Transcriber: vesta
[MUSIC - “The Red Moon” starts]
AUSTIN: Welcome to Friends at the Table, an actual play podcast focused on critical worldbuilding, smart characterization, and fun interaction between good friends. If you don’t know what any of that means, don’t worry. Welcome to the show if you’re a new listener, we’re gonna set this up for you. We hope you have a good time.
[music ends]
AUSTIN: [continued] It should be a short, fun, little adventure in the world of mechanised sports. I’m your host Austin Walker, joining me today, Art Martinez Tebbel.
ART: Hey, how’re you doing?
AUSTIN: We’re doing a special episode, because we are sponsoring a couple of seasons of Blaseball? Blazeball? Art, how have you been saying it?
ART: I’ve been saying ‘Blaseball’. I notice you-
AUSTIN: Blaseball.
ART: -you do a slightly,
AUSTIN [overlapping with Art]: I put a ‘Z’ on it.
ART: I’ve been saying baseball with an ‘L’
AUSTIN: You go ‘Blaseball’,
ART [overlapping with Austin]: Blaseball.
AUSTIN: I go ‘Blazeball’.
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: There’s lots of- there’s lots of hell stuff?
ART: Mhm.
AUSTIN: There’s lots of demons. So I feel like blaze works for me. In any case, we’re doing a special- a special episode today in honour of Blaseball. Though we’re not playing in their fiction or their world, we’re not telling a story in their space. We wanna leave that to the loremasters of the sport- the splort?, question mark?, we all love. [Art chuckles] Uh, if you are a regular listener who is like ‘what is Blaseball?’ there is a great article by Gita Jackson over on VICE called ‘Blaseball is the Real Return of Baseball’ that’ll set you up. You can go to blaseball.com. It’s basically like a fun, community-driven, you know, algorithm-driven, group fantasy baseball game that takes place in a world of demons and soul transfers, and a bunch of other weird fantasy elements. Its captivated a bunch of us on the Friends at the Table team, so when we had the opportunity to sponsor a season, we reached out and made that happen.
AUSTIN: [continued] In any case, Art, you are one of many people who were eager to- to do this episode with me. I want to shout out the rest of our incredible crew. Scheduling meant that we could only do something really quick, because I’m out of town starting tomorrow. And in terms of availability, you were here, I was here, we decided let’s find something that fits for two people. And what we’re gonna do is, we’re gonna play a very short little story game? A little roleplaying game? If all you know from RPGs is something like D&D, this is gonna be very different? And we hope that it opens the world- unless your D&D sessions are much different than what mine were when I was playing D&D. If your D&D sessions are gonna be like this? Your game’s going great, in my opinion [Art chuckles].
AUSTIN: [continued] If you don’t know anything about us at all, we do storytelling by way of role playing games. That’s the long and short of what an actual play podcast is. We’ve a bunch of different seasons, I’ll plug them all at the end of this episode. You can go listen to the episode 0 in the feed that will give you a rundown of where’s a great place to jump on. And you can support us by going to friendsatthetable.cash. But I just wanna kinda tell this story with Art and- and see what we do. We haven’t prepped- we haven't done a lot of prep for this thing, kind of coming in hot, and that’s kind of one of the joys of role playing games, in my opinion, is. You can sit down in front of, you know, a shared Google doc, a one page RPG, and see what happens.
AUSTIN: [continued] We’ll be playing a game today called Sports Are Just Numerology by Ben Roswell, which you can find on itch.io at roswellian.itch.io, r-o-s-w-e-l-l-i-an, dot itch dot io. We will also be using a- a random number generator here- I have one here from calculatorsoup.com? Um, okay. Let’s get into it. I will begin by reading from this game’s document.
AUSTIN: [continued] Sports Are Just Numerology. You play 2 sports players whose careers and lives are irrevocably linked. Your stories and memories are the numbers that permeate sports luminous with meaning- that permeate sports luminous with meaning, that’s the read.
ART: Mmhmm.
AUSTIN: Name yourselves, and then decide the place in which you end your entwined careers. Do you retire as bitter rivals, has the protege replaced the mentor? Have you become lovers who will tell their story of how you got there? You will need a piece of paper; in our case it’s the shared internet document, something to write with—also that—and then a random number generator, which I already mentioned. Art, do you have a name for your character?
ART: Uh yeah, I’ll be playing uh, bring it back from previous material if you’re a fan and if you’re not well then, you’re just gonna have to, to figure it out with me and I’m gonna be playing Memphis Longhand-
AUSTIN: Ahh.
ART: -the mech, the mech sport protege.
AUSTIN: Yes, of course. Memphis Longhand...er, we didn’t decide before which sports Memphis Longhand played when we, when he came up briefly during the kind of, prequel, like mini series season? Um, before the most reason season Partizan. But what I do remember is that, that Memphis Longhand was like a Bo Jackson type figure in terms of playing multiple sports, is that still true?
ART: Yeah, yeah, it was the mad conduct, it was the Bo Jackson of mech sport to have been drafted but this is-
AUSTIN: Right.
ART: -this is not related to the war effort of course.
AUSTIN: Of course. Yeah, we don’t have to get into the- the space war that then follows- I presume this whole game is a prequel to that episode. This is not post-war, returning to sports Memphis Longhand right, this is pre.
ART: Well this is at the end of the career, so this is all the way. The-
AUSTIN: I guess so.
ART: -the break is in there, but. We’ll try to just paint around-
AUSTIN: Yeah. But we’re not gonna go deep into our own continuity here, we’ll play around it, exactly. You- at some point Memphis Longhand will go off to war I suppose. Er, I did a little brainstorm and I came up with this list of sports, I wanna see if you’re good with these..? Um because we know, we don’t just wanna say, oh yeah Memphis Longhand played football cause like, it’s the future. Is football still around? Probably not the way it is today.
ART: Is football-
AUSTIN: Er-
ART: -even around in 10 years? Who knows?
AUSTIN: [chuckles] Who knows? Um, so here’s what I’ve written up. This game takes place in a part of outer space that’s controlled by a group called the Orion Combine, and so I think this is the Orion Combine’s Mechanised Sports Association, which is like a big league, and there are sub leagues underneath that. So it’s more like the NCAA than like, individual sport associations at the professional level, do you know what I mean?
ART: Mmhmm.
AUSTIN: Um, I hope they play- they pay their athletes though, comparatively. Um-
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Here are the sub leagues, I mean let me know if this feels good.
ART: Sure.
AUSTIN: The Safe Haven league, which is like, a Blaseball equivalent you know, sort of like, it’s a bat-and-ball game.
ART: Sure.
AUSTIN: Which I guess is a, it’s actually called a Safe Haven game? It’s one of the many ways you can talk to, talk about like, cricket or other bat-and-ball games? I think-
ART: Is that real? Or are you making this up?
