Hello, and welcome to Snyder's return a tabletop role playing podcast. My guest today is the dungeon master the outstanding Dungeons and Dragons podcast who were not weaving adventurous highs. heartstring pulling lows and comedic genius turns can be found facing fate and offering tips to dmws and gms. alike. This is no mere folly, as the growing communities on both discord and patron will attest to. He's also given time for charity work, but set aside a small amount of time for us today. The warm Mr. welcomes to Mr. Russ de Morris, welcome
Russ D. More :To the show. Thanks, Adam. Thank you for having me. That's an dif one of the best intros I think I've ever had. And I don't know if this interview is going to live up to it, but we'll see how it goes. We'll see how I'm merely commenting on things you're already achieving and surpassing so this is all on you. But before we touch on the various projects and your various outputs, would you mind telling us a little bit more about yourself and how you got into podcast and tabletop role playing, please? Sure. Yeah. Both are separate stories. tabletop role playing. I got into like many do in grade school buddy of mine had a a rifts. Game book, and we played it at lunchtime, out on the field. And then we take it back to one of our respective houses and continue rolling up monsters and destroying things with massive machine guns as as children do. fell out of it after moved away. Folks moved to a different part of the city and lost touch with some of those friends, and then got back into tabletop role playing. When I moved to Nanaimo and where I met Tom, Tom and Carla, and we started listening to the adventure zone collectively, you might have heard of it. It's a small podcast. Yeah, I think they're gonna make it someday. But we all started listening to them, because we were listening to my brother, my brother and me, and then they spawned off into the adventure zone. And, you know, passingly jokingly, perhaps, each said that we were all interested in maybe playing and I said, Well, I have some experience and can go to the library and get the books. So let's do it. And we played around the table for about a year, year and a half, which brought us brought Amy and I, my wife and I, moving to South Korea to pursue a teaching opportunity for a me and that broke up the band a little bit, but we still wanted to play and keep in touch with with Tom and Carla because we're all great friends and we didn't want that to fall through the cracks. So putting us all in front of a computer all having a radio or some audio background said why don't we hit record and see what happens because it a gives me a project to do while over in Korea because I wasn't. I wasn't working. I was stay at home dad but wasn't working directly in prod. So that would give me a handle to keep doing some stuff while I was over there. And then from there, it's kind of slowly petered or Pittard around as we figured out what we were doing. made it sound a little okay and then it kind of took off from there. So, kind of got I think I got that he had got tabletop role playing into podcasting, and how I string or not strangled but wrangled all of my friends to come along with me
Snyder’s Return :and some globe trotting so it never hurts to That in that is an amazing story and and deserving of its of its own episode or interview or anything along those lines, I could probably possibly listen to you all day. To be fair. I don't think you have that much time today. But so we'll focus on the now shirt. Would you like to tell people that somehow have not discovered your podcast what Dungeons and Dragons is and what it's about?
Russ D. More :Sure. Well, Dungeons and Dragons is a by all strict terms an actual play podcast meaning we, the four of us, Tom, Carla, Amy and I sit down and play a game of Dungeons and Dragons, the tabletop role playing game, and through that game, we bataille craft a story tell character, you know, meaningful character arcs, and story arcs in a narrative Audio fashion. We like to think of ourselves as four goofballs. Who are you who could be your best friends that you're sitting down at a table with, and try and make our listener feel like they're a part of the experience in the way that we play and in the way that we tell a story. It's not I mean, it's, it's edited to to the point where, you know, we take out huge long pauses and major rule lookups but we edit it in a way that makes it feel natural and and listening to it. Hopefully you feel like you're a part of the adventure and a part of the community surrounding it.
Snyder’s Return :Absolutely in the humour that runs through your podcast is, is a brilliant, it's humorous, and it's I one of the best parts of your podcast that I personally really enjoy. So where are you know in the sequence, I have a quick look at your podcast and at time of recording, you've sort of taken Pause it Episode 55 of the second series What? So leading us up to this point give us without too many spiders or any? What has sort of led to where Dungeons and Dragons are
Russ D. More :now, in terms of a story?
Snyder’s Return :Absolutely, if you can give a brief synopsis.
