Hearthside Chats - Part 2: NaddPod Survivor Edition
The fire's still raging! Join the 2 Crew as they answer even more questions about character theme songs, DM Prep and of course, which NaddPod PC would win at Survivor. Thanks to everyone who submitted!
Sound Mixing and Editing by Trevor Lyon
Comments (147)
Cannot stop thinking about how “oops all clerics” would absolutely wipe the floor with basically any other format. You could take knowledge, life, light, and tempest clerics into any encounter and end it basically instantly
Amazing survivor question! Thank you!!
skaldova crew gives major 4H kids vibe to me
It’s called Storm Front. It rules. The audiobook Emily is talking about is also narrated by Spike from Buffy, he does the whole series I believe (which is still ongoing, so even though it was first published in 2000, I don’t know if it counts as “older” considering it never stopped running. Also yes they made a show, starring the cop dad from Arrow, and no, Caldwell, it doesn’t count Lies of Locke Lamora is also an excellent recommendation. Great book chat
Oops! All Clerics, but it's M*A*S*H
Diana Wynne Jones for the win!!!! I loved her stuff as a kid. I need to revisit.
Caldwell's "He would crash into you" DMB joke didn't get enough love. 😂
Has Emily ever read The Secret History? I’m halfway through the audiobook (read by the author, which is neat)
Has Emily ever mentioned reading Tamora Pierce? If she's liking the vintage fantasy it would be so up her alley. Also if she's liking audio books, highly recommend the sabriel books read by Tim Curry 🖤
Emily’s listening/reading to Dresden! Oh you’re going to have so much fun with the books. It’s so popcorn entertainment with a ton of magic and really memorable characters. If Emily gets to the fourth book, Summer Knight, I hope we hear her mention The Dresden Files again because that book made my jaw drop from how insanely cinematic it got.
Have you guys listned to Sherlock and co podcast? Its basically an audio book and its very fun! I recommend!
Yo love Naddpod and love Dresden!
Still waiting for the Muppet cast of each campaign, including the one human. (Not my question originally, but I saw it on the call for questions post and now I'm invested)
Omg Dresden files is one of the best series ever. I am kind of jealus of emily reading it for the first time. first one is good and they only get better over time. It also has the 2 most well written Paladin characters i have ever read.
Omg Chronicles of Chrestomancy mention!!!!
"nailed it with flying colours" interesting, Caldwell it's been a month since i first wrote this comment and i still think about this baffling mixed metaphor
Ok but what about a celebrity you genuinely want to fight? Like some politicians I’d like to fight and i think i could win.
They did do a Dresden files show, it lasted like 3 seasons on sci-fi. You can find it on prime!
Guys! Band of Boobs DID have a podcast! It's called Baggin' It With Balnor (sometimes In The Bag With Balnor) and i've listened to every episode 20 times!
This episode is brought to you by Google Docs….kaching
Wellie would be destroyed by Parvati
dresden files are funny. book 1 is eh, quite nice, books 2 and 3 abysmal dogshit, and then it progressively gets better better better skin game is where it peaks and then books are and output of a person that u can sum up with "yes honey, dont worry, dad is taking the divorce well" nice bird, asshole
MAINE CABIN MASTERS!
I've heard the Dresden files recommended so many times, but 3 things hold me back. 1) the fanbase is intimidating 2) the series is so, so long and 3) some people say it doesn't get good until like...book 5ish? and reading 4 books that are not great in order to get to a maybe good book is commitment! But if Emily started with book one and liked it, maybe it's worth a shot Diana Wynne Jones is classic. I remember liking the gentlemen bastards but I fell off after the second book I don't remember why.
For what it's worth, I liked book one when I read it and, while the series gets better as it goes on, the early books are still enjoyable. Jim Butcher sometimes writes women in a way I don't enjoy, but you might not feel the same way.
Dresden Files are fantastic. Perfect mix of noir detective with fantasy, without taking itself too seriously
Speaking of podcasts, “In the bag with Balnor” was one of the funniest things y’all have ever done! ❤️
We NEED a Survivor episode of NADDPOD characters I beg of thee!!!!!
for organization I really like the program Obsidian. you can create different "vaults" for separate adventures or w/e and make different sections in each. if you tag entries in your vault such as #assassinplot it will create a web conspiracy board connecting every entry with that tag
I love the Dresden files and especially the first 10 or so books I highly recommend doing the audio book in addition to reading because James Marsters really captures the character
"Boomer who's surprisingly good at challenges" is an archetype that's had a lot of success on Survivor so I'm betting on Balnor. Also Hot Boy Survivor would be an incredible mini campaign 👀
I’m so hyped for Emily to get into the Dresden files. Such a good book series and they keep getting better.
