Captain RoBear: From Bartender to Dungeon Master | The Evolution of a Digital Identity - Gamertagged: Digital Identities. Real Stories.

Episode Transcript
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Captain RoBear (00:00):
When it melted, it melted the entire outer shell
and it made a giant eight-footblock, four feet tall lasagna of
pizza and plastic.
So the worst part about thisokay, like almost everything was
safe, like it was a very small.
It was a strong, small,contained fire.
But whenever they put the fireout they will usually cut a hole

(00:24):
to relieve, like pressure andheat.
The hole that they cut wasexactly my room and they gave me
the Buffalo Bill treatment andthey took that hose up there and
they turned that hose on Dudesliced my bed in half.

Ryanocerus (00:38):
Oh my.

God Cut all my clothes and destroyed my
original, like Pentium 2 that Iran like diablo 2 on.
Just destroyed man game attack.

Scarto46 (01:09):
Welcome back to Gamertagged.
I'm Scarto46.

Marthah Maple (01:13):
And I'm Martha Maple.

Scarto46 (01:15):
And today we're sitting down with the one and
only Captain Robear, Bartender,storyteller and the captain of
community tables everywhere.

This episode is packed.
We talk about Boy Scout origins, dragon Quest, bar life and
what it means to truly buildculture around the table.

Scarto46 (01:32):
And for the first time ever, we've got a hollow foil
re-roll card.
That's right, shiny gold andlive now at gamertagpodcastcom.

You've never seen Captain Energy quite like this.

Scarto46 (01:43):
So let's set sail.
Here's our conversation withCaptain Robear.
Welcome to this episode ofGamertag.
Captain Robear, thank you forjoining us tonight.

Great to be here .

Scarto46 (01:59):
Oh yeah, Also with us tonight is Martha Maple.

Hello.

Scarto46 (02:05):
Okay, she always chose a different route there.
And also Ryan Osiris.
Hello, all right, welcomeeveryone.
I'm your host, scarto46.
We're here tonight with CaptainRobear.
We're hanging out, just jamming, chatting it up.

We totally haven't been talking for the
last hour and a half we have not?

We literally just met you.

This is the real start of the episode.

Scarto46 (02:28):
This is the real start .
Yes, we don't have an hour anda half of recorded content about
all kinds of crazy stuff.
Captain Robert, let's talkabout you, not your tag, not
your gamer tag, but like whatfirst pulled you into digital
spaces or gaming worlds.

Elder millennial , 40 years old here.
So I've got to ride the wave.
I've been there for Yahoo chats, al chats, the infamous JNCO
jeans forum chat room.
I've been here for it all.
Did you wear JNCOs?
I didn't.
My mom would never.
She would have never paid forthat.

(03:03):
I was a Levi's red tag.
You know four new pairs ofjeans at the beginning of school
season.
I did not get the $40, $50jeans.

No, you should have been cutting grass for the
jingo money.

When I was cutting grass, we were saving up
for that first NES.

Oh yeah, that's true.
Oh yeah, no true.

Oh yeah, no priorities, yeah there was some
serious priorities then.
So, man, I've got to grow up.
It's just a very fortunatething to be an age appropriate
during all of these phases tolike learn how to be a digital
entity from the beginning.
How to be a digital entity fromthe beginning.

(03:48):
It's just such an advantage toknow be a child in the old world
, get to have my own innocenceand protection, to make mistakes
and not be in the public eyeand, you know, to have my
village raise me and curb mybehavior and really form a
person that I am, before I evenget to put myself on a platform.
You know I was there whencollege humor was in the party

(04:09):
picks game.
This is a crazy era.
Long before the dropout daysthey had a place where you could
dump your digital pictures fromthe party the night before.
This is pre Facebook.
So there's, you know there'ssome early Robear that no one
will ever notice or identify,because in the early 2000s it
was a very unfortunate era forguys.

(04:30):
You had to be in your boy bandera and if you weren't your
friend group, justin Timberlake?
you were just.

Joey Fatone with your pink necklace.

Your horrible, high and tight bird's nest in
the front got to be glued.
Oh man, it was a rough era.
People don't realize how, atthat point, we were still so
driven by what MTV told you todo, what Carson, daly and TRL
told you to do.
Those things were all theoriginal influences of culture

(05:07):
and mainstream media that toldyou what you were going to like
and what group of people youwere going to hang out with from
the movies, media and musicthat you consumed.
That is all gone now, yeah.
The greatest story that I cantell about this is I have a
friend.
She raises her child and shedoesn't have any auxiliary
forces outside of her to tellher what she is supposed to

(05:30):
enjoy.
And you know what she loves themost, what she loves Rush.

Scarto46 (05:36):
Oh, my God.

She loves a group of Canadians playing crazy
prog rock and she wants to be abassist like Geddy Lee, because
she's just watched the YouTubevideos and loves the music and
there's nobody there out thereto tell her that she shouldn't
listen to Rush.
I love that dude.
That is beautiful.
Back in the 90s, if you wantedto, you had to listen to

(05:57):
Queensryche.
You had to put on your blackleather jacket.
You always had the ponytail.
You were one step away fromcomic book guy.
You were like cleaned up comicbook guy.
Trust me, I've been to a lot ofdream theater shows.
I was that guy.
I know what it was like.
So it's cool seeing how we'vemetamorphosized into this world
now to where you can be supernarrow and just enjoy what you

(06:19):
want to enjoy.
However, trading that off fromthe old world where you needed
to know a little bit about a lotand you know me, having my
bartender background it'simportant to have that
conversation.
I can talk to a farmer aboutthe farmer's report at a gas
station and I can also talkabout Twitch, pax East.
So that's something that wehave lost that now, because you

(06:42):
don't have to have that.
We have to spend a lot of timewith my five and seven year old
nephew to make sure that theyget those worldly experiences,
because they can just love PawPatrol now.
Yeah, paw Patrol could be theirsole existence.
Stay in that bubble.
Yeah, you can be super narrowthese days.
I've got to ride the evolutionand I got to do it at an age

(07:04):
appropriate level and I feellike I was there for the
Goldilocks zone and I have to bea good steward to know that
either end of it, kind of likein the middle of the balancing
scales.

