:25:29.369
He's originally from Kentucky.
00:25:29.390 --> 00:25:33.650
He left Kentucky for reasons that he doesn't like to talk about.
00:25:33.730 --> 00:25:38.789
And moved up to Pennsylvania after having a stint in West Virginia.
00:25:38.789 --> 00:25:44.528
And essentially, uh, he doesn't know why, but everywhere he goes, trouble follows.
00:25:44.608 --> 00:25:52.269
And so he goes from town to town in Appalachia, experiencing one awful thing to another, and then moves on.
00:25:52.924 --> 00:26:05.535
Let's get a little bit into the way that Cypher system, it's not a class per se, but you mentioned this sentence that you build essentially when you're building a Cypher character, which personally I love the idea of this.
00:26:05.605 --> 00:26:08.753
So you have a descriptor and what was the second one again?
00:26:08.773 --> 00:26:11.855
Yeah, so descriptor, type, and focus.
00:26:11.914 --> 00:26:16.464
And so your descriptor is going to be kind of like a simple personality.
00:26:17.319 --> 00:26:19.650
Uh, which is going to give you certain skills.
00:26:19.710 --> 00:26:23.628
It is going to give you the opposite of skills, which is inabilities.
00:26:23.660 --> 00:26:25.559
Uh, things that you are just not good at.
00:26:25.599 --> 00:26:28.990
For example, Everett is very good at risk assessment.
00:26:29.049 --> 00:26:33.690
And he's not very good at pleasant social interaction.
00:26:33.769 --> 00:26:36.108
Because, you know, he's hot tempered.
00:26:36.564 --> 00:26:40.394
Uh, then his type, uh, so type is kind of like a class.
00:26:40.454 --> 00:26:46.183
It is, yeah, I would say it's the closest approximation to a class in Cypher's system.
00:26:46.413 --> 00:27:02.240
And so that'll give you, like, a bunch of options for special abilities from, uh, Danger Sense, which basically is, like, you are mildly aware, uh, at all times, and so, like, you spend a point, and you get to be trained in your initiative.
00:27:02.569 --> 00:27:09.169
To some of the more physical skills, like, he's trained without armor, therefore he's better at speed defense rolls.
00:27:09.219 --> 00:27:11.199
Because he's, you know, scrappy.
00:27:11.209 --> 00:27:13.778
He's dodging out of the way, he's rolling out of the way.
00:27:14.049 --> 00:27:20.670
And then you have your focus, and what the focus is, is, I don't want to say a subclass, but more of an archetype.
00:27:20.960 --> 00:27:24.829
There are hundreds of focuses to choose from in Cypher's system.
00:27:24.838 --> 00:27:30.199
All of them are very specific, and it helps you to build the character that you want to build.
00:27:30.239 --> 00:27:44.304
Defends what matters is going to be very like, I'm courageous, I have an easier time when it comes to like, you know, not being afraid of things that, you know, normal people would be afraid of, so normal people are courageous.
00:27:44.659 --> 00:27:54.950
But when you come across a man shaped deer that has flaming horns and eyes, the average person, uh, is still going to run away.
00:27:54.969 --> 00:28:02.378
So, Everett is, is willing to kind of stand his ground, even though he doesn't understand the supernatural things that are happening around him.
00:28:02.919 --> 00:28:05.279
I love the focus system in Cypher.
00:28:05.319 --> 00:28:18.279
There are super insane ones, uh, such as like, Dances with Dark Matter, which gives you like, wings of like, dark matter, or there is Fuses Flesh with Steel, which basically turns you into a cyborg.
00:28:19.068 --> 00:28:19.469
It's great.
00:28:19.509 --> 00:28:22.069
Any type of character you want to build in Cypher's system, you can.
00:28:23.309 --> 00:28:31.240
You mentioned, uh, speed rolls, and I don't remember from when I played, but you have three different areas, correct?
00:28:31.250 --> 00:28:35.709
There is an optional fourth, uh, and an optional rules, which is kind of like your sanity.
00:28:35.920 --> 00:28:44.429
Most people don't end up playing with it, but, uh, yeah, you s you have your might, uh, which is going to be all physical brawn related tasks, or constitution.
00:28:44.429 --> 00:28:51.839
Basically, they take the traditional stats that you would see in a TTRPG, and they condense them down to these three stats.
00:28:51.888 --> 00:28:53.699
Might, speed, and intellect.
00:28:54.038 --> 00:29:00.818
Your, like I said, your might is going to be anything that's brawn related, uh, or constitution related, so resisting a poison.
00:29:01.099 --> 00:29:05.349
Speed is going to be, uh, you know, dodging out of the way, or running fast.
00:29:05.398 --> 00:29:12.319
And then your intellect is going to be thinking your way out of things, or defending against some kind of, like, mental attack, such as being afraid.
00:29:12.535 --> 00:29:21.444
The different pools for Might, Speed, and Intellect are also your HP, and while they're also your HP, they are your resource to spend.
00:29:21.513 --> 00:29:38.724
I've heard a lot of people in the past say something along the lines of, man, what if we had a homebrew rule in Dungeons & Dragons where I ran out of spell slots and I can instead spend some of my HP to have a spell slot?
00:29:39.045 --> 00:29:41.634
And it's just built in to Cypher.
00:29:42.805 --> 00:29:48.625
Your pools are your HP, but they are also your, your resource to spend.
00:29:48.654 --> 00:29:56.694
And so if you, most of your special abilities are going to have a cost of between one and nine points of your pool, depending on what tier you are.
00:29:56.734 --> 00:30:00.914
And so you spend those out of, out of, you know, your intellect and speed and might.
00:30:00.974 --> 00:30:03.494
And to make tasks easier, effort costs.
00:30:03.730 --> 00:30:07.390
three points for the first one, two points for every, uh, one after.
00:30:07.420 --> 00:30:10.130
And then you have ways to reduce those as well.
00:30:10.170 --> 00:30:17.279
I won't get too much into them, but they're called edge and basically edge and efforts, each point of them can be used once per turn.
00:30:17.299 --> 00:30:20.059
So it's not that your effort or edge goes away.
00:30:20.069 --> 00:30:22.720
It's just that you can only use it once per action.
00:30:23.035 --> 00:30:27.265
You can be cautious and not spend everything all at once.
00:30:27.595 --> 00:30:28.515
I don't play that way.
00:30:29.174 --> 00:30:35.884
I will spend every point that I can if I have to, and if it kills me, that's fine.
00:30:35.894 --> 00:30:44.505
Because narratively, it is fun, and it makes sense to, uh, you know, in this situation, especially in Old Gods of Appalachia.
00:30:44.724 --> 00:30:52.545
Where you're in a party of two to five people, most likely, that you're pretty closely involved with these people.
00:30:52.565 --> 00:31:01.904
And so that self sacrificial, like, you guys run, I've got this, I will hold them back, is fully supported in Cypher's system.
00:31:01.934 --> 00:31:02.484
And I love that.
00:31:02.750 --> 00:31:29.000
A lot of times when people are playing games that exist in, not necessarily a contemporary world, but a modern world looking, for example, at 19th century, like Call of Cthulhu or Old Gods, which takes place in a previous setting, but we're not necessarily in a high fantasy world where everybody's an elf, And I think a lot of times, those systems will have kind of a normal guy option.
00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:38.200
They're just, just some guy, which personally, I am a huge fan of the normal, the normal guy trope, surrounded by weird magics and everything like that.
00:31:38.210 --> 00:31:41.980
You've made that choice here to play that archetype.
00:31:41.990 --> 00:31:43.740
Is that something that you often do?
00:31:44.009 --> 00:31:44.650
You know,
00:31:45.240 --> 00:31:47.650
I do like the normal guy.
00:31:47.700 --> 00:31:51.599
I'm not often playing spellcasters in other TTRPGs.
00:31:51.599 --> 00:31:55.204
Because if I am, it's It's typically, like, a warlock.
