Interview - Rudy Basso - Don't Split The Podcast Network

Today I talk with Actor, Don't Split the Podcast Network Co-Founder and D&D Actual Player Mr Rudy Basso. We discuss TTRPGs, Podcasting, Dogs and role-playing a skateboard, so join us for a good humoured and informative chat.

Twitter:
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Adam 'Cosy' Powell

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Host: Adam Powell

Guest: Rudy Basso

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Transcript

Snyder’s Return : 0:28

Hello, and welcome to Snyder's return a tabletop role playing podcast. Today I'm joined by actor podcaster, co founder of a podcast network and probably the one of the best monks on the actual play circuit you will ever likely to listen to Mr. Rudy basso.

Rudy Basso : 0:44

Welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you so much for that introduction. I'm very happy to be here.

Snyder’s Return : 0:51

Thank you for joining me, before we sort of get into sort of the meat of the comments of the interview in the conversation, tried to sort of bring it on up to speed as to how you got into tabletop role playing and then sort of maybe segue into how you got into podcasting as well.

Unknown Speaker : 1:07

Sure. So I actually went to college with James intercom so and I had played lots of video games up to college. I was a big into baldurs Gate, and boulders gate too, but I had never actually played in pen and paper role playing game. And I had found out through I knew James a little bit, up to a point he was an RA. When I was a freshman, he's a year older than me and he was like really cool and popular on campus and I was like super intimidated by him as a freshman. And my sophomore year, we had a class together, and I had heard through some of my other friends in the acting community at school that he was running an RPG game of mutants and masterminds, which is a superhero RPG. They didn't have a healer at the time and their plan was to have a skateboard with band aids, follow them around. And I remember Okay, it was so awkward after class one day, everyone was filing out. And I was like, Hey, man, I heard you're gonna have a skateboard with band aids PT healer. What if you had like a person with band aids? I said something really, really dumb and awkward. But he said, Sure. That sounds great. So, yeah, just from there, I was able to like, squeeze my way into the group. And then we played mutants and masterminds for a little bit, but then we started a Dungeons and Dragons fourth edition campaign. And we went from level one to level 30. With that, so it was a really great experience that took like over the next two years, or three years even longer, we had all graduated but we were still playing afterwards. And then a little bit later, James is like, I want to start this podcast. Does anyone know The group want to be on it and I was like mee mee mee mee mee mee mee. So he was like, okay, sure, yeah, you can be on it. And so that was what became his show on the Tom show network, the roundtable, which was just initially like James talking to me, my brother and two of our other friends Greg in Vegas. And I really enjoyed podcasting. And I took to it and so I went to Jeff and I'm like, hey, I want to start a podcast where we talk about Dungeons and Dragons licenced video games. So these were like, yeah, very, very specific subject. But there are a lot of Dungeons and Dragons video games, and a lot of them are really bad. Like not just you know, a lot of them are older from like the early to mid 90s. But also a lot of them are making a lot of like fall pause and like dumb design choices. So we would look at one specific game and play it and talk about it and that was a lot of fun and And eventually, James is like James and I were talking more. And we're like, well, we kind of want to start our own thing. And I have some more ideas. And at that point, I was thinking and making this audio drama podcast called have spellbook will travel with James. And again, we got a lot of our actors friends together. And we wrote stories based on our own Dungeons and Dragons campaigns and some of the crazy and fun things that had happened during our games. And, you know, we really wanted to highlight that on its own thing. So we made don't split the podcast network, and it's been an awesome four years, but I think the both of us are kind of ready to move on, and focus on kind of other projects. And so yeah, we announced a few weeks ago that the end of 2020 will be the end of DSP and the end of his show tabletop babble he or not the end, he's gonna give that to some few other people and Yeah, all of our other shows. So if you're a fan of any of those shows are going to continue going just independently or on a new network.

Snyder’s Return : 5:11

Or we'll touch on the shows in your time on the as, don't split the podcast network and I just want to get clarification that you were allowed to play a human hero and you weren't just given a stat sheet for a skateboard with band aids

Unknown Speaker : 5:24

I was given Yeah. Oh man. And this was an older version of mutants and mastermind that had such a bizarre character not bizarre, but like, I was an actual person. I was not a skateboard, although that does sound like a cool PC to be. I have played a dog in a game before and that was interesting, but it means it masterminds had like a really it gave players a lot of agency when creating their characters, one of the other like, it was basically you get 20 staff points and you can spread them along a bunch of superpowers, or you can go like insane and put all of them into one. One particular thing, and we were playing with someone who had never played like role playing games before and was just like, okay, I put all my points into changing matter into other matter, like, oh, okay, she's like, yeah, so now I can just touch something and turn it into something else. It doesn't like up to 5000 pounds, it was insane. It was like a gamebreaking thing immediately and it's like, Okay, this dispersions in our party now. And so whenever we ran into a problem, this person fix it immediately by just like, I touch the door and turn it into a penny and it's like, okay, you get through the lock door, then I touched the bad guy and turned him into a cat. Okay, well, because you put all your points into this one superpower. It's like impossible to defeat you. So that game ended shortly after, after that person started playing with us.