Scarto46 (07:13):
Can I ask you what haircut you had back in the MTV
days, because I'll tell you mineif you tell me yours Once.

I quit high school football, I grew my hair
out the first time.
A hundred percent, I'm done,done.
I'm not playing organizedsports anymore.
I'm walking out like juddnelson simple minds is playing
in the background.
Dude, I went full long hair butI was clean shaven for most of
my life.
I did large sideburns and thatfreaks people out like huge
elvis chops that was, and alsothat was like that scott era too

(07:42):
.
Yeah, we're folks so like I wasadjacent to that.
But I was very much like.
I did the long hair, metal head, like I have native american
heritage, so it was like I was.
I was getting back into myroots with that.
And then in college I was likeall right, all right, this is.
Oh man, this is bad.
You can't, you are not allowedto be your own person here.

You very much have to assimilate.

And uh man, the jo, the Joey Fatone era was
rough.
It was rough.

Scarto46 (08:07):
I had a bowl cut.
I had a bowl cut and JNCO jeansand the wallet chain I had the
whole thing going on.

Man, you had the corn shirt and the thick fan
bead necklace.

Scarto46 (08:19):
Oh yeah, no, I did the puka shell necklace.
Yeah, it's still puka shell.
God, those got so dirty, theywere so disgusting I didn't
change my driver's licensepicture for like 15 years and I
had the freaking puka shellnecklace on my driver's whatever
dude what, dude?

that's a horcrux .
Now, that's yeah I'm gonnabring puka shell necklaces back.

Scarto46 (08:42):
So when you're growing up, were games a constant for
you?

you mentioned you were cutting grass to buy
the new nest game, but like yeah, so yeah, like super fortunate
I, I also get to grow up withlike the greatest era of gaming.
You know, my my dad's a hugepinball nerd, so I grew up with
a with a nice full cabinetdownstairs, uh, which that's
just a luxury to have.
What pinball game, though it'san old mermaid.

Scarto46 (09:08):
Oh, yeah, god.

Ryanocerus (09:09):
I love it.

Scarto46 (09:09):
My dad was a big pinball guy too.
Man, that's so cool.

In that era we had that video rental arcade
combo.
Ours was called.

Ryanocerus (09:19):
Videos and Cream, which is wild, a wild name to
have now.

I remember going up and cashing tickets for Pogs
, so I had that classicStrangers Things kind of 80s to
90s experience.
I was born in 84, so I was bornin the 80s, but when you're in
small town America, the 90s werestill the 80s.

Scarto46 (09:36):
Oh yeah, 100%.

Like my basement still looks like the basement I
grew up in.
Still looks like the StrangerThings one you know, but I was
there.
I that I grew up in still lookslike the Stranger Things one
you know, but I was there.
I got to have the Atari 2600.
I had that growing up, sogaming was always there.
My brother's five years olderso, thank God, he was always
contributing way more in thoseearly years to us getting stuff.
So when we got that first NES,we got Duck Hunt, we had Mario

(10:01):
and we got Dragon Warrior camewith it, because Dragon Warrior
came with the Nintendo Powersubscription, oh yeah.
And Dragon Warrior, which isDragon Quest 1, which free pop
for them.
The HD 2D remaster is coming outthis fall of 1 and 2 and I'm so
stoked to go back down there.
I'm playing 3 right now, whichI never got to play way back in

(10:23):
the day and it's actuallycanonically before.
It's one of those prequel.
The third is the prequel, butthat game is coming out.
That's what got me hook, lineand sinker for turn-based and
that's where I fell in love withJRPGs and forming a party and
hunting for loot.
Everything stems from thatexperience.
So you know I beat DragonWarrior.
This is when I'm going tokindergarten at like half day,

(10:49):
so I'm getting to play for thosecouple of hours before my
brother gets back home.
So you got to be all in and Ibeat the game before him as a
kindergartner.
He was so pissed, just so lividthat his little brother, just
you know, just destroyed thisgame in my small window.
So like that was my first claimto fame.
And and of course, then I getFinal Fantasy one.
You know you beat it once witha varied party.
You start doing crazycombinations of all all white

(11:11):
mages, all black mages, allthieves, you know, all red mages
.
And so I go down that JRPG line.
I keep getting to grow as aperson with each system that
comes out Super Nintendo in theSega era, but went through all
those and the rest is history asfar as electronic gaming.

Ryanocerus (11:31):
I was going to say when did the tabletop stuff come
into the picture and what gotyou pulled into D&D?

So when I was in Boy Scouts, the high degree of
rain out and just shit weatherjust absolutely spurns tabletop
and storytelling.
So there's just a lot of campouts of like you wanted to have
a great nature weekend and yourass is in a tent holding on for
dear life while being pelted bynature's worst.

(12:00):
So naturally boys are going totell scary stories, they're
going to do all those kinds oflike communal things.
When you're forced to be in asmall area and with having tons
of bad weather, me and my troopwe always made a gaming tent
where all this could go and fit,so like you didn't have to go
in like crowd one person's tent.
So we were always set up likethis mega, like communal space

(12:23):
when we would do it, and so thenwe would game and back then it
was a D&D.
Did we know any of the rules?

Ryanocerus (12:33):
Very little we were trying to play D&D, just living
the whole time.
Yeah, just stories with yourboys.

Yeah, it's just more of glorified story time.
It wasn't until HeroQuest hit.
And it's crazy to think,because the new D&D sets that
are coming out right now theHeroes of the Borderlands looks
a lot like HeroQuest Becauseit's pre-gens.
They're doing a lot of the deckbuilding with cards so it's

(13:00):
easier for people to like oh,here's what I have, these are
the cards in my hand.
That's also influenced withwhere gaming is at right now.
Deck builders are all the rage.
Everybody knows that's an easyway for somebody to parse a lot
of information.
But HeroQuest, man, it's justsuch an easy way to get in to
that style of like dungeoncrawling and that's very much

(13:21):
what it is.
You know it's, you can rp aslittle as you want.
It is mechanically goingthrough a dungeon with a dungeon
master and rolling very simpledice that have skulls or shields
on them.
We have every hero quest that'sever available, including our
old og set, and right now we'revery much doing what we did
underneath the tents back in theday.

