There’s Just Something About Monsterhearts (w/ Zack Tuttle-Robb)

Kenzie Tartaglione:

Hello everyone! Welcome to Press Pause where we take a short break from our actual play show and do something different, something new, something spontaneous. This is Let's Chat an interview show where we bring in creatives in the TTRPG space to talk about what they do and why they do it. So today we have a very special guest here for you all, Zack Tuttle-Robb (laughs).

 

Zack Tuttle-Robb:

Stop it.

 

Kenzie:

Zack is the MC for a Monsterhearts podcast called These Silent Secrets which is part of the Ghostlight Media podcast network so thank you so much for coming on our podcast!

 

Zack:

Of course Kenzie, hi.

 

Kenzie:

Hello, hello it feels like this has been a long time coming.

 

Zack:

It has. It has - when you first reached out to me like I said I was like I started listening to your show and I was like this is all really cool and I gotta find some excuse to be like, hi, let's just chat and hang out. So when you messaged me I was like, oh yes it happened!

 

Kenzie:

We don’t need an excuse, we just gotta do it. That’s the whole thing.

 

Zack:

We just gotta do it. Here we are.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah so we have to start out talking about the most important thing, the very beginning, how did you get into TTRPGs?

 

Zack:

Oh goodness that's a big question.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah.

 

Zack:

Alright so I didn't start until I was, oh goodness twenty… I'm thirty now so it's been ten years doing this weird shenanigans that we all love. But I had originally started - you know I had made a bunch of, of course nerdy friends in college. I was a theater student.

 

Kenzie:

As was I.

 

Zack:

We're cool kids aren't we?

 

Kenzie:

Yes.

 

Zack:

But at the time - you know I made a some friends and they were all in - it was only referred to as game. I didn't - at that point I had no experience in things at all and so I was in this one class we had, it was called Treehouse Troupe. It was like a touring children's theater kind of like program our theatre department did and I was in that my friends, Griffy – I call him Griffy all the time - my friends Griffin and Britney and they were both in game and they would talk about game constantly. And at one point - essentially the group that did game also did two small like local theater groups. They did one called Lionface one called Beautiful Kids Independent Shakespeare. And Lionface they did a lot of like locally written stuff and they do one acts like every year. And so one of them Griffin was directing and it was one about Dungeons and Dragons and he was like hey, Zack, I I have specifically like the character who like has never played before and is like the DM's roommate and is just kind of there and I think you'd be really funny, will you come do this this one act? And I was like sure that’d be great and so I did the one acts, people were like Zack’s really fun you should bring him to game. I showed up –

 

Kenzie:

It's so wild that they called it game.

 

Zack:

It’s just game.

 

Kenzie:

That's like a secretive, mysterious –

 

Zack:

Because at that point the group - it was a huge group but it was at that point like it was all homebrewed stuff.

 

Kenzie:

Okay.

 

Zack:

I came into just - yeah like it wasn't D&D at that point like we ended up playing 5e eventually but yeah it was just homebrewed stuff. So yeah I walked into an apartment full of you know Shakespeare theatre nerds. Everyone's in costume.

 

Kenzie:

Wow, yeah.

 

Zack:

I knew maybe three people there previously and everyone's talking in accents and I'm like what the fuck did I get myself into.

 

Kenzie:

That is like a very intense thing to walk in on.

 

Zack:

It is. Well yeah no it's specifically - my friend - yeah I only met them a couple times, my friend ML and they're sitting there like you know, shirtless aside from this like furred vest on and they're talking like this deep Scottish accent and I'm like what, what, what.

 

Kenzie:

Did I happen upon LARPing actually?

 

Zack:

Kind of. Well it's it was always the type of group or like you know like you know I came in I think there was maybe twelve players and two GM's so like it was a huge thing and it was all in this small like two-bedroom apartment. And it was the type of thing where like yeah we'd all be clustered in the living room but then it would be like Austin, so I need like these two characters to be out here, the kitchen, the dining room like the bedrooms are open and so the rest of us would go out and just talk and characters for like you know thirty, forty-five minutes without like any direction.