AUSTIN: This is real. Safe-
ART: Wow.
AUSTIN: -Haven is another way of calling, is another way of grouping those games together. Er, which means we can play fast and elusive if specifics of that sport comes up. The Iron Gridiron league..?, which I think is like an American football, or rugby style mech-
ART: Sure.
AUSTIN: -game?
ART: Yeah Iron Gridiron, is a fantastic name.
AUSTIN: Because you’re in a mech-
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: -you know what I mean?
ART: Uh huh.
AUSTIN: Yeah, it’s like a double uh, Zero Gravity Double Body Angling? Which I’ve written down here- I’ve written down here wrong, I think this is fishing, this is fishing right.
ART: Okay. Competitive fishing.
AUSTIN: Uhh. Competitive fishing. Not team based, probably just solo-
ART: Yeah I think…
AUSTIN: -fishing.
ART: I don’t- I know there is competitive fishing, and I know I don’t know anything about it.
AUSTIN: I’ve watched competitive fishing, they go out there on the boats, they have a day who you- I’ve played Animal Crossing.
ART: Is it one person on a boat?
AUSTIN: Yeah. I think so.
ART: Okay.
AUSTIN: But if it’s like in, if it’s like, freshwater fishing anyway, right? Or you do fly fishing maybe not on a boat at all.
ART: Oh yeah.
AUSTIN: I don’t know. In this case you’re in a robot, that’s the double body.
ART: Right.
AUSTIN: So I guess if it’s double body maybe you’re also fishing, and I think it’s space fish if it’s zero G, so. Look out for those. And the last one here I’ve written down—let me know if this works for you, Golf.
ART: Golf.
AUSTIN: Which is, Golf, yeah.
ART: People golf.
AUSTIN: Yeah I don’t think you’re in a robot for this one, I think you’re just out there.
ART: Alright.
AUSTIN: Memphis Longhand.
ART: Great. Yeah.
AUSTIN: You know, some clubs. A caddy.
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: A lotta space out there, maybe the politics that are on golf aren’t so abominable once we’ve… nah they’re still probably pretty bad I bet.
ART: Yeah, but it’s prolly better, it’s prolly at least ecologically better.
AUSTIN: It’s at least, ecologically… over there. [laughs]
ART: [laughs]
AUSTIN: It’s a little easier to not notice.
ART: I mean, golf on a satellite I think is necessarily better.
AUSTIN: You’ve built the- it’s like mini-golf, right. You’ve taken some space and you, you’ve transformed it into a golf space instead of, just having a bunch of empty space that could be being used for public good and instead is being used for rich people, right?
ART: Right. But space is infinite. Once you’re in space, space is-
AUSTIN: Only if you can travel infinitely- we can’t go down this road.
ART: [laughs]
AUSTIN: We have to get off the boat.
ART: Alright.
AUSTIN: Uh, so you’re playing Memphis Longhand. I’ll be playing your rival-
ART: Mm.
AUSTIN: -who we’ve not met yet, in the world of Friends at the Table. I’m playing a synthetic being, a robot designed specifically to prove that er, robots can compete in multiple sports. Up until now robots had only been able to do- oh yeah here’s your Safe Haven robot.
ART: Mm.
AUSTIN: Here’s your Iron Gridiron robot. Um, er, and I am Trio Trifecta. And-
ART: Wonderful.
AUSTIN: And I was named that when I was only supposed to compete in 3 sports..? [laughs] Um, but then you picked up Golf, and I still have the name Trio Trifecta, so. I guess I’ll have to compete with you in Golf at some point, we’ll see. Maybe it won’t come up. Um, so those are our characters. We don’t have to go down the rabbit hole describing them too much more than that. You’re like a very, energetic and boisterous sports hero is my memory of Memphis Longhand...?
ART: Yeah, and of course Memphis Longhand -and I’ve really tried my best on this -uses the, the speech affectation of Ricky Henderson of referring to himself in the third person, and we did this before I was really bad at it so I’m gonna-
AUSTIN: It made it really funny though, cause Art got really mad at himself whenever he messed it up, so.
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Um, alright, so. At this point- oh and I described myself as the IG88 of mech sports, so. `
ART: Okay.
AUSTIN: Disney don’t sue us, but I feel like I’m in a position where I’m allowed to say that now?
ART: Sure yeah, if anyone…
AUSTIN: If anyone. Um, alright, so. Where are we at the end of our entwined careers?
ART: Er, I think this is like a reception?
AUSTIN: Ooh.
ART: At the, or at the Orion Combine Mechanised Sports Association Hall of Fame.
AUSTIN: Mm.
ART: I don’t think either of us are necessarily getting inducted? I think the both of us have been inducted.
AUSTIN: Oh, okay.
ART: And it’s like a, we’re like the party before after the new inductions.
AUSTIN: This is the first time we’ve seen each other in years?
ART: Oh definitely.
AUSTIN (as Trio): I was certain you would die in the war.
ART (as Memphis): Memphis Longhand’s got a loooooong way to go.
AUSTIN (Trio): I know exactly how long you can go, Memphis. I’ve always been impressed but, I thought maybe, trying to invade a group as powerful as the Divine Principality would’ve seen you to your end nevertheless.
ART (as Memphis): Memphis Longhand’s too slippery for the war. War’s over here, I PABOOM!, I’m over there.
AUSTIN (as Trio): Of course.
AUSTIN: I reach out my hand and place it on your shoulder. My like, claw kinda contracting.
AUSTIN (as Trio): I never told you this, but I never would’ve gotten free without you.
ART (as Memphis): Yeah, yeah. I mean, Memphis Longhand knows that.
AUSTIN (as announcer): NEXT UP! We got, Joey Smith to induct-
Austin: And the night continues. Alright.
ART: Joey Smith has a great shout.
AUSTIN: Joey Smith, fantastic. Very simple name for the future. Normally future people have wild names like, Territory Jazz, this one’s just Joey Smith. Which in my mind means that everyone else is like, what a weird name.
ART: Yeah, Joey Smith.
AUSTIN: JoOoOoey.
ART [overlapping]: Pfft.
AUSTIN: Okay, alright, hippie parents. Um-
ART: It’s like having a caveman name.
AUSTIN: [laughs] Oogah Boogah, okay.
ART: [laughs] It’s like you went to school and someone’s named Oogh. You’d be like,
AUSTIN: Okay.
ART: -pssh, what’s up with the Oogh’s family?
AUSTIN: What’s up with Oogh? Um, at this point we take turns and on our turn- on your turn, ask your partner to give you a number of digits, between 1 and 6. Then, randomly generate a number with that many digits and write it down. Er, do you have your random number generator set up? Do you want me to handle this?
ART: I do.
AUSTIN: Okay.
ART: But like-
AUSTIN: Do you want to go first or second?