(13:42):
It's more like action figureplay for them and talking about
what is a wizard and what dothey do and what they have.
So they're getting thatbaseline competency right now.
That's going to pay dividendshere in a couple years when
they're like, hey, uncle roe,will you run us through hero
quests?
And I'll be like, oh yeah,buddy.
Oh yeah, we're so, ed.
They have no idea how goodthey're about to have it.

(14:04):
But yeah, that's where my originwas.
So like we played a ton ofHeroQuest in those long upper
South Midwestern winters and itgets cold, you got nothing else
to do.
We would 100% run throughHeroQuest and like that kind of
kept me maintained all the waythrough high school.
I did pick up like a weird D&Dlike Dragon Quest box that was
kind of trying to be Hero Questbut it was like more advanced,

(14:27):
it had a lot of the art fromAD&D and second edition and
whatnot.
But we would always just kindof like take stuff from that and
put it into Hero Quest.
But there came a point wherethat just all stopped.
Like high school hit.
Like once you get, you knowyour car keys and you take an
interest in whatever, thingsstart to go drastically in a

(14:49):
different direction.
So what became my crutch thenwas when the release of World of
Warcraft that was my senioryear of high school.
Oh, dude, you were a WoW player.

Scarto46 (14:58):
Oh yeah.

BC, oh bro.

Scarto46 (14:59):
Yeah, okay, so I was a vanilla WoW player.
What did you play in WoW?
What class?

Oh, dude, lifetime, Shaman Lifetime.

Scarto46 (15:06):
Shaman.
Oh man, you have such Shamanenergy, bro.
That makes so much senseLifetime Shaman man.

I love that kind of support.
It scratches the itch of mylittle bit of my native heritage
a little bit.

Scarto46 (15:18):
Oh man, I've gone down a rabbit, was a hunter for a
freaking.
I don't know what did I playlike 10 years and so that's all
I played was one freaking hunter.
It was so good man.

Hey, when you had time to waste, let me tell
you what.
I would hang out those soulstones and be like, hey, big
boys, who needs a healer?
What a totally different way ofhow you play games now.
But once we got that, that wassuch a good experience and
fulfilled that niche, I didn'tneed to organize people.
And because organizing peoplebecame very difficult because if

(15:52):
we were organizing, we weresocializing and going to parties
and going to differentsocialization events and
developing as a human in adifferent way.
Nowadays I think we've circledback to that where I think that
that's a premium experience forpeople growing up now and I
think they are gathering arounda physical table more than what
I did during that time, theperiod of time that I grew up in

(16:13):
.
That filled the niche and Ididn't get back to it until I
sat down with 5th edition and ifI hadn't tuned in and seen
Critical Role at that time, if Ihadn't hopped on before that
Briarwood arc and was like youknow what I miss, that I miss
telling stories like that inperson, and so I hopped on the
fifth edition train there.
So I went from barely knowinganything about D&D, missed all

(16:36):
the Thaco years and fourthedition and all that Was able to
ride the wave of a very, veryand easy system, which 5e is,
and never look back do youremember the first time you dm'd
then and what made you want todm?
that was out of necessity.
You didn't know it when youwere younger, but like, yeah,

(16:56):
taking over those games in heroquest, I knew if we wanted to
play, I needed to be the dm.
I needed to foster that you hadto be your own advocate and
nobody else was going to, hey,let's come over and play this.
Also, they didn't own the box.
I happened to be the lucky kidthat owned the box.
There's so many factors thenthat determine whether you
become that guy.
I was lucky.

(17:17):
I had the DNA, the gumption,wanted to play.
I want to hype other people upto play.
I'm the one that's there duringclass like, oh, what are you
going to play?
Are you going to play Wizard?
Are you going to do this?
I'm wanting to live in thatspace in my head.
So I'm naturally being themaven, trying to drum up the
support to go and play, and tothis day, that's still the role
that I play.
I enjoy getting people pumpedup and excited to go play

(17:39):
something, whether it's D&nd oranother video game that's out
there.
So my first experience behindthe screen was literally hero
quest and that's.
I think that's where I reallygot my dmpc chops, because I was
like dude, I'm still playing.
I don't care if I know whereall this stuff is.
Never, nobody, ever told methat I didn't have to.
I knew what.
I knew that how to play withoutruining the experience for

(18:02):
everybody else when did you getthe captain's hat man?
Was that around the same?

Scarto46 (18:06):
time.

Ryanocerus (18:06):
I love it.
I'm so addicted to it.

Yeah, so the hat .
Okay, this is man.
This is decades, decades agonow.
This is like the first bigbachelor party of my, my friend
group, and we're going down tonew Orleans and everybody's
hyped and whatnot, and they'relike oh man, robert, you need,
you should rock, you should rockthe captain's hat.

(18:29):
I'm like, of course I should,absolutely I will 100 do this,
and so go out on the town.
I mean, there's no easiericebreaker than wearing a
captain's hat and looking like ac-store.
Jason momoa lou albano is theeasiest thing.
Being Timu Mamoa is the easiestthing of my lifetime.
It was obviously a huge success.
We had a blast.