Russ D. More :Sure, yeah, that season one, we sat down, rewind a little bit. We were playing around the table, we started playing hoard of the dragon Queen, which is one of the first adventures that Wizards of the Coast put out when fifth edition came out. After we, after Amy and I moved to Korea, we had we had quickly wrapped up that first module, and then we're intending to and did jump into the next part of it, which is rise of TMS. So Season One is taking the characters that we originally sat down to the table with so those characters are, I don't know, six, five or six years old now. And continue through that story to try and stop the ending. inevitable rise of Tiamat as our listeners come to know it as. And then throughout that process, a couple things happened. One, I wanted to branch out as a dungeon master as the person running the game to tell more stories beyond the module, but also wanted to finish the module. So we, we wrapped it up, and then took the opportunity to look at what we'd created in cannon in story thus far, and then expand upon it. Bring in bad, you know, evil characters, bad characters, different storylines, different arcs, different characters in and of themselves, because we have two storylines currently running concurrently in season two, and expand on the world and expand on the characters and tell something that was Within the framework of what we had started within the Forgotten Realms a little more, us and a little more from from our own brains as of just reading as compared to just reading from the module.
Snyder’s Return :And the way that that you you've edited the sequence of episodes really plays in and allows the listeners sort of follow that continuity so well, and you bring it to all four of you to be perfectly as a bring these characters to life so well and so humorously and yet so, so touching, there's sort of elements of, of real depth within a few of the characters. And again, I don't wish to spoil those that really should go back and start listening to the first season and the conclusion that then leads into the second. And so how, how does it feel to have crafted this and then sort of built a community around it?
Russ D. More :Yeah, Question also thank you for all those kind words really is really appreciate it When, when, when you hear the you know, the the work that you do is is not only acknowledged but appreciated in the end. So thank you. The community around everything that we were doing was I don't want to say a surprise. But it was a surprise like we started were just four goofballs playing a game. thinking, I don't know if one person listens to this, then we're pretty lucky. But seeing that people seeing that people responded to what we were doing, because we we try and put as much of ourselves into the show as we can. We're all there to make a good story. We're all there to tell interesting narrative tales and make it exciting and maybe make people cry. That's, that's mostly me. I like to make people cry. Everybody else likes to make them laugh. I try and take it to a serious point. And then we get dick and fart jokes coming out from everybody else. So that's, that's my uphill battle. We'll talk about that later, I'm sure. But the community behind it like we, from the beginning, were, we always approached it, that anything we do and anything that we add to the already growing pile of responsibilities that come along with the podcast, and I don't say responsibilities to be a bad thing, but to you know, record plan, edit, produce, put out, you know, social media, all that sort of stuff. If it takes away from the root factor of us being friends of us having fun of the four of us connecting every week when we sit down even if we're having a bad day, all we always walk away smiling. It's been said among the four of us numerous times, like there's been many times when we sat down and said, you know, not quite feeling it had a rough day at work had a you know, just got some bad set of news. And by the end, we're all in, we're all laughing and enjoying and we've forgotten about whatever was making our day sour before. As long as anything we add to this doesn't take away from the the four of us being friends, then we're going to keep growing it and we're going to keep seeing how far we can push it and the second that comes that something takes away from that then it's not a right move for us, but the community coming along with that. was unbelievable. By by Amy, Tom and Carla, I dealt with most of them. I still deal with most of the social media. So I see it more regularly not to say that it's not unbelievable, but I've seen it slowly grow. And every time I send them in or review or a nice Twitter mention or something where somebody is giving us praise or just enjoying what we're doing. It's a they almost respond the same way every way. But they get a little floored, and I do too. But it's just been nice. It's been wonderful. I don't know if this has answered your question. I just kind of got off on a tangent, but it's beautiful. The community that we've that we've built around it, and they're all lovely people and we're we're honoured to know all of them, I think is where that comes down to.
Snyder’s Return :Yeah, and so so Speaking of the community and the stuff you do on Patreon, you don't just do one show you you you supply sort of content and material and behind the scenes stuff for those that want to move in and engage with you to really sort of get in that behind the scenes and learn new new factors and new characters and things like that. You You run. Well, you tell me what what sort of stuff What else do you sort of do on Patreon that really rewards those that have given a little bit of their time and, and a small amount of their money just to sort of carry on along with you?