Snyder’s Return : 6:51

Fair enough. Speaking of games and sort of moving on to your time with the having created and founded the domain Split the party don't split the Podcast Network the the shows you've managed to sort of bring on how did you go about sort of bringing each of those shows on because they're very popular shows?

Unknown Speaker : 7:15

Yeah. So when we started, you know, it was James and myself, which, you know, were two white straight guys. So immediately I was like, I want to find shows that have different people. So I started listening to a lot of podcasts in the in the space, a lot of actual place. And one of the first ones that I heard that I'm like, this is something special was venture maidens. So I went on Twitter and I sent a message to the venture maidens account, which was run by Celeste. And I'm like, we love your show. You know, we can offer you some social media feedback. You know, we can help with social media pushing. We I can offer you hosting, we can, you know, get you in touch with other members of the community and try and use our time in here to benefit you would you be interested in coming on and being a member of the network? And they said yes. And I was like, awesome. And then like two months later, I heard an episode of games and dragons. And I was like, this is also very special, and features people different than James and I, so I will reach out to them as well. And we, we did and luckily, they were also interested and yeah, it just kind of went from there. We do have like some of our other friends that we've met over the years like Sam Dylan and Shane and iation from total party thrill. Like we were already fans of them and their work and their shows. So as we kind of got things rolling and got things settled, we then would reach out to them and be like, Hey, you know, we would love for you guys to come over. We already know you have this huge backlog and you're like an established thing, but we can offer you some benefits as well. redemption. Another one that we knew for a long time and they were with another network that closed down. So we kind of like snatch, like ran over and snatch them up, I guess. Yeah, we've been very fortunate and very lucky to find some really big hitters before they blew up and been able to kind of use that to help benefit everybody.

Snyder’s Return : 9:23

Absolutely, definitely. And you are as I alluded to, at the start, you're a player in one of the podcasts that exist on the on the network. The demon plague.

Unknown Speaker : 9:35

Yes. I James, so I think you had James on he probably talked about demon plague

Snyder’s Return : 9:44

as much

Unknown Speaker : 9:45

So yeah, this is one of his first products he ever works on with a gentleman named john for of role playing tips calm, and it's a full campaign level one to 20 that spans four PDFs are for books, that it's kind of like this big, sprawling epic campaign where there's this demon called Zen crown, who is locked in this underground dungeon. And he's recently reawaken, and he's spreading this kind of, like plague this demon plague, if you will. And it turns people into these horrific monsters that like kill in with ease and kill everything and they can spread the disease to other people just by making eye contact with them. And at the same time, this asteroid from another planet has smashed into this kind of Alaska cold area and is causing everything to melt. And that's changing the whole ecosystem. And so you have to deal with the asteroid and you have to deal with Zan crown and you have to deal with like, small town politics that are going on in the current town you live in. So there's a lot going on in In terms of like campaign play, you get a lot of different kind of aspects of Dungeons and Dragons. It's not just the same kind of linear story path, there's a lot of directions you can go in. And it was a lot of fun here, I'm part of their kick, it was a Kickstarter, and part of one of their stretch goals was to make an actual play podcast, based on the game as kind of like an example to people who would be interested in buying the game, the campaign, and I was very lucky that James invited me along to play in it as a stream and then to be the editor of the podcast from the live stream. And yeah, it's just it was a lot of fun and we're about to finish up the podcast. I think we're on episode 77 of ad so if you are interested Great time to jump in and listen to the whole thing. Each episodes about 45 minutes, like I put sound effects and music and to try and give it more of a sense of place and just to be a little bit more fun. So yeah, amazing players as well. So James dungeon mastered, but then we add TK Johnson, Lauren urban and Robert douchey all incredible players and it was a lot of fun. Like, I gotta be honest, I'm kind of tired of Dungeons and Dragons as a game. Whoa, yeah, I said it, but I'm playing in that game with something really special and I enjoyed every moment of it. So check it out. Demon play. Yeah,