 

Kenzie:

Wow.

 

Zack:

And so like it was just this weird super intense improv exercise.

 

Kenzie:

That’s like fully immersive D&D.

 

Zack:

It was wild and so that that was my first experience and so yeah the years ticked on of playing with that group and then you know I was about to graduate - me and my friends got really into The Adventure Zone I think like a lot of people did and we're like yeah we could do this too, right? Right?

 

Kenzie:

I mean that’s what we all think. I didn't start with The Adventure Zone. I've listened to a couple of their episodes but it is you see somebody doing it and you go wait a second,

 

Zack:

I could do that.

 

Kenzie:

I could do that.

 

Zack:

Yeah it's not at all a saturated space or anything.

 

Kenzie:

Not at all.

 

Zack:

So yeah I threw a hat in there then yeah it was 2017 so sixe years later and still making TTRPG shit for the internet.

 

Kenzie:

I mean that's awesome. That's kind of like doing - you know we somehow made our hobby I can't, you know you can't say a career but –

 

Zack:

I mean a form of art like I'm - I can't draw. When it comes to writing I call myself more of a storyteller than a writer so like you know like my wife writes novels. I cannot do that. But I can run a game and kind of tell a story so.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah! (laughs) Yeah! So how did you find your way - like you obviously went into that group as a player - how did you find your way into like running games?

 

Zack:

The first time I ran it was actually a really interesting thing. So like I'd played with that group for a while and then you know for like a year or two and then I ended up meeting, like meeting my wife and then also like there was a small like sort of splinter group from like that main game group that like we hung out like all the time, just kind of all throughout the week. You know they lived upstairs from us and so it was that kind of situation –

 

Kenzie:

Yeah.

 

Zack:

Like let's go up there. Let's go up to Griffin and Austin's place and Griffin hadn't ran yet and he tried running a thing for us for a little and then we have like a weird idea ‘cause like all of us had never tried it we kind of wanted to dip our toes in and so like we sat like in like my dining room one night and we all tried to like devise like a sort of a setting where we could all like switch in and out running, And so we came up with this campaign idea of like you know everyone sort of doesn't like  - you know their memories kind of been wiped. They're in this weird space but they kind of jump into all these smaller kind of like different - so like you could change your genre, anyone could really run anything and we just kind of did like a real revolving door of everyone kind of took turns like running a game or two.

 

Kenzie:

That sounds kind of coo. Somebody was recently talking to me about Discworld and it weirdly sounds –

 

Zack:

I’ve not tried -

 

Kenzie:

Something like that.

 

Zack:

I haven't heard too much about Discword but yeah like we called it Hub and oh god I can't remember the network that did it. My wife actually turned it into like an audio drama like a scripted thing – I forget the production company that did it but they did like a scripted version of it. But no it was really cool, it was just like you know like I ran like a weird like underwater world game. My wife ran a couple that were just based off like folkore like in our world. And we did like some - our friend Jeffrey wrote a whole like Phantom Tollbooth game for us to play through. So like yeah it was just a chance for all of us to kind of dip our toe into that realm and I just kind of was like alright maybe I can try like a three shot and then like you know maybe like a small campaign and then yeah just kind of –

 

Kenzie:

Yeah.

 

Zack:

It was like all right I'll aim a little farther every time since then.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah so you said that you ended up playing D&D 5e but obviously you are also playing Monsterhearts, do you have like a reference of types of games you like to play?

 

Zack:

Yeah well they provide very different vibes.