Russ D. More :Yeah, for sure. patreon again, one of those those things that when I brought it to the table, everybody was like, Ah, no, nobody will pay us. Nobody will pay us anything for this silly game that we're running and then people people did. But on Patreon, we we we try to thank our listeners most of our lives, most of our patrons over there. have said that they, they give to us because they, they like what we're doing and they want to support us and see us grow and we so appreciate that. But because of our want to give them something back, we we do several things over there. One is a monthly hangout where every first Tuesday of every month, we host a live stream for us and a live chat for our patrons and where they can ask us questions or we can talk about what is going on in their lives we, we talk about what's going on with us. But for the four of us, it's much, much more rewarding to figure to find out what people like what people are reading what people are watching what people are doing for their summer vacation, where they're going. It really puts a face to the other end of the podcast app. It's not just going to blank ears. It's going to it's going to add them or It's going to Kathy or it's going to cat or, Stan, all of these people that they have names and they have faces. And we've talked to them and, and played games with some of them. And that those Hangouts, excuse me, those hangouts allow us to get to know our listeners in an amazing way. We also offer extra, an extra show over the air, we do extra bonus content, which started as we're like, well, we'll do short arcs, every here and there just to kind of ramp into it, but it's turned into another monthly podcast that Tom dmws I get to play in. And so we have another entire show running over there that we just started the fourth season of I think episode three just dropped as we're recording this. And if you ask me, Tomic Carla, they probably would agree that I push for these things because I'm a glutton for punishment, because I end up doing a lot of the backend work for them. But it's because we have. We have a great appreciation for our listeners and want to provide them with more fun, interesting, engaging content. But we also have different creative stories to tell that we want to find a way how to get them across. Tom loves to run games. So let's let him run. Let's get him to run a game and share his way of playing Dungeons and Dragons with our listener base. Because there are many different ways and Tom's approach is very is different than mine and mine is different than Amy's name is different than Carla's, and we all take turns running little one shots for each other for extra bonus content. And Patreon has just become a way that we can Connect with back with our audience and share some of these stories and some of these different tips and tricks and techniques on how to implement new things within their game table. Which is another one of my passions is getting more people to play and feel comfortable playing. So the more we can showcase different people, running games and being in games, even if they're nervous, or scared for lack of a better term, then hopefully it gets more people finding groups and playing games with each other.
Snyder’s Return :And we will want to expand this display community that's built up around this game and an all tabletop role playing games, I suppose. We will move into further expansions and other side projects you have in a moment, but we've mentioned sort of the podcast and Patreon, but haven't actually let people know where they can find you. So would you like to give us a series of links where people Who can maybe saw while listening to this open up their app in their phone and go and find you on social media or wherever else you could be found?
Russ D. More :Yeah, for sure. You can find me specifically, and all of our shows at dumb dragons.com that will give you the link to dumb dragons productions which is the house that holds dungeons and dragons and facing fate to one of our other shows. And you can find us on Facebook and Twitter Facebook is facebook.com slash dumb dragon podcast, Twitter is twitter.com slash dumb dragon cast her at dumb dragon cast, and over a Patreon once you can go over to Patreon if you don't listen to us. There's a lot of stuff that you have to subscribe to, but it's patreon.com slash dumb dragon cast. But we more invite you to go check out the main feed stuff, which you can find in your podcast app by searching dungeons DUMBGO ns and dragons dot Can't or not calm but you know dungeons and dragons and you can find us pretty much everywhere
Snyder’s Return :which is good to know and links will be in the description below. So thank you for providing those to me for this interview. And so you mentioned they're going to the website and they will find facing fate yet another one of your novel one of your many projects as we discussed, would you like to sort of give us a an introduction to what the bat is and how that came about?
