April 29, 2025 • 54 mins
In this episode, we chat with Kay Purcell, co-founder of Chaotic Wholesome Presents, a TTRPG production studio known for creating engaging stories and actual play content. We discuss Kay's work in community management, the processes behind running a TTRPG production studio, and tips for navigating social media. The conversation covers the evolution of Chaotic Wholesome Presents from its inception with the God Plane campaign to its current focus on telling diverse stories and charity work.
Find Kay & Chaotic Wholesome Presents
- The CWP website
- Free auto-updating group lines and veils doc
- The Emergency Power Podcast
- Entropy Emporium
Find Roll Play Grow:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Courtney (00:32):
Hello friends.
Today we are chatting with KayPurcell Of Chaotic Wholesome
presents, a TTRPG productionstudio focusing on creating
engrossing stories and actualplay content.
They highlight social topics,discuss hot button issues, and
focus on charity work.
Kay is a delightful guest and Ienjoyed chatting about the
(00:52):
network and also their work incommunity management.
We chat about processes behindrunning a TTRPG production
studio and also tips fornavigating social media.
before we jump in, I wanted togive a quick project update.
In case you missed the lastepisode, I am the project
manager for a project that iscurrently funding on BackerKit
(01:14):
Laszlo's Cubed Crypt byAttention Deficit and Dragons.
We are creating a map puzzlecube, think Rubik's Cube, even
though I'm not technicallysupposed to say that, that
corresponds to a level 12 D&Dadventure in which players have
to confront a lich.
We are a little over halfway toour initial funding goal, and if
(01:37):
we can hit some stretch goals,we'll be able to add more
Adventures to the lineup thatalso incorporate the cube at
additional levels.
I will drop a link to the shownotes, and you can also find it
by looking up a laszlo's cubedcrypt on BackerKit.
I really want this project tosucceed because I would like to
have a cube of my own on myshelf.
(02:00):
All right.
Let's go ahead and dive intowith Kay.
Hello friends and welcome back.
Today I am joined by KayPurcell, the co founder of
Chaotic Wholesome Presents.
How's it going today?
Kay (02:22):
Going well, how are you?
Courtney (02:24):
You know, got some coffee.
It's mostly sunny.
We might actually get snow,which is kind of weird, but it's
fine.
Kay (02:31):
Keep hearing people have snow and i'm like this is
bananas.
I'm, so glad i'm not there
Courtney (02:36):
Yeah, I'm in Seattle and, like, we're north enough
that people would think that weget snow all the time, but we
don't just because of our, youknow, winds and stuff.
Weather patterns, I don't know,but it's like There's, there's a
10 percent chance of snow today,but then it just keeps, like,
growing sporadically over thenext week, so it should be
(02:56):
interesting because it is waytoo hilly here for snow, which
means, like, the entire cityshuts down, even though
technically people know how todrive in it, it's like, well, we
will die on those hills.
Kay (03:06):
Exactly.
Yeah, I just escaped severalyears in new york where
Courtney (03:09):
Ah.
Kay (03:10):
snow happened and it didn't leave
Courtney (03:13):
Yeah, I was in Chicago for about five years when I was
an undergrad, and I That, thatwas enough.
I've done my duty with Snow.
Kay (03:22):
Mm hmm.
Courtney (03:23):
Well, to kick off our conversation today, I would love
to know, what is the very firstgame that you remember playing?
Kay (03:31):
Oh, goodness.
Whoo.
I'm going to date myself here.
I am fairly sure it was a PacMan something at an arcade or,
you know, an Atari that a friendhad the first game that I like.
See.
I don't remember which camefirst, the Exit to DOS or the,
(03:53):
the Nintendo, the NES.
So it was either, like, MarioDuck Hunt combo, which I have
right back there.
My NES and the game is there andit still works.
Or, it was the Exit to DOS Questfor Glory.
Or I guess at that time it wasHeroes Quest, which was my
absolute obsession for many,many years.
(04:16):
It was my favorite game.
it was one of those, like, 40hour RPGs by Sierra, it was
incredible.
But my parents were so worriedthat if I saved my game I would
eat up all the space on the harddrive.
So I was trying to beat a 40hour game in one setting.
And, like, memorizing everythingI had to do and the timing and
the dialogue options perfectly.
(04:37):
And then I was constantly introuble for playing this game
for too long.
I kept explaining that I have togo through every part to get to
something new.
Courtney (04:47):
Oh my gosh.
Did they ever relent and let yousave it?
Kay (04:51):
So they finally invested in the floppy
Courtney (04:54):
Mmm.
Kay (04:55):
were the big ones, the 5x whatever.
And I finally got to save mygame, and I did finally get to
beat it, but I only beat therogue and the, or the thief and
the wizard options.
I never got to beat the fighterclass.
Courtney (05:11):
I'm also just sitting here like, trying to imagine a
video game fitting on a floppydisk.
Yeah, like, obviously, it was,you know, a much smaller game
than what we're used to, butstill, I'm just mind blowing
right now.
Kay (05:25):
It was multiple floppy disks to install it.
I think it was like four or fiveto install it.
I remember my brain meltingrecently when It wasn't
recently.
It was a while back when theyannounced Final Fantasy 7 was
available for the iPhone and I'mlike that game is huge.
That was like four CDs.
(05:46):
That's probably not even fourgigs that Wow.
Okay Yeah, I can play that on myphone.
Can't I.
Wow
Courtney (05:53):
Yeah.
On the one hand, it's like,cool, technology's advanced so
far, but on the other hand, I'mlike, no, it's too much.
Kay (06:01):
I have to go think about my life, right?
People talk about retro
Courtney (06:06):
Right.
Kay (06:06):
gaming and they're talking about the PlayStation 2 and I'm
like, oh no.
Courtney (06:11):
Yeah, you know, I still have, like, my little Game
Boy Color, and
Kay (06:15):
my brick of a game boy has gone missing and I'm so sad
because that was Link'sAwakening was the other
influential game in my life andI played that, I was only on the
brick original Nintendo until itwas very recently released for
Switch I loved that game, andI'm so glad I have my NES still,
but I want that Game Boy.
Courtney (06:36):
Yeah, I mostly grew up on the Sega and, or Sega
Genesis.
Yeah, I will say, like, havingthe little Sega pack on the
Switch now is, like, okay.
It's not the same, but I can atleast play, like, Echo the
Dolphin and remember howfreaking hard this game is.
Kay (06:55):
Yeah, old school games were so challenging.
Courtney (06:59):
Yeah, especially since you, like, couldn't save.
Kay (07:02):
And game devs still had the mindset of like, the arcade
thing where you need to, itneeds to be brutal and you need
to die so that you'll put morequarters in.
Courtney (07:10):
Huh.
So what about board games?
Kay (07:15):
Oh goodness.
We, I mean, we played a lot ofChutes and Ladders, and a really
cool one called Labyrinth, youknow, obviously those.
We didn't play board games orTTRPGs in my family.
I actually didn't play a TTRPGuntil a couple years before the
pandemic.
My parents thought I was alreadytoo weird and nerdy, and they
(07:37):
were not going to encourage orpartake in any of this.
So, I was on my own there.
Courtney (07:44):
So, how did you get introduced to ttrpgs?
Kay (07:48):
Hilariously, I had, you know, all of these friend groups
across video games, nerdculture, tech and I was just
like, you know, I keep hearingabout TTRPGs, I was working in
video games, I was writing videogame reviews, and, Kept getting
part of the blog that I wrotefor also did TTRPGs, and I'm
(08:11):
like, I am curious.
I have always been curious.
I never got to play as a kidbecause satanic panic.
My parents still had bought intoit.
And I said to one of my friends,like, you know, I said to David,
my co founder, I really want totry, like, D& D, TTRPG,
something like that.
He's like, oh, oh.
(08:33):
Dane wants to, and Kato wantsto, and as soon as I said I want
to play one of these, I suddenlyhad like 12 friends who were all
like, Oh yeah, we want to play.
And I'm like, None of youmentioned you played to me,
ever.
I never knew any of you playedthis.
So, yes, I cut my teeth onPathfinder 1e.
(08:54):
Which, friends don't let friendsmake Pathfinder 1e characters
with only books.
We had a four hour charactercreation session.
I was trying to build a levelfive druid.
I didn't know what a cantrip wasand two and a half hours in, I
still didn't know and I was tooafraid to ask.
So just did it.
(09:15):
And unfortunately we broke thatcampaign four sessions in and it
fell apart, but it started thenetwork and the group and it
went from there.
I'm so sorry.
I ruined your game, Dane.
I'm so sorry.
Courtney (09:28):
Definitely feel like there's a story there.
Kay (09:31):
We were supposed to pick a side in a war and we kind of
picked a fight with one side,ran back to the side we were
supposed to be on, got mad atthe racist spec commander, so
our dwarf Paladin, holy dick, ordid a holy punch in his dick.
(09:52):
Maru had accidentally let thelit the tint on fire, and we ran
up into the mountains and justwatched the two sides fight.
Courtney (09:59):
I'm going to say that a holy dick punch is absolutely
a legitimate attack.
Kay (10:05):
yeah, it, if you, apparently if you multiclass the
right way with Paladin and Monk,you can do a holy dick punch.
You can smite punch.
Courtney (10:16):
Okay, smite punch is now the official term, so.
Kay (10:20):
Yeah, if you play a Tabaxi, you can also if you play a
Tabaxi Damphir, you can alsosmite bite.
Courtney (10:25):
Interesting.
We are starting to makecharacters for Vecna Eva Ruin,
but I am reusing uh, TopaxiPirate that I used in a former
campaign that I very much miss.
And, you know, I've beenthinking about, like, multi
classing her, and now I'm like,hmm.
Smite Bites sounds fun.
Kay (10:45):
Someday I'll get to use my hairless Tabaxi swashbuckler.
Someday.
Courtney (10:50):
Mine's a munchkin tabaxi, so she's like three feet
tall.
the And yeah, she's a piratecaptain because now we're
starting at level 10, and yeah.
I adore her.
Anyways.
Kay (11:03):
We could do this all day.
Let's run away from it.
Courtney (11:06):
Oh my god, absolutely.
Talk to me about startingChaotic Wholesome.
I
Kay (11:15):
had been kind of doing the streaming thing a little bit
anyway.
I had my my channel to affiliatethrough just streaming video
games and hanging out withfriends while I did that.
And I had started kind of,especially during the pandemic,
applying to be on a coupledifferent projects.
Shows and different games had areally cool charity game with
(11:37):
some really big names that I wasreally proud of until we no
longer associate with a coupleof those people, and so that VOD
is a little bit not as joyful asit used to be.
And I had other friends whowere, you know, in the space and
of other minority groups than meand started, you know, just
about how we We liked the gameswe were playing, right, but we
(12:00):
weren't necessarily getting toplay the kind of games we
wanted.
We weren't getting to tell thekind of stories we wanted.
We weren't getting the depth orthe table chemistry and we were
facing different ways for eachof us, you know, just some
discomfort at tables andsometimes a lack of respect,
sometimes just a lack ofunderstanding of why this was a
(12:20):
problem.
And it was a combination of thatand then I also Had always
wanted to run, like, a pressurecooker campaign.
