Titter Pigs (TTRPGs) and Voice Acting - Klaus von Hohenloe Unplugged

This week, I sit down with Klaus von Hohenloe, a professional voice actor and YouTuber, to discuss their experiences in various creative industries. The conversation delves into Klaus's journey into voice acting, sharing the challenges of finding consistent work, creating authentic voices for characters, and dealing with the rise of AI-generated voices that eerily mimic real ones. He touches on the physical challenges of the job, such as jaw issues from long recording sessions, and I share the unique struggles transgender individuals face in voice work, including voice modification and rejection in the tech industry.

Klaus also talks about his love for tabletop role-playing games, affectionately referred to as "titter pigs," and the importance of finding supportive communities in gaming and content creation. Both Klaus and I emphasize the need for authenticity and passion in our work, rejecting the pursuit of popularity or financial gain as the primary motivation. The episode takes a reflective turn as Klaus discusses the discomfort of hearing his voice turned into AI, navigating social anxiety in the comedy world, and the decision not to have children in favor of following his creative passions. We wrap up the conversation by exploring the complexities of adulting, alternative medicine, and the hope for a brighter, more positive future.

Check out Klaus' channel, The Dungeon Newb's Guide!

As of September 2024, Transcending Humanity is now known as Vanesstradiol! Episodes will be much more sparse from here on out, but I hope to continue bringing you quality content!

Transcript

Vanessa: 0:19

Radar app to keep an eye on whatever's coming at me here.

Klaus: 0:25

Yes, indeed.

Vanessa: 0:25

So for the listeners and viewers, I'm recording this. We're recording this on august 6. I know this won't go live until next week, but they're all kinds of interesting weather coming my way right now, so keeping an eye on that. Anyways, welcome back to transcending humanity. I'm Vanessa, aka Vanessa all as reminded views and opinions of everyone on here are their own, so don't yell at their bosses or whatever. Patreon send us money. Thank you to our patrons. Remember the store, you know, go to merch shop and buy shit and just send me money anyways, without further ado, since there was a storm bearing down, I want to at least get some of this episode recorded before the power goes off. I am honored to have Klaus von Hohenloe, am I pronouncing that right?

Klaus: 1:20

Yep. Klaus von Hohenloe,

Vanessa: 1:22

okay, thank

Klaus: 1:23

you so much, and the honor is mine. I'm flattered that you wanted to talk to me.

Vanessa: 1:29

It's like to give some context as to why Klaus is here. I, as many people know, am a photographer by trade, and when I edit photos, I usually have YouTube on in the background. And one of Klaus has many jobs. He he does narration for a channel called mainly facts, and so I like to have it on the background. It's essentially just reading stories off of Reddit. And there's a number of similar channels, but there's, I think it's the best. Yeah, there's quite a few. I like is the best, though, because he actually has some personality behind it, rather than just, like, reading shit out so and I learned some things about him, like during as he talk like he's had about 50 million jobs, and he's a professional voice actor and YouTuber and Dungeons and Dragons nerd and so Klaus, I'm gonna let you introduce yourself, tell us about

Klaus: 2:31

you, yeah, so I think you put it wonderfully. Yeah. My my day job consists of flitting between voicing a number of different YouTube channels. Um, some people think that they have them all all down. They don't. There's so many more out there. They probably have gained no traction whatsoever. Um between that and then doing voice over. Um, anyone who's tried to learn English with Duolingo stories has probably heard my voice as Oscar. People have probably, yeah, people have maybe heard my voice in a number of little mobile games, some local ads, and then, I don't know if your workplace has some really boring instructional video on, you know, how to use a Baylor. Then maybe you've heard my voice there as well.

Vanessa: 3:28

So you're pretty busy in voice acting.

Klaus: 3:31

I try to, you know, there are, there are ups and downs. There's the busy times where suddenly, you know, I'm recording hours a day every day for a couple weeks. And there are the times where the only recording I'm doing are just auditions. And that's, that's the nature of the business, especially if you're a freelancer living in Minnesota, instead of someone making the more profitable, potentially decision of living out in like LA or something where you can get, you know, studio, covid and all that is,

Vanessa: 4:02

yeah, how did you get into voice acting?

Klaus: 4:06

So I I'd always wanted to do some form of acting or entertainment. I did stand up locally in Minnesota in my 20s. I've done a lot of theater, but I always wanted to do voice acting, because I have always loved cartoons from the moment I was a little kid to literally last night I was watching cartoons Gravity Falls one of the best shows out there, and I just wanted to get into that. And so about I, I guess it'd be around about 10 years ago, I started just doing freelance voice work, primarily getting into audio books. And you can still find a bunch of audio books on audible with my name, primarily male male erotica, but there's some male female erotica. And no joke, I so here's a fun fact for anyone wanting to get into voice work, when you start doing independent audio books, is there are some folks out there just trying to shovel stuff out as quick as they can. And I had one client who had me do a few books, and then they sent me a script. For a book, just a short, one hour long read. But I looked at it and I went, Oh, this is, this is all written first person perspective from a female viewer. And it's like, and certainly, as an audio book, you know reader, you have to voice, you know, all across the spectrum everyone you have to give every character a voice, but to have something that's like first person narration from a female view. I'm like, that's an odd choice with my voice and what I typically deliver for these books. But okay, but I don't know if it's still up on Audible or not, but they were just like, No, yeah, do it.