Russ D. More :Sure. Yeah, facing fate was was a Patreon experiment that we really like doing we did it first to start playing different game systems. On our Patreon you know, we we played Dungeons and Dragons in the main feed and the majority of our listeners all played Dungeons and Dragons. So it's a very accessible medium but we wanted to showcase other find ways to showcase other game systems because there's a whole tonne of them out there that are amazing and allow for different aspects of play both RP and mechanic based gameplay. So we started playing fake core, which is a very how to describe is a very narrative driven style of play. If you think more like sitcom or TV serials, serialised style drama, that's the way they kind of set up the game as you're looking at as sessions in sort of one episode or one, you know, movie arcs. So we sat down to play this and came up with the story that eventually became Luna core, which is a sci fi horror thriller, I like to call it where we have a group of people who are stationed on a moon base, and their goal is to mine Moon Dust for an alternate source of energy and then an outbreak occurs aboard the moon base. And this is these characters dealing with that outbreak and in the many forms that it comes. So we were originally recorded as six episodes, which we would later went back and recorded for more to expand it when we decided to drop it as its own separate feed on facing fate. So facing fate is more of an anthological style podcast whereas dungeons we release every week, rain or shine, unless I take a holiday which doesn't happen very often. And released two seasons a year with 10 episodes in each telling a different story, different genre a different set of characters. So we were just getting ready in September to push into our second season which will be more of a monsters live among us. A group of unprepared individuals have to try and save the world which we're very excited about releasing to to everybody.
Snyder’s Return :That does sound exciting and does the fate system use like a GM rather than the traditional sort of dm of the dungeons and dragons style games?
Russ D. More :Yeah, the fate system. They call it a Game Master. A lot of a lot of games do as either dm or GM. The sear the game system we're using for season two is called urban shadows and they call it a master of ceremonies. Ultimately, all their roles are all the same. They just decided to call it a different thing. You're just there to set the scene. Set the general overarching story and present prevent, excuse me, present conflict for your, for your players and characters to work through and to try and figure out and solve and come to a an interesting conclusion or a satisfying conclusion hopefully in the end
Snyder’s Return :so Someone could be new or maybe struggling with something to do with dungeon mastery or gains mastery or master of ceremonies. And you have a an aid to these questions and situations and problems
Russ D. More :and aid in that we in Britain that we answer questions on a different podcast that I do. Absolutely. How many podcasts do I do too many? Too much want
Snyder’s Return :to keep track of?
Russ D. More :Me too. Yes, you're correct there. Myself along with a good friend Sean Howard from the end of time and other bothers Alba say licks in civilised. We're looking for ways to help people feel comfortable playing games around their table. He has a discord for Alba and for other bothers I have a discord for dungeons and facing fate. And we both saw that people had questions about running games. And we thought, well, we don't have necessarily the best experience, but we can share our experience because we like to take things lightly. We don't like to really stick to the rules Shawn more, so he's a little more freewheeling. I like to have some structure to a game, but I think it I think it kind of balances in the end in that we just want to be able to give you what the tools you need to feel success and to feel joy from playing the games you want to play. So that show was called dm to GM. And we take our listeners questions and our discord or discord members questions and turn them into hopefully good advice. Sometimes Sometimes it's questionable, but it's all said with you know, with a kind heart Hopefully just giving you the tools and the confidence to go find a game, find a game group join a game group run a game, because the world needs more dungeon master's and game masters. That's one this short finite supply sometimes when when there's a whole group of people looking to play a game, and not one of them feels super comfortable playing, running it for their friends. So if you've got a friend or if you are one of those people, come listen to us over there and send us your questions. Well, more than gladly give you some tools to help you start running that game.
Snyder’s Return :Absolutely. And it's all done with the best of intentions and some of the episodes I've listened to have been very insightful and you You may not believe in yourself or you may sort of know this or the level of the help that you provide others. But you mentioned Shawn there and he has co founded the network that has a project ticular interest to your own podcast.
Russ D. More :Yeah, Sean, Sean founded the fable and folly network, which is a group of audio fiction driven podcasts and live play podcasts and has brought them together in to share space and to help people not only find them but for these creators to help make them some money off of all the hard work that they're doing.
Snyder’s Return :So what has joined in the Fabian funny network given to you as a podcast and sort of then for being able to sort of send out to your to your fan base, which is ever growing and hopefully continues to grow?
Russ D. More :Yeah, I mean, the interesting thing about networks is they they provide a platform for show creative To help share their shows with other listener ships. So what has fable and falling network done for us it's allowed us to help pot to help discovery of Dungeons and Dragons to partner with amazing creators from all around the world. And share our shows with our listener base that we think you know, hey, this show was a really amazing, you should go listen to this show like Mars fall or moonbase or Carlotta Botox, there's so many different subsections of audio fiction and of live play and of, of all these different drama and comedy that you don't always find right away because there are so many different shows out there. So what he has done is he's brought together a whole bunch of really amazing people and given all of us the opportunity to help grow our shows. And he what he's doing is is selling our shows to to advertisers so that we can bring good deals for I don't like to say good deals but you know bring good deals and interesting products to all the listeners that we have.