A game where the party doesn'tknow each other at the start,
they have no reason to trusteach other, you're playing, you
have to work together, but alsoyou're just, you don't know
(12:44):
about other people, a situationwhere no one wants to info dump,
right?
You want to keep your secretsprecious for a while.
I couldn't find the module thatwould let me do that.
And so I did the thing, which Ialways end up doing, which I
looked at David and I waslooking at, like, I want to tell
the stories we want to tell withbetter, safer tables, more
(13:08):
exclusive with who we invite,play with, and have some of
these pressure cooker games,some of these more interesting
approaches to, I've got to do itmyself, don't I?
Heck.
And I very reluctantly startedrunning The God Plane, which is
an original 5E horror campaign,which I've had the great
(13:28):
pleasure to run with Candice theMagnificent and Urban Bohemian
and Piper and some other justincredible people.
We've run it twice, technicallythree times, but shh, where's
that, when is that third onecoming out?
I don't know, when is thathappening?
But yeah.
And we just kind of went fromthere.
We finished the God plane, weknew we were getting ready to
(13:49):
run some more stuff we starteddoing the table talk show, which
was every Tuesday.
We'd just get on and talk aboutissues challenges and happenings
in the tabletop space.
And it was supposed to be justlike a, a space filler.
people started asking us tocover topics and saying how much
(14:09):
it meant to them.
And it was like, oh, well maybethis is a thing we actually up,
okay.
And then we did, we knew, andthen an important thing to both
David and I is charity, so everyyear we do a big Christmas
charity game, where we raisemoney for extra life kids in
hospitals, and then it to PrideMonth, to Black History Month,
(14:33):
and yeah, we, we tell storiesand be nerdy together and do it
for a good cause.
Courtney (14:39):
love that so much.
Yeah, and I know you guys havedone a lot of shows by now.
I would love to dig in a littlebit more into just the evolution
of like, okay, you started withthe God plane and then.
You know, you just kind ofexpanded beyond that.
Kay (14:56):
Yeah, it just kind of took on a life of its own.
Some things just fell intoplace.
We started having friends comingto us and saying, hey, I have
this I really want to tell.
I can't run production.
Will you produce this?
So this past Black History Monthwe ran an all black table by
(15:19):
Candice the Magnificent withDanielle Radford who came on and
played, raising money for Blackand Pink.
Uh, we had Q Midnight Inc.
come to us and say, I have anAmerican Gods style game where
it is the old gods from Africagoing through different time
(15:39):
periods in America and howthey're reacting to this.
And it was incredibly touchingand A story that I really wanted
to facilitate the telling of.
So the channel is growing inways that I, as a white person,
could never have done had I justsaid, no, I have to be involved
(15:59):
in all of these things.
But it got to the point whereit's like, okay, there are
certain people in our community,be they GMs or players, that I
trust.
And if they come to me and say,I want to run something, I will
hand the reins over.
It is important for me that,yes, I I have a minority
background in certain ways, butI also have privilege in a lot
(16:19):
of ways.
I am white, and it is reallyimportant for me to understand
where I can help and where Ibest help by not being there.
By giving things over to otherpeople.
So, by being less precious aboutit, by being very particular
about who we let run games andwho we let be at the table, but
once we know and trust thosepeople, Letting go and giving
(16:42):
them control.
I was not even in the greenroom.
I let David run production forall of our all black tables,
because my whiteness in thatspace would change the vibe.
We're looking at running anotherall black campaign and they,
after seeing how the space Igave and how I treated it, they
(17:03):
were like, actually we want youin the room for this one.
Please be here.
Which I actually fought forquite a while until they were
like, K.
But I mean we've been incrediblyfortunate that we have reached
out to people and they've agreedto come on and run games, play
games, we've, I've beenfortunate enough to play with
Connie Chang with Naomi Kyle ofG4 fame incredible, truly
(17:28):
incredible people withIncredible imaginations, great
stories to tell, and I love thelittle stories that I tell, and
I love being able to sit backand either be a player in
someone else's world, or justwatch other people weave
something truly magical.
And sometimes, the communityjust decided what we were going
(17:50):
to do.
Someone who was still anonymousto this day gifted me the My
Little Pony TTRPG book when itcame out, and I was like, welp.
I guess we're running My LittlePony, and so I got to run that
adventure, and it was bananasand fun and just a pure source
of joy.
So yes, we run incrediblyintense horror campaigns, we run
(18:13):
really socially conscious games,and then we do My Little Pony!
And everything in between.
I don't know
Courtney (18:19):
Yeah.
Kay (18:19):
answered your question there, but that's where
Courtney (18:22):
Absolutely, yes.
So I love to dig into processes.
Ah, okay.
You know, I'm a project manager,and so that's, that's my whole
thing.
But I guess I would love to knowhow your processes have evolved
from the time that you firststarted with Godplane and you're
just starting out the channeland trying to get followers and
(18:45):
whatnot.
Like, how have your processes inpreparing for a new campaign and
actually doing the productionchanged from that first one up
into, your current shows?
Kay (18:56):
I would really like to say we've like polished and
streamlined.
I have the ideal of what I wouldlike to get done, what I would
like to happen by what point,but with a TTRPG you are
wrangling sometimes as many aseight or nine people.
Schedules, approvals, all ofthat.
(19:16):
So it kind of begins with who isrunning the game, because if I'm
running the game, cool, I have alot more control.
Someone else is running thegame, it's okay.
You as the GM, do you have, whatis your vision for what the
overlay should look like, forwhat the advertising graphics
should look like?
you creating that or do you wantme to?
We are incredibly fortunate thatwe get to work a lot of the time
(19:40):
with Jason Wooldridge, who isjust the most amazing designer.
He designed the My Little Ponyoverlay that we actually were
nominated for Best Overlay forCrit Awards for.
And it looked like something outof the show.
There was no question.
So it comes down to then of,okay, who's making it, what do
we want it to look like, whatiterations do we need, what is
(20:02):
required, because a lot of whatwe run is theater of the mind.
With our charity gamesespecially, we have maps that
are player facing only, becausewith some incredible people who
have no internal visualizationand need maps, and I don't
always have time to make a mapfor all the potential
(20:23):
encounters, so it's not pretty,but the audience doesn't need to
see it.
We set all that up, we figureout what the release date is
going to be, we agree on whatthe copy is going to be, is
there going to be multiple,copies?
Are there going to be multipleadvertising images?
Because I really like that.
It keeps things a little bitfresh.
Are we doing it still graphicsonly?
Are we doing video?
(20:45):
Sometimes we work with amazingpeople.
Candice the Magnificent actuallyrecorded a parody song for
campaign of the God Plane, whichthey put on TikTok and it's just
a delight.
And then it's make sure peopleget there as early as they can
for setup.
That's a challenge, becauseschedules are not great.
(21:09):
Trying to make sure the overlaydoes what we want it to do.
All of the streamer bot commandswork how we want them to do.
Is this a charity thing?
Are there donations?
Do donations unlock in realtime?
Do they unlock when the GMdecides is relevant, which is
what we did for the God Plane alot.
We hit milestones, and oncethose milestones were hit, the
(21:31):
players could find a cachewithin the world when the
narrative made sense.
Whereas a charity game, oh,nope, it's time to pull from the
deck of many things, hope youdon't get dead, and you got
death, okay.
So, figuring out all of that,and again, ideally, overlays are
done at least a month inadvance, streamer bot commands
and all that is ticked off andfigured out.
(21:51):
Often, literally had.
Overlays come in the day before.
We've been working off oftemporary holding ones, hoping
those are correct.
You know, we are, we arewholesome, but also chaos is
part of our name.
So we, we roll with it.
But a lot of the elbow work forme is the editing after making
(22:14):
sure we've got separate audiofor everyone, cleaning up that
separate audio, putting it alltogether, cutting out commercial
breaks.
You know, doing all of thosethings.
So there's a nice video thatlives on forever after, and
we'll hopefully have people seeclips of it and go, Oh, maybe I
want to follow this.
Maybe these are stories I wouldenjoy.
(22:36):
And yeah, making short formcontent.
I hate making short formcontent.
It is so necessary foreverything we do these days, but
I hate making short formcontent.
I'm fortunate that I get to playwith amazing people who make it
easy.
But it's still like, I gotta cutit down.
Okay.
I've got to have it vertical forshorts and TikTok.
I've got to have it this way forother socials.
Do I have to have it this wayfor other socials anymore?
(22:57):
Hmm.
Courtney (22:59):
That is, like, always the question of which social
platform is it worth posting ontoday?
Kay (23:05):
Oh my goodness.
I do community management andsocial media for my day job.
And people just like, where,what's social media now?
It's like, I don't, your guessis as good as my,
Courtney (23:15):
also, that is really rough that you're like, I hate
doing short form content andthat's your day job.
Mm
Kay (23:24):
I don't mind other people.
Making the short form content.
I don't mind saying, okay, weneed short form.
Use this clip, turn it,
Courtney (23:30):
hmm.
Kay (23:31):
But when you don't have a team and you have to do it
yourself, and especially if it'syour own voice and face in it,
Courtney (23:37):
Yeah.
Kay (23:37):
terrible.
Courtney (23:39):
Yeah, I am so terrible at like actually getting clips
from this show, which I know Ihave to do.
But it's always just like, but Ijust spent hours editing and one
hour to conversation.
I don't want to.
Kay (23:52):
Yeah.
the one thing I've given myself,like the one happy that I've
gotten is, especially for, Ialso do this for the Emergency
of Power podcast, which is underthe cataclysm umbrella.
It's a Starfinder actual playpodcast.
And GM does most of the editing,and so they pull funny
Courtney (24:15):
mmm.
Kay (24:16):
clips, and then I get to take them, and I have it pre set
up in DaVinci Resolve.
it's audio only, so I just havea pretty, I have the character
that's talking, I have awaveform, and I just get to
watch the waveform bounce, Imake sure it's good, I send it
to everyone for approval,because And, you know, you want
to make sure, especially if it'sgoing out to the audience at
large, everyone's okay beingrepresented that way.
(24:36):
And I just get to watch thewaveform bounce, and that's
pretty great.
Courtney (24:40):
Yeah, not having to actually pick the sound clip.
That, that's the, that's thebattle.
That's the hardest part.
Kay (24:46):
Absolutely.
Courtney (24:49):
Hey, entrepreneurs.
I love introducing you to newcreators every episode, but I
could really use your support.
I would love to invite you tojoin our Patreon page where
you'll gain access to behind thescenes content.
Add your questions to upcominginterviews, and you could even
receive a shout out on our sitein an upcoming episode.
To learn more, go to LightheartAdventures dot com slash rpg and
(25:11):
now back to the show.
So I did want to circle back onsomething that you said just to
make sure that I understand howthat works, which is that the
donations you said can unlock atspecific points if the GM wants
it.
And so, yeah, just talk methrough what you mean by that.
Kay (25:34):
Yeah, so, you know, with charity games, obviously, real
time.
Oh, someone give us advantageright now, right?
I love that chaos, but thatchaos is not always conducive to
all styles of games.
