Otto Von Kurtzel, Mecha Grandpa - Family Ties with Joseph Byler (D&D5e)

Joseph: 0:00

Otto draws on an experience that's very personal to me. My grandmother on my mom's side of the family has been living with a degenerative disease. To me, I feel like if you have that personal connection, if you have those deep ties, it makes the story more compelling because now they have a reason to fight. I really wanted to have this scrawny little man walk up in his mech suit and just drop the people's elbow on a red dragon. Like, you can have Nazis in your game as long as the goal is to punch the Nazis in the face repeatedly.

Star: 1:06

Hello friends! Welcome to Characters Without Stories, a TTRPG podcast about the roads not yet traveled. I'm Star. This episode I'm joined by Joseph Byler, an aspiring TTRPG writer and nurse. They're also a proud redneck and leftist. Joseph, I'll give you a chance to plug your projects at the end. But right now, do you want to tell listeners a little bit about yourself?

Joseph: 1:28

Uh, yes. Hi, my name is Joseph. Uh, I have lived in Arkansas for the majority of my life, little bit hillbilly. Very communist. You have nothing to lose but your chains. So that's, you know, a little bit about me. I've been working as a nurse for probably a year and a half now, uh, and I love it. It's very rewarding, very challenging at times, but there's nothing I'd rather do.

Star: 1:51

Awesome. Joseph, tell me, who are you bringing to the table today?

Joseph: 1:55

So we're going to be talking about my character, Otto Von Kurtzel. Uh, he is a human artificer, uh, I created him for Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition and I only got to play him one time, one session, that's it. And you know, I would love to bring him back, but that just, that just wasn't in the cards.

Star: 2:12

What happened to the campaign?

Joseph: 2:14

I was going to be doing a campaign with one of my friends from high school and some of his friends that he had met more recently. And it just ended up kind of fizzling out because we have, you know, busy work schedules. Both of us work nights, which puts a damper on things. And it just never really got off the ground in the way that we wanted it to. Yeah.

Star: 2:32

Scheduling conflicts are the BBEG for TTRPG players. For sure. Yes. Tell me a little bit more about Otto. Why don't we start with the basics? How old is Otto?

Joseph: 2:44

About 62 years old, gray hair, starting to go bald a little bit, frail and small and kind of withered, like a real raisin of a guy.

Star: 2:56

And what race is Otto?

Joseph: 2:59

Otto is a human. He was raised in a place with a lot of gnomes, so he's got a lot of like, sort of gnomish. Influence. One of his teachers is, uh, who taught him how to be an artifice or was a gnome. Uh, and he speaks gnomish, but he was born to a human family and, uh, has a family of his own. A fairly large one.

Star: 3:17

I know in Dungeons and Dragons, a lot of people think human is the basic boring choice. What would you say to that?

Joseph: 3:26

I disagree. I mean, if you think about a lot of, like, fantasy heroes that we know and love, like Luke Skywalker is a human, Aragorn, a human, Gandalf, not really a human, but looks like a human. A lot of these great heroes are humans. And also, it's easier to draw from your own experience. Everyone that you know in real life is a human.

Star: 3:47

Yeah, there's something to me about being the person that's not part of this kind of fantasy lore. You know, being the human among elves and the human among dwarves, you know, being being almost closer to yourself, but stuck within this fantasy situation. I think that's really compelling.

Joseph: 4:07

Yeah, I find it makes it makes a more interesting story to me because you're not relying on the fact that your character is this strange otherworldly thing. So you have to come up with other things that make them interest.

Star: 4:19

Interesting point. So what kind of other things did you come up with to make them interesting?

Joseph: 4:24

Otto draws on an experience that's very personal to me. My grandmother on my mom's side of the family has been living with a degenerative disease for most of her adult life now, since she was about 40 or so. And so Otto also has a muscular and neurological disease that is slowly shutting down his body and his ability to function for himself.

Star: 4:50

Has he had that disease for most of his adult life?

