Session 0

The Gang’s All Here!

It’s session zero time friends. An important part of any RPG is making sure that the table is safe. This one is no different. Listen in as we set our ground rules and talk about the game to come.

The Game

This Game was played using the Mavericks system. An RPG utilizing a deck of cards to tell the story and put fate in the hands of the players. It’s a story-forward roleplaying experience that encourages the players and dealer to work together to create the story. Check out the System Reference Document on Itch.io

https://the-indecisionist.itch.io/mavericks

The Cast

Stella Cheeks is @stellacheeks on Instagram and Bluesky. Check out her other podcasts, Not Your Demographic, X-Treks, and Spooky Thirties.

Sara Moore is @pixiesandpins on all social media channels and at Pixies and Pins.com. You can also check out her Sarah’s Table livestreams on twitch @pixiesandpins.  

Omar Burgos is @Taleweaver Check out his work on the Tale of D20s TTRPG channel. More information at https://ataleofd20s.com/

Ben Banks is @Dj_blindian on Instagram and Soundcloud

I’m Ansel Burch and you can find me @TheIndecisionist on all of the meta properties and on Bluesky.

———

Special thanks to Cameron Evesque Davis for the song you’re hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast. Find her work on Soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/cameronevesquedavis

This show is an Indecisionist Production. Go to Indecisionist.com to find more of my work including my monthly gaming event, TTRPG Pickup Con, and my other time travel podcast, Time 2 Party. 

As you travel at one second per second, take some time out for these intrepid adventurers. They may be in trouble, but only for the time being.

Transcript

Ansel Burch 0:06

I welcome adventurers from across time and space. Five creators have been brought together from across the internet for one purpose and one purpose alone, to travel through time and have a good time doing it. When big changes happen to the timeline, the change attracts other time travelers like gravity, they won't be able to move past it until they fix whatever was messed up. So our heroes are stuck together, but only For the time being. You

It's easy enough. What do you think? Man,

Stella Cheeks 1:03

I like it. I like, how many times you

Unknown Speaker 1:07

say the word time? Yeah, so many times self conscious

Ansel Burch 1:13

too. And I'm like,

Stella Cheeks 1:16

No. Man would have been weird. But like, it's the bit like honestly, you could probably add one more.

Ansel Burch 1:24

Yeah, count it up. Make sure it's divisible by three. Hello. Welcome everyone to our session zero. Our friends have already built our characters, and I'm so excited for you all to introduce your characters to each other and talk a little bit about that. But first, the most important thing for any role playing game is to lay down the ground rules about like what we are comfortable doing together in the course of our stories. And so I would love to start our conversation by talking a little bit about the setting that we're going to go with and and then from there, we'll talk about our lines and veils, and I will talk a little bit about the x card, which is my personal favorite gaming safety mechanism. To give you some context for the adventures that we're going to have as a part of the show. Here we are going to be playing time travelers, as you well know. And I hope that the audience has figured it out by this point in the episode already, and that means basically we have carte blanche and excuse to go just about anywhere in time and space, and that includes fantasy realms, places that never existed, places that don't exist yet, places that we hope it will exist, and places that we hope never will exist. So as a result, we have sort of broad scope of situations and worlds that we might end up in. We talked a little bit before during our initial meeting, about what we were comfortable with confronting in our adventures. And one of the big things that I would like to go ahead and say is not going to happen during our game unless it is explicitly the reason that you are going to the place to fix it is any isms. Your adventurers are coming from all sorts of times and places to all sorts of times and places. And I don't think that it's particularly interesting to try to role play out dealing with the prejudices that come with those locations, unless we're giving you the levers to fight it. So like, if there's a really cool thing that that we will explicitly call out as, like, the point of the episode, then maybe I won't rule that out, but that'll have to be something that everybody agrees upon and wants to do. I'm not going to surprise you with like, hey, looks like you're going to have trouble walking around in the open here, because that that just, I don't know, that doesn't sound like a good time for anybody. So yes, so just as a ground rule, we're not gonna, we're not gonna deal with that. Other than that, friends, are there any things in the course of our role play that you would like to make sure we just, you know, don't do if there's something that that you find unpleasant, distasteful, frightening, what have you.

Sarah Moore 4:34

My lines are sexual violence, violence against children and withholding food as punishment or starvation. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you.

Ansel Burch 4:44

You've done this before. Are there any other things that we want to include on our list of lines and veils? Yeah, still, maternal

Stella Cheeks 4:52

mortality, specifically, women dying from childbirth. Like, it's okay if you're like, I'm an orphan, my mom passed away. That's. No, not what I mean by it.

Ben Banks 5:01

I was gonna say, I guess we all have to take a trip to your desk to see the paper. Yeah, right, yeah,

Ansel Burch 5:08

privileged details here on the scrap of paper.

Omar Burgos 5:13

I definitely would not like to have any form of rape or torture in a sexual manner, that those are very hard lines for me that I would like to have crossed.

Ansel Burch 5:27

Those are noted.

Speaker 1 5:30

I was gonna say sexual violence, but that's been covered, so I think we're good. Yeah,

Ansel Burch 5:34

sexual violence is one of the big ones for me as well, and I'm glad that it's

Sarah Moore 5:39

already made it on the list. Something that comes up a lot at tables is violence toward animals. Like, what, what level is everybody comfortable with at my table, I usually say, like, you can attack an animal that's attacking you, but don't kick the neighbor's dog. So, like, I don't know, like, if a random animal comes up if there's, like, a protocol that we should be as a table dealing with before we I don't, I don't know what shenanigans we will get into, but like, yeah,

Ansel Burch 6:10

no, I think that's a that's a great one. And violence against animals is honestly something I don't usually use as a lever. So thank you for bringing it up, because I would have completely forgotten about it. For me personally, I I would love it if we didn't do violence to animals who weren't threatening. But I'm happy if the line is drawn elsewhere as well. That works for me. Yeah?

Omar Burgos 6:34

Me as well. Yeah, I'm good with that, honestly, a little bit that plays into my characters bit, not more

Ansel Burch 6:43

foreshadowing, foreshadowing, excellent. All right, and now that we've done that, let's go ahead and talk a little bit about the x card. So the x card is a tool that I really enjoy using at my tables for things that we didn't think of during this part of the session. You know, sometimes you're having a different day, or there's a situation that you didn't think about or hadn't anticipated, and it's starting to go into a place that feels icky or not fun. And ultimately, this space, this table, is meant to be here to be fun. We're telling a story together, and it's so much better when everybody is able to participate safely and happily. So I encourage in those moments for all of us to take the opportunity to steer things away. And if there's not something happening in the moment that you feel comfortable steering or that you have control over, you can just stop the direction by pulling out the x card. Now, that can be done in a few ways. In this context, we do have a chat in the service here in Riverside where we're recording. You can type an X in the chat that will alert everybody who's here and allow you to do that. So I'm going to go ahead and click that here, and you should see that notification pop up. You can also, because we're all on video here in our in our recording studio, you can also put your hands up in an X in front of your cameras. We can all see it. That's a good way to do it. You can also just say, Hey, I'd like to use the x card, or x card, or, you know, some iteration of that. And I would like to make it clear that you're never gonna have to explain your use of the x card to me. We're just gonna move away. I'm just gonna change the scene. We're gonna change the direction. If it's interrupting something that has more legs to it, or that is foundational to what I'm planning to do. We may take a minute to, you know, sort of redirect and figure out what needs to happen to make everybody safe, but I'm never going to ask you to explain beyond what you want to say, that the x card is is safe and is not a negotiable tool. So that being said, are there any questions about the x card or clarifications? Since I know we've got a few, uh, fellow expert Game Masters on board today, is there anything you'd like to add about the x card. In your experience,

Sarah Moore 9:44

I think it might be nice to have an option where we could privately message you Ansel, if it's something that is,

Ansel Burch 9:51

oh, yeah, sorry, yes, you're welcome to send it to me privately as well.

Sarah Moore 9:55

I don't anticipate that being a problem, but just in case, yeah. Yeah.

Ansel Burch 10:00

And I also welcome you to, you know, if, if you don't want a full x card, but you're like, hey, it sounds like we're headed towards rivers, and I don't like rivers today. You could, you can send me a chat ahead as well. Just be like, Hey, I don't know if this is what's going on, but let's try and not have that happen. That's totally cool, too. I encourage, encourage you all to message me privately if there's anything you want to change about the way game is going, even if it's not safety related. Good clarification. Thank you. Anything else that we want to talk about safety wise? Are there any tools that you use that help you feel safe at the table? I

Omar Burgos 10:43

do have one that I like to use myself and in my games is the Rewind. Sometimes we flub or we say something and I'm like that. That's not what I meant. That's not how I might like, how I wanted to come out. Can we wind I really meant to do this way? And because sometimes people have words or my mind loses itself, that's a safety tool that I definitely would like. Well, I would ask that we add to this as well, absolutely,

Ansel Burch 11:10

actually, that's a really good reminder to me. I heard recently about a game that used, Oh God, what did they call it, I think they called it the remote. And you could, you could rewind. You'd be like, oh, let's, can we bump that back a little bit? I, you know, that's not what I meant to say, or I use the wrong power, or whatever they also had fast forward for, like, all right, well, we're gonna do a sex scene now. So they go to bed, and then tomorrow they wake up, and you just like, fast forward beyond whatever thing is coming up, and they also had pause, of course, just to like, take a second to like, talk something out. So I love that language as a way of like, describing those controls. And I will say that for us as you know, a piece of content this show is getting edited. So in the event that we as players around the table would like to remove anything that happens in the game, that is absolutely an option, and I want that to be on the table. You know, we are. We are all people who exist on the internet, and the internet is forever. So, you know, Hey, I didn't, I didn't mean to say that, or that's not really what I feel about that thing. We can edit that out. That's totally fine.

Sarah Moore 12:37

Are we tonally, because I have run a bunch of different kinds of games, like, I run thirsty sword lesbians frequently and so like, how flirty slash descriptive is this particular game? Is this a fade to black when it comes to any kind of flirting or sexual nature, or is it like, where's what's happening with that?

Ansel Burch 13:09

Yeah, no, that's that's a great question. I am comfortable with getting us all the way up to, like, a fade to black for I don't want to do any explicit sex scenes. But like, you know, we can, we can have characters flirt. We can have characters go do whatever grown up activities our characters want to do, for me, but how is everybody else's comfort level on that that works for me? Me as well?

Sarah Moore 13:38

Yeah, I'm good with that. I've made a note that it's going to be nothing but dick jokes all the way down. Awesome. Yeah.

Ansel Burch 13:47

What's your podcast like? Mostly dick

Stella Cheeks 13:52

jokes, time travel and dick jokes. You know, isn't

Speaker 1 13:56

that like most of them? We describe podcasts like we didn't change

Sarah Moore 14:03

title of this particular one. When you release, it should be mostly time travel and dick jokes, and then everybody knows what you're getting into that on the on the header. Think we've hooked him.

Omar Burgos 14:18

Yeah, you can definitely judge this book by his cover. Yep,

Ansel Burch 14:25

fantastic. And I know that we all know each other at least a little bit through the course of our pre work, but as we are about to embark on this adventure, now that we've covered a little bit of our safety tools, I would love for each of you to introduce yourselves briefly to our audience, we'll also do some brief plugs, so you can tell us a little bit about the projects that you're working on, and if there's anything that they should look for on the internet. So let's start with Omar. Omar, tell us a little bit about yourself. Okay, awesome.

Omar Burgos 14:56

Hello, everyone. My name is Omar Burgos, but. You may find me on Discord. Still work fixing the Insta and other social media as the tail Weaver. I run and own a company called a tale of D 20s. We are a TT RPG company, and you can find us anywhere, at WWW dot tilde twenties.com, or insert social media, slash the tale of the 20s,

Ansel Burch 15:23

platform of choice, slash, exactly like

Omar Burgos 15:26

everywhere and anywhere. We're also on Spotify and all the podcasts as well. With our shows such as descent to the void, tale of the radiant Citadel, we play games such as Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, Star finder and as well is, do we do work with Magpie games? So you'll see a lot of thing called Magpie madness. You have to say it that way. I didn't know like that. We play all Magpie games. And coming soon to a streaming near you, possibly working on something called Taro, which is, if you just imagine, Magical Girl, guy, non binary realness, anime transformations, full on Sailor Moon in the world of like mask play in it's pretty awesome. Still a work in progress and being play tested now, but that should be coming soon.

Ansel Burch 16:21

That's very good. Ben, tell us about yourself.

Speaker 1 16:29

Hey, what's up? I am Ben. I am a DJ and a photographer. I've got a couple podcasts that I've done floating out in the ether, but I have, don't have anything current right now, but I'm working on it, but I am on this show. So there, yeah, now you do. Now I do. But yeah, I've been playing, really in TT RPGs and, like, Dungeons and Dragons, 5e Since 2020, when the world shut down. That was kind of my gateway. I started listening to a bunch, and I was like, hey, I want to do this and start playing. So I played in a bunch of discord games and stuff like that, but I'm excited to be here.

Ansel Burch 17:08

Amazing. How about Sarah? Tell us a little bit

Sarah Moore 17:12

about Hey everybody. My name is Sarah Moore. My pronouns are she her. And you can find me all over the internet at pixies and pins, or my web, my website, which is pixies and pins.com and you can find me every Friday night on twitch in a show called Sarah's table at 5pm Pacific, where I highlight indie and small publisher games. You can also go to formerly feral games.com and check out my first RPG that was just released, called the crowned where you get to play a God, a very small sliver of reality, and see how much you mess up the world with that. Because usually, yeah, and I, I'm sort of, I'm everywhere, and if you just say my name three times into a mirror. I will show up and run an RPG for you.

Ansel Burch 18:11

And if I, if I recall correctly, there's usually

Sarah Moore 18:13

pastry. Yeah, something sweet pastry, and it's and it's generally also pretty gay. Just as a heads up to everybody, just super queer all the way down. So

Ansel Burch 18:28

little extra value tied in there, rainbows and cookies. Who doesn't want this? All right? And Stella, tell

Stella Cheeks 18:34

us a little bit about yourself. Hi, I'm Stella cheeks. You may known me in Chicago as being the producer of plan nine burlesque. Or you might know me from the internet, from my various podcasts at nYd productions, like spooky 30s or extracts or nominally not your demographic, it still technically exists. Yeah, you can find me anywhere, except for on Twitter, because I deleted that at solid cheeks. I have been a longtime player of ttrpgs, just never for hashtag content. So I'm actually really excited to do a podcast with everybody, kind of combining my love of podcasts and make believe work in these mini theater degrees for zero money. That's what theater degrees are for, right? I'm pretty sure that

Ansel Burch 19:29

was what I was led to understand the

Sarah Moore 19:30

bank account just now I was like, woof,

Ansel Burch 19:37

writing the loans. Yikes.

Stella Cheeks 19:38

Do you need more than one theater degree? No, do I have more than one theater degree? Yeah,

Speaker 2 19:44

need is such a strong word. Listen, I like to think it really is.

Omar Burgos 19:50

I like to think about like TTR bees helps us weapons on liberal arts degree, yeah,

Ansel Burch 19:55

yeah. I'm,

Stella Cheeks 19:56

well, I am. I will credit you on that, but I'm. Definitely saying that many times out loud in the future.

Ansel Burch 20:08

And finally, I am Ansel. I am the indecisionist, and I am the creator of the game that we are playing in this podcast. So I'm very excited about that as an opportunity to sort of put it out in the world. If you are interested in playing this game. Versions of it are available on itch.io, and you can find me at the indecisionist there. You can also find me on all of the meta properties at the indecisionist. And, yeah, I'm also on blue sky and what's the other one? Threads,

Stella Cheeks 20:43

Bumble. Threads, yes, I'm on thread. You say, bumble,

Ansel Burch 20:48

yeah, bumble, I'm on farmers ONLY. You may also find us. Find me on the podcast, time to party, which is also produced by this company, which is a time travel, movie podcast, and yeah, you would think I have a fixation, and you might be right about

Speaker 2 21:08

very loose theme for a lot of your content, just at the smallest, the smallest

Ansel Burch 21:17

All together, uh huh, it's every genre, but mostly time travel.

Omar Burgos 21:23

But what a subject. I love time travel because there's so much minor free in there and stuff, and you can make your own rules. So I'm about it.

Ansel Burch 21:34

This is actually a great thing for us to sort of tie off with. I love time travel, because it's such a broad metaphor. Time Travel lets us explore so many parts of humanity and like, what would you do if you could travel through time? What would you do if you were stuck in time? What would you do if time looped back on itself and the the myriad ways that holds a mirror up to our psyche is just incredible. And if we can, if we can play even a little bit with that during the course of this silly, silly game, I will consider this to have been an enormous success. So what is your favorite piece of time travel media is, does everybody have one? Yes, it can be Superman too.

Stella Cheeks 22:30

It's definitely Star Trek four, the one with the whales. Hell yeah, which is the official title?

Ansel Burch 22:36

Yes,

Sarah Moore 22:40

the one Bill and Ted's Excellent

Omar Burgos 22:43

Adventure, very good. Mine would have to be, and it's, and it's not, kind of because of the movies, because I'm a big comic book nerd fan, but it's the entire Marvel universe, how they did time travel, and it made multiverses and all that. I was in love with that growing up reading the comic books. And that started my Yeah, but if you do change between the past, but then is that the same future anymore? Yada yada yada. So definitely comic comic books, but yes, the Marvel

Ansel Burch 23:11

universe. All right. All right,

Speaker 1 23:15

yeah, I was gonna say probably Avengers in game, uh, because nothing has made me jump out of my seat in a theater and, like, scream, like some of the things that happened in that movie did, but for the hardcore fans, the nerds out there, primer is also great the movie. It's like the very logistical time travel. But I don't know, I had a great time watching that movie.

Stella Cheeks 23:39

I also we have to shout out, at least I do. I love quantum leap. Like, oh, gee, quantum leap. Oh

Speaker 2 23:44

yes, oh, my god. I love quantum leap. Love quantum life.

Ansel Burch 23:48

You hold on to that thought.

Stella Cheeks 23:51

I will. I think about it every day.

Omar Burgos 23:53

And we also have to mention my second favorite thing, which is Doctor Who, because the whole thing is based on time when I love it. Yeah, there's, there's

Ansel Burch 24:03

a lot of Doctor Who vibes in this, in this show. So definitely worth bringing up. I would actually love to shout out another podcast that I super fell in love with. It's called Ars paradoxica, and it is such a nuanced and carefully crafted piece of time travel media, I cannot enough recommend it. It is so so good. The whole concept is based around the Philadelphia Experiment, and the idea being that, like when the ship, like cloaked itself, or whatever, it fractured time. It like fell out of time, and it created this barrier where people can you can travel through time now, yay, but you can't go further forward than the Philadelphia Experiment. And you can't go further backward than the Philadelphia Experiment. So people get stuck on like, one side or the other of this barrier. And see you, you get to follow these agents who are, like, trying to figure out how to get home and what happened. And it's, it's very just

Sarah Moore 25:20

like, spawned a whole new thing in my brain where I was just like, oh, but also Groundhog Day and Edge of Tomorrow, and and like tomorrow, the seven and a half deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. If anybody here has read that, that's

Stella Cheeks 25:37

definitely so good.

Sarah Moore 25:39

The loop, part of the of the time travel, where you can't travel forward in time. It's very interesting.

Ansel Burch 25:47

Have you guys seen Palm Springs, similar habits? Concept, great time loop movie, much better than I thought it was going to be.

Sarah Moore 25:55

So I'll bump it up maybe.

Ben Banks 25:58

Yeah, it's also on my list because Ansel said

Ansel Burch 26:03

that stamp now I will accept that authority. Fantastic. Yep, it's It's homework. Now, amazing. Well, thank you all so much for joining me here. This is going to be such a good time, and I am so excited for our first adventure, which for those of you listening at home, is probably in your feed. As we speak time you don't even have to wait time that's that's time travel, that right there. Time travel. We've broken we're coming to you from the past.

You so as you travel forward one second per second, please come on back and join us next time. Stella cheeks is at Stella cheeks on Instagram and blue sky, Sarah Moore is at pixies and pins on all of the social media channels, and at pixies and pins.com you can also check out her Sarah's table live streams on Twitch at pixies and pins. Omar Burgos is at tail Weaver. Check out his work on the tale of D 20s. TTRPG channel. More information at a tale of D twenties.com Ben banks is at DJ underscore. Blendian on Instagram and SoundCloud. I'm Ansel Burch, and you can find me at the indecisionist on all of the meta properties and on blue sky special. Thanks to Cameron evesque Davis for the song you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast, this has been an indecisionist production. Go to indecisionist.com to find more of our work, including my monthly gaming event, TTRPG pickup con, and my other time travel podcast, time to party as you travel at one second per second. Take some time out for these intrepid adventurers, they may be in trouble, but only for the time being. You

Character Creation: Part 4

Final Marks/Abilities

We’re getting into the mechanics of the game and adding marks to to our decks that lean into how these characters work in the context of the gameplay. The marks are there to modify cards, change the order of play, and manipulate the deck.

The Game

This Game was played using the Mavericks system. An RPG utilizing a deck of cards to tell the story and put fate in the hands of the players. It’s a story-forward roleplaying experience that encourages the players and dealer to work together to create the story. Check out the System Reference Document on Itch.io

https://the-indecisionist.itch.io/mavericks

The Cast

Stella Cheeks is @stellacheeks on Instagram and Bluesky. Check out her other podcasts, Not Your Demographic, X-Treks, and Spooky Thirties.

