[PUBLIC EPISODE] The Wizard, the Witch and the Wild One: Fireside Chat for Chapter 2

Late to the party, but ending the cast on Mr. Callum’s Schroedinger’s Dick is inspired.

“Don’t fucking onceler me again!” “It’s not smAAaall?!” “There’s GOTTA be more fuckable Pokémon!” “Oh come ON! Mr. Mime could jerk ya awwwff” THE BEST $5 I SPEND FOREVER AND EVER 😂😂😂 I can’t breath

Erika talking about how easy it is to go out and get a gun caught me off guard because they said it right as I was thinking about how much I love Aabria’s usage of the “braaah” (gun) noise for emphasis 😂

Relistening to this and just wanted to leave a comment re D&D vs other games to push back a bit against the "Stovetop" vs ""Food machine made out of food" comparison. I think a lot of people in the indie and non-D&D space recognize that you bring the metaphorical food, but know that sometimes the stovetop is not the best way to cook something! If you're making a pizza, tossing it on all 4 burners and hoping for the best just won't work, and you gotta put it in the metaphorical oven. Different tools do different things! D&D is a fine game with 99% combat rules, but if you want to mechanize interpersonal relationships and have that as the focus of the game, there's other systems available!

If Aabria and Erika ever do a podcast/project about Tumblr of the aughts, please have Karina Farek and streamer Onsta as guests. As soon as Erika said "ask me about my Sonic OC," I was like oh what a wild energy those four would be. 😂

I got the patron because I really need to say… it’s grease or it’s tongues

catching up on WBN now and wondering if aabria and erika know about the "YNBF" rpg by isabella vergun! its a whole rpg centered around drunk girl bathroom solidarity that my friends and i are gonna be playing together soon. heres a link to the creator's page: https://ko-fi.com/s/1e4793703f thanks for all the great storytelling, wbn team! always look forward to notifications from you all.

I don't know what it is about Steel but I do not trust her. I feel like I'm waiting for it to be revealed that she's the BB.

I'm currently in a "women's tavern bathroom" D&D campaign! (I believe my DM based off a viral tumblr post from a couple years ago). Such a fun and supportive group energy, and even though we only meet every couple of months it always feels like no time has passed!

Oh God Erika quoting the Vaporeon copypasta lmao

Yes yes yes to a campaign of ladies who meet in the bathroom. Pretty please, Aabria 🙏🏼.

The answer to your Tamori connundrum is "Grease".

Magic Mouth

So I fully agree with Brennan's point about mechanics and storytelling and what the apparatus of the game represents (e.g. A set of tools for storytelling). But I would argue that it's sort of conflating two arguments. One argument is "dnd doesn't provide mechanics for generative storytelling; it provides mechanics for combat, which means as a game, it is designed with combat as an assumed component." And a different argument which is "if you aren't doing combat in your dnd games, you're not playing dnd." These are different but seemingly related arguments. I think, depending on your experience and perspective, the first argument is one built around game design philosophy. The mechanics of the game are the game. The trappings, settings, fluff, etc, those might be how it's presented, but the mechanics are the game. So there's a valid argument you might say that DnD is not inherently the *best* tool for the job of generating an emergent narrative from a Combination of improvisational agency and randomness. Dnd doesn't have rules for changing the plot. They don't abstract the act of storytelling. Some games, a LOT of modern games, do. For example, Blades in the Dark has an entire mechanic around Flashbacks, which is an entirely Narrative mechanic. It only exists because of the kind of game BitD is and the kinds of stories it's designed to tell. Dnd lacks that. It doesn't have *storytelling* mechanics, really. You can use its mechanics to tell stories, certainly, and I think that's the best use of them. But it does not provide you with clear mechanisms to do so - you have to provide those. So it comes down to what you have vs what you need. If what you NEED from a system is a way to abstract conflict resolution, DnD does an absolutely passable job of that. It can model things like, as Brennan says, an arrow flying through the air. It's better at modeling conflict at a specific scale in specific situations than it is at modeling other stuff. It's less good at war simulation. For example. Because it is quite robustly designed to model let's call it "skirmish scale" violent conflict, more robustly than it's designed to do almost anything else, it is a fair assessment from a game design perspective to say it's a game "about" conflict. If what you NEED is a way to come up with an engage in a cooperative fantasy heist story, Blades in the Dark has you covered. It asks you to bring some ideas, but then it provides rules and mechanics for how to tell your heist stories. It's way less good at modeling moment to moment combat or conflict resolution. It expects you have that taken care of by waybl of your roleplay. That said, there is nothing in DnD, BitD, or any other ttrpg system that requires you to use every part of the model to have fun with it. And if what you want is to tell a cool story and you want a system to help you offload some of the burden of violent fantasy conflict resolution, DnD provides that very well, if you ever need it. A more accurate analogy for the stove for this argument is to say "well, this helps prepare hot food, but just because it's here doesn't mean I have to eat hot food." I think it's fair to say that, if you don't want to prepare hot food, then perhaps using a stove as your tool isn't the most optimal choice. Doesn't mean it's wrong, just isn't necessarily the most elegant option. But ttrpg storytelling is more like baking than general food prep, and dnd is a bit like an oven. A ton of other craft goes into it before the dough ever hits the oven, which is the system. And there are plenty of amazing things that you can make in a baking context that have nothing to do with an oven or are only tangentially related, but you still have the oven. It is fair to say, however, that fully 2/3rds of the rules of 5e are devoted to combat, which does give you some idea of what the game's systems are capable of and designed to do, which you can say, as a shorthand, tells you what the game is about. The other argument, the one where combat is somehow required to qualify a game as dnd, is patently absurd. That's the argument Brennan's analogy perfectly rebutts.