Joseph: 4:54

Yeah, probably since he was about late, late 40s, early 50s, and it's just been slowly progressing, and so I chose the armorer subclass, which, if you're familiar with the game, basically you have a suit of armor that your character wears. It can function as a mobility aid. I don't know if that was necessarily the intent. When designing the subclass, but I realized that it says in the text that it can function to replace missing limbs And so that was a cool thing to be like he can still physically do all of the things that the other Heroes can do but only because of this armor that's functioning as a mobility aid for him

Star: 5:29

And how does he use the mobility aid? What kind of mobility needs does he have?

Joseph: 5:35

Well, he started to lose a lot of sensation and manual dexterity in his arms and hands and also in his legs and his feet. Outside of the armor, he would require probably a wheelchair to get around, I would imagine. So it basically just gives him the strength to be able to use his legs and use his arms and his hands for that very dexterous sort of work that being an artificer requires.

Star: 5:59

So as an artificer, I know some artificers can go, is it artillerist where they get kind of gloves that make lightning and things like that?

Joseph: 6:08

Like the cannons and arcane firearms and stuff.

Star: 6:11

Right, right. So I think you can build an artificer to be more of a frontline fighter. What is Otto's role in the party?

Joseph: 6:20

Otto does both a little bit of support casting with, like, different buffs and stuff and frontline because the armor is another subclass that can let you get up close and personal is one of the, you get two modes for your armor. The infiltrator mode, which is like a stealthy sort of Iron Man inspired thing with like lightning blasts and stuff, or you can go for the guardian. Which is a heavier, more sturdy suit with, like, these big, I think they're called thunder gauntlets, that let you just punch things really, really hard.

Star: 6:54

Is that the choice that you made for your character?

Joseph: 6:57

Yeah, I, I thought that it was, uh, kind of an entertaining mental image to have this very small, physically frail man just run up and deck and work as hard as possible in the face or, you know, whatever they might be fighting.

Star: 7:11

I do like that mental image. That's very evocative. So why did you decide to bring this very personal experience with a degenerative disease into a D& D game?

Joseph: 7:23

At the time, whenever I was making this character for the game, my grandmother had recently gotten more sick. She was recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at the time, and so I guess, in a way, it was kind of my way of honoring her? Because I didn't know what her health was going to look like, I didn't know what the result of this cancer diagnosis would be, whether or not she would

Star: 7:44

recover. Did she recover?

Joseph: 7:46

Yes, yeah, she's she had her gallbladder removed and part of her pancreas removed and The most recent scans that she's had which were like a couple months ago at this point were clear of any Sign of tumor or anything. So thankfully she did recover but there was a time there where we were really not Sure, you know, are we gonna have to go down and stay with her and help take care of her like what's gonna happen?

Star: 8:13

Does your grandmother know that you built a character based on your experience with her illness?

Joseph: 8:18

She does not, mostly because she, uh, she's kind of an old fashioned woman. I love her dearly, of course, but she actually did not let my mom play D& D whenever my mom was growing up because of the satanic panic. So, I didn't want to, to tell her that and her be like, you know, her freak out or anything.

Star: 8:39

Wow. Okay. That's a great reason. Yeah. You said that Otto has a big family. Is he married?

Joseph: 8:50

Yes. Yeah, he's married. And he also has, I can't remember how many kids I decided on him having, but at least two or three. Is what I had kind of pictured in my head and possibly like a grandkid or two running around as well.

Star: 9:02

Why did you make the choice to give him a family? A lot of times people in D& D games especially choose to have their characters not have those kinds of attachments.

Joseph: 9:13

That's a great question, because for a while there, whenever I was first making characters for RPGs, I did do that, I didn't give them families, I didn't give them personal connections, partly out of, you know, a fear, oh, the dungeon master's gonna use this against me kind of thing, right?

Star: 9:27

Mm, mm hmm.