Sara Moore is @pixiesandpins on all social media channels and at Pixies and Pins.com. You can also check out her Sarah’s Table livestreams on twitch @pixiesandpins.  

Omar Burgos is @Taleweaver Check out his work on the Tale of D20s TTRPG channel. More information at https://ataleofd20s.com/

Ben Banks is @Dj_blindian on Instagram and Soundcloud

I’m Ansel Burch and you can find me @TheIndecisionist on all of the meta properties and on Bluesky.

———

Special thanks to Cameron Evesque Davis for the song you’re hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast. Find her work on Soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/cameronevesquedavis

This show is an Indecisionist Production. Go to Indecisionist.com to find more of my work including my monthly gaming event, TTRPG Pickup Con, and my other time travel podcast, Time 2 Party. 

As you travel at one second per second, take some time out for these intrepid adventurers. They may be in trouble, but only for the time being.

---

Transcript

Ansel Burch 0:06

I welcome adventurers from across time and space. Five creators have been brought together from across the internet for one purpose and one purpose alone, to travel through time and have a good time doing it. When big changes happen to the timeline, the change attracts other time travelers like gravity, they won't be able to move past it until they fix whatever was messed up. So our heroes are stuck together, but only for the time being. You

Ansel Burch 1:00

Music.

Ansel Burch 1:03

Welcome back, friends to for the time being, it's so wonderful to have you all joining us for this amazing adventure. I am thrilled to be welcoming you once again. I am Ansel Burch, the indecisionist, your dealer for the game

of for the time being, we are playing the Mavericks system, a system that I wrote through indecisionist Productions. It is a game based around a deck of cards as the random number generator and the artifact of play. And in this episode, we are finishing up our character creation process. That means next episode, two weeks from this release. You're gonna get our first adventure. And guys, it's, it's gonna be so good. We're going back to ancient Sumeria. We're gonna it's, it's good, it's good stuff. We're throwing our characters into the deep end, and they are gonna see some, some wild stuff out there, in in the world.

But first. But first, we are going to finish off the mechanics of the characters with the final marks. These final marks are going to be what define the characters skills outside of their sort of core character creation sensibilities. And at the end of today's episode, I have a special treat, completely unprovoked, the amazing Stella cheeks did an interview on my own podcast asking me about the inspirations for the game, and that stuff is tucked in there towards the end credits. For your enjoyment, to get a little bit more information about the game itself and what inspired it. If you do have any questions, feel free to reach out to us at the indecisionist or any of our cast members on their handles, and we'd love to hear from you how much you're enjoying the show. Let us know what you're thinking about these characters and what you're hoping they get up to as they go through their various adventures

and now with no further ado. All right, so we have one last thing to do, and it is in some ways the most complicated,

Ansel Burch 3:07

Okay, I'm ready. This is meta. This is gonna step outside of our character creation storytelling and get into mechanics, okay, and then we're gonna deal seven cards out. Yep, I'm

Sarah Moore 3:22

two,

three, just one of the other jokers,

567,

Ansel Burch 3:32

all right, so you can set the rest of the deck aside for now.

Sarah Moore 3:37

Okay, I didn't get any of my marked ones

Ansel Burch 3:39

Interesting. Okay, cool. So you are now going to take a look at the top half of the marks chart, the standard marks, standard marks. These marks are like special powers and abilities. Okay, they modify the cards in a way that is sort of independent of your characters, like story, but still, I think can inform that story if you want the two. So for example, if you could lean into the war cards if you wanted to be, you know,

Ansel Burch 4:11

aware of your fighting spirit, you can lean into riches if you wanted to go in that but ultimately, what you want to think about is, what are the cards that you just drew, and how do you want to modify them? So I'll give you some time to take a look at all of the descriptions, because there are descriptions for each of the marks. Yeah, and let me know if you have any questions. So

Sarah Moore 4:49

mark the back of the carb. That's face value. That's interesting. I. So then when we're drawing, I guess, okay, do give me a quick rundown of how, like a skill check?

Ansel Burch 5:11

Oh, yeah, of course. Okay, so if we were doing a skill check, then if it's just you, then you and I are going to both draw cards. And if my card is higher, then you fail. If your heart is card is higher, you succeed. Got it nice and simple. If you want to test your luck, you're going to say you're going to declare a suit. If the card you draw off the top of your deck is that suit, then you get lucky. And whatever it is happens, you know, so if it's just like, I want to go outside and see if there's a guy selling fruit, and yep, it's a club. There's a guy out there selling fruit. It's just definitely, is there to luck, no skill, just a thing that happens where it gets interesting is whenever there's a conflict, whether it's a social conflict or like an actual like physical combat, that's a span of time, right? So we're going to represent that span of time with three cards, and those three cards will represent them the beginning, middle and end of that conflict, no matter how long it takes. So this could be a two minute bar fight or a three year war. We're going to represent it with these three cards, okay? And the there are a couple things that the marks affect that are relevant to that. And one of those, one element is that you are allowed, you as an individual, are allowed to Monty Hall yourself as much as you want, any face down cards that you dealt out, you can flip them around as much as you want. So if you have a clairvoyance mark, you know where the most important card is, or where a very important card is, you could put that card in, you know, in at the end, where it's going to impact the result. Or if it's a bad card, you can put it in the middle, where it doesn't matter so much. Or you could take advantage of one of your other powers to, like, replace it, or something. Okay, so that is, that is the big thing to be aware of there, is that you can switch them around, and your cards are face down, as are my cards. So if you take any of these that that allow you to remove a card from the spread or affect an opponent's card, that's what you're doing. You're, you're you're looking forward to the end of this fight and changing the outcome so it gives you more like board control effect,

Sarah Moore 7:51

okay, um, I feel like she, as an actress, would be good at charm. Charm feels, I feel like, and I feel like I have a six, and I feel like double face value to a 12 would make that good, like, I feel like it would be wasted on, like a face card. Yes, absolutely.

Ansel Burch 8:12

I mean, if you put it on face, that face card is unstoppable, right? Yeah, no one will ever be higher but a six. I mean, that makes a boring card into a quite respectable one.

Sarah Moore 8:25

Yeah, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna take charm and put it on the six. Um,

Ansel Burch 8:32

oh, and sorry, I did get around to this. So you're gonna put seven marks on these cards. You do not have to put one mark per card.

Sarah Moore 8:41

Oh, interesting. I can put them wherever I want. You could

Ansel Burch 8:44

put all seven on one card, if you felt so inclined.

Sarah Moore 8:49

I have a two of hearts in here, and I feel like I'm really interested in having that be a sacrifice.

Ansel Burch 8:56

That's Yep,

Sarah Moore 9:01

because that feels like, like an interesting I think she would view it in a way of, of like, well, I clearly can't do this, but I have been in a lot of movies, and like, You're the star of this one. So I like, I think she sees everything in like, that kind of like movie terms, like, this is your scene. So this is your scene. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna do the thing that heroically, that sacrifices out of kind of the same, yeah, you know, if I'm going to have a death, that's going to be the best death. So I have a joker.

Ansel Burch 9:46

Okay, that's a Joker's code is

Sarah Moore 9:49

a zero.

Ansel Burch 9:52

So if you look at the bottom half of the of the chart from Boon down the. Value of the card does not matter, yeah, so that those are good ones to look at for this. You could also do another sacrifice if you want that to be like a thing that comes up more frequently. I,

Sarah Moore 10:12

I like, um,

I like stunning for this one. I think that's very interesting.

Ansel Burch 10:30

Yeah, Stunning. Stunning is one that I'm particularly excited to see in play more. It hasn't come up yet much in my play tests, yeah, because there's an obvious choice of like, okay, well, the antagonists who only get my three cards right, antagonists are going to be out for the middle or the end of the fight or whatever. But I think there's also an opportunity to, like, save somebody else from repercussions by like, Yeah, you get to take a breather for this middle card,

Sarah Moore 11:03

yeah, yeah. So,

Ansel Burch 11:06

yeah. I think there's, I think there's a lot of potential, but the stunning mark, so that's, that's a cool one to put in.

Sarah Moore 11:11

I have an ace of hearts, and I think I'm going to use, I want to put confidence on that one.

Ansel Burch 11:18

Yep, good choice,

Sarah Moore 11:21

because that's sort of almost a guaranteed, yeah,

Ansel Burch 11:24

something pretty crazy would have to happen for me to beat you. In fact, I don't think I can beat you unless my antagonist has a special power, which is possible. I don't mark my cards. Wow, the dealer doesn't mark their cards. Instead, characters of NPCs of importance, get a power. And so sometimes that power is like, every time they draw from this suit, they draw a second card and take the hire. Anytime they draw from this suit, they get to add a number to it. And there are a couple, you know, powers that are sort of built in, but yeah, so it would be very hard for me, as the dealer, to beat an ace at ties go to

Sarah Moore 12:18

the player. I also really like Doom, and I think the queen is gonna be doomed. Yeah?

Beep, beep, beep, 1234, but I know you said I didn't have to, but I like spreading them out. I think

Ansel Burch 12:39

that's, oh yeah. I mean, mathematically, that's the most advantageous way to do it, because by the end of this you have, I think, if I'm remembering correctly, 19 marked cards in a pack of 54 Yeah. So like the odds are in your favor of drawing one at least a couple times during the course of the session, if not, yeah, times, yeah.

Sarah Moore 13:06

I'm going to put clairvoyance on this four, because it's, it's little so I'm going to put a and then you just mark the back of the card with its face value, or one mark from its face. So I'm just gonna put a four,

Ansel Burch 13:21

just to let let yourself know that one dead not don't count on that. Yeah,

Sarah Moore 13:26

that's a pretty bad one. That's pretty little. And then I have this 10, I'm gonna have it be riches, okay,

Ansel Burch 13:36

that that makes it another hard to beat card. Yeah?

Sarah Moore 13:39

Yeah, I'm I'm trying to, like, I understand that, like, I don't know. I just feel like, because she's kind of lived this charmed life that I think she just bulldozes into what she wants. And I think that the way that she does that is by just like, blatantly refusing to believe that it's not a thing she can do. Which is why? Which is why? Like, increasing, like, I was like, I know this is an ace, but I'm just gonna increase it. Like, let's make things bigger, right? Which is maybe not always the smartest choice mechanically, but like, but it edit. I think it makes the most sense for her, which is why, when things don't go her way, she's just like, sort of stymied. Like, what do you mean, really, to work like, this should have worked. This has always worked before.

Ansel Burch 14:42

I don't know Excellent. Well, that's your character. You did it. Yay. She'll need a name, for sure. I feel like I have

Sarah Moore 14:50

a name for her. Yeah, I have it in. I put it in the. For the time being. Hold on. Let me see. Oh, right. Jeff helped me come up with a great one, because we were like, We need to have one. Elena, Elena Rhodes, which sounds both like a classic movie store movie star or a porn star, because all of those names sound the same, like a 30s, 40s starlet or a porn star, all have that same sort of

Ansel Burch 15:29

ring to it. Yeah. Very, very rhinestone couture.

Unknown Speaker 15:40

There she is. We did. She did.

Ansel Burch 15:44

All right. So we have your impediment. So the last thing to do, and this is the thing that gets a little bit meta

now that you've draw, you shuffled your cards together, draw the top seven off of the deck. Some of these will may be ones that you've already marked. Some of them may not be that entirely the luck of the draw

Stella Cheeks 16:03

shit, a lot of them are, I really shuffled. You saw me. I shuffled heavily. I shuffled heavily. This is not fair.

Unknown Speaker 16:12

This might actually be good for you.

Stella Cheeks 16:14

This can't be right. Out of the seven, I drew five with a mark on them. Wow. I mean, do you want to show me? I shuffled through like, half of that conversation I did. I was doing the flippy. I was doing the, like, the side shuffle. I shuffled the shit out of this. You did. I watched it. People heard it,

Ansel Burch 16:36

yeah, yeah. But we got the

Stella Cheeks 16:38

ASMR, all right, fuck. I want you to know that I drew all three of my ally cards

Ansel Burch 16:45

really. Okay, that's cool. So take a look at the standard marks. So the top half of the dev the marks chart. Okay, you are going to you get seven marks to put on these cards. You do not have to put one mark on each card. You do not have to use all of the cards, and you do not have to pick seven different marks. If you want to put the skill mark on every single one of these bitches, you totally can. So if that's clear enough, then I will let you read through the marks, ask any questions you may have. If you have a card that's already marked like your your ally cards, you know that's going to be a success, right? Those ally cards are already very strong, and they're going to bring another card into the fight that might be a good opportunity for, like, the confidence mark, that might be a good mark for a good opportunity for the clairvoyance so that you know it's coming, something like that. Whereas, if you've got a low card, you know, or a middle card, if you've got, like, a six or an eight, that might be a good one for the skill or war marks, because those are going to double the value of a decent card and make it a better card. And then you want to think about those are the ones where you think about, like, what kind of character is this? Am I a skillful character? Am I a violent character? Am I a social character, that sort of thing. So I'll let you read through these. Ask any questions you may have, especially now that you've since you drew so many Mark I know, like the the way that they play together, that's definitely something I'm interested in. Your thoughts

Stella Cheeks 18:40

on Well, I did this the skill one. I drew four of spades which had nothing on it, so I bumped that skill level.

Ansel Burch 18:48

Okay, so that'll be an eight, if, when you try, which is still not amazing, it's better, decent, right? Yeah, it's better, right? So that's a much, yeah, it's made way better, twice as good. You might say, I think, and I like the idea of you being especially skillful based upon your like, tinkery take things apart, instincts I love. I think

Stella Cheeks 19:09

I'm going to, because the Queen was the source, right? So I'm gonna think I wanna do clairvoyance on that one. Does that make sense thematically? I like it. I think that makes sense there. Draw an additional card from your deck into this round and choose the better of the two, either

Ansel Burch 19:26

the marked card or the one you draw. And if you're wondering, does that counteract the enemy card or the enemy mark? Yes, okay, well,

Stella Cheeks 19:34

I didn't draw any enemies. Okay, I'm gonna take back the skill. One good thing, it's wet. Ah. Okay, all right, I'm gonna do that skill one, but I'm gonna do it. Okay, wait, where was this one? I'm gonna actually boost No, because that's already kind of high. But thematically. It makes sense. What the ah, Well, which one are you thinking about? Okay, because, like, the 10 of Clubs was the like, how do you present to the world thing? I feel like nothing that skill wise. Like, makes sense.

Ansel Burch 20:16

Yeah, totally. I think the skill mark on that it that makes that card nigh unstoppable. It becomes a 20 value, yeah, just higher than any card naturally in the deck. I'm gonna do that. Yeah, I think that makes total sense,

Stella Cheeks 20:29

because, like, how I present to the world, I think, is how I how I'm thinking this character, I feel like this character isn't very it's just not, like, very manipulative, right? So I think, like, even though maybe she has all this family shit or whatever, like, This is who she wants to be, so she works very hard to be that person.

Ansel Burch 20:50

You've up skilled as a result. Yeah, I like

Stella Cheeks 20:52

that. Okay, so ruin would be something. If you drew your enemy card, you would want to put ruin on it, because it's bringing it down a little

Ansel Burch 21:02

bit, right? Yeah, okay, yeah. Ruins, a really good one, you know, in all, in a couple different ways, but that would definitely be a way to use ruin. Well, no, actually, sorry, I'm was thinking of a different one. Ruin. I win allows you to lower the face value of a different card, so probably my card, the dealer's card, by three. So like, if you know you like that eight, if you're like, hey, this eight is a decent card, but not a great card. If I can low, if you can lower my card by three that eight might become more powerful or more capable of getting across the goal line.

Unknown Speaker 21:56

Okay,

Ansel Burch 21:59

I feel like sacrifice and confidence or sacrifice would be an interesting card for you to or mark for you to work with as well. Yeah, if you have any really low I

Stella Cheeks 22:07

was thinking of either the sacrifice, if this card fails, double the value of an allies card in the same complex

Ansel Burch 22:22

so like, if you know your this card is shit,

Stella Cheeks 22:27

but I drew pretty high. Oh, I guess I could do this, like, four, right? Because that would be, that's a good one. Chance is pretty good. That's not going to do it. So I do sacrifice on that one, right? That's what we're talking about. Okay, so I've done three marks so far. I do want to put one on each one. No, you,

Ansel Burch 22:44

you drew five marked cards. They're put one on each card. Why not?

Stella Cheeks 22:50

Okay, I want to put the charm on the jack of clubs, because that's like my bestie. And I'm like, thinking that my bestie is like, like a snake oil salesman, not like, not actually sneak a little salesman. But like somebody who could, like, what's that phrase, sell a red popsicle to a woman in white gloves? Like, I feel like that's my friend, because I'm like, the awkward one, and he's like, No, yeah, I'm feeling that for him. I RAM.

I don't do confidence on my other ally card.

Ansel Burch 23:31

Oh yeah, that makes total sense, especially because

Stella Cheeks 23:33

that's my unnamed familial card. So I feel like there's some, like, maybe pride wrapped up in there, which could be interesting. Yeah,

Ansel Burch 23:43

gifts for others. Yeah, you do come from wealth, so maybe that's your, your like, abundance mindset, yeah, oh,

Stella Cheeks 23:51

man, some of these are really good. Okay, I know I don't want to do the war one, and we did.

Ansel Burch 24:02

You. Can use skill more than once, or charm more

Stella Cheeks 24:04

than no but I like want to have like variety that's fair.

Ansel Burch 24:15

You haven't chosen any Doom yet.

Stella Cheeks 24:17

Yeah, wait, what did I do on four sacrifice? Not ruin, okay, sacrifice, yeah, I was looking at Doom or I was looking at

Boone. I guess I was looking at Doom or boom. But I guess Doom,

Ansel Burch 24:48

Ah, sure, and doom is not dependent on the card succeeding. Or, Yeah, that's true. It just happens.

Stella Cheeks 24:58

Yeah, I. I feel like that's one that, like everybody's gonna want to take maybe I want to do one that's not

Ansel Burch 25:06

fair, if it helps. I don't believe any of the other people who have built characters. Okay, well, then I'll do it

Stella Cheeks 25:15

whatever. I don't know how this. I feel like I drew that weird. Okay, I got skill, I got charm, I got sacrifice, got clairvoyance. I feel like the way I drew confidence and I drew Doom are similar, but I just put a C in the middle, so I'll know that it's confidence. Um, wait, 1234561234566,

right? I do seven,

Ansel Burch 25:50

yeah, so one more

Stella Cheeks 25:52

I want to do. Oh, man, I do not know what this

Unknown Speaker 26:01

look.

Stella Cheeks 26:05

I want to do. How do you say augury? Is how you say it augury? Yeah, this is on my

Ansel Burch 26:11

or augury. If you want to give extra British

Stella Cheeks 26:13

nature card, which I drew. This totally wrong. I can't see that. Oh, wait, it's like a little swoopy doop on top of a straight line. Yeah,

Ansel Burch 26:23

because this one is, it's like a Napoleon. Okay,

Stella Cheeks 26:27

is on my Wait, maybe I don't want to do that.

Ansel Burch 26:35

So since you're thinking about it, something that I don't, I doubt that you've read the whole system down. Sorry. The reason that this is is good is you are always allowed to Monty Hall yourself. So the cards that have not been revealed of yours, you're always allowed to switch them around. So once you've dealt out the three cards that define this combat. You can move them, and that's one of the reasons that clairvoyance makes sense. Because you can move the clairvoyant. You can move the card to where you want it in the pack. In the story, augury allows you to look at any of the face down cards in the spread, which is pretty huge,

Stella Cheeks 27:22

yeah, I like that because that's on my nature card, which was the like, duty to others type deal. And I think,

Ansel Burch 27:30

yeah, taking things apart and figuring them out, yeah, so

Stella Cheeks 27:33

that, yeah, and being like, Ah, how do I fix this? It's like, in masks, the like, what here benefits me most, or whatever, yes, yeah, I put one on each

Ansel Burch 27:46

There you go, and you did it. That's, that's the whole character generation process.

Stella Cheeks 27:50

And I have to fill in some blanks, like, yeah.

Ansel Burch 27:54

I hope it's, I hope it's given you some inspiration. It seems like it's, it has any, any thoughts you want to, like, continue teasing out before we call it.

Stella Cheeks 28:05

I'm just trying to think of, like, what I should look like as an alien, because I feel like I can't come rock, like rocking in in the medieval times with like, blue skin, right? I mean, I could. Nothing's stopping you. I feel like it needs to be like, like a Vulcan or like Klingon thing, where it's like, I mean, it's a little weird, but it's not like, that weird. Yeah, it's passing like, I mean, Klingons are pushing it, but you know what I mean, where it's just like, Yeah, I mean, you're an alien, depending on which Klingon, yes, right, depending on which Klingons, you're like, weird, but like, you're like, not that weird.

Ansel Burch 28:41

You could also go with the Lalo projector. Like, oh yeah, this isn't my real face disguise situation. Have you watched a resident alien?

Stella Cheeks 28:55

No, but I should, because I love Alan Tudyk. We What were you watching the other day with Ellen today? Oh, I've been watching a lot of night movies, and we watched a night sale, and I was like, I forgot, I want to go. And then we were watching with the Harley Quinn TV show. And I was like, God, why is he so good and everything? He's so good.