Especially horror games, whereBreaking the mood, breaking the
moment can absolutely destroythe scene, can just take you out
of it.
(25:55):
one of the things I put togetherwas people can donate.
I keep track of those donationsand they especially can unlock
caches, and these caches willhave things like healing
potions, magical items, specialitems for each character,
because the God Plane is verycharacter focused.
(26:17):
Depending upon when it's run,it's between 6 and 12 episodes,
And, it's a, a middle form,right?
It's not short form, but it'snot long form.
And it's very much, we startwith these characters who are
unknown, who have, clearly haveinteresting pasts.
How do we get them to speed runa redemption arc, help them
(26:37):
resolve the issues of thisworld?
And so just all of a sudden,OOP, and this magic item just
dropped in front of you doesn'twork very well.
So Godplane has a lot of aRavenloft feel where there's,
you're in the mists everywhere,and there's a compass which
tells you how to get through themists, and sometimes a little
blue needle will pop up, willpoint players to item caches
(27:02):
that audience have unlockedthrough donations.
So there are magic items hiddenin the world, but when it is
time, they can go, Oh, what,what's this?
And they'll have healing potionsand magic items, and they can
figure out who gets what.
a way that makes sense, becausethey're at camp, or they're,
it's a between beat, and sowe're not trying to shoehorn a
magic item appearing when we're,you know, trying to decide, Hmm,
(27:27):
do we trust this person?
Are they here to betray us?
We're having a really intenseconversation.
Oh, look, a magic ring.
Being a GM especially If you'realso running production is so
much work, so I'm always tryingto figure out whether I'm
someone else is GMing on streamand I'm running production and
or a player, how can I give youthis stuff in a way that will
(27:48):
not break your train of thought,that will not ruin the moment.
try to, try to find ways tostreamline things to make it for
audience consumption and GMsanity.
Courtney (27:58):
Oh, for sure.
Yeah.
I really admire people like youthat can GM live in front of an
audience and make itinteresting.
I have only one long termcampaign, and I don't even like
taking notes on my own stuff soI can't even imagine just the
(28:18):
pressure and additional workthat has to go into like being
on for more than just yourplayers.
Kay (28:25):
I have DMed a long term campaign.
The longest campaign I've everrun was 12 sessions.
But I have also only ever runtwo sessions not streamed.
I just jumped in hard mode.
I was like, Well, here we go.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna GM now.
May as well do it live so I canwatch back and critique myself
and hate my life.
Courtney (28:46):
So was that literally like the first one you ever GM'd
was live?
Kay (28:49):
Yeah.
Courtney (28:50):
Oh my gosh.
All right.
Kay (28:53):
I am incapable of half assing anything.
So yeah, I was like, well, if Ihave to do this, I may as well
do it live.
Heck it, we ball.
Courtney (29:04):
That is very admirable.
Kay (29:06):
Or foolish! Take your pick! I'm
Courtney (29:09):
mean, you're still doing it and you have an
audience, so I think it worked.
I'm so
Kay (29:15):
grateful for the people who come out and support us and join
in our stories, be it on streamor in the audience chatting,
encouraging us on, giving usmore ideas, giving us more puns
GMs with.
Like, I am so fortunate that Ihave these people who have Come
and found my silly littlechannel, it's, it means a lot.
Courtney (29:38):
So I am curious about, I mean, I think it's going to
probably be different for eachcampaign depending on who's
actually running it and whatnot,but I guess for the ones that
you are more involved in, how doyou find your cast?
Kay (29:54):
So, I tend to build tables around who I think would be a
great fit for the game, thesystem, etc.
I think it's decently well knownat this point that I am not the
biggest fan of Powered by theApocalypse and its subsequent
(30:14):
systems.
I really enjoy D20 systems.
However, I can and will do RulesLight for one shots.
So I look for, I'm looking for asystem or a GM, you know, what's
that match there, who's going tohave an interest?
If I am running it, okay, sowhat system are we running?
Because I think it's veryimportant that your, you find
(30:36):
the system that matches yourgame.
Yes, I run a horror game in 5e.
Is it the most ideal system?
No, but for shorter termcampaigns, most everyone knows
5e and I can ease them throughit.
Certainly a Trophy Dark is gonnabe much more atmospheric, but I
am not as good at running those.
I first look for who would bethe ideal person.
(31:00):
Who do I want most?
I will start making a list ofwho do I think would be good for
this.
And then I look at that list andgo, okay, who do I want most?
So if it's like, I want Candicein this game, I'm gonna reach
out to Candice first and say,Candice, I want you to play
this.
you to play in this.
This is the game.
This is the system.
(31:20):
This is kind of the feel.
Here's some other people I'mthinking of inviting.
Are you cool with all of them?
And do you have anyone elseyou'd like to suggest?
And then I take the list thatperson gives me, combine them,
decide then, okay, who's topthree, reach out to the first
top three and say, okay, we havethis person confirmed.
(31:41):
We're looking at inviting theseother two people.
you have any?
Concerns.
Is there anyone that you musthave at the table?
Let me know.
I think it's very important,especially given what we're
learning about a lot of peoplein the space, to make sure
everyone knows up front who'sgoing to be involved, make sure
everyone knows the themes.
(32:01):
When I invited Brian UrbanBohemian to come on God Plane,
he was like, well, I don't, Idon't know how well I can play
horror because I'm usually thefunny one.
And I'm like, Brian, you will beamazing at this.
And he was, right?
when I was running My LittlePony, I'm like, Ohenio, DM Jazzy
(32:23):
Hands, please, please come on.
And he's like, I am down, but Ihave never watched My Little
Pony.
And I'm like, watch these threeepisodes, because he said I want
to play a party planner pony.
And I'm like, cool, watch thefirst two episodes, and watch
the one with Weird Al playing aparty planner.
And Got the assignment, showedup, brought it, was incredible.
(32:44):
So you start with, and it's alsovery important especially if you
are a person who has skin mycolor, focus on your minority
players first because especiallyif you're doing open casting
calls you're gonna have a lot ofwhite people, you're gonna have
a lot of men, you're gonna havea lot of straight people.
(33:06):
That's gonna be the majority ofyour applicants.
That is not a bad thing, but ifyou are wanting to commit to
diversity and making sure thatthere are various viewpoints at
the table, you have to startwith the people who are going to
be least likely to apply first,and make sure that they are
comfortable, and then you canreach out to the other folks.
(33:28):
So Again, and I hate that I haveto say this, but this is where
we are, DEI not mean that thepeople who are the diversity,
who are diverse, are onlygetting this job, this role,
because they are this.
It means that they are as goodas everyone else and we just
(33:50):
want to make sure there's spacefor them at the table.
Because there's a hundredapplicants from straight white
dudes.
And, when we played our homegame, the majority of our home
game were straight white dudes.
And I have been trying to getKato to come on my stream and
play with us forever.
And he's like, I'm a straightwhite dude, I don't need to be
there.
(34:10):
And I'm like, but you'rehilarious, you are so brilliant.
Nope, mm, I'm over represented.
You have fun.
And I also hate that I have tosay this, but we do have to.
Diverse spaces also have diverseabusers.
So you also have to be awarethat just because someone is gay
or a certain skin color doesn'tmean that they don't have the
potential to be problematic.
(34:31):
And you have to listen to whenpeople.
that people are problematic.
Courtney (34:37):
It's definitely been a tumultuous couple of years
Kay (34:40):
Oh yes.
Courtney (34:41):
this space.
Kay (34:42):
And oh my goodness, people having drama?
Never.
Courtney (34:48):
What?
None of
Kay (34:49):
us are former drama kids.
None of us are, are at all maincharacter syndrome.
No, we don't.
Courtney (34:55):
Why would someone like that enjoy a game where they
tell a story and center it onbeing a hero?
Kay (35:03):
That doesn't attract a certain personality.
Courtney (35:06):
Not at all.
Ugh, God, yeah, I I don't knowif you, have felt this way, but
it's definitely, you know, Ialways used to be like, okay,
I'll check social media profilesbefore I reach out to someone or
if they reach out to me wantingto be on the show.
But it seems like there's almostlike a little bit of a paranoia
these days because it's justlike, okay, the media looks
(35:31):
okay, but also there's lots ofmedia, so now I have to, like,
go search in all of thesedifferent places and But also,
are they actually okay?
Kay (35:37):
and with a lot of people like leaving say Twitter,
Courtney (35:40):
Mm hmm.
A lot of their posts
Kay (35:41):
are gone.
So if
Courtney (35:42):
Yep.
Kay (35:43):
that might be gone.
I am really fortunate that Ihave grown this community that
are dedicated to protectingpeople, to uplifting the right
voices, and I have people I cango to now and be like, okay, I'm
looking at this person.
What do you think?
What do you know?
What have you heard?
And they have never steered mewrong, so.
(36:07):
Again, community is everything.
Courtney (36:09):
100%.
Yeah.
It's, it's so vital to havethose networks and that is
something that I love abouthaving grown my show over the
last several years and justengaging with people you know.
Especially with, like, thesmaller users, which I think is
where I tend to focus a lot istrying to uplift, like, newer
(36:31):
designers and whatnot.
It's always, very interesting,getting a fresh perspective all
of the time.
So I, especially since you're acommunity manager for your day
job, I'd love to talk about ifyou've got things that in this
social media hellscape that youhave found have been still
(36:55):
working or tips on growing anaudience and connecting with
your audience.
Kay (37:00):
Unfortunately, everything is so tumultuous that it is just
incredibly challenging.
The other thing is, given theThe state we're in and we're
going to be for the next fouryears, it's going to be more and
more risky to use social media.
If you have not downloadedSignal, cannot encourage you all
(37:21):
enough to download Signal and todonate to them because they pay
their workers above minimum paywage, above average pay wage
actually, and they run entirelyoff of donations.
But it's going to be a greatresource coming up.
Because, again, it's gonna evenbe dangerous to talk about these
(37:44):
diversity things here in thevery near future.
When growing your space, Discordis always a great, Discord's
great but the the thing I alwaysstress, and this is true across
your social medias, be itTwitter or Blue Sky, be it
Discord, be it Wherever y'allare hanging out, Slack to
(38:06):
people.
I don't think anyone uses, Ihope no one uses Slack for
personal, but what do I know.
Anything you condone, youendorse.
Any behavior that you toleratewill be seen as just acceptable,
but allowed and encouraged.
So, That's my biggest thing, isif you start seeing questionable
(38:31):
behavior, if you start seeingpeople pushing the boundaries,
it is better to kick that personout it is to let them hang out,
because they will bring morepeople who think like them, and
then when people see that beingtolerated, they will go, oh,
this is a space where I can dothat, and you've got a much
bigger problem on your hands.
But yeah short form content,video Gen Alpha especially is
(38:56):
very into very casual, be veryreal, talk to people, don't try
to sell people.
If you try and sell, it's reallynot gonna work.
But yeah, just being open, beinginviting, being friendly and
casual is Right now that's thebest advice I can give because
(39:16):
everything is so up in the airand changing so quickly and Who
knows what's gonna happen nextand are we potentially
witnessing the death of socialmedia?
Maybe.
We'll see what happens.
Courtney (39:31):
Such a comforting thought.