00:31:55.285 --> 00:32:00.295
And a warlock is basically just a normal guy who fell into magic.
00:32:00.494 --> 00:32:03.984
I'm not ever the wizard or the sorcerer, right?
00:32:04.035 --> 00:32:06.884
I usually am something like, oh, maybe I'm a rogue.
00:32:07.275 --> 00:32:16.029
So with Cypher System Uh, thinking about it, all the times that I've played Cypher System, I have yet to try an Adept, or a Speaker.
00:32:16.259 --> 00:32:19.180
Speakers, kind of like, they use word magic, right?
00:32:19.200 --> 00:32:23.660
They're very convincing, they're very charming, they're like the Bard type in Cypher.
00:32:23.980 --> 00:32:29.559
I either have played a Warrior, or I have played an Explorer.
00:32:29.809 --> 00:32:31.250
And, uh, I actually got it wrong.
00:32:31.250 --> 00:32:34.130
Protector is closer to the Explorer to Cypher System.
00:32:34.464 --> 00:32:50.964
And I would say that the Explorer is the ultimate normal guy, because they're not particularly good at anything, but they're very well rounded, and so that, that kind of gives them, like, the ability to, to kind of, like, pick up this type of skill and this type of skill.
00:32:51.190 --> 00:32:52.630
I love the normal guy trope.
00:32:52.690 --> 00:33:20.460
I'm just a guy who got in over my head and I want to do the best that I can and protect the people around me and so even though somebody might be casting spells next to me and, you know, dealing a hundred points of melee damage in a rage to my other side, I'm just there to use the skills that I have and, you know, the, the character and, uh, courage that I have uh, against all odds.
00:33:20.490 --> 00:33:25.990
Because, you know, I don't have the power fantasy that some players have.
00:33:26.259 --> 00:33:30.440
There's nothing wrong with having a power fantasy in a TTRPG.
00:33:30.720 --> 00:33:32.630
I want to make that perfectly clear.
00:33:32.700 --> 00:33:38.640
I don't pick on players who want to overly be broken using the rules.
00:33:38.970 --> 00:33:39.980
I understand.
00:33:40.130 --> 00:33:42.190
That is a way that you want to play.
00:33:42.559 --> 00:33:45.490
And that is a valid way to play the game.
00:33:45.509 --> 00:33:48.180
If it wasn't, they wouldn't allow it in the game.
00:33:48.619 --> 00:33:59.400
So I personally though, like to not be optimized and like to be mildly underpowered, uh, cause I like the challenge of will I succeed?
00:33:59.410 --> 00:34:00.069
Maybe.
00:34:00.140 --> 00:34:04.019
Uh, and if I do, it's going to be really cool.
00:34:04.039 --> 00:34:09.570
And if I don't, it's going to be tragic and it's going to really drive this story forward.
00:34:09.579 --> 00:34:11.110
That's, that's my play style.
00:34:11.750 --> 00:34:16.849
I've been talking a lot with people about the idea of failure and embracing failure.
00:34:17.110 --> 00:34:27.219
And I, I like the way that you're relating the idea of being an underpowered character or underpowered in quotes, because that means a lot of different things to different people.
00:34:27.250 --> 00:34:32.650
But, but being a character that's not necessarily optimized for the highest rate of success.
00:34:32.699 --> 00:34:40.690
And to me, I also enjoy this trope for the same reasons, because it makes it easier to embrace failure, if you're feeling rough.
00:34:41.099 --> 00:34:42.789
Yeah, absolutely.
00:34:42.840 --> 00:34:43.190
Yeah.
00:34:43.500 --> 00:34:44.510
Here's the thing, right?
00:34:44.559 --> 00:34:49.079
Like, I like to imagine when I play these games, it's like the Isekai, right?
00:34:49.119 --> 00:34:55.980
Where it's like you've, you've been pulled into this world and, you know, it's, you don't belong.
00:34:56.010 --> 00:35:04.420
But for some reason, you're the only one who can save the world, even though for some reason that makes no narrative sense that it's you.
00:35:04.630 --> 00:35:07.333
Because I think that's closer to a real life scenario.
00:35:07.385 --> 00:35:13.255
story, a real life epic of, you know, I'm just, uh, Odysseus, right?
00:35:13.324 --> 00:35:18.025
I'm just a king on this silly journey to get back home.
00:35:18.364 --> 00:35:20.804
That is, is wonderful, you know?
00:35:20.815 --> 00:35:22.724
It's, it's the Yasuke, right?
00:35:22.775 --> 00:35:38.494
The Black Samurai, where, you know, this poor man was sold into slavery in Japan and, you know, ended up becoming a cultural icon to the point to where they're putting him in an Assassin's Creed game and is one of the most famous Samurais from history.
00:35:38.554 --> 00:35:50.284
It's, it's funny because it's just like, oh, I'm just me and here I am doing something amazing because I think we all genuinely want to do something amazing in the world.
00:35:50.335 --> 00:35:53.394
We live in a world that is well, hard to live in.
00:35:53.739 --> 00:36:06.019
We see terrible things happen all the time, and it's heartbreaking, and you want to be able to do anything and everything you, you can, recognizing that, like, you know, you only have the tools which you have.
00:36:06.079 --> 00:36:25.855
Some people like to jump into that by, you know, I am Omni Man, and I am here to forcibly put everything right, to, I am maybe a sketchy guy who, you know, isn't perfectly moral all the time, but even I want to make sure the world keeps spinning, to I'm just normal.
00:36:25.885 --> 00:36:32.744
And I would love to stop the bloodshed in the world, but I can't, and I'm going to do anything I can to lessen it.
00:36:32.784 --> 00:36:34.855
It's why I play TTRPGs really.
00:36:34.925 --> 00:36:39.414
Uh, it's, it's to, to live out the things that I can't change.
00:36:39.434 --> 00:36:50.894
You know, I mentioned the autism at the beginning of the, the interview with that comes like this strong sense of justice that can just, if you let it feel overwhelming, there's just so much bad going on.
00:36:50.894 --> 00:36:59.070
Um, And TTRPGs let me live out the ability to make change in ways that I can't, even as, like, the normal guy.
00:36:59.940 --> 00:37:08.869
Would you say it's easier for you to relate to characters who don't have superpowers in stories that aren't high fantasy?
00:37:08.869 --> 00:37:12.599
Is it easier for you to get into character or to build a character in those settings?
00:37:12.960 --> 00:37:30.030
Typically, yeah, cause, I don't know, for some reason there's just, there's not a lot of draw to be insanely overpowered, and every time I've played a character that is overpowered in some way, I don't quite get into them the way that I would like to.
00:37:30.360 --> 00:37:45.019
For example, I played a paladin orc named Avery in a Descent into Avernus game, and You know, being a paladin in Avernus kind of feels like a cheat code where, you know, radiant damage, radiant damage.
00:37:45.039 --> 00:37:46.809
I get this extra all the time.
00:37:46.849 --> 00:37:48.949
And I loved that game.
00:37:48.989 --> 00:37:50.230
I didn't love my character.
00:37:50.230 --> 00:38:01.510
In fact, I tried to kill my character several times and go back to the, uh, it was funny, my game master, which was Andrew was just like, we're so close to the end, you don't need to switch out your character.
00:38:01.510 --> 00:38:04.759
I'm like, oh, but I want to.
00:38:04.760 --> 00:38:06.400
I find an easier time.
00:38:06.590 --> 00:38:13.329
getting connection when I know that one wrong session, I could lose that character.
00:38:13.380 --> 00:38:16.010
It really kind of like draws me to it.
00:38:16.070 --> 00:38:21.670
I won't get too much into it, but like from an early age, death has been a very prominent thing.
00:38:21.690 --> 00:38:40.110
Thing around me, and I don't know, I just have like a more comfortableness around the idea of my mortality than most people, and therefore, like I accept if my player is not going to make it because I see that as like, hey, this is, this is life, and life is the truest story that you can tell.
00:39:07.804 --> 00:39:08.485
This is Annabelle Thornee.