To Emily’s point about escapism in fantasy, a wonderful quote from Ursula K. Le Guin- There is an area where SF has most often failed to judge itself, and where it has been most harshly judged by its nonpartisans. It is an area where we badly need intelligent criticism and discussion. The oldest argument against SF is both the shallowest and the profoundest: the assertion that SF, like all fantasy, is escapist. This statement is shallow when made by the shallow. When an insurance broker tells you that SF doesn’t deal with the Real World, when a chemistry freshman informs you that Science has disproved Myth, when a censor suppresses a book because it doesn’t fit the canons of Socialist Realism, and so forth, that’s not criticism; it’s bigotry. If it’s worth answering, the best answer is given by Tolkien, author, critic, and scholar. Yes, he said, fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don’t we consider it his duty to escape? The moneylenders, the knownothings, the authoritarians have us all in prison; if we value the freedom of the mind and soul, if we’re partisans of liberty, then it’s our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can.
Lmao I imagine the Vantasmo pocast like Car Talk but for crime
The second the A-list celebrity question finished with “ends in a fistfight” I immediately thought of who I would personally want to throw hangs with: - Gal Gadot - Sydney Sweeney - Jeff Bezos - Musk
Crazy to think that no one came up with "oops all artificers" and then those can be the shop kids 🤣😂🤣😂
I would LOVE a naddpod PCs battle royal or bracket tournament
Fist fight with Adam Sandler on the pickup basketball court feels just funny enough that it’ll get memed without anyone actually caring who you are or why the fight happened
having a personal favorite of something doesn't inherently disparage anything else lol what a weird take
I love the Dresden files. Been listening to the latest book in the series. They did make a show but only 1 season and it was ok. Lots of changes from the book. Narrated by James Marsters. And there's a short story or two about working for Bigfoot .
I say this with all love, “mare-io” - Brian Murphy, 2026
HEYOOOO EVERYONE I just subbed to you guys after finishing all of the campaigns on Spotify. BUT for books I think you guys would love the red rising series (especially Murph) and for dmming I love using this note taking app called “obsidian” it lets you organize everything really easily and allows you to have all of you’re lore documents and characters connected as well as color coded. It even has web graph so you can see exactly how Everything is connected
Well now they have to watch the Dresden Files as a mixed bag!
Warbirds is a cool little airplane pilot RPG that has a Fame mechanic for the pilot groups Might be something to draw from for a Starfox series
Mavid is one of my favorites of all time
No brainer. Will Smith. I would have his wife’s name in my motherfucking mouth. Become friends with Chris Rock. I get in with the Sandler crowd because I live where he grew up in New Hampshire. The book writes itself.
I'm relistening to Hot Boy Summer and I demand that we collectively go back to calling them the Bon Freres. It's such a great name!
For organization, I have to give a hearty and emphatic plug to Scrivener. I got it for writing my dissertation, but i quickly realized that the way it's structured is super convenient for DMing. I have a bunch of sub-documents within the main one so it's really easy to navigate. I make a sub folder for lore, character backstories, world events, future plans, stuff like that. I make a folder for each session, and within the session folder, I have sub-documents for combat, story, NPCs, stat blocks, etc. It's so much easier to click around between sub documents that are all part of the same project than it is to click around between a bunch of different Word documents, or search within a single Word document. A more experienced DM could probably be fine with fewer documents and organizational things, but I'm still pretty new, so it helps me. Only thing is that Scrivener costs a one-time payment like $50 or $60 (i forget), so you have to consider if it's worth that. But I love it! I'm going to keep using it for DMing, story writing, future academic research and writing, songwriting and organizing lyrics, lesson plans and activity ideas for the classes I teach, all kinds of stuff.