Vanessa: 6:00

I guess maybe you know trans women, yeah, I,

Klaus: 6:04

you know, I, I tried to give it my best that. I think that was one of the last audio books. I think I did it. Audiobooks are a lot of work, and so I don't do them much anymore, because you hear $50 per finished hour of a book, and you're like $50 an hour, $50 finished hour. And a finished hour of a book, depending on just how much effort you're willing to put in, could take two to four hours to do so. Suddenly, it's not the best. There are better jobs out there, but good luck there. It's competitive.

Vanessa: 6:42

Then your your voice also starts going, oh yes, vocal training is something that I've only kind of recently gotten into being trans, and I've had, you see my scar here. I've had vocal cord surgery, and my Adam's apple removed, but the surgery is just part of it. It raises your pitch a little bit, like if I can go down this is like as deep as my voice usually can go now, in before operation, it was more like this. So I had a pretty deep voice, and I can't do that anymore, but like a lot of people, don't realize what all goes into creating a voice and how you have to talk from different parts of your mouth. The traditional male way of talking is from your throat, like here, yep, but female, it's a little bit more nasally. You're talking from the front of your mouth, and shit. You have to think about it constantly. So do you do, like, vocal modifications and stuff too, for, like, different voices, or

Klaus: 7:50

I will try for different characters. I try not to get a I'll ask the author, or where, you know, whatever client I'm working with, it's like, how much do you want? Because there are, especially if you get into audio books, there are some authors who are like, No, I want, kind of just a standard read in your voice. And you can, like, do slight shifts for different characters, but don't try and give them, you know, like extreme voices. And then there are other ones who tell you, I imagine this character sounding like Willem Dafoe. Can you kind of make him sound like Willem Dafoe? And that's a true story. And to get into that character, every day that I had to record for that book, when I'd come up to his parts, I'd pause and be like, okay, Willem Dafoe, voice, Spider Man finish it.

Vanessa: 8:42

I'd have to, it's pretty solid.

Klaus: 8:44

I'd have to pick little like anchor phrases for certain voices that would get me back into it. But yeah, I did, um, I remember, actually, um, watching a video for someone explaining, like, male and female range and stuff. And they're like, a lot of guys, if they want to do a girl voice, oh, they're just like, this, Oh, my. And it's like, well, there's more to it. It's like, you can't project the same way that you would as a man necessarily. Like, I mean, you can. People have voices all across the spectrum, spectrum and sound, you know, every which way. But typically, if you're wanting to give a character kind of authentic voice, yeah, you have to be like, you know, okay, so I'm on a female voice, and maybe I'll kind of bring it more up here. And, okay, yeah, this, this is what I try to go for, for, like, a female voice. And then, you know, I made a mistake once in an audio book, I was doing a series, and each book of the series focused on a different member of an all male rock band, uh, where every one of them discovered that they were gay throughout the course of the book, because that's, that's what happens in erotica. And, yeah, yeah, it is actually a very fun series. I love the author dearly, who sadly has passed away. But if anyone wants to read some great male erotica written from a female's perspective, Sandrine gas Dion, lovely person, fun writer, but I got the first book, and I was like, Okay, I need voices for each of the band mates, and I try to make them all set. I'm very distinct, not realizing that point. What's hilarious, I hear my dog, but there's no way my dog hurts.

Vanessa: 10:37

Dogs could hear really well. It

Klaus: 10:40

could be anyway. So for one of the characters, I'm like, okay, each of them needs to have a different voice. So I've like, one is a little bit higher, one is a little bit punk, and then I had one, and I gave him a voice like this or something. And that's really fun to do for a character that pops up here and there, but when the book is first person narration, and then suddenly I realized, Oh, I'm going to have to do a whole book as that I had to record in half hour segments and drink so much tea because it ruined me. So that's a tip for anyone doing voice acting, and training is give yourselves reasonable voices to do unless you know that it's going to be, you know, much briefer, like when I've done some video games and I've voiced like, you know, a minotaur or something, where I'm like, All right, let's all get, you know, sure I can do that voice for 10 minutes of recording And then take the rest of the day off. Sure,

Vanessa: 11:43

it's amazing how tired your voice gets. Like, I'm only finally now able to I'm still like performative if, if I'm out in public trying to talk to a client or something like that, I can't keep my femme voice up for some reason, because you have to think about it constantly. And like, so right now, I'm actually thinking about it and going as full time as I can. It's just weird, just how much thought goes into it and how tiring it gets. Like, the back of your tongue starts getting tired, like, because you're working muscles that are, like, why are, why am I being worked this? This isn't supposed to be happening. I'm supposed to be just being happy. So, yeah, talk,