Kenzie:

Yeah like I found that I've recently moved into just anything that's like not as structured as D&D Is. Like not as mechanic heavy, more narrative focus stuff so I didn't know if that was –

 

Zack:

Yeah I have - I mean just by the grace of the group that I started playing with, even when we were playing like D&D 5e we still kept that very immersive like we're gonna go chat in this backroom for you know thirty minutes like and not - like without any roles kind of have some cool moments together. So everything we've done has always been very narrative focused and so that's kind of the vibe I've always tried to carry even when I'm not playing with that group necessarily. I love 5e, I like to think that you know - I very much got that type of brain of like when I really like something I suck it all in so like yeah I very much got that like Mercer brain of I can rattle pretty much any rule or whatever of so like part of me always loves 5e. I haven’t played 5e in a very long time at this point. But there's something about Monsterhearts that I find much more cathartic in a way. Like I feel like I can connect with my characters in Monsterhearts more than I could with like my fantasy oriented characters when playing D&D or whatever other fantasy game.

 

Kenzie:

I wonder if that is being like present now adjacent in a sense. Monsterhearts more than - like fantasy you are putting yourself into a space that if you're doing more of like medieval fantasy you don't know what it was like to live then –

 

Zack:

Exactly.

 

Kenzie:

You can pretend and do that but like being able to - and of course those stories still allow for, you know, interpersonal relationships and moments that do affect us and are close to us but when you are in an actual setting that is more familiar, I feel like that allows you to connect a little bit closer.

 

Zack:

Well yeah and you know especially with games like Monsthearts there's such this emphasis on - like I mean like you're exploring like that monstrous side of you but like also what it means to like be just like you know a teenager growing up and like modern day America. And so like kind of like what you’re saying like we've all experienced that in some way and so like being able to I guess like experiment with different like - the different points of view that I didn't have when I was that age. There's something about it. It’s just - it hits so much different than playing -

 

Kenzie:

It also I think draws people who are not in their teens anymore back to it because we all were like, okay, well what if we had gone through our teens with like a little more control over the situation?

 

Zack:

Definitely. Well and like it allows you to I mean kind of explore like - like I know when I was a teen boy like there was… had some iffy sort of points of view on probably everything. And so experiencing those moments but like with who you are today, like in the background, like it's odd and it's just kind of really fun to experiment with.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah. Was your kind of progress into making the show like you had already had a group to play Monsterhearts with or were you like I want to make a show, let me find some people who want to play this game.

 

Zack:

Yeah, well, so yeah my show was the first time I guess, well, not the first but the first sort of longer form thing we’d gotten people from outside. So Ghostlight Media is essentially that same group that I started playing with, you know, all from, you know, we all met at Bowling Green State University, like the same sort of – But the thing was is, you know, all northwestern ohio, the group –

 

Kenzie:

Yeah, no, right.

 

Zack:

Like, you know, very white, like a lot of queer folks in that group but like very, very white. And so we started making all this podcast content, it was very fun to get to work with people, especially after I've moved away and still being able to stay in contact with the other people that I love and the people that I want to talk to. But also, like we're making content for like the world today and the world he doesn't look like the group of us for the most part. And so yeaah we've been playing Monsterhearts for a while and I was like I want to start a Monsterhearts podcast. At that point like I could only find like when I wanted to do it, I could only find like a one other like Monsterhearts like full podcast aside from like the Critical Role one shot which is what got me into it.

 

Kenzie:

Oh, I saw that too. That was the first time I ever heard about Monsterhearts was that, yeah.

 

Zack:

Yeah, I was obsessed the moment I saw that. I would not shut up, everyone got very frustrated with me. But I was, the show that kind of started Ghostlight Media was a 5e podcast called Another Path, and that was four white men. And so like we brought guests on. I was doing my best to be like, hi we need to get some people, there are four white guys on this thing. Then so I was like, you know what? I'm just going to make a show, find some people that don't look like me. And make a cool show and so I mean luckily like obviously I was like - I like working with my wife very much so she's gonna be involved in this. Our friend Mariah who hadn't really played a lot of anything but is a really good actor and just, you know, she's got good voibes and then Nicole’s also really big in like the voice acting community on Twitter and stuff. So she was like hi we’re looking for, you know, some people that are interested in being an a Monsterhearts thing. And we found Marcus and Freddie from that Marcus I think had done like some like online acting workshops that my wife had done. And so like she was like Marcus, they're awesome. We got to get them.