(18:49):
And they're like, well, you gotto wear that, you have to wear
that during the wedding.
And I'm like, oh, of course Iam Duh.
I'm, I'm 22 years old.
So I started wearing the blueblazer, the khakis, the
captain's hat.
This is pre-beard.
This is crazy, I'm coming off.
I'm coming off my job atanheuser-busch.
So I got like short hair.
So I'm just, I just look like anormal guy with a captain's hat

(19:10):
at this point, until the restof the chops on or what man?
yeah, still got the wicked chopsstill still very much elvis,
but yeah, everything else isjust starting to get grown back
out again.
Um, and I keep meeting peopleas the captain because that's
just the easy thing.
Everybody refers to you becauseit's like, hey, it's captain
and I keep doing it, wedding towedding to wedding, and

(19:30):
everybody knows if you're from asmall town, you hit that, you
hit that season.
Yeah, it's wedding season.
Baby, being a fraternity manand having all these connections
in my life and then being inthe bar business, you know a lot
of people, so you're a lot ofweddings, so just naturally end
up meeting, like my statelegislators, at the captain over
the course of time.
And like it's just wild.

(19:51):
So that just became a thing.
So then it would come back tomy bar and they'd be like, hey,
where's the captain at?
Where's captains at?
I'm like I'm going to have togo take this thing off my
family's pontoon and I'm out toput it in my freaking bar.
And so then it just becamefused with my forehead and when
it came time to stream, whywould I ever even bother trying

(20:11):
to take this thing off?
At this point everyone knows meas the captain.
There's no sense trying toknock this branding.
So what a lot of people thinkwas like a stream gimmick or
something I'm like, oh no, no,this is my life.
I have to moisturize myforehead consistently.

Scarto46 (20:23):
So you were Captain Robear before you were ever
Captain Robear.

Yeah, 100%.
So when it comes down to theusername, I technically would
say I was Captain Rob, becausepeople were still just saying
Captain Rob or the Captain, andthat was a good distinction,
because when you're Captain Rob,people really want to call you
Captain Bob and I'm not a Bob.
I'm not a Bob and I'm not aBert.
Or they want to call youcaptain bob and I'm not a bob,
I'm not a bob and I'm not a bert.
Or they want to say captain ronand so it's hey.

(22:22):
It's just super easy to pass bythat.
Yeah, I was either robear or Iwas rob, because I had a lot of
friends that already call merobear.
I'm a big dude, easy to alignwith the bear.
I wear the witcher necklace,the house of the bear, because I
love the heavy armor boys.
I ain't got time to roll away.
The fun thing, though, with thebranding at the very beginning
I was like should I put a bearpaw up on this captain's hat?

(22:45):
And I was like.
I looked at it and go somethinginternally was like my spidey
sense was going off and I go oh,oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
No, I cannot do this, becausethat is the sign of bears in the
bear community.

Yeah, it's always about it.

My inner leather daddy was trying to tell me he
was like no no, this is.
I can't represent thiscommunity.
That's not me.

Scarto46 (23:11):
My inner leather daddy is such a great sentence.

Ryanocerus (23:14):
Inner leather daddy is.
I mean I want to change my gameroutine.

I'm going to give you guys a killer story
right now of Inner Leather Daddy, let's do it.
That involves my first bearexperience.
This channel's back in the highschool.
I'm being an old schoolmetalhead.
I'm taking a friend to theirfirst Kill Switch Engage show
Awesome, they've always wantedto go, but they've been scared
of the crowd.
I'm like, hey, you stick withme, I'm going to be on the
outside of wherever the pit is.

(23:39):
I'm going to be protectingpeople, like I always do.
I was like don't worry.
You'll be with me.
I'll make sure that everybodygets up.
If you get pushed aroundwhatnot?
You'll be fine, you'll enjoythe music.
So I booked a show up inChicago and the location of the
venue happens to be named theBottom Lounge lounge.
Not thinking anything otherthan the fact that this is in

(23:59):
the basement of the building.
We take our tickets to thebottom lounge and we show up
that night in chicago and youknow, both of us young bearded
males happen to walk in to.
Not only do we walk into a,into a bear bar, but we happen
to walk in right when adam d,the guitarist, is up on stage
and goes.

(24:19):
Is everybody here ready forbear week?
Let me tell you the experienceof being a fresh young cub,
unwillingly the greatest nightof my life.
I mean maybe there was a fewpeople crossing the line that
night with, uh, with how closeand everyone was slamming each
other in the pit.

(24:40):
But I tell you, what I had nobar tab.
It was a wonderful experiencewith the community.
It was one of the craziestshows that I've ever been to.
That sounds amazing.
We were the only people not inleather.
It was like a movie us walkinginto the show so funny.
Me and my buddy still talkabout it to this day is like the
wildest experience of our livesthat's so crazy, dude, that's

(25:03):
awesome.

Scarto46 (25:03):
I mean one like no one .
You said so many things tonightthat like stuck out in my head
you said the word pogs, whichlike resonated like very deep
with me, and then kill, switch,engage.

Ryanocerus (25:13):
No one talks about kill switch, engage and pogs in
the same freaking conversationyou've built some really cool
ecosystems with Saved by theSpell and Neon Regimes and
Marrow Strand.
When did this kind of shiftfrom passion projects into more
of a creative world for you?

Well, I mean, I was in that situation of like it
just didn't matter.
It was, the boats were burnt soI could do really whatever I
wanted.
I was living off savingsregardless.
So whether I was trying to be acreator at that time the minute
I shut the doors to my bar, orI was trying to invent myself in
something else, it got to bewhat I wanted to do in the first

(25:48):
place.
But before all these shows, youdon't get to just do that Like
that's not how the creativeeconomy works.
So I've always had a bar duringa distinct moment of my time.
That was authentically me.
Early 20s nightclub scene yeah,that's what you are Into a dive
bar in your mid-20s.
That's what I was.
Later retiring into a craftbeer bar and not serving another

(26:13):
mixed drink ever again in mylife, just pouring the beers
that I loved.
I've always done it from asense of I'm going to do my best
work.
That's most authentically meand that's always what's going
to make me tick and make me work.
That's what carried me throughthose three different iterations
while I was in the bar.
Business Streaming you don'texactly get to do that and
that's why I started on Mixerinstead of the big pool that was

(26:36):
Twitch.
I went in there.
I knew that I needed to hackattention immediately.
I needed to jump on somethingthat was new, and we did
co-stream.
If you put four people togetherand everybody has one or two
people, all of a sudden you havea chat room and I knew the
secrets.
I was very lucky as well.
I went to a Guardian con beforeit turned into GCX event.
I was a Destiny 2 and Destinyplayer, so I went to that event.