Klaus: 12:26

talking. You feel like it should be the easiest thing in the world. But the moment you try and alter your voice to something it's not used to it, it is like every muscle in your cheek and throat and tongue tries to fight against it at first, but over time, it just becomes more natural. Because even for a lot of us, just the natural voice we might speak in, there's so many people I talked I saw a video about someone talking about like, actually getting to your natural voice, and how a lot of people don't speak in a natural voice, yeah, all sorts of people put on affectations. I tend to in conversation, just talking with people speak in a little bit higher register. Sometimes. I've got kind of the gravelly undertone here and there, but I tend to go more up here. But if I just try and be like, completely relax everything, not stressing something, and I just go, Huh, really, my normal speaking voice should probably be somewhere more in this, without adding in that little bit of height to it. I should probably speak more around here all the time, but I don't, because I'm a weird, eclectic, you know, cheerful, excitable person, and so I've constantly pushed my voice to reach up here more, and now it's just natural. So I can talk like this all the time forever, when, in reality, I should probably be relaxed in my voice more speaking more down here, I have a more naturally baritone voice, but I will fight to be a tenor until the day I die.

Vanessa: 14:11

I mean, you have to do what you also enjoy, so like and just talking in general for a long time. Just where is you? Wears out your voice and different times of the day too, like mornings and evenings can be different from the middle of the day. So do you like schedule your recordings to be kind of in a sweet spot during the day? Or do you just do whatever?

Klaus: 14:38

I typically start recording at around nine o'clock, and my main block is from like nine to 11. But sometimes, if I have a lot to do, I'll go beyond then. But nine o'clock is great for me, because that is after I've been awake for a while. I get up at 530 in the morning, of my own accord, because I just like it. I'm one of those weirdos, but it gives me enough time to, yeah, gives me enough time to fully hydrate, to just kind of work out some of the kinks, because everyone's got that, you know, morning voice, you're coughing stuff up, you're half an octave lower than. Should be, yeah, it's like, I give myself plenty of time to do that. And so yeah, and I've had to cut back on some of the longer term recording, because another fun thing you can discover is if you get into any kind of thing where you have to speak for long periods and you also have TMJ, that is miserable. Oh, dear I because I was at a point doing like, four straight hours of recording a day for a while. And not only would it just dry my voice out and get get my voice hoarse to the point where, come weekends, I was just drinking, like, honey and tea and barely talking. But it just something that for most of my life has been like, oh, occasionally my jaw gets a little bit sore and it clicks if I open too much and, you know, but yeah, but it's like, Ah, it's not that big of a deal. But, oh boy, I I got to a point I was recording so much and my jaw hurt and was so swollen that I had to, like, take week long breaks just to recover. So it's a dangerous line of work,

Vanessa: 16:41

yeah. And like, I have, like, I have jaw issues too, and part of my facial feminization surgery that I hope to get sometimes actually going to fix that. But like, it wears on you. And like, it's weird having your jaw physically get tired. It's like chewing on a whole bag full of Starburst all at once, or something like that. You know, there's only so much that you can take before your mouth just wants to be like, No, fuck you. I am done. And four hours of recording at once

Klaus: 17:16

I was that was when I was still doing some audio books, and I was doing YouTube, and, you know, I was making some good money at the time, and I literally had to walk away from 1000s of dollars a month because I'm like, I can't, I just physically can't keep doing this, because I try and, Like, maybe if I just bulk record for two days, three, you know, two, three days, and have rest periods in between and stuff, and it's like I was so miserable multiple days a week that I just had to stop the TMJ basically escalated to a point where it was radiating up through my temples and giving me migraines. And so it's no fun having your your days off, or your evenings just spent in bed with a pillow over your face, because lights bad me no like and

Vanessa: 18:11

then the dog still went out. And you know, if Mrs. Facts isn't home, you know, you have to deal adult. Adulting is hard, very, very hard.

Klaus: 18:20

I don't like it most of the time. Luckily, you

Vanessa: 18:23

don't have kids, because that makes adulting even more adulty. So I

Klaus: 18:28

can only imagine. Yeah, I

Vanessa: 18:31

have one. I'm a horrible mom. I don't live with him anymore. That's all other story. But kids are hurt. Kids are hurt. Like, I think it's something that you like, I think you've mentioned, actually, like, in some of your sides where you know, if you don't want to have kids, you don't have to have kids, you shouldn't feel pressured about it. So, yeah,

Klaus: 18:51

absolutely, the world has people in it, and to, like, the the attention and gifts and stuff that I would give kids, I get to spread between my nephews, my niece and a couple of dogs, and with so much less commitment,

Vanessa: 19:10

the best thing about nephews and nieces say, go home at the end of the day. So Exactly, yeah, that's a big thing. So let's pivot to to jobs like this boy has like every single time I listen to you, you talk about another job from the past, like hotels and give give me like a best of of the craziest jobs that you've done in the past.

Klaus: 19:46

So let's see some of my favorites. Um, working at the working at a hotel when I was a teenager was wonderful. Um, I started at the hotel in the maintenance department, and so a lot of my day was just wandering around drinking free soda from the restaurant and like setting up functions and stuff like that. You know, for weddings and parties and stuff like that, it's very chill. I like that a lot. Another job that i i Would it was darn near the. Perfect job, except for two things, and that's when I was the delivery driver and delivery supervisor for a bakery in northern Minnesota. Northeast Minnesota, served the whole area and a worked four days a week, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, you get a break in the middle of the week, you get the weekend off. And wonderful. Most of my night spent by myself, like, put together some orders, load up the truck, bring them all around to the different towns and stuff like that. And the whole time I just be listening to audiobooks. There was one summer where I, I think I listened to, I think it was 31 books over the course of a single summer. It was magical. I was delighted. The only problem was a, if you're a delivery driver for a bakery, you start at midnight and get done sometime between eight and noon.