Kay (39:33):
It's really weird that Tumblr's making a comeback,
right?
Like Tumblr is becoming a thingagain and I, that hasn't
happened since they banned pornso I'm just watching this with
popcorn.
Courtney (39:45):
Yeah, so what's funny is I never actually got onto
Tumblr.
And it's only in the last coupleof weeks that I'm just like,
should I do it?
Why is this even a question now?
Kay (39:56):
At the height, I was never a Tumblr power user, I loved
Tumblr at the height of Tumblrbecause I would follow the
fandom and culture wars onTumblr like most people follow
sports teams.
It was like, okay, who are thefurries fighting with today?
Okay, the Team Wolf fandom is upat arms.
(40:17):
Who is it with?
Let's go.
It was incredible.
Courtney (40:22):
Oh, it's great.
Yeah, there is this one projectI'm It's almost done that I was
working on with a new gamedesigner and he kept being like,
yeah, you know, like I'm postingabout it on Tumblr and like
trying to get followers there.
And I'm like, really?
And this was three years ago.
So it's just the fact that hewas just very actively on there
(40:42):
and I'm like, I mean, okay.
And now, he was the only personI heard talking about it until
literally a few weeks ago andnow everyone's talking about
Tumblr again.
Yeah,
Kay (40:51):
Yeah, there's always been some niche active fandoms, so if
you could activate one person onTumblr, they would go, everyone
look at this new thing and comejoin me in obsession.
Courtney (41:03):
Mm hmm.
It's amazing.
So one thing that I like to askin every interview, we make
content, we work, et cetera inthis industry because we like
games, presumably.
If you don't, why would you behere?
But, obviously, there'schallenges.
And so, I would love to know,outside of the social media
(41:26):
marketing hellscape, what aresome of the challenges that
you've had to face as you'vebeen trying to grow Chaotic
Wholesome?
Kay (41:34):
Just finding an audience is always a challenge.
We live in an era whereeverything is competing for
everyone's attention.
Video games, mobile games,television, Netflix, TikTok,
everything is competing foreveryone's time.
Especially streaming, especiallyon Twitch, starting out.
(41:54):
If you are wanting to startstreaming on Twitch now, you're
gonna have to get verycomfortable with the fact that
you're probably gonna bestreaming to an empty chat room
for at least the first year.
Unless you get real lucky.
Finding that audience is alwaysthe biggest challenge.
And I always say, like, don'ttry to partner with Ninja right
(42:15):
away.
You Find other small creatorswho share your values, who are
interested in the same thing asyou, and build your own little
community.
Don't be selfish with your, withyour stream times, with your
community, with youractivations, work together,
share ideas, uplift each other,because the rising tide really
does lift all boats.
(42:36):
If you are trying to get intotabletop content to make money,
it doesn't matter if you aredoing it.
Third party PDFs if you're doingindie games, if you are a
streaming channel, it isdifficult to get money, it is
(42:56):
easier to get product, so youcan get product to give away,
then you also have to deal withshipping costs, international
shipping customs, what if itgets lost in the mail, who's
responsible for replacing it, sothere are a whole lot of
challenges.
You do this, you really have todo this because you love it.
(43:17):
If you are trying to jump intoTTRPGs to get rich, maybe
there's a small chance you couldbe the next Matt Mercer.
But again, Matt Mercer didn'tget to where he was because of
his DMing originally.
It was because he was a verywell known and beloved voice
actor first.
Please, please, if you arestarting out, do not go out and
(43:39):
spend thousands and thousandsand thousands of dollars on
equipment.
Get your audio in line.
Spend your money first on audio.
You only really need a decentwebcam, it doesn't have to be
great.
Get your lighting done andupgrade your internet.
That's the first thing to do ifyou're wanting to get into this.
You're gonna have to have a goodprocessor if you're wanting to
(44:01):
run production on TTRPGs.
It is so much more demanding onyour computer and your internet
speeds than you would expect.
Yeah, those are, the challengesare, you know, Do you have the
ability to even stream?
Because getting into this ispretty much a privilege to start
with.
Part of the reason I produce asmuch as I do is, as much as I
(44:21):
have, is because people havecome to me and said, I just
can't do it.
I can't afford the equipment.
I can't get the good internethere.
Learn to be patient and learn toadjust because Things happen.
People are going to ghost you,people are going to no show
someone's internet is going togo down in the middle of a
(44:44):
session.
You are going to have to cancelminutes before or, or decide am
I running with one less person?
Figure out what your safetytools are going to be.
Y'all we have available atchaoticwholesomepresents.
com.
We have a form fillable autoupdating Google.
(45:05):
based, lines and veils documentthat I was watching so many
people try to convert PDFs intotaking six people's lines and
veils, trying to put them intoone master document that later
could not be edited if someonewent, I didn't think about this,
but I need this added.
Figure out your tools, figureout what conversation you need
(45:27):
to have, which can be what's offlimits.
What's your safety word, right?
How do we get out of hereimmediately if we need to?
What, many people have to bemissing before we cancel without
everyone's feelings getting hurtbecause you have to discuss that
beforehand or someone is goingto feel targeted.
(45:48):
There is a lot of equipment andprocess to figure out before you
even start dealing with We're abunch of theater kids! Okay.
There's egos, there'sfrustrations, there's
neurodivergence, there's mentalillness, there's chronic
fatigue, there's physicalillness.
to deal with all of that.
(46:08):
So you're going to have to learnto be patient and flexible,
because.
If the party takes two hours todo what was supposed to be the
first 45 minutes of your oneshot, you have to get the rest
of that story in there somehowand finish it without suddenly
holding people captive for aseven hour one shot when they
(46:31):
only signed up for a three hourone.
That sounded very, that was verylong and it sounded very doom
and gloom, but again you do thisbecause you love it and if you
are aware of these challengesgoing in you're going to be so
much better equipped to runthem, to deal with them, to put
on an awesome show and leaveeveryone feeling happy and
honestly if things go wrong Andeveryone leaves happy?
(46:55):
It's fine.
The number of times we have hadmid game, on air, everything has
gone wrong, audio has stoppedworking, my entire computer
crashed while I was runningproduction one time, we had to
turn it back, turn everythingback on, switch production over
to David's computer, pick itback up mid game, I was like, I
am so embarrassed, everyone isgoing to judge me, no one is
(47:18):
going to want to work with me,we finished that game and
everyone went, You just, youfixed it, you made it work, and
you finished on time.
I am so impressed.
You're the most professionalperson I've ever worked with.
And I'm like, that was so not,thank you, but that was not
professional.
But thank you, but,
Courtney (47:35):
mean, that is impressive.
I, it's stressful.
So stressful.
But impressive.
Okay, you're right, it can sounddoom and gloom.
But that is why I like to followup with, what is the most
rewarding part of doing this?
Kay (47:49):
Oh, the most rewarding parts have come in ways that I
did not expect.
Obviously, you finishing,finishing the game, and everyone
going, that was so great.
That was awesome.
Thank you.
I had so much fun.
I didn't think I'd get to tellthat story or I got to reveal
that thing about my character.
Like it feels so good.
What really is amazing is whenyou realize that what you have
(48:13):
done has impacted people beyondwho's at your table, beyond
anyone or any way you would haveexpected.
I don't want to go into too muchdetail, but my co founder, my
creative partner, David, hasbeen in the hospital for a
couple months now.
And our community startedrecording videos and voice memos
(48:37):
I could bring and play for himwhile he was stuck there.
number one, that was so nice.
Like, just them being willing todo that.
But the personal stories thatpeople have shared, the things
that people have said about, Ifound your community through
your talk show because you weretalking about.
Issues that I was dealing withother parts of my community and
(49:01):
I would not still be in thisspace, I would not still have
the friends I have if I had not,not just taken the advice that
you'd given, but seen it handledin a way with kindness, with a
logic but also, not just advice,not just tools, but the way you
approached it, let me know thatI was not alone, gave me tips on
(49:23):
how to deal it, and how toremove myself from the situation
if it just wasn't going to work,because sometimes we don't
actually know where theboundaries are, and that they
have been crossed until someoneelse tells you, yo, that's,
that's not cool, that's notokay.
I would never have known that Ihad impacted those people in
that way, had my partner notfallen ill, right?
(49:45):
I'm not gonna speak for David,but I certainly cried, teared up
listening to some of those.
So, yeah the community you find,the people you find along the
way, and occasionally learningthat you did as much good for
them.
As they have done for you, is,there's no words for how much
(50:07):
that means.
Courtney (50:09):
That is so special and I'm I'm so glad that your
community was able to pulltogether for you both.
That's so sweet.
Kay (50:20):
Like I said, I am so lucky to have the community I do.
It's the best part of what I do.
I get to play games, I get toraise money for charity, games
with people I adore.
And then on top of that, I havean incredible community that I
cannot wait to have enough prewritten, pre built modules that
(50:41):
I can run games for these peopleoffline and we can all just be
friends and play games together.
It's gonna be great.
Courtney (50:47):
Amazing.
Well, Kay, do you have anyupcoming projects that you are
excited about and are able totalk about?
Kay (50:58):
So, Season 4 of the Emergency Power Podcast is
actively being edited and willcome out very soon.
It is a Starfinder Actual Play.
playing the worst character inthe world.
They are just an absolutescumbag.
And Season 3 was kind of theircoming to terms with the fact of
(51:22):
the person they've become.
And I can't wait for you all tosee their arc in Season 4.
The cool thing about EmergencyPower is season three is the
longest season, but you can jumpin at season three, there's a
really great recap, so if you'relike, hmm, I wanna dip my toe in
and see, because we had two newcast members join at the start
of season, no, we had three newcast members join at the start
(51:44):
of season three, so you don'thave to go through all of the
backlog to get to kind of themeat and potatoes.
You can find us at the TableTalk show every Tuesday, where
we talk all things TTRPGs fromindies to intersectionality.
And, got some other thingscoming up that I really can't
(52:04):
talk about too much, butthere's, there's As I hinted at
before, there is a thirdcampaign of the God Plane that
will hopefully be coming outthis year.
You can also find me over atEntropy Emporium every other
Friday playing the Weird WildsWar, which is a homebrew 5e
fantasy campaign where I playBrandon, the T Fork Drake Warden
(52:26):
Ranger, who's like never had athought in his head.
And he makes good Goodberries,and he just got to hand some out
last night.
And There's a the only otherthing I can really say at this
point is there's a Star Warsgame in my future.
Courtney (52:42):
Amazing!
Kay (52:42):
lots of other stuff on the docket.
Hopefully, we will have Davidback in action soon, and we'll
be able to do some of ourcharity games coming up, Pride
Month, Black History Month, andor Christmas.
But, right now, question mark,question mark, question mark.
Courtney (52:57):
Amazing.
I will have links to things inthe show notes.
Kay, thank you so much forcoming on today.
This has been so fun and I feellike this last hour has gone by
so fast.
Kay (53:10):
Thank you so much for having me.
It was a treat to chat with you.
And, you know, I hope I didn'tgo too chaotic.
Courtney (53:18):
Not at all.
It was very fun.
Thank you, listeners, forhanging out today.