Ansel Burch 29:11

He's so good

Stella Cheeks 29:13

is that he has, like, a human skin projector. It's a gross way to say it,

Ansel Burch 29:22

yeah, he Well, his character, like he changes to the molecular level into a human when he arrives. It's this whole like transformation sequence, very werewolfy style. But he has to kill a guy to steal his his body or his

Stella Cheeks 29:39

gotta crack some eggs, you know? Yeah, right, yeah. I'll think about that, because I think it could be fun to do that. But also I feel like there's something to be said about, like, the mysteries of like, why does this alien look so much like us?

Ansel Burch 29:59

Which is fun. Yeah, it gives us that like, Progenitor, Yeah,

Stella Cheeks 30:04

or like, maybe there's a reason why I'm always being pulled to Earth type deal,

Ansel Burch 30:09

yeah, if you're, you're the planets are connected in some way. I do like the idea of a small enough difference, like box

Stella Cheeks 30:19

ears, you just put a fucking beanie on,

Ansel Burch 30:23

yeah, yeah. You put a beanie on, and as long as nobody picks the beanie off, you're cool. The second your hat comes off, your head, your

Stella Cheeks 30:30

your bone, alien man, yeah, nobody

Ansel Burch 30:34

on earth could have those ears. No way.

Stella Cheeks 30:38

Yeah. So I want to think about that, like, what? What does that look like? I wonder if it's something with your hand. I was just thinking that. I was just thinking about it being a limb based, revival, limb based difference.

Ansel Burch 30:53

I'm swearing Celera, take a party sort of person, yeah. If you've got, like, extra dexterous fingers, or more of them creepy

Stella Cheeks 31:02

fingers. Doesn't have to keep my hands my pocket the whole time. Yeah, I want to think about that, because I think that could be cool. But I am thinking like a limb thing.

Ansel Burch 31:21

I think that's cool. I like it. Or maybe your hands are the other way around, yeah? Like a rakshasa, or

Stella Cheeks 31:28

just, like, big monster claws. Just kidding, yeah, big, big, yeah. I think it's got to be like something too, like a weird eye color, so people just assume that I have, like contacts in and then it's like, I feel like, for sure, yeah, it could just be some surfacey stuff, like they did in like, the 1960s uh, Star Trek, where it's just, like, that's just like some weird purple blush, but like, it could be, you know, purple skin, or whatever

Ansel Burch 31:59

my people have eyes, yeah, right.

Stella Cheeks 32:04

So, yeah, but I am kind of feeling a hand thing. I want to think about that. That's cool, yeah, what if it's like a mortal kombat thing where it's like something comes out of my hand? Oh, yeah, that's gross. That'd

Ansel Burch 32:20

be dope. I

Stella Cheeks 32:21

think about that all the time. I think about like, what if my hand is just split open, like, Scorpion, why do I think about that so much? Like that

Ansel Burch 32:30

tells

Speaker 1 32:31

tells us something about how much Mortal Kombat you've played. It's an excellent game. I'm not really a video game girly, but I do love fighting games. I want to beat the shit out of everyone

Unknown Speaker 32:39

same I'm terrible at them, but I still love it

Stella Cheeks 32:42

fun as hell reporting, because we're just

Ben Banks 32:44

okay. So I've got nine of clubs, two of spades, three of diamonds, five of hearts, seven of spades, four of clubs, 10 of spades. Okay, let's do like a more tactician build. I think that would be fun. Okay, if you look at the last four on the chart, fate, augury, stunning and clairvoyance are a little bit more tactical.

Ansel Burch 33:11

They let you move more cards around in the field and see other people's cards so you can kind of understand where to go. So those are good control cards or control marks to have.

Speaker 2 33:27

Okay, let me do, let me put fate on the 10 of spades, and then I'll put stunning on the seven of spades. I will do the augury on the five of hearts. I will do clairvoyance on the nine of clubs, and then I get three more seven marks total, seven total, yeah, I'll do Doom on my four of clubs, and then I'll do sacrifice on my two of spades, heck yeah. And then I

Ben Banks 34:13

think I'm gonna do fate again on the three of diamonds, heck yeah. Those are my marks. Excellent. Your deck is prepared, your character is made, but, yeah, I'm excited.

Ansel Burch 34:25

All right, so I'm assuming your card is marked and you've made your notes.

The next step is to shuffle all those cards back into the deck. Shuffle it until you feel you've shuffled it enough.

Omar Burgos 34:45

Gotcha. Gotcha, all righty, you.

Just

making my last notes on all the cards, if I put them in there, yeah, oh, yeah. Disgust.

Ansel Burch 35:15

We are in no rush whatsoever. In fact, we're making great time. I

registrations are rolling in for pickup con. It's very exciting.

Omar Burgos 35:53

Nice. Okay, so put putting them all in and doing some ASMR shuffles. I

Ansel Burch 36:20

Wow. I don't know why I got a push notification about this, but lease in LA found a man had stolen 2800 boxes of Legos. What

Unknown Speaker 36:43

that is wild. Yeah, that

Omar Burgos 36:49

was a bad shot. Let me try again. Okay, final cell, fool Legos. What do you do with those Legos?

Ansel Burch 36:58

I mean, I mean, I presume he was selling them on the secondary market. But

Omar Burgos 37:02

Legos, I mean, I guess, oh yeah,

Ansel Burch 37:06

Legos are expensive.

Omar Burgos 37:11

Oh no. My shuffling powers are dying. They just fell out of my hand. What's going on? No, I hate it when the pants question

Ansel Burch 37:17

everything. You're like, what do

Omar Burgos 37:21

I know how to do this. That was a good one. Okay, I'm good. You got

Ansel Burch 37:26

your groove back? Yes.

All right, if you've shuffled as much as you feel you want to shuffle, you're going to then peel off the top seven cards. You can deal them face up. Question,

Omar Burgos 37:50

our joke was supposed to be in the deck. I didn't take them out. Okay, so I just drew one of them. Oh, no, I did you one of my adversaries.

Ansel Burch 38:01

Oh, that's great.

So these seven cards are now your palette. You get to put seven marks on these cards. You can choose which cards you mark. You can choose how many marks go on each card. The only rule is you are putting seven marks. So that is the limit. You could put all seven on one card. You could put one on each however you want to split that up seven marks onto these cards. So because you've dealt an adversary to yourself, you could offset that if you wanted to, you know, represent that you maybe came to an understanding with that and with that enemy. At some point in your past, maybe you've you've offset that enmity, and you can add an ally mark to it. Well, you couldn't put an ally mark on it, because that's a special mark, but you could put us one of the standard marks on to you know, lessen the blow or adjust the effect if you wanted to.

Omar Burgos 39:32

I mean, that sounds like a good idea. But I also drew the 10 of spades, which was my other card from my first five.

Ansel Burch 39:42

I mean, that's a that's one of your, one of your background marks, right? Yeah, yeah. So that the value of that card is going to go up by six anyway.

Omar Burgos 39:58

So I should say, Okay, I wouldn't need. Save for that. But

Ansel Burch 40:01

you can do something like the the confidence card. If it's a card you know is really good, you can put the confidence mark on it, and if that card succeeds, you're going to you're going to increase the value of a different card by three so you can buff one of your allies, or maybe the next card that you draw in that same spread.

Omar Burgos 40:28

Okay, so

Ansel Burch 40:30

if you've got a really good one, you could do that. Similarly, if you've got one where you you're pretty confident it's going to fail, there's the sacrifice card which doubles the face value of an allies card if it fails. Oh, you boon. Boon is the one that would offset enemy card.

Omar Burgos 40:50

Okay, okay, I'm definitely going to do that with the six of hearts here. One of them viziers. Maybe I have them in my pocket, I don't know. Yeah. And now I do the devil's card. I have 666, funny. Okay, so I think I will definitely put the boon on that one. So I have six left. I'm a fan of even spreading, but I might leave one of them blank. So all right, but we're done with the six of hearts. Good. Now,

Ansel Burch 41:24

are there any things about your character that you don't feel are represented? Yet? That might be something we can add marks to indicate in this part of the character creation process. Yeah. So

Omar Burgos 41:38

I have the 10 of diamonds, and I know that means, you know, like merchants, stock, riches and all that. But he does have, he's not a bad guy. He could be slightly tyrannical and be in his head, but in the end, he does want what's best for his people. So I feel like we haven't represented his Kinder side. All cats like to be, you know, can be friendly at some point. Yeah, yeah. So I wanted to make the 10 of hearts maybe even though, yes, it may come off as caddy, but his remarks do have a sense of sincerity to them. He definitely has this lack of empathy where his words are just he doesn't realize he's saying it. He's like, I don't mean to be mean, but I'm just telling the truth kind of thing, but, but when you get to know him and realize who he is, this could be more of like showing Okay, so he does care in his own special way. What would would that be charm? No, no,

Ansel Burch 42:38

it could be charm. Yeah, I was trying to think about that, but I feel

Omar Burgos 42:44

like it's a high card. There'll be ways to double the faith value, right? Because there are 10 a high card,

Ansel Burch 42:52

10 is pretty high, yeah. I mean, the king is the highest with a value of, well, no, an ace is the highest with a value of 14, so 10 is pretty close. Hmm, okay. I mean maybe sacrifice to indicate that you're willing to put other people ahead of yourself. Work on that 10, but you could certainly mark a card with sacrifice.

Omar Burgos 43:21

Okay, okay.

Ansel Burch 43:28

I mean, wouldn't work. They all work. It just it would be less likely to be effective on a 10.

Omar Burgos 43:36

Maybe I'll maybe 10 be the one I won't touch. And let's look at so I have a joker card. What? What is the Joker card?

Ansel Burch 43:47

So the Joker has a value of zero.

Omar Burgos 43:52

So doubling that is useless, yeah,

Ansel Burch 43:54

doubling it would be useless. Adding numbers to it would be useful, potentially. It's also a great one for the sacrifice card, because, you know, it's gonna fail. It can't not fail

Omar Burgos 44:12

that. Yeah, I think I'll go put the Joker as a sacrifice card.

Ansel Burch 44:19

The joker is also a good one to look at for fate and augury. So because the it's not dependent on the value of the card, fate allows you to change the order of other people's cards. Augury lets you mark the back of the card with the Joker, so you know it's going to be a joker before you flip it.

Omar Burgos 44:51

I like the Fate card because it's because it's a joker. So I feel like get to play around with fate.

Ansel Burch 44:57

It's, it's you messing with people. Yeah.

Omar Burgos 44:59

Yeah, okay, so I'll do that. So that's two. I do the six of clubs. Since that is a low card as the, not as low, I was like, what I like it to be, to ensure it, but it's still kind of low middle pack. So I'll put that for the sacrifice. Okay?

Ansel Burch 45:18

And keep in mind you can use these, these marks more than once. Okay, so if you wanted to have a whole deck of skill marks, or a whole seven skill marks, you could all you could do that

Omar Burgos 45:29

the six of spade, I will do as because spades are about war. I'm gonna use that as as the war card and double its value in conflict. So I'll put war for my six of spades, the ace of clubs. That's pretty high card. So if we know it's going to be successful, how about the confidence?

Ansel Burch 45:54

That's a good one for confidence. Yeah, so

Omar Burgos 45:58

ace of clubs is confidence. Okay, the 10 of spades, I will put riches in there, because increasing in by three would just get it up there to, like a one of those, like, Joker King, Queen, kind of cards, just get it up, yeah. Like riches through war. Because, of course, most of my money, a lot of my money, came from war. You go All right, so 10 of spades, I'm gonna put riches All right? So that just leaves one more that I will probably, usually, you can, I will

Ansel Burch 46:50

double up. Yeah, you can absolutely use the same mark more than once. I will

Omar Burgos 46:55

use the Joker as both. Oh, wait, can you? Can you put a different mark on the same card, like two different marks on the same card? Yeah, absolutely. So I'm gonna have the Joker as fate and, uh, sacrifice as well, if that will work, so I could change the order and then use it too, because I know it will fail even though I have it. So on top of using its fate ability, right? Would that? Would that be how it would work? Even if it fails, I still get to use his ability, but the card still fails, right?

Ansel Burch 47:31

Yes, absolutely. So, yeah, so you can use the fate ability and the sacrifice if you wanted to, yeah.

Omar Burgos 47:37

So I have two sacrifices to show that he really does have a heart of gold. Yeah, he's

Ansel Burch 47:42

he's humbled down in there. Or alternately, he's a good chess player and knows when well that piece is trash. Yeah,

Omar Burgos 47:52

yeah. I like how that sounds better. So many good ones here. Nice. Yep, I think I like that. 10 of spades, which is king of club, sacrifice, six of hearts, the boon jokers, the fate and sacrifice. Six of spades is war. The ace of club is confidence and nothing on the deadlines.

Ansel Burch 48:24

I I like this a lot. I think you've done very well with your character creation, and that Omar is that you have, you have done all of the things to create your your deck, your deck is now your character sheet for all intents and purposes, and as you play with it, it will grow and change. You will add more marks as we go, as bad things happen, some cards may become scarred, and in some cases, the mark of humility may make you better through your failures. But ultimately, this deck will continue to grow and change as your character does. Awesome. So yeah, I am so stoked to learn more about your character. Have you come up with a name i

Omar Burgos 49:18

i did, but I didn't write it down like it was definitely a very Egyptian, like name, but you call him something for short, like, and it was like, like in doc, Sam moon or something like that. And it's like, Andy for short, but something like that. But it sounds similar to that. I'll have it completely finished out. I want to make sure it actually I want to do more. I love Ancient Egypt. It's one of my favorite civilizations to study, and I want to kind of dive in as some significant, yeah, ancient. Egyptian words that will symbolize this. And then I can turn into like a like Andy, for sure. And you can call him that, but he has, like a full, like, long, hard to pronounce name that I will practice and perfect. And then like, and then, yeah, have that be his name. So I will definitely be coming up with something I like, where that's going.

Ansel Burch 50:26

Okay? And the last thing I will ask before we end today's session, is there anything about this character that you know of right now that you're really excited to bring into the game that you want to make sure is present like an element or reveal there's something that's been inspired that we haven't talked about already, that you like, really want to make sure makes it out into the into the sessions that we get to play.

Omar Burgos 50:58

So he's a cat, like, he's an actual cat, cat. He's not really more so, kind of like, if you watch Sabrina, the with most general heart now, Salem was like a talking cat, but really a person, but cursed and all that. I kind of want to play on that where he can with the small elements of magic and being able to invoke best that I want to be able to transform into, like, a very feline featured human when needed to, like,

Ansel Burch 51:27

like the cat from red dwarf, yes,

Omar Burgos 51:28

yes, heck yeah. And have that come into play, and maybe not have everyone know that yet, it's kind of like his secret identity, even from those unless you're really close to him. But like, when it comes in handy, such as, like, we don't allow pets here, and it's like, I have a servant, don't worry. And then I don't know something that we go play around where I like it this character comes up, and

Ansel Burch 51:53

maybe he looks a little bit like your old servant, as, like, an homage, yeah.

Omar Burgos 51:58

But then I have, like, still those same cat eyes.

Ansel Burch 52:02

You can tell creepy diamond cat eyes. Yeah, I like that. I think that's a really cool idea. And yeah, I, I will definitely endeavor to give you situations where you need to, need to get up to those kinds of shenanigans.

Omar Burgos 52:23

Definitely. And I do want it to be some sort of like, and I haven't thought about, I mean, we could think about together like a detriment, like, why he wouldn't just always be in human form? Like, it's like, I only go into the Maham for me, because when I'm most vulnerable, like, I don't have access to, like, my, my true cat like abilities and my, my like, super wit when I'm in this I'm like, encased in human, like, skin that, like, really prevents me from connecting with the cat goddess and and everything. So, like, I feel like out of my element, like, when a cat's wet, it's like, yeah, body. Well,

Ansel Burch 52:57

it's funny you say like when a cat's wet, because it immediately makes me think of Aquaman. Or if there's like, Oh, I've been away from my fur too long, I'm losing my powers, or something like that. Like, there's a ticking clock on you.

Omar Burgos 53:11

Yes, yes. I like that. If he stays too much of his human form, he may be stuck that way, and his kind of abilities will not be there. But like, if, if we need to be incognito. I need to be in this form, like you'll see me sweating when they try and leave the situation. I just go back into my cat form, but then it will delay the amount of time until I can go back to my human form. So if it's like, we're in a dicey situation, and, like, all eyes on me, because, of course, he's going to be extremely charismatic, but like, overly charismatic, more narcissistic that spotlights on me. But like, if the spotlights on him is and his clock is ticking in his human form, maybe like a tail pops out and he kind of hides it behind his ears start to pop out at no moments, because he can't just hold it in. Or if he takes too much of a big hit, he just transforms back correctly. Oh

Ansel Burch 53:58

yeah. Like, like, a wild shape, yes, yes. Actually, that's a great way to do it. Maybe, yeah, if you, if you treat it like that, when it if, if you take a hit, which I'd say we could probably also include, you know, in social conflict, it just sort of knocks you out of it, or has a potential to do. So I think that's a really cool idea.

Omar Burgos 54:25

Yeah, I like it, yep.

Ansel Burch 54:28

Ah, what a cool character concept. Thank you. Thank you for bringing him. Thank you for creating him to with me. This is very exciting.

Omar Burgos 54:39

It's my way to like be out because I'm a dog person. I love dogs. I think cats are jerks, but now I could the

Ansel Burch 54:48

hilarious part is like, I'm a cat person, and yeah, cats are jerks. Yeah, that is an accurate that's why we like them.

Omar Burgos 54:56

Like I could finally play the thing. Now that I hate cats, I think they're cute ish, but now I can actually live as a cat,

Ansel Burch 55:07

yeah. And who doesn't want that? Right? Awesome. Well, thank you again. And yeah, let's I guess next time we talk in front of these microphones, we'll be playing our first session. Yes, I'm excited. Oh, so cool. All right. Well, I will end the recording there.

Stella Cheeks 55:30

Ansel, what inspired you to create this game?

Ansel Burch 55:33

I've been listening to a show campaign. They they did a Star Wars campaign for a long time, and now recently, they've been doing an original world where they are airship pirates, which is very cool. They have this deck of cards that they use in in their game that it's basically like a tarot deck, and they use it to, like, inspire stuff, sort of outside of the standard game mechanics. And I was really enjoying that. And then there was another card game I heard about that that used a deck of cards and an augury sheet to sort of like guide you through their game. And so there was just a lot of, like, card stuff kind of going on, melding around in the old brain pan, and for whatever reason, I thought to myself, What if you could use a deck of cards, and originally they were tarot cards. What if you could use a deck of tarot cards as your random number generator, as your as your dice? But also some What if the deck of cards took on extra money. So part of my thought was, you know, how some people buy, like, a set of dice for their character, and they're like, Yeah, this is my these are my dice for this character, and these are my dice for this character. And then, you know, you get really attached to them, and they go on a shelf,

Stella Cheeks 56:59

and you know, then your game falls apart, and it's how you fall sorry, exactly,

Ansel Burch 57:04

yeah, well, what if you had a deck of cards? I like it, you know, deck of cards is, is, you know, you could go, you could go super cheap, you can go real expensive. You can mark these up as you go, and it, it becomes an artifact of your game. I love that. And so, yeah, it was just sort of this combination of factors that kind of conspired all at the same time. But yeah, at its core, I really wanted, I originally wanted to build a car a game around tarot cards, but I got a lot of feedback that nobody wants to mark on

Unknown Speaker 57:43

which? Which is fair? Yeah, I could. So

Ansel Burch 57:47

until I come out with a very cheap way to produce markable tarot

Stella Cheeks 57:53

cards, they have cheap demons you could get. Oh, yeah.

Ansel Burch 57:57

I mean, I can print a deck of tarot cards right now. They're just kind of a pain in the ass to shuffle, cut out. If you print them on the good card stock, they shuffle actually quite nicely. All right? I just used, like, matte card stock, and then I used a big paper guillotine to cut them all down. Paper guillotine, yeah, they turned out really nice. They're just it takes forever to make a single deck. And I'm like, Nah, that's a lot of cards I need to I need a factory that will do this for me.

Stella Cheeks 58:27

What a cool idea, though. You should not give up on your tarot deck. Oh, I'm

Ansel Burch 58:31

not. I originally developed Mavericks, which is what the which is the version we're playing for the podcast, with the intention that you could choose either you could do Tarot or standard playing cards. And then from there, I kind of got some feedback about the Tarot thing. And was like, Okay, it's also there was a lot of concern about, is it fair to use a tarot deck when you also against a standard 52 and I was like, Well, fair doesn't really matter. We're telling a story together. It's more about the probability of your marked cards coming up, as opposed to getting inspiration from the Tarot. But you know, whatever if, if you care about fair, sure

Stella Cheeks 59:16

that's give a shit about fairness. You're,

Ansel Burch 59:20

you're on a team. You know? You're on a team, right? It's, it's really just fuck me over that you want to do. But then the other piece of feedback that I got recently from a publisher, it was saying you really need to focus this in on a genre, because people don't buy a game system. They buy the store. Yeah, that that you tell from it. So I'm developing two offshoots from this. One is going to be a the the one I'm going to put out for. Gen Con this year is called cards, and it's a criminals game. So you're going to it's, it's for rakes, rogues, rapscallions, roustabouts and ne'er do wells. And it's the same base mechanic, but there will be like, randomized tables and charts for criminal based attributes and random characters based upon which cards you draw, right? So it's going to give it a little extra criminal flair to put on top of the base engine. And I'm going to do a pirate one, and I'll probably do two more. So there's like one for each set I'm Yeah. And the idea is that all of these are built on this core system, and if they take off, if there's enough interest, then I can start doing like, oh, well, here's a custom set of cards that you can buy from me for each setting, or these ones, have, you know, pre printed on them, all the characters from the cards deck, that sort of thing, as well as maybe, like, Okay, here's a, here's a, a five pack of cheap tarot cards. Yes, please draw on

Stella Cheeks 1:01:18

them. Please draw on them well, and that's so interesting too, because Tarot people, you know, treat it. Some people are like, Oh, tarot. And like, I get it my tarot deck, I wouldn't draw on it because she reads me to filth every time. But like, tarot, like, was a card game. Like, it has a history of being played as a card game. Like, that

Ansel Burch 1:01:39

was the original intention, yeah. If it weren't for that cool art, we'd still be playing. But

Stella Cheeks 1:01:45

nope, it's got cool art and they're expensive,

Ansel Burch 1:01:50

yeah, yeah, the cool art and the gold Yeah, with kind of Yeah. Stella Cheeks is @stellacheeks on Instagram and Bluesky

Sara Moore is @pixiesandpins on all of the social media channels and at Pixies and Pins.com. You can also check out her Sarah’s Table livestreams on twitch @pixiesandpins.