Snyder’s Return :And you've been so advertising a product that you've a time of recording anyway been been tied with to do with the metallic dice if my memory serves me correctly, I got
Russ D. More :the name slightly wrong. Metallic dice games. Yeah, yeah, we've been I don't know the exact date on it. But it's been at least a couple months that we've been partnered with them. Absolutely.
Snyder’s Return :So, you know, you've been able to reach out and bring in other people and you're currently again, at time of recording, you've been highlighting these other shows on your own podcast, and so we're looking to bring people in which is so great to see and I'm part of your discord and seeing people respond to the these new shows and episodes that are on there is it's a joy to be a part of your community. And so we've mentioned dungeons dragons, we've mentioned fate. Are there any other sort of tabletops you? You would like to play or do play or games that you play when you have a if you have spare time to
Russ D. More :spare time. That's that's a fun concept. We might mainly we play Dungeons and Dragons for the main show, played facing or played fate for facing faith. They're the first season as mentioned, we played urban shadows for a second season which is coming up. I've played some monster of the week, dungeon world. over on Patreon we have a character named flaming kins we played dungeon world for a backstory arc for her and Beyond that, I'm just looking at my my, my bookshelf full of games right now I've got alien, the role playing game that I haven't found time to play at changeling, the last second edition, which I just thought looked really cool. It's about you are a a person from the real world who's taken into the FE and abducted so it's kind of dark. But then it's your goal to try and escape that and I'm delving into that one because it's got a lot of cool concepts. I played a game called blades in the dark, ran it for another friend of ours over on the crit show. played that one. There's so many out there this every time Kickstarter loads up that seems there's a new one that I've that I've that I've backed. It's a it's an addiction. And I hope to one day play them all. That's why I keep coming up with new podcasts so that I have room to play all these because if it's in the schedule then we have to play it.
Snyder’s Return :Well that's I can I can
Russ D. More :hear Tom and Carla and Amy just just cringing at that but
Snyder’s Return :So you mentioned the character there that sort of become I won't say you're not your your Sonic to your Sega and all that kind of stuff but flaming in school. Would you mind sharing a little bit more
Russ D. More :about flaming skins? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I flamey Kinsey is a is a goblin, who was found in a forest by a character's flaming kins was a name given to us by our Patreon by one of our patrons cat, and which is another thing that our patrons do for us as they can provide us with NPC characters that I bring up in game and flaming pins was one that for one what ever reason I think it's just her unadulterated joy and how she looks at everything as a glass half full and there's just no bad day with her. She's She's course she's a pirate she's, she's there to have a good time. And the characters ran across her and she became a tag along for a very long time and the community behind us really got attached to her which made it very difficult for me to want to get rid of her sometimes an NPC I'm like, Alright, they've been here for a couple episodes. It's time to move on. But flaming kins just kept going and she pops up here and there hasn't so much in season two, but the you know, we're far from the end of it. So there's still time. There's still time to have flaming kids pop back up.
Snyder’s Return :Absolutely. If I may voice my preference. I am a big fan of Miss Ma'am, ma'am. Miss ma'am. Meow meow. Ah, that's, that's a personal choice for podcast,
Russ D. More :I see another patron and another patron submission. So it turns out patrons know how to create characters better than we do. So we're just, we're just utilising their intense and imaginative brainspace to help make the show help make the show that much just a little bit better.
Snyder’s Return :So not only do you give to the general public, you were able to listen to episode you give to your patrons, you seem to give more than all of yourself to your patrons by the sounds of it. But you also do sort of charity work as well as what's what's that been like getting involved with sort of charity projects.