(26:59):
That was King Githalion,professor Broman, lee Love's
chief, returned to Leviathan.
A whole crew of those contentcreators that I watched because
we were part of this Destinycommunity and I was a community
member back then.
We all met down in that bar atthe Miller Ale House down in
Tampa and that thing ended upspurning a convention that we

(27:21):
just got to our capstone thisyear of raising $20 million for
St Jude.
Wow, it's freaking awesome dude,which is a wild path to go.
But these first people I met.
My first industry friend,nelstar, who worked in software
sales at the time, ended upbecoming a dev working for
Square Enix, working for 505Games and Rivety.

(27:42):
That's where I met all my firstpeers.
So when this, when my goose gotcooked I did have some
mentorship to lean on and send afew people messages and be like
what did the economics looklike?
And it was really ProfessorBroman at that time who was
doing a lot of how to contentcreation work, running a show
that was, if you don't have astream yet, you should create

(28:03):
your community on Mixer.
And I was able to take thatadvice and that strategy and it
worked perfectly to build allthe way up into my first moment
where I'm asking internetfriends, do you want to play
Dungeons Dragons?
I knew this was my goalpost.
Originally I thought I was goingto bring the people that I
played with live togetherAbsolutely too unreliable.

(28:25):
To make that happen, we had tofind people that were already
pre-set up and that man, thiswas the dark days.
So when we would go and runthose first D&D sessions and say
, by the spell, which those are?
Those are people that I know inperson that played together.
We had voice meter, banana andblue Yeti, snowballs and some of
the worst of the worst stuff todeal with for people that don't

(28:48):
know how to run a setup.
Then we have the seven layers ofhell of background noise.
We don't have crisp on discord.
We don't even have discord yet.
We're talking Skype calls.
But once you build thatmomentum, then it was like, okay
, we're going to add a secondand you got to keep meeting
people and people that want toplay and that's where I was able
to steamroll and eventually Igot to that point where I did

(29:09):
not have to play a video game orbe in some of those niches,
because, man, that is a brutalthing to do.
To have to play one game everyday the same thing.
You're gonna drive yourselfinsane, but you have to almost
do it to start your contentcreation journey, otherwise
you're just not gonna be seen.

Scarto46 (29:29):
Love your freaking story about like reinventing
yourself, like after your careerand running the bars and then
taking all of those experiencesall the way back to freaking boy
scouts where you started.
That is such a wild, cool story.
And now you live this life thatyou built for yourself around
playing D&D on the internet withyour friends.
That's so cool, dude, veryblessed.
So your style of storytellingis you've lived it right.

(29:54):
Was that intentional from thestart, that emotional type of
cinematic style that you go into, or is that something you grew
into's?

just me.
I'm already.
My public persona has alreadyturned up to 11, because that's
all I've ever done.
That's what I do.

Scarto46 (30:06):
Well, if people haven't talked to you before
like one-on-one.
You're a super big empath.
Like you're reading the room 24, 7 on people's energy yeah,
yeah, my.

my goal in life has always been to try to make
sure everybody in the room ishaving a good time and trying to
be a good host.
I have a blast when everybodyelse is having a blast and
seeing seeing joy and peoplelaughing, like that's the good
stuff, that's what makes yousurvive this world.
That's that first bit ofescapism.
Sometimes it's just sharingwhat the human condition is.

(30:35):
let alone getting to enjoyescapism or games with people.
So you don't need a tabletop oranything else, just to enjoy
each other's company and youknow that's, that's the stuff
that that makes us want to be onthis planet.
So, like I, it was naturally.
I've always felt I felt thatcall for that and that's my
natural skill set.
So I'm just lucky that there'sa place to apply that and,

(30:57):
luckily, a place to survive andsustain and what is a wild
changing world.

Scarto46 (31:02):
Well, we were talking about earlier and you were
talking about hey man, this,these are just my skills.
They're they're turned up to 11, but I really understand myself
and I think, when you'redescribing that that's probably
why people feel like your tablesare dope and that they really
want to come back to thosetables when you have someone
join your table, or they're inyour space or they're they're on
your stream.
What is it that you're tryingto get them to take away with
them?
Like, what do you want them towalk away with?

I'm trying to get them invested as much into
the players in their table asthey're invested in their
character.
Yeah, Once the table trulyloves each other you don't have
to be friends before that.
It literally can be thatexperience that bonds everyone
together and galvanizes you as aparty.
A lot of times it's that firstemotional moment.

(31:45):
It can be that first time wheneverybody is just laughing so
hard they can barely breathe.
It can come at a varying degreeof moments, but you can become
very, very fast friends and thatis just the good stuff.
That is always the goal.

Scarto46 (32:00):
Well, I said this to you before, before we started,
in the hour and a half that werecorded before but, it's
leadership, dude, your pointabout galvanizing and your point
about the table coming togetherand man.
love is what powers everything.
I think about the same thing.
Right, if people believe ineach other, and they believe in
what they're trying to do andthey're all looking the same
direction, there's nothing thata group of human beings can't
accomplish.
When human beings are off, it'sbecause they're looking in

(32:20):
different directions and theydon't know how to talk to each
other, and so creating a spacewhere people can do.
That is so, so cool, bro.
That's just building a culturewhere people can just thrive.

And I'll be honest, people see.
People see the successes theydon't remember.
When I made a mistake anddidn't do my safety tools, due
diligence with friends that Iknew and I accidentally dropped
some spiders out of nowhere on afriend I didn't know was
arachnophobic.
It just never came up and thiswas really before everybody was

(32:53):
going through session zero witha fine-tooth comb and it just
didn't dawn on me to check on myown friend that I knew.
And obviously it's easy pivot,you just remove it, you get your
own version of the red card,you pivot, you're off of it.
But I don't ever forget thatexperience and I talk about it
with my friend all the time thatthat cut me to my soul, that I
didn't take the time to do mydue diligence with my own good

(33:17):
friends.
You don't forget that.
And those are the times that alot of people don't see or they
don't remember.
But we're like everybody else.
I have learned the hard lessons.
Some of it comes with being 40years old and being around the
block.
The more you have experiencedlife, the better storyteller you
are and the better you're goingto be at this stuff and more
prepared.