Vanessa: 21:20

So I was gonna say that's, that's even earlier than your 530 wake up time. Yeah, it

Klaus: 21:25

was miserable. The i I was I had a get together with friends to play some tabletop role playing games every Friday after I got off work at some point, and I did some figuring out. And once a week, while I had that job, I would stay up for anywhere from 36 to 42 hours straight without every single week, I'm pretty sure that job took off a few years of my life,

Vanessa: 21:57

I mean, but hopefully otherwise

Klaus: 22:01

free bakery, fresh bread to bring home whenever I wanted get the freshest donuts, like cake donuts, normally not interested. A cake donut that is still steaming because it's come out of the fryer is like magic. I miss that stuff so much, and I worked with some wonderful people, so that made it better, too. The owner of the place was the actual devil, though, and works, yeah, she not, not so great. So that that Job was a was a great one.

Vanessa: 22:36

How can you be an asshole when you run a when you have a bakery, it's pretty happy thing you

Klaus: 22:43

you would think so she was one of the most bitter, conniving, scheming people, like she Oh, she verged on, like 80s movie villain, and the kind of schemes She tried to get away with, with people, but she's dead now, so I don't care she's dead. I'm alive. That means I won, right?

Vanessa: 23:10

You did. You're dead.

Klaus: 23:12

I'm trying to think I I mean a voice work is obviously going to be the one that I go to immediately and recording for the YouTube the YouTube channels, they're not, you know, I don't own them, so I'm just kind of a contract worker for them. But it is fun to just get to Whoo. It is fun to just get to be at home and record these stories, and at the same time, you know, put in my comments and hopefully some positivity in the world. I try to insert that where I can you

Vanessa: 23:49

do. I mean, that's why you're here, because you have something that I am so Oh, but I'm muting muting

Unknown: 24:03

because working, that's okay. How did you

Vanessa: 24:08

How did you land YouTube gigs like that? Um, that

Klaus: 24:11

actually did stem from doing voice work. I was picking up a lot of just smaller, uh, commercial work and business work for vo stuff. And I saw this job posted not on my usual site. I don't remember where it was, but it was posted for, like, oh, do some voices for like, a YouTube channel. And I was like, well, that's interesting. I've already done some YouTube stuff, and yeah, sure, it might be a steady paycheck. And I started doing it for one channel. I think, I think the first one was a channel about space stuff. It's still probably going, I like, I was, that's kind of what drew me to it's like, Oh, I like space stuff. I like science, sure. And so I started doing that. And then the person who got me doing that was like, Hey, would you mind doing some other channels? And I've done little like shorts channels and channels for tick tock for them too, where it's just introducing clips for stuff, a bunch of things that just didn't pan out because they were ridiculous, but eventually they got to, like, mainly facts and. Mostly facts and stuff reading these Reddit stories. And at the very beginning it was just reading this, reading these little like prompts and lists of stuff or whatever without any input. But then they're like, Hey, would you mind like, giving some commentary on this stuff or whatever. And I was like, yeah, absolutely. And so I started doing that, and people seemed to like it. So that was, it was a weird rabbit hole of stuff that I didn't expect to be doing for as long as I have, you know, I 100% when I saw someone was looking for someone to record these short, little YouTube videos, at first, I'm like, Yeah, this might pay for a few months, a little extra cash, not a lot of work. Did not think that it would be multiple years of just recording so much in such a wild variety of stuff. And now I'm there's a lot of content. There's there's so many videos of mainly facts. There's me on the evaluator, which is also funny to see that that's the other channel that's been doing. Well, it's near about a quarter of a million which not bad for YouTube. But it is funny to occasionally go into the comments and see people like this person sounds a lot like that Reddit guy. And I'm like, I've occasionally, I've occasionally snuck in on my personal accounts. And people are like, I think this sounds, you know, kind of similar to that mainly facts guy, and I'll just go in and reply like, I think you might be on to something. Or I'll hop in and be like, Nah, I don't know. I think it's just an AI voice, because funny enough doing just the mainly facts videos. There have been channels that have made AI voices of me and just tried to pump out the same videos, really, yeah, I can't remember the names of any of them, but I've had, I've seen people in the comments go like, Hey, there's this channel, whatever. And I think they're using your voice. And at first when I hear that, I'm just like, ah, they just probably stumbled upon another channel that I happen to do. But nope, I hop on in there and it's just like story one, and I am looking to go over here and do this today, and I'm like, what

Vanessa: 27:48

that is to feel kind of violating. It's really, it

Klaus: 27:55

is such a weird combination of both violating and flattering, but I mostly land on violating. It's, it's the kind of thing where I think people expect you to just, it's like, oh, you should be flattered, you know. But you should, you should like that. People like your voice enough to steal it. And it's like, I guess. But mostly I'd rather they didn't.