Joseph: 9:28

But, with Otto specifically, I wanted to give him a family, because I felt like that would be, like, that's his reason for adventuring. Right? If he didn't have anybody that was counting on him that he had to take care of, he'd probably just live in a workshop all day and just tinker. To me, I feel like if you have that personal connection, if you have those deep ties, whether it's a family or maybe it's, you know, friends that your character really loves and cares about, or a guild that they're a part of, or, you know, something like that, it makes the story more compelling because now they have a reason to fight.

Star: 10:00

Right, they have someone worth fighting for. Isn't that a Disney song? Yeah. I feel like it's a lyric from a Disney song. I can't place it.

Joseph: 10:08

Something about making a man out of you, maybe? I don't know.

Star: 10:10

Yes! Yes, it's Mulan. Yes. Sorry. It was driving me nuts.

Joseph: 10:20

A girl worth fighting for

Star: 10:22

Yeah, exactly.

Joseph: 10:25

And that's all we can use without Disney suing us.

Star: 10:31

What is the thing that he's fighting, right? If there wasn't a big threat, there'd be no reason for him to leave his workshop. So what is it out there? That's so frightening that he's willing to go out and put his life on the line

Joseph: 10:46

Before the campaign started. I had talked with the GM because me and the GM are are really close friends and he was discussing his idea for the the big bad evil guys of the campaign and the idea was essentially a oligarchy of dragons more or less that were seeking to like regain their ancient holdings over this particular land and like reconquer what they Believed to be theirs and Otto's family was going to be in the crossfire. What's more inspiring to get off your butt and go fight than the idea that dragons might burn down your home and torture your village and put your people to the sword and all that?

Star: 11:26

Yeah, that's a pretty good reason. What about Otto's gender and sexuality? Is that something that you've thought about with his character?

Joseph: 11:35

Otto is male, and I hadn't really, presumably straight, I hadn't really thought about it too much. I've, of course, I've played a lot of queer characters and some female characters and some non binary characters and stuff, but for Otto I just felt like sticking, like, very kind of classic family man type archetype a little bit is kind of what I was going for.

Star: 11:56

Is there a reason you made that particular choice, this kind of family man trope?

Joseph: 12:00

I felt like I hadn't really done it very often. Like, I hadn't really explored that idea. It's kind of rare that we find good examples of masculinity in terms of, like, this, this being a person that actually is, like, diligent and brave and hardworking without Also being like a jerk and like a misogynist and stuff, right?

Star: 12:21

Right.

Joseph: 12:21

So I wanted to kind of explore that, that idea of like just this kindly old man who like makes little clockwork toys for children and like very wholesome, very, uh, Fred Rogers sort of vibe.

Star: 12:33

I love that. I love that. Mr. Mr. Rogers as a D& D character. That's, that's great. Do you have any personal reasons for wanting to go against this toxic masculinity?

Joseph: 12:46

Oh, certainly. I mean, I, I was obviously socialized male and have lived in the South for all of my life. And while I love the South and I love Rural America and the people that live here. There is also a very strong culture of patriarchal nonsense, basically. If you're a real man, you know, you've got to be tough and strong and domineering. I don't subscribe to that, and I don't think that that's what really makes you like a manly person. Like, if that's your aspiration, I don't, I don't feel like it's a good one to be like, No, I want to reign over people and be a big, huge jerk to everybody.

Star: 13:24

Mm hmm. I think a lot of people playing D& D have these kind of power fantasies that they want to explore of being kind of that big strong man being the orc that can smash skulls and, and who can kind of just overpower all of their enemies. Is that something that you ever do that kind of fantasy or are you more interested in creating characters that either go against that or who don't engage with that?

Joseph: 13:54

I mostly tend to do characters that are kind of a subversion of that. If I can talk about one of my other PCs for a D& D game just for a sec.

Star: 14:03

Yeah.