 

Kenzie:

They need to be in our show.

 

Zack:

And then like, you know, a bunch of people had responded to our post and we saw Freddie, we're like alright, voice actor played a bunch of TTRPG's, Monstershearts one of them, incredible and yeah no I lucked out and found just the perfect people for it. And yeah no we're – oh god, that was… we’re about… November is our two years of doing that show now.

 

Kenzie:

Wow.

 

Zack:

Well, that has been out in the world now.

 

Kenzie:

That’s exciting.

 

Zack:

Yeah, it's great. You know, I couldn't ask for a better group of people that just make me want to applaud and pull my hair out at the same time.

 

Kenzie:

So, oh man, my train of thought just left my brain.

 

Zack:

No worries.

 

Kenzie:

Wow, that's crazy that that happens sometimes.

 

Zack:

It happens when I'm running constantly.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah.

 

Zack:

It's one of those moments like I don't know if you also experience with like when you're running and your brains going like so fast and then suddenly like the train just derails and you're like –

 

Kenzie:

It's like you need a second, stop thinking, I'm taking everything away from you.

 

Zack:

Yeah and you're like oh god, I don't remember even the next word I was going to say.

 

Kenzie:

Well through our little vamping here I have remembered.

 

Zack:

Oh fantastic!

 

Kenzie:

So this episode will probably come out like in a few months from now, but at this point you guys just wrapped your first season.

 

Zack:

We did.

 

Kenzie:

So that's almost, you know, like a year and a half’s time of putting out a season of a show. How does it feel to have it done?

 

Zack:

Man it’s one of those things because like my brain never stopped like being like alright so the finale - like we always knew that we wanted to do the second season. Like we've done like in our home games like - there's something about doing like the season advancements and like playing with those throughout like a second season of the game that is just like it goes very hard. So I was like I know I wanted to do a second season so like the last maybe three sessions I was like so guys we’re creeping up on this, how is everyone feeling? You all think you wanna keep going and do another season? Everyone was of course like hell yeah, yes, yes we do.

 

Kenzie:

Yes.

 

Zack:

And so I was like awesome cool and so as we went into the finale I was like alright, brains just moving on to next season already. So it doesn't really feel like it's over. I know like we've had - we've had a few weeks off since like we've recorded anything obviously because we had a - wow see there.

 

Kenzie:

There it is. Now it’s your turn.

 

Zack:

It happened. But like yeah we did the finale, oh goodness, that was probably a month and a half ago that like we - longer than that probably that we that we actually recorded it

 

Kenzie:

Yeah.

 

Zack:

And I think that we had maybe two more episodes already backlogged before that and so I put those out and then the finale came out and so yeah, it's been very long that I've been out of like running for those guys at the moment.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah.

 

Zack:

And I'm like oh goodness - I just miss it like –

 

Kenzie:

Yeah.

 

Zack:

Yeah I'm sure you had the same thing with you with your whole crew over there where you’re like I just want to run for my friends.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah we got - so the last time we recorded was like November 2nd of last year and then we - it took like three or four months for us to get back together and do like a talkback about the whole season and so we got back together for that and we're all like I just miss you, I just - why don't we have a Zoom every week anymore.

 

Zack:

April seems to cry every like two seconds thinking about it.

 

Kenzie:

Yes, I actually talked to her yesterday to do kind of an interview thing with her as well and she almost – she was like okay everybody knows that I cry as soon as I start talking about my friends so don't yell at me.

 

Zack:

I love that. Yeah, your whole gaggle is incredible.

 

Kenzie:

They are they are something else.

 

Zack:

If I - if I can I guess deroll the you running a thing for just - to talk –

 

Kenzie:

Oh no.