At this point, I am going tostop the recording and then
immediately start it back upwhere we are going to do a fun
quick question blitz forpatrons, where I am going to ask
Kay some more silly questions,some of which are gaming
(53:38):
related, some are not.
If you want to check that out,you can go to patreon.
com slash Roll Play Grow.
Thank you for listening, andthank you again, Kay.
Kay (53:49):
Thank you.
Bye!
Hello friends.
Today we are chatting with KayPurcell Of Chaotic Wholesome
presents, a TTRPG productionstudio focusing on creating
engrossing stories and actualplay content.
They highlight social topics,discuss hot button issues, and
focus on charity work.
Kay is a delightful guest and Ienjoyed chatting about the
(00:52):
network and also their work incommunity management.
We chat about processes behindrunning a TTRPG production
studio and also tips fornavigating social media.
before we jump in, I wanted togive a quick project update.
In case you missed the lastepisode, I am the project
manager for a project that iscurrently funding on BackerKit
(01:14):
Laszlo's Cubed Crypt byAttention Deficit and Dragons.
We are creating a map puzzlecube, think Rubik's Cube, even
though I'm not technicallysupposed to say that, that
corresponds to a level 12 D&Dadventure in which players have
to confront a lich.
We are a little over halfway toour initial funding goal, and if
(01:37):
we can hit some stretch goals,we'll be able to add more
Adventures to the lineup thatalso incorporate the cube at
additional levels.
I will drop a link to the shownotes, and you can also find it
by looking up a laszlo's cubedcrypt on BackerKit.
I really want this project tosucceed because I would like to
have a cube of my own on myshelf.
(02:00):
All right.
Let's go ahead and dive intowith Kay.
Hello friends and welcome back.
Today I am joined by KayPurcell, the co founder of
Chaotic Wholesome Presents.
How's it going today?
Kay (02:22):
Going well, how are you?
Courtney (02:24):
You know, got some coffee.
It's mostly sunny.
We might actually get snow,which is kind of weird, but it's
fine.
Kay (02:31):
Keep hearing people have snow and i'm like this is
bananas.
I'm, so glad i'm not there
Courtney (02:36):
Yeah, I'm in Seattle and, like, we're north enough
that people would think that weget snow all the time, but we
don't just because of our, youknow, winds and stuff.
Weather patterns, I don't know,but it's like There's, there's a
10 percent chance of snow today,but then it just keeps, like,
growing sporadically over thenext week, so it should be
(02:56):
interesting because it is waytoo hilly here for snow, which
means, like, the entire cityshuts down, even though
technically people know how todrive in it, it's like, well, we
will die on those hills.
Kay (03:06):
Exactly.
Yeah, I just escaped severalyears in new york where
Courtney (03:09):
Ah.
Kay (03:10):
snow happened and it didn't leave
Courtney (03:13):
Yeah, I was in Chicago for about five years when I was
an undergrad, and I That, thatwas enough.
I've done my duty with Snow.
Kay (03:22):
Mm hmm.
Courtney (03:23):
Well, to kick off our conversation today, I would love
to know, what is the very firstgame that you remember playing?
Kay (03:31):
Oh, goodness.
Whoo.
I'm going to date myself here.
I am fairly sure it was a PacMan something at an arcade or,
you know, an Atari that a friendhad the first game that I like.
See.
I don't remember which camefirst, the Exit to DOS or the,
(03:53):
the Nintendo, the NES.
So it was either, like, MarioDuck Hunt combo, which I have
right back there.
My NES and the game is there andit still works.
Or, it was the Exit to DOS Questfor Glory.
Or I guess at that time it wasHeroes Quest, which was my
absolute obsession for many,many years.
(04:16):
It was my favorite game.
it was one of those, like, 40hour RPGs by Sierra, it was
incredible.
But my parents were so worriedthat if I saved my game I would
eat up all the space on the harddrive.
So I was trying to beat a 40hour game in one setting.
And, like, memorizing everythingI had to do and the timing and
the dialogue options perfectly.
(04:37):
And then I was constantly introuble for playing this game
for too long.
I kept explaining that I have togo through every part to get to
something new.
Courtney (04:47):
Oh my gosh.
Did they ever relent and let yousave it?
Kay (04:51):
So they finally invested in the floppy
Courtney (04:54):
Mmm.
Kay (04:55):
were the big ones, the 5x whatever.
And I finally got to save mygame, and I did finally get to
beat it, but I only beat therogue and the, or the thief and
the wizard options.
I never got to beat the fighterclass.
Courtney (05:11):
I'm also just sitting here like, trying to imagine a
video game fitting on a floppydisk.
Yeah, like, obviously, it was,you know, a much smaller game
than what we're used to, butstill, I'm just mind blowing
right now.
Kay (05:25):
It was multiple floppy disks to install it.
I think it was like four or fiveto install it.
I remember my brain meltingrecently when It wasn't
recently.
It was a while back when theyannounced Final Fantasy 7 was
available for the iPhone and I'mlike that game is huge.
That was like four CDs.
(05:46):
That's probably not even fourgigs that Wow.
Okay Yeah, I can play that on myphone.
Can't I.
Wow
Courtney (05:53):
Yeah.
On the one hand, it's like,cool, technology's advanced so
far, but on the other hand, I'mlike, no, it's too much.
Kay (06:01):
I have to go think about my life, right?
People talk about retro
Courtney (06:06):
Right.
Kay (06:06):
gaming and they're talking about the PlayStation 2 and I'm
like, oh no.
Courtney (06:11):
Yeah, you know, I still have, like, my little Game
Boy Color, and
Kay (06:15):
my brick of a game boy has gone missing and I'm so sad
because that was Link'sAwakening was the other
influential game in my life andI played that, I was only on the
brick original Nintendo until itwas very recently released for
Switch I loved that game, andI'm so glad I have my NES still,
but I want that Game Boy.
Courtney (06:36):
Yeah, I mostly grew up on the Sega and, or Sega
Genesis.
Yeah, I will say, like, havingthe little Sega pack on the
Switch now is, like, okay.
It's not the same, but I can atleast play, like, Echo the
Dolphin and remember howfreaking hard this game is.
Kay (06:55):
Yeah, old school games were so challenging.
Courtney (06:59):
Yeah, especially since you, like, couldn't save.
Kay (07:02):
And game devs still had the mindset of like, the arcade
thing where you need to, itneeds to be brutal and you need
to die so that you'll put morequarters in.
Courtney (07:10):
Huh.
So what about board games?
Kay (07:15):
Oh goodness.
We, I mean, we played a lot ofChutes and Ladders, and a really
cool one called Labyrinth, youknow, obviously those.
We didn't play board games orTTRPGs in my family.
I actually didn't play a TTRPGuntil a couple years before the
pandemic.
My parents thought I was alreadytoo weird and nerdy, and they
(07:37):
were not going to encourage orpartake in any of this.
So, I was on my own there.
Courtney (07:44):
So, how did you get introduced to ttrpgs?
Kay (07:48):
Hilariously, I had, you know, all of these friend groups
across video games, nerdculture, tech and I was just
like, you know, I keep hearingabout TTRPGs, I was working in
video games, I was writing videogame reviews, and, Kept getting
part of the blog that I wrotefor also did TTRPGs, and I'm
(08:11):
like, I am curious.
I have always been curious.
I never got to play as a kidbecause satanic panic.
My parents still had bought intoit.
And I said to one of my friends,like, you know, I said to David,
my co founder, I really want totry, like, D& D, TTRPG,
something like that.
He's like, oh, oh.
(08:33):
Dane wants to, and Kato wantsto, and as soon as I said I want
to play one of these, I suddenlyhad like 12 friends who were all
like, Oh yeah, we want to play.
And I'm like, None of youmentioned you played to me,
ever.
I never knew any of you playedthis.
So, yes, I cut my teeth onPathfinder 1e.
(08:54):
Which, friends don't let friendsmake Pathfinder 1e characters
with only books.
We had a four hour charactercreation session.
I was trying to build a levelfive druid.
I didn't know what a cantrip wasand two and a half hours in, I
still didn't know and I was tooafraid to ask.
So just did it.
(09:15):
And unfortunately we broke thatcampaign four sessions in and it
fell apart, but it started thenetwork and the group and it
went from there.
I'm so sorry.
I ruined your game, Dane.
I'm so sorry.
Courtney (09:28):
Definitely feel like there's a story there.
Kay (09:31):
We were supposed to pick a side in a war and we kind of
picked a fight with one side,ran back to the side we were
supposed to be on, got mad atthe racist spec commander, so
our dwarf Paladin, holy dick, ordid a holy punch in his dick.
(09:52):
Maru had accidentally let thelit the tint on fire, and we ran
up into the mountains and justwatched the two sides fight.
Courtney (09:59):
I'm going to say that a holy dick punch is absolutely
a legitimate attack.
Kay (10:05):
yeah, it, if you, apparently if you multiclass the
right way with Paladin and Monk,you can do a holy dick punch.
You can smite punch.
Courtney (10:16):
Okay, smite punch is now the official term, so.
Kay (10:20):
Yeah, if you play a Tabaxi, you can also if you play a
Tabaxi Damphir, you can alsosmite bite.
Courtney (10:25):
Interesting.
We are starting to makecharacters for Vecna Eva Ruin,
but I am reusing uh, TopaxiPirate that I used in a former
campaign that I very much miss.
And, you know, I've beenthinking about, like, multi
classing her, and now I'm like,hmm.
Smite Bites sounds fun.
Kay (10:45):
Someday I'll get to use my hairless Tabaxi swashbuckler.
Someday.
Courtney (10:50):
Mine's a munchkin tabaxi, so she's like three feet
tall.
the And yeah, she's a piratecaptain because now we're
starting at level 10, and yeah.
I adore her.
Anyways.
Kay (11:03):
We could do this all day.
Let's run away from it.
Courtney (11:06):
Oh my god, absolutely.
Talk to me about startingChaotic Wholesome.
I
Kay (11:15):
had been kind of doing the streaming thing a little bit
anyway.
I had my my channel to affiliatethrough just streaming video
games and hanging out withfriends while I did that.
And I had started kind of,especially during the pandemic,
applying to be on a coupledifferent projects.
Shows and different games had areally cool charity game with
(11:37):
some really big names that I wasreally proud of until we no
longer associate with a coupleof those people, and so that VOD
is a little bit not as joyful asit used to be.
And I had other friends whowere, you know, in the space and
of other minority groups than meand started, you know, just
about how we We liked the gameswe were playing, right, but we
(12:00):
weren't necessarily getting toplay the kind of games we
wanted.
We weren't getting to tell thekind of stories we wanted.
We weren't getting the depth orthe table chemistry and we were
facing different ways for eachof us, you know, just some
discomfort at tables andsometimes a lack of respect,
sometimes just a lack ofunderstanding of why this was a
(12:20):
problem.
And it was a combination of thatand then I also Had always
wanted to run, like, a pressurecooker campaign.
A game where the party doesn'tknow each other at the start,
they have no reason to trusteach other, you're playing, you
have to work together, but alsoyou're just, you don't know
(12:44):
about other people, a situationwhere no one wants to info dump,
right?
You want to keep your secretsprecious for a while.
I couldn't find the module thatwould let me do that.