Russ D. More :We've been involved with a couple was, Oh, it's been a little while now. We are we're involved. Amy and I are both based both based in Edmonton in Canada. And we were asked by a local Group take 20 d&d, they were doing a charity project for kids playing Dungeons and Dragons in schools. And we were asked to go play an afternoon game and it would streamed out and raise money to allow kids to be able to do that, to give them resources to be able to play these games in school, and use it as a club or an escape or as you know, whatever. Whatever you want to whatever you want to call it. And Amy's a teacher, I love making sure that that kids are taken care of and have these creative outlets, because not all of them. Not, not every kid can afford, you know, a $50 game. Right and that's what Dungeons and Dragons is. It's like it's a book of you can get the base rules for free but if you want to go by it, it's it's $50 per each book, right? So give them this place to be able to do that. As far as other charity work recently, along with a lot of a lot of other podcasts, we've given a good percentage of our earnings to black lives matter to help support raising, you know, people of colour their voices within within the world. I mean this is hopefully I'm not saying anything incorrectly here but we believe that everybody deserves a place in the space that we are in and if we're able to utilise a bit of our privilege, you know, being Hall, all white individuals. Hopefully we're able to do that and moving forward have taken a look at the guests we bring on and the voices we are trying to bring a cross within the show in both characters and guests and In forms of diversity and inclusivity, and try and make sure that we are representing as many of those different groups as possible. So hopefully within the next little while you'll start to see more diversity within Dungeons and Dragons because it's not something I mean, it's it's something that we've always wanted to do, but for whatever reason, through comfort or otherwise, it hasn't come forefront. And so hopefully we're using utilising this in a good way to showcase some of those other creators along the way.
Snyder’s Return :I'm sure you will, and you also sort of put yourself out for auction as well. If memory serves, oh,
Russ D. More :yes, I did. Yes. through a friend of ours over Travis Ben Graf. And his wife, Caitlin stats. They put together a project for the Trevor Project where he asked a bunch of Have dungeon master's and game masters to auction off some of their time to run a game for, for someone who is looking for that with all funds going towards the Trevor Project and it went on for a month and we we, we supported it and shared it and lucky actually one of our one of our patrons ended up winning it. So I got to run a game for for her and a bunch of our other discord members in groups which is a, which was an amazing experience to be able to do that for them but even more amazing that they were able to, to bring together a little bit extra money and put that towards such an amazing group. Absolutely.
Snyder’s Return :You mentioned there about sort of moving forward with some diversity and inclusivity make sure I say that word but What else is in the pipeline for the four of you or however many makeup, this fantastic podcast for those that help behind the scenes and things like that? what's what's coming down the pipeline for us to look forward to?
Russ D. More :Well, we've got Season Two facing fake coming we're back. With episodes, they're starting on looking at a calendar September 14, with Season Two every week for nine weeks after that. We're back with new episodes of dungeons starting on September. Were calendars September 9. And then every Wednesday from now to eternity, we will be releasing episodes there I say that jokingly but we plan on keeping going we've kind of we've all sat down and storyboarded out in loose broad strokes how we want Season Two to go. What we want to bring for season three, there's not anything that I can comfortably share but know that there's, you know, there's exciting changes coming, you know, at the point when we get to season three and that'll probably be a little time out still, but we're working to further our path down following the creative endeavours of building out our own kind of feel, I think is a is a very vague way that I can say that without saying too much,
Snyder’s Return :of course.
Russ D. More :But yet so folk, you know, focusing on on those two shows, building relationships with the fable and folly network and an all the amazing shows they're utilising those creators to create new stories and bring on new guests. And just be there for our listener base as much as we can. And you know, take their suggestions and and use them to make cool stories for everybody to hear.
Snyder’s Return :Absolutely. So you mentioned there about bringing some hopefully getting some guests on Is there anyone you personally would like sort of pencilled in someone who you thought would be a great fit for the show?
Russ D. More :There's lots of people I've got a few asks out right now I don't want to scare any of them off but you know if we're shooting if we're shooting for the stars, like you know Matt Mercer if you want to come on man, like, bring it up play games. McIlroy is Hey, what, uh, yeah. No, we're open to playing with any anybody and everybody and I've asked a whole bunch of it's truly amazing creators. podcasters to come on our show and I mean, everybody we've asked him to disbelieve or otherwise no one has said no yet. Some of them haven't said yes yet but some of them haven't said no yet. So nobody said no yet. So chalk that up to just hopefully, you know, we're just being good people and trying to try to have fun and play a game thing. And hopefully bring a whole bunch of people along for the ride.
Snyder’s Return :And it's something I can't wait to hear. Now we've spoken about just how I don't want to say how heavy your workload is because this is obviously a labour of passion, something that you enjoy doing and maybe labouring the others into but that that's neither here nor there. Yeah. So what is it you you do for downtime? How is it you unwind when you're not playing?