ART: Um, if I go first, I pick what the number represents, then you give the memory? Is that-
AUSTIN: I’ll give you, yes. So once you generate the number, you say the number, what the number represents and why it’s significant? It could be a player stat, a date, a jersey number, a score? Add decimal points, zeros, slashes, or anything else as needed as long as you do not change those original core digits. If you do not know a stat that matches perfectly, make one up. Most stats are made up anyway. Then ask your partner how or why they remember it.
ART: Okay I'll go first.
AUSTIN: Okay. So that means you ask me to give you a number of digits between 1 and 6.
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Um, gimme a- give yourself 3 digits.
ART: A 3-digit number. I have 932.
AUSTIN: 932.
ART: Um.
AUSTIN: So what is that number?
ART: I think this is a date? I think-
AUSTIN: Mm.
ART: -on the 32nd day of the 9th month.
AUSTIN: Mmhmm.
ART: It’s the future, calendars got weird.
AUSTIN: Yeah, we knew this.
ART: Um. That was the first- that was our first meeting in the Safe Haven league.
AUSTIN: Mm.
ART: Mm, yes. Let’s start with a baseline.
AUSTIN: Literally a baseline.
ART: Yeah let’s start with a base, I think that’s- I guess you have to tell- like, I see like, Memphis Longhand playing third base or whatever.
AUSTIN: Right.
ART: And, and Trio being like, on the, on the you know. You know when like two, when you’re on a base and you like, the runner and the fielder are like interact-
AUSTIN: Yeah.
ART: Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking of.
AUSTIN: Um, what I remember from this is that you kept trying to get me to talk back to you. Which was stupid, because everyone had read the articles by then. That one of the things that made me a better replacement for players like you was that I’ve never got into trouble with the umpires, I never talked back to the refs, I didn’t get into arguments, no one could get under my skin because I didn’t have skin. Um, and I’ll be clear, there are other synthetic people in this world- that’s not what I was designed to be, right. So there are like, robot people. But I was meant to be a robot robot, a machine that did this, right. That played sports good. [chuckles] I was like an F1 car, not like a driver.
ART: Mm.
AUSTIN: And I remember that you got me to say something to you. Do you remember what it was that you said to get me, riled up enough to respond?
ART: Um yeah, I think that was...
ART (as Memphis): Memphis Longhand knows you’ve been quiet. What Memphis Longhand wants to see is you being loud.
AUSTIN (as Trio): Listen up.
AUSTIN: And I steal the base.
ART: Mm.
AUSTIN: Alright.
ART: That’s on the catcher, that’s not on Memphis Longhand. [laughs]
AUSTIN: [laughs] Yeah I guess so. Alright I need to now generate a number of my own. How many numbers should it be?
ART: Let’s do, let’s have a 5 digit number.
AUSTIN: 5 digit number, okay, that’s a long one. Calculate. 3, 4, 9, 0, 5. Trio Trifecta, 34905. Ahah, I know exactly what it is. Um, can I move these numbers around, am I allowed to do that or I have to put them in order…
ART [overlapping]: I don’t think so.
AUSTIN: Okay.
ART: It says you can, you cannot change the core digits.
AUSTIN: Gotcha. So. 34905. That is the full breakdown of my batting average in the first year of the Safe Haven league.
ART: Mm.
AUSTIN: 34905- I always include the 05 even though my human competitors were to lie to it and just say just round down, it’s not, we only go to 3 digits. [laughs]
ART: [chuckles]
AUSTIN: And, it was the best in the league that year. And, my team lost. Why do you remember this?
ART: Um, because I caught the line drive off your bat that ended your playoff run.
AUSTIN: I just, I- I saw it coming, I hit it, and everyone was like yelling and yelling at me to run, and we get that camera whip, we get like, unbelievable hit from me, but you grab it, the camera whips to follow it, when it comes back I haven’t even left the base cause I’ve already predicted that you’re gonna catch it. And then, you know, the people on the radio show afterwards, you know the call-in show are just like, why didn’t that robot even run for the base?
ART: Yeah, where’s the-
AUSTIN: Huh?
ART: -hustle run Trio Trifecta? [laughs]
AUSTIN: [laughs] Ugh God, I- future sports call-in shows are just terrible.
ART: Sports call-in shows are terrible now.
AUSTIN: Yeah you’re right, you’re right. Alright. Your turn.
ART: Alright. Give me- give me a number of numbers.
AUSTIN: Alright um. Gimme a 4 digit number.
ART: Alright. I have, 1 8 4 2.
AUSTIN: 1842.
ART: Er this is a score, this is 18 to 42.
AUSTIN: Ahh, good.
ART: Er, and that is the losing score of my Iron Gridiron league team...
AUSTIN: Mm.
ART: ...in our first encounter with yours.
AUSTIN: So this is the first time we played against each other. That’s not like a particularly important game, so much as a- just a regular season?
ART: Yeah, but I mean, it followed the Safe Haven league season right…
AUSTIN: Right.
ART: I had just- we had just eliminated you from the playoffs—I don’t know if we won—we can deal with that later-
AUSTIN: [chuckles]
ART: -but then, you know, the next time we competed was in this game.
AUSTIN: Right.
ART: And it wasn’t even close.
AUSTIN: Oh, it was a blow out. Yeah. I remember, I remember you cheering up your teammates after it ended. And realising I had not been programmed with that function. I was very good at winning, I was not very good at losing.
ART: Memphis Longhand knows how to party with the boys.
AUSTIN: Yeah, of course. Of course he does. Alright, give me a one digit number.
ART: No, it’s you.
AUSTIN: What?
ART: I gave you the numbers-
AUSTIN: Oh right. I’m bad at rules. I know I run this podcast, but whoops. Alright, how many numbers do I get?
ART: We’ve done 3, 4, so we can repeat.
AUSTIN: We’re gonna have to repeat.
ART: Give me a 2 digit number, yeah.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Okay. 4 and 6. Let’s stay with the Iron Gridiron league here. Um, I have a 4 and a 6, and I think that this is the amount of- the number of touchdowns I threw this season.
ART: Hm.
AUSTIN: And here’s the extra little bit. I don’t only play quarterback. I’m not throwing it to myself or anything-
ART: [chuckles]
AUSTIN: -but I also play defence, and so. It’s pretty impressive to be able to like, knock out 46 touchdown passes and also then be able to go play cornerback or whatever. Why do you remember it?
ART: Because the previous year I had set the record at 43.
AUSTIN: Brutal. Do you also play for both sides of the ball?
ART: Uh, yeah, yeah. I think-
AUSTIN: Okay.
ART: -Memphis Longhand is a middle-linebacker.
AUSTIN: That’s- yeah I feel like it would, if we did not actually say that, then we should say it now. That has to be true. You know, he has that energy for sure.
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Um, alright. Give me a- give me a 1 digit number. I’m giving it to you.