FUCK YES LIES OF LOCKE LAMORA My partner gently pushed this book on me for a while bc she knows I love heists, clever cons, as well as books where the world is rich in mystery and glaring unanswered questions about its nature that never once become part of the plot, and instead are just realistically the backdrop upon which the story occurs. Plus, our protagonist is a CRIME PRIEST of a forbidden god of thieving. It’s just so fucking good. It blew me away that it came out over 20 years ago and I’d never stumbled across it. And here’s the thing, bc the author took his time setting the story up in book one, I had to spend some time getting going with it, but the payoff was so delicious, but not nearly as good as realizing when I started book 2 that my partner ACTUALLY wanted me to read the first book so I could get to the god damned opus of plate spinning chaos that also fed me everything I could ever want in one fantasy book. I won’t say why, but I promise you dear friends, it is a fucking treasure. I’m reading book 3 now and it pays off a mystery woven through the first two books in equally wild fashion, and manages to give you two stories of con and danger simultaneously, while somehow managing to throw the briefest nod to “as you like it” (which honestly I had to smirk at, because at this point it felt like the author was just showing off). The most interesting part? The author had to take over a decade off after book 3 for health, life, covid, and more. He got whammied HARD. And unlike some authors who shall remain unnamed, he is actually going to deliver book 4 soon, and maintains a regular transparent update dialogue with his fans, who as you can probably guess from the novel I just wrote about this, are SUPER dedicated appreciators of his works. TLDR best book I’ve read in the last two years since consuming all of dungeon crawler Carl.
One thing I really like is how well Lynch works with tropes in his story. Both by providing awesome examples of working within a trope, and also subverting them, without needing to signpost about “wow isn’t it crazy how I just subverted your expectations?” It’s done in a very natural and realistic way
So indescribably here for a Star Fox campaign!
Dresden Files is a great escapist series! Keep reading it Emily!
Skaldova Crew are poll workers. Welly is doing her civic duty, Boggy needs money stat and Zudrick doesn't really know how he ended up there.
Baggin it with Balnor was a podcast right? That rocked.
Yes it was so good!! Might have also been called “In the bag with Balnor”
Would love love a bonus episode/mini-arc of Survivor with NaddPod heroes/nightmareverse characters!
The gang talking about old fantasy and children’s princess books reminded me of a very good series I read as a kid - Dealing with Dragons by Patricia Wrede! Princess runs away and lives with a dragon to get out of boring princess stuff. Very fun!
Seconding this book!
My ADHD brain likes Milanote, which is chaotic without being a thousand pieces of paper, and is searchable
I feel like you guys would appreciate an old series that follows a princess who doesn't want to be married off so she becomes a dragons princess. Her name is Cimerone and it's a short series. It's either called Dragonsbane or dealing with dragons by Patricia C Wrede. Depending on how old your copy is will determine its name lmao.
Did not expect a Maine Cabin Masters shoutout. Mine and my wife’s favorite Sunday morning show. It’s the opposite of that “millennial chic” aesthetic
Massive Bagin it with Balnor erasure going on for the podcast question, for shame!
Indeed!
Emily if you’re on Diana Wynne Jones I would SUPER reccomend her older YA the Dark Lord of Derkholm, it’s fantastic and about a fantasy world that is used as a tourist trap by people in our world and it’s so bloody good! Also Deep Secret is a Sci fi multiverse set in a fantasy convention and also brilliant!
DIANA WYNNE JONES MENTIONED! Permanently affected by Gwendolyn in Charmed Life as the person not to be. Seriously, she doesn't have a single bad book. If you want to have a pretty goddamn trippy experience, Archer's Goon is one of her stranger books.
The Survivor convo convinced me we need a series of episodes similar to Surprise Round where various NADDPOD characters are put into weird situations
Mario Galaxy has amazing music it's the best part 🌌
I'm incredibly excited for Skaldova II but I NEED a Survivor inspired Hot Boy Summer arc
I’m shocked Emily didn’t bring up Murph’s finch obsession during the Animorphs convo Also PLLEEEEAAASE let Hot Boy Summer come back before the triplets do another series. It’s the best and Emily’s DMing deserves another spotlight.
Iron Eagle is from the movie Iron Eagle, Murph. I have a King Kobra album on cassette from the 80’s! lol
A blade slinger wizard for Dimension 20?! What season was that? Edit: oh duh, A Court of Fey and Flowers. She was a menace with Gift of Gab
Chrestomanci mentioned!!! Emily (as usual) with the excellent book taste
Zudrick should definitely be Dragula lol
The Dresden Files is kind of heavy handed with the male written female imagery. Just be warned.