And so I did the thing, which Ialways end up doing, which I
looked at David and I waslooking at, like, I want to tell
the stories we want to tell withbetter, safer tables, more
(13:08):
exclusive with who we invite,play with, and have some of
these pressure cooker games,some of these more interesting
approaches to, I've got to do itmyself, don't I?
Heck.
And I very reluctantly startedrunning The God Plane, which is
an original 5E horror campaign,which I've had the great
(13:28):
pleasure to run with Candice theMagnificent and Urban Bohemian
and Piper and some other justincredible people.
We've run it twice, technicallythree times, but shh, where's
that, when is that third onecoming out?
I don't know, when is thathappening?
But yeah.
And we just kind of went fromthere.
We finished the God plane, weknew we were getting ready to
(13:49):
run some more stuff we starteddoing the table talk show, which
was every Tuesday.
We'd just get on and talk aboutissues challenges and happenings
in the tabletop space.
And it was supposed to be justlike a, a space filler.
people started asking us tocover topics and saying how much
(14:09):
it meant to them.
And it was like, oh, well maybethis is a thing we actually up,
okay.
And then we did, we knew, andthen an important thing to both
David and I is charity, so everyyear we do a big Christmas
charity game, where we raisemoney for extra life kids in
hospitals, and then it to PrideMonth, to Black History Month,
(14:33):
and yeah, we, we tell storiesand be nerdy together and do it
for a good cause.
Courtney (14:39):
love that so much.
Yeah, and I know you guys havedone a lot of shows by now.
I would love to dig in a littlebit more into just the evolution
of like, okay, you started withthe God plane and then.
You know, you just kind ofexpanded beyond that.
Kay (14:56):
Yeah, it just kind of took on a life of its own.
Some things just fell intoplace.
We started having friends comingto us and saying, hey, I have
this I really want to tell.
I can't run production.
Will you produce this?
So this past Black History Monthwe ran an all black table by
(15:19):
Candice the Magnificent withDanielle Radford who came on and
played, raising money for Blackand Pink.
Uh, we had Q Midnight Inc.
come to us and say, I have anAmerican Gods style game where
it is the old gods from Africagoing through different time
(15:39):
periods in America and howthey're reacting to this.
And it was incredibly touchingand A story that I really wanted
to facilitate the telling of.
So the channel is growing inways that I, as a white person,
could never have done had I justsaid, no, I have to be involved
(15:59):
in all of these things.
But it got to the point whereit's like, okay, there are
certain people in our community,be they GMs or players, that I
trust.
And if they come to me and say,I want to run something, I will
hand the reins over.
It is important for me that,yes, I I have a minority
background in certain ways, butI also have privilege in a lot
(16:19):
of ways.
I am white, and it is reallyimportant for me to understand
where I can help and where Ibest help by not being there.
By giving things over to otherpeople.
So, by being less precious aboutit, by being very particular
about who we let run games andwho we let be at the table, but
once we know and trust thosepeople, Letting go and giving
(16:42):
them control.
I was not even in the greenroom.
I let David run production forall of our all black tables,
because my whiteness in thatspace would change the vibe.
We're looking at running anotherall black campaign and they,
after seeing how the space Igave and how I treated it, they
(17:03):
were like, actually we want youin the room for this one.
Please be here.
Which I actually fought forquite a while until they were
like, K.
But I mean we've been incrediblyfortunate that we have reached
out to people and they've agreedto come on and run games, play
games, we've, I've beenfortunate enough to play with
Connie Chang with Naomi Kyle ofG4 fame incredible, truly
(17:28):
incredible people withIncredible imaginations, great
stories to tell, and I love thelittle stories that I tell, and
I love being able to sit backand either be a player in
someone else's world, or justwatch other people weave
something truly magical.
And sometimes, the communityjust decided what we were going
(17:50):
to do.
Someone who was still anonymousto this day gifted me the My
Little Pony TTRPG book when itcame out, and I was like, welp.
I guess we're running My LittlePony, and so I got to run that
adventure, and it was bananasand fun and just a pure source
of joy.
So yes, we run incrediblyintense horror campaigns, we run
(18:13):
really socially conscious games,and then we do My Little Pony!
And everything in between.
I don't know
Courtney (18:19):
Yeah.
Kay (18:19):
answered your question there, but that's where
Courtney (18:22):
Absolutely, yes.
So I love to dig into processes.
Ah, okay.
You know, I'm a project manager,and so that's, that's my whole
thing.
But I guess I would love to knowhow your processes have evolved
from the time that you firststarted with Godplane and you're
just starting out the channeland trying to get followers and
(18:45):
whatnot.
Like, how have your processes inpreparing for a new campaign and
actually doing the productionchanged from that first one up
into, your current shows?
Kay (18:56):
I would really like to say we've like polished and
streamlined.
I have the ideal of what I wouldlike to get done, what I would
like to happen by what point,but with a TTRPG you are
wrangling sometimes as many aseight or nine people.
Schedules, approvals, all ofthat.
(19:16):
So it kind of begins with who isrunning the game, because if I'm
running the game, cool, I have alot more control.
Someone else is running thegame, it's okay.
You as the GM, do you have, whatis your vision for what the
overlay should look like, forwhat the advertising graphics
should look like?
you creating that or do you wantme to?
We are incredibly fortunate thatwe get to work a lot of the time
(19:40):
with Jason Wooldridge, who isjust the most amazing designer.
He designed the My Little Ponyoverlay that we actually were
nominated for Best Overlay forCrit Awards for.
And it looked like something outof the show.
There was no question.
So it comes down to then of,okay, who's making it, what do
we want it to look like, whatiterations do we need, what is
(20:02):
required, because a lot of whatwe run is theater of the mind.
With our charity gamesespecially, we have maps that
are player facing only, becausewith some incredible people who
have no internal visualizationand need maps, and I don't
always have time to make a mapfor all the potential
(20:23):
encounters, so it's not pretty,but the audience doesn't need to
see it.
We set all that up, we figureout what the release date is
going to be, we agree on whatthe copy is going to be, is
there going to be multiple,copies?
Are there going to be multipleadvertising images?
Because I really like that.
It keeps things a little bitfresh.
Are we doing it still graphicsonly?
Are we doing video?
(20:45):
Sometimes we work with amazingpeople.
Candice the Magnificent actuallyrecorded a parody song for
campaign of the God Plane, whichthey put on TikTok and it's just
a delight.
And then it's make sure peopleget there as early as they can
for setup.
That's a challenge, becauseschedules are not great.
(21:09):
Trying to make sure the overlaydoes what we want it to do.
All of the streamer bot commandswork how we want them to do.
Is this a charity thing?
Are there donations?
Do donations unlock in realtime?
Do they unlock when the GMdecides is relevant, which is
what we did for the God Plane alot.
We hit milestones, and oncethose milestones were hit, the
(21:31):
players could find a cachewithin the world when the
narrative made sense.
Whereas a charity game, oh,nope, it's time to pull from the
deck of many things, hope youdon't get dead, and you got
death, okay.
So, figuring out all of that,and again, ideally, overlays are
done at least a month inadvance, streamer bot commands
and all that is ticked off andfigured out.
(21:51):
Often, literally had.
Overlays come in the day before.
We've been working off oftemporary holding ones, hoping
those are correct.
You know, we are, we arewholesome, but also chaos is
part of our name.
So we, we roll with it.
But a lot of the elbow work forme is the editing after making
(22:14):
sure we've got separate audiofor everyone, cleaning up that
separate audio, putting it alltogether, cutting out commercial
breaks.
You know, doing all of thosethings.
So there's a nice video thatlives on forever after, and
we'll hopefully have people seeclips of it and go, Oh, maybe I
want to follow this.
Maybe these are stories I wouldenjoy.
(22:36):
And yeah, making short formcontent.
I hate making short formcontent.
It is so necessary foreverything we do these days, but
I hate making short formcontent.
I'm fortunate that I get to playwith amazing people who make it
easy.
But it's still like, I gotta cutit down.
Okay.
I've got to have it vertical forshorts and TikTok.
I've got to have it this way forother socials.
Do I have to have it this wayfor other socials anymore?
(22:57):
Hmm.
Courtney (22:59):
That is, like, always the question of which social
platform is it worth posting ontoday?
Kay (23:05):
Oh my goodness.
I do community management andsocial media for my day job.
And people just like, where,what's social media now?
It's like, I don't, your guessis as good as my,
Courtney (23:15):
also, that is really rough that you're like, I hate
doing short form content andthat's your day job.
Mm
Kay (23:24):
I don't mind other people.
Making the short form content.
I don't mind saying, okay, weneed short form.
Use this clip, turn it,
Courtney (23:30):
hmm.
Kay (23:31):
But when you don't have a team and you have to do it
yourself, and especially if it'syour own voice and face in it,
Courtney (23:37):
Yeah.
Kay (23:37):
terrible.
Courtney (23:39):
Yeah, I am so terrible at like actually getting clips
from this show, which I know Ihave to do.
But it's always just like, but Ijust spent hours editing and one
hour to conversation.
I don't want to.
Kay (23:52):
Yeah.
the one thing I've given myself,like the one happy that I've
gotten is, especially for, Ialso do this for the Emergency
of Power podcast, which is underthe cataclysm umbrella.
It's a Starfinder actual playpodcast.
And GM does most of the editing,and so they pull funny
Courtney (24:15):
mmm.
Kay (24:16):
clips, and then I get to take them, and I have it pre set
up in DaVinci Resolve.
it's audio only, so I just havea pretty, I have the character
that's talking, I have awaveform, and I just get to
watch the waveform bounce, Imake sure it's good, I send it
to everyone for approval,because And, you know, you want
to make sure, especially if it'sgoing out to the audience at
large, everyone's okay beingrepresented that way.
(24:36):
And I just get to watch thewaveform bounce, and that's
pretty great.
Courtney (24:40):
Yeah, not having to actually pick the sound clip.
That, that's the, that's thebattle.
That's the hardest part.
Kay (24:46):
Absolutely.
Courtney (24:49):
Hey, entrepreneurs.
I love introducing you to newcreators every episode, but I
could really use your support.
I would love to invite you tojoin our Patreon page where
you'll gain access to behind thescenes content.
Add your questions to upcominginterviews, and you could even
receive a shout out on our sitein an upcoming episode.
To learn more, go to LightheartAdventures dot com slash rpg and
(25:11):
now back to the show.
So I did want to circle back onsomething that you said just to
make sure that I understand howthat works, which is that the
donations you said can unlock atspecific points if the GM wants
it.
And so, yeah, just talk methrough what you mean by that.
Kay (25:34):
Yeah, so, you know, with charity games, obviously, real
time.
Oh, someone give us advantageright now, right?
I love that chaos, but thatchaos is not always conducive to
all styles of games.
Especially horror games, whereBreaking the mood, breaking the
moment can absolutely destroythe scene, can just take you out
of it.
(25:55):
one of the things I put togetherwas people can donate.
I keep track of those donationsand they especially can unlock
caches, and these caches willhave things like healing
potions, magical items, specialitems for each character,
because the God Plane is verycharacter focused.
