Nearly a Wizard of the Coast - Ep. 111 of Intentionally Blank
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.ย. 2024
- Dan came prepared today with a food heist, a bad story, and the days topic of discussion of how Dan nearly worked for Wizards of the Coast before moving on to general discussions on role-playing and table-top games.
🍔 Food Heists:
“The Gnocchi Brothers Gnocchi Gnocchi Brothers Gnocchi Restaurant” -
• It’s Amusing for Me to... (0:00-3:54)
vs
“Tailgating Something Nefarious” -
• I Have Thoughts About ... (0:37-6:46)
🔥 Bad Story Ideas:
"Weekend at Vader's with an Actual Zombie" -
• Weekend at Vaders - Ep... (3:45-9:05)
vs
"Jungle Book but with Dragons and Middle School" -
• Live From FanX! Fixing... (19:46-25:37)
And make sure to cast your vote on this week's polls by clicking the Google form below: forms.gle/yHB3...
Which stories and heists will emerge victorious! Join us next week to find out!
Check out our previous episode of Intentionally Blank
• Talking Tetris - Ep. 1...
Can be listened to almost everywhere podcasts can be found.
Sound engineering and editing by Daniel Thompson
Can you imagine the suspiciously long list of volunteers to work at the cafeteria in food heist prison?
That would only serve to make better food heisters once they got out of prison. You want to eat? Get better at obtaining food than all these other professionals. It'd be a food heist battle royale.
@@groofay This would actually be a brilliant social deception game. Imagine Deceive Inc., except you're in a prison cafeteria and trying to smuggle food out.
I'd like to think there is no cafeteria. There is a lockbox with food in it, and if you don't have the skill to break in and get the food every day, you starve.
Brandon completely forgetting his own novels include a respawning enemy army - the Fused, while talking about that laser tag inspired story idea. Seems possible to me
He said the problem is when both armies respawn
Also, while the Fused sort of respawn, they need to wait for the Everstorm to make its way across the continent again, and they need a new Singer body to inhabit, so it's not quite the same.
This is what I was thinking as well.... They're just describing the Fused. :P
He's got a glint in his eye... I think he might not have forgot but doesn't want to spoil Stormlight cause the Fused is pretty deep in there. Could be wrong but just an idea. He is a tricksy hobbit after all
Not the first time. There was a fair number of comments on the Weekend at Vader’s episode that the whole “the boss is dead, we gotta pretend he’s alive” sort of situation is also kinda the starting premise of The Emperor’s Soul.
I think the small differences just send his brain down different paths (the Dark Lord instead of the king, a more futuristic/sci fi war vs medieval/fantasy) and he doesn’t realize how similar some of the “bad story ideas” are to something he has in fact done in his stories, where it was really good!
"Ooh we can't die we can do whatever we want... The enemy can't die either so maybe we need to resolve our conflicts in a different way"
Dan legitimately just pitched Stormlight to Brandon, and Brandon was like "legit good story idea"
Haha I was thinking the same thing and came here to the comments to say "HEY WAIT A SECOND!"
Also scalzi's dispatcher stuff!
Dang, Sanderson is looking great with the new beard :p
It’s a real shame that he needs to shave to teach his class 😢
@@nathanharmon8971What! Why?
@@20storiesunderBYU has a beard rule
@@robertrasmussen5690 This is pretty ironic. Have you ever seen a picture of Brigham Young?
@@robertrasmussen5690 That's mad.
Just my two cents:
I prefer full-time split screen to swapping solo shots back and forth. You don’t get to see the reaction to what’s being said this way.
If this is up for a vote... I agree with snoogle20
Agreed
I too missed the split screen
Good to know. I will tell Adam.
@@BrandSandersonSecretly though, aren't you Adam?
Okay honestly that pentagon game with adjectives like Brandon mentioned sounds super freaking fun
And Brandon proves, once again, he is better at this creative thing (while maintaining logical integrity) than almost anybody.
The main reasons it was discontinued were production costs and distribution. It's also hard to get infrastructure for non-rectangular cards (sleeves and such)
Hecatomb! I remember playing it back in middle school. Very interesting (albeit gruesome).
Brandon is downplaying not sending him bad story ideas. Sending people _ideas_ like that presents legal problems for the people receiving them. Think about it. Brandon probably hears ideas from people _all the time_ and can't remember or track them reasonably. Imagine that he accidentally comes up with one of these ideas himself.
If someone sent that idea in and he never read it, he could potentially end up in a long legal battle over that fact that wastes his time, the time (and probably money) of whoever had that idea, and wastes limited court time on a lawsuit that really meant nothing.