00:39:08.485 --> 00:39:09.324
Current head of Annabelle's Investigations.
00:39:10.195 --> 00:39:14.204
Paranormal Investigations company set up in Edinburgh.
00:39:15.094 --> 00:39:17.295
I'm here to tell you today that monsters are real.
00:39:17.784 --> 00:39:19.434
And have been real for centuries.
00:39:19.804 --> 00:39:21.045
Only they've been hiding.
00:39:21.684 --> 00:39:28.045
We don't understand why they're coming into the light now, but if you see anything, if you hear anything, make sure you think you're in contact with one.
00:39:28.454 --> 00:39:29.005
Tell us.
00:39:29.445 --> 00:39:29.994
We can help.
00:39:31.175 --> 00:39:32.835
I have a few agents in the field just now.
00:39:32.835 --> 00:39:38.855
Evangeline Lane Fox, Peter Anderson, Vera Bright, and for better or worse, my niece, Tabitha.
00:39:39.235 --> 00:39:41.925
Don't hesitate to tell us if you do.
00:39:42.170 --> 00:39:43.920
You might not get another chance.
00:39:44.969 --> 00:39:50.900
The Thorne Files Podcast is a Monster of the Week actual play podcast with new episodes coming out every other Friday.
00:39:51.340 --> 00:40:01.079
If you're a fan of horror, mysteries, and shenanigans, why don't you come and give us a listen at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and pretty much everywhere else you can get podcasts.
00:40:02.144 --> 00:40:03.844
Be ready to be scared.
00:40:17.335 --> 00:40:19.585
Is that something that you've done in the past?
00:40:19.585 --> 00:40:22.284
Is having a character sacrifice themselves?
00:40:22.284 --> 00:40:23.605
Having a character killed?
00:40:24.434 --> 00:40:29.175
Or switching out a character, where you've just kind of decided to move on from that character.
00:40:29.224 --> 00:40:33.144
Intentionally, I guess, or unintentionally, in the case of dying.
00:40:33.195 --> 00:40:36.144
Yeah, so, it has been a couple of times.
00:40:36.215 --> 00:40:39.264
Uh, it's actually really funny because, I don't know what it is.
00:40:39.284 --> 00:40:42.784
It does, it happens often for me in games.
00:40:42.864 --> 00:40:45.385
As a game master, even for my NPCs.
00:40:45.594 --> 00:40:47.644
For our actual play of the Eye of the Tyrant.
00:40:48.454 --> 00:40:52.344
I tried to do that with, uh, with an NPC, and they didn't let me.
00:40:52.385 --> 00:40:59.664
And it's funny because, like, it gave me that same moment of, like, No, no, no, this is my character's decision to make.
00:40:59.724 --> 00:41:01.594
Uh, you guys are getting out of here.
00:41:01.894 --> 00:41:08.625
Instead, it was more along the lines of, like, grabbing the NPC by the ear and dragging him, uh, out of the situation.
00:41:09.114 --> 00:41:19.804
I've only successfully been able to do it maybe once or twice in my entire TTRPG career because it very much relies on your compatriots, your party members.
00:41:19.864 --> 00:41:43.304
Avery basically ran into a magic circled ancient dragon, so the ancient dragon was not able to move from this very small spot and unloaded with highest levels of smites that I could just, you know, all of the, you know, extra attacks I could get in, got the ancient dragon down to like almost nothing.
00:41:43.335 --> 00:41:45.454
And then he gets wrecked.
00:41:45.574 --> 00:41:47.655
Finally, doesn't use any of his healing.
00:41:47.664 --> 00:41:50.175
Like it was very much like, this is it.
00:41:50.184 --> 00:41:51.434
This is going to happen.
00:41:51.445 --> 00:41:51.775
But.
00:41:52.030 --> 00:41:57.469
Sure enough, Andrew's wife, Emily, came in, uh, playing Squatch.
00:41:57.469 --> 00:42:08.920
And was just like, Nope! And, you know, brought me right back up because, like, even though it was like, Well, all my death saving throws are gone, cool, let me prepare this next character sheet.
00:42:08.920 --> 00:42:11.295
They were like, nope! We're not done with Avery.
00:42:12.105 --> 00:42:24.965
And so it's, it's funny cause it's at the same time defeating to have self sacrifice denied as opposed to just letting, letting it happen, which is a very interesting feeling.
00:42:24.994 --> 00:42:33.565
It's funny because it's not like at one point it is heartbreaking, but at the other point, like there's, there's also like a warmness to it, right?
00:42:33.925 --> 00:42:36.364
No, no, no, we care about your character.
00:42:36.394 --> 00:42:37.755
We like the character.
00:42:37.775 --> 00:42:40.005
We want that character to stick around.
00:42:40.045 --> 00:42:45.684
This character doesn't get to just self sacrifice and save the party and disappear.
00:42:45.795 --> 00:42:48.585
So it's a very interesting dichotomy.
00:42:49.525 --> 00:42:49.864
Yeah.
00:42:50.514 --> 00:43:05.614
I was in a campaign, a long term campaign, it was right at the end, the final battle, and one of the other players decided to do that self sacrifice to save the day, and it was actually a really beautiful moment.
00:43:05.625 --> 00:43:09.385
Like, none of us, we could have probably brought him back, found a way.
00:43:09.664 --> 00:43:18.934
And we decided as a party not to and instead he, you know, he was like, I want this character to die and for this to be the end of a story.
00:43:18.965 --> 00:43:19.304
Right.
00:43:19.364 --> 00:43:27.929
And it ended up being, you know, one of my favorite parts of the campaign is like his goodbye because we went to the underworld or something and talked to him after he died.
00:43:28.260 --> 00:43:28.530
Yeah.
00:43:28.840 --> 00:43:30.409
And had this really lovely farewell.
00:43:30.409 --> 00:43:38.659
But yeah, there have been other instances where that opportunity has been taken away from a character and from the player of that character.
00:43:38.699 --> 00:43:39.030
Yeah.
00:43:39.099 --> 00:43:49.199
I think systems like D&D make it really difficult to have that kind of narrative sacrifice or that narrative moment, because there's so many ways to avoid death.
00:43:49.550 --> 00:43:54.730
Whereas there are other systems where you're just, I'm making this narrative choice, and this is what's going to happen.
00:43:54.750 --> 00:43:55.329
Absolutely.
00:43:55.349 --> 00:43:57.789
Cypher system is very much along those lines.
00:43:57.840 --> 00:44:02.309
There are very few ways to cheat death in Cypher system.
00:44:02.329 --> 00:44:03.840
Pretty sure there's like maybe one.
00:44:04.199 --> 00:44:06.260
In Cypher system, usually dead is dead.
00:44:06.280 --> 00:44:12.260
You have a damage track, you have hale, which is healthy, which is like, you know, you have at least a couple points in each of your pools.
00:44:12.429 --> 00:44:16.170
Then you have impaired, which means that one of your stats is at zero.
00:44:16.219 --> 00:44:20.019
After that, you have debilitated, which means you have two stats that are at zero.
00:44:20.059 --> 00:44:24.599
And all you can do in a debilitated state is hobble.
00:44:24.619 --> 00:44:26.090
You don't even get your full movement.
00:44:26.099 --> 00:44:31.340
It's basically like you are, you are moving away from the action or you can stay there.
00:44:31.639 --> 00:44:37.539
And then after you hit zero in all three pools, typically that means that you are dead.
00:44:38.079 --> 00:44:45.730
In the long running campaign where I played, uh, another character named Cedric, that one, uh, I actually grew attached to as a character.
00:44:45.769 --> 00:44:53.110
You know, so I was taking things like hard to kill and all this stuff, so where it was like, I could keep going unimpaired and debilitated.
00:44:53.130 --> 00:45:01.306
And so, I liked that because it allowed me to, you know, it's like, yes, I am at zero in two of my pools.
00:45:01.306 --> 00:45:02.824
I'm still able to fight.