ART: Alright. 9. The highest one digit number there is.
AUSTIN: Wow.
ART: This was my score on a par 4, the first Golf tournament you showed up at.
AUSTIN: [chuckles]
ART: To just, mean mug me from the, from the-
AUSTIN: [laughs]
ART: -audience.
AUSTIN: Oh so I wasn’t even- I was not even competing?
ART: You weren’t competing you- you started competing probably shortly after that.
AUSTIN [overlapping]: Right.
ART: But the first time you just showed up. And I shot 9.
AUSTIN: You shot a 9 and I left. I didn’t want to- I wanted to compete with you, not interfere with you. Um, I realised that, you know I realised I saw the sweat rising on your brow, and realised that this was not what competition was. And that is why I went on to join the league, the- Golf. I wanted to look at what our funny Golf name was, and I forgot that it was just-
ART: [laughs] Golf.
AUSTIN: -Golf [laughs].
ART [overlapping]: Join the golf! [laughing]
AUSTIN: There aren’t many words like golf, you ever think about that?
ART: [laughs] I think you should make an acronym, be like the Golf Organisation League Federation- (GOLF)
AUSTIN: League federation yeah.
ART: 3- 3 words for-
AUSTIN: [laughing]
ART: -a group of people. [laughing]
AUSTIN: Perfect. So yeah, that’s what it is. Alright, give me a number.
ART: They really wanted the-
AUSTIN: [chuckles].
ART: Let’s do it, let’s get a six digit number.
AUSTIN: Ooh. Wait, six, are we allowed- six is the highest right?
ART: Six is the highest- I’m taking out all the stops.
AUSTIN: Hoo okay. Alright. My six digits are 1, 3, 9, 2, 7, 6. It’s a lot of digits huh. Er, this is a score. This is a score. The way that Zero Gravity Double Body Angling works-
ART: Mmhmm.
AUSTIN: -is that you gotta fish the biggest fish, but like the most fish. It’s not just-
ART: The most biggest fish.
AUSTIN: The most biggest fish. I think it’s like, there’s probably a, there’s probably hm, how does this work. What’s the most ridiculous, Kafkaesque scoring mechanism? I think there are- there are ranks of [chuckles] total individual fish weight, right. So, you got a fish from 1 to 10 pounds and then you got a fish from 10 to 20 pounds. Those are 2 different ranks. And if you’re in the, if you’re in that second rank you just beat anybody below you, even if they had more total fish than you, right?
ART: Oh, okay.
AUSTIN: You see what I’m saying?
ART: But once you get a, yeah sure.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Er, and so, and so- I’m not gonna go too deep into this but your score here was 139, and mine nearly doubled yours at 276.
ART: Mm.
AUSTIN: Which I think is probably, some sort of, tonnes of fish…? Or something above a pound, because we’re in mechs.
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: I could imagine these are bigger than that, right?
ART: Uh huh. This is, I mean we’re talking about the ecological impact of Golf, we just went and [chuckles]-
AUSTIN: [laughing]
ART: -the 2 of us got 500 tonnes, or 400 tonnes of fish. [laughing]
AUSTIN: [laughing] They’re space fish, they’re big already.
ART: Mm.
AUSTIN: They live in zero G, we’re a catch and release league.
ART: Sure.
AUSTIN: They’re fine. They’re holo-fish. I don’t know how to get back to this not being a terrible thing.
ART: [chuckles]
AUSTIN: Um but the point is, my total is 276 pounds or tonnes. Your total is a 139 pounds, but you beat me. Because of the weird ranking system I said before.
ART: Oh cause I got like a class five- what am I, a class five?
AUSTIN: Yeah, yeah. I got, I got, you know, uh, 200 one pound fish and then a couple of bigger ones? Or whatever our number system is. You got something that was like, 100 tonnes and then 39 little ones.
ART: Sure. Um-
AUSTIN: So people look at the score and they go obviously, Trio Trifecta took this one away. That was not the case.
ART: Er, Memphis Longhand remembers this because the manufacturer of Trio Trifecta-
AUSTIN: Mmhmm.
ART: -spent the next 8 months lobbying Zero Gravity Double Body Angling league, or commissioners, to change the rule.
AUSTIN: Oh, I love it. Alright, your turn. Get yourself a 4 digit number.
ART: You got it. 1921.
AUSTIN: We keep getting years.
ART: Yeah-
AUSTIN: That’s not what that is obviously, but.
ART: They’re all years if you try hard enough.
AUSTIN: Uh wow, true. [chuckles] True.
ART: Um, 1921 is the retro styled boat line that Memphis Longhand endorsed. I don’t know what a 1921 boat looks like, but neither do people in the future.
AUSTIN: Right, of course.
ART: It’s a lot of wood. [chuckles]
AUSTIN: Uh...
ART: A lot of wood panelling.
AUSTIN: Yeah, uh huh. Um, I remember this because… I think this was the first of your wartime ads that I saw.
ART: Mm.
AUSTIN: Um, this was not just you endorsing the, it was like “Make sure you buy your 1921 cause, it can get you out of danger! You could make sure to support this factory that, or this company that is part of the war effort. When it’s all done you’re gonna want a 1921”, you know.
ART: That’s a great-
AUSTIN: Uh.
ART: -that’s a great slogan.
AUSTIN: I got there eventually- see this is what you gotta do, you gotta spitball you gotta brainstorm. Throw a spaghetti at the wall. Um and I remember just being like, lonely? Because you weren’t in, oh! You know what happens? You go off to this war, I stay here and continue to play sports against other robots designed after me.
ART: Mm.
AUSTIN: Um and, it’s you know, it’s good competition. I’m good at this and they’re pretty good at it too but I miss playing against you. Also, by now you can tell I’ve developed a personality. [laughs] And I should be clear like I’m not not becoming a robot, it’s not like “oh, now I’m a human”, I think I have all sorts of quirks that are still very Trio Trifecta? Um, just a different way of seeing the world, a different basic sensory perception, you know. Systems are different, different ways of thinking. Um but I’m definitely individualised in a way that I wasn’t when they first built me. In fact one of the ways I think a key thing is they didn’t build me to be sentimental about people, especially people who had no use for me, no utility? Um, er-
ART: Right, yeah.
AUSTIN: -so I think this is one of those moments where it strikes me. I’m surprised that I miss you. But I do.
ART: Sure.
AUSTIN: Alright, how many digits do I get.
ART: Let’s do, 3.
AUSTIN: Sure. 0, 9, 1. Um. Are there any ways to cut this?
ART: The 0 at the top is tricky.
AUSTIN: It’s tricky, right? Cause I can put another 0 there and make it double-0-91, that just sounds like a Gundam series though. Um. Who would I be if I- [chuckles] didn’t make a Gundam reference? Er. Oh, yeah, this is the other way of doing it right? Um, this is the score of the um… the Iron Gridiron League Championship Game where uh, I’m playing against your former team in the finals, in whatever- like the super- the big game is.