For what it's worth, an idea isn't a significant legal issue - ideas are not copyrightable - what would be a potential issue is if someone sent in a short story or other substantial development of an idea and the author read that and then used similar text - though the matter was never settled in court.
The main threat is not that someone could sue and win, but that they could sue and not get immediately thrown out, so use up a lot of time and money on a pretty much frivolous lawsuit.
@@rmsgrey There is a wide gulf between what copyright protects and what people will sue for. Ideas are still a problem if people can sue for them anyway (and they can.)
The fact that they will lose doesn't make it any less of a pain to deal with.
he'll be hearing from my lawyer if I ever find out he used my "john wick, but its the owner who gets killed and the dog thats the retired hitman who gets revenge" idea without proper credit
@@DampeS8N As I alluded to, part of the problem is that there doesn't seem to be an established precedent - it's possible there's one out there, but the example everyone brings up is the MZB Darkover fanfiction incident, where it's agreed that agents and publishers were consulted and generally understood that lawyers were involved at some point, but no-one's made public whose lawyers.
The generally agreed portion is that MZB was very encouraging of fanfic and encouraged people to share it with her, publishing official collections and even, on occasion, adopting ideas into canon, giving the originator money and an acknowledgement. She attempted to make the same deal with one particular fan for something she wanted to use in her next novel, the fan tried negotiating, things got messy quickly, and the end result was that the novel was abandoned and MZB became significantly less friendly to fanfic.
The whole thing set an unfortunate precedent for fandom/creator relationships, but not a legal precedent - meaning that the current guidelines are for creators to stay firmly in areas where it's clear that any attempted lawsuit would be thrown out immediately rather than even risking the slightly grey area where a judge might decide that a case has sufficient merit to be heard, let alone getting close to territory where there's a chance the case would go the fan's way.
If precedent had been established, it would make it a lot easier to know where the lines actually are, and also to get cases thrown out with a clear line to point to.
@CuteKiller313 ngl, I would read that fan fic. Please write 🤣
The joy of Ben and everyone else at the end was absolutely amazing! Thank you to whoever made that and sent it to him ❤
That was actually my friend Rebekah! We gave it to Ben at a launch party for secret project 3 in Lions park provo. I have videos of it on my tiktok. So glad they liked the shirt 😂😂😂😂
@@ThatCosmereChickAwesome! She totally made the shirt I want 😂
While I somewhat appreciate the quality that comes from having full screen shots of both of them, I definitely prefer split-screen, so we can see each host's reactions to what the other is saying.
Dan’s bad story idea becomes a good idea with the simple idea of being an enemies to lovers story, an Oscar winning movie for sure
A science fiction book by Amal El-Mohtar is like this. I forgot.
kind of like munchkin
Ah yes, the temporary placeholder name that has episode 111 next to it. I've seen those kinds of temporary before.
IBS stands for Intentionally Blank Submissions
Dan written d&d modules would be amazing.
I would hope not, to be honest. 😅 He's better than that. Wizards of the Coast do not deserve the talents of good people, they're much too steeped in racism, sexism, transphobia, ageism, and honestly everything else a company could do wrong.
@@overanimated626 What?! Are you kidding? Have you looked at any D&D book published in the past 3 years?
@@overanimated626 I said nothing of wotc, 3rd party modules 🎉
@@overanimated626 ...are you kidding? Between the D&D rule changes just to remove stats from races, the campaign books with random gay couples and nonbinary people (Waterdeep: Dragon Heist has both, from memory) and plenty of racial diversity, MtG's new LotR set race-swapping popular characters into people of colour, the large ban-list of insensitive MtG cards, obvious diversity-based casting on promotional materials, and the absolute deluge of rainbow-themed logos and banners every June (especially on partner platforms like D&D Beyond), I think you're confusing WotC with some other, not-so-woke company.
And for context, I don't follow WotC in any particular detail - every one of those examples are just things I've noticed while playing D&D or Magic in the last ~5 years or so. There are probably more.
Gotta say, for that story idea about the respawing soldiers, the first thing that came into mind was more of a comedy. I watch a lot of SovietWomble and his "war simulator" videos give that vibe you know? When death becomes meaningless, inflicting it among yourselves would become far more common too
+"Who ate my snickers bar?? I had to walk into the nearest town for it!"
-"Oh, that was Clyde, I saw him"
+ *Walks over to Clyde and shoots him in the head* "Next one to steal from me gets shot in the kneecaps first"
...
*During training, 5 recruits are standing behind cover*
-"These guys just can't wrap their heads around proper spacing, I swear..."