Joseph: 14:03

I had a character for a Curse of Strahd game named Jarosh, who was a half orc fighter. Very much in that vein of being a big, strong, tough warrior type, but was also just kind of a goofy himbo, a dummy with a heart of gold. I had a very sweet relationship with one of the other characters in the party was a little like a scrawny tiefling street urchin type character. And me and that player decided that Jarosh had saved this character from being beaten by the guards for like stealing something. And ever since then this little just feral demon child just hung around Jarash's neck, essentially.

Star: 14:42

I haven't played many male characters, but I did play, one time I really wanted to do that kind of, I did a, uh, a paladin who was Oath of the Ancients. So it's like the oath is all about beauty and I was like, this is a paladin who like cries at sad movies is so wholesome.

Joseph: 15:06

It's the soft boy oath, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's probably my favorite paladin oath is the oath of the ancients because it is it's all about love and beauty and like parties and stuff and like who doesn't want to be the paladin of good times.

Star: 15:22

Absolutely. One of the things that came up for me, at least playing that kind of character, is that I was at a table that didn't support the idea of a paladin who wasn't just like the big tough guy with the big sword. Have you ever found that when you're going against or subverting these tropes that you're at a table where that's not supported?

Joseph: 15:42

For sure, especially whenever I was younger, like whenever I was playing in high school, and stuff like that. Just finding tables where it's like, to use the example of playing a paladin, like, no, you have to be the big, lawful, stupid, meaty. You have to be this, like, holier than thou, right, like, overly righteous douchebag type of guy. It's like, what if I want to play the paladin that's just like, a party animal? And just like, let's live it up, let's live life, let's make great art, let's eat good food. Like, what if I want to do that? Yeah. We're like, especially playing like a fighter or a barbarian or these very like physical classes. Jarosh also had low intelligence, but was very wise. So I had a lot of like emotional empathy with people. And for some reason, it was hard for some of the players at the table to grasp that like, no, this big dumb meathead, he's basically a therapist. So you've been playing for

Star: 16:33

I don't know how old you are, but it seems like you've been playing for a long time.

Joseph: 16:37

I've been playing RPGs off and on since I was about eight years old, I think.

Star: 16:45

Wow.

Joseph: 16:45

Oh lord, I'm really bad at math. I think, uh, sixteen years?

Star: 16:51

Yeah, that's a long time.

Joseph: 16:52

That sounds about right.

Star: 16:54

I imagine you've seen a lot of changes in that time. What do you think has been the biggest change, at least in your experience?

Joseph: 17:03

It's gotten a lot more diverse. And that's, that's a great thing. I, I love that. Whenever I was a kid, and whenever I was growing up and stuff, RPGs, I feel like we're mostly just seen as like this is a thing that like middle aged men do and that's it. And now I'm trying to remember the last table that I played at that was like even all dudes. I don't think I've ever played at a table where everybody was straight, for example.

Star: 17:31

Does Otto have a voice different from your own?

Joseph: 17:35

Yes, yeah. So the voice that I was planning on doing for Otto was very almost high pitched, kind of soft, whispery sort of voice. You know how as people get older, the voices kind of tend to warble a little bit, like wobble? That sort of sound. I actually kind of based his voice in my head off of My great grandfather who passed away about two years ago.

Star: 17:59

What's his background?

Joseph: 18:01

His background I believe I went with the cloistered scholar. Sort of an academic type. So what was his life like prior to going out into the world and adventuring? This was set in a modified version of the Forgotten Realms, and there's a country in there, I believe it is called Lant? I think? I'm sure someone can correct me, I might be wrong, but it's an island nation, and it has a lot of artificers, because the main deity that they worship there. Gond is a god of artifice and creation and invention. So I imagine that Otto's life was like, he was basically an engineer. He grew up in probably a little village somewhere. You know, his parents saved up money to send him to trade school, basically. And he learned how to craft these things and how to imbue them with magic. And got, you know, fairly good at it. Because if you think about the fact that even a first level character is Considered to be extraordinary in D& D. The fact that he got to fourth level without ever really having much conflict in his life. Dude had to have been pretty, pretty good at doing the whole putting magic in machines kind of thing.