Scarto46 (33:35):
Totally agree.
But I think the other thing,what you just talked about, is
and I think this is true whatmakes good leaders are leaders
who are willing to beintrospective, and while I'm
talking about leadership in thisconversation, when you're at a
table or in your community,you're leading that and there's
an expectation that you'reholding for yourself,
cultivating a community that cansay they're sorry and that they
love each other.

Yeah, dude.
You just have to do that.
That is life.
You're going to make mistakes.
You just have to do that.
That is life you need.
You're going to make mistakes,but you'll be the accountable
person in the room and there's areason why you need
accountability.
When those hard truths strikehard, those are time to change
your behavior and it's not goingto happen overnight.
And don't bullshit.
The bullshitters say I amworking on this and I'm trying

(34:18):
to be better.
People will always appreciatethe struggle and the journey and
if you do that from the top andif you can get everybody to buy
in that, it's okay to say Imessed up, I'm sorry, I'm going
to try to do better.
Once you learn that, you'regoing to be in a really good
spot, whatever Dude.

Scarto46 (34:37):
I'm all about that.
You got to be able to say I'msorry.
You got to be able to say Ilove you, and those are really
two hard things to say.
We're all kind of like a bunchof broken crayons.
Right, I'm the crayon that youuse on every single drawing and
you color it a lot, and it's gotall the other colors on the top
of it and it's rounded off.
That's me.

You know what I mean.
I am Because, hey, Homeboy didnot get the 64 crayon with the
sharpener on the side.
I did not grow up inside of the64 crayon world Primary colors.

Scarto46 (35:07):
baby, there's no difference of colors in that box
.

Ryanocerus (35:10):
You've talked a lot about community building and
leading people, but what'ssomething people might not see
that it takes to run that spacebut to also keep it human?

You really.
There's four hours of prep fora four hour D&D session.
It's hard when you're creativebecause it's the most
uninteresting part of your day,but that has to get done.
Then actual self-care on top oftrying to fill the creative
well, that four hours needs tobe filled back with other pieces
of content, whether it's thenature walk, it's watching

(35:49):
Netflix, doing all of thosethings.
You have to fill that back in.
You have to find your muse,otherwise you're just going to,
you're going to get lost in allof this.
Those are the behind the scenesthings that people don't think
about.
That's where, unfortunately,how good you are and how
disciplined you are is going toquickly start to show.
And one of your big questionson this prep sheet is like boy,
if you could reroll one of yourown stats, hell yeah, I wish I

(36:10):
was more disciplined.
Absolutely, absolutely, wish Iwas more disciplined.
I have to fight and struggle.
I can only be 10% better of theworst disciplined person on the
planet.
I can only be 10% better of theworst disciplined person on the
planet.
But I have my superpowersbecause of my rabbit holes and
because of what I go down, whatI consume and how I treat myself
.
That's how the creative sidecomes out.
This is I do not get to have a20 in all the stats.

(36:33):
That's not how this works.
Those are things you have tofight and struggle with and you
have to pre-plan and reallyunderstand what you're capable
of and what you're not.
You learn you're going to haveto trust people in this life and
you have to figure out howyou're going to trust.
I went from having 30 people ona staff to nobody.
Back to myself again.
It was like, hey, there is noone to delegate to, there is

(36:55):
nothing.
You were on 24 seven until yougrow to a certain size to have
your own team.
This is how it's going to beand it's going back to square
one, which is a wild feeling.
But, man, there's so muchbehind the scenes that you have
to do within a day.
If you just don't startbudgeting out your time, you're
going to collapse and start,unfortunately, hating yourself

(37:18):
for not getting stuff done, whenyou're just not capable of
getting all of that stuff done.
You're just going to have topick what you're able to do and
settle for that and that's okay.
And you need to get comfortablewith it and you need to
understand that that's your best.

Scarto46 (37:34):
Bro, I'm going to give you like a three-part question,
because you already talkedabout the stat that you're like.
Hey man, it can't all be 20s,but where do you see the
identity of Captain Robearheading?
And what's next in that nextversion of you?

And which stat stays locked at 20 always.
I mean charisma isn't just hardlocked at 20.
I've spent my 40 years in thislife being an ENFP and making
sure.
That is the most important partof my business.
So making friends is the easypart.
This is.
I think this is a great what'sin store for Captain Robear.
I have never run merch, reallyNever run merch, ever Zero.

(38:12):
Here's the deal.
As a small business owner, Icannot stand the quality of drop
ship.

Yep.

And I cannot do that to people and I don't know
why it's acceptable on theinternet and I think it is an
absolute travesty that peopleaccept that quality and charge
those kinds of prices to theircommunity for what they're
providing.
If you're charging somebody $25, $30 for a shirt, that thing
better be a lifer Okay,Especially in this economy when

(38:42):
money is short, because I know Iam not capable of running an
online business and stuffingenvelopes when I'm over here
reading about UFOs at threeo'clock in the morning.
I can't do that.
I know that's not in myskillset to get done and I know
I have to hire a team to getthat done.
I'm doing it to Robear's level.

(39:02):
Is it neurotic?
Am I leaving money on the table100%?
Is it 100% authentically me?
You bet your ass.

Scarto46 (39:10):
There's a certain quality and expectation you have
for whatever you put your nameon or how you're approaching it.
Could you just drop merch, sure, but like that's not what
you're about, you know what Imean 100% half a million dollars
in debt.

So all my assets were zero.
I went from building my littlethat was my egg to zero.
The minute you hit that andrealize that you truly don't
have any control, youimmediately no longer worship
the dollar and your onlycurrency in this life is time,
and I don't work 16 hour daysanymore.