-*Pulls the pin on an actual live grenade and throws it to their feet*, *All 5 die*
-*After the respawn* "That hurt, did it? Wouldn't have happened with the correct spacing"
Ooooh yeah that would be hilarious!
"We do not eat our classmates" is a picture book about a dinosaur who goes to a human elementary school and can't stop trying to eat her classmates. It is super cute. 10/10 from an elemetary librarian.
It warmed my heart that Titan A.E. was mentioned. It was my favorite as a kid and rewatching it was still good. 30:32
It’s awesome Dan is working on the Stormlight Campaign. Looking forward as a backer to seeing what it will be.
I came here after listening the podcast just to see the last 30 seconds and I was not disappointed.
Same.
I return to the comments section once again to petition: whatever T-shirt gets made, it needs to have "this space left Intentionally Blank" on the back.
Here's a Tshirt idea - Dan dressed as Nick Fury (eye patch included) talking to Brandon in a dimly lit room - "I am here to talk to you about the "Food Heist Prison initiative". Someone put Stable diffusion on that.
Ben is my favorite thing about this podcast.
Brandon: "How do you even have a real war, where people respawn?"
If only someone had wrote a book series, where that exact thing happens...
"How do you even have a real war, where people re-spawn?"
I love that Doctor Who episode!
(Season 4, Episode 6)
About the bad story idea about a child raised by dragons going to middle school, my kids have a children's picture book about a dinosaur going to a human elementary school, but he has a hard time because no one wants to be his friend just because he keeps trying to eat his classmates.
This book sounds awesome. I want to read it to my children. Lol
Weekend at Vader's was so funny to listen to, just cause all of the jokes that came from it
lol the end of the episode! that was so good lol
Just wanted to comment about the things talked about at around 15 minutes in. You were talking about what the point of war might be if both sides could respawn. The answers are pretty easy and well defined in video games.
Territory. You are trying to keep people out of an area or take control over an area or resource. You win by capturing what is respawning them or draining their resources faster (limit on number of respawns or rate of respawns).
Honestly this could be a pretty fun idea exploring a Valhalla like after life. Or some kind of endless galactic battle with endless civilizations.
Also it shifts battle tactics to where they want to capture and disarm rather than kill or where it makes sense to have a way to die built into your soldiers. Fighting isn't pointless just because it is consequence free in terms of death. There are far worse things than dying.
So many cool topics in a single episode! Also, I feel like people aren't talking enough about how great that ending was. 👌
Brandon with a full fantasy author beard is everything I needed in life
Legendary cameo at the end
I literally stopped what I was doing, and left Spotify to see the "How's that Ben" shirt. Did not disappoint!
Gun guy and bullet guy, in a futurist setting, gun is keyed to genetic signature of both guys, bullets only fire from that gun for reasons. Now they can't pick up other guns.
The bad story idea of respawning soldiers, along with the resolution of maybe we find another way, is absolutely an idea that was used in the sci fi silver age. What immediately came to mind for me is Day of the Dove from Star Trek TOS. Good stuff.
My immediate thought for a potential solution to the issue of not having cool cards in Hecatomb is to, rather than having every card be a single segment out of the five, include some cards that are already partly voltroned together - so they're immediately cool cards, but have more limited scope to upgrade further.
Well Dan, one way to get Brandon back into tabletop roleplaying would be to rope him into a game promoting the Stormlight RPG... 😁
29:27 regarding teen action demographic shows, i think part of the issue is most networks and stuff don't have a support system for that stuff. No programing blocks to separate that content, marketers who don't know how to promote it, etc. At least, that's my theory
That makes as good of sense as anything else. Toonami back in the day was super groundbreaking, and even that was something that Cartoon Network seemed to want to bury because the licenses were expensive. When they weren't axing good exclusives like Megas XLR and Sym-Bionic Titan, anyway -_-
And that's to say nothing of how Nickelodeon treated Avatar The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra.
The good news is at least Cartoon Network seems to have come correct with its current Toonami run on Saturdays, since it actually has MOSTLY relevant shows (kind of amusing they're still running Naruto Shippuden, but afaik the dub hasn't finished airing because that show just doesn't know how to stop).
An easy fix for the gun bullet story would be that the gun is a unique calliber so no one eleses gun will work with those bullets, and no one elses bullets will work with that gun so to maximize their potential they must work closely together and support each other. Make it a little sci fi and each gun only works for a specific person and no one else can use it.
Log Horizon is classic stuck in a game world anime. The consequences of spawning is losing some memories. There's a group of soldiers that march in and die over and over and they are in a zombie state without memories or character traits. It's pretty horrifying.