ART: [laughing]
AUSTIN: And- I don’t wanna get sued. Uh, and we score zero points, and they score 91. And we just get hammered, and all the papers talk about how it’s like, oh it’s an old model blah blah blah. But what people don’t know is I threw the game.
ART: Hmm. Er what Memphis Longhand remembers about this is it was kind of an embarrassing chapter, Memphis Longhand’s career is er… Memphis Longhand knows just from watching the game that it’s on the up and up. And they send Memphis Longhand that Championship ring-
AUSTIN: Mmhmm.
ART: -and he throws it into a, a warship’s engine. And it’s caught on film.
AUSTIN: Ooh.
ART: The news, the sports news for the next week is like, “Memphis Longhand incinerating his championship ring”.
AUSTIN: Because you knew it wasn’t legit?
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Mm. Okay. Um. Give me a, give yourself a 6 digit number.
ART: Alright.
AUSTIN: You have fun with one of these.
ART: 8, 1, 0, 5, 9, 4. This is a date, this is…
AUSTIN: Uh huh.
ART: Uhh-
AUSTIN: Really loving how you’re making this a date.
ART: 8/10 of the 594th year of the-
AUSTIN: Ah.
ART: -of the,
AUSTIN: The current, whatever it is.
ART: Whatever millennium that was.
AUSTIN: Uh huh.
ART: The war torn millennium.
AUSTIN: I have a list of what the millenniums are but we can’t, we don’t need to get into it.
ART: [overlapping] Okay.
AUSTIN: Maybe this is a different calendar, just so that we don’t have to retcon this.
ART: For sure.
AUSTIN: For continuity’s sake.
ART: Well the war term millennium was a description, not a title.
AUSTIN: Oh I see.
ART: It was literally torn by war.
AUSTIN: It was, yes.
ART: Um. This is the first, this is my first game back. And it is, let’s try to use a calendar here. It’s a little late, I guess it’s a late season Safe Haven League game.
AUSTIN: Sure. Space August is what you’re saying it is.
ART: Space August.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
ART: A warm month in space, in all the planets. [chuckling]
AUSTIN: In all the- uh huh [chuckling].
ART: All the planets and space warm in Space August.
AUSTIN: [laughing] Um, and why do I remember it? You said this is your first game back?
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Um. I’d been traded. To your team.
ART: Mm.
AUSTIN: And so this is the first time we’ve played on the same side. And, er, I remember because I think the specific thing is, um, you’re back and it’s- the people booing you, is deafening. Because of the ring incident.
ART: Sure.
AUSTIN: And you’re just like quiet in the dugout, um and, I just sit down next to you. And I go, um,
AUSTIN (as Trio): Trio Trifecta knows that you can be quiet.
ART: [laughs]
AUSTIN (as Trio): I wanna see you get loud.
ART: Uh, and I think that’s followed up by a homerun at the next-
AUSTIN: Of course.
ART: -hitback.
AUSTIN: Yeah of course, it has to be, yeah. Uh, give me… what have I not done? Give me a one digit...
ART: Let’s see-
AUSTIN: Give me a one digit.
ART: I assign you…
AUSTIN: Fuck! I keep getting this backwards.
ART: But I agree!
AUSTIN [overlapping]: [unintelligible] Okay!
ART: Take a one digit number!
AUSTIN: I’ve wanted a one digit number for awhile now.
ART: I didn’t know you were telling me you wanted one. [chuckles] When you gave it to me… [laughs]
AUSTIN: Fuck. Alright, I got a 2. I got a 2. Um. 2 is er, the number of MVP awards they give out that year. Uh, breaking…
ART: Ohhh.
AUSTIN: ...from their “they couldn’t decide” or the, the- “the judges were split” or they thought it would be… I think- I think Trio Trifecta thought it was kind of...do you remember when the New York Times endorsed [chuckles] 2 candidates...
ART: [chuckles] Yeah.
AUSTIN: It was kinda like that where it was like, “Alright, uh huh”. I mean I, I took the award but.
ART: Sure, I mean I, I mean- Memphis Longhand only played a few games right, I can come-
AUSTIN: Ohhh.
ART: -back at the end- at the beginning of August… [chuckles]
AUSTIN: Yes-
ART: It’s gonna be a warm October it’s like what-
AUSTIN: I think it’ll be okay so maybe it was one of those things that was like, we were- you were on a team that was, that was effectively eliminated right, that was like well the only way this could happen is…
ART: Sure, yeah like...
AUSTIN: What do we-
ART: ...what happened to the Mets that time but in reverse.
AUSTIN: Right, exactly that, yes. God. Uh, when we brought it back and we won it. How do you remember it?
ART: I remember the award ceremony where we, we famously broke the trophy in half.
AUSTIN: [laughs]
ART: And people were like, they made 2 trophies what are you...it’s like no.
AUSTIN: No.
ART: One trophy broken in half.
AUSTIN: Ugh, just put it above the mantelpiece.
ART: It’s in the hall of fame now, we’re right under it.
AUSTIN: Oh yeah it’s funny, people laugh about it now.
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: At that time people were like, I wonder, I wonder if Memphis Longhand’s gonna throw this one into the engine of a starship too.
ART: [laughs]
AUSTIN: Um.
ART: Alright. Last number from me.
AUSTIN: 3. A 3...oh wait you’ve already done 3, have you already done everything? 2, give yourself a 2.
ART: Okay.
AUSTIN: You’ve not done a 2.
ART: Okay, 2 and 3.
AUSTIN: Uh huh. [laughs]
ART: [laughs] It’s Michael Jordan’s jersey number. [chuckling]
AUSTIN: Everyone loves him still.
ART: [laughing]
AUSTIN: Everyone knows he’s a piece of shit- a second documentary came out. And this one he didn’t pay for, no. You come up with it.
ART: Um, did he pay for that one?
AUSTIN: Er, maybe he didn’t pay for it, but he greenlit it. It’s his foot- he owned the footage or the team owned the footage- it was never gonna get used without his permission. He, he nearly- I don’t know if he had final cut but he had some degree of oversight?
ART: He has- he has no idea what he looks like. Um.
AUSTIN: Anyway, 23.
ART: 23. Um. After the Safe Haven incident, they- the- the Orion Combine’s Mechanised Sports Association put us together for every sport.
AUSTIN: Mm.
ART: We became teammates on the Iron Gridiron League, we shared a- I assume the fishing is more of like a racing thing-
AUSTIN: Yeah, like a racing team style…
ART: ...team is different...
AUSTIN: ...right.
ART: Um.
AUSTIN: Yes Power or whatever is our sponsor on that one, yeah.
ART: Yeah. And even they, they- it was unprecedented we were always in the same pairing on the golf, the golf pairings.