The Dresden Files is an awesome series. Fair warning though the early books have a lot of sexism in them. Not intentional sexism but the author has a hard time writing women in the early books.
I do give credit to him and Brandon Sanderson as two authors who recognized that weakness in their early writings, and actually worked to improve upon it. It’s not always perfect, but seeing so many other authors double down when confronted about problematic aspects of their works makes me appreciate when someone is like “yeah, you make a good point. I can be better about that, and I’m going to try and improve going forward”
I’ve always thought it would be cool to do an all cleric party that’s like a god squad, each of a different domain serving a different god, United by a common goal to all the gods
Gong are definitely shop kids and Elmer is the shop teacher, they moonlight as delinquents
For me it’s Callie (Maeve), Boggy, Tread, and Jens for my favorite pc’s
OOPS ALL ‘ZARDS
For a fantastic older fantasy series, I can’t recommend The Chronicles of Amber enough!
Love to hear a Diana Wynne Jones mention let’s gooooooooo
We love Q
Oh I’d love to fight Declan Rice. He’s such a little shit
I wonder if Emily listened to the graphic audio or the regular version of the audiobook for Dresden files because both are great but damn that graphic audio is one of the best I’ve listened to
It's been my dream for years to run an Acquisitions Inc. d&d campaign in Camorr! The whole Gentlemen Bastards trilogy is terrific!!
Love the Dresden Files! The show is trash but the books are awesome!!
HOLY SHIT LIES OF LOCKE LAMORA MENTIONED (the greatest series never finished)
I give Scott Lynch more tolerance for the delays than George R R Martin or Patrick Rothfuss, as he’s been very upfront about his mental health struggles and depression during the delays. I’d love to have the next book someday, but for now I appreciate what he has put out. First one is still my favorite, but I love the Gentleman Bastards series.
No hesitation, I'm getting talking to then fighting Rowan Atkinson. Imagine telling someone Mr. Bean punched you in the face. Then imagine telling someone you punched Mr. Bean in the face. Only story you'll ever nees.
getting in a fist fight with tom hanks would be wild
WITH YOUR GOOGLE DOC FOR NOTES: use the Tabs function! On the left of your Google doc, you can add tabs. Make use of these tabs and sub tabs. For example, I would do a Location as the main tab with a description of the location and main points, maybe mention important people places. Then you can do sub tabs like Important NPCs and give their descriptions there. This way all of your notes for your campaign are in the same doc but different sub tabs. Then, you can just CTRL+F in your Google doc to quick search any keyword and it will search through all the tabs in your document. That way, even things like Played Handouts can be organized into their own tab in one document and it's easy for you to reference. This just helps me to avoid searching my whole Google drive for that one random document
🫶 to the intellectual offense to ranking and favorites 😆 I feel so seen 💕
I’m curious if you guys have read the far seer trilogy? There are more books but it’s got a fun fantasy vibe! Would recommend!
The DID make a Dresden files show! It was all of one season, but it existed. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0486657
Jenz would run a TIGHT ponderosa nightmare jury pick lol
The divine double take I had when Jake mentioned Arsenal 😭🙏🏽
I’m foaming at the mouth for animorphs x trinnyvale
I've been listening to the Dresden files too!
YOOOOO EMILY IS READING THE DRESDEN FILES!!!
I too want to vouch for lies of loch lamora!
When you said a wizard campaign i thought of bard instead because I just want a traveling circus campaign. (Give me traveling circus campaign)
Band of boobs did have a podcast, baggin it with balnor. Sponsored by hardwon's horse meat.
Survivor and Naddpod super fan! Balnor is literally Gabler from season 43. He’s an older guy that almost got himself voted out ep 1. Then they took him to the end as a goat but little did they know people loved him. So he ended up winning! Also my sleeper pick is Callie. She’s quiet and reserved enough to where she could sneakily make it to the end then win over the hearts of the jury with a compelling speech! Ie Michelle Fitzgerald Season 32
Please continue The Dresden Files Emily. It's such an awesome series, and I'm sure you wouldn't regret it. 18 books and like two dozen novellas, and they're all great.
Hot Boy Survivor episode please!
For campaign notes and organization I highly recommend UpNote (I use it for my Blue Prince notes lol). It lets you have nested notebooks and cross reference links and tags and has just enough formatting options to be helpful without feeling bloated. It can sync across devices, has ZERO AI, and while it isn’t free, it has a decent priced one-time-purchase if you like it.