00:45:03.074 --> 00:45:09.724
And if I need to, I can fight until the end and nearly did a couple of times, barely, you know, skin of my teeth.
00:45:10.065 --> 00:45:23.704
Whereas with like an old gods game, if I'm playing Old Gods of Appalachia, which I'm going to play as a player in Old Gods of Appalachia at some point, uh, I, I very much want my characters to have that fragility.
00:45:23.764 --> 00:45:26.565
I don't want to be a tank.
00:45:26.625 --> 00:45:29.925
I want to be a glass cannon because it makes sense.
00:45:29.954 --> 00:45:32.699
This is, you know, 1910, right?
00:45:32.750 --> 00:45:34.889
These are big, powerful spirits.
00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:39.679
Am I necessarily going to, like, intentionally sacrifice my character?
00:45:39.750 --> 00:45:40.880
Well, it depends on the narrative.
00:45:41.090 --> 00:45:45.139
Everything, for me, like, if it makes narrative sense, then it's on the table.
00:45:45.170 --> 00:46:01.860
Because I think that is For me personally, the most important part, my role as a player, is how can I push the narrative forward in a way that is satisfying and makes sense for the other players, because even as a player, I'm still in game master mode.
00:46:03.675 --> 00:46:09.125
Talking about that, as a Game Master, do you think that you build characters differently?
00:46:09.485 --> 00:46:13.764
I definitely do, and I've actually noticed this a lot with my other players.
00:46:13.804 --> 00:46:18.994
Because, funnily enough, most of my players are long time Game Masters.
00:46:19.005 --> 00:46:22.695
Some of them are professional Game Masters who just, you know, want to play a game.
00:46:23.074 --> 00:46:29.755
Others are, you know, people who have been forever Game Masters, and that was just, you know, the role that they were assigned to.
00:46:30.034 --> 00:46:32.034
Uh, particularly my Thursday night game.
00:46:32.485 --> 00:46:38.224
They are all game masters who are very close knit now and supportive of each other.
00:46:38.264 --> 00:46:44.284
And I noticed I build my characters in a similar way to them, which is I want to fill gaps.
00:46:44.385 --> 00:46:47.025
I'm not looking to be the main character.
00:46:47.065 --> 00:46:54.065
I am looking to have a prominent role, but I don't want to be "The Guy." You know, I'm not Tom Sawyer.
00:46:54.065 --> 00:46:57.835
I'm not other fictional character in a book, right?
00:46:57.885 --> 00:46:59.655
I'm just a guy on the team.
00:46:59.795 --> 00:47:10.775
And when I build my characters, I do so in a way that allows me to support the other player characters without taking away from the other player characters.
00:47:11.155 --> 00:47:15.039
So, if there isn't a party healer, I'll probably be a cleric.
00:47:15.099 --> 00:47:20.829
I like clerics, uh, as far as like support classes go, not so much as the in the tank side of it.
00:47:20.829 --> 00:47:26.500
So if I'm gonna play a cleric, I'm gonna play a very much like, I'm here to heal you, I'm here to keep you alive cleric.
00:47:26.889 --> 00:47:36.800
I like to, like, look at the gaps in the party and so usually I won't even make my character or start making my character until I have heard everybody else talk about their characters.
00:47:36.860 --> 00:47:41.449
And then from there, I'll write my backstory and like dive in and be like, okay, cool.
00:47:41.460 --> 00:47:44.289
How can I make this work for everyone else?
00:47:44.929 --> 00:47:50.679
So this situation is a little different for Everett because you built this character outside of a game.
00:47:50.699 --> 00:47:56.570
Why did you decide to take that approach rather than waiting for an Old God's game to happen?
00:47:56.579 --> 00:48:04.519
You know, It's funny, because like, if this was Dungeons and Dragons, or any other game, I could probably just find one, right, and jump right in.
00:48:04.880 --> 00:48:12.329
But with Old Gods, it was one of those things where it's like, I want to be ready to jump into a campaign, if I have the time, and somebody asks.
00:48:12.360 --> 00:48:20.500
But more importantly, because of the historical nature of Old Gods of Appalachia, I find my family history to be very fascinating.
00:48:20.530 --> 00:48:25.420
And I was just like, you know, who would my great great grandfather be?
00:48:25.730 --> 00:48:33.579
And how would he act, or my great grandpa, or even my grandfather, because they had a lot of hardships growing up.
00:48:33.630 --> 00:48:37.909
And I very much looked at it and went, okay, cool.
00:48:37.929 --> 00:48:43.639
I still built him as mostly a support character to fill that role, right?
00:48:43.639 --> 00:48:49.349
He's a protector who defends what matters, but he is more of a martial kind of, like, support role.
00:48:49.905 --> 00:49:05.164
And I just, I don't know, I just kind of like was looking at and reading on family history and like reading about all of my, you know, my great grandfather, I was reading about some of the horrible things that the reason why my great grandparents moved to Michigan, there was a man named Dr.
00:49:05.164 --> 00:49:14.445
Plecker who was driving all around Appalachia and that area and he was sterilizing people like my great grandpa.
00:49:14.485 --> 00:49:17.135
And it was because they were mixed race.
00:49:17.184 --> 00:49:19.195
My grandpa's half black, uh, Melungeon.
00:49:19.264 --> 00:49:23.114
His father and mother were also both half black, uh, Melungeon.
00:49:23.135 --> 00:49:31.605
And, you know, there are family lines in in my family tree that ended in the early 1900s because of Dr.
00:49:31.605 --> 00:49:40.135
Plecker, where he he did a lot of things such as prevented family members of mine from being able to be enrolled in the census.
00:49:40.340 --> 00:49:43.670
Because he didn't want them to have representation.
00:49:43.960 --> 00:49:52.150
To, uh, going around and then basically be like, I'm here to do doctor stuff and, and sterilizing.
00:49:52.159 --> 00:50:11.094
And so a lot of people in, in my family and other families from Appalachia who, you know, lived in Appalachia since like mid sixteen to late sixteen hundreds, all of a sudden in the early nineteen hundreds, had to start fleeing everywhere and they came to Michigan.
00:50:11.335 --> 00:50:19.554
Everett is very much a kind of an homage to those people and kind of like a respect to that side of my family.
00:50:19.894 --> 00:50:20.815
I'm very white.
00:50:22.155 --> 00:50:26.074
Uh, you know, I may be part black, I may be part Arab.
00:50:26.449 --> 00:50:31.230
But, like, if you look at me and you hear me, you're going to just assume that I'm white.
00:50:31.260 --> 00:50:37.329
And so, like, I would never claim to be, you know, uh, something else.
00:50:37.369 --> 00:50:40.570
But I am still very proud of my grandpa, right?
00:50:40.610 --> 00:50:43.980
I'm very proud of my grandpa's family and their history.
00:50:43.980 --> 00:50:47.309
And so, Everett's a love letter to that side of my family.
00:50:47.369 --> 00:50:48.250
Very much so.
00:50:48.289 --> 00:50:50.309
And I think that's why he exists.
00:50:50.719 --> 00:50:52.289
Is Everett Melungeon?
00:50:52.480 --> 00:50:53.550
Yes, he is.
00:50:53.579 --> 00:50:58.150
And essentially, when I look at Everett, I look at my grandpa.
00:50:58.210 --> 00:51:11.318
And so like, my grandpa was very dark skinned, his hair was not the same texture as mine, but like, there was still, uh, features that, you know, you look at us and you can go, Oh, I actually see the resemblance between the two of you.
00:51:11.719 --> 00:51:14.820
Yeah, Everett is definitely very much Melungeon.
00:51:14.840 --> 00:51:19.659
I think it's a very interesting, hidden bit of history that is fascinating.
00:51:20.300 --> 00:51:30.340
You have some things in your family history that, I think if I was looking back, I would think how I wish that I could have gone back there and protected them from those things that happened.
00:51:30.469 --> 00:51:34.039
And here you are creating a character who is a protector.