AUSTIN: Incredible.
ART [overlapping]: The golf groupings.
AUSTIN: The golf groupings. Even if one of us was, way above the other in terms of score-
ART: Uh huh.
AUSTIN: Incredible.
ART: But 23 is the championships that our teams won-
AUSTIN [overlapping]: Total. Love it.
ART: -after that. Not counting golf which is still an individual sport.
AUSTIN: Right. I remember- I remember this because it was the- it was one less than the number of championships that I needed to win to end my contract with my manufacturer.
ART: Oh.
AUSTIN: I needed 24 at which point I become a free agent and get control of my life.
ART: The Jack Bauer Clause.
AUSTIN: [laughs] Is that how it works? I guess so. 24 hours and he-
ART: 24 hours, 24 championships.
AUSTIN: Uh huh, 24 championships. You got it.
ART: Um. 24 very popular in the future but it’s weird honestly.
AUSTIN: It loops back around, early 2000s conservatives um, sadly also very popular.
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Um. Alright, give me- give me a number of digits here.
ART: Um. 4, how about 4.
AUSTIN: Sure. Huh, okay. 98 25. Um. This is our last number.
ART: Yeah this is it.
AUSTIN: This is it. Uh, I think it had been a number of years uh, after you go into retirement. Um, and then you come back for one final season of Safe Haven. And you’re not on my team this year. Um, and we’ve been talking about the scores in Safe Haven, uh-
ART: [laughs]
AUSTIN: -which is why this is the most remarkable game, uh what seems like the most remarkable game is not as remarkable as it seems-
ART: [laughs]
AUSTIN: -but it’s still very remarkable.
ART: Mmhmm.
AUSTIN: As in the final game of the championship. Our teams go head to head and mine wins 98 to 25. It’s a big one. I don’t know why there’s no mercy rule in Safe Haven? I guess it’s a very swingy game.
ART: Yeah I mean if you can score, if you can score that many, you can score that many that way-
AUSTIN: You can score that many-
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: -right exactly, maybe it’s, maybe the next inning it goes back the other way. Or maybe there’s a shame rule like in Blaseball where it’s the bottom of the final inning where a team can just rack up points against the other. Anyway. What do you remember about this?
ART: Also not a lot of people know this is Safe Haven league baseball is played with uh, twenty five innings. It’s uh… [chuckles]
AUSTIN: [laughs] Oh yeah. Of course. It’s a huuuge field! These are mechs playing this game.
ART: It’ll sell more tickets.
AUSTIN: But the diamond is still very small.
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: It’s not exactly the same- that’s why the scores get right up, you just get around those bases real quick.
ART: It’s why it’s so, so galling that you didn’t run to first on that last-
AUSTIN: [laughs] Yeah exactly.
ART [overlapping]: -on the first season.
AUSTIN: It’s so e- it’s right there! [laughs]
ART: [laughs] It’s three steps away Mikey!
AUSTIN: [chuckling, sighs] Why do you remember this blowout?
ART: I remember this because it was proof that I couldn’t do it anymore.
AUSTIN: Mmhmm.
ART: That you could do it forever, and I could only do it till now. You know, it’s like I couldn’t- I couldn’t get around on the fast ball and I don’t know what that’s like in a mech. But like, maybe it’s like League of Legends where it’s like you’re 22 and you’re- it’s over right. Just couldn’t-
AUSTIN: Right, right.
ART: I couldn’t do it anymore.
AUSTIN [overlapping]: APMs are in the gutter. You just-
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: -not getting enough actions out there.
ART: Yeah the people watching on Twitch were-
AUSTIN [overlapping]: Oh god.
ART: -going wild in chat.
AUSTIN: [chuckles] God. Um. You retired after that?
ART: Yeah that was it.
AUSTIN: I-
ART: Retired from all of it, even the ones you’d think you could do a little more-
AUSTIN: Yeah even the golf.
ART: Even the golf, after that.
AUSTIN: Even Zero G Double Body Angling.
ART: Well that seems like it’ll be really hard. [laughs]
AUSTIN: Well I guess, you know what I take it back that’s the hardest one here actually. I should add in full context in that list of descripticts.
ART: [laughs]
AUSTIN: That’s a different sport, too dangerous, not even Memphis Longhand would.
ART: Oh those people, they only do that.
AUSTIN: Yeah. [laughs] Um. I think the year after I retire. I didn’t wanna take the shine away from your moment. I have a middling season. I never, you know, it’s not so bad that people say “Oh, that’s it, Trio Trifecta.” What they say is like “Trio should get some new parts”, you know? Alright. Um. Play until you each define 6 numbers, now your stat sheet is complete, label it and sign it. As if it were memorabilia. Do you wanna go over these uh, these numbers you have, again?
ART: Sure, yeah. Um, I have the 32nd day of the ninth month. [chuckles]
AUSTIN: [chuckles] Of course.
ART: Which is the date we met on the, on the field of Safe Haven league.
AUSTIN: Mmhmm. Sure. I- my uh, my first year batting average was a 34905.
ART: And uh, I have 18 to 42 the losing score of my, first Iron Gridiron matchup with Trio Trifecta.
AUSTIN: Uh-
ART: Memphis Longhand’s-
AUSTIN: Right.
ART: -first match…
AUSTIN: Thank you. Thank you, Art. I had 46- I threw for 46 touchdowns in my first season of Iron Gridiron.
ART: Um, I’ve 9 which is my, which is Memphis Longhand’s score on a par 4 hole when Trio showed up in the gallery and stared Memphis Longhand down.
AUSTIN: Um, I had 139 to 276 which was the somehow losing fishing score in the championship of the Zero Gravity Double Body Angling Tournament.
ART: I have uh, 1921, the boat brand endorsed by Memphis Longhand uh, “When it’s done you’ll want a 21” is the slogan that I came up with.
AUSTIN: [chuckles] Ah, of course.
ART: [chuckles]
AUSTIN: Memphis Longhand, also a great marketer. Um. What was this one? What was 091, I took bad notes.
ART: Um. 0-91 was the- was that a score? 0-91 yeah it was the score of the Gridiron League championship game that you threw.
AUSTIN: Oh I threw. Right, of course. I threw the Gridiron championship game uh, scoring 0 points to my opponent’s 91. Um. Which ends up giving you a ring that you then incinerate.
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Uh, go ahead.
ART: I have uh, 810594, it’s another date. It’s the first Safe Haven League game Memphis Longhand plays returning from the war.
AUSTIN: Uh, I then have uh 2. Which is the number of MVP’s awarded to both of us in Safe Haven the year you come back, late in the season after we turn around a terrible season to somehow run it all the way home for the championship.
ART: And then I have 23, which is the championships that Memphis Longhand and Trio Trifecta won across all sports after they were made like a, permanent duo by the Orion Combine Mechanised Sports Association.