Omar Burgos is @Taleweaver Check out his work on the Tale of D20s TTRPG channel. More information at https://ataleofd20s.com/

Ben Banks is @Dj_blindian on Instagram and Soundcloud

I’m Ansel Burch and you can find me @TheIndecisionist on all of the meta properties and on Bluesky.

Special thanks to Cameron Evesque Davis for the song you’re hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast. Find her work on Soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/cameronevesquedavis

This show is an Indecisionist Production. Go to Indecisionist.com to find more of my work including my monthly gaming event, TTRPG Pickup Con, and my other time travel podcast, Time 2 Party.

As you travel at one second per second, take some time out for these intrepid adventurers. They may be in trouble, but only for the time being.

Character Creation: Part 3

Allies and Enemies

This episode focuses on the other characters who will come into play as we tell the stories of our heroes. These people made them who they are and whose influence color their interactions with the world. When these cards are drawn, the players are encouraged to add into the storytelling some element of how this person’s influence or memory impacts the moment, whether it is causing failure or success.

The Game

This Game was played using the Mavericks system. An RPG utilizing a deck of cards to tell the story and put fate in the hands of the players. It’s a story-forward roleplaying experience that encourages the players and dealer to work together to create the story. Check out the System Reference Document on Itch.io

https://the-indecisionist.itch.io/mavericks

The Cast

Stella Cheeks is @stellacheeks on Instagram and Bluesky. Check out her other podcasts, Not Your Demographic, X-Treks, and Spooky Thirties.

Sara Moore is @pixiesandpins on all social media channels and at Pixies and Pins.com. You can also check out her Sarah’s Table livestreams on twitch @pixiesandpins.  

Omar Burgos is @Taleweaver Check out his work on the Tale of D20s TTRPG channel. More information at https://ataleofd20s.com/

Ben Banks is @Dj_blindian on Instagram and Soundcloud

I’m Ansel Burch and you can find me @TheIndecisionist on all of the meta properties and on Bluesky.

———

Special thanks to Cameron Evesque Davis for the song you’re hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast. Find her work on Soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/cameronevesquedavis

This show is an Indecisionist Production. Go to Indecisionist.com to find more of my work including my monthly gaming event, TTRPG Pickup Con, and my other time travel podcast, Time 2 Party. 

As you travel at one second per second, take some time out for these intrepid adventurers. They may be in trouble, but only for the time being.

---

Transcript

Ansel Burch 0:06

I welcome adventurers from across time and space. Five creators have been brought together from across the internet for one purpose and one purpose alone, to travel through time and have a good time doing it. When big changes happen to the timeline, the change attracts other time travelers like gravity, they won't be able to move past it until they fix whatever was messed up. So our heroes are stuck together, but only for the time being. You

Ansel, welcome back to the third episode of for the time being, I am Ansel Burch, your game master and dealer. It's so wonderful to have this game out in the public and you listening to this actual play of it. We are continuing with the character creation process today, and I hope you are enjoying it. The character creation process for this game is really indicative of the way that the rest of it plays. It leans in on interpreting the cards and letting them tell a story. It lets you breathe life into the random numbers and symbols that are given to you. So if you are playing along at home, I cannot enough recommend that you find yourself a deck of cards with some interesting art or some fun backstory. If you're particularly interested in a particular genre or a fun concept for your character, it really does help to get you know a deck of cards that leans into that. If you want to play a mad scientist, see if you can find scientists from history, deck of cards from your local museum, or I got a deck of cards from the nerd fighteria fandom, from the green brothers. And everyone has its own individual piece of art and a little reference from the greater work of the Hank and John Green oeuvre. What I'm saying here is the reason I wanted to start with the character creation process and then get into the actual gameplay, is that I think that the character creation process

informs so much about how the rest of the game is played, and it is in some ways, My favorite part of what I was able to design as a part of the maverick system. So once again, I thank you all for your support and enjoying this show. There's only one more episode of character creation left, and then we start on our first adventure in Sumeria. It is absolutely bananas, and I cannot wait for you to hear it, so buckle in tight. We are going to keep the character creation coming, and I hope that you enjoy it thoroughly. Let's kick it off with Stella cheeks. So now we are going to define three characters to be your allies and three characters to be your enemies. So the first thing to do is draw three cards off the top of your deck. Go ahead and do them face up. All right, let me make and these three cards will each represent allies. Oh, all right.

Stella Cheeks 3:53

I got a jack of clubs, a queen of hearts and a king of diamonds. Dang. All the Royals are coming out for you.

Ansel Burch 4:04

So what this card will do for you? Mechanically allies. Cards work like inspiration in D and D, you draw another card and the better of the two wins. In this case, these are pretty high cards, so they're probably going to do the job all by themselves. But that does not make them any less powerful, and you might draw a marked card as part of it. The mark for allies is a circle with a.in the middle, okay, and you'll see that on the chart, so you can go ahead and mark all three of these.

Speaker 1 4:42

Boop, boop, it does look like a boob in a good way. Boobs are great, yeah,

Ansel Burch 4:49

who doesn't love boobs Exactly. Tell me about these cards. What do they say to you?

Stella Cheeks 4:58

Well, I'm very important. Yeah. Or you've got real important friends, yeah. Okay, so now I'm thinking,

Ansel Burch 5:06

and they're all different suits,

Stella Cheeks 5:08

right now I'm thinking more about this, like, future deity thing, one of

Ansel Burch 5:16

them could represent your deity,

Stella Cheeks 5:18

yeah? Or, like, what if it's like,

yeah? I think one of them should represent the deity I'm thinking, kind of like a bass, Black Panther thing, or, like, you know, I like that. What's Dead Man's deity? Rama con. I don't know. I can't remember, but, you know, I mean, like, I'm just throwing out all the references I've been I work at a comic bookstore. This is all I think

Ansel Burch 5:44

about all the time. You live in a trope factory.

I'll throw out for you also, while you're thinking about this the way that this manifests in the gameplay. This is a storytelling prompt. So when these character, when these cards come up, the idea is that this character taught you something, or there's a memory of this person that inspires you to do better in the moment. Or maybe there's something about that person that brings a new element into the scene represented by the new card. And if it makes sense, maybe they will personally show up, you know, so, like, your God could intercede when her card is drawn, if it makes sense in the moment, that sort of thing. But mostly it's a it's a prompt for you to think about, like, what did this person mean to me that is relevant in this moment. So it's helpful to think about like, close friends and associates, heroes, family members, that sort of thing. Yeah, okay.

Stella Cheeks 6:56

I think one of them should be and I'm just using the word deity, like, as a placeholder. I don't know if that's like, totally what it is

Ansel Burch 7:04

the patron.

Unknown Speaker 7:06

Well, I like the source. I like

Stella Cheeks 7:08

that too, the source. I'm gonna write that down instinctually. I do want it to be the queen of hearts as the source. It just makes sense. I like that. Well, I like the idea of having somebody still on the planet who cares about me so that, like, when I like, I have a reason to go back that I want to go back. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, oh yeah. Adam Strange has his family on run, and he's like, I want to go back see them. So some kind of like, I don't know, you know what I want to play with. I want to play with, like, platonic love. I want to play like, like best friend. I feel like it's very easy to be like my lover, my winter love, or whatever. But like, yeah, how awful would it be if you couldn't see or talk to like your best friend person, right? That would be really bad. So I'm gonna say that the what did diamonds represent?

Ansel Burch 8:12

Again, merchants and artisans

Stella Cheeks 8:15

and clubs were the tinkery types. Yeah,

Ansel Burch 8:19

workers, working class

Stella Cheeks 8:23

farm hands, so I'm gonna make my the jack of clubs, my bestie, TBD, their name and everything about

them. But also, like we have this and

Ansel Burch 8:35

all of that can come up in play. There's no need to like over you know what this person means to you? That's the important thing.

Stella Cheeks 8:42

I'm thinking that this is like, you know, again, I live in a trout factory, if we're going with the idea that I come from some kind of wealth or station, but what I really like to do is the, like, lower tinkering or whatever. And this person is of that class, I guess maybe that can be, like, the end of the friendship or something.

Ansel Burch 9:12

Yeah, when you snuck away from the big house, this is the person you hung out with in the in the low part of the city? Yeah, they did. They didn't judge you there,

Stella Cheeks 9:24

yeah, because we live in a trope factory. But they're traps for a reason.

Ansel Burch 9:31

Yes, there's something universal and human. Yeah, I wonder if the other one isn't your earth best for Yeah, I like that,

Stella Cheeks 9:40

but,

but if I go, if we're like, time traveling throughout earth, then, like, I would only see them every you know, you know what I mean? Oh, that's true. That's true. So

Ansel Burch 9:51

unless it's like a Baldrick situation, where there's just always one who's

Stella Cheeks 9:55

just there, who gets pulled in at the same time. I.

Ansel Burch 10:01

Oh yeah, I'm Baldrick the seven. You're like Baldrick the first served. Your answer, that's

Stella Cheeks 10:07

very funny.

Ansel Burch 10:09

Do you know black? I know black better. Okay, good. All right,

Stella Cheeks 10:12

I had a feeling too girly.

Ansel Burch 10:16

I mean, season two is, is

Stella Cheeks 10:19

Queenie the best.

Ansel Burch 10:22

Season Four, I think has a lot going for it that is unappreciated, but it is still not as good as season two.

Stella Cheeks 10:31

Yeah, she's just perfect as the Queen.

Ansel Burch 10:35

And three, three is all about Hugh Laurie as as the prince, yeah,

Stella Cheeks 10:39

which I think is fine. I'm not like, the hugest Hugh Laurie person, so I'm like, Yeah, it's fine. That's fair. Okay, we are proving ourselves as nerds.

Speaker 2 10:50

Yep. See, we don't stop. Okay,

Stella Cheeks 10:54

who? King of diamonds. Diamonds, diamonds. King of Diamonds. Maybe it could just be simple. Maybe it could just be like a family member who is inspiring, or whatever.

Speaker 3 11:04

You're the the the you know, the leader of your family or your family's organization, if you're maybe less, you know blood organized and more,

Stella Cheeks 11:16

I don't know, clan organized, clan

Ansel Burch 11:19

focused, or village focused, or whatever,

Stella Cheeks 11:24

yeah, yeah, TV on what that is some but I like that. There you have, like, the source, platonic friend, family, something,

Speaker 1 11:34

yeah, I like that. That's very cool. Covers a whole spread.

Sarah Moore 11:40

We got a two of spades.

Ansel Burch 11:42

Okay,

Sarah Moore 11:45

so it's a ally, which is the little

Ansel Burch 11:47

circle with a.in the middle, or the boob, as everyone keeps pointing out,

Sarah Moore 11:52

titties.

I'm ready for the titties. What is this city so? So again, spades. Speak to those who fight. So, you know, this could be somebody you know from your time not being in the military, or someone your father is affiliated with. This could be your bodyguard when you're on set this, you know, this could go a lot of directions.

Interesting. Okay, so what if it's my stunt double, but I do all my own stunts,

Ansel Burch 12:29

so she just gets to be there.

Sarah Moore 12:31

She just gets to, like, hang out and be my friend.

Ansel Burch 12:36

That I like that. I like that you have a professional friend, yeah? Yeah. Like,

Sarah Moore 12:41

I think they are probably genuinely very close, but I also think that, like, she would obviously insist on doing her own stunts, so the studio has, like, you have to have, legally, we have to provide one, yeah, legally, you have to be here. And she's like, Yeah, all right, okay, but like, she's gonna break herself. She's not falling out of any vehicle. She hasn't even jumped out of a plane. We can't do this

Ansel Burch 13:07

to her. Just can't do this. I mean, pursue it to our earlier conversation. I'd also throw out there is this, maybe how you snuck a girlfriend on set could be whether it started that way,

Sarah Moore 13:21

look like you. He's blonde,

Ansel Burch 13:23

right? Yeah, the head taller.

Sarah Moore 13:27

But who? I mean

Ansel Burch 13:32

she's looking that closely, it'll be fine. We got wigs. That's

Sarah Moore 13:39

cool. We'll put the other dude on an apple box. It's kind of

Ansel Burch 13:42

fun. The important thing is, our books look the same, and when we shoot from behind, that's what you gotta

Sarah Moore 13:49

this is what you gotta do. Obviously, she's my butt, double my butt double love it. We'll give her a name. I'll figure her out. I like it. She's a stunt double girlfriend. Everybody's sleeping with everybody.

Ansel Burch 14:15

Must be a good story. All right, do one more, another boob. All right.

Sarah Moore 14:19

King of Clubs. It's the king of clubs, and we've

Speaker 3 14:24

not done a club yet. So clubs back to the metaphor that we gave with the diamonds. Clubs are the other side of that, of that dichotomy. Clubs are those who labor. So we think about like farmers and blacksmiths and tailors and millers and and I mean in your context, that could be, you know, gust boys and key grips and set builders and that sort of thing.

Sarah Moore 14:52

Or could be my costumer, costumer would

Ansel Burch 14:56

also be a good one. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody. Who's like, making stuff and working with their hands?

Sarah Moore 15:05

Yeah, I absolutely think that there is, like, I think that she has, she has somebody who is

Speaker 3 15:15

a costumer. Do you think, I think? Do you think that they're like the best in the world, and that's why we got a king for this. Like you have, you have to be the best in the world if you're going to put clothes on the woman who's going to jump out of a boat into allocate alligator infested waters like

Sarah Moore 15:32

they have to be beautiful and functional. This is an art form, and then you have to also be skilled enough to, like, dress me for premieres and stuff like, there's a whole range of things you have to do. And I think probably this costumer, he probably knows that my stunt Devil is my girlfriend. I don't know how commonplace it is for like, open marriages and or queer you

Speaker 3 16:05

know, I would, I would leave that up to you. Since we're inventing your time line whole cloth, I think I would like to leave it up to you. What is the most interesting for you to play? Because I don't, if I we don't need to add close mindedness where it's not useful.

Sarah Moore 16:29

Don't, don't add an obstacle where we don't need it. Yeah, so well, especially

Ansel Burch 16:32

just to like, your character has a nice life, aside from falling through time occasionally,

Sarah Moore 16:42

just like a weird day on set, um, I think it would be interesting for it to be very commonplace for her to be like Polly and her like she's got her husband and her girlfriend, and her husband probably also has maybe A boyfriend and a potential another girlfriend like I think they have, I think it's probably pretty normal where they're at. And I think the interesting part of that could be going into timelines where that is not normal. So having her, like, encounter close mindedness in a different place, and also, I'm sure that there's some sort of weird, close minded where she's at, like, I think the area that she's coming from is very classist, probably, like, I think it's, you know, like, it's very, it's very about the haves and the have nots are a big divide. And so I think that that's like, where society and her society has chosen to, like, make that discrimination. And so like to go into a different area where, like, maybe money is not as big of a thing, and then have it be like, yeah,

Speaker 3 18:04

where identity is more important than money. And that confuses you, yeah, yeah. Do you think that that is not to, not to backtrack on that, but do you think that that is a product of your wealth, the fact that you can live the privileged life that you do, or does everybody in your timeline kind of exist in a multi faceted, more nuanced relationship dynamic?

Sarah Moore 18:36

I think that monogamy is just sort of like not a thing in the world that she comes from, because they really embrace, like, the community aspect of sort of everything. So like, it is probably much more rare and sort of surprising to find somebody who has, like, only one partner.

Speaker 1 19:06

Oh, okay, yeah, I like that sort

Sarah Moore 19:09

of like, how in Avatar, they're like, this is my bear. And they're like, it's just a bear. That's, that's weird.

Ansel Burch 19:15

What, Where did you find just a bear, right? Like, you

Sarah Moore 19:20

know? So I think it's that sort of just like, but this is how people are. This is what do you mean, one,

Ansel Burch 19:27

one, part one, the whole time is it.

Sarah Moore 19:30

Did you just do you broke up with your other what like? What is are you between?

Yeah, yeah, just like, fully confused all the time. That's cool. I

Speaker 3 19:46

like that idea. I like that, yeah, all right, well, then draw us one more ally, kind of hard, nice. So that's another higher power sort of person,

Sarah Moore 19:58

somebody within this. Studio system

probably makes sense.

Ansel Burch 20:07

I card without being like, super important,

Sarah Moore 20:11

yeah,

maybe it's her agent.

Ansel Burch 20:18

Ooh, that makes sense. Now I do want to backtrack a little bit and say something that I failed to say earlier, which is that please, mechanically within the within the milieu of the game, drawing these cards doesn't necessarily like summon these people rather, rather, it gives you inspiration based on what these people mean to you. Yeah, so I think that, like, I just wanted to give you that extra piece of nuance in case that helps you know, if you wanted to think about like a childhood friend or a mentor or something, although an agent that's a very influential person, that that still falls within what we're talking about.

Sarah Moore 21:03

Yeah, I also think that that she is the kind of person that would just like, I think she she could get all this stuff on her own. She's pretty she's pretty tough and insistent and, like, determined, and so like, I think maybe her agent is her, one of her childhood friends. Oh, she was just like, you're my agent now, and I'm gonna be paying you. You get to 50% of all my work. I don't need your help, I have gotten myself in a very good position. Let me help you be in a good position, kind of a thing. So, I mean, like, I think they've probably learned, and they have a power, because they're my agent, sure, but I don't

Ansel Burch 21:57

care of a lot of the like, paperwork, shit that you're not good at since we've established, oh,

Sarah Moore 22:02

I don't even know that there is paperwork I contracts. Who's she? Yeah, literally none of that. Thanks so much. No that. I don't, I don't do that.

Ansel Burch 22:17

That is, that is your job, Sydney, and I wish you luck with it.

Sarah Moore 22:23

Off you go. Thanks so much. We'll not be doing that.

Ansel Burch 22:29

No. Thank you. Fantastic. Okay, well, if you've drawn a boob on that one, then you are ready to move on.

Sarah Moore 22:37

I drew a boob. Okay?

Ben Banks 22:50

Um, not right now. Okay, so the next some good building blocks, yeah,

Ansel Burch 22:56

yeah, yeah. The next thing we're going to do is draw three more cards from the top of the deck, so you can set the first five off to the side. These three you can deal face up. These are your allies. Each one of these cards will represent an individual

Ben Banks 23:14

Okay, so put these five to the side,

Unknown Speaker 23:17

and then

Ben Banks 23:22

this so I got a I got a joker. I got an ace of diamonds and a jack of diamonds.

Ansel Burch 23:31

Okay, okay, so we talked earlier about diamonds being sort of merchants and those who refine goods, so tailors, jewelers, merchants, traders, that sort of stuff. So you got a couple diamonds in there. The joker is fun. Joker is a zero value card. But what the ally does for you is, when you draw it, you immediately get to draw another card and take the higher of the two, so the Joker is still going to bring another card into play by virtue of being your ally card. So you're kind of removing the danger of the Joker from this. So that's a nice sort of bonus of having drawn that one. Um, but what? What did these cards inspire for characters? And just to give you an idea of what the mechanic here is, these character, this is a storytelling prompt, right? So when these cards come up, the idea is you're getting an advantage because of something this person meant to you, something they taught you, something they brought into your life. And if it makes sense in the scene, they could show up, you know, they could just literally come help. But more than likely, it's going to be about something that they're the memory of this person evokes. For you.

Ben Banks 25:03

Okay, I think the Joker possibly could be like, like an informant I have, or like someone that's connected to the criminal underground that I like. We kind of built a repertoire between working, you know, on the opposite sides of the law, but we kind of have a mutual respect for each other, so maybe sometimes I pay him a visit, or maybe if he he has a rival or that he wants to get rid of, he kind of lets me know. So something like,

Ansel Burch 25:38

Do you think he's like such a petty criminal that it's not worth taking him in.

Ben Banks 25:42

Oh, absolutely. I like that.

Ansel Burch 25:47

Like, if you steal one more pack of gum, good God, man,

Ben Banks 25:51

yeah. Could

Ansel Burch 25:53

you? Could you try dealing cocaine, just to make it interesting?

Ben Banks 26:02

Yeah? I like that. Yeah, okay, yeah, fun.