00:51:34.344 --> 00:51:44.894
You know, it's, anybody who looks back at a traumatic family history, you are always feeling the effects of it, whether you realize it or not.
00:51:44.945 --> 00:51:47.764
My family came to this country poor.
00:51:48.184 --> 00:51:59.385
They were mostly Irish, Scottish, English mixed in there, and some of my ancestors were free black men who came to the United States uh, of their own volition.
00:51:59.405 --> 00:52:00.514
Some of them were not.
00:52:00.574 --> 00:52:08.914
And they all just kind of found themselves in the same area and, you know, became a community.
00:52:09.204 --> 00:52:21.405
And I look at it and I look at everyone on my mom's side of the family and I kind of just draw that correlation and that history of like, oh man.
00:52:21.574 --> 00:52:31.425
All of these, these terrible things that happened to them really is heavily felt in our income level and education level.
00:52:31.485 --> 00:52:33.514
Uh, my mom never finished seventh grade.
00:52:33.574 --> 00:52:41.514
It's, it's funny because out of the seven children my grandfather had with my grandma, only one of them came out looking like him.
00:52:41.545 --> 00:52:45.364
And he was an identical twin with the whitest brother that you can imagine.
00:52:45.394 --> 00:53:09.284
And so like my uncle Roy had to grow up as a black man in the country with a black father, a twin, identical twin brother who was not a black man, you know, I look at all of that side of the family and I've realized I'm like, Oh, okay, you know, things make sense here because you, you look at any of the wealth that the family had accumulated and then lost.
00:53:10.320 --> 00:53:15.139
Because that happened several times throughout, throughout history in the United States.
00:53:15.179 --> 00:53:17.500
And it's like, yeah, then, yep.
00:53:17.539 --> 00:53:23.730
It makes sense as to why, like, two of my seven aunts and uncles actually graduated from high school.
00:53:23.730 --> 00:53:25.340
One of them went to college.
00:53:25.349 --> 00:53:28.420
And it's just like, man, you, you really wish.
00:53:28.550 --> 00:53:31.039
You could do something about it.
00:53:31.110 --> 00:53:40.780
You know, obviously there is nothing you can do, but you wish that you could make it better and, you know, break off the familial curses that the world has laid upon you.
00:53:40.809 --> 00:53:55.349
It, it comes down to, honestly, a lot of me as a white person going, Oh, there is a structure of white supremacy in and around my life and in the system that I am living in.
00:53:55.585 --> 00:54:15.385
That the only thing I can do about is speak out against and educate about because I can see it in my own life and while I have the privilege, right, as somebody who, you know, you can look at and go, oh, yeah, you know, that white guy DJ, you know, I have that privilege that my grandfather did not and his family did not have.
00:54:15.454 --> 00:54:23.525
And so it's very much like as much as I wish I could change the past, all I can do is kind of do what I can to work towards a better future.
00:54:23.789 --> 00:54:30.429
And even then, it's so overwhelming and you still feel so small in the grand scheme of things, right?
00:54:30.460 --> 00:54:35.809
Because, you know, my my Uncle Roy, he ended up moving down to back to Kentucky.
00:54:35.909 --> 00:54:38.309
Uh, he did not have a good life, you know?
00:54:38.309 --> 00:54:41.969
And my my Grandpa Roy, he he did his best.
00:54:41.989 --> 00:54:43.210
He was an electrician.
00:54:43.335 --> 00:54:48.344
He took care of these seven children, and he, he did everything he could for them.
00:54:48.385 --> 00:54:55.585
It's a very interesting perspective that I think that most people of my skin color are not experiencing in their lives.
00:54:55.614 --> 00:54:59.925
Instead, it's more of like, I hear about these things, I see them in history.
00:54:59.954 --> 00:55:03.195
They can't really tie it back to their own current present.
00:55:03.195 --> 00:55:12.695
And for me, I just, I look at it, I go, oh wow, it's there, and I still don't understand it all, because I don't experience that side of it.
00:55:13.304 --> 00:55:15.965
To Everett, he defends what matters.
00:55:16.005 --> 00:55:17.335
What matters to Everett?
00:55:17.764 --> 00:55:19.594
Family, community, people.
00:55:19.795 --> 00:55:23.855
People are the, the main thing that matters.
00:55:23.894 --> 00:55:28.195
Money in life only matters as much as keeping you fed, right?
00:55:28.195 --> 00:55:29.965
Property does not matter.
00:55:30.304 --> 00:55:43.635
I am a socialist, very much so, and so, for me, it's, the real things that matter are going to be those people you love around you, and the community around you that, that you love.
00:55:43.675 --> 00:55:53.385
Because everything else is just so fleeting, you could be rich one day and poor the next, or poor one day and rich the next, you know, depending on how the, you know, wheels of fate land on you.
00:55:53.465 --> 00:56:00.480
But, you know, your found family, your chosen family, Sometimes, your birth family, you know, depending on your situation.
00:56:00.489 --> 00:56:04.190
Those are the things that I hold super deeply.
00:56:04.590 --> 00:56:15.980
I was talking to my wife about it when we bought the house here, that I could sit down and just watch TV with her every single day and be completely content and happy.
00:56:15.980 --> 00:56:18.110
We don't have to go anywhere.
00:56:18.159 --> 00:56:22.889
As long as we are together, that's what brings me the most joy and happiness.
00:56:22.960 --> 00:56:24.440
It's where I find my contentment.
00:56:24.630 --> 00:56:26.500
Everything else is a bonus that can happen.
00:56:26.500 --> 00:56:27.668
Heh heh heh.
00:56:27.670 --> 00:56:31.010
And, uh, my friends, I feel the same way about them.
00:56:31.190 --> 00:56:39.780
Where I could just spend every Sunday afternoon playing a game of Dungeons& Dragons or Cypher System with them.
00:56:39.829 --> 00:56:46.090
And it doesn't really matter what my financial situation is, as long as I'm eating and my bills are paid.
00:56:46.139 --> 00:56:47.389
That's what matters.
00:56:47.460 --> 00:56:48.949
To Everett and to me.
00:56:48.980 --> 00:56:57.184
Cause, I mean, Let's be honest, uh, most of my characters are probably going to be an extension of my values and what I care about the most.
00:56:57.934 --> 00:57:02.894
You said earlier that Everett has moved around a lot, that he's been followed by trouble.
00:57:03.224 --> 00:57:10.264
And that kind of rootlessness seems to me opposed to the idea of having an established family that you want to be connected to.
00:57:10.750 --> 00:57:13.630
It definitely can be, right?
00:57:13.670 --> 00:57:20.690
With Everett, there's just a darkness in his life that seems to follow him from place to place.
00:57:20.760 --> 00:57:24.659
And I think it kind of is rooted in my fear of losing people.
00:57:25.150 --> 00:57:34.610
And before getting to the point of like, recognizing my autism and my ADHD and becoming a healthy person, it was kind of a fear that I had.
00:57:34.619 --> 00:57:40.235
Where I didn't quite know how to process the idea of, of loss.
00:57:40.304 --> 00:57:42.764
I lost my little sister at a very young age.
00:57:42.775 --> 00:57:44.724
I was four years old, she was two.
00:57:45.014 --> 00:57:47.304
She was hit by a car in front of the entire family.
00:57:47.655 --> 00:57:50.925
And that obviously altered me.
00:57:51.405 --> 00:57:56.735
So I turned five a month later and started school two and a half months later.
00:57:56.925 --> 00:58:11.684
And because of that, I went from a fairly normal child, uh, apart from, you know, the autism and ADHD, who was good at socializing, to being a child who didn't want to talk to anybody.
00:58:12.070 --> 00:58:19.530
I, I was afraid of people, right, because I think it was, uh, a year later, my, my, my grandpa passed away in a car accident.
00:58:19.889 --> 00:58:26.599
And having a lot of death happen that early really affects the way that your relationships grow.
00:58:26.949 --> 00:58:31.394
And so, for, for Everett, He's lost people.