Russ D. More :Oh, I work lot like I mean I have a full time gigs I work in the broadcast industry so I do audio production basically all day every day to for downtime. Amy planted a lovely garden out back that's just magnificent to go walk through and get some fresh air going through my daughter and I we on occasion go down to the comic book shop and get some some new new comics and spend time there. catch up on TV and movies it's something that Amy and I do on the weekends and in the evenings when when I'm not locked myself away in my in my office because an episode comes out tomorrow and I kind of forgot about it. And and play games together. We we play board games mostly around the table at home here. But it a lot of it revolves around family time and trying to make sure that there's enough time I've really had to focus on not that it's not that I've done poorly at it, but there's been days that are harder than others. But making sure that there's time for, for family and friends in amongst this hobby that I've created that is in in all essences a full time job, along with, you know, the planning, the recording, the editing, the you know, social release, all that sort of stuff. It's a fine balancing act in order to get everything done at the end of the day. But as long as you make enough to do lists and calendar notifications, everything seems to get done. And if the if the, if seven days a week, every moment is filled, as long as it's filled with something that you that you care about, and do some and do it with people that you care about and want to spend time with. Then you're doing all right My books.
Snyder’s Return :That's a wonderful sentiment. And as a side note, the pitches of the garden are on the discord server. So join the discord server. And if we spoke about it a little earlier about DMT GM and GM chip tips but if someone was coming new into the hobby or just into podcasting since your vast experience with audio media, and recording and editing and things like that, what advice would you give to someone that is just maybe looking to dip the toe in the waters so to speak, or, or sort of get into this? hobby slash passion?
Russ D. More :I mean, for both just just try it, just do it. Both can be scary. Running a game for your friends. You're gonna plan way too Too much right out of the gate, it's guaranteed you're going to over prepare and they're not going to take any of the clues that you've given them. But know that that's okay. I like to go in to as much as possible with the the the improv mindset, the yes and the no but and always trying to build upon or grow upon what's been said or done before. And same can be true for both tabletop role playing games and podcasting in general. If you don't have a perfect setup for podcasting, everybody, not everybody but the majority of people have a phone, a smartphone in their hand that has a pretty decent microphone. And there are apps and things you can get for free or next to free to be able to record your voice and just get something out there. If you listen to Episode One of Dungeons and Dragons, it is not sonically good. But it's fun. And you hopefully you can tell that we care about what we're doing and we care about each other and we care about creating a safe place to be able to create and explore and have fun. I always recommend that you don't. Try not to let the things you can't control hold you back. So if a game is too expensive, try and find the basic rules for free. Go find a different game. Dungeons and Dragons isn't the only game out there. There are tonnes of games that you can go get for a couple bucks one pagers just to dip your toe and try a tabletop role playing game. Join some discords like Dungeons and Dragons nuts, you know solely pitch our own, but there's tonnes out there, where there's a whole bunch of people looking to play games and just craving that community and craving that friendship. In a time where you know, for the better majority since March, a lot of us have been holed up at home with nobody to talk to a find these social platforms and these social places and find some people with some similar likes and, and interests as you and just give it a try. And if you got an idea for a podcast, go try it. It might go somewhere, it might go nowhere, but at least you at least you did it and it will help you figure out the good things to do. Excuse me, the good things to do for the next time that you have a have an idea that you want to give a go. But
Snyder’s Return :definitely everybody's got to start somewhere. I guess. No, you did. No, I did. So I definitely echo echo those, those remarks. So, Russ, we've spoken about a lot. But the potential is there's something that we haven't spoken about or a topic we've not touched on, is there anything that you want to bring up that maybe I've not sort of referenced or alluded to? Anything you'd like to sort of put across?
Russ D. More :I think we've I think we've talked about a lot like the the main thing I like to get across if we're, if we're talking about dungeons is that we are a we think of ourselves as a safe place for everybody to come and have a good time and to feel like you're part of something part of a community part of a tabletop group part of whatever you want to call it. Like if you come to our Discord. People are talking about tabletop games, but they're also talking about their gardens, about their pets about their kids about the vacations that they're going on. That there's true friendships being developed, within the community surrounding surrounding our show, and that's what we like to focus on because the four of us are at the heart of it. Best friends and we spend more time with each other than I think with anybody else. And it I don't want to say it happened by accident. But because of this podcast, it is all come together that we spend a lot of time with each other and we still enjoy day in and day out spending time with each other and with our community. I drive home you know, go check out all the other shows on the fable and folly networking go to fable and folly comm slash network. There's a tonne of amazing creators and stories, audio fiction, drama, sci fi comedy, live plays, very immersive live plays, that give you can give you new ideas or just entertain you for 15 to an hour. So check all them out because they're all good. Beautiful people. And if you have time Come check us out too.