Ansel Burch 26:06

Okay, so you're, you're low grade informant, but probably sees a lot. You might be his kind of source of income is just bribe.

Ben Banks 26:17

Yeah, I'm thinking kind of like the usual suspect, Kevin spacey's character, verbal, yes, like that, like he's trying to always score for big, but he gets caught. He messes up. He talks a lot. So,

Speaker 1 26:33

yeah, into it. Love it. What else we got in the pack?

Ben Banks 26:40

So we have the ace of diamonds and jack of diamonds. And I'm trying to think how that would

Ansel Burch 26:49

are they, maybe people that you protected or saved?

Ben Banks 26:55

Yeah, we can do that for the the jack, the jack of diamonds. I like that. Maybe it was a rookie that I was paired up with at some point, and kind of my and he was, like, very idealistic. And maybe some of my, like, street smarts are kind of doing it my way saved him, but at the same time,

Speaker 3 27:27

but he was still shiny, like a new minted Penny, right, right, right. Oh, you poor baby, Street's gonna eat you up. Yeah? I like I could see that. Yeah, I like that. So a former, a former recruit or rookie that you, you trained up,

Ben Banks 27:49

and then I'm thinking the ACE, since it's an ace, maybe like a mentor of mine, or like my police captain back in the day, or whoever, like trained me, I

Ansel Burch 28:03

uh, yeah. I mean, that's, that's a great person to have inspire you later. And, and, I mean, an ace, you're getting an ace to start with, and the chance to draw another card on top of that. So like, you're, you're gonna succeed when he shows up. Okay, yeah, he's gonna inspire you to success. It would be very hard for me as a dealer to overcome you with an ace, let alone an ace that brings other shit to the party. So yeah, I think, I think that the inspiration of a captain or a strong mentor, makes good sense for that.

Ben Banks 28:51

Okay, yeah, making notes here about what we're

Ansel Burch 28:56

Yeah, yeah. Notes are good. I'll send you the recording too. Okay,

Ben Banks 29:01

yeah, that works too. Okay, cool. Yeah, I like that. Now, I'll flesh these out a little bit more, but I like kind of putting a a pin in where they are, as far as, yeah, feel

Ansel Burch 29:11

free to like, continue to like quilt on them as they come up. You know, I think there's, I think there's a lot of room to cook in this game. It's designed around storytelling. There's very few like gritty mechanics. It's the most of the mechanics are to prompt you to tell more story. Okay, so I think there's, there's a lot of potential. There

Speaker 2 29:34

it is, the seven of clubs, the queen of spades. Oh and the Queen of Hearts. Oh,

Ansel Burch 29:45

two queens. Look at you rubbing elbows. So these are your closest friends or greatest allies. These are either contacts that have great significance to you, or people who are close to you. And it's kind of up to you how you want to interpret the cards that you've gotten. Let's let's do them one at a time, just for the sake of thinking it through, since this is your first time. So what the first card was

Speaker 2 30:27

that I got when we put, like, My, oh, the one from the allies. You mean, yeah, just now the first Oh, the seven of clubs. Seven

Ansel Burch 30:34

of clubs. So clubs are usually laborers, people who make raw material into saleable goods, farmers, blacksmiths, you know, people who work hard with their hands are generally represented by clubs. So what does this? What does this? What does this card say to you?

Omar Burgos 31:03

So my current ally right now? Yes,

Ansel Burch 31:06

this is this card represents a person. When you draw it, not only does it come with a mechanical bonus, but it also makes your character think of that person. Or if it makes sense in the moment that person might just show up, it is the aid that that person has given you or gives you.

Speaker 2 31:26

As a pharaoh, of course, I have many servants, and just like how pharaohs were buried with their cats, I was buried with my human servant in this backwards world and very subservient and big goal goes to my every beck and call and works well with his hands so I don't do things do I have. Course I'm a pharaoh. Why would I do my own dirty work? So he is the one that does all those for me. And of course, he gives me scritches and plays your sandbox. Yeah, keep my sandbox. You know, pets me only when I want to. Though pets me too hard to swat at them.

Ansel Burch 32:06

You're literally just describing my cat. Amazing. Okay, so this is your, this is your, like, Chief servant. Your your head, head guy. I like that. Cool. All right. So let's move on to one of the queens.

Omar Burgos 32:25

So the next one is the queen of hearts.

Speaker 3 32:28

Okay, that again, talks to like beseeching higher powers, religion, patronage, that sort of business, maybe,

Speaker 2 32:42

uh, best at herself. Oh, I pray to her.

Ansel Burch 32:48

That would be pretty dope. Yeah, that makes sense. She would be your ally based upon your training and your position in the world. I'm getting some like, moon night vibes,

Speaker 2 33:02

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, hell yeah.

Ansel Burch 33:05

Wasn't a far walk, but we made it.

Speaker 2 33:10

Yeah, I'm down for there's someone who I like when I'm really I don't like to rely on her too much, because I like to be independent, but when I need to, I will call upon her. Maybe she'll answer in mysterious ways, but, or I'll see something like something fluttering, and I'm like, That's a sign. And connect the dots, and they're all of a sudden, have this, I have a plan, yeah, well,

Ansel Burch 33:31

and I mean, being that she's a queen, chance is pretty good. When she comes up, she's gonna come through. The mechanical benefit of the allies card is you. You basically get advantage. You get to draw a second card and take the better of the two. So if, in the event that she isn't the highest card of the two, you know you're doing well, because then it's got to be a king or an ace. So yeah, that's a pretty solid, pretty solid card to have in your your allies corner, and then our last queen, queen of spades, spades. Yeah, again, that goes back to our war like characters, our fighters and arguers.

Omar Burgos 34:22

So another ally queen.

Ansel Burch 34:25

I mean, I don't know how on the nose you want to go, but it immediately makes me think of people like like Cleopatra.

Speaker 2 34:37

I would definitely think I would have had maybe a queen or an actual or like someone who I was betrothed to, a beauty from another land that came in she, I'm trying to say think story wise. If she's back in the past, for the future, however we look at it, hey,

Ansel Burch 35:04

you're a time traveler, everything's possible now,

Speaker 2 35:09

maybe she was searching for me. She was the only one who saw the good, because the camera is good, just deep down in there, she was the only one who's teasing out exactly, she's the one who saw the good in me, and she is a brilliant because I don't do things with my hand. I don't fight. He can fight if he needs to, but he's not a fighter. She, though is a brilliant fighter, the way she handles swords and weaponry, and like in if anything, she's the one who trained me when it came to the blade, and that's how they kind of fell in love.

Ansel Burch 35:49

That's nice. That's nice. Okay, yeah, so your your warrior queen. And I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility to have her, her show up River Song style, yes. So now we're going to draw three more cards. Same thing, but now they're enemies. Okay, when you draw these, they are going to prompt you to draw another card and take the lower of the two. Okay,

Ben Banks 36:13

we've got a three of diamonds, six of hearts and five of hearts. I'm

Ansel Burch 36:26

I freeze, okay, any of those jump out at you immediately. I

Unknown Speaker 36:49

hmm,

Ansel Burch 36:52

I do think it's interesting that you're about to have a three and a five. Is it right? Three and a 535,

Ben Banks 37:00

and 6356. Of Hearts, five of hearts and three.

Ansel Burch 37:03

Yeah, these are all, like, pretty measly numbers, but they're gonna bring back up. Yeah. These are not, like, imposing enemies, but they are still problems. They're real threats, and just like the allies, they're not necessarily gonna show up in person. Yeah, you know something that reminds you of them, or something that they like a trauma, perhaps, or a an old wound that these guys left you with reminds you or aggravates an existing problem?

Ben Banks 37:38

Yeah, I think one of the hearts could be like, like a former partner that I had in the in the police force that you know, since we're both hearts the same suit, kind of gone down a similar path, but maybe they either completely, like sold out to the system and is like, doing everything by the book, or totally, like went renegade in a way that I haven't yet or didn't yet. So that kind of brings a sore spot that made that they got farther in their in their career at the same point than I am or, like, I don't know. No,

Ansel Burch 38:27

I like that. I like the idea of them. Like because they did everything by the book. They they've gotten farther. But maybe they're, they're like, there's got to be something about them that, you know is not as well, or maybe they're equally valid. And it just annoys you. It's like, uh, could have gotten there faster if you just cut through the alleys. But okay,

Ben Banks 38:56

yeah, I think the five, the five of hearts, can be that, and then the the three, I'm trying to think, because that is low. But the diamonds, do

Ansel Burch 39:04

you think maybe a like a another repeat offender that you've that you've brought in before, but they always like, hook up with bigger, scarier, like groups or, or they're like, a henchman type character, and they're like, you keep running into Rubio, but Jesus, if he's he's not always with some, you know, bigger, scarier mark,

Ben Banks 39:36

okay, yeah, I like that. Just kind of, and every man for hire, and just whoever has the biggest crew that to, you know, quote, unquote, Rubio, who he's working with,

Ansel Burch 39:51

I think that. I think, yeah,

Ben Banks 39:53

I think he's always the thread that you pull, that pulls the bigger piece. Oh yeah, he's always the pull. Piece sticking out,

Ansel Burch 40:04

yeah, and maybe that's what it reminds you of, that this is always like, I just had to pick at this, yeah. Now look at where I am, all right? And then you got one more, right?

Ben Banks 40:22

Yeah, this the six of hearts.

Ansel Burch 40:32

What about like a DA, I think about the the antagonistic relationship that's like in law and order, they occasionally play up between some of the cops and the prosecutors, okay, or public defenders?

Ben Banks 41:00

Yeah, I think, I think that would lend itself well, because both being in the hearts, you know, justice, wanting to be holding to something bigger, yeah. I think that would work. Yeah. I think that makes sense. And just the way we go about it, and the way we've butted heads about, you know, what is the right way to do things, or how things are done, or what's the procedure.

Ansel Burch 41:23

They always give you shit about your evidence not being in baggies,

Ben Banks 41:27

right, right? And that being a six, the highest number that I've got there, you know, they have authority, they have some influence, and they're

Ansel Burch 41:37

not, like, super important, but they're, they're still a reasonable threat that could be a problem for you about half the time. Yeah, yeah, that's cool. I think that's, I think that's a good, good choice.

Speaker 2 41:55

I was about to say is the devil, because I drew six, six, but the last one was not six. Oh, man,

Ansel Burch 42:04

sometimes we get those little, little presents from the from the cards I

Speaker 2 42:08

got for the enemy, the six of diamonds, the six of hearts and the jack of diamonds, the dump guys there.

Speaker 3 42:16

It is convenient that you got lower cards, although not as significant in this, because they are going to do the opposite of what your ally cards do when you draw them, you're going to draw a second card and take the lesser of the two, predictably. But let's, let's deal with those sixes. Which one do you want to talk about? First? Did

Omar Burgos 42:41

the six of diamonds

Ansel Burch 42:46

that sounds like somebody in your own like order, or your own cast, maybe a rival

Speaker 2 42:53

part of that other Pharaoh, be it a good person or bad person with a terrible tyrant. But my rival, which was the part represented in like the two of diamonds that we originally had, that was my my card. This was perhaps his second in command, or someone very close who maybe planned it, maybe his own physique, or someone like that, who's, oh yeah, and they were very rich and all that, and maybe, maybe it wasn't so much of a time more. So I've misunderstood and the my rival is good, but this person is not. And saw a place for him to up his standing if he made, basically my twin or rival, the king of the Pharaoh, and then he could rise up as, like the as the Royal, okay,

Ansel Burch 43:55

a manipulative king maker. Yeah, that's cool. And if he's going to do that, he has to get you out of the you out of the way. So,

Speaker 2 44:05

all right, well, not to go to a head and also have the jack of diamonds, which maybe actually would fit that better, because I don't know.

Ansel Burch 44:12

I mean, the jack of diamonds can be the one he elevated.

Omar Burgos 44:18

Yeah, it could be okay. Oh, the jack of diamonds, because the ad roll could represent Yes, the, okay, I got you Yes, I like that. So he lifted up. So, yeah, so this was number six. Would be that person who lifted up the my rival,

Ansel Burch 44:39

which, that's your Jafar. Yeah,

Speaker 2 44:41

yes, yes. Jafar is the six of diamonds in this one. And then I guess the the jack of diamonds could be the actual rival himself.

Ansel Burch 44:54

Yeah. Do we think this is a rival kingdom, or are they shooting for your three? Throne, yeah, shooting from my throat, yeah? Okay, so like a sibling or a

Speaker 2 45:04

relative or something, yeah, I was thinking like, this is a

Ansel Burch 45:07

relation or a blooded

Speaker 2 45:13

dynasty, yeah? I was actually like that. And I'm thinking like it could be like, my twin, maybe younger brother. That's why I got it first, because I'm older brother, so my younger brother, who's actually innocent, but it's being fooled by number six of diamonds. So still technically antagonistic against me, but it's not a bad person, just, yeah, very naive.

Ansel Burch 45:37

His motives are pure, but he is a problem for you? Yes, yes,

Omar Burgos 45:41

definitely, yeah, I like that.

Ansel Burch 45:45

And what about that last six, the six

Speaker 2 45:47

of hearts. And you said, hearts represent,

Ansel Burch 45:52

yeah, the those who beseech a Higher Power. Power, yes, yeah, capabilities.

Speaker 2 45:59

This is an adversary. I'm like, looking at the two sixes, and they're like, twin sixes, is this like? So if you getting all these like references from different pop culture things. So if you ever watched that the prince of Egypt, like the old like, oh yeah, Disney movie. So there was the two viziers who were like, who's saying, like, oh, we have real magic and all that, when they were playing around with it and trying to make Moses seem like, like a nobody, this could be the other person. So it could have been the two of them, like twin, priest vizier twins, who's saying, are supporting the jack of diamonds. I

Ansel Burch 46:43

like that a lot. It gives you two evil viziers in your background with potential. I like the I like the idea of bringing forward the like, is it real magic, or are they just fakers sort of thing? Yeah, that's, that's got some that's got some legs. I think there's, there's potential there.

Unknown Speaker 47:07

Nice.

Ansel Burch 47:11

All right, now we are going to draw three more cards. I know this is going to feel familiar. Take a look at all three. You're going to pick one of them to be your impediment. And before you choose, I want to let you know the impediment is your equivalent to a crit fail. Whenever you draw this, you will fail in the most dramatic way possible.

Speaker 2 47:33

Oh, no, let me put these cards aside and three more. So one of them is a very high card. The two of them are, I don't know, you're only back in one. Oh, I get to pick one.

Ansel Burch 47:45

Yeah, you can choose not to do the very high card.

Omar Burgos 47:49

Okay, I'm not gonna pick the ace of diamonds. I feel like that's I'm keeping wasteful. Yeah, it feels wasteful. Um, let's do see in and, like, you know what? I'm loving diamonds. And like diamonds are cats best friends, so I'm not gonna pick the Eight of diamonds, although this is still a high card. I will pick the jack of spades. Okay,

Ansel Burch 48:07

all right,

all right, so go ahead and mark that with the impediment. Okay. This is a this is representative of a personal flaw, a curse, an impediment or an obligation that stops you from reaching your goals. What do we think it is about this spade that reminds you of of your greatest flaw?

Speaker 2 48:32

Can I swap it? Because now that you said it out loud, maybe I will pick the Eight of diamonds only because he is like, he might have a job to do. And like, maybe we have to break in somewhere to get, like the Rosetta Stone and put it back in place. But there are like, ancient Crown Jewels over there, one moment, please. And then that is such a distraction, we'll keep it up that all his smarts go away for the shiny, kind of like Abu from Aladdin, like he sees it, he goes and grabs it. So, yeah, I think that's his because I wanted to make that his fall as well, like he's just loves money and jewels and opulence, and that could be his greatest downfall, probably what lured him into the cave that they buried him in the

Speaker 3 49:18

first place. That's how he got into this predicament. I like it. Yeah, yeah, you can, you can pick that one. Next up is enemies. We're gonna do the exact same thing. Three enemies.

Sarah Moore 49:30

Okay, here we go. Three enemies. Oh no, the King of Hearts,

Ansel Burch 49:37

is there maybe somebody at the studio high up that don't like you so much.

Sarah Moore 49:42

Probably, oh, what if it's

the studio heads, wife? Or like, Secretary, right? Like secretaries wield a lot of

Ansel Burch 50:03

secretaries. Of the most important people in that office. Anybody who says otherwise is delusional,

Sarah Moore 50:08

yeah. So what if it's like, the head of studios, secretary, and it's just like, just like a consistent, like, they're always pissed off, because when I need a meeting, because I'm traveling through time that I have to, like, preempt everybody else's meetings, and they're always mad about it. Like, you think if you time travel that you could just like, travel to tomorrow, when it would be more convenient for all of us.

Ansel Burch 50:37

Bro, yesterday was last week. I don't know what to tell you. I don't know

Sarah Moore 50:40

what to tell you. I don't even know what day is it? Is it Christmas? What's happening?

Ansel Burch 50:47

What year is it right now,

Sarah Moore 50:49

nobody knows.

Ansel Burch 50:52

Yeah, that's cool. That's cool. So like the secretary to the studio head and your your husband is also a king, right?

Sarah Moore 51:03

Yes,

Ansel Burch 51:06

it's cool that you have kings on both sides.

Sarah Moore 51:11

Could be could be a problem.

Ansel Burch 51:14

So what that means mechanically is, when you draw an ally card, you're going to draw a second card and take the higher of the two with a enemy card. You're going to draw a second card and take the lower of the two so that King on your ally side almost useless, not doing you much good. There's there's very little likelihood you're going to get higher, but this king on the enemy side, that is going to be impactful, yeah, that's

Sarah Moore 51:42

gonna, that's gonna eat it a little bit. What a jerk. What a jerk.

Speaker 3 51:50

I have good news for you later, depending on how your next draws go, but we will save that. Alright, alright. So another bad guy, draw another one, yeah, an ace. Dang, dang.

Sarah Moore 52:06

You guys what bad shuffle or a great, I can't say

Speaker 3 52:14

that's the beauty of randomization. Uh, so yeah, so with the clubs, once again, takes us back to thinking about those who labor crafters and what have you, what does, what does the ace of clubs say to you in your particular media? So

Sarah Moore 52:32

I think it's probably like a pretty low person right on the totem pole, because it's an ace. So it's like the lowest you can get, right? We're

Ansel Burch 52:38

playing Aces High, good. Good question. Hi, yep,

Sarah Moore 52:41

okay, okay, um, okay, so,

Ansel Burch 52:54

labor, but I'd be curious where you were going with that, because I wonder if you can play with it.

Sarah Moore 53:00

Well, I was gonna say that there's like a PA on set always that just hates me, just like consistently is trying to make my life more difficult.

Ansel Burch 53:17

Do you think that pa maybe has more power than you know.

Sarah Moore 53:23

Oh, this Okay, so this could be a nepotism situation, and like that, Pa is like, the studio heads like nephew or something that's just like, just like, doing his damn best to like,

Ansel Burch 53:45

because, like, he just does not like your movies. I don't know why we keep making your movies. I could travel through. Why

Sarah Moore 53:52

is it always your fucking movies? Like, I I'm so tired of you, I think probably also he wants to be an actor, and, like, can't get hired at anything, and so he's just like, This is what he can do. And his his, you know, he's just happy his uncle is gonna be he's like, Well, just, you know, just do this for a while. Like, it's gonna be fine.

Speaker 3 54:17

His uncle thought he'd be happy just getting on set, and it just made things worse. Yeah, yep, yeah. That's cool. That's a cool idea. It has just occurred to me, we've been talking about your movies as though they also cover you traveling through time. Do you think you have a film crew that comes with you, or do you like do your own documentary style footage whilst traveling.

Sarah Moore 54:42

No, I think some, I think they come with, Okay, so you've got like, a crew

Ansel Burch 54:45

in your Yeah, time machine or whatever. Yeah, I think that will be very interesting to work with, and I'm excited to see how it happens.

Sarah Moore 54:55

I mean, unless that that's too there are no much work on you. I don't want to. Hey. Okay, great. We are

Ansel Burch 55:02

here to make a fun game happen. Can't wait time travel shenanigans with more NPCs, yes, please.

Sarah Moore 55:13

I am, I am happy to like to map all of those things out with you like I, I will take as much off of your plate as you would like to like, this is the crew that I'm with, right? It's probably a smaller crew, but we definitely have a lighting guy because he you have to light this right, like porch

Ansel Burch 55:35

schmuck with a bounce card, just like trying desperately not to get eaten by dinosaurs and shit.

Sarah Moore 55:42

Mm, hmm, yep, yep, your

Ansel Burch 55:45

action camera person, yeah,

Sarah Moore 55:51

yeah. And then there's a sound guy. Obviously, we want,

Ansel Burch 55:55

I can to be able to hear this. Honestly. I want it to be the guy in the pink shorts from Star Wars, obviously the best boom operator.

Sarah Moore 56:03

Yeah, he was one of our I mean, we dropped him off on tattooing. We lost him there. It was the problem, whoop, oh, shoot,

Ansel Burch 56:16

just a lot of sand. Nothing we could do.