00:58:31.414 --> 00:58:33.625
You know, he's only 25 years old at this point.
00:58:33.675 --> 00:58:42.005
He's still a young man doing his best, but tragedy strikes at home and he, he has to start over.
00:58:42.045 --> 00:58:45.094
And so he goes out and he starts over.
00:58:45.155 --> 00:58:56.375
It may not be his blood family anymore, but he tries to form those connections and grow and, and rebuild that family and that community again, and then he loses it again.
00:58:56.750 --> 00:59:21.590
And so, essentially, what just keeps happening to Everett is, every time he seems to have found himself in a good place, where, you know, his family and his, his community has begun to thrive, tragedy strikes, and he doesn't know how to pick up the pieces from that, and so he moves on to the next place, and starts over.
00:59:21.920 --> 00:59:41.449
I would say, yeah, that definitely is inspired by my own feelings of, of love and loss where, you know, I, I've lost a lot of people along the way, but I am in a spot now where, you know, I, I, I have a family and community again, it's hard, right?
00:59:41.449 --> 00:59:42.809
It's hard to lose people.
00:59:42.829 --> 00:59:45.650
You know, my little sister was my absolute best friend in the world.
00:59:46.155 --> 00:59:52.775
Even if you, you know, uproot yourself and move on, those connections are still present.
00:59:53.054 --> 00:59:54.824
They're very much still a part of you.
00:59:54.855 --> 00:59:56.605
That love doesn't go away.
00:59:57.224 --> 01:00:05.114
You know, even though Everett has picked up and moved on, right, and I've picked up and moved on, I'm still very much affected by those people.
01:00:05.144 --> 01:00:07.605
Everett is still very much affected by those people.
01:00:07.655 --> 01:00:10.954
It's not abandoning them, it's not running from them.
01:00:10.985 --> 01:00:16.014
It's more so realizing that maybe it is easier to heal for some people.
01:00:16.335 --> 01:00:21.355
By starting over, or having a new chance to, to try again.
01:00:22.014 --> 01:00:25.284
How detailed have you gotten into Everett's backstory?
01:00:25.284 --> 01:00:30.594
For example, do you have these specific instances of loss already planned out?
01:00:30.644 --> 01:00:33.335
Or is it more of a general idea?
01:00:33.844 --> 01:00:44.664
The first instance of loss is the thing that Everett has, and so for Everett, the town in which he was born and raised, it was a coal mine fire, you know?
01:00:44.664 --> 01:00:49.594
It, uh, spread to the town, and he lost everything, and everyone.
01:00:50.085 --> 01:01:11.074
As far as the subsequent tragedies, you know, it could be something as small as, like, you know, he lost somebody, you know, one person, and when you don't know how to deal with loss, and you kind of, like, run into that situation of, I lost everything before, and then you run into another situation of heartbreak.
01:01:11.440 --> 01:01:14.429
Sometimes you, you just want to move on and try again.
01:01:14.900 --> 01:01:28.179
It's, it's one of those situations where it's like, uh, you know, I personally ran through, you know, some, some instances where I lost people and then I would move on and try not to become close to people.
01:01:28.585 --> 01:01:39.684
But that never works, you always inevitably become close to someone else, and then if you lose them again, or you lose that person, it just becomes a scar layer, right?
01:01:39.695 --> 01:01:47.885
It becomes a bit of trauma over the heart, where eventually that scar tissue seems to be the entire thing.
01:01:48.215 --> 01:01:59.344
And it takes a lot of work and a lot less running to process that and to heal from that and to, uh, be able to open up fully.
01:01:59.414 --> 01:02:04.594
And the happy ending to that story is like, I did it, right?
01:02:04.664 --> 01:02:08.744
I processed, I got healthier, I learned.
01:02:08.795 --> 01:02:11.724
And I think Everett is still in that process.
01:02:12.114 --> 01:02:18.385
Because I put him at the age of 25, because I hadn't quite gotten there yet, at 25.
01:02:19.164 --> 01:02:23.105
I was around 27, 28 years old, uh, when I met my wife.
01:02:23.155 --> 01:02:27.574
And thank goodness, uh, I had healed by then.
01:02:27.594 --> 01:02:36.094
Cause Like, I, uh, it's terrifying to think of what would have happened if I met my wife and I hadn't.
01:02:36.144 --> 01:02:38.724
I was learning slowly about myself.
01:02:38.724 --> 01:02:43.514
And I think Everett is learning slowly about himself with each of these tragic events.
01:02:43.554 --> 01:02:46.664
Nothing supernatural has happened to him yet.
01:02:46.715 --> 01:02:53.144
It's wherever he finds himself in that campaign and, you know, being a bit closed off, but not too closed off.
01:02:53.184 --> 01:02:57.155
Cause I think that's a terrible trope where you just refuse to interact.
01:02:57.445 --> 01:03:02.400
Yeah, you know, instead being a little standoffish while being friendly.
01:03:02.429 --> 01:03:11.900
I think that's the part that a lot of people get wrong when they try to play a character like that is they are completely closed off and confrontational.
01:03:11.929 --> 01:03:16.610
Whereas I don't think hurt people really often act like that.
01:03:16.610 --> 01:03:24.750
It's more so in here, right in their heart, where they have put up the wall, that, Hey, I don't want you to get too close.
01:03:24.809 --> 01:03:29.829
That doesn't mean I don't care about you, and that I don't want to care, that I don't want to protect you.
01:03:30.090 --> 01:03:35.090
It's more so, I don't know how I'm going to react if you're not there anymore.
01:03:35.735 --> 01:03:52.664
It's a learning process, it's a grieving process, it is, it's all of these things where eventually you become whole, you become better, and you're able to look at someone and realize, oh, I do care, and that's important.
01:03:54.474 --> 01:03:55.394
Very much so.
01:03:55.485 --> 01:04:02.155
I'd say that's kind of my motivation on it, is going through that journey again, reaffirming that journey again.
01:04:02.440 --> 01:04:08.030
By going through that trauma again and learning to get past it again.
01:04:09.000 --> 01:04:09.340
Yeah.
01:04:10.719 --> 01:04:20.420
So you mentioned that Everett very much shares your values and, you know, we've talked a lot about protecting people you love going through that personal trauma and coming out the other side.
01:04:20.869 --> 01:04:26.190
Are there values that Everett shares with you in terms of maybe political values or morals?
01:04:26.250 --> 01:04:27.369
Oh, absolutely.
01:04:27.380 --> 01:04:31.460
So, uh, Everett is a union man through and through.
01:04:31.730 --> 01:04:42.445
You know, I grew up in a very union family, you know, my dad is a UAW, you know, a former Ford worker, and, uh, I'm a very strong believer in social organizing.
01:04:42.505 --> 01:04:47.704
And because of that, most of my characters are, and most of my campaigns are.
01:04:49.005 --> 01:04:57.164
It's one of those things where, uh, you know, I, when I first bought the Old Gods of Appalachia book, I was like, all right, so let's look at actual history.
01:04:57.925 --> 01:05:03.545
There's something very influential to me that I really, uh, enjoy in history.
01:05:03.565 --> 01:05:07.474
Not so much the awfulness of it, but it is the Battle of Blair Mountain.
01:05:08.045 --> 01:05:16.175
The Battle of Blair Mountain in West Virginia was one of the fundamental things to really kind of kick off labor rights in the United States.
01:05:16.215 --> 01:05:30.914
It was a bloodbath, where coal miners decided to take up arms and actually, like, just full on protest, and the companies basically used the police and all of that to massacre them.
01:05:31.474 --> 01:05:40.804
It's a horrible point in history, but it is one that has influenced, uh, you know, labor talks in the world that we live in today.
01:05:41.170 --> 01:05:49.340
So, the Old Gods of Appalachia game that is on the shelf for when I decide to run it takes place in and around the area of Blair Mountain.
01:05:49.829 --> 01:05:54.239
So, Everett, very union forward, very social forward, right?