Star: 19:09

Right. I guess you could say he was accomplished in his career.

Joseph: 19:14

And settled down, you know, wife and kids was living a peaceful life until he got news that the dragons are waking back up. We're going to be in the crossfire of this. Did he ever have an urge to go out in the world before this? Like as a young man? Yeah, I think probably as a younger man, he, he would have, and then of course, he met his wife, Johanna and the rest is history. And, you know, sometimes, sometimes you have those desires, you want to go out and see things and then you meet somebody and you're like, no, here's fine.

Star: 19:45

Yeah. What's his wife like?

Joseph: 19:47

I pictured her as a very kind, matronly, like, whenever you think of a grandma in your head, what you would picture. I imagine that their house was always filled with kids that were not theirs, food always on the table or being cooked. They just took care of people.

Star: 20:04

It sounds like you have a pretty strong relationship with your community and with your family. Does that reflect it at all in this character's family ties?

Joseph: 20:14

Oh, for sure, yeah. I mean, we've always been close with both sets of grandparents. We've lived relatively far away from them for a while, but I do think family and community and connection is very, very important. You know, we go and see them, usually like once a month, sometimes, and just, you know, spend the day with them and visit with them.

Star: 20:35

What about the wider community? How does Otto fit into life, and does he live in a village, or a town, or a city?

Joseph: 20:44

Like a small town, because small towns is where I've lived most of my life, so of course, again, a very easy thing for me to relate to is Sort of small town living. I just pictured him as kind of like in a lot of rural communities There's there's that guy that can kind of fix everything And so that was another point of inspiration for Otto was like He's just the guy that can fix everything your wagon wheels Not roll them like it should take it to the von kurzel's and Otto will fix you up, you know Mm hmm.

Star: 21:13

Does he do all this for free?

Joseph: 21:15

I imagine he probably charges, like, as little as he possibly can. You need money to eat and live, unfortunately. But, compared to how much it would cost to take it into the city and have the Wagoner's Guild or whatever fix it, I feel like it's definitely, definitely cheaper.

Star: 21:31

Otto sounds very kind and very generous, but what are his flaws?

Joseph: 21:36

Probably his biggest flaw is that he's scared. Of a lot of things. And also a little, a little bit controlling, I would say, or has a tendency towards that way. Because, and the way I kind of rationalized this was, being an artificer is all about like invention and creation. And you have a very direct hand in that, and a very direct control over the results. And so whenever things are out of control, or whenever he feels like things are out of control, it just really bugs him and irks him. It's hard to let go.

Star: 22:09

Is he more of an inventor or kind of a tinkerer or fixer?

Joseph: 22:14

A little bit of both. Most of the work that he does in the community is like repair work, maintenance type things. But on his free time, whenever he can just sit down and do it for himself. by himself. It's all about innovation, like seeing what he can come up with that is new and interesting and useful. So going back to what you're saying about him being scared and anxious, that is surprising to me because it's a very brave choice to go out into the world and fight dragons, which I can imagine are not something that people in his small town come up against very often.

Star: 22:52

Was that a huge leap and an out of character move for him?

Joseph: 22:56

I think a little bit, but I also think that his desire and need to protect and provide for his family overrides the fear and the anxiety that he feels even thinking about encountering a dragon because if the choice is between staying at home and potentially losing everyone that he cares about or fighting a giant winged death lizard, even though he's scared out of his mind, he's going to choose the death lizard, right?

Star: 23:24

Well, I guess there could have been other options, right? He could have fled, he could have let somebody else taking care of it. Was he forced into taking the exact choice that he made? Or was there something else that went into his decision to actually be the one that confronts it?