Snyder’s Return : 12:40

yeah, definitely. Um, before I touch on the, the comment you made at the end about being tied to Dungeons and Dragons. Would you like to describe your your character in the demon plague. So when people do and I'll make sure I'll put a link to it when people do sort of go across and listen, they they know who to listen out for

Unknown Speaker : 12:58

sure. So I played a monk named arraign Bowie, which is a reference to one of my friends because I always do that because I'm weird, but it's like I played a stupid strong guy. That's the kind of vibe I was going for. Like constantly taking my shirt off to get into a fight like challenging people two fights. Just being a jerk and trying to fight everybody. Like I think that was one of my motivating things that I like I'm looking for a fight like I'm looking to test myself. So it comes to be like, I know how we can solve this problem. I take my shirt off and I flex like that was my my goal is to fight the toughest people. I I love dungeons and dragons and love role playing games, but I am very much in the like, jokey like it's about the hang with my friends, and making my friends laugh at the silly things I do is like a big part of the game for me. If we're having a serious moment then obviously I'll you know I won't be too stupid or outrageous but that's kind of what I'm looking for in role playing games specifically with Dungeons and Dragons.

Snyder’s Return : 14:13

Well, yeah, it's it's entertaining to listen to.

Rudy Basso : 14:16

Oh, yeah, that's the other thing. I was trying to make your listeners laugh as well, so that's good. It's definitely entertaining.

Snyder’s Return : 14:22

Um, you mentioned there about being tired of Dungeons and Dragons as it were, what sort of maybe tabletops Are you moving into or looking out or have played but not brought to prominence like you have, say Dungeons and Dragons with the demon plague?

Unknown Speaker : 14:39

Oh, man. So there's a lot I think the number one type of game that I love is based off of a system called excuse me called gumshoe, which is a like a detective I was using didn't imagine it's like a detective focused game and it's a system made by Robin D laws. And has then gone into other games. Some of them are like Knights black agents by Kenneth hight, which is a game where you play spies fighting vampires. It's like Jason Bourne versus Dracula. Everyone's like a super spy to everyone is James Bond or Jason Bourne. And you're like tracking down vampires in Yugoslavia in like fighting them and combat is super deadly and it's really really fun and really different than like a Dungeons and Dragons game. Another one I love that is also gumshoe is called the bubblegum shoe where you're like teenage detectives, like Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys kind of things. And you have to deal with, you know, school problems in addition to solving whatever mystery that comes up and in that game is really cool because you can't like solve the problem through punching or whatever. Because one your kids like getting your hands on. Weapons isn't easy. And too if you hit someone, then you get suspended or expelled. Like there's real life consequences. That kind of would majorly mess up your character. So I like that it, it makes you focus more on solving problems through like deduction and creativity than just Alright, I took out my sword and I hit him with my sword, which also very fun, but it's a lot different than your normal Dungeons and Dragons experience. And then one more game I'm going to want to talk about real fast is the alien RPG, the official alien licenced role playing game from free league. I love the alien universe, and I love the xeno morphs. So this is a really neat game. And while there is like a campaign element you can do it works really best as like a series of one shots. One of the game modes is actually called cinematic play, and it's broken down. It's like actually When in Act Two and act three, and a lot of times the characters have motivations that directly, like contradict someone else's motivations or even like, betray other characters, it's very much like session zero. Let's talk about what this game is kind of thing. But if everyone is on board and commits to like, the kind of crazy things that happen in horror movies that happen in alien movies, it can be really really unique and really, really special and the aliens are so deadly like if you have five characters, three of them will probably die if you run into one of the Xenomorphs it can one shot a character and kill you immediately. Like it is. It's so hard to die in dungeons and dragons. It's this is on the other end of the spectrum entirely where like one bad dice roll or one good dice roll will like have the alien impale you and you're dead and that's it. You can you pay layers and other character but it's so different than Dungeons and Dragons. I love it alien, the RPG? Check it out.