(39:50):
I eat family meals with mynephews on Friday nights, we
watch wrestling together and getrowdy with two little boys
things I would have never doneif I was still in the bar
industry.
Time is your most importantcurrency and you just don't
understand it until you're oldenough.
And if you do get anunderstanding when you're
younger, the more powerful youwill be, because you are the

(40:10):
only person that is in charge ofthat currency and nobody can
can take that piece away fromyou.
You have to maximize it forwhat you can.

Scarto46 (40:18):
Time is the only currency that you have.
You invest time in certainthings and certain things aren't
worth the time.

Every day can be the next day that you reinvent
yourself, and you have to livethat way, your freaking story is
so awesome, bro.

Scarto46 (40:33):
All right, you know that we do a segment on this
show called re-roll, right, yeah, okay, and we envision, right.
What is it?
What does a person's personalook like?
Now, you, you do this all thetime.
You invent lots of characters.
So I'm gonna flip it on you andsay let's talk about captain
robert.
You know what I mean.
What does the scene look like,what's the world look like and

(40:54):
what's the opening shot whenCaptain Robert appears?

So I get to do this all the time, so it's not
like a super crazy out of bodyexperience for me.
So I run a family of dwarves,the Barley family.
And the Barley family islargely me, telling the same
story over and over again of mechoosing work versus having a
family, and it's told in adifferent way kind of every time
, whether it's the experiencesof you know it, not working out

(41:23):
and having the same prioritiesas the significant other, or
it's getting lost in the sauceand enjoying work so much that
you're Peter Panning and youdon't care whatever else happens
around you.
My favorite moments are alwayswhen we're gathered around a
campfire and people finallyreally start opening up their
character to each other.

(41:43):
So when we're at camp we'retalking about what's not only in
the first Dutch oven but what'son the auxiliary.
So we're talking about doinghardcore pork chops in gravy,
simmering over here on the sidegrilling in a deep frying,
getting that good crust beforethey go into the gravy and we
have a side cobbler with justthat perfect crust on top from

(42:04):
the good berries that we'veloaded it up.
So not only is it a dessert,but it's life sustaining and
giving us HP back.
So we're merging worlds and man.
When we were in lockdown, thething I missed the most was
eating with my friends.
So, dude, our food RP just gotout of control.
Us talking about all the thingsthat we wanted to sit down and

(42:24):
enjoy that human experience thatis enjoying a meal with each
other.
We go hard in the paint, sohard we've actually started to
make our own little subclasscalled Sandwichmancer.
Sandwichmancer my boy is a hugesandwich foodie, so he's going
down the trek of enjoyingdifferent sandwiches of the

(42:46):
realm and eventually he's goingto become the Iron chef, the
sandwich master, as well.
But we do that and we basicallyflavor it in with a little hero
feast.
So, like the party's gettinggood bonus, I'm rewarding the
cool rp of him having preppedlike what kind of cool sandwich
he's going to talk about?
He's he's a new yorker, so hehas an endless amount of deli

(43:06):
concoctions from his local thatare just off the chain.
It's bringing hospitality intomy D and D.

Scarto46 (43:13):
I love it, dude, so.
So what is?
What does Captain Rover havewith him?

I'm always playing at kind of this like
hybrid of a Druid cleric, bard,so it's basically like I have
the storytelling and the lorefrom the bard.
I have my support, heavy armor,classic Dwarven shield cleric
where I can be like the off tankand help support and heal the
party.
And then there's my druidicbackground.
My family are actuallyarborists.

(43:37):
They came over here fromGermany and they were the
nurserymen and so that's what Igrew up with in my life, always
being around you know, trees andnature.
So I had that hard connectionto the earth and whatnot.
So like I blend those worldstogether, along with my Native
American heritage.
That kind of all comes togetherin one amalgamation.
So I'm always like a cleric of.

(43:58):
Shantae is a big one for me,you know.
So I'm able to tap into thethings that I love Oktoberfest,
the big fall festivals, the fairtime, the food.
I'm always got like a littleyou know, usually some sort of
like mini keg or fermentationvessel, because I'm trying to do
fun things with goodberry.
I like a shield the mace orshield the axe kind of guy,

(44:19):
always have been.
Those are the things on me.
I like being prepared.

Scarto46 (44:22):
I'm a little jack of all trades to assist and
facilitate man, that is abeautiful wild scene that you've
painted, oh crap.
So is there like a certain aurathat captain robert has,
besides being like jovial,energetic, right, but like yeah,
I don't know man it's laughterman.

It's always.
That's where you're going tohear me, even before you see me
and it's tough because I am easyto see across the convention
floor she will hear me beforeyou, even see me.

Scarto46 (44:52):
No doubt I have a crazy idea.
We have been capturing notesabout you throughout the podcast
, right, because we have re-rolland in re-roll what we do is we
take the key personality traits, preferred roles in gameplay,
favorite genres and worlds,signature style or vibe and
visual inspiration and we jamthat into a bot and we say what
the hell will this create from avisual?

(45:15):
standpoint okay, and so whathappens is put all this into our
bot and then we'll read to youall the personality traits we've
captured, but we roll the firstroll and then you get two
re-rolls to change anything youwant.
What do you think?
You think we should try it?

let's go.
I hey, all roads lead to TomBombadil, but I'm here for it.

All right, we're friends.

Scarto46 (45:37):
We're best friends.
Huzzah, I'm going to show youwhat we've captured about you so
you can see the prompt beforewe put it in.
We try to capture parts bothabout your story and where you
come from, but also CaptainRobear, so we're going to mesh

(45:59):
those things together.
Let's go, and it's going to bewild potentially.

For your key personality traits.
We have bartender, clearly,Beer history buff, which.

I, I love you're a storyteller.

You're extremely passionate about the things that
you love and it is so fun tohear you talk about them.
You're authentic andintrospective and you're jovial.
Your preferred roles ingameplay Captain.
Clearly You're super energetic.
You're an uncle, a game master,a performer, a builder in many

(46:40):
senses, and you're a friend.
Your genres and worlds that wehave are Hero Quest, dragon
Quest, d20, lord of the Ringsand Ex exandria.