Unknown Speaker 56:19

Yep, yep, yep,

Ansel Burch 56:21

all right? Is that three enemies? No,

Sarah Moore 56:23

that's only two. Okay, so we got one more,

Ansel Burch 56:26

one more enemy. Oh, and these are marked with the little, I'm sure you'd look dark,

Sarah Moore 56:30

yeah, the little thing looking guy, yeah, I'm a steering wheel looking guy, eight of

Speaker 3 56:37

diamond. Hey, that one's in the middle. That's, that's way better. Okay, diamonds again make us think about merchants and traders and those who make goods, refined goods, I should say fine goods. We've also used that to mean like Richie's so far. So cash,

Sarah Moore 57:04

okay, so like, what if it's my mother in law? Oh,

Ansel Burch 57:10

okay. What if classic villain,

Sarah Moore 57:17

yeah, what if she just like, doesn't like that, uh, she's, she sees me as having led her, her innocent baby boy, into a life of, you know, like the movies, that's not good. You think

Ansel Burch 57:33

she's like, secretly, very hobbity. She's like, ah, adventures. No, thank you.

Sarah Moore 57:40

I don't think it's a secret at all. I think she's, I think she's like, very like, I think she's probably pretty like, religious. I think she thinks their wealth comes from the fact that she's a good, pious woman, okay, and, and not that her husband mined the Earth into oblivion,

Ansel Burch 58:07

not that you've exploited labor and the end the world at the same time. No, no, no,

Sarah Moore 58:12

no, no. Not that at all.

Ansel Burch 58:17

God, thank you. She's

Sarah Moore 58:20

that dude up there, he gave me all of my wealth because I prayed to him.

Ansel Burch 58:25

Or maybe in this world, it's gods. Maybe we have a, yeah, a bunch of dominant religion is, is, is multiple gods?

Sarah Moore 58:36

Yeah, that would make sense because of multiple partners and all of those things. Why

Ansel Burch 58:39

would you love just one thing.

Sarah Moore 58:44

But, you know, I have my favorites.

Ansel Burch 58:45

Obviously, that's the beauty of polytheism. You get to have a favorite guy

Sarah Moore 58:51

to have all

Speaker 3 58:56

right. So now we are going to draw three more cards, and this time you're gonna, okay, this will be your impediment. This is the opposite of your card. This is your critical failure. When you draw this card, the worst possible dramatic thing happens. A joker is a good choice for this, because that is a zero value card.

Sarah Moore 59:21

I also have the other two was a jack and a seven, okay, but feels like the Joker feels good.

Ansel Burch 59:29

Joker feels correct, yeah, that's especially being the black Joker, the monochrome Joker, yeah, that's that's got the right vibe to it, which begs the question, what do you think it is that stops you getting to your goals by yourself? Why do you need your allies?

Sarah Moore 59:57

I think I.

I think her allies are her humanity. I think that she was taught very early that the things the people that you love, will literally push you out of planes. Oh, yeah, right. And so she spends a lot of time, even though she has more than one partner, those were very long relationship builds because she doesn't trust easily. And so I think that she spends a lot of time, like, if there's not somebody or like, she'll take, she'll take the the route that is maybe not best for her or for the situation,

Ansel Burch 1:00:55

because she emerges, Yeah, yeah,

Sarah Moore 1:00:58

yeah, because she's worried about, about that so that, yeah, that's what I think. I think her, her people are, her soul, basically like that.

Ansel Burch 1:01:09

That's very cool. And that'll be, that'll make for a really cool dynamic in play, too. I like, that's a, that's a neat, neat choice.

Sarah Moore 1:01:19

She's just like,

Ansel Burch 1:01:24

gonna get me killed. And I know so and

Sarah Moore 1:01:27

I know, and, yeah, yeah,

Ansel Burch 1:01:30

why do we have to keep rescuing this character? Because she wanders off. I don't know. She doesn't think you're up to

Sarah Moore 1:01:37

leaving

Ansel Burch 1:01:40

yet again, she insists she's not being rescued. You are, in fact, just getting in the way.

Sarah Moore 1:01:45

I also think, and I know that this is a separate thing, but I think she has, she has been purposely sterile, because, I don't think because her parent figure, as we've discussed, like, abandoned her over and over and over and over and over and so I think she's just like, no kids, yeah, just in case. What if I do what if I do the same thing? Not gonna do it like I think that scares the crap out of her. So I think she just has

Ansel Burch 1:02:24

chosen, yeah, that's just, that's cool. I like, yeah, that makes, that's a that is a great manifestation of that energy, like that, really, I think that'll sell it. I mean, you'd think, but I'm kidding,

Stella Cheeks 1:02:43

I'm not cheating. I don't know how to cheat. I don't know how the game

Ansel Burch 1:02:47

works. Yeah, why would you? Why would you? Why would you want that to be the

Stella Cheeks 1:02:52

case? Okay, three, three. Again, that's

Ansel Burch 1:02:56

the nice thing about this. Is like there's, there is so little incentive to cheat, even if you could figure out how to do it.

Stella Cheeks 1:03:04

So I'm doing en me now

Ansel Burch 1:03:08

three so three cards and same thing. These are going to represent your three greatest enemies.

Stella Cheeks 1:03:15

All right, I got an ace of spades, a seven of spades and a two of clubs.

Ansel Burch 1:03:25

Okay, spades heavy. That's that's cool. So these enemies, this is the circle with a cut in half, and then that's cut in half. Kind of looks like a steering wheel. And these are functionally going to work in the opposite way as the allies. So whenever you draw one of these, you'll draw another one and take the lower.

Stella Cheeks 1:03:57

Spades is the fighty one,

yes. And then clubs is the like, tinkery one, yeah. Am I supposed to, like, make actual enemies of these for these people?

Ansel Burch 1:04:11

Yes, no. More detail than we did previously is needed. But yet these are, this is also going to be a thing where it inspires you to tell a story about or, or to inform the action based upon, oh yeah, that guy who used to beat you up in school, or, you know, whatever, okay, instinctually,

Stella Cheeks 1:04:31

I feel like the ace of spades should be like,

like a Like a priest, or like somebody else who is like, either connected to the source and is like jealous type of thing, like, I devoted my whole life to the source, and you get these powers.

Speaker 1 1:04:57

Who are you? You random? Guy.

Stella Cheeks 1:05:01

So I think Ace of Spades has to be like true nemesis.

Ansel Burch 1:05:06

I like that. And it's, I mean, it's a very high card. When that thing shows up, it is gonna fuck up your day.

Stella Cheeks 1:05:13

Yeah, yeah. And he's gone like full evil. And then seven of spades. Um,

I feel like

I want that to be some kind of I'm feeling like that should be like a sibling.

Ansel Burch 1:05:42

Ooh, I like that, yeah,

Stella Cheeks 1:05:45

as an only child, I assume this is how

Ansel Burch 1:05:50

sometimes, yeah, yeah, I feel like, you get to be the chosen one, and I just have to live here at home,

Stella Cheeks 1:05:57

yeah? Or like, if I'm like, seen as being like dereliction my duties.

Ansel Burch 1:06:03

Oh, no, yeah, that's cool. That's good too. Yeah, you keep going off on these missions, and I have to take care of dad or whatever, yeah, or the house or the cat or whatever, two of

Stella Cheeks 1:06:16

clubs, club, I

Ansel Burch 1:06:27

a two so this, this just needs to Be, like a minor pain,

Stella Cheeks 1:06:38

a minor pain away. Oh, yes. What about my best friend's next door neighbor who's just a dick every time I go,

Ansel Burch 1:06:50

I love it. I love it. This person would do damage to you if they had

Stella Cheeks 1:06:54

but they're mostly just like, whatever. Carl,

Ansel Burch 1:06:59

yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 1:07:03

So that is, it's, that's the highest of I just like this fucker guy.

Speaker 3 1:07:14

Okay, so we have one last thing to do before we get to a sort of meta part, and that is your impediment. So go ahead and draw three cards, and this time you're just gonna pick one your choice of these three cards. Do I look at them? This is the opposite. Yeah, face up. This is the opposite of your card. Every time you draw this card, it will be the worst, most dramatic possible option. So Mechanically speaking, it's kind of a good idea to pick a low one, unless there's one that jumps out at you. Okay,

Stella Cheeks 1:07:47

well, I have the king of spades, the jack of diamonds, and then the four of clubs. So I guess mechanically it would make sense to do the four, but I don't, I don't know. I'm like, kind of liking this, like, black sheep of the family thing, yeah? So I feel kind of like I want to do the diamond.

Ansel Burch 1:08:12

That makes total sense, so I'll do that. We are here to tell stories.

Stella Cheeks 1:08:18

I'm here to win.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:20

Yeah, I didn't

Speaker 3 1:08:21

come to make friends. So the impediment is the one that's like a little cross with dots at the intersection, yeah, but yes, and this will cause you to fail immediately and dramatically. So now, once the marker is dry on that one, we will be shuffling. So go ahead and let that one dry while we think about what that represents. What is the thing that gets in your character's way? And this can be a personal defeat, this can be an obligation, maybe an organization that means to do you ill, yeah, something, something that is always in your way. I feel like I can't totally decide

Stella Cheeks 1:09:08

what it is until I decide what the like problem on my planet is. Because I feel like it should okay. I feel like it should relate to that.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:18

I like that idea right? Because it feels like it would be

Stella Cheeks 1:09:22

that's like the big thing.

Ansel Burch 1:09:24

Stella cheeks is at Stella cheeks on Instagram and blue sky. Sarah Moore is at pixies and pins on all of the social media channels, and at pixies and pins.com you can also check out her Sarah's table live streams on Twitch at pixies and pins. Omar Burgos is at tail Weaver. Check out his work on the tale of D 20s. TTRPG channel. More information at a tale of D twenties.com, Ben banks is at DJ underscore. Blendian on Instagram and SoundCloud. I'm Ansel Burch, and you can find me at the indecisionist on all of the meta properties and on blues. Eye special. Thanks to Cameron ivesque Davis for the song you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast, this has been an indecisionist production. Go to indecisionist.com to find more of our work, including my monthly gaming event, TTRPG pickup con and my other time travel podcast, time to party as you travel at one second per second. Take some time out for these intrepid adventurers. They may be in trouble, but only for the time being. You.

Stella Cheeks 1:11:00

So the problem is Ansel is that the marker that I'm using, none of these are dry. Do.

Character Creation: Part 2

Demeanor, Training, and Fortune

In this episode we continue our character creation process with the demeanor, training, and fortune cards. Demeanor helps our players think about how their characters present themselves to the world and the kind of person they aspire to be. Training lets them think about the intentional work that has gone into getting them where they are. Fortune on the other hand tells us a bit about how life has treated our heroes up to now. Have they been relatively lucky or has life shit on them a little bit on their way to becoming a time traveling hero?

The Game

This Game was played using the Mavericks system. An RPG using a deck of cards to tell the story and put fate in the hands of the players. It’s a story-forward roleplaying experience that encourages the players and dealer to work together to create the story. Check out the System Reference Document on Itch.io

https://the-indecisionist.itch.io/mavericks

The Cast

Stella Cheeks is @stellacheeks on Instagram and Bluesky. Check out her other podcasts, Not Your Demographic, X-Treks, and Spooky Thirties.

Sara Moore is @pixiesandpins on all social media channels and at Pixies and Pins.com. You can also check out her Sarah’s Table livestreams on twitch @pixiesandpins.  

Omar Burgos is @Taleweaver Check out his work on the Tale of D20s TTRPG channel. More information at https://ataleofd20s.com/

Ben Banks is @Dj_blindian on Instagram and Soundcloud

I’m Ansel Burch and you can find me @TheIndecisionist on all of the meta properties and on Bluesky.

———

Special thanks to Cameron Evesque Davis for the song you’re hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast. Find her work on Soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/cameronevesquedavis

This show is an Indecisionist Production. Go to Indecisionist.com to find more of my work including my monthly gaming event, TTRPG Pickup Con, and my other time travel podcast, Time 2 Party. 

As you travel at one second per second, take some time out for these intrepid adventurers. They may be in trouble, but only for the time being.

---

Episode Transcript

Ansel Burch 0:06

I welcome adventurers from across time and space. Five creators have been brought together from across the internet for one purpose and one purpose alone, to travel through time and have a good time doing it. When big changes happen to the timeline, the change attracts other time travelers like gravity, they won't be able to move past it until they fix whatever was messed up. So our heroes are stuck together, but only for the time being. You

Unknown Speaker 1:00

Ansel,

Ansel Burch 1:03

welcome back to for the time being, I am Ansel, your game master, and I am so excited to have you back for Episode Two as we continue our character creation process. We have some incredible characters already coming together, and this process does, as I mentioned in episode one, require

a little bit of like open interpretation. It's very taro esque in that regard. And so as we draw the cards and reveal their faces, the players are asked to interpret based upon the suits that they're receiving and the numbers that are revealed are the based upon the suits that they're seeing and the numbers that they're revealing. And each one of those is going to give them different ideas. And there are no wrong answers, but there are some things that we help to guide with. And as you've heard already, and as you'll continue to hear those four suits I'll break down today are clubs, spades, hearts and diamonds. Generally speaking, we think of clubs as being our laborers, those who work with their hands and work with raw materials and turn those raw materials into goods that can be used by other people

hearts. On the other hand, we look at as people who people who look to a higher power for their abilities, whether that be praying in a church, or if you think in a more fantastical way, people who get magical powers through either relationships or contracts with beings from another dimension or from a higher plane.

Those are, those are our hearts. Diamonds represent those who trade and those who are artisans. So they're taking the materials that are created by folks like our clubs and turning them into refined goods. So we're thinking about jewelers, tailors, artists, folks like that, and then finally, our our spades, those are our war like people, generally speaking, they're going to be those who look to conflict as their first line of reasoning. And as you listen and continue to enjoy our character creation, I hope that you can see how those four aspects fold their way into these back stories and help our players to interpret the cards that they're getting. Last we checked in with Omar. He was working on whiskers, the cat Pharaoh, who has a nemesis. So our next card, we're gonna continue around clockwise from at this point, so remove from to the top right card for your demeanor.

This gets the same mark as the previous one, and this should tell you about how you present yourself to the world. So what is the layer of artifice that is placed on top of that,

that true nature, that shiny selfishness? I was hoping for another diamond, but four of spades. Ooh, okay. Spades are usually war like people, people who fight or make a business of getting into quarrels. So professional soldiers, lawyers, you know, people who argue or quarrel or fight as a means to an end consistently. I think it's really interesting to have that as a demeanor card if you decide to go that direction. Oh, totally, because he was a wouldn't say he was a tight okay, maybe he was a tyrant, ish, like king he was maybe the other feline Nemesis was actually a good person, and I was more of a tyrannical Pharaoh. You were the evil one. I was the evil one. It was more like I was emote.

We're getting some pretty strong emote fives.

Omar Burgos 4:56

I was I was that Pharaoh parent.

Ansel Burch 5:00

Lee, that, do you think you had, like, a strong man thing going on where it was like, I'm war, like, I will go to war all the time. War, war, no, yeah, never backed it up or whatever. Like, Xerxes from, like, like ancient when I was from Greek and Roman, the whole 300

Omar Burgos 5:21

with King Xerxes, how he was just, oh, very war, like from the Persians. And just went out and just tried to conquer, because it was Persia is right to rule the world as so he feels as well. It was in this version of Egypt, it was his right to rule the world. So he went out there and said, just said, take him over. It's like either you'll you'll come peacefully or or, and much to his smile, he would prefer you go kicking and screaming, and he'll play with you like a little cat toy in that sense, there it is. Oh, I like that. That's good. In our first two cards with Ben, we learned about his hard bitten 70s New York cop. Let's continue on to the next card, which will be your demeanor. Top right, going clockwise around the circle.

Unknown Speaker 6:11

So that is a

Ansel Burch 6:15

king of clover. Ooh, wow. Look at you with all the faces all of a sudden,

alright, so King of Clubs. Clubs

are like laborers.

So we think of like farmers, potters, millers, blacksmith you know, if you're in 1970s New York, maybe your your your fish mongers and your street sweepers,

but these are people who labor with their hands or make

base goods,

as to be compared with our diamonds. Who are going to be people who refine base goods, so like, if, if the weavers are clubs, the tailors are diamonds again, as much as you want to work with that. So that is, that is the general, like, breakdown of that. But I like the idea of a king of laborers.

Ben Banks 7:12

Yeah, I think he is kind of a man of the people. Or at least, it wants to be like a champion of the people. He's not doing it for, like, fame. But he just, you know, wants to help. And he's seen how the system has oppressed others. And, yeah, and like he said, laborers. I think he probably comes from a line of, maybe his dad, Grandfather was also in, like, the, you know, police work. And so he's just like, get down, gotta do it. It's kind of become like a symbol, even though he may, probably doesn't want to be or seen as that. But you know, people around the way in his neighborhood know that, hey, this guy's, this is the guy you can trust. He's gonna get down, he's gonna do the work, he's gonna help out.

Ansel Burch 7:57

Yeah, I like it. I like it. And that's, I also like that it's in your demeanor spot. So like, this is the face you show to the world too. Like you're, you're presenting as a folk hero. Yeah, that's cool. That's cool. Folk hero. Nice.

Falling through time should be very interesting for you. Our first session with Sarah established her golden age starlet who explores the Hollow Earth. Sarah, let's continue onward. Since that was an easy one, next will be it's a nine of nine of spades. Man, make sure that. Okay, next one is not

Sarah Moore 8:34

a I want. I wanted to make sure, because it was hard to shuffle these babies.

Ansel Burch 8:39

Hey, luckily, it doesn't matter. So, sure, sure, sure. So this is your demeanor card. This is about who you present to the world,

how you wish to be deceived, how good you are at protect presenting that illusion. Oh, okay,

Sarah Moore 8:57

is this? This is another backstory situation. Same mark, yep,

Ansel Burch 9:02

and same effect.

Oh, great. Got some good, good spades in there. So

what do you think this tells you about your demeanor and how you present to the to the world? I

mean, obviously you're a time traveler, so there's

Sarah Moore 9:21

you got that going on? I mean, I think this is probably the one that she leans into her importance to get her way in situations. I think this is, this is the, don't you know who I am, though, like I'm in all of the films, I'm important. Have you seen Edge of

Ansel Burch 9:42

Tomorrow? Tom Cruise? Yes,

I get like that vibe from what you're talking about, where he's like, yeah, he has this military rank, quote, unquote.

But is, in fact, just a media personality. Do you think you have like a fake.

Sarah Moore 10:00

A captaincy or something, yeah? I think so. I think, I think I have a military rank in the same way that, like, Donald Duck has a naval

Ansel Burch 10:14

Yeah, yeah.

Sarah Moore 10:16

Like,

yeah, yeah, it's I didn't have the uniform and, like, I've got all the trappings, yeah, I think it's just, it's just like,

I never, like, did any of the tests,

but you are a badass, so you can back it up. You just never had to. I never had to, yeah, but, and I think backing it up is different than, like, knowing procedure. Oh yeah, that's a good decision. I absolutely could back up. Like, if you drop me in the middle of a jungle, I could find my way back out. But, like, I don't really have any idea who to, like, report to.

I can shoot a gun and I can build a snare with rope, but, like, I don't, I don't.

I don't know how to, like, make the bed the way you want me to make it, because it's not someone else is gonna have to do those requisition forms. Yeah, I don't know what this such. I've never seen a form in my life. I don't fill any of those camp. Don't know her.

Don't know her.

I think. No, I went to my dad's boot camp, which is probably way fucking worse. Yeah,

Ansel Burch 11:36

nobody, nobody, put you out in the woods and left you to survive. No,

Sarah Moore 11:41

my dad dropped me out of every vehicle that there is,

and then told me to find my way home. So your dad said, tuck and roll when he meant, I love you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, there was boats, there was planes,

land vehicles

push me off a bicycle once. This is it's all about. What do you mean? Not everybody wears a parachute whenever they get on any airplane. I thought that was Stan, yeah, definitely out of Zeppelin one time. Yeah.

Ansel Burch 12:16

I want that to be one of your bragging rights. I've fallen out. I've been pushed out of every mode of transportation, everything, yeah, for sure,

Sarah Moore 12:26

which means at some point I had to have fallen out of the time machine as well. Oh, fallen into the time stream. That's a cool idea. Yeah, whoops. That's all right. It's just like normal dad would just have me find my way back, because it's not a big deal. You got this, right?

Oh, like you to, like, find pieces of me throughout history, like, find like that at notes I left. I'm like, Nah, shit, I'm here now. Figured out a way out, rebuilt the time machine. It's fine. We're good. I

Ansel Burch 13:00

Dear Dad.

Sarah Moore 13:03

Elizabeth in London is super cool. I'm still mad. I'm here still, still pretty pissed. Very much. Miss indoor plumbing

Ansel Burch 13:14

and the right to vote.

Sarah Moore 13:17

I did never use it, but that's different, different problem. Different problem. Good to know that you can

Ansel Burch 13:25

right. When we left Stella, we were diving into her alien Explorer from another galaxy.

So your next card, the top right, will conversely represent your demeanor. So this is how you present yourself to the world the face you put on, all right? It is a 10 of clubs.

10 of clubs, okay?

Clubs generally represent laborers, people who create base material. So if you going back to that diamond metaphor, instead of a tailor who is making finished garments. You might be a weaver who is making fabric.

So we think about blacksmiths, farmers,

you know, people, people who make things with their hands and the raw material of the world around them

that could also extend to like low magics and that sort of thing as well. Yeah.

Stella Cheeks 14:26

What, what? Um, Mark is that? Sorry?