Vanessa: 28:22

I mean, I mean, it's such a new thing that I don't even know what the legality of that is, like, I don't even know if that's something you can technically sue for. I sue for a voice.

Klaus: 28:33

I don't know. I think at least on youtube I can, it can be like, flagged, and be like, Hey, this is AI, and it's using my voice. And here's the proof, listen to me. And so I think maybe at least one of those channels have been shut down, and I think a lot of people don't stick with them, because it still doesn't sound quite the same. It sounds stilted, it sounds wrong,

Vanessa: 29:00

but uncanny valley, yep,

Klaus: 29:02

but I'm also no stranger to hearing my voice or a voice that sounds like me digitized. And you know, if I've happened to have done text to speech voices in the past which I can neither confirm nor deny, perhaps due to contracts, they always sound wrong. They always sound so wrong. I don't like hearing my voice turned into an AI or a text to speech, because it's like it's so close to me, but it's not, and this is the worst uncanny valley I think I could have possibly imagined. It's

Vanessa: 29:48

missing the cadence. Maybe, I think it's the right word for it, like the flow, your natural flow when you talk. And, yeah, uncanny valley, it's unnatural. Yeah. Well, I know tend

Klaus: 30:01

to be expressive and weird and put in exactly fluctuations that it does not do No,

Vanessa: 30:07

no, and that's part of that's part of it. I remember, actually, I think you've done a little bit of like memeing on it, like where people kept on trying to say you're an AI vote. She's, like, I almost had not an AI voice. And then you did the face reveal for a little bit. And that had to blow people's minds, so, but it had to be, it had to be weird, though, to suddenly have the face. And then I noticed it's no longer there. So,

Klaus: 30:35

yeah, it's, I did laugh when people would say, like, I don't know. I think this is an AI voice, and partially, it's because text to speech versions of my voice may or may not have already existed at that point. And so people on Tiktok might be like, wait, I think I've heard someone who sounds kind of like this before, but also I can listen to some older videos that I've done, and there are some times where, again, recording four hours a day. There are some times where I'm just on autopilot, reading those things, and my brains not even comprehending it. And I'll listen back and be like, I can see where they might think this

Vanessa: 31:17

was. I mean, there's only so much, you know, he's reading back, like stories off of Reddit and all kinds of things, like my brother slept with my dog's best friend and, you know, all kinds of shit like that. But eventually it kind of has to all run together. So it

Klaus: 31:41

does there. There are times where I've gotten to the end, because we have, there's a small team that works on mainly facts, and there are people who gather Reddit stories and put them into a Word document and everything, so that I've got just a nice, clean script to work with, and my time isn't spent scrolling through all this stuff that's handy, which also folks, that's why I'm not reading a lot of the comments and stuff they don't put it in. Or people are like, there's an update to the story. Why did you include the update? And I'm like, I didn't know to do. Yeah, like, I had no idea. I just read the thing I'm given. But there, there have been times where they've accidentally replicated the story, and I don't realize until I'm like, finishing the story, and my brain goes, Hey, this sounds familiar.

Vanessa: 32:33

I've noticed that. I've noticed that a few times where it like, be, like the one story and the two stories in between, then back to the original story and like, but yeah, the so which came first you doing voiceover for YouTube or your YouTube channel?

Klaus: 32:52

So my YouTube channel, I've actually had a couple, one that is no longer really in existence, which I started out 13 years ago. I made a YouTube channel where I reviewed anime and eventually video games, and it was the real typical caustic critic stuff, where I was hyper critical of things, and I got rid of it just because I look back on it. And a anything anime was getting copyright strike, so I quit doing it. And some of the video game things, I just looked it in. I went this, just this brings such a negativity to things, and also I'm not happy with the quality. I'm not happy with just my general style there. And so eventually I took that stuff down. I just closed that channel because I'm like, I'm not happy with this, and I don't, I feel like I'm doing it because I have to that.

Vanessa: 33:50

I can't see you doing critical stuff. You're too upbeat. Oh, I'm

Klaus: 33:55

I am naturally a person who likes to be hyper critical about stuff, but that is something that I have very much chilled on and worked on over the last decade of my life, where I'm like, why? But, you know, people can enjoy stuff, and I'll still have my moments. I'll still be critical. Let me tell you. Last night, I tried, I tried for the very first time to watch the Director's Cut of Zack Snyder's rebel moon. I got about 25 minutes in before I turn that off, because it was the most 15 year old edge Lord nonsense. I hate it. I hate it so much I could rant about that movie for hours, and I've only seen 25 minutes of

Vanessa: 34:39

it. I think I've heard of it, but I think what I heard of it was not to watch it. Oh, so don't