I threw that one in octoberfest is a realm as
well your signature style, orvibe, is obviously your
legendary captain's hat tavernon a pirate ship, natural 20.

I feel like you give very big net 20 vibes.
You're so full of energy.
Native American heritage, yourElvis chops uh, long hair and
beard, hybrid druid, cleric,bard, and your hard connection
to the earth.
The D&D table mixed with a bartop, running your family of

(47:31):
dwarves, the Barley family, andexploring those dynamics around
the campfire Top tier food, roleplay, shield and mace at hand.
Aura of laughter here that Idon't think necessarily falls

(47:53):
under any of these categories isthat line that you had said
which is just going to do mybest work.
That is authentically me.
I love that.
I think that is the purestthing you could say oh, I love
it so we have no idea what willhappen when we hit this button.

Scarto46 (48:06):
But you want to find out together?
Let's do it, sweet bro.
All right, here we go.
But you want to find outtogether?
Let's do it, sweet bro.
All right, here we go magiccard.

(48:28):
I love it, the art felt sodifferent than the other ones
we've had.
So the rules are you can changeanything you want about this,
but it's all chance, becauseit's all chance that it doesn't
come back the same way it isright now.

No, it's too good.
There's no re-roll.
You send it Ten out of ten.
Ten out of ten.

Ryanocerus (48:41):
A re-roll bought is like a gin.
So sometimes it'll do nicethings for you and sometimes
it'll say, oh, that's what youasked for, that's not what we're
doing.

In my experience , you gain something and you
lose something.

I love that.
You love it.

I love that.
You love it too, man, that'sgreat man.

Scarto46 (48:58):
I love that.
All right, let's see.
It's going to generate abackstory.
You're the jovial bard captain,we're going to say the jovial
legendary captain.

Man making me a legendary card off the bat.
So much power it's a hollowcard.

Ryanocerus (49:09):
I think that's totally a hollow.
For sure, We've got to talk toSushi about making this one a
hollow card.

Scarto46 (49:14):
So, ale in one hand, shield, in the other he commands
the room with laughter, loreand legendary tales of the sea.
That's so good.
Awesome man.

I think the most important thing that I want to
know if I can feel any morescene.
I mean, this is what I am.
I am a freshwater captain.
When I spend my weekends, I amon my pontoon at Kentucky Lake
having a blast with my nephewsand we're sitting floating,

(49:45):
swimming and having a good time.

Scarto46 (49:47):
Captain Robert, what we do for the last part of the
show is we give the floor to youman.
So whatever you want to say tothe audience, to folks who are
listening to your community, toanyone, it's your show.
So finish us off, brother.

Yeah, hey you're never too old for new tricks.
I will say the craziest thingthat's happened to me in
streaming in the last month iswe went on and played a 15 year
old MMO after we got donestreaming D&D.
All because one of my friends,ted Nerd Immersion, shout out to
Ted, who does awesome content.

(50:20):
Ted wanted to play Guild Warsand he had the itch to play an
MMO and we eventually found outit was a Guild Wars veteran.
So I started playing Guild Wars2 for the first time and we had
probably our one of the funnest, most financially successful
streams of my career, playing a15 year old MMO in the middle of

(50:40):
the night on a Monday.
You never know when these thingsare going to happen and they
just line up and tick all theboxes.
But when they do, the formulais still the same.
You're seen on Twitch becauseyou're in the right directory at
the right time.
People can see you on the frontpage.
If you're not on the front pageand being that big fish in a

(51:02):
small pond, you're going to haveto rely on all your other
sources to being seen.
But every now and then you canput all of the pieces of the pie
together that make these thingswork.
Sometimes that's just you andyour friend laughing and running
around at a 15 year old MMO inthe middle of the night, acting
just like you would, as if thecamera wasn't on, just enjoying

(51:26):
each other's company, exploringa game together, and just call
upon everyone whenever you'rethinking about getting involved
in this space, come at it as theangle of trying to be your most
authentic self and representingthat.
That is always the secret sauce.
It's not being a voice actorfrom LA.

(51:47):
It's about loving people at thetable and coming together for
something.
Whatever that piece of contentis, that's what makes people
want to sit on the couch next toyou, and I can't encourage
people more or enough to findtheir North star in that way,
instead of just thinking aboutdollars, cents or what people
want to watch.

Scarto46 (52:06):
That's beautiful, brother.
You said it a couple of timestonight, but I'm going to.
But I'm going to call it backIf people love each other and
they're willing to say they'resorry, then humans can do
anything, and thank you forbuilding spaces where people can
do that, bro.

Hell yeah, thanks for giving me the
platform to run my yapper.
You guys are fantastic.
It's so much fun.
We could have talked for fourhours.

Scarto46 (52:26):
Well, Robert, thanks for joining us tonight.
We really appreciate having you.
Thanks for all your time.
You're just freaking awesomedude.
I'm excited to share the firstholo card that we're going to
create on Gamertag, and it'sgoing to be you, buddy.

I appreciate it.
You all are fantastic, thankyou.

Thank you so much to Captain Robert for coming on
and sharing his story.
That was such a fun ride.

Scarto46 (52:52):
Yeah, from boy band haircuts and wild bar stories to
the Barley family dwarves,Captain Robert gave us
everything.

My favorite part was his reminder that time is
the only currency we've reallygot.
That one, like, really hit deep.

Scarto46 (53:06):
Yeah, and now he's immortalized as our very first
hollow foil re-roll card.
Seriously, go check it out,it's gorgeous.

And if you enjoyed this conversation,
leaving a review or hitting thatsubscribe button really helps
more people to find the show.

Scarto46 (53:19):
Thanks for hanging out with us.
We'll see you next time on thenext episode of Gamertagged.

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Captain RoBear: From Bartender to Dungeon Master | The Evolution of a Digital Identity

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Captain RoBear: From Bartender to Dungeon Master | The Evolution of a Digital Identity