Ansel Burch 14:30

Oh, it's gonna be the same mark as the one before then all four of these outside ones are gonna have. Oh, okay, so these are all backstory, yeah. Okay, thank you for asking. So the first one,

Stella Cheeks 14:43

okay, I need to, I have a bad memory, so I have to make detailed notes for my brain. The first one was, please, please. Up left, and that signifies your

nature. And then this is upright.

And that signifies how you present to the world your demeanor. Yes, ah,

I could have wrote demeanor instead of this whole sentence.

Ansel Burch 15:12

That sounds less fun. Yeah,

Sarah Moore 15:15

okay,

Stella Cheeks 15:17

well, that's sort of interesting, right, to have like my background is the like, tailor, but my how I present and like that that does go hand in hand to the like, I just want to take this stuff. Marcus is like, No, this is

Ansel Burch 15:32

what I'm doing. I am just a humble space alien, and what I'm going to do is take this apart. Yeah, did I come from royalty? Maybe we don't have to talk about it. I'm covered in Greece.

There's no way that's coming up. Yeah,

throw mud on your face.

Stella Cheeks 15:52

So that makes sense too. Also, if I'm like an alien, and other people are maybe of Earth, it could be seen maybe as, like, a little

hyper focused, in a way that maybe comes off as, like, rude, but isn't meant to be rude, because I'm just like, very like, this is what I do.

Ansel Burch 16:12

Oh yeah, I could see that

Stella Cheeks 16:16

unknowable, yeah, and not like, in a Spock way, but more in, like, a annoying curiosity way,

Ansel Burch 16:26

but not annoying. I don't want to play an annoying character, but do you know what I mean? No, no, I'm trying to think of, like, uh, there's somebody, there's a character on the tip of my brain who did exactly that sort of thing. Yeah, it's like, in a

Stella Cheeks 16:39

It depends, truly, on what era you're reading her in, but like, a Starfire, like she's from an alien planet, yeah, and she has this like, kind of childlike nature, but she's actually like

a princess who, like, grew up in like, a prison camp and has, like, all these steps, but she is just, she presents to the world as, Like, no, I'm positive, and I want to help people and like,

she like fights the past a little bit in the way that she presents herself, which I like, but she can come off as being like, really naive and stupid,

yeah? But she's actually brilliant

classic. I like that. I like that metaphor. I like that equivalency. Apparently I'll be Starfire zone, yeah, relating everything to DC Comics tonight,

Ansel Burch 17:28

you're entitled.

Stella Cheeks 17:31

Okay,

Ansel Burch 17:33

okay, fantastic, fantastic. Anything else you want to explore about that demeanor? I don't think so right now.

All right. All right. So the next card we're going to draw is your fortune card. This one, you don't need to worry so much about the suit. We're looking mostly at the number just to see, like, how good has life been to you? Pretty freaking nice.

Okay, yeah, that King tells us a lot of good stuff, all right, so we've

had it pretty good, aside from getting kicked out of vehicles and stuff,

Sarah Moore 18:09

yeah, but it made me real tough, yeah,

Ansel Burch 18:12

he always got you ice cream afterward. He did is there, does this have a same same mark? Yep,

Sarah Moore 18:21

Jesus, all right. Well,

Ansel Burch 18:29

14 is good. Hi, very lucky. Now, if you want to interpret the suit at all that was a diamond, right?

Diamonds, we generally think of merchants, traders and artisans, so people who refine goods made by other hands into a higher

form, right? So, like, if we think of weavers as being crafters, then tailors would be artisans. Got it

so if you, if you want to think about like transferring goods or heightening goods, or, you know, I think that also feeds into what you've been talking about, but you could, you could maybe add an additional layer or wrinkle to it, if you wanted to something about, like how you produce your films or newsreels or whatever. Can she be

married to the director? Ooh, does he travel with you?

This is not a conditional on yes or no. The answer is yes. I'm just asking questions. I think,

Sarah Moore 19:42

I think it depends. I think he's very soft.

I think he's a, he's a soft, pampered boy.

And so I think maybe he's not the director, maybe he is the producer, maybe he's maybe he's the money. And.

I think that they have a decent relationship. I don't think that it's terribly passionate, um, but I think it's one of those, like it is mutually beneficial for both of them. He gets to tell everyone he's married to me,

and

produce these things, and I get to be in them, and have my face everywhere as a starlet,

plus with him being very soft and moneyed, probably no one is pushing me out of vehicles anymore, unless I'm getting highly paid for it, which is a big improvement All Things Considered. It's a huge, it's huge step up for me, I think.

But I took it literally as, like, got, got a big diamonds, yeah,

yeah, that's cool. Maybe his, maybe his family money comes from, like, diamonds. Oh, you think he's a De Beer,

something that like that? Absolutely, that's, yeah, that's cool.

Yeah,

he's probably gay.

Ansel Burch 21:11

Lots of people are

Sarah Moore 21:14

kept we're not, I think we're not sure that she's, I was gonna say. I have a feeling she's gonna be. So he's probably very open to many opportunities, I think.

Ansel Burch 21:28

So I think once the you're both gay, it circles back around to working

absolutely so if we continue to the next card down, this is going to be your fortune. All right. That is, Wow, another face card that is the queen of clubs. Wow. I don't know how much you want to read into the suit on a fortune card. I mean being clubs, this is, again, you know that would put you back in labor or thinking about laborers,

but yeah, the Queen definitely suggests that maybe fortune has been kinder to you than other laborers. Maybe you're, you're thinking about your your forebears.

Maybe you've, you've done better than them, or fortune has treated you more nicely. Anyway, I think I've gotten out of scrapes I probably shouldn't have in the past. Oh, I like that. Yeah, you've collected fewer injuries than maybe you should have.

The next is your fortune. So this is going to be the bottom right again. We're continuing clockwise. This card is defining just how lucky you've been up till now. Are you doing well? Are you just scraping by? Have you found your people, or are you still seeking

that? One is the 10 of spades. Okay, okay. Again. Spades represents fighters, warriors, gladiators.

A 10, that's a pretty decent value. Seems like the war Life has been good to you.

Oh, yes. Or, or you just keep getting lucky.

Omar Burgos 23:08

I was that was very lucky doing your way through through combat all the time. Yeah, I think so. It doesn't with cat like Grace, because I don't see him as a very strong fighter himself, more of a tactician, and he just kind of sees everything, puts everything, just everything, slows down and listen, he knocks over one bottle, which causes a cascading effect of all different things that he was like And exactly as I planned

and kind of way. And it's all like to win in the battle,

because in ancient Egypt, Egyptians were very powerful warriors, and they were they were war like so he kind of has that, like war is inevitable and I will win. It kind of sense, using his mind other people can have their brawn. He controls them.

Ansel Burch 24:02

Okay, to carry on. Then bottom right, this will be your fortune. Ace of Hearts, same mark as before. Ace of Hearts,

we're gonna do all of the suits it seems. Yeah, one of each, yep, one of each.

The hearts generally represent those who pray or those who worship.

So this could mean religion in the like traditional sense. This could be like a warlock patron situation.

This could also just be like, maybe you're beholden to a like a king or a mayor or something, and you get your

you derive your identity or something from

from their service. But being that this is your fortune card, you don't really need to worry too much about what the suit tells you.

The big thing is, how lucky Have you been? And in this case, an ace tells me you've been pretty freaking lucky so far,

Stella Cheeks 25:11

fate and karma have been kind to you. Mr. Alien friend. Okay, cool. I sort of, like, instinctually like what you were saying about, like, the, like, kind of, you know, the comparison to the warlock patron thing. Because, like, theoretically, we don't know where this will come up with a different name for it, theta beam is coming from, or why it's happening, and I can't control it. I don't know anything. So that could be, you know, an like, you said it's a the fortune. So I don't have to totally there's a higher being or a power that is just like, I don't know, imposing the sun, yeah, yeah. But so far, it's been good. How do you think you've benefited from it, aside from just like, warm fuzzies? Do you think like, you bring back stuff or power or ability?

Well, I think definitely knowledge, right.

Again, I am not trying to just, like, totally rip off whatever, but like, for instance, in Saga of Swamp Thing, Adam strange uses his like knowledge to help Swamp Thing, like re like regrade the earth or whatever.

So maybe it's like a that could be interesting. Also going with the like, Starfire thing. Maybe there's like some and the sickness thing, right? What was the card of mancy of the eight of clubs? Thing? Sickness thing. Like, maybe there's like, something awful on my planet, and I was trying to help to fix it, or whatever, and now I am in this push and pull

Ansel Burch 26:52

and or tell me, if this is too much, maybe you have some crazy space cancer, and when you're zooped away from your home planet, you're not affected if it's like a dead pool or like a Jane Foster Thor, uh, Jane Foster Thor, yeah, that was the one I was trying to get to. Yeah, I think, I think it should be either or, either is fine,

Stella Cheeks 27:16

but I mean, it might probably be more simplistic if it was just me right, like, when I'm whisked away,

Ansel Burch 27:24

type deal. Or maybe everyone on your home planet has this terrible affliction, and you're like, taking steps towards fixing it every time you journey away. Yeah, we could do something like that, or not. Maybe not everybody has it, but it's like,

Stella Cheeks 27:40

let's make a pandemic story.

Ansel Burch 27:43

Well, it could also be like a dying star or something like that, you know. So it's not like a sickness, but like there's, there is a present existential threat that you are taking steps towards repairing. It's a Romulus situation. Got it? We're just making all of the references. There's that, yeah, this is my pitch to prove to everyone that I'm really nerdy. I get all the references I know,

Stella Cheeks 28:09

but I mean, that's a terrible like, like, yeah, there's like, a Romulus situation where it's like, I maybe

prayed to some deity we can work that out, who has become this, like theta B giver or whatever.

And maybe like, obviously there's like whatever the the party quest is, right? But maybe the ongoing quest for like me as an individual is like, every time she it, whatever sends me someplace, there is a key to help or whatever.

Ansel Burch 28:47

No, I like that.

Yeah, I think there's a lot of potential there, especially as you think more about like, what you want the threat to because you

Stella Cheeks 29:00

could also play with, like, do you always go back to the same time and have to redo, like, the same double it's a double time travel. What is, what if it's like Inception? Well, not inception, but what if it's like a double time travel? Like, yeah, like, I time travel to Earth a dimension, or, like, whatever, I time travel to Earth, to whatever scenario you as the Overlord put us in. And then every time I go back to X planet,

it's like, at the beginning of, like, the the cycle, or whatever the destruction event, or whatever you're gonna do, it different this time. Man, that would be really horrible.

That's really That's horrible. That needs to be a movie by

Ansel Burch 29:43

itself, side quest off camera. Oh yeah. Well, I gotta, gotta relive the same week again. Maybe the sun won't blow up this time bye. Guys. See you next time.

That's pretty horrible, though. Um, if you don't see me around, it's because I saved everyone.

Stella Cheeks 30:00

Died, who knows, yeah, but theoretically, I die every time, and then I just get lifts away. Maybe this is Hell,

Ansel Burch 30:08

yeah,

Edge of Tomorrow. That was the movie Tom Cruise.

Stella Cheeks 30:13

I don't think I saw that one, but yeah, sure that

Ansel Burch 30:16

it's it's good. It's good. We covered it for time to party a couple months ago.

Stella Cheeks 30:20

Yeah, so it's something, I think that we can think about it more, because maybe it can be, like, super catastrophic, but it could also be something small, too, right? Like, again, we're doing all of the references, um, like a Leonard McCoy thing where, like, he tried to save his dad, oh, yeah, right. But then he killed his dad, and then, like, two days later, there was, like, a cure or whatever.

So, like, maybe it's like, I have a really personal stake in saving something or someone and the time is running out.

Ansel Burch 30:53

That's cool, too.

Yeah, something like that. Yeah. I like the idea of a crisis

at home, whatever that crisis turns out to be, I think that's a cool Yeah, and that's a cool internal battle too. Of like,

Stella Cheeks 31:09

Okay, I want to help solve this problem and be a team and whatever. But also like, Oh, fuck. How does the clock may or may not be checking? Oh no,

not that I'm

trying to build a character that's like, all about herself. That's not what I'm trying to

Ansel Burch 31:26

do. I don't everybody in this party is going to be heavily motivated.

Speaker 2 31:32

It's a it's a bunch of, like, content creators and DMS. So you don't worry, you have plenty of other people button their ideas in Okay, yeah, so I want to think about them more, but there is some like unnamed deity who's helping me to solve a problem at home through the lens of Earth shenanigans. For some reason,

Ansel Burch 31:57

something these hurtlings can teach you, theoretically.

Ben Banks 32:02

Okay.

Ansel Burch 32:05

All right, so the last card in this spread is your training card, okay?

And this is the bottom left. This is going to indicate what you were trained in, who you received it from, perhaps, maybe the impact that it has on you.

You know, feel free to sort of play around with what it means to you. But yeah, so this is, this is represents your

how much you've been affected by the

experts and grown ups that brought you up. So that is a jack of clubs. Jack of clubs, all right, so back to back to our laborers.

In fact, do you have all three face cards from the clubs?

Ben Banks 32:53

Yeah,

Ansel Burch 32:54

amazing.

I

yeah,

that's your suit. That is your suit. Yeah, that obviously, it is

Ben Banks 33:09

definitely of the people,

Ansel Burch 33:12

yeah,

what class? Working class? Yeah,

great. Well, then, yeah, I mean, I What do you think that says about your training? Do you want to tie it to a person or a maybe an institution or a quality,

maybe all three? Um,

Ben Banks 33:35

I'm thinking, since it's a jack kind of relaying that back to the the fortune being the queen. So I've kind of gotten by on, like, street smarts, and so maybe, maybe that's another reason why I'm not, like, I'm kind of over it is because, like, as time goes on, things are getting a little bit more procedural in, like the precinct or in the police work. You know, we got to make sure that every this, that all the dots are crossed, and T's are crossed and everything like that. And I'm kind of like, you know, back in the old days, you You saw him, you got him. Job well done. Nobody got hurt, you know, and so and so. Like, I think, yeah, the jack or, like, the nave, I've kind of like, figured out how to do things on my own that maybe not be by the book that they're writing and building as we're going but,

Speaker 3 34:27

you know, with luck and fortune, I have, kind of have kind of skated through and I get the job done, but

Ansel Burch 34:34

I I like that concept, yeah? So you've learned well, but you've also learned maybe a little askew, yes, yeah,

that's a that, yeah, yeah. I like it. I like it. That's a really good interpretation. I like it.

Anything else you want to tease out about that right now? I.

Uh, all right. And then our last card of the spread, the only one that's still face down, so no suspense there. The bottom left, this is your training card.

This, once again, going to get that backstory Mark

updated to the core card name, for those of you listening, with the updated rules,

the core card or so this one is going to define the quality of training you received, maybe who you got it from, or the impact it had on you. So what did we get for this card? The king of hearts. King of Hearts, excellent. We haven't had a heart yet in this one, that's exciting. And I think being a pharaoh, you'll like this one. The Heart generally we we divine as being

related to those who worship, those who pray, those who get their their power from a higher being. So whether it is, you know, a peasant who gets their power from their king or a priest who gets their power from a god or a warlock who gets it from a patron. This is someone who beseeches a higher power for the capabilities that they have. I

potentially again, up to you. Hmm, so house, so just a higher power. How supernatural are we going? Here you can go as supernatural as you want. The beauty of this setting is that each of you brings your own little judge to it, and we're just gonna put it in a cement mixer. So if you want to, if you want to do magic, you can totally do magic.

Omar Burgos 36:50

I would say, like, more, like minor presentations. I wouldn't say he's a full on a wizard or something like that, but he does as the ancient pharaohs. And ancient as the pharaohs in ancient Egypt have this kind of connection. They were either a descendant and or reincarnation of RA or a reincarnation of any of the Egyptian gods,

Horus, I would say,

maybe, I mean, I want to be too on the nose, I won't say bass set,

which is like a cat God,

Ansel Burch 37:27

like maybe he's descended or somehow connected to that, and gets maybe, and this is your training card. So I wonder if an aspect of Bastet has trained you to be who you are, or if you were trained to become an aspect of best at that's how you got your your capacity.

What do you think is the training element of this? This is something you learned.

Omar Burgos 37:59

I learned to use his mind

to ingenuity to twist any situation to his advantage he can, like sure, I would say, because he's not very, I mean, I because the pharaohs do need to learn and be very skilled with the many different weapons. So I would say he would train in the weapons, but his main primary focus was trying to outwit and use his opponent's weaknesses against them, so much on, like, a high level that, like, he's a genius in sense, like, like a prodigy of sense, like an otherworldly he can see things basically, almost before it happens by using All right, the wind's blowing that way, that person's walking over there. So probabilities of this happening is 93% go and something that a normal person could not calculate. His brain works like a computer, and he can figure out things very easily. So if he was in a if he was in a party, he would be the one to be the detective, but he's very snarky about it. And I would say he knows he has the ability over everyone else, but he is more like a matter of fact, such as, like, of course it was the butler who did it. Obviously it didn't list a whole bunch of things that no one would get.

Ansel Burch 39:17

It's child's play. Please keep up. You couldn't even have been in the room for that.

Being in the room is so Gauci

Exactly. Got a secret parts of hearts, okay? So hearts, we generally associate with those who look to higher powers. So that can be religion, that can be, you know, authorities that can be, like war locks and clerics, if you want to get into that kind of nonsense,

interesting. So, yeah, so those who look outside of themselves for their ability and power, or if you want.

To take the medieval approach those who pray.

Sarah Moore 40:03

So what about

the studio? Oh,

what if she's in like the studio system, and that is what

Ansel Burch 40:19

makes really good sense, and like the studio system would have been what trained you up into who you are. You know, aside from a badass who can be kicked out of any moving vehicle, from my dad who keeps shoving me out of vehicles,

Sarah Moore 40:36

they probably thanked him. They were probably like, thanks, yeah,

Ansel Burch 40:40

this one's made our job. This one will let us do whatever we want. It's amazing. That's great. She has no standards. That's what we like.

Yep, too much Hollywood commentary, or just enough

Sarah Moore 40:55

the correct amount.

She does keep asking for more money, but we keep that's fine. We keep giving it to her.

Ansel Burch 41:04

Money's money.

We have so much of it, just like scourge McDuck piles that we just roll around. Our studio is a town that we bought. We bought a town and turned it into a studio. I think we're doing okay. 100% this is like,

this is like the Disney town of studios, definitely. I'm picturing the Paramount lot in my head from Yes. What movie was that? Hail Caesar Yes?

Unknown Speaker 41:35

Or it's a little

Sarah Moore 41:37

Three Amigos where they just have Yes, the amigos are out of the mansion like they just,

Ansel Burch 41:47

is this that same, same mark, yes. Are finally going to change it up after this one, though.

Sarah Moore 41:54

All right, so little trees. Yep, no more trees. For you trees, you've done your trees. I gotta I've got about a mountain and four trees.

Ansel Burch 42:06

Jack of Spades. Spades goes back to the war like argumentative characters. So this, this will echo a little bit of your, was it your nature? Yeah, standing up for something. I mean it also, I feel like, goes hand in hand with what we just talked about, too.

Stella Cheeks 42:25

I feel like, yeah, having a focus right training for to solve a problem. We don't know what the problem is yet, because I have to think about

Ansel Burch 42:34

it, but, but yeah, if you've been constantly like, learning more and more about how to solve this issue, I think that, yeah, that it that's your fight, that's your struggle.

And maybe it is, maybe it's political. Who knows? There's a lot of options. Yeah,

lot of options. Yeah, I gotta think about it. But I like that. I feel like that weaves all of them together. Stella cheeks is at Stella cheeks on Instagram and blue sky. Sarah Moore is at pixies and pins on all of the social media channels, and at pixies and pins.com

you can also check out her Sarah's table live streams on Twitch at pixies and pins. Omar Burgos is at tail Weaver. Check out his work on the tale of D 20s. TTRPG channel. More information at a tale of D twenties.com Ben banks is at DJ underscore, blendian on Instagram and SoundCloud. I'm Ansel Burch, and you can find me at the indecisionist on all of the meta properties and on blue sky special. Thanks to Cameron evesque Davis for the song you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast, this has been an indecisionist production. Go to indecisionist.com to find more of our work, including my monthly gaming event, TTRPG pickup con, and my other time travel podcast, time to party as you travel at one second per second. Take some time out for these intrepid adventurers. They may be in trouble, but only for the time being. You

Character Creation: Part 1

It’s Only for the Time Being!

In this episode, we get our first introduction to the system just as you would as a player, in character creation. Character creation for Mavericks starts with a tarot-style spread of cards and creative interpretations based on the suits and values dealt. In this episode, we make it through the first three cards and lear about the core of these characters.

The Game

This Game was played using the Mavericks system. An RPG using a deck of cards to tell the story and put fate in the hands of the players. It’s a story-forward roleplaying experience that encourages the players and dealer to work together to create the story. Check out the System Reference Document on Itch.io

https://the-indecisionist.itch.io/mavericks

The Cast

Stella Cheeks is @stellacheeks on Instagram and Bluesky. Check out her other podcasts, Not Your Demographic, X-Treks, and Spooky Thirties.

Sara Moore is @pixiesandpins on all social media channels and at Pixies and Pins.com. You can also check out her Sarah’s Table livestreams on twitch @pixiesandpins.  

Omar Burgos is @Taleweaver Check out his work on the Tale of D20s TTRPG channel. More information at https://ataleofd20s.com/

Ben Banks is @Dj_blindian on Instagram and Soundcloud

I’m Ansel Burch and you can find me @TheIndecisionist on all of the meta properties and on Bluesky.