(26:17):
Depending upon when it's run,it's between 6 and 12 episodes,
And, it's a, a middle form,right?
It's not short form, but it'snot long form.
And it's very much, we startwith these characters who are
unknown, who have, clearly haveinteresting pasts.
How do we get them to speed runa redemption arc, help them
(26:37):
resolve the issues of thisworld?
And so just all of a sudden,OOP, and this magic item just
dropped in front of you doesn'twork very well.
So Godplane has a lot of aRavenloft feel where there's,
you're in the mists everywhere,and there's a compass which
tells you how to get through themists, and sometimes a little
blue needle will pop up, willpoint players to item caches
(27:02):
that audience have unlockedthrough donations.
So there are magic items hiddenin the world, but when it is
time, they can go, Oh, what,what's this?
And they'll have healing potionsand magic items, and they can
figure out who gets what.
a way that makes sense, becausethey're at camp, or they're,
it's a between beat, and sowe're not trying to shoehorn a
magic item appearing when we're,you know, trying to decide, Hmm,
(27:27):
do we trust this person?
Are they here to betray us?
We're having a really intenseconversation.
Oh, look, a magic ring.
Being a GM especially If you'realso running production is so
much work, so I'm always tryingto figure out whether I'm
someone else is GMing on streamand I'm running production and
or a player, how can I give youthis stuff in a way that will
(27:48):
not break your train of thought,that will not ruin the moment.
try to, try to find ways tostreamline things to make it for
audience consumption and GMsanity.
Courtney (27:58):
Oh, for sure.
Yeah.
I really admire people like youthat can GM live in front of an
audience and make itinteresting.
I have only one long termcampaign, and I don't even like
taking notes on my own stuff soI can't even imagine just the
(28:18):
pressure and additional workthat has to go into like being
on for more than just yourplayers.
Kay (28:25):
I have DMed a long term campaign.
The longest campaign I've everrun was 12 sessions.
But I have also only ever runtwo sessions not streamed.
I just jumped in hard mode.
I was like, Well, here we go.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna GM now.
May as well do it live so I canwatch back and critique myself
and hate my life.
Courtney (28:46):
So was that literally like the first one you ever GM'd
was live?
Kay (28:49):
Yeah.
Courtney (28:50):
Oh my gosh.
All right.
Kay (28:53):
I am incapable of half assing anything.
So yeah, I was like, well, if Ihave to do this, I may as well
do it live.
Heck it, we ball.
Courtney (29:04):
That is very admirable.
Kay (29:06):
Or foolish! Take your pick! I'm
Courtney (29:09):
mean, you're still doing it and you have an
audience, so I think it worked.
I'm so
Kay (29:15):
grateful for the people who come out and support us and join
in our stories, be it on streamor in the audience chatting,
encouraging us on, giving usmore ideas, giving us more puns
GMs with.
Like, I am so fortunate that Ihave these people who have Come
and found my silly littlechannel, it's, it means a lot.
Courtney (29:38):
So I am curious about, I mean, I think it's going to
probably be different for eachcampaign depending on who's
actually running it and whatnot,but I guess for the ones that
you are more involved in, how doyou find your cast?
Kay (29:54):
So, I tend to build tables around who I think would be a
great fit for the game, thesystem, etc.
I think it's decently well knownat this point that I am not the
biggest fan of Powered by theApocalypse and its subsequent
(30:14):
systems.
I really enjoy D20 systems.
However, I can and will do RulesLight for one shots.
So I look for, I'm looking for asystem or a GM, you know, what's
that match there, who's going tohave an interest?
If I am running it, okay, sowhat system are we running?
Because I think it's veryimportant that your, you find
(30:36):
the system that matches yourgame.
Yes, I run a horror game in 5e.
Is it the most ideal system?
No, but for shorter termcampaigns, most everyone knows
5e and I can ease them throughit.
Certainly a Trophy Dark is gonnabe much more atmospheric, but I
am not as good at running those.
I first look for who would bethe ideal person.
(31:00):
Who do I want most?
I will start making a list ofwho do I think would be good for
this.
And then I look at that list andgo, okay, who do I want most?
So if it's like, I want Candicein this game, I'm gonna reach
out to Candice first and say,Candice, I want you to play
this.
you to play in this.
This is the game.
This is the system.
(31:20):
This is kind of the feel.
Here's some other people I'mthinking of inviting.
Are you cool with all of them?
And do you have anyone elseyou'd like to suggest?
And then I take the list thatperson gives me, combine them,
decide then, okay, who's topthree, reach out to the first
top three and say, okay, we havethis person confirmed.
(31:41):
We're looking at inviting theseother two people.
you have any?
Concerns.
Is there anyone that you musthave at the table?
Let me know.
I think it's very important,especially given what we're
learning about a lot of peoplein the space, to make sure
everyone knows up front who'sgoing to be involved, make sure
everyone knows the themes.
(32:01):
When I invited Brian UrbanBohemian to come on God Plane,
he was like, well, I don't, Idon't know how well I can play
horror because I'm usually thefunny one.
And I'm like, Brian, you will beamazing at this.
And he was, right?
when I was running My LittlePony, I'm like, Ohenio, DM Jazzy
(32:23):
Hands, please, please come on.
And he's like, I am down, but Ihave never watched My Little
Pony.
And I'm like, watch these threeepisodes, because he said I want
to play a party planner pony.
And I'm like, cool, watch thefirst two episodes, and watch
the one with Weird Al playing aparty planner.
And Got the assignment, showedup, brought it, was incredible.
(32:44):
So you start with, and it's alsovery important especially if you
are a person who has skin mycolor, focus on your minority
players first because especiallyif you're doing open casting
calls you're gonna have a lot ofwhite people, you're gonna have
a lot of men, you're gonna havea lot of straight people.
(33:06):
That's gonna be the majority ofyour applicants.
That is not a bad thing, but ifyou are wanting to commit to
diversity and making sure thatthere are various viewpoints at
the table, you have to startwith the people who are going to
be least likely to apply first,and make sure that they are
comfortable, and then you canreach out to the other folks.
(33:28):
So Again, and I hate that I haveto say this, but this is where
we are, DEI not mean that thepeople who are the diversity,
who are diverse, are onlygetting this job, this role,
because they are this.
It means that they are as goodas everyone else and we just
(33:50):
want to make sure there's spacefor them at the table.
Because there's a hundredapplicants from straight white
dudes.
And, when we played our homegame, the majority of our home
game were straight white dudes.
And I have been trying to getKato to come on my stream and
play with us forever.
And he's like, I'm a straightwhite dude, I don't need to be
there.
(34:10):
And I'm like, but you'rehilarious, you are so brilliant.
Nope, mm, I'm over represented.
You have fun.
And I also hate that I have tosay this, but we do have to.
Diverse spaces also have diverseabusers.
So you also have to be awarethat just because someone is gay
or a certain skin color doesn'tmean that they don't have the
potential to be problematic.
(34:31):
And you have to listen to whenpeople.
that people are problematic.
Courtney (34:37):
It's definitely been a tumultuous couple of years
Kay (34:40):
Oh yes.
Courtney (34:41):
this space.
Kay (34:42):
And oh my goodness, people having drama?
Never.
Courtney (34:48):
What?
None of
Kay (34:49):
us are former drama kids.
None of us are, are at all maincharacter syndrome.
No, we don't.
Courtney (34:55):
Why would someone like that enjoy a game where they
tell a story and center it onbeing a hero?
Kay (35:03):
That doesn't attract a certain personality.
Courtney (35:06):
Not at all.
Ugh, God, yeah, I I don't knowif you, have felt this way, but
it's definitely, you know, Ialways used to be like, okay,
I'll check social media profilesbefore I reach out to someone or
if they reach out to me wantingto be on the show.
But it seems like there's almostlike a little bit of a paranoia
these days because it's justlike, okay, the media looks
(35:31):
okay, but also there's lots ofmedia, so now I have to, like,
go search in all of thesedifferent places and But also,
are they actually okay?
Kay (35:37):
and with a lot of people like leaving say Twitter,
Courtney (35:40):
Mm hmm.
A lot of their posts
Kay (35:41):
are gone.
So if
Courtney (35:42):
Yep.
Kay (35:43):
that might be gone.
I am really fortunate that Ihave grown this community that
are dedicated to protectingpeople, to uplifting the right
voices, and I have people I cango to now and be like, okay, I'm
looking at this person.
What do you think?
What do you know?
What have you heard?
And they have never steered mewrong, so.
(36:07):
Again, community is everything.
Courtney (36:09):
100%.
Yeah.
It's, it's so vital to havethose networks and that is
something that I love abouthaving grown my show over the
last several years and justengaging with people you know.
Especially with, like, thesmaller users, which I think is
where I tend to focus a lot istrying to uplift, like, newer
(36:31):
designers and whatnot.
It's always, very interesting,getting a fresh perspective all
of the time.
So I, especially since you're acommunity manager for your day
job, I'd love to talk about ifyou've got things that in this
social media hellscape that youhave found have been still
(36:55):
working or tips on growing anaudience and connecting with
your audience.
Kay (37:00):
Unfortunately, everything is so tumultuous that it is just
incredibly challenging.
The other thing is, given theThe state we're in and we're
going to be for the next fouryears, it's going to be more and
more risky to use social media.
If you have not downloadedSignal, cannot encourage you all
(37:21):
enough to download Signal and todonate to them because they pay
their workers above minimum paywage, above average pay wage
actually, and they run entirelyoff of donations.
But it's going to be a greatresource coming up.
Because, again, it's gonna evenbe dangerous to talk about these
(37:44):
diversity things here in thevery near future.
When growing your space, Discordis always a great, Discord's
great but the the thing I alwaysstress, and this is true across
your social medias, be itTwitter or Blue Sky, be it
Discord, be it Wherever y'allare hanging out, Slack to
(38:06):
people.
I don't think anyone uses, Ihope no one uses Slack for
personal, but what do I know.
Anything you condone, youendorse.
Any behavior that you toleratewill be seen as just acceptable,
but allowed and encouraged.
So, That's my biggest thing, isif you start seeing questionable
(38:31):
behavior, if you start seeingpeople pushing the boundaries,
it is better to kick that personout it is to let them hang out,
because they will bring morepeople who think like them, and
then when people see that beingtolerated, they will go, oh,
this is a space where I can dothat, and you've got a much
bigger problem on your hands.
But yeah short form content,video Gen Alpha especially is
(38:56):
very into very casual, be veryreal, talk to people, don't try
to sell people.
If you try and sell, it's reallynot gonna work.
But yeah, just being open, beinginviting, being friendly and
casual is Right now that's thebest advice I can give because
(39:16):
everything is so up in the airand changing so quickly and Who
knows what's gonna happen nextand are we potentially
witnessing the death of socialmedia?
Maybe.
We'll see what happens.
Courtney (39:31):
Such a comforting thought.
Kay (39:33):
It's really weird that Tumblr's making a comeback,
right?
Like Tumblr is becoming a thingagain and I, that hasn't
happened since they banned pornso I'm just watching this with
popcorn.
Courtney (39:45):
Yeah, so what's funny is I never actually got onto
Tumblr.
And it's only in the last coupleof weeks that I'm just like,
should I do it?