Klaus: 34:45

it's so bad. But yeah, no, I used to do really hyper critical stuff, and I stopped that. And now I was, like a I was doing that because I thought it was stuff that would be popular and get views. And I just realized I'm like, I think that's why I don't like what I'm doing here, because my my heart's not in it. I'm not actually passionate about it. And so something like three years ago, very shortly before I started into doing the voices for YouTube with mainly facts and all that. Stuff, I started my own channel, the dungeon noobs Guide, which is a channel dedicated to tabletop role playing games, because I've been playing those for 25 years. I play dozens and dozens of games, and I kind of started it because I wanted to teach some friends how to play a game that I really like, that they weren't familiar with, and I went online to try and find a resource for it, and there was nothing very good. No offense to the people who had resources for it, but they just hopped on a camera and just kind of went off the top of their head talking. And I'm like, that's fine, but I'm like, I want something that way, though, it's like, I want something with effort put in and with visuals, and that's been, like, organized and scripted, to be an actual useful teaching tool. And so I started making that, and I do other stuff on the channel, but, yeah, my main focus was just, like, a I'm just gonna bring positivity. You know, it's like, I just, I want to teach people, I want to gush about games that I love and everything, and I'm so much happier doing that. And that's the biggest advice I can give anyone. Is boy, oh boy. Don't just try and get into something because you think it'll be popular and you might make money off of it, that that is a road to madness, but

Vanessa: 36:42

if your heart's not in it, you know it shows when people have passion, too, and when you're putting something out there that makes you happy, and then you present it in a way that can make other people happy, you're just creating positivity in the world, which There's nothing wrong with that. So I only recently finally, like, I've,

Unknown: 37:04

I've been a gamer nerd for

Vanessa: 37:07

for years. Like, I'm 43 so, like, I started out doing role playing on AOL in the mid 90s in Red Dragon in and then I played a mud called Dragon rooms for a while.

Klaus: 37:24

Oh, nice. I had friends who knew about that. I never got that one myself, but yes, I know that name very well.

Vanessa: 37:32

It was fun. And then, you know, life got in the way, and I always wanted to play Dungeons and Dragons. So now one of my partners, we we made it through like, three quarters of a one shot, and then we got kicked out of library because someone else needed to use a room. But then next week, I'm going to be doing one with my local queer, queer and Canton group, and it's like, Finally, in my 40s, I can finally do this, and it is so much fun. You know, it's,

Klaus: 38:03

it's a wonderful hobby,

Vanessa: 38:06

creative outlet, and just, it lets you be social, it lets you laugh. And I wish I had gotten into it sooner so

Klaus: 38:18

there's no wrong time to start.

Vanessa: 38:21

No, does your channel talk about, like, how to find groups and stuff like that? Not

Klaus: 38:26

really, though, that is something that I should tackle. Because, I mean, there's so many ways to do it, you know, depending on which games you want to play. Because I personally don't really do D and D anymore. I I've done, I did. I've done D and D since second edition, 25 years ago as a teenager in a friend's basement, just like you're supposed to, I guess. But yeah, there are so many ways to connect with people. There's, you know, finding local groups going to local game shops that have stuff running. There's an online one where you can pay to have a GM do it. But a lot of times they have free games running called start playing. So

Vanessa: 39:07

I have, I have history with those fuckers. Oh, I don't hear your story. I

Klaus: 39:13

do always okay.

Vanessa: 39:15

So I applied at start playing to be an executive assistant, and I their application system was kind of weird in that before you had the interview, they gave you the test and like a project, and it was like a four hour project. And so I nailed the project, and I got the screening interview. They loved my project. They loved the screening interview, and then I had in the interview with the CEO, and he this was about two years ago, so I was I didn't pass nearly as well as I do now. And I think he was thinking, Oh, awesome, Vanessa, that's a sexy girl name. I wonder she's gonna be a sexy girl. And then this Vanessa pops up on their early transition without any vocal training. So I'm sounding like this, and I didn't get that job.

Transcending Humanity: 40:13

I love you.

Klaus: 40:16

Yeah, I will say in the videos I've seen of. The founder and owner. He's got a real tech bro vibe that it was very tech bro, yeah, I immediately was like, I don't, I don't love it. But also, it's so hard to escape the tech bros online these days, where it

Vanessa: 40:36

is, they said I didn't fit their company's oath of growth mentality. Oh, I'm like, bitch. I'm a trans woman. My life is all about growth. So yeah, but I talked to other people that interviewed for the same role and had the same shit. So sorry, you brought up. Start playing. I had to do that a side story that is a good avenue for people to find games to play. It like

Klaus: 41:00

that can be. I also always recommend folks check out like, just find people online and start making groups there, on like YouTube, but especially Tiktok. Tiktok has been like, you know, I don't love Tiktok as an app. It, it frustrates me. I think it's got a lot of negatives to it, but you can really move for it. Yeah, it's tough. I can't do it. I can't I've tried to post on it, and I I'm just so bad at it, um, I occasionally post high eating a cup of, you know, guacamole or something, because that's me, but I've met a number of people through that in the community that there's a I am somewhat credited with pronouncing the acronym for tabletop role playing games, TTRPG. I have for many years pronounced it titter pig because it's easier. It's so much easier than me. Like TTRPG. It's like, no, that's Yeah, it's so many plosives to have to just spit at somebody. And LGBTQIA

Vanessa: 42:14

lipid is something I heard from that. And

Klaus: 42:17

so, uh, my partner, she does not play, she does not play tabletop games and so, but she's interested in it. She wants to hear what I have to say. You know, she's so supportive, and she'd want to talk to me about about it. And she'd be like, at first she was like, Oh, are you playing your T, um, T R, P, T, no, T, T R, P, G. And so one day, I was just like, just call it tatter pig. And she started laughing, and she's like, is that how people pronounce it? And I'm like, that's how I pronounce it, and

Vanessa: 42:49

you need to get that to spread. Plus it has the word tits in it, and exactly left me some tits. So

Klaus: 42:55

who doesn't

Vanessa: 42:57

I know the best thing ever. But imagine if you grow your own shit.