 

Zack:

So I think the thing that drew me so much to Wildmoore –

 

Kenzie:

Wildmoore yes,

 

Zack:

Wildmoore, my goodness. You have such a unique way of running that's something like I've never experienced before.

 

Kenzie:

Well I was gonna say to you that listening to our shows sounds like we're too entirely separate things that are happening.

 

Zack:

‘Cause when I first started to listening to your show I'd left a comment on like Apple podcasts about it as well because like you've got such an interesting way of like framing your scenes. ‘Cause like me - when it comes to like prepping a game I know if I write a bunch of stuff I'm not going to use it. I know things will end up going off the rails or like I'll just throw out everything and do something different. So like I go into a game with maybe like a couple of bullet points for everyone like a little thing that happens to each of them, but like I really just kind of roll with the punches. But like you've got like this very cool way of like you frame a scene pretty tight but like the – what’s thew word I'm looking for? - the amount of space you still give them in that small and like in that sort of self-contained scene is - like it's so cool because like you - it's like these small vignettes that they have all the freedom in the world to play with but like you still frame them in these very like tight spots and it's very cool.

 

Kenzie:

Well, thank you.

 

Zack:

I threw you - a friend of ours in one of my home games of Monsterhearts, he had never run anything before and so he talked about that he wanted to kind of do something similarly so I was like you should check out this podcast because it sounds like what you're looking to do. She does really effectively in this way of like – ‘cause he's never run before I think he's used to quite kind of like the rolling with people just doing crazy stuff –

 

Kenzie:

Yeah.

 

Zack:

So he wanted that safety net of being like I can make a scene and kind of have a little more control over it. I'm like if you wanna learn like see how to do that masterfully, check out this podcast.

 

Kenzie:

Well, thank you so much. That was actually - I think the crazy thing about it is I had never played Monsterhearts before I ran that season.

 

Zack:

Well, it was awesome.

 

Kenzie:

There are a lot of things that I think if I had known more about the game I would have done differently but I think that what it did was set up like a very specific style and sound for the season.

 

Zack:

Yeah I think especially for like an actual play like yeah in that comment about - like you made it sound like an audio drama like it was all - like a near scripted thing. I know it wasn't because like you could tell like the very rare times that you let us see like kind of the table talky moments of like, you know, character breaking and you guys laughing and stuff, like, you know it's not scripted but like it's so good. I don't know how much of that happened in like your edit or what but like it sounds incredible.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah I mean a lot of - a lot of my stuff was scripted like I wrote it out pre going into it because I wanted to make sure that I clearly let them know what was happening in a scene so that they were able to play off that. So like my stuff scripted out a lot of my exposition type of things.

 

Zack:

Yeah.

 

Kenzie:

And a lot of the way it sounds was in editing simply because we wanted it to be more audio drama than an actual play in the sense of like you hearing all the dice rolls seeing all like the failures and not and like make it a little bit more fast-paced.

 

Zack:

Yeah.

 

Kenzie:

So a lot of that did happen in editing of cutting that stuff out but I wanted to leave a little bit in so that you would get like personalities at the table and stuff.

 

Zack:

Yeah you don't want to lose that actual play feel but like yeah, no right off the bat - because I think I had technically found your show by mistake at first. So a weird - my personal group like we're real big fans of the artist Leslie Oh, on the internet.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah.




Zack:

We love Leslie.

 

Kenzie:

I do as well.

 

Zack:

And oh god ‘cause I don't remember what it was because she and my wife like have started like chatting just kind of over the Internet and because I think she started listening to These Silent Secrets as well and they do a Monsterhearts thing on YouTube which the name of it is escaping me at the moment.

 

Kenzie:

The first one was Monsterhearts university and this one is Wasteland Gospel.