01:05:54.250 --> 01:06:00.510
To be fair, back in 1910, nobody was really talking about socialism versus capitalism, right?
01:06:00.550 --> 01:06:02.190
We were just living our lives.
01:06:02.755 --> 01:06:04.244
Well, maybe not in the United States.
01:06:05.695 --> 01:06:06.585
Not in the United States.
01:06:06.585 --> 01:06:07.014
No, that's true.
01:06:07.014 --> 01:06:07.385
That's true.
01:06:07.434 --> 01:06:13.965
And the United States was moving towards that more social aspect in general.
01:06:14.284 --> 01:06:16.074
We came very close.
01:06:16.324 --> 01:06:17.224
We were doing great.
01:06:17.264 --> 01:06:18.735
And then World War II happened.
01:06:18.775 --> 01:06:25.795
And then, you know, we didn't continue our alliance with the Soviet Union because we saw another empire.
01:06:25.875 --> 01:06:27.994
There's only room for one empire.
01:06:28.255 --> 01:06:32.155
And, uh, basically, you know, the Red Scare and all that started.
01:06:32.420 --> 01:06:52.750
But, you gotta think, in Appalachia, during these labor movements, the conversation of equal pay for work and having more equity in the company and abolishing company stores and company towns and seizing the means of production was a very real conversation that was happening.
01:06:53.045 --> 01:07:00.105
And it was really the center for labor right movements in the United States.
01:07:00.155 --> 01:07:02.494
So Everett's very much along those lines.
01:07:02.534 --> 01:07:08.184
And I have only played one character ever that was kind of more of the opposite of me.
01:07:08.235 --> 01:07:09.204
And it was the worst.
01:07:09.215 --> 01:07:24.635
Uh, it was a fun character, but like at the same time to be a character that's just like money, money, money all the time did not sit right with me in any way, and so it's hard for me to not play a character who is, you know, labor conscious and socially conscious, uh, in that way.
01:07:24.695 --> 01:07:26.514
So I would say, yeah, absolutely.
01:07:26.514 --> 01:07:32.105
Everett 100 percent shares a lot of those more political values that I have.
01:07:34.014 --> 01:07:47.204
I will say that when I played Old Gods, like the only time I've ever played it, I also love the labor history of Appalachia, the coal mining, you know, I'm a big fan of movies like Matewan, for example.
01:07:47.235 --> 01:07:50.324
So when I made a character in Old Gods, I made a union organizer.
01:07:51.875 --> 01:07:52.775
I have to do this.
01:07:52.784 --> 01:07:53.695
It's great.
01:07:53.724 --> 01:07:54.215
Yeah.
01:07:54.284 --> 01:07:57.864
And I love that it's so easy to make a character like that in Old Gods.
01:07:57.925 --> 01:08:17.265
At my previous job, the one that I got fired for, fired at, not for, but people kind of called me like a one man union because I would have these one on one talks with my supervisor, with my boss and with the president where, you know, they would pull us every now and then they'd be like, all right, let's have a chit chat, let's talk.
01:08:17.295 --> 01:08:23.885
And it was never me talking about me, other than me wanting to work earlier in the day and go home earlier.
01:08:24.185 --> 01:08:29.125
It was always like, listen, I make more money than some of my co workers doing the same job.
01:08:29.284 --> 01:08:30.234
I don't like that.
01:08:30.284 --> 01:08:39.494
And just because, you know, this person's 19 and this person's 21, you know, Just because in your mind they're children, right?
01:08:39.555 --> 01:08:41.095
They're not children, they're just not.
01:08:41.135 --> 01:08:50.965
And I, I would very much spend my hour, sometimes every week, begging to, you know, hey, 14 an hour is not enough for what we're doing.
01:08:51.215 --> 01:09:01.505
And so like, it was just me, very much just every week, like, no no no, hey listen, like, I don't think you realize, they're not telling you the things that they want to tell you in their one on one meetings with you.
01:09:01.885 --> 01:09:05.975
They're not telling you about the financial anxiety, they're telling me about the financial anxiety.
01:09:06.300 --> 01:09:07.640
And it worked.
01:09:07.689 --> 01:09:11.319
All of them were making around 17 an hour by the time I was fired.
01:09:11.659 --> 01:09:13.310
I wasn't fired for helping them.
01:09:13.369 --> 01:09:15.359
I was fired because I had a meltdown.
01:09:16.800 --> 01:09:19.649
But, you know, I'm proud of that, because they deserved it, right?
01:09:19.770 --> 01:09:23.420
And I wanted to see them thriving, and now they're thriving.
01:09:23.824 --> 01:09:27.784
And now people who get hired in in that position start out thriving.
01:09:27.875 --> 01:09:30.664
I just, I think that's super, super important.
01:09:30.704 --> 01:09:39.335
Not only to keep your employees happy and, you know, fed, but to make them genuinely want to be there, right?
01:09:39.375 --> 01:09:49.204
You treat your employees correctly, you give them the benefits they need, you pay them fully, and you're not overloading them, then you're doing something right.
01:09:50.755 --> 01:09:59.835
But if you're like, well, you know, I don't know if there's room in the budget for that, and we need you to go above and beyond, you're just exhausting people and causing turnover.
01:09:59.875 --> 01:10:08.015
So my whole thing is I will advocate for anyone and everyone that I can to make sure their lives are better, because I'm not super worried about my own.
01:10:08.064 --> 01:10:08.685
I'm happy.
01:10:09.965 --> 01:10:33.925
To me, I think one of the benefits of organizing a union or organizing your workplace in that kind of way is that feeling you can have of having agency over your work, which is such an important part of most of our lives is, is having that kind of control, and non unitized workplaces often feeling like you don't have any say in what happens at the company.
01:10:33.925 --> 01:10:43.585
And so I think besides obviously the financial benefits or the benefits on your benefits, there is that benefit of feeling that kind of pride in coming together.
01:10:43.954 --> 01:10:49.895
Coming back to TTRPGs with TTRPGs is that we have agency to change the story.
01:10:50.170 --> 01:10:58.729
We have agency within our stories, and I think especially in a game like Cypher System, the players have some agency with player intrusions, for example.
01:10:58.739 --> 01:11:00.279
Do you find that connection?
01:11:00.449 --> 01:11:01.260
Absolutely.
01:11:01.289 --> 01:11:11.890
Whether it's in our jobs, or in our personal lives, or in our entertainment with TTRPGs, we want to feel like our choices matter.
01:11:11.920 --> 01:11:14.590
We want to feel like that we own a bit of it.
01:11:14.899 --> 01:11:17.770
And, with Cypher System, you do.
01:11:18.079 --> 01:11:19.890
You are telling the story, right?
01:11:19.890 --> 01:11:21.520
You have player intrusions.
01:11:21.560 --> 01:11:26.020
You get to influence the direction in which things are going, right?
01:11:26.229 --> 01:11:28.850
You are essentially a co game master.
01:11:29.210 --> 01:11:31.380
Everybody wants to love their job, right?
01:11:31.420 --> 01:11:37.260
And it's not something that we often get to have in our lives, is to love the work that we're doing.
01:11:37.670 --> 01:11:51.710
Often we start off loving, uh, when we, when we get into it, and then it falls apart because all of a sudden we are going as far above and beyond as we possibly can, and we're just fight, fight, fight, fight, fight.
01:11:51.949 --> 01:12:08.619
And this is probably an autism thing, but crash, just an absolute crash, and you just don't care anymore because you didn't get that promotion, you didn't get that pay raise, nothing has improved for you, you've just made things harder by working harder.
01:12:09.060 --> 01:12:25.020
And, I think the escape in TTRPGs, where it's like, I made a decision and it affected the entire world, is very cathartic for a lot of us, because we want more control in our day to day lives.
01:12:25.020 --> 01:12:27.770
We don't want to control every aspect of our lives.
01:12:27.810 --> 01:12:28.489
Nobody does.
01:12:28.850 --> 01:12:30.010
Um, well, that's not true.