Holy crap! I cannot possibly articulate just how. Grateful I was to hear Brennan explain his view of D&D mechanics and the so-called focus on combat as the game mechanizing the parts of role playing that he doesn't want to have to improvise. The 58min mark of this dialogue is absolute🔥🔥🔥

Official request for a poster (maybe a throw pillow) with "Live, Learn, Level" in a fancy looping script.

Is the transcript for this ep out?

I love this show and I love you guys. You all give energy to my brain to spin on DnD/lore/writing at my very analytical job that inspires me on a different front (microbiologist). Your show is very fulfilling to listen to. Is the Wizard Species or Sepsis available???? Because dibs!

I have to say yall are wonderful people to listen to and I just can’t wait or he next episode! Also Brennan I need you to stop punching me in my daddy issues, because the comment of being a safe place for your child to experience emotions is just too sweet and too much. lol

FAVORITE POKEMON VAPOREON???????? LOU SWEETIE MY CONDOLENCES.

Anyone else think of the spider from James and the giant peach and understand Brennan on a fundamental level

I know much wilder things happened in this episode, but the ‘Fictional men’ backpedal had me in stitches

i love that every time that erika or aabria makes a reference to some terrible internet thing that messes with the guys' psyches, i know exactly what they're talking about. also y'all definitely need to make brennan answer if anyone has had a realtionship with a mr. callum in the world building ep.

Rekha Yoshi Picture Mentioned ‼️‼️‼️🫡🫡 (ft. "There's gotta be more fuckable pokemon out there" / "bellesprout is mostly mouth" / actually just this entire conversation)

The answer is Dominant Person and no one can say any different

Every single time I listen to something from the WBN… I feel like I need to be listening with my therapist sitting right next to me. The breakdown I just had because Brennan described being a new day *supposedly* and being a sand box for their child to experience emotions and be safe, vs being an adult and being able to mirror emotions… I’m definitely talking about that in therapy tomorrow!

Not me sitting at work looking up pokemon

This was amazing but the true gem was hearing Taylor laugh in the background on occasion.

erika's one single question derailing the entire conversation is more proof we need that spinoff podcast with them and aabria.

This just hit me. Wizard Sly, Super Diviner: "The Wizard Sky will not get permission to go to the North Pole." Sword of the Citadel: "Here's a whole damn air ship for you to go to the North Pole." Someone's prophecying on the fritz?

Consider: Dream, Telekinesis, True Polymorph

Discussing fuckable Pokemon and not mentioning muscle daddy Machoke is low key homophobic, ngl

Erika pretending to be a gun nut- their call of duty paycheck jumped out lol 🫢

My 12 yo daughter wants to be the lorax and onceler and some trees with her three friends this year and this podcast has me narrowing my eyes more narrow than they have ever narrowed before…

For spells, gotta say Magic Mouth. For Pokémon, gotta say...objectively...Machamp?

There's so many favorite moments! The one that came to mind was the reunion between Eursulon and his sister. It was so sweet and heartbreaking.

I pictured Lady Dimitrescu when they suggested a Power Word Kill Tamori 😂

Brennan: What does vaporeon have to do with this?? The rest of us: DiD you KnOw??