Snyder’s Return : 18:00

It's good. They've got I think they've got a new scenario come out destroyer of worlds or something like that. Yes. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker : 18:07

I just tweeted about that. That is correct. So that's like a three session one shot. It's not quite a campaign, but it's a long sprawling kind of thing where you play as Colonial Marines in the first scenario they released you play is just kind of like space truckers like an alien one. But you play as Marines like a full squad and Marines. And you have to deal with some really crazy stuff that goes on. I don't want to spoil anything. But yeah, it's wild. I'm really excited to play that

Snyder’s Return : 18:40

is definitely what I'm trying to introduce to my group slowly, but we're still on the sort of dungeons dragons is new and exciting, and therefore it's the only thing we'll also play at the moment but

Unknown Speaker : 18:53

that that's awesome. Like, I'm not trying to hate on Dungeons and Dragons. I thought I should play it just like I you know, we were Playing fourth edition back in 22,008, I guess. And we did the full thing for that. And then the fifth edition play test came out. And we immediately jumped into playing that. And we played one to 20. And then we played one to 20, again in a different like style. And I was just kind of like feeling or I was at the ceiling of like, what is possible, like I had played a magic class and I had played a melee class. So I had gone through like spells and stuff like that. And I was finding combat more and more repetitive. And it just kind of got to the point where I was like, I just want to play other systems, like I just want to play other games. And so that's why I'm tired of and I'm not saying it's a bad game, or you shouldn't play it. Based on the game itself. I know there's a lot of other issues with Wizards of the Coast that maybe matter to you and that's perfectly cool and perfectly fine, but I'm just tired of Dungeons and Dragons. In general

Snyder’s Return : 20:02

Well, yeah, that's fair enough. You know, we can always, yeah, tire of certain things. But that sort of brings us nicely to a follow up question, which is what comes next for you. You've announced the you're effectively dissolving the bench but Podcast Network. So what is next for you in particular?

Unknown Speaker : 20:24

So I am you mentioned acting before, but I do voice acting and I do audio book narration and I'd like to kind of focus more on those and kind of take my career further with that. I still am doing podcasts editing for people as a freelancer and I still, I still want to do that. I don't see myself producing any more podcasts in the tabletop role playing space. For a while at least. I am also writing an adventure with James that's like really weird and different and unique. That's kind of like it's for nine PCs into GM. And it's like a really like a social game where you it's, it's weird. I think more info is going to come out about that within a few months if people are interested, but it's a very unique experience that isn't really like anything else out there right now. It's based on Hamlet. So that's kind of cool too, because, again, James and I are big theatre nerds and actually did Hamlet in college. I was Claudius I died. So I'm really, really excited about we just started played, we play Saturday with one group and they were super into it. And now we're in the middle of playtesting with another group, and they're also super into it. So I'm just really, really excited about this project.

Snyder’s Return : 21:50

It does sound exciting, and it's definitely a different take on things that we've been up until this point. So it's always nice to find things new but touching on You mentioned voice acting and things like that and other things. But sticking with the, say the tail end of your podcasting time almost advice would you give to your podcast as you worked on the demon plague you've you've worked alongside James with those podcasts? What advice would you give to sort of creators or podcasters that you've learned from your, from your time?

Unknown Speaker : 22:27

Oh, man, I have a whole bunch of words that I say you. So I'm trying to, I guess if I had one piece of advice, it would be too if your content allows it. Like if you're not doing a current events podcast, do like five or 10 episodes before starting and launching your podcast? Because especially if it's a weekly show, you'll find very quickly that you know, it's been five days and oh my god I still have to do this podcast, because it's really important to stay with regular releases. Like that's a, like regular scheduled releases, I think are very important for audience and listeners, they'll get upset if you miss a release or they'll kind of lose interest sometimes. So I think starting out with a bunch of episodes in the bank, to kind of give you some breathing room is really really, really helpful when you start out Yeah, just in general, like trying to keep ahead is very, very good. Like keep ahead of schedule by as best you can. That would probably be my one biggest piece of advice. And like also, like don't get into it for the money like I see a lot of people who, and this is okay but like, launch with Patreon immediately. That's good idea to have. But don't make that your like goal to make a bunch of Patreon money for podcasting because it's a really competitive and really popular thing to do to start a podcast. So make it because you want this in your portfolio or because you want to talk to cool people. And using podcasts is a great networking opportunity to meet cool people, or because you want to tell the story of your adventuring group or your d&d group or whatever. But don't think Alright, this is what I'm going to do and then I'll retire off all my podcast money, because it's still everyone's still figuring it out. And I don't know when there will be a like easy route to make money off of podcasting. So I don't know if that applies to everyone. But that's just something that I've noticed among new podcasters

Snyder’s Return : 24:58

Yeah, let's let's find Enough, I've, I'll be honest and say I sort of fell into that I must have a Patreon to start with. So I have a Patreon. But that's

Unknown Speaker : 25:08

I wasn't taking a shot at you. I think that's really hard to begin with, like one of my shows, I was like, I'm not going to start a Patreon free year to make a point. And then I lost all like, once I started my Patreon, I immediately had patrons, and I was like, oh, oh, I could have had these free year. Ooh, it's like, oh, that's a bunch of money that I left on the floor to make some sort of stupid point, like launching with the Patreon is totally acceptable and advised is what I say. Just like do it. And don't expect immediate, a bunch of money if indeed if that makes sense. Okay.