Skaldova do be the Freaks and Lindsey Weird from Freaks and Geeks
There's a wonderful story about Diane Wynne Jones who was taught by Tolkien (and CS Lewis) at Oxford. Tolkien would give these awful lectures where no-one could hear him - possibly in the hope that if no-one turned up he could go back to inventing more languages in his shed and still get paid (academia in the 50s was a riot). But she would turn up every week forcing him to keep teaching to an almost empty room. 'Used to regularly piss off Tolkien by being a good student' is such an incredible achievement.
I’ve heard this and I love it. Diana Wynne Jones is legit in my top 5 authors.
I always thought that Unsleeping City was very Dresden Files coded. The one season of Dresden Files that Syfy(?) did is very nostalgic for me. I don’t know how it holds up in the 10 years since I last watched it
The gang talking about how bad a podcast from the band of boobs would be, while forgetting they produced several episodes of Baggin it with Balnor 😂
If there is no Skaldova next week I came up with a little idea that I think might be fun; I call it "Say YES to the RWBGB Dress". Each person picks a MTG commander that they think would best suite the other person. They would then give their reasons for the choice, provide some lore, marvel at the art, etc., and in the end the person gets to live their happily ever after with their favourite choice (whether that would be building a deck, writing fan fiction about them, or whatever their heart wants to do).
Does Caldwell know what a Jade Egg is for?? He said you need one and I screamed “Inside of you???” to no one.
the Skaldova crew are band kids
Marching band specifically
I feel like the skaldova crew are band kids
Balnor is just Sandra on Survivor. Champion.
+1 for Dresden Files, one of my favorite urban fantasy series, I need to hear Emily’s thoughts on the whole series lmao
Y'all are talking about Triny-morphs like Onyx didn't JUST get stuck as a mid-transformation giant tortoise.
Lies of Lock Lamuria is my favorite book
Mmm Caldwell obviously a Penrith Panthers fan 🤝
Welly is the kind of kid that I was in high school, hanging out with stoners but too scared to smoke
The Dresden Files is so good! It’s funny hearing Emily call the first book “an old Fantasy novel” because while the first book did come out in 2000, it’s actually still ongoing! There are currently 18 books and a bunch of novellas. This feels crazy to say, but I think the series really picks up around book 6. It’s a lot of fun and each one is a pretty quick read. One thing Emily didn’t mention is that the audiobooks are all read by James Marsters, aka Spike from Buffy. And yes, there was a tv show, but we don’t like to talk about it.
I immediately came here mention James Marsters, I hope she dives further into the series and we get more Dresden talk, haha
Skaldova next week…?!?
Right? Would love just like a timeline for expectations
Love to see a star fox like campaign with that new Neon odyssey system.
Hot Boy Summer Survivor campaign WHENNNNN?
Ummmm wizard can I side bar with you?
GOATED MURPH PULL WITH THE MCR SONG
Love how the first question was more just a jumble of loving all the characters than straightforward favorites
Emily talking about the dresden files hugeeee for me
Emily has no idea what she just stepped into. Eighteen books and counting!
Onyx gets lost and accidentally wanders into the Love Island villa (because it's filmed on the same island as Survivor)
omfggg
Dresden Files is one of my favorite series of all time! I have reread the whole thing probably four times.
I got the chance to go to a book signing and author Q&A at a local bookstore when Twelve Months came out and it was awesome. Jim Butcher is just as clever and charismatic in real life as he is on the page. He went like a full hour over the listed end time of the event because he kept telling stories and answering people’s questions.
You should be proud of Mavid
I'd love to hear emily's thoughts on Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. Her liking the idea of gillian anderson beating her up is kinda adjacent to the themes of the movie
Had that exact thought and was about to comment the same thing! That movie was awesome
Woah a Neil Ciceriga/Lemon Demon reference in 2026. I’m blessed.
Going in blind: Frankie Vantasmo could win survivor
Before listening, I’ve watched all 50 seasons of survivor (some several times), and without a doubt I think Mavrus would have the best chance of winning survivor
Depends on the tribe, there's no way Mavrus is gathering firewood or working on the shelter. But modern Survivor I think you're right, he's got a pretty good shot.
Batteries… In the fire? But fires are what evidence is for!
First Edit: Been ages since I got a legit first comment. Feels like I'm back in the game.