Joseph: 23:40

I think it kind of goes back to his need for control, right? Because, in my line of thinking is, maybe he doesn't really trust other people to be able to do it. Like, he doesn't want to fight the dragons. But maybe, I feel like maybe he feels nobody else is really competent enough to do it. Kind of like, well it's me, or These people who can barely hold a sword the right way, so. So I'm going to build a big robot body and go out there shooting lightning bolts out of my hands. Exactly, he's turning himself into a mini mech and he's gonna punch a dragon in the face.

Star: 24:18

Speaking of mini mechs, I know that artificer is kind of usually associated with Eberron or these kind of steampunk settings. How do you imagine artificers?

Joseph: 24:29

So I think for the Forgotten Realms, specifically like how I picture it, especially for Lant, the kingdom that Otto is from, is like very kind of clockwork or like steampunk type. Something out of like Dishonored. Big gears and brass and pistons and stuff.

Star: 24:46

That kind of goes against the idea of a small town, a traditional fantasy setting.

Joseph: 24:52

Lant is probably the most technologically advanced place in the Forgotten Realms, in terms of just having a lot of industry. A small town in Lant is probably closer to a, like, small factory town in the beginning of the Industrial Revolution than it is to, like, here's a little hamlet where there are twelve people here and only pigs and goats for miles around, you know? Heh

Star: 25:16

Right. Going back to the idea of him being controlling and not really trusting that anybody else can do what needs to be done, how does that work in a party dynamic?

Joseph: 25:27

I think that it could potentially lead to some conflict, which is part of why I chose it as a personality trait, because I'm a little drama fiend. Player versus player is never fun to me, but character versus character, whenever everyone understands and is cool with that, can be really fun and you can have some really fun dynamics. These two people kind of hate each other, but they need each other for, well, I can't stop the dragon on my own. So I have to deal with this numbskull over here or this arrogant wizard thinks he's all that, but dammit, if he can't cast just a perfect lightning bolt.

Star: 26:02

Right, and then you have to, through the course of the campaign, come to some sort of understanding and learn to like each other.

Joseph: 26:09

Exactly. It's a very fun arc to do. It's very much like the, like Legolas and Gimli in Lord of the Rings, right? They start out kind of beefing with each other, kind of not really getting along, and then by the end of the, both the films and the books, Legolas takes Gimli into the Undying Lands with him. Like, he transports this dude to heaven. Does auto have any unusual quirks? Just to want to be an artificer in general is a little bit of a quirk like who looks at these Clockwork and steam powered monstrosities and goes. Yeah, I'm gonna strap myself in one of those. I think that's a little bit of a quirk and also just Being so incredibly analytical is definitely like a thing that a lot of people in real life would say that that's a quirk But there are plenty of people like that that just everything is logical Everything is black and white and they don't deviate from that

Star: 27:02

Does Otto have a personal moral code, or a vow, or a motto?

Joseph: 27:09

If he was to have any sort of motto, for me it would be, Do the most good you can.

Star: 27:14

Do you think he ever wrestles with what the most good is?

Joseph: 27:19

Oh, for sure, yeah, I mean that's, that's a moral quandary in real life, right? You can't do good by every single person, so you have to pick and choose your battles. If you try to care deeply about every single issue facing the planet or facing people, you will drive yourself nuts. You just will. There's no way to go, Okay, I'm going to care about climate change, and food scarcity, and famine, and war in the Middle East, and the homeless problem, and, and the list just goes on and on and on and on and on. It may be overwhelming.

Star: 27:53

I think it's possible to care about all those things. I don't think it's possible to do anything about all of those things, right?

Joseph: 28:03

You have to focus your energies. That's the part that gets difficult. You have to go, okay, I'm going to pick these, these things that I'm going to devote my energy towards. And the rest of these things, even if I do deeply care about them, you'll spread yourself way too thin. I mean, that's part of the struggle being like a compassionate activist type of person is like, you help. There's so much everything all the time. What do I do? There's a lot that needs fixing in the world right now.

Star: 28:31

Is there anything in particular about Otto's build that you really wanted to try, for example, like a particular feat or just kind of a way of being in combat or, or skills that you wanted him to have outside of combat?