01:12:30.159 --> 01:12:32.829
I shouldn't say nobody, because there are those people out there.
01:12:33.159 --> 01:12:36.300
But, we don't want to control every aspect of our lives.
01:12:36.359 --> 01:12:41.210
We just want to make a difference, and we want to be happy doing it.
01:12:41.460 --> 01:12:47.029
TTRPGs lets me have that feeling every time I play, whether I'm a game master or I'm a player.
01:12:47.060 --> 01:12:59.470
And I think it's interesting because if you look at players of TTRPGs and game masters of TTRPGs, you find a lot of common ground as far as like some of the personal values we all hold.
01:12:59.795 --> 01:13:08.164
You know, it's 100 percent a bit of a spectrum, but, like, we can find that common ground a lot easier than I think a lot of other hobbies can.
01:13:08.534 --> 01:13:27.854
And I find that the more you play TTRPGs, the more your values start to kinda change and shift a bit, because you are in this community setting where you're working together, not as an individual, but as a group, accomplishing a task together as equals.
01:13:27.869 --> 01:13:32.609
And in those situations, we truly, as people, I think excel.
01:13:54.819 --> 01:13:58.244
Everett, where did you grow up and how did that affect who you became?
01:13:59.095 --> 01:14:03.664
I grew up in a town just east of Salyersville, Kentucky.
01:14:03.954 --> 01:14:08.574
Uh, my father was a farmhand and, uh, worked himself to the bone.
01:14:09.274 --> 01:14:14.484
Unfortunately, he grew ornery in his old age, wasn't able to, uh, well, provide anymore.
01:14:14.795 --> 01:14:20.744
That's when I took on the responsibility as the man of the house to, well, start my life in the mines.
01:14:21.189 --> 01:14:22.319
Hard work affects you.
01:14:22.829 --> 01:14:27.180
Uh, you wake up early, work all day in the mines, you come home.
01:14:27.329 --> 01:14:32.250
You don't have a lot of personal time, uh, but you cherish every bit of personal time that you have.
01:14:32.289 --> 01:14:40.814
And, uh, well, it's, uh, hard work doesn't really do much good for anybody physically, but When you can stay fed, that's what matters.
01:14:41.154 --> 01:14:46.805
DJ, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and for sharing Everett with me and my listeners.
01:14:46.845 --> 01:14:49.135
Very happy to have finally done this.
01:14:49.585 --> 01:14:51.645
I know we've been putting it off for a little while.
01:14:51.685 --> 01:14:56.645
Life's just been hectic, but finally in a good spot to you do things, so
01:14:56.765 --> 01:14:57.744
I'm glad to hear that.
01:14:57.895 --> 01:14:58.734
I had a blast.
01:14:59.795 --> 01:15:01.284
Sorry to talk your ear off.
01:15:03.345 --> 01:15:06.335
You know, that's what you're here for is to talk my ears off.
01:15:07.994 --> 01:15:09.055
I'm just here to listen.
01:15:09.810 --> 01:15:12.140
What would you like to share with my listeners?
01:15:12.380 --> 01:15:14.399
Yeah, check out One Shot's Tavern.
01:15:14.449 --> 01:15:19.970
Uh, we talk about different TTRPGs, um, we kind of just really talk about anything TTRPGs now.
01:15:19.979 --> 01:15:22.149
We, we just have fun with it and it's great.
01:15:22.170 --> 01:15:29.869
We also have an actual play called The Eye of the Tyrant, uh, that is going to be coming to kind of like a season finale with a soft reboot soon.
01:15:29.899 --> 01:15:33.039
Probably by the time this, uh, episode has aired, most likely.
01:15:33.145 --> 01:15:36.875
We are going to be looking into doing more actual plays.
01:15:36.904 --> 01:15:41.645
I have Pink Security and More coming out, which is my TTRPG setting.
01:15:41.694 --> 01:15:47.215
Kind of geared towards Cypher system, but really any system that handles modern play can handle it.
01:15:47.324 --> 01:15:49.545
Uh, it is a post post apocalyptic setting.
01:15:49.574 --> 01:15:52.494
Uh, I like to call it, uh, Junk Punk or Hope Punk.
01:15:52.524 --> 01:15:58.454
Which basically just means that the world fell apart, and people had to pick up the pieces, and that's what they're doing.
01:15:58.835 --> 01:16:01.104
Uh, you can find that on Backerkit.
01:16:01.164 --> 01:16:02.604
It's currently up for pre order.
01:16:02.774 --> 01:16:09.345
If you're interested in joining an actual play, we are going to be doing auditions at some point for our next one.
01:16:09.354 --> 01:16:15.765
We aren't planning on doing that beginning, like, filming and releasing until the end of, around the end of the year of 2023.
01:16:16.199 --> 01:16:16.689
2024?
01:16:16.750 --> 01:16:17.510
No, what year is it?
01:16:17.529 --> 01:16:18.239
2024?
01:16:18.319 --> 01:16:19.069
2024.
01:16:19.109 --> 01:16:28.189
But yeah, if you're interested and you have some actual play experience, uh, and you want to record some, uh, short format TTRPG stories, I'd love to have you.
01:16:28.659 --> 01:16:29.369
Oneshotstavern.
01:16:29.390 --> 01:16:29.689
com.
01:16:29.689 --> 01:16:31.180
You can find out all that information.
01:16:32.680 --> 01:16:38.710
For my recommendation this episode, I'd like to introduce you to a podcast called Hammer of the Gods.
01:16:39.125 --> 01:16:47.444
Hammer of the Gods started out as a D&D actual play, but they've since played all kinds of games, from Werewolf, to Masks, to Eat the Reich.
01:16:47.795 --> 01:16:52.274
You may have heard of them when I promoted their charity stream for the Trans Empowerment Project.
01:16:53.914 --> 01:16:58.265
One of the things that any creator wants to know is what people think of their work.
01:16:58.715 --> 01:17:02.164
For podcasters, it can be especially difficult to get feedback.
01:17:02.765 --> 01:17:06.734
Did you know that you can now leave comments on individual episodes on Spotify?
01:17:07.185 --> 01:17:11.914
If you're listening there, I encourage you to leave a comment and let me know what you think about an episode.
01:17:12.685 --> 01:17:17.395
You may have also noticed a link in my show notes that says, send us a text message.
01:17:17.784 --> 01:17:23.770
If you have a question you'd like me to answer on a future episode, or just want to leave a comment, send me a message.
01:17:24.270 --> 01:17:25.390
I started a newsletter.
01:17:25.920 --> 01:17:38.439
If you'd like to get a behind the scenes peek at the podcast, follow my other projects like my current all woman actual play, and be notified when a new episode drops, you can find the signup form in the show notes or on my website.
01:17:39.090 --> 01:17:41.350
Please share the podcast with a friend.
01:17:41.939 --> 01:17:44.939
Word of mouth is the best way to find new listeners.
01:17:45.210 --> 01:17:47.890
Your recommendations help me immensely.
01:17:48.340 --> 01:17:50.819
Thank you to all my listeners spreading the word.
01:17:51.149 --> 01:17:52.090
I'm so grateful.
01:17:52.989 --> 01:17:59.819
You can find me on TikTok at StarMamaC or on Threads, Blue Sky, Instagram, and Facebook as Characters Without Stories.
01:18:00.140 --> 01:18:03.069
You can also listen on YouTube at Characters Without Stories.
01:18:03.449 --> 01:18:05.140
Or follow the link in the description.
01:18:05.909 --> 01:18:08.029
My submissions are currently full.
01:18:08.689 --> 01:18:13.270
I'll announce on the podcast when I'll be accepting more submissions, so keep your ears open.
01:18:14.060 --> 01:18:17.670
Thanks for listening, and may all your characters find their stories.
he/him
DJ is an AuDHD Game Master for Hire and Co-Host of One Shot’s Tavern, a TTRPG podcast focused on learning about all of the tools and mechanics that TTRPGs across the spectrum offer in order to become better story tellers, game masters, and game designers.