Adoooonalsium
15:58 "How do you have a real war where people respawn?" Brandon, you've written multiple books about this. You're describing a fused.
Loving that beard!
Hecatomb! I remember playing it back in middle school. Very interesting (albeit gruesome).
Looking forward to the full unleashing of the FHU (Food Heist Universe) franchise.
Two respawning armies makes a great setting; all it needs is limits.
For example:
Respawning could have limited range, so the goal is to swoop in, take out a group of enemies, and then secure the area quickly so that you can spawn kill the enemies as they respawn until they surrender.
Or, soldiers could only respawn at certain locations, so battles are all about securing spawn points.
Or, respawning could use up mana, chi, or whatever you want to call it, so soldiers have to adjust tactics based on how many respawns they have left.
Dan says its an temporary stupid name, but remember you and Brad said the same thing when you guys were picking the name for the podcast and now here we are....lolol IBS..bested name ever...lol
They should write a bad story anthology from the best(worst?) ideas. Short stories just for fun.
Frugal wizards handbook has already been released. There’s hope!
I feel like Dan should be signing some books as well while he's there.
Forgeries of Brandon's signature, Emperor's Soul level.
4:23 Clearly that potato win is just proof on how powerful the monarchy still is. So the groundskeeper did not have a chance. 😊
I love the IB title, please don't change it.
Titan AE was really fun. I wish more people knew about that.
Respawning soldiers reminds me a bit of Battlestar Galatica Cylons' digital consciousness
At this point Food Heist Prison is by far your most fleshed out bad story idea.
Food heist report line.
The undying mercenaries series by B.V. Larson is kind of like the respawning soldiers. I listened to 4 of the books and they had good beginnings but bad endings
I think it says a lot about US perceptions of the Soviet Union that people like Dan believe the rifle story
Ben was so happy about that shirt 🥺
I Hope that someone on your team is like a muppet and remembers to bring the paper towels.
Dan casually mentioning Stormlight RPG can't wait!
For the "Jungle Book but with Dragons and Middle School" tshirt I am imagining a kid sitting in the cafeteria with a flamethrower while everyone around him reacts in horror. Caption, "Isn't this how you make your school lunches?" On the back two proud dragon parents are kissing him good bye and handing him a whole sheep as he heads away from home toward his first day in school.
Stalingrad gun idea… set a little in the future with the trope of guns being tied to users biometrically so the other guy can only use that gun cos none of the others along the way would allow him to press fire
Nothing beats "Thundarr the Barbarian"
My school used to have a self serve Chick-fi-A in the student building, but they had to convert it back into a regular cashier counter because there were too many food heists
Well worth getting on here to see that shirt
So, Deep Space 9 did that eternals fighting. There was a moon they found that had two groups on it. They could not die or leave, yet they would get killed and comback after a period of time. It was just that. They held a grudge and wouldn't stop until the other was dead. Of course, they couldn't die. So they kept scaring each other for all that time.
Who was guilt? Everyone on that planet that held a grudge. The Kai was forced to stay with them. To end the feud. I like to believe she did, but that is my head cannon. But, then again, maybe they didn't stop. They never got back to it.
We don't have the right to demand fighting end. It will end when all those fighting put down their swords. Which leads me to the other story it reminded me of.
The Green Knight, the myth not the movie. You struck me, now I will return your blow, Prepare yourself. So cheat again, you're going to need it. At least that is how it went in the myth. I don't know if it is my favorite tale. I would perfer peace.
For the bad story idea, maybe have it be a magic system or even just explain it with future fingerprint tech. That or have the guy with the gun a great shot but hopelessly incapable with everything else and the other guy useless with a gun and the gun guy is helping him cover so he doesn't have to be the one to use the gun. Maybe have gun guy only have one arm and loud feet or something...
For the respawning soldier story, maybe you have highly trained personnel in VR rigs piloting droids. When a droid falls they simply take control of a new one and keep going. You could have it so unpiloted droids are run by AI but due to computing constraints these AI aren’t as good as the best people. Then something goes wrong and the facility the pilots are in is attacked and now they need to fight their way back to friendly territory in real life.
Dang, I did not expect so many buttons pushed for me here. Hextiles, Darkwater, and finding out Dan wrote the missing story for (I'm assuming it's Theros Beyond Death.) I still have a monkeybird toy.
Mormon bachelor parties go hard at laser tag
For the respawning soldiers: the soldiers can't die, but their equipment can still be destroyed, so war quickly becomes about attriting enemy equipment at any cost in men, and designing your own equipment to be maximally destructive to the enemy while being as cheap as possible to produce.