AUSTIN: Uh, that’s also the thing. There was one last number I needed. I’ll note maybe I saw that I had won another championship prior to that just increase it by 1 if I said 24 it’s 25, whatever it is, you know what I mean.
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Finally, 98 to 25, the final uh, matchup between the two of us in our Safe Haven League championship. You came out of retirement uh and we’ve, we kinda whipped y’all 98 to 25 in the finals, retiring you for good.
AUSTIN: That has been Sports Are Just Numerology, by Ben Roswell. Again you can find the game at roswellian.itch.io. If you’re like- I didn’t know games could do that, uh there are lots of games that do things like this. We’ve played a bunch of them, uh across the seasons of our show, Friends At The Table. You’d find that show at friendsatthetable.net, you can also support us on Patreon at friendsatthetable.cash or just search for Friends At The Table on Patreon. And on Patreon instead of just doing kinda like big seasons that have like big, you know, long epic campaigns um, we also do a couple of other really interesting things that show off games just like this. We have a kinda anthology show called Bluff City, it’s about a fictionalized surreal version of Atlantic City with some magical and supernatural elements. It’s a love letter to everything from Twin Peaks, to pro wrestling, to superheroes, to just a bunch of stuff. You know, we’ve done a lot there- film noir, a lot of touchstones there. And that’s a really fun series cause we do like a game and then we switch up to a different game. Sometimes there’s character overlaps sometimes there isn’t, we get all sorts of different perspectives on this city.
AUSTIN: [continued] We also do a series called Live At The Table, where we play lots of games a lot like this, kinda one page things or shorter things, one shots. And we’ve done a ton of things like this over the years there. And you can get both of those things along with a Q&A tip show and a GM focused thing called Drawing Maps, all for 5 bucks. We also do a special thing for $1 patrons, where we just got a thing called the Clapcast, which is just like, you want a podcast of just people chatting about stuff they found on the Internet? It’s kinda our cutting room floor warm up material, just us chatting before we start doing a podcast. That’s for $1, $1 patrons get access to that so. Um, so yeah. That stuff’s out there. I might just tag the end of this podcast with my intro podcast, so that people who are like, “Where should I start?” will have a place to figure out where to start from. So I’ll put that after I’m done doing this outro. If you’ve already heard it or if you are already a listener you don’t need to listen to it, there’s nothing to it- there’s no secret in there. Or anything like that, but I figured it’ll be easier to just put it right here than to make you go track down episodes 0. So stick around to listen to that if you’re curious about where a good place to hop on for the series is. We’ve been doing this now for almost 6 years, and this is actually the first time we’ve ever bought an ad, or anything like that- we’ve sponsored anything? So we’re glad we could do it with our friends at the incredibly terrifying Blaseball League, which in the time of our recording this, season 2 has come to an end, it’s going into the Postseason tomorrow. Art, who you rooting for in this postseason?
ART: Um. I mean.
AUSTIN: Who’s your regular team?
ART: My regular team’s the Tacos.
AUSTIN: Okay.
ART: And we’ve made it.
AUSTIN: So you’re rooting for the Tacos then.
ART: But really it’s anyone but the Tigers.
AUSTIN: Mm. Okay. Why- why do you- what’s your beef against Hades?
ART: I mean, they’re the Yankees.
AUSTIN: Are they the Yankees? I guess they’re the Yankees.
ART: They’re the Yankees!
AUSTIN: That means-
ART: They’re from hell…
AUSTIN: [laughs]
ART: ...they win all the time.
AUSTIN: That means the Millennials are the Mets?
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Okay I feel better about being a Millennials fan now. [chuckles]
ART: They didn’t make the playoffs.
AUSTIN: No they got a middling record, an kinda alright talent but couldn’t really do anything with it.
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Classic. Alright well good luck to everyone who’s paying attention to Blaseball and hopefully your teams do well if not now then next season. I’ll note if you’re listening to this that by the time this goes up there will be some special stuff in the shop, the Blaseball shop. So. Go check out what maybe you could, well not the shop really, the-
ART: The blessings, the vote tab.
AUSTIN: -right. The vote tab, yes. So if you go to the vote tab, there should be a very special Friends At The Table inspired blessing there that we’ve sponsored. We really just wanna make the, remake the league in our image, you know?
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: The best that we can. We could’ve made it look like [chuckles] anything, we made it look like us.
ART: [laughs]
AUSTIN: Alright everyone. Art, where can people find you on the Internet?
ART: You can find me on Twitter at @atebbel.
AUSTIN: You can follow me on Twitter at @austin_walker. You can follow the show at @Friends_Table. And again, stick around, that intro that’s gonna introduce you to the show and where you can hop on should be starting right, now.
[MUSIC TRANSITION]
AUSTIN: [continued] Hey, everyone my name is Austin Walker, I'm the host, GM, and co-creator of Friends at the Table, which is an actual play podcast focused on critical world building, smart characterization, and fun interactions between good friends.
AUSTIN: [continued] Maybe you know some of our cast from one of the other podcasts that we do like Emojidrome or Waypoint Radio, or you heard us guests on something like the Great Gundam Project or the Giant Bombcast, or you saw the show's name in an article or had a very exuberant friend recommend us to you with a lot of excitement.
AUSTIN: [continued] However you got here, thanks for giving us a shot! I'm going to do my best to make sure that we don't squander that opportunity by giving you some advice on where you can start the show! Because there is a LOT of show, and honestly there isn't just one good place to hop on--but I do have some thoughts on what might work best.
AUSTIN: [continued] Broadly, we're an actual play podcast, like I said before. Which means we play tabletop roleplaying games and story games in order to tell stories together. It's sort of like a collaborative writer's room with some dice thrown in. Thankfully in 2020 a lot of people already know what that is, thanks to shows like Critical Role or The Adventure Zone. So I'm going to talk assuming that you have some idea about what it means to be a podcast like ours.
AUSTIN: [continued] If you want something short and sweet to get to know some of us and the style of stories we tell, then check out the three part Fall of Magic series which starts at September 14th, 2018 in our main feed. It's a light, but melancholy story about magic leaving a fantastical world and a great mage and her companions who are on a journey to maybe restore it. It was originally a series of live streams for our Patreon followers but now it’s free, and it means- that means that there’s a sort of loose and really playful quality, it all has a sort of of Studio Ghibli vibe. And again, 3 episodes, it’s in and out. A great starting place.