———

Special thanks to Cameron Evesque Davis for the song you’re hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast. Find her work on Soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/cameronevesquedavis

This show is an Indecisionist Production. Go to Indecisionist.com to find more of my work including my monthly gaming event, TTRPG Pickup Con, and my other time travel podcast, Time 2 Party. 

As you travel at one second per second, take some time out for these intrepid adventurers. They may be in trouble, but only for the time being.

---

Episode Transcript

Ansel Burch 0:06

I welcome adventurers from across time and space. Five creators have been brought together from across the internet for one purpose and one purpose alone, to travel through time and have a good time doing it. When big changes happen to the timeline, the change attracts other time travelers like gravity, they won't be able to move past it until they fix whatever was messed up. So our heroes are stuck together, but only for the time being. You

Ansel, thank you all for joining us here at for the time being, this is the first ever episode of our podcast, and I am so excited that you chose to download this episode today. I am Ansel Burch the indecisionist, and I will be your game master the dealer for this very exciting project. I am thrilled to be presenting this to you, not only because it's an amazing story, not only because I'm so excited about the incredible creators that have come together to tell the story, but also because this is a game that I designed myself, and I hope that you love it. This game is full of opportunity and chances to make big choices and big impacts. Fate is literally in your hands with every flip of the card, and I hope that you can see that potential as you listen to this game played by these incredible players. If you would like to get a copy of this game yourself. You can find it@h.io I am at the decisionist there, and without too much more ado or any more gilding of the lily, I present to you the character creation process. This is going to be four parts, and this is part one. We will deal our first two cards, and you'll hear all four players as they build their characters. Enjoy. Do you have a deck of cards?

Ben Banks 2:29

I do. I'm holding them right here. Do they need to be

Sarah Moore 2:31

shuffled? Yes,

Ansel Burch 2:33

you will want jokers. Yes. Jokers, yes. First up is Ben banks. Perfect. Okay, um, that's the, that's the prep you needed to do, I mean, and a marker, I guess. So. Do you have an idea of the kind of character that you want to bring?

Ben Banks 2:48

Yeah, I do. I was kind of thinking like a Dirty Harry, kind of, like, tough as nails, okay, by the book, not too far from retirement, too old for this shit. Kind of,

Ansel Burch 3:04

kind of vibe. How about you? Omar Burgos,

Omar Burgos 3:10

oh, I want to be an anthro morphic cat person from ancient Egypt. Worshiped in his time, but then was buried, and then a time capsule, kind of, or like a portal came that saved him from being, you know, trapped. And he's very snarky, very lame. He was a pharaoh, so witty, and just just as what you think a cat would be if they were personified as a human? Yeah?

Ansel Burch 3:37

So a cat, yeah.

Omar Burgos 3:38

So just a cat. What

Ansel Burch 3:40

are you thinking? Stella cheeks, do

Speaker 1 3:43

you know the comic character Adam strange from DC? I do like the idea of being able to travel through time but not being able to control it, but also always having a having a set place where I always return to where I'm like, I'm back or whatever. Hey. How long has it been? And it sounds like there's nobody doing like, spacey person, so I could do

Ansel Burch 4:05

like, not yet, spacey person. Spacey is very good, yeah. So,

Stella Cheeks 4:09

so maybe I'm, I'm, maybe I could be an alien or something from a different planet, and then Earth, Earth is my ran so like I'm from, we can come up with whatever planet we can make that up. But then I get pulled to Earth, and then I'm, like, forging a lifestyle there, but I don't know when I get pulled to Earth. Yeah, I like that. And then, you know, you have to have a medieval person be like, ah, what the fuck? And I'm like, I'm an alien.

Ansel Burch 4:39

What is What is your deal? Well, I've got a couple and last but not least, Sarah Moore, what are you thinking about for your character?

Sarah Moore 4:49

I think she's an actress. We had talked about the possibility like having it be like a 30s, 40s equivalent, but that it is in a full, hollow earth realm. Like, in her place, you can go inside the earth and, like, be an expedition or kind of a thing. And I think she was hired, if we can make this work. I think she was hired because she's a pretty face, but she also is, like, tough enough to survive it. Do you think

Ansel Burch 5:17

she's like, the hot girl that they put in the expedition movie to sell the expedition. You do think that I like this very much, the the idea that they have, in order to pay for the expedition, they've hired this hot chick who can also Ansel,

Sarah Moore 5:32

yeah. I mean, I think she is often underestimated, because people just see her as the hot chick, but like, she also is literally foraging through the jungle for food. And, like, when

Ansel Burch 5:43

people give Bear Grills shit for like, oh yeah, he sleeps in a hotel sometimes, yeah? Well, he also drinks his own piss and eats scorpions, right?

Sarah Moore 5:53

Because he has, well, but like, when he has the opportunity, he's gonna be in a real bed. Yeah? Me

Ansel Burch 5:59

too, as it turns out, with him on that, yes, yeah, I like it. Okay, that's a very cool inclination. So go ahead and start by lay one card out on the table, face down, and then four cards, one at each corner. This is going to feel kind of like a Tarot Spread. We are about to turn over the most important card in your deck. Whatever this card is, it is going to be the most important card in your deck. This is your card. So go ahead and flip that over.

Ben Banks 6:34

The four of hearts.

Ansel Burch 6:35

Four of hearts. Okay, that's man. I love it when they're low cards. This is your card. This card is a center of your character's being. There's something about this card that just core to who you are. Maybe that's the four. Maybe you see yourself as being sort of a low value card, or low value part of your cast. Maybe it's the heart symbolizing that you are maybe part of a community that looks to a higher being or owes yourself to a higher cause, like maybe the force or the law or justice. Those are all reasonable. This includes like warlocks, priests, clerics, paladins, all those sorts of folks, anybody who's kind of looking to something above them for their calling. That's where hearts generally represent. But the important thing is that this is your card, so go ahead and mark that on your tracking sheet. Mechanically, whenever you draw this card out of the pack, you are going to succeed dramatically. This is your crit success, okay,

Ben Banks 7:45

four of heartaches. Yeah, I know I feel that like, because, as you were saying, to a higher power, I think, like to justice, and then I think the lower number is, like, as he's gone through his career, he like, kind of focuses, not focuses, but, like, believes in it less, just because he's seen it fail. He's seen it fall apart. He's seen, you know, even if you got the bad guy, they had enough money to get out they, you know, rearrange some things. And so, yeah, he's, I think that would be representing of the low number four of just like he was once beholden to justice, but he's seen it fail. It's hurt him. It's hurt others, kind

Ansel Burch 8:25

of, like, all right, like, so it's the waning of that importance team. That's I love it. That's cool. That's really cool. But I think when, when this card comes up in gameplay that gives you the opportunity to have that be something that reminds you of justice, or makes you think of justice or or maybe how justice has failed, like, maybe this is the reason that you succeed is because you're like, fuck it. Justice has to be me right now, yeah, Burch, the guy, or whatever. Yeah, yeah, I like that. There's that's that's got some legs, the two of diamonds. Two of diamonds, okay, this is actually really cool. Diamonds generally represent the wealthy merchants, artisans, people who take materials that have been crafted and then they refine that material into something that is more artistic. So, you know, weavers, jewelers, tailors, those sorts of folk, as well as merchants and the upper class. That's, that's the sort of general vibe we get from diamonds, usually now being a two, maybe that's indicative of you being, you know, a kitty cat, but you know it could. It could also mean something about like, where you stand in your social structure. So what do you think you get from a two of diamonds? What does that say to you, about your, about your, your your Regent among cats?

Omar Burgos 9:59

I was. It's kind of like, almost like a metaphor. My character would be very, I wouldn't say greedy, but just shiny things attract them, as cats are. And it's kind of like, just like that, that cat's eye, that Tiger's eye, kind of because eyes are probably going to be, maybe diamond shaped, more than cat shape, just to show his love of jewels and gems. I mean, it was a pharaoh, so I like

Ansel Burch 10:28

that. Yeah, do you think the two tells you anything?

Omar Burgos 10:35

Perhaps there is another. He's made one of two cats. Oh,

Ansel Burch 10:40

I hadn't thought about that, but I like it. That's cool. Do you have maybe a rival out there somewhere?

Omar Burgos 10:49

Or I did, because normally, ferals don't get buried when they're alive, so perhaps another cat, feline of mine, wish to take the throne, and and possibly pretended or made a way that may look like I was dead so I can get mummified and all that. And when I kind of woke up, I like emote style, yeah, I got portaled away. But yes, I do have a grudge against another feline. Three of spades.

Ansel Burch 11:21

Three of spades. That is an amazing card to get for this. Generally speaking, when we look at spades, we think about those who fight. So we could be talking about warriors, Gladiators, soldiers. We could also be talking about lawyers, politicians, people who like argue as of mains of of their daily life. So that's kind of a direction you could go with spades, if you felt so minded. The other thing you might look at is that three, you know, maybe, maybe that tells us something about, like, how high or low into that cast you were, you began, you know, if, if we wanted to sort of read it off the off the standards, right, we could say, oh, well, yeah, you were born, maybe into a military family, but not of great import. You could also go a lot of other directions with that. So that being said, what does the three spades say to you? Or do you need more? Because we can also look up cartomancy for it. I

Sarah Moore 12:26

think maybe, okay, I don't

Ansel Burch 12:31

know bad answers.

Sarah Moore 12:33

But like, I think, like, her dad was really hot, pretty high ranking military Okay, and so she grew up. I think she's an only child, and I think he probably wanted a boy, and I think so he taught her how to do all the things that he would have passed on to a military man in the family. And then she was like, but I like being pretty. And he was like, at least know how to shoot someone. And she was like, God, fine. Okay. So, like, I think, yeah, I think she, like, has that background, but she took it in almost like the Captain America route, right? Oh, okay, where she's, like, the she's, she can be the face of of stuff, and they don't let her fight. Because why would they? Yeah, three

Stella Cheeks 13:29

of diamonds that, I think has you're staying on it.

Ansel Burch 13:34

That's auspicious. What 10 year old? It's really gross.

Well, you're gonna

mark on it, so I can only improve it. The general guidance for diamonds is to think of them as sort of the merchant and artisan class of any given society. So they're gonna take goods and refine them. They're not making, they're not weaving, they're not blacksmithing, they're tailoring. They might also be merchants or traders, generally. Moneyed individuals are what we think of with the diamonds, okay, uh, being a low value diamond might tell you something, though, like where, where you fit within that, that level of your people, you can also go a different direction, if you want, with the three of diamonds. My

Stella Cheeks 14:28

instinct right now of hearing that and then also it being low value, and then thinking about the like mechanics of space is maybe like I have, like a wealthy family or whatever, um, but I, instead of doing what you said, you're like, it's like the it's the tailors instead of the blacksmiths. Mate, like, maybe, like, I want to be more of like a tinkerer, instead of

Ansel Burch 14:57

what the like to work with. Yeah, yeah. I like that. I like that. So I'm like,

Stella Cheeks 15:02

No, Mom, I want to do this. Not that I wanted. I want to create little. I don't know. I don't know what the word is. I want to tinker instead of do big. I don't know what the opposite of tinkering is, or the like, more, you know, I mean,

Ansel Burch 15:19

like, I guess, if you're thinking like clockwork, rather than, like, making toys for children, yeah, like, the level of complexity is different, if, if you just feel called to the simpler, more homely, you know, or, like,

Stella Cheeks 15:35

I like doing it, just to do it and I don't want to sell it type deal. I like that more too, because, like, I should probably theoretically know how, like, my space suit or whatever the fuck works. We'll get there. I'm sure. I

Ansel Burch 15:47

don't think they're mutually exclusive. You know, maybe you make ballast sets or, you know, jewelry or something. That doesn't mean you don't know how your spaceship works, or your space suit or your helmet, or what your ray gun or whatever,

Stella Cheeks 16:01

or whatever. Yeah, I like the idea of, like, I have all the skills that my family has, but I don't want to, like, sell or do anything. I'm just like, Nah, I just like to take stuff apart.

Ansel Burch 16:12

Yeah, it's just fun. We already have enough money. Yeah. I like that. That's a cool, that's a cool, like, center motivation to have given yourself off the bat, which also, like,

Stella Cheeks 16:29

gives it like a curiosity too, of like, wherever we land in time. I can be like, ooh, want to play?

Ansel Burch 16:37

Yeah. Do I want to take stuff apart?

Stella Cheeks 16:39

Take stuff apart.

Ansel Burch 16:43

I also, I like the idea that you might not fully understand the difference between, like, people and their machines at first, like, oh, I want to that thing I want to take apart. That is a guy

Stella Cheeks 16:56

you cannot take that apart legally. I think that they weirdly go together the like, I just want to take stuff apart, slash, see how it works. Oh, no, I'm in a problem. I have to see how it works and fix it. Makes sense to me, that's a, a to b. To me,

Ansel Burch 17:15

we've marked that card. We've made an association. Let's continue onward. Now I want you to go to the top left card and flip that one over. This is going to reveal your nature now, your nature card, as well as the other four here in this next phase, these are all going to get the same mark, the background mark,

Omar Burgos 17:39

yep, I see that. And the card that I got was the five of diamonds.

Ansel Burch 17:45

Oh, okay, keeping it, keeping it in the in the suit. Something about this tells us about the nature of your character, who you truly are at heart when you when you lay aside the artifice of who you pretend to be in front of other people. So I think it's interesting that it's in the same suit. That's really cool. Maybe, maybe who you truly are isn't so distant from your outer artifice. I suppose we'll see when we get to your demeanor. But yeah, what do you think this tells us about your character?

Omar Burgos 18:20

Oh, my character basically is honest to a fault, in the sense that what you see is what you get. He is a witty, snarky, very greedy, like, maybe I wouldn't say avarice, but yeah, he would be willing to bend the rules, or kind of, you know, like twist things around in order to get what he wants. And he definitely shows that with his very proud demeanor. And he loves opulence, everything, everything is opulent, and he wants to be basically pampered as he deserves. So in the first we saw that he had the his card. It was the two of diamonds. And now you know that even deep down inside, he is a cat that likes shiny things, and we'll do whatever he can to get it, probably lacking in the morals, or, I should say, lacking empathy. And it could be something that he develops over time, that he learns, but deep down, yeah, he's not very empathic.

Ansel Burch 19:37

I like this very much, and this means that when you draw that card, maybe this is an encouragement from the deck to lean into that element of your character, that selfishness or that lack of empathy in that moment.

Ben Banks 19:52

Okay, that is top left. That is queen of spades.

Ansel Burch 19:55

Queen spades. Okay, so nice, high value card and spades. Uh. Um generally represent those who fight or argue as a either a matter of course or a matter of profession. So you think of like soldiers or guardsmen or lawyers or debaters or politicians. You know those who get into conflict more readily, those who fight, if you wanted to put it in the again, back into the medieval houses. And I like the idea that that maybe, maybe that high value, because this is your nature. Maybe that's something that is is more important if we're thinking of the four as something that's waning, maybe this queen is waxing for you.

Ben Banks 20:41

Yeah, and I think you said, like, they're who they're chill. I think when, like, push, push, come to shove, he really does still hold on to that justice and truth and doing the right thing, but he kind of, he has kind of waned. But when, like, when the chips are down and, like, It's do or die, he is like, okay, you know, there is a right and wrong thing to do, and I do need to fight for the for the weak and for the right side,

Ansel Burch 21:05

yeah, and he's got, he's got that fight in him, yeah? I think that's cool.

Sarah Moore 21:09

So now I have a jack of space. Okay,

Ansel Burch 21:12

so this is your nature. This is this should tell you something about who you truly are at heart. When you lay aside the trappings of the world and the pretenses of expectation you see yourself in this way. And I mean, kind of what you were talking about before, fucking here, fucking badass fighter, yeah, you come. You come. Take me on if you want you, yeah,

Sarah Moore 21:38

bring it you want to. You're not as scary as the Yeti I saw last week.

Unknown Speaker 21:43

You're like,

Sarah Moore 21:47

yeah, that's, I think that's

Ansel Burch 21:48

very cool. Yeah. I think that that leans right into where you want it to be, yes. So the backstory mark is the one you want to make, and that's going to be the mark we do on the next few cool this will increase the face value of this card by six, meaning that? Well, yeah, so that Jack is now one of the highest cards in this game. Cool. That will be an unstoppable card when you come upon it and it's all down to you. Probably

Sarah Moore 22:14

never, I'll never find it quite in spirit, perfect.

Stella Cheeks 22:21

All right, I got the eight of spades.

Ansel Burch 22:25

Okay, again, feel free to reject this. But spades generally refers to people who are fighters or arguers by trade or habit. So we think of like Gladiators, warriors, soldiers, lawyers, debaters, politicians, you know, folks who get into conflict as a first instinct. Okay,

Stella Cheeks 22:50

so that's my my nature.

Omar Burgos 22:55

Yes,

Ansel Burch 22:58

and again, feel free to like, I think that kind of flies in the face of who you of your like, better nature that you're talking about this, this, like, person who just wants to take stuff apart and doesn't care about money, yeah. So it might be worth looking for an alternate thought on that. I mean, it's a it's an eight, so whatever it is, it's sort of like a slightly above average. Let me see, is there a cartomancy for the eight of spades?

Stella Cheeks 23:28

I mean, like debater,

Ansel Burch 23:33

actually, yeah, that could be, what if you're, if you want to lean into the like local, either debater or a politician. Maybe you're like a, you know, somebody who stand maybe you're like an Atticus Finch style character.

Stella Cheeks 23:48

That seems like too much pressure, but it is, I don't know, like

Ansel Burch 23:56

ooh, in cartomancy, the aid of spades is the card of sickness that could, I don't know what that means for you. I don't

Stella Cheeks 24:04

know that could be interesting. That could be like some incurable disease. I have some space disease,

Ansel Burch 24:11

disappointment, broken hearts, karmic debts, obligations. Well, the duty to self and others

Stella Cheeks 24:17

broken well, okay, duty to self and others and like the debater thing. I think that goes in, you know, not to totally, like, rip off DC or whatever, but that does kind of go into that, like, reluctant hero thing, right? Nothing wrong. Like, I cannot control when I am pulled into somebody else's drama, which feels really relatable in my life right now. I cannot control what I'm being pulled into other people's drama, but I can. I have to control how I react and how I participate. And I feel like probably in this world, like, not this world, like Earth, but like this world. A capital W in a world, yeah. Maybe being like, I could see somebody who is being flown like, flung throughout time against their will, being like, very proactive once they land, like, all right, I gotta fix whatever this is so I can go back home or whatever, you know what I mean, which also goes to the like, I like to take stuff apart, thing like, Okay, well, what's the fucking problem this time? I'll figure it out. I you know. So maybe it's more of just like, instead of like fighting. It's like a willingness to, like, jump into quote, unquote battle, whatever that battle is,

Ansel Burch 25:40

which also to lean into another character, I know you have a great affinity for that feels very quirky. And yeah, as well, the sort of like, well, guess I gotta outsmart this computer. Now, yeah,

Stella Cheeks 25:52

like, I didn't put this dumb computer on my ship, but it is taking over my ship.

Ansel Burch 25:57

Your whole religion is based around a computer. How does this keep happening. All right,

Stella Cheeks 26:04

yes, I kind of like that interpretation.

Ansel Burch 26:06

Stella cheeks is at Stella cheeks on Instagram and blue sky. Sarah Moore is at pixies and pins on all of the social media channels, and at pixies and pins.com you can also check out her Sarah's table live streams on Twitch at pixies and pins. Omar Burgos is at tail Weaver. Check out his work on the tale of D 20s. TTRPG channel. More information at a tale of D twenties.com, Ben banks is at DJ underscore. Blendian on Instagram and SoundCloud. I'm Ansel Burch, and you can find me at the indecisionist on all of the meta properties and on blue sky special. Thanks to Cameron evesque Davis for the song you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast, this has been an indecisionist production. Go to indecisionist.com to find more of our work, including my monthly gaming event, TTRPG pickup con and my other time travel podcast, time to party as you travel at one second per second, take some time out for these intrepid adventurers. They may be in trouble, but only for the time being. You

Announcing: For the Time Being

Welcome adventurers from across time and space. Five creators have been brought together from across the internet for one purpose and one purpose alone, to travel through time and have a good time doing it. When big changes happen to the timeline, the change attracts other time travelers like gravity. They won’t be able to move past it until they fix whatever was messed up. So, our heroes are stuck together but only for the time being 

Stella Cheeks is @stellacheeks on Instagram and Bluesky

Sara Moore is @pixiesandpins on all of the social media channels and at https://PixiesandPins.com. You can also check out her Sarah’s Table livestreams on twitch @pixiesandpins.  

Omar Burgos is @Taleweaver Check out his work on the Tale of D20s TTRPG channel. More information at https://ataleofd20s.com/

Ben Banks is @Dj_blindian on Instagram and Soundcloud

I’m Ansel Burch and you can find me @TheIndecisionist on all of the Meta properties and on Bluesky. 

Special thanks to Cameron Evesque Davis for our theme song. Check her out on Soundcloud, https://soundcloud.com/cameronevesquedavis

This has been an Indecisionist Production. Go to Indecisionist dot com to find more of my work including my monthly gaming event, TTRPG Pickup Con, and my other time travel podcast, Time 2 Party. 

As you travel at one second per second, take some time out for these intrepid adventurers. They may be in trouble, but only for the time being.