Joseph: 28:48

Because I intended on using the Guardian armor variety for most of it, I really wanted to try and suplex a dragon. That was my goal, is I really wanted to have this scrawny little man walk up in his mech suit and just drop the people's elbow on a red dragon from a cliff face or something. Because I wanted to do the pro wrestling moves, just stunting on these murder worms with his rocket powered fists, basically.

Star: 29:17

That's interesting because it's giving me WWE, but also giving me like Mecha anime, it's pulling in a lot of different influences.

Joseph: 29:29

Oh, for sure. Yes. Yeah. Very gundam. Very, very WWE for sure. Very Pacific rim too, right? Yes. Grapple with Tide J.

Star: 29:38

Yeah, definitely. My touch point is Neon Genesis Avon Gallian when it comes to robots fighting monsters. Tearing an angel apart with your robot hands. It's all those things. Tear monsters apart with my robot hands.

Joseph: 29:52

I wish I could say that. That would be so much cooler than what I actually do.

Star: 30:01

Do you often bring things that are not this kind of pure fantasy into your characters and the worlds that you build along with the other players?

Joseph: 30:12

Oh, for sure. Yeah, because I draw a lot of inspiration from, I'm probably a bigger fan of science fiction than I am a fantasy on the whole, even though I've talked about Lord of the Rings a lot in this, because it's great, but I probably draw a lot more from sci fi. From Star Wars in particular, big Star Wars fan. I once, before I fully knew like how many Star Wars RPGs there were, I was like, I want to make a Jedi in D& D. It didn't work. Super well, luckily, that's why the FFG games using the Genesis system exist and the old D6 Star Wars and, uh, and of course, various games that are legally not Star Wars, but definitely are.

Star: 30:52

Okay, so this episode is going to come out a long time after the episode I'm talking about, but the episode that I just published. was about a person who made a Jedi, basically. Like, they were like, I'm making a better Anakin. But one of the things we talked about was that Star Wars is almost more fantasy than sci fi. When I think of the difference between sci fi and fantasy, I think of sci fi being a lot more interested In the sci part, understanding, like, how things actually work, whereas I feel fantasy, a lot of it just kind of gets hand waved, and then when it doesn't get hand waved, when you start talking about midichlorians, it just tears it down.

Joseph: 31:35

You know what I mean? Yeah. Where do you think Star Wars lands in terms of sci fi versus fantasy? I would describe it as science fantasy, because it's, it is very much like a fantasy story. This young boy finds out that he's the chosen one and has to go fight evil wizards and they're planets destroying magical weapon and it's like, that's, that's a fantasy story. That's, come on. But then it's also, you know, hyperspace drives and blaster fights and, and droids and are they sentient? Are they not? Yeah, that's definitely a very sci fi question. It's the Blade Runner thing, right? Of like, do androids count as people? Do they not? Where do we draw the line? What makes a person a person?

Star: 32:15

So bringing a character in who has a disability, obviously there are certain kinds of challenges that come up in fantasy settings. I've had a couple of episodes where I've talked to people who are disabled who have made characters who are disabled. And who have, in their fantasy realm, have built ways to overcome some of the challenges that they have in terms of mobility and things like that. Do you want this character to come up against challenges? In terms of being able to have access or encountering challenges that are part of being disabled?

Joseph: 32:52

I think that that could be interesting for sure, but at the same time, part of me goes, No, this is a fantasy world, I don't necessarily want to have to deal with real life bad things that make real life people struggle. So, I think I could go either way on it, personally. I think a lot of times the, the question comes up is how much do you want to bring real world problems into your fantasy worlds?

Star: 33:17

Do you have a perspective on that question?

Joseph: 33:21

I mean, I think it very much depends on your playgroup, right? If I'm playing with a table that does want to explore, for example, the way that maybe people of color have been treated historically, that maybe does want to have that sort of exploration of like, no, people hate you just because you're different, and those people suck. I think if you're going to tackle it in your stories, the people that are being bigoted, that are being ableist, should be unilaterally presented as being bad people. This person hates elves because they're elves, and that makes this person suck. They are bad. Right.

