Many of you have requested I talk about how I put episode 10.5 of Season 4 together. Spoiler warnings for that episode if you haven't heard it yet.
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How did I come up with this idea in the first place?
In Episode 10, I give Matt the choice of if he wants to know what happens to Crumpet while he's on his mission or if he wants me to record it separately so he can listen to it later. I had already been knocking the idea around between recording it separately, because I knew this is how Crumpet was going to meet Amphora.
On the one hand, I wasn't sure how long that scene was going to go, so making Matt sit around and listen to me play it out might be kind of boring for him.
On the other hand, his reactions and input to the scene could've also made it more entertaining for the scene as a whole.
I was generally 50/50 on it, so in those cases I differ to Matt. Matt chose to do the scene separately, so away I went.
So I knew between recording Episode 10 and Episode 11 I needed to work on creating this side scene. I've obviously done it before multiple times, the most notable in my mind being the Prologues to Season 3. But the idea of doing it scripted and recorded like an audiodrama didn't appeal to me this time. Firstly, I don't think they're that well-received. Secondly, I'm kind of in a phase where I'm not as satisfied with my voice acting. I suppose most people don't even notice, but this season has been a bit of a struggle for me in making identifiable voices because we're not in an alien world where I can use a bunch of filters and effects.
(Also, the insane amount of Taskmaster I've been watching has made my ears way more sensitive to the variety of British accents, and now I'm way more in tune with how inaccurate mine are. But I don't have the time to dedicate to improving them.)
Thirdly, I always want to push myself to do new things. One of the joys of making an actual play podcast is the chaos the GM has to adapt to from the player and the dice. So I wondered how I could capture that.
First idea I had was to write it out and then use rolls throughout the writing process, but I've done that before.
Second idea was that I was just going to be "me" twice - GM-me and Player-me. This had potential, but I've often talked about the importance of clarity in making a podcast. How would the listener be able to easily differentiate which version of me was talking? I thought at first that I would just channel sweep it (one would sound like I was coming from the left, the other from the right). But a conversation I had with Adam (from Force Majeure) once has really left me thinking about channel sweeps as an accessibility issue.
And that's when I realized that if I used one of the known characters, it would solve my identifiability issue. Listener's ears are already trained to recognize the characters as a "different person."
And once I hit that, I knew I had something. It would be weird: a fictionalized variation of myself talking to a character who somehow came from one universe into this universe to play a game about a third universe.
Eat your heart out, Multiverse of Madness.
Plans and Wrinkles
This was definitely what I wanted to do, but there was a slight wrinkle in it. In the time I was working out all of the above (which took a week or so), stuff came up and I didn't get around to recording it. Then, Matt and I recorded Episode 11. So now episode 10.5 didn't have as much freeform as it originally did, because I now knew exactly when episode 10.5 had to end for episode 11 to make sense.
This was disappointing at first, but ultimately was probably better, since knowing where to end meant it could be more concise. The humor and content could now be more about me and Tazi interacting and figuring out the game rather than having to do a lot of heavy story lifting.
As episode 10 was released, then the Kenobi episode, I knew I had to get going on recording 10.5, so I sat down and wrote the barest of outlines (basically five or six steps I needed to take to get where I needed to go).
In terms of planning out what Tazi was going to say, there were only three jokes I knew I wanted to do: the intro (where Tazi gets confused and thinks that I'm talking to her rather than to Crumpet), the Tazi-Crumpet voice, and the end part where she asks if she did anything that surprised me.
The rest was left up to the moment.
Recording Process
So, the GoXLR can do voice modulation in realtime, which is more fun for us as players and a lot more useful for me as an editor. BUT, I can't use it for Tazi.
The primary component for Tazi is an effect called a Flanger, which the Go XLR cannot do. And since Tazi has a very specific sound style, I had to add it back in in post production.
It's actually not that difficult to do. I have a preset track setting called "Tazi track" from Season 2. Obviously when I'm recording by myself, there's only one audio file, but I just cut it up along the way and drag it down to the next track whenever Tazi's talking. That may sound like a lot of work, but it's way faster than clipping each individual instance of Tazi talking, then applying a clip filter.
So then it was just about doing the performance. I pitch my voice up a bit when I do the Tazi voice (it's not all effect) and I'm pretty used to going back and forth between the two, so it wasn't difficult. Since I was using Tazi's headspace, it was also easy to click into "player" mode and "GM" mode. It's hard to explain it unless you've done it. It's not like being another character is like...getting possessed by a spirit or something. But it feels like putting on a mask.
All of the rolls were legitimate, and all of the questions and ideas Tazi had were just things I thought Tazi would probably ask.
Several people have noted through DM, Discord, and email that my ability to make Tazi act like a person who didn't know the game was remarkable. Thank you! But I didn't find it that difficult either. There was a five year period where I was constantly teaching this game to high school students, so I'm familiar with the struggle. In particular, so many people don't know what to do with the advantages at first, but then once they get the hang of it, start asking way too much for them and then you have to backtrack them.
I guess this touches on a way more complex subject of "how do you write/create" which is something I think about a lot. For me, I have a really good memory, so part of my writing/creating process always involves smashing memories together. I can do it on the fly, which I guess is a benefit.
I didn't have to edit too much. When I do something on my own, I use the BLEEP button on my GoXLR to mark it for myself when I flub a take. I think I only flubbed three times. I try not to be too perfectionist about it, because it needs to be a little rough around the edges in order for it to seem like a legit AP session.
And then it was just regular editing after that!
That's it!
If you have any questions, feel free to ask them!