 

Zack:

That one! Yes Wasteland Gospel and so I was like I'm trying to find one of those and I messaged Nicole and I was like hey, ‘cause Leslie had sent you the files before they went out for you to like check out the show beforehand, what is the show? And I don't know how but she was like queeRPG I think? And so I was like okay, cool I'll go check it out I listened to one episode and I was like I don't think Leslie Oh is involved in this at all but I'm already in. And so I devoured I think at that point you only had nine episodes out and I devoured those. I'm a scenic carpenter so I work in a carpentry shop so I've got like podcasts playing all day. I think I listened to the first five episodes in like one day and then the next day I was like alright back at it.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah I mean that is kind of how I listened to These Silent Secrets because while I was editing season one I didn't have a lot of time to listen to things but I was like I gotta listen to this show, I gotta listen to this show. So when I had free time I was just like rolling through them just like a binge of a podcast and that honestly sometimes is a great way to do it because you then are -you're stayed in the store.

 

Zack:

Yeah you don't lose stuff. There's so many times where like I'll listen to something and I’m like who the fuck is this person.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah, what did I miss?

 

Zack:

And then I’ll have to back like an episode or two and go oh, okay, okay, okay, okay I'm then go back to where you were.

 

Kenzie:

Well the funny thing is that I actually reached out to Leslie Oh to do our character art for season one but she was too busy so she got me in with one of her friends who does the - plays the Monsterhearts podcast with them or show with them and so that's how we got our character art and I think it looks incredible. Ferne did a great job.

 

Zack:

Yeah, no, yeah it's so good.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah.

 

Zack:

Shout out Leslie Oh.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah (laughs). So you also have another show we've talked about - you mentioned a little bit about Another Path but you also have Multiversal Pet Shop.

 

Zack:

Yeah Zack and Griffin’s Multiversal Pet Shop.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah what's that about?

 

Zack:

So it originally came as - so like yeah, when we first started Another Path, I had just graduated college. This was 2017. And my wife and I we had gotten jobs with this touring educational theater in the Twin Cities in Minnesota. So we were moving away and so I was like I’m going to miss my friends so much. And so like while me and my friend Griffin were working in this cookie shop in our college town and so like I was just kind of pitching this dumb idea and I was like what if we do a show where we just talk about like monsters and if they would make like good pet. And so he's like that's a fun idea and so like we were just like throwing these weird like dumb names out at each other. And then we had started our Patreon for Another Path, you know, which became eventually just the Ghostlight Media Patreon but I was like - I sad to Chase Greenley who's like kind of like the of the godfather of the network essentially. And I was like so if we gotta set a goal, if you want like put like our first goal, it could be that pet shop idea that Griffin and I have. And we'll workshop it and get it going. And so just became away originally for me and my friend Griffin just to stay in contact while I was living states away. And yeah it's just a fun - you know we started going through the Monster Manual and obviously we ran out of things on there very quickly. But yeah it's just talking about like would a grick be like a good pal so just kind of roll around and you know to curl up in front of a fire and watch some Netflix with, I don’t know.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah was the - was Ghostlight Media - I mean since you guys were all coming from theater and playing games, was it always supposed to be like a TTRPG production company or was it like supposed to do a bunch of different things?

 

Zack:

Well yeah it started with, you know, just the one actual play, the network wasn't a thing yet. And then along the way, Chase - yeah we started doing pet shop which at that point it was just kind of a separate thing, separate podcast that we were kind of doing under Another Path and then Chase was also doing this other side thing called Shakesbeer where he, his wife, and then a couple of their friends would sit around drink beer and talk about Shakespeare. And so they were working through the that whole catalog. And then also along the way our friend Zann, he started a podcast called Imprinted Echoes, which they play Numenara, which is the cypher system by Monte Cook Games. And so it was like we have all of these shows that we're all kind of working on, do we just kind of want to put them under one umbrella, make it a thing. And we're all theater artists and so it was like Ghostlight Media would be fun. And so yeah and so it just yeah it became a bunch of little things that - just put it all together it's a lot easier that way and yeah luckily we had a chase who was working as a banker at the time so we knew how to . Luckily we had Chase, who was working as a banker at the time, so he knew how to set up like business accounts and stuff and so he was like awesome I can put - just make one account and then everything kind of, you know, the money from Patreon kind of funnels out to wherever it needs to and yeah. So yeah it became a - it was a bunch of things that became one thing and yeah.