Hecatomb! Despite all the issues mentioned and unmentioned, I still have that "want to try" feeling for this.
I would steal $500k worth of wine to play magic with you guys! 🤣
29:30
Pirates of Darkwater is being put up with the best of them
Titan A. E., Atlantis and Treasure Planet the goated
I love wine heists.
If wine is valuable enough to be stolen, its probably not being stolen from someone who is struggling for cash.
LOVE that t shirt, release one with the food heist/bad story idea t shirts please!
Respawning soldiers sounds like the battlefield games (yes and every other shooter with attrition but still). The bases could just have a limited number of resources to respawn soldiers, and after they are depleted, the soldiers will respawn at a base farther away. War would be more brutal and chaotic cause it is about depleting the other resources in the are first. That is probably how our wars will be once we are fighting each other with andriods
The endless soldiers, look at Eve Online. You have clones and right before death, the consciousness is transferred out so you can put it back into another clone. My favorite FPS was based on Eve Online - Dust514.
Great bachelor party brandon!
Hmm. Hecatomb.
Okay. Make the heist game. The card in the middle is the operative you send on the mission. The cards where you only see some text are other operatives who are in radio contact with the one you send in and lend their expertise. So you send in an acrobat, and he also has a security expert on his headset who tells him how to disable the alarm.
Mention of Pirates of Dark Water hit me right in the nostalgia and I looked it up on Wiki. Turns out one of the villains was voiced by Tim Curry!
Mormons bachelor parties at laser tag 😂
Love Sanderson.The most awesome fantasy author to ever walk on Earth. 🙏
Dan said he can't find a commander deck for under $80. Competitive decks are in the thousands of dollars range, good thing he's only interested in casual. Honestly $80 is a steal. ;)
litrpg plays off the themes of an army that respawns
They say dan is still sleeping on the couch to this day
Just looked up pirates of darkwater because it sounded familiar... I was 4-5 when this came out so I dont know when I watched it, but I remember absolutely loving it. I haven't thought about it in probably 25 years at least. Now I need to see how much it doesn't hold up watching as an adult😁. This was a highly entertaining and interesting episode. Thanks guys.
It actually holds up pretty decently outside of the monkeybird being annoying.
It has no ending however so it just kind of... stops halfway through the story, so be prepared for that.
My friend Rebekah made that shirt for Ben!!! I have a full video of us giving it to him I posted on TH-cam shorts. 😂 We threw a party for the launch of secret project 3 and invited him. It was a fun day.
If we ever get a Cosmere Universes Beyond Magic set, I look forward to reading the flavour text Dan writes!
the bad story idea sounds like an incredible romance.
They both haven’t heard of the Undying Mercenaries!!
There is actually a light novel/manga/ also anime called the vexations of a hikikomori princes who's plot it's about an endless war for, everyday there a different fight but while they died on the battlefield that is the common ground between all the 5 kingdom every single person revives. So the war it's more fore the amusement and a way of e ding dispute while drawing blood but without consecuences
Spiderverse is worth the trip to a theater
There was a series "Undying Mercenaries" that had was about soldiers who could respawn. Interesting implications to battle.
Well played Ben!
End of Pirates 1, Barbosa does point out there's no point to their fighting
That description of Skar in laser tag sounds like a Mistborn or Knight Radiant teeing through n enemy force
I've been playing the Food and Fellowship MTG precon deck with a few modifications. Super fun! Love the LoTR flavor.
37:49 like the skeleton in a The Last Unicorn.
Idaho falls has a semi pro hockey team called the spud kings. The tee shirt would be perfect to wear to the games
Hey Beard is coming in nice!
The respawning soldiers thing just makes me think of the Attack of the Dead Men, AKA the Battle of Osowiec Fortress, present day Northern Poland, where German soldiers gassed this castle after sieging it for a period of time. Once it was "safe" for the Germans to enter, they were set upon by a bunch of Russian soldiers who they thought were just corpses, because although the Russians had a zero percent chance of walking out of the castle alive, because they'd used rags and cloth to cover their mouths and noses in the absence of actual gas masks, they'd held out JUST LONG ENOUGH to get the jump on the Germans when they tried to occupy the castle.
My friends and I got to talking about it before D&D the other night, and I flat out said I'm not patriotic enough to fight freaking melting corpses, were I a German soldier at the time, that would have been my breaking point, and I'd desert even knowing I'd be shot in the back on the way out of camp.
the modifying card game concept reminds me of Transistor by Supergiant Games. In terms of card games, Superfight is fantastic like that.