Why is this even a question now?
Kay (39:56):
At the height, I was never a Tumblr power user, I loved
Tumblr at the height of Tumblrbecause I would follow the
fandom and culture wars onTumblr like most people follow
sports teams.
It was like, okay, who are thefurries fighting with today?
Okay, the Team Wolf fandom is upat arms.
(40:17):
Who is it with?
Let's go.
It was incredible.
Courtney (40:22):
Oh, it's great.
Yeah, there is this one projectI'm It's almost done that I was
working on with a new gamedesigner and he kept being like,
yeah, you know, like I'm postingabout it on Tumblr and like
trying to get followers there.
And I'm like, really?
And this was three years ago.
So it's just the fact that hewas just very actively on there
(40:42):
and I'm like, I mean, okay.
And now, he was the only personI heard talking about it until
literally a few weeks ago andnow everyone's talking about
Tumblr again.
Yeah,
Kay (40:51):
Yeah, there's always been some niche active fandoms, so if
you could activate one person onTumblr, they would go, everyone
look at this new thing and comejoin me in obsession.
Courtney (41:03):
Mm hmm.
It's amazing.
So one thing that I like to askin every interview, we make
content, we work, et cetera inthis industry because we like
games, presumably.
If you don't, why would you behere?
But, obviously, there'schallenges.
And so, I would love to know,outside of the social media
(41:26):
marketing hellscape, what aresome of the challenges that
you've had to face as you'vebeen trying to grow Chaotic
Wholesome?
Kay (41:34):
Just finding an audience is always a challenge.
We live in an era whereeverything is competing for
everyone's attention.
Video games, mobile games,television, Netflix, TikTok,
everything is competing foreveryone's time.
Especially streaming, especiallyon Twitch, starting out.
(41:54):
If you are wanting to startstreaming on Twitch now, you're
gonna have to get verycomfortable with the fact that
you're probably gonna bestreaming to an empty chat room
for at least the first year.
Unless you get real lucky.
Finding that audience is alwaysthe biggest challenge.
And I always say, like, don'ttry to partner with Ninja right
(42:15):
away.
You Find other small creatorswho share your values, who are
interested in the same thing asyou, and build your own little
community.
Don't be selfish with your, withyour stream times, with your
community, with youractivations, work together,
share ideas, uplift each other,because the rising tide really
does lift all boats.
(42:36):
If you are trying to get intotabletop content to make money,
it doesn't matter if you aredoing it.
Third party PDFs if you're doingindie games, if you are a
streaming channel, it isdifficult to get money, it is
(42:56):
easier to get product, so youcan get product to give away,
then you also have to deal withshipping costs, international
shipping customs, what if itgets lost in the mail, who's
responsible for replacing it, sothere are a whole lot of
challenges.
You do this, you really have todo this because you love it.
(43:17):
If you are trying to jump intoTTRPGs to get rich, maybe
there's a small chance you couldbe the next Matt Mercer.
But again, Matt Mercer didn'tget to where he was because of
his DMing originally.
It was because he was a verywell known and beloved voice
actor first.
Please, please, if you arestarting out, do not go out and
(43:39):
spend thousands and thousandsand thousands of dollars on
equipment.
Get your audio in line.
Spend your money first on audio.
You only really need a decentwebcam, it doesn't have to be
great.
Get your lighting done andupgrade your internet.
That's the first thing to do ifyou're wanting to get into this.
You're gonna have to have a goodprocessor if you're wanting to
(44:01):
run production on TTRPGs.
It is so much more demanding onyour computer and your internet
speeds than you would expect.
Yeah, those are, the challengesare, you know, Do you have the
ability to even stream?
Because getting into this ispretty much a privilege to start
with.
Part of the reason I produce asmuch as I do is, as much as I
(44:21):
have, is because people havecome to me and said, I just
can't do it.
I can't afford the equipment.
I can't get the good internethere.
Learn to be patient and learn toadjust because Things happen.
People are going to ghost you,people are going to no show
someone's internet is going togo down in the middle of a
(44:44):
session.
You are going to have to cancelminutes before or, or decide am
I running with one less person?
Figure out what your safetytools are going to be.
Y'all we have available atchaoticwholesomepresents.
com.
We have a form fillable autoupdating Google.
(45:05):
based, lines and veils documentthat I was watching so many
people try to convert PDFs intotaking six people's lines and
veils, trying to put them intoone master document that later
could not be edited if someonewent, I didn't think about this,
but I need this added.
Figure out your tools, figureout what conversation you need
(45:27):
to have, which can be what's offlimits.
What's your safety word, right?
How do we get out of hereimmediately if we need to?
What, many people have to bemissing before we cancel without
everyone's feelings getting hurtbecause you have to discuss that
beforehand or someone is goingto feel targeted.
(45:48):
There is a lot of equipment andprocess to figure out before you
even start dealing with We're abunch of theater kids! Okay.
There's egos, there'sfrustrations, there's
neurodivergence, there's mentalillness, there's chronic
fatigue, there's physicalillness.
to deal with all of that.
(46:08):
So you're going to have to learnto be patient and flexible,
because.
If the party takes two hours todo what was supposed to be the
first 45 minutes of your oneshot, you have to get the rest
of that story in there somehowand finish it without suddenly
holding people captive for aseven hour one shot when they
(46:31):
only signed up for a three hourone.
That sounded very, that was verylong and it sounded very doom
and gloom, but again you do thisbecause you love it and if you
are aware of these challengesgoing in you're going to be so
much better equipped to runthem, to deal with them, to put
on an awesome show and leaveeveryone feeling happy and
honestly if things go wrong Andeveryone leaves happy?
(46:55):
It's fine.
The number of times we have hadmid game, on air, everything has
gone wrong, audio has stoppedworking, my entire computer
crashed while I was runningproduction one time, we had to
turn it back, turn everythingback on, switch production over
to David's computer, pick itback up mid game, I was like, I
am so embarrassed, everyone isgoing to judge me, no one is
(47:18):
going to want to work with me,we finished that game and
everyone went, You just, youfixed it, you made it work, and
you finished on time.
I am so impressed.
You're the most professionalperson I've ever worked with.
And I'm like, that was so not,thank you, but that was not
professional.
But thank you, but,
Courtney (47:35):
mean, that is impressive.
I, it's stressful.
So stressful.
But impressive.
Okay, you're right, it can sounddoom and gloom.
But that is why I like to followup with, what is the most
rewarding part of doing this?
Kay (47:49):
Oh, the most rewarding parts have come in ways that I
did not expect.
Obviously, you finishing,finishing the game, and everyone
going, that was so great.
That was awesome.
Thank you.
I had so much fun.
I didn't think I'd get to tellthat story or I got to reveal
that thing about my character.
Like it feels so good.
What really is amazing is whenyou realize that what you have
(48:13):
done has impacted people beyondwho's at your table, beyond
anyone or any way you would haveexpected.
I don't want to go into too muchdetail, but my co founder, my
creative partner, David, hasbeen in the hospital for a
couple months now.
And our community startedrecording videos and voice memos
(48:37):
I could bring and play for himwhile he was stuck there.
number one, that was so nice.
Like, just them being willing todo that.
But the personal stories thatpeople have shared, the things
that people have said about, Ifound your community through
your talk show because you weretalking about.
Issues that I was dealing withother parts of my community and
(49:01):
I would not still be in thisspace, I would not still have
the friends I have if I had not,not just taken the advice that
you'd given, but seen it handledin a way with kindness, with a
logic but also, not just advice,not just tools, but the way you
approached it, let me know thatI was not alone, gave me tips on
(49:23):
how to deal it, and how toremove myself from the situation
if it just wasn't going to work,because sometimes we don't
actually know where theboundaries are, and that they
have been crossed until someoneelse tells you, yo, that's,
that's not cool, that's notokay.
I would never have known that Ihad impacted those people in
that way, had my partner notfallen ill, right?
(49:45):
I'm not gonna speak for David,but I certainly cried, teared up
listening to some of those.
So, yeah the community you find,the people you find along the
way, and occasionally learningthat you did as much good for
them.
As they have done for you, is,there's no words for how much
(50:07):
that means.
Courtney (50:09):
That is so special and I'm I'm so glad that your
community was able to pulltogether for you both.
That's so sweet.
Kay (50:20):
Like I said, I am so lucky to have the community I do.
It's the best part of what I do.
I get to play games, I get toraise money for charity, games
with people I adore.
And then on top of that, I havean incredible community that I
cannot wait to have enough prewritten, pre built modules that
(50:41):
I can run games for these peopleoffline and we can all just be
friends and play games together.
It's gonna be great.
Courtney (50:47):
Amazing.
Well, Kay, do you have anyupcoming projects that you are
excited about and are able totalk about?
Kay (50:58):
So, Season 4 of the Emergency Power Podcast is
actively being edited and willcome out very soon.
It is a Starfinder Actual Play.
playing the worst character inthe world.
They are just an absolutescumbag.
And Season 3 was kind of theircoming to terms with the fact of
(51:22):
the person they've become.
And I can't wait for you all tosee their arc in Season 4.
The cool thing about EmergencyPower is season three is the
longest season, but you can jumpin at season three, there's a
really great recap, so if you'relike, hmm, I wanna dip my toe in
and see, because we had two newcast members join at the start
of season, no, we had three newcast members join at the start
(51:44):
of season three, so you don'thave to go through all of the
backlog to get to kind of themeat and potatoes.
You can find us at the TableTalk show every Tuesday, where
we talk all things TTRPGs fromindies to intersectionality.
And, got some other thingscoming up that I really can't
(52:04):
talk about too much, butthere's, there's As I hinted at
before, there is a thirdcampaign of the God Plane that
will hopefully be coming outthis year.
You can also find me over atEntropy Emporium every other
Friday playing the Weird WildsWar, which is a homebrew 5e
fantasy campaign where I playBrandon, the T Fork Drake Warden
(52:26):
Ranger, who's like never had athought in his head.
And he makes good Goodberries,and he just got to hand some out
last night.
And There's a the only otherthing I can really say at this
point is there's a Star Warsgame in my future.
Courtney (52:42):
Amazing!
Kay (52:42):
lots of other stuff on the docket.
Hopefully, we will have Davidback in action soon, and we'll
be able to do some of ourcharity games coming up, Pride
Month, Black History Month, andor Christmas.
But, right now, question mark,question mark, question mark.
Courtney (52:57):
Amazing.
I will have links to things inthe show notes.
Kay, thank you so much forcoming on today.
This has been so fun and I feellike this last hour has gone by
so fast.
Kay (53:10):
Thank you so much for having me.
It was a treat to chat with you.
And, you know, I hope I didn'tgo too chaotic.
Courtney (53:18):
Not at all.
It was very fun.
Thank you, listeners, forhanging out today.
At this point, I am going tostop the recording and then
immediately start it back upwhere we are going to do a fun
quick question blitz forpatrons, where I am going to ask
Kay some more silly questions,some of which are gaming
(53:38):
related, some are not.
If you want to check that out,you can go to patreon.
com slash Roll Play Grow.
Thank you for listening, andthank you again, Kay.
Kay (53:49):
Thank you.
Bye!
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