Snyder’s Return :All right. Do you have do a bit of the the advertising side of things? metallic dice games? How can people benefit through your relationship with them? Sure,
Russ D. More :yeah. Metallic dice games you can go to metallic dice games calm use the promo code dragons, I think hold on now you know you can do for any of the partners that you hear on our show dumb dragons facing fate or any of the other fable and falling network shows you can go to fable and falling comm slash partners over there. We have all of the great advertisers, great companies, great people just trying to do awesome and amazing things in their own right. We have them all over there with all the promo codes that you can find and save some money on some pretty good great products and services. So PayPal in folly, comm slash partners, you can go find them all over there.
Snyder’s Return :All right, I'll make sure I have that link in the description below and definitely encourage people to go across. I do have one question that sort of popped up while we were talking about various bits and pieces And sure, pay John's not to give away too much in season two, but Sally's job list where where does that come from?
Russ D. More :Sally's job list like the jobs he's actually done or the 100 jobs he had to come up for. For the for the for the author,
Snyder’s Return :both but the author one was right to dining. So
Russ D. More :Sally, Amy holds Sally very dear to her heart and Sally's job list. So Amy plays Sally as a person who never says he doesn't know anything or doesn't have experience in something Where she gets that? Exactly? I don't? I don't know. But is she anytime an offer is put up an offer being something put forward in an improv fashion? She She yes ends it by saying that Sally has done something. Nine out of 10 times he's never done that thing. But she will commit to the fact that he knows it usually messes up what it's called, which is the direct giveaway. But yeah, she just that's one of the really fun and interesting character traits that that she's created for him is that he has all of these wonderful back story jobs that he may or may not have done, and maybe someday we'll find out if he has done any of them. But for now, they're just fun little asides and the list of 100 jobs which we didn't actually list 100 jobs in the episode. But that was it. The moment I put up the put up the offer of you have to go do this this thing I can't remember which episode exactly it is, but that she has to go to this author and help that author create a list of 100 you know, terrible jobs. So that was her scraping the internet and collectively us coming up with with all of these just terrible jobs that she now has to list and we kind of cut back in and out of her listing all these jobs off. I'll try and convince her to come up see if how many we actually have. I think there's a lot on there. But yeah, maybe post that over on Patreon, too.
Snyder’s Return :That was that was one of my favourite episodes so far.
Russ D. More :Thank you,
Snyder’s Return :along with misma Meeow meeow and master musics. Yeah, this every week, every week you entertain me and I'm sure thousands if not more people who listen in order Your patrons, discord members and all the rest of it, because it is so good. And it has been an absolute pleasure speaking with you.
Russ D. More :It's been it's been amazing speaking with you, Adam, I really appreciate you reaching out and arranging this. It's been a lovely conversation. I appreciate all the wonderful things and wish you all the best in your podcast adventures. And yeah, it's gonna be great.
Snyder’s Return :Well, I'd love to have you back on the show in the future as the story develops or more things happen with fable and folly or guests and things like that. If you'd be willing to come back and speak to me again.
Russ D. More :Anytime. Just let me know.
Snyder’s Return :All right. Well, thank you very much for your time today Ross it as I say, and we'll say for the rest of the week, possibly the month. It's been an absolute pleasure. And I will continue to as soon as anyone asked for podcast recognition. Yours is always on they're always appreciate it. It's it's probably For the course now that yours is one of those off the list. But yeah, so thank you very much. And I look forward to speaking to you again soon. Of course Have a good one. Thank you. Thank you for listening. If you want to know more about what's coming up in the future, get across to WWW dot snydersreturn.squarespace.com where you'll find all the information and links to our Facebook page, Instagram, Discord server, Patreon, and you can find us on Twitter at Return Snyder. Hope you enjoyed this episode and we hope to bring you more content soon. Transcribed by https://otter.ai