Snyder’s Return : 25:47

Yeah, yeah. No, it makes perfect sense. It really does. And I think it's, it's very good advice. So put out to the world of potential podcast is that you know, just gonna to retire on this, I have a full time job away from this you have Yeah, literally,

Unknown Speaker : 26:04

definitely should be like a hobby first. And if it grows from there, that's awesome. But it should be a hobby first and for a long time, probably until you're at a point where it's like, wow, I can really kind of focus on this full time. You know, you you have to know when you to make that decision, but you should be making a pretty significant amount of money before you make that choice.

Snyder’s Return : 26:27

Which is fair. So we touched on there that this is, you know, probably best as a hobby. So where does your career take you know, there are things that you are working on now that you can talk about.

Unknown Speaker : 26:38

So I'm doing that Hamlet thing via Mike Shea just did sly flourish, just finished a Kickstarter called fantastic layers with James Picasso and Oh boy, another author whose name escapes me. I think his name is something is Fitzgerald. I think it is not positive Scott, I'm sorry, if you're listening, you're the man. But I'm going to be doing the audio book for that as well. So that when they're finished writing it, which I think they're pretty close one of their Kickstarter like goals was like, we'll make more monster layers. So I think they're in the middle of making more monster layers. But once that launches, the audiobook will be up there as well on Audible. And some of Mike's other books I've narrated about fantastic layers, which is like boss layers or mystery like mysterious places, and fantastic adventures, which is a bit more straightforward. Like these are adventure paths that you can take your players on. Both are really great. And both especially fantastic adventures has a lot of introductory like adventures. So if you have a group of new players or people reach out to you and like I hear you play Dungeons and Dragons, what's that, like? It's really easy to just grab that book and And read one of the adventures and run them through it for a couple hours. So big recommend on fantastic adventures for new players.

Snyder’s Return : 28:09

Oh Is Is there anything outside of the sort of the tabletop environment you're working on professionally?

Unknown Speaker : 28:15

Uh, not really him still working on the voice acting like I've done commercials in New Jersey. So if you hear a Geico commercial on the radio, in New Jersey might be my voice, but nothing like major animation or anything like that. It's something I'm working towards I'm sure in time, I'm sure in time will say

Snyder’s Return : 28:35

one thing we haven't mentioned is where people can find you and, and all the good things you're associated with online. So if you got any sort of social media links or anything you'd like to mention now,

Unknown Speaker : 28:47

yeah, you can follow me on twitter at Rudy beso. That's ru de YBASO. And you can head to don't split the Podcast Network unless you're listening to this after 2020 The website will probably still be there and you can find a lot of great RPG podcasts actual plays and interview shows.

Snyder’s Return : 29:09

Right so that sort of covers the the main topics I was hoping to discuss with you really and it's been really good but you're also a I see on your Instagram a dog person. Ah,

Unknown Speaker : 29:23

I am very much so a dog person get to the point where like, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna die because I'm looking at a dog while driving and crash into something like I love dogs and I love our dogs specifically. She's a pit lab mix named jewel.

Snyder’s Return : 29:40

She sounds lovely in the pictures up on Instagram are also very nice.

Unknown Speaker : 29:44

Yeah, you can follow me on Instagram too if you want to see pictures of my dog and other dogs I find because sometimes I just take pictures of other dogs I'm it's add Rudy basso to same as same as my Twitter.

Snyder’s Return : 29:56

Well, have you got anything you want to bring to the fore?

Unknown Speaker : 30:00

About my dog about, about objects about podcasting about No, you can just follow me on social media for whatever's going on with me. Like I said that Hamlet thing is pretty much all I'm thinking about usually these days so you I'll be tweeting about it a lot when it's coming to a point where we'll be releasing it or whatever.

Rudy Basso : 30:25

And yeah, that's what the podcast network.com

Snyder’s Return : 30:39

Thanks for listening. If you want to hear more of us or to get in contact with us, you can find us on Twitter at Return Snyder. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, and also if you wish to support the channel on patreon@patreon.com slash nice return music and sound effects provided for this episode. From epidemic sounds.com Transcribed by https://otter.ai