Klaus: 43:01

But now I know there's a discord group out there called titter pig Academy, and a extremely liber covid, plus friendly, the person Penny who runs it, she's a trans woman. She's wonderful. Met her because of Tiktok, and her old channel is full of people like, Hey, who wants to play this new game? And they've got old school games where you can play games like D and D, or new games where you want to play death match Island, where you're, you know, basically playing the hunger games and stuff like that. You know, it's like, so there are a lot of resources out there, but it, it's such a social game that it does require breaching those social circles and being able to take those steps to interact with them, which I am terrible At. But really I, I'm I, I'm so socially anxious about stuff, people would not have thought that about you. Nobody does back when I used to do stand up. I'd get done with my set, and I'd, you know, go over to get a drink from the bar, and people would want to come up to me and chat. And all I could think is, why are you doing this? Why are you talking to me? I only talk on the stage. I'm done now. Please don't and I'm fairly good at it now. I like I've just through what I do. I've had to become good at talking with people, but it's not natural for me, and especially online. I've been invited to so many discord channels, and I always have to tell folks these days, I'm just like, I will gladly join your channel, and I, if you at me in the channel and mention me, I'll try to get in there and respond. I won't be active. I'm so bad.

Vanessa: 44:56

Otherwise I'm meeting that shit. Yeah, me too. I mute all of my channels so I'm not because it's exhausting. I made

Klaus: 45:03

my own channel for the dungeon noobs guide, and it's quiet now because I wouldn't interact in it, because even people who were there to talk to me, I was just like, oh, I don't know. No, I'm not gonna so

Vanessa: 45:18

it uses way too many. Spoons. It's

Klaus: 45:20

it does I and I have such limited spoons, little teaspoons, and so I'm not, I'm not great at that stuff, but even just taking some little steps and interacting more, I'd say definitely tick tock is one of the better places to actually connect with people and start playing those games, weirdly enough, but you know also, my mind takes trying to train the algorithm to show you what you want to see for Lord knows how, long before it's slightly less of a hellscape. So good luck with that.

Vanessa: 45:57

You mentioned something about like being introverted and a comedian, and I actually think that's fairly common. I was listening to Jon Stewart's podcast a couple days ago, and someone wrote into him asking, like, I'm an introvert, but I want to do comedy. And these two mix. He's like, Absolutely. He's like, I'm an introvert. Almost everybody I know when comedy is an introvert, you go up there, you get on stage, you do your bit, and then you are fucking done, you know. So don't feel like you're alone there. Yeah, I

Klaus: 46:28

think it. And even, yeah, other comedians that I knew, not the most socially out there, people like we usually after the show. We mostly just stuck with each other and talked with each other, because that's who we knew. We didn't want to talk to the people who saw our shows, really. But I think it's not bad for introverts to be able to go on stage and do like comedy or theater, because it's controlled and you know exactly what the interaction is. And also you don't have to like answer questions. There's not as much unexpected stuff, aside from dealing with rowdy audience members, which I've seen go very well and very poorly. So yeah,

Vanessa: 47:08

that's why I don't know if I could do like I've always kind of wanted to do stand up, but I don't know how I would be with hecklers so

Klaus: 47:16

they and especially early on, because anyone who starts stand up, you're probably starting in open mics, stand ups and bars, which is the roughest of crowds, or you're doing it on like the open mics at comedy clubs, which they're going to be less drunk, but they're going to be more demanding, and it's getting a heckler is rough. Usually, I think everyone kind of develops their own way of dealing with it. But there are going to be some nights where I think every anyone who wants to do comedy, get ready to have one night where a heckler ruins a show for you, and just try to just try to go with the flow and ignore it. Doing comedy is basically embracing consistent failure for a long time and being okay with that. It's such an uncomfortable process. But boy, oh boy. If you're really let it get to you, things can go bad. I saw one comedian that I was friends with. He was a little he, I will say he was a little tipsy before he went on stage. And that's dangerous. It was a one. It was an open mic in a bar. There weren't that many people, but there was this group of young women who were kind of heckling him, one woman in particular, and he was trying to razz her back play along. And she kept like, the way she was heckling him was making the rest of us comedians be like, Oh, okay, gosh. Maybe we should, maybe we should, like, get her out of here or something, because this isn't great. But our folk, our focus, very quickly shifted when my friend on stage was clearly getting very frustrated with her, until one point, he's just holding the mic, staring at her, and he goes, if you don't shut up. I'm gonna throw my fucking shoe at you. And that's the moment where my other friend, who was helping to run the open mic night, looks at me and goes, should I and I'm like, yeah, get him off the stage.