I can't believe no one said Tongues or Evard's Black Tentacles for most fuckable Tamori, guys... come on! I would personally go Dominate Person b/c power bottom goals, but y'know

I can't believe you told Lou about the Vaporeon thing but didn't read him the copypasta lmao 🤣

Did anyone else find this a bit difficult to listen to volume-wise? The quiet bits were very quiet and the loud bits VERY LOUD. P.S. this is the best story-telling podcast in the world and I love you all x

Is anybody else having trouble hearing this episode? I have my volume on max on Spotify, and I still struggle to hear words when they're not spoken directly into the mic. Usually I can listen to Worlds Beyond Number and wash dishes at the same time, but this episode I can't hear over running water like I usually can.

Genuinely the best $5 I have ever spent 12 times in a row.

“BELLSPROUT, also is there a MRS MIME?! WE DONT KNOWWW!” ~Lou Wilson, Pokémon Enthusiast

Whatever you do, keep Safe Search on if you need to look up Gardevoir

We've gotta get Losario Racamanti's guide to the perfect ass as merch

Brennan looking at a drider “what that thorax do?”

🎶LOOK DOWN, LOOK DOWN/THATS WHAT I CALL AN ASS🎶

I am now *desperately* in need of a muscle tee that says "Goblet squats are a societal good" to wear while I'm working out... esp doing squats.

What was Aabria's spell?

Thank you for answering my question! A very interesting facet of Suvi not having a lot of arcane power is she needs to rely on systemic power to get things done.

As a real life guy who is named Callum and makes baked goods i will speak for the Mr Callums and say thank you for your interest and I’m just here to take your croissant order

"The map is not the territory"--YES! I say this constantly, about astrology, MBTI, enneagrams, stories as inspiration...whatever gets you to where you need to go, use those maps, recognizing that they're not a 1:1 model of where you're going. I'm marking routes on my maps that will take me well away from "fuckable Pokemon."

Turns out I CAN’T eat and listen to a conversation about sexy spider badonkadonks. Who knew?

The real gun was the threat of telling Lou and Brennan thing about the Internet all along

Oh no Lou I am so sorry about your favorite pokemon my dude.

The "moist chestnut" Tim Curry impression and the way Brennan yelled SHELOB! are some of my favorite moments in this one. And it still didn't prepare me for the Vaporeon discussion. Disappointed nobody mentioned Evard's Black Tentacles or Bigby's Hand

Tasha's Hideous Laughter. I love a partner than can make me ugly-laugh to the point of incapacitation. I will choose to voluntarily fail my saves.

a ninth level fireball was so hot, I like them DANGEROUS

Aabria’s Girls Who Met in a Club Bathroom campaign would change my life forever. That just rocketed up my personal Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

I hate that I was reminded of the vaporeon thing, I almost had that blocked out

Did you know...?

Some superfan needs to pay Tim Curry $250 to wish all these good moist chestnuts a Happy Birthday https://timcurry.com/collections/meet-tim-curry/products/personal-recorded-video-shoot-out

don't have to go so extreme, a simple alter self will accomplish much

Bigbys hand, stone skin, grasping vine, hold person, simulaCrUM

Evard's Black Tentacles... if you're brave

Wild times at the fireside but which spell is the most emotionally supportive

What have you done to my Pokémon?!

How did they all forget the fact existence of Lickitung

The answer is obviously Polymorph and tounges. One can become whatever you want, and the other speaks your language.

Ok but now I gotta know if they showed the boys the actual Vaporeon copypasta...

"Bellsprout got Mr Mine pregnant" isn't the sentence I was expecting to hear Brennan say today.

I haven't listened yet but I read the description and I am 100000% invested lol 😂

Twelfth baby

Cue up Max Romeo and the Upsetters under the chat.

A good, moist chestnut 😂

The little laughs from Taylor in the background give me such joy

The sexiest spell is absolutely polymorph. This should not be controversial.

Kind of sad the non fireside people don't get to meet any of the other guest starts who have played Eursulon. Dick Goose needs a wider audience.

This is just the break i needed after being slightly drained of energy by a group of 3rd graders with violins.

Three minutes in and already a deep philosophi-syntactical question from Brennan, which is why I love him.

I’m pretty sure Erika been talking about monster fuckin from fireside one. Also my first experience with Erika was her in escape from the bloodkeep as a juicy spider mommy

Second baby

First baybee