 

Kenzie:

Are you guys looking at expanding? I mean you already have like five or six shows.

 

Zack:

Yeah we've got, oh god, I'm trying to think of them all. We’ve got (mumbles). Yeah it's like six shows at the moment. We have no shortage of ideas and or people that we have been like, they do this really cool show and they're independent, if we want to maybe try to pull – we’re just trying - yeah Patreon money only goes so far as you know.

 

Kenzie:

Oh, no I totally understand.

 

Zack:

So when it comes to yeah you're hosting and like our podcasts essentially at the moment just kind of pay for themselves which like I mean like is not a bad place to get to.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah, no.

 

Zack:

‘Cause like Chase, god love him. Really I think things - it would not have gotten this far if Chase wasn’t like yeah I’ve got this, I’ve got this. So we were like thank you. So the first while of like once we started getting the Patreon to a certain level it was like alright, I am recooping a little bit of the money I threw into this everybody. We're like yes, Chase, take some money please.

 

Kenzie:

Yes, please, please.

 

Zack:

But yeah no, it’s just kind of a self-sufficient thing now which is great. You know we're not pulling in that McElroy money.

 

Kenzie:

Oh definitely not. But yeah as long as you can kind of break even I think that's really helpful.

 

Zack:

Yeah everything - the hosting kind of pays for itself and then yeah. And then also on the side my wife also has kind of like her own small kind of thing she does. My wife, you know, of the many skills she has, also does like audio - like writes audio dramas. So her and her friend Mariah well Mariah from TSS have been writing audio dramas under the name Centerstage Collective which is also another group of theatery people doing theatery things online.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah, yeah, we just need, you know, more of them.

 

Zack:

Hey theater nerds are the best folks, I found.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah 100%. You get the bad stigma from being a high school theater nerd but then when you grow out of that you realize, oh wait a second, dedicated, creative, and want to just make stuff.

 

Zack:

Yeah here we are.

 

Kenzie:

Do you guys have a plan for season two of TSS?

 

Zack:

I've got a plan. I'm not telling the others too much about But yeah no –

 

Kenzie:

Is it going to be same location, same -

 

Zack:

Yes season 2, same characters, same setting.

 

Kenzie:

Gotcha.

 

Zack:

I think, yeah the plan for the most part - so we're going to do a whole other full season with this cast in in Harbor Vale still and then I think after that's done, I think Nicole is actually going to take the reins of running for a bit. Which I'm excited because I haven't gotten to play with Marcus and Freddie at all. I play with Mariah all the time because she's in one of our home games but like, yeah I haven't gotten to play those two and I'm real excited, so I know that's probably another two, year and a half, two years right now. I’m still very excited for it.

 

Kenzie:

I’m going to be excited to play way back then.

 

Zack:

Yeah so far from now. I bug Nicole tell her like I already have, I already have my character ready. I’m ready to go.

 

Kenzie:

I’m ready. That’s what always happens. Somebody's like, hey I'm thinking about doing this game and everybody makes their characters –

 

Zack:

It’s like I’ve got a character.

 

Kenzie:

And then it never - it doesn't happen. But this hopefully will actually come to fruition.

 

Zack:

Fingers crossed, fingers crossed.

 

Kenzie:

Did you – well, I mean, I know that you're from Ohio because we’ve chatted a little bit.

 

Zack:

We have chatted a little bit.

 

Kenzie:

And I’m also from Ohio.

 

Zack:

Yeah, so wild.

 

Kenzie:

It's so weird from like literally the same area too.

 

Zack:

Yeah.

 

Kenzie:

But so why did you guys set it where you set it?

 

Zack:

I talk about my wife probably too much –

 

Kenzie:

Listen, that’s fine.

 

Zack:

We’ve created - so like our group of friends have wrote so many like skins for Monsterhearts in the past and Nicole specifically had written the one that she's playing for this one, The Raven, which, you know, based off the Edgar Allen Poe sort of vibe and so I was like, that sort of misty New England that sort of vibe was great. And then Maine - I haven't even told the cast about this so you're getting an exclusive. We're actually tomorrow we're doing like our season wrap up so this will probably come up for that too. But have you finished the whole season at all? I don’t want to spoil things -

 

Kenzie:

Yeah, I have.

 

Zack:

Cool, so Toktar, the big great old one, bad boy came from originally it was a sketch that Nicole and I had written. Like it was the summer after we graduated we were really bored so we were like let's - do we just want to like make some dumbass videos and we wrote one called big day. And big day, it starts off like you know this girls getting ready for a wedding, she's walking around town she’s like, you know, running into the townspeople. Everyone's like oh you excited for tonight? And it's like yeah I'm a little nervous. Don't worry like he can't run away at this point (laughs). Like a bunch of sort of innocuous things. You’d be like oh she's getting married. But then she gets there and it's like her initiation into this dark cult where she has to sacrifice someone. And so the being that she's sacrificing to is the great Lord Toktar, peace be unto him. And somewhere along the way the mythos of Toktar developed. We had some friends who were at GenCon and they were like walking down the street going to dinner and they had seen like I'm assuming a seafood place but it was just called, The Boiling. And so someone as like the boiling – Toktar the Boiling God and I was like that's incredible. And so I was like a misty New England town, goiled god. So boiled god makes me think of like crab, lobster. And you know what lobster makes me think of? Main. And so it started from the dumbest bit.

 

Kenzie:

That’s really funny.

 

Zack:

I think I said peace be unto to him earlier in the season and Nicole went, “What did you just say?” (laughs)

 

Kenzie:

This sounds really familiar to me, excuse mel

 

Zack:

I said that and I looked at her face she was like hmmmm? And no one else knew what I was talking about so I was like Nicole's gonna get this, but no one - she's not gonna say anything.

 

Kenzie:

It's like an inside joke that actually became an outside joke.

 

Zack:

Yeah, yes, yeah that's the basis of it. It was a dumb goof that we made from a YouTube video that maybe twelve people have seen to a thing that I put on the podcast that people in France listen to.

 

Kenzie:

That’s wild. It's kind of wild how big an audience can be for a podcast.

 

Zack:

And in such strange places where you're like how? How did you find this thing? Yeah there was a bit there - I think we talked about it on the show at one point - like we were like top ten in like Austria at one point.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah, I remember that.

 

Zack:

And I'm like…

 

Kenzie:

How?

 

Zack:

How?

 

Kenzie:

Yeah I mean one of our cast members season two is from Barcelona–

 

Zack:

Yeah!

 

Kenzie:

And I was like how did you find our casting call.

 

Zack:

Yeah. The Internet makes the world so much smaller, especially when you know like when you're involved in like - I know it's like a pretty widespread too but like a TTRPG is still a very like niche place.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah like it’s a ton of people in a very small area is what being a TTRPG creator feels like.

 

Zack:

Definitely, definitely.

 

Kenzie:

So do you have a timeline you're looking for season two?

 

Zack:

For it to begin?

 

Kenzie:

Like start date.

 

Zack:

Yeah well so obviously we're supposed to have a release on the Tuesday after this, which I believe is June 13. We are going to skip that one and we - yeah so we may either skip one release or two releases. You know in the meantime we're going to put our sort of season end vibe up for the Patreon. So if anyone wants to join the Patreon. Patreon.com/ghostlightmeida.

 

Kenzie:

Does anyone want to join the Patreon for These Silent Secrets?

 

Zack:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, patreon.com/ghostlightmedia. but yeah so we'