Vanessa: 49:36

Yeah, yeah. Oh boy. Then no, no, you don't need to get violent with crowds, folks. No, it's

Klaus: 49:45

a bad idea. You're

Vanessa: 49:45

not gonna win. You're not gonna win. Yeah,

Klaus: 49:48

you need such a thick skin to get into comedy. And yeah, there were nights where I was getting done and just like, oh, I don't know if I can do this, but every time you get a laugh, it's the best drug in the world. So it has

Vanessa: 50:03

to be, yeah, unlike anything else. So maybe one day I'll do it. I don't know. So we're getting there in time. I've been doing a quick little game of i. Cards Against Humanity to wrap up shows. Do you think Mrs. Facts would mind if you did a Cards Against Humanity with a hot chick like this? Oh, I

Klaus: 50:27

think she'd be just fine with it. Okay, I'm

Vanessa: 50:30

gonna dig one. So it's not your typical way of doing it. I just pick a card. Well, we pick a card and then we come up with something to be the white guy. That's all it is. It's just kind of a fun way to wrap up a show so, but I probably I need to shuffle these shits, but that would require my autistic brain to actually be on top of things, and it's not so autistic, ADHD, PTSD, like, I have all the things that just kind of send me off into whatever. So anyways, here are our cards. Um, tell me about where in the deck you would like to need to pull yours.

Klaus: 51:16

Oh, let's go right there. Right here. Yeah, this card here, that's the one I can feel it Okay, and

Vanessa: 51:25

I'm gonna take the one.

Unknown: 51:28

Whoops, showing you the cards, showing you my cards. I'm gonna take this one

Vanessa: 51:35

for me. So hopefully it doesn't suck. Last week, I had no idea what to do with mine. So are you ready for yours? I'm ready. Okay, so it says we gotta read that backwards. Hey guys, I know this was my should probably hold it so you can read it. Come here. There we go. Hey guys, I know this was my idea, but I'm having serious doubts about blank.

Klaus: 52:02

Oh, hey guys, I know this was my idea, but I'm having serious doubts about I'm having serious doubts about this picnic slash orgy.

Vanessa: 52:26

Oh, that could be awkward yet kinky. At the same time, I'm getting Sausage Party vibes. You go see that shit I have. It was delightfully awful. Okay, so mine alternative medicine is now embracing the curative powers of trans girl jizz,

Klaus: 52:57

yes, please,

Vanessa: 52:59

yeah, because we still do come and we still we square it so trans, you could bottle that actually, I probably should bottle, I probably could bottle that shit and people would buy it.

Klaus: 53:14

You probably could not to say that as far as as far as holistic medicines go trans girl jizz is one that I can definitely get behind. Oh,

Vanessa: 53:30

I don't have a beer just stroke anymore, so you have to do it for me. So yeah, class, this was wonderful.

Klaus: 53:40

This was so much fun. Thank you so much for having me. Thank

Vanessa: 53:44

you for joining. Do you have any closing thoughts or anything that you want to throw out there for my tiny audience compared to your massive

Klaus: 53:54

one? My thoughts are folks as much as you are able to, and don't stress yourself over it, but as much as you're able to put out positivity in the world and give people as much grace as you are mentally capable of giving them, because we have too little of both of those things in the world, I Think, and you don't always there are plenty of exceptions out there, but boy, if we could all just give each other a little more grace, a little more patience and a little more positivity. I think it had helped the world a little bit. I mean, it can't get a lot worse, can it?

Vanessa: 54:38

I hope not. I actually finally have hope for the future right now with I don't know where you fall politically, but I'm very left. You

Klaus: 54:46

know, I'm way over there as well, and I

Vanessa: 54:50

figured as much,

Klaus: 54:52

yeah, is, and I have my problems with the Democratic Party, I think any should, but I am excited to hear that Minnesota zone walls.

Vanessa: 55:03

Yes, yes. God, that was big news. So he,

Klaus: 55:09

he's a pretty delightful guy too. You know, makes me proud to be a Minnesotan, just like, just like Tim,

Vanessa: 55:17

that's I can't. Wait, I can't wait to see what the next few months are gonna bring. So I'm

Klaus: 55:22

hopeful thing he's crossed. Yeah,

Vanessa: 55:26

so Klaus, people can find you on dungeon noobs guide, on YouTube, any place else you'd like them to stalk you or say the best.

Klaus: 55:33

I mean, you can find me on the broken down hellscape that is Twitter. As Klaus von H I post on there just a random thought, maybe about once a week, though, I could hardly stomach to be on it anymore, so I delete that shit. Yeah,

Vanessa: 55:50

Twitter's evil. You're talking to a trans girl. And yeah, Twitter's evil. But I love dead, naming it, because, you know, Elon is perfectly happy, dead, naming his daughter, so I'll dead, name his fucking platform. Yeah, so, but all right, Klaus, thank you again. This was wonderful, and you're welcome back anytime, if you ever have something you want to talk about. Thank you. We know we can pop you on.

Klaus: 56:15

I will definitely keep that in mind. This was delightful.

Vanessa: 56:20

I glad you liked it. So all right, everybody, until next time, don't forget to send us money. Send him money too. So, you know, maybe he likes money. We all like money. So listen to his stuff. He's fun. Tootles. Do.