Star: 33:57

Definitely.

Joseph: 33:58

Like, you could have Nazis in your game as long as the goal is to punch the Nazis in the face repeatedly.

Star: 34:03

I mean, that could be very cathartic.

Joseph: 34:05

Oh, for sure. Certainly. Definitely.

Star: 34:07

Otto, as a kid, what did you want to be when you grow up?

Joseph: 34:11

Well, let's see, my, my father always wanted me to, to join the guard, but I never really felt like that fit. We had one of those, uh, tinkerers come to town when I was just a small boy, and seeing the creations that he made, how they, how they helped people's lives, that's, that's what I wanted to do. Shortly after that, my parents saved up the money to, to send me to school, and, well, here we are.

Star: 34:39

Did you have to leave home to go to school?

Joseph: 34:41

Yes, yes, very far away. Nearly, nearly half the country. Was that hard for you? Difficult, yes. Yes. I didn't sort of a boarding school, so I didn't really see my parents very often while I was attending. But I don't think I would trade that experience for anything with, without it, I wouldn't have gotten the education that I needed to do the things that I'm able to do now.

Star: 35:04

Thank you, Joseph, for joining me on the show and for sharing Otto with me and my listeners.

Joseph: 35:11

I really enjoyed it. Hope that you, you know, get more listeners and that it's successful and everything. I hope that. I hope that people like auto as much as I do, I still need to find the game and bring it back in.

Star: 35:21

I love your wholesome grandpa artificer. I'm sure my listeners will too.

Joseph: 35:28

We love a good grandpa.

Star: 35:30

Always. I'll put links in the description to anything you want me to share, but are there any projects that you'd like to share with my listeners?

Joseph: 35:39

You can find me on heretical gaming on itch. io. I only have one game on there right now. It is a little four page minigame called Lich, where you play as power hungry evil wizards. Because, that's fun. Uses D6s. Fun little system that I made for a, uh, a little game jam that one of, another developer was doing. I'm also currently working on a Dark Souls inspired RPG called Jolly Cooperation. Which if you're familiar with the Dark Souls games, there's an NPC in the, in the first Dark Souls game. He's a fan favorite. His name is Solaire. He is a knight, kind of similar to, to like a paladin type character, like a holy warrior knight. But he's also probably the genuinely like sweetest and kindest character in the game. And he has a catchphrase where he says, let's you and I engage in jolly cooperation. And so that's the origin of the phrase. And he's, he's delightful. I hope to have more projects in the future, but we'll see how that goes.

Star: 36:44

For my recommendation this episode, I'd podcast called Blades of Mayari. Blades of Mayari is a Filipino Canadian led fantasy actual play podcast Inspired by pre colonial Filipino mythology, it uses Fate Core to tell its story and its characters are larger than life superheroes. What I love about this podcast is that it's steeped in Filipino culture, from the food to the parties, without hand holding audiences unfamiliar with it. The sound and the music are wonderful as well. Please go give it a listen. I think you'll enjoy it. I started a newsletter. If you'd like to get a behind the scenes peek at the podcast, follow my other projects like my current all woman actual play, and be notified when a new episode drops, you can find the sign up form in the show notes or on my website. Please share the podcast with a friend. Word of mouth is the best way to find new listeners. Your recommendations help me immensely. Thank you to all my listeners spreading the word. I am so grateful. I want to give a shout out to 2Leshback who wrote me a review on Apple Podcasts. To whoever you are, and if I'm even pronouncing that right, thank you. You can find me on TikTok at StarMamaC or on Threads, Blue Sky, Instagram, and Facebook. As Characters Without Stories. You can also listen on YouTube at Characters Without Stories, or follow the link in the description. Thank you, and may all your characters find their stories.