AUSTIN: [continued] If you wanna stick with fantasy but want something a little meatier, then let me recommend jumping on board with Marielda, which starts in the feed on July 14th, 2016. In Marielda we start with Avery Alder's The Quiet Year to build a custom, industrial fantasy setting filled with ingenious inventors, and curious creatures, and some broken hearted gods, and then we play out a campaign in that setting using John Harper's Blades in the Dark, a really great game. It's a great jumping on point for our now complete Seasons in Hieron story which lasted a bunch of seasons, because Marielda is a prequel. And it’s a completely standalone prequel, you don't need to know anything about Hieron to listen to Marielda. It’s sort of like our fantasy season mixed in with some like Dishonoured if you know the world of video games. And when that ends, when that season ends, there’s a kind of a pair of clip show episodes that get you caught up to speed in the more general Hieron series, which means you can jump right in to the next season that picks off right after Marielda, which is Winter in Hieron. So you start at Marielda 01 and just go forward from there, you’ll be good to go.
AUSTIN: [continued] If fantasy isn't your thing at all though, we still have a bunch of stuff that you might be excited about. The first thing is our current season, PARTIZAN. Frankly I think it’s one of the most consistent and most solid season we’ve had so far. It takes place at the heart of a corrupt galactic empire, where the very first dreams of revolution begin to stir in some of the people who live there. We’re playing Austin Ramsay's Beam Saber along with some other games, and it's just been great. I really love it. It's about compromised characters, backdoor politics and backstabbing, and of course tremendously powerful robotic gods called Divines. If you like Mobile Suit Gundam or Escaflowne or Crusader Kings II, or books like A Memory Called Empire, or The Imperial Radch Trilogy, PARTIZAN is the place for you. Also, if you catch up, you'll be able to listen week to week along with the audience which is always super fun. I suggest that you just start at PARTIZAN 00, which is a character creation episode, or 01 if you want to just skip character creation and just get right into it. There’s a bunch of characters, I’m not gonna go beat by beat. Just jump into it, and I promise there should be something there for you to like.
AUSTIN: [continued] If you really want to know the backstory to Divines and what that whole universe is about, then you can go all the way back to 2015- July 15, 2015 in our feed, when we started COUNTER/Weight, which is our first sci-fi season. It’s- the characters in it don’t come back in PARTIZAN, you don’t need to listen to this in order to come forward and listen to PARTIZAN now. It’s a different moment in that setting, kind of separated by tens of thousands of years. So I kind of promise you, you don’t need to go back. But it is a really great story on its own right, it’s probably my favourite season all said. Maybe PARTIZAN will beat it out once we finish PARTIZAN, we’ll see. We play a bunch of games again, including Jeremy Keller's TechNoir and Hamish Cameron's The Sprawl and with those games we kind of follow a group of cyberpunks, and mech pilots, and fixers and an exiled scion of a noble family. And then from time to time we zoom out from that perspective, to kind of this grander vision of the galaxy, of specifically this part of the galaxy, we use Stars Without Number’s faction game to follow things from that higher scale, that higher level. Again I really think unless you’re someone who needs to listen to everything in order, to listen to PARTIZAN. But if you really wanna hear about this universe and the Divines and all that stuff from the jump, jump in at COUNTER/Weight. It works. It’s a little messy up front, but it really gets going about I’d say 10 episodes in? I know it’s a pretty big ask- maybe less than that honestly, maybe more like 6 episodes in. I like it all the way through. But we change systems about I wanna say, 6 to 10 episodes in, somewhere in there, and that’s when it really finds its feet.
AUSTIN: [continued] Finally, I would recommend Bluff City, which isn't in this feed at all, but is available for free—the first season of it anyway—it’s available for free on our Patreon. Which you can access it by going to tinyurl.com/freebluff. f-r-e-e-b-l-u-f-f. Bluff City is an anthology series, where we use a bunch of different games, including Masks, World Wide Wrestling RPG, InSpectres, Fiasco, and a bunch of other ones to tell a story of an uncanny version of Atlantic City. It has a bunch of different characters, a bunch of different settings, a bunch of different variations. And it has some of my favorite moments and characters and player performances of the entire series, and I super recommend that people give it a listen. I know being on a website is kind of being a pain in the ass, but it’s worth it. I really do think Bluff is some of the coolest stuff we’ve done.
AUSTIN: [continued] There are so many other things I could recommend, but these are best jumping on points. Again from the top, jump in on PARTIZAN, PARTIZAN 00, PARTIZAN 01 it’s happening now. Big mechs, space politics, imperialism, what do you do? I said “what do you do?” because that’s just what GMs say at the end of a sentence. Jump in on Marielda 01, the beginning of an industrial fantasy story. Fantastic, some of my favourite characters again, great moments of high tension, great moments of tragedy, and leads into Hieron, our big, epic fantasy story. You could listen to COUNTER/Weight, our original sci-fi series. Anti-capitalist, big mechs, again. [chuckles] You’ll find that there’s a throughline here, it’s me loving big mechs. Or Fall of Magic, super short, super brief, very easy to get into. Fantastic three parter. And then Bluff City also, but again that’s not in this feed. Finally, like I did say, there is- also if you finish those you know, now what? Now what do I do? Ask us on Twitter @Friends_Table or ask our incredible followers and fans using the hashtag #friendsatthetable on Twitter.
AUSTIN: [continued] Like I said, we also have a Patreon, you can support us at friendsatthetable.cash, that has a bunch of additional stuff like live shows—Live at the Table—where every month we do a one shot of some sort of new game. Tips at the Table, which is a roundtable Q&A show where we answer your questions about RPGs, or table manners, or storytelling, or how to record a podcast: basically anything anyone could ask us about whatever? [chuckles] And then I also do a show called Drawing Maps, which is a mix of streams and podcasts where I go behind the scenes with some of my GMing prep, I kind of show maps, I talk about prepping encounters, and again, answer your questions about how to be a GM, how to go about stuff, even specific questions about arcs of the story that have just passed. There’s even more stuff after that, postcards, and a higher-tier background behind the scenes stuff. A $1 tier where you get access to a thing called Clapcast which are just kind of cutting room floor, jokey, pre-show conversations between us—there’s so much on there, friendsatthetable.cash, if you like us. Really would love it if you gave us your support. It means a lot to us.
AUSTIN: [continued] You know, we are- we are a very small show, you know much smaller than I think people might assume we are? But it’s our fans and the support our fans have given us over the year, whether through our Patreon or through fanart or through just talking about us, that we’ve been able to cast a pretty large shadow, which rules.
[MUSIC - “Bright Morning, Cool Evening” starts]
AUSTIN: [continued] So, I hope that you give us a shot, and you'll see what those fans have come to see in us too in the show. And hey, if you give us a shot and you say “eh, it’s not for me, sorry”, that’s fine, you gave it a shot, and that's all I can ask from anyone.
AUSTIN: [continued] Oh, and I should also shout out Jack de Quidt, another member of the cast who is also an incredible composer who does a ton of great music for the show. You can find all that music at notquitereal.bandcamp.com, including this song which is the intro to Fall of Magic. Thanks so much, and I hope that you enjoy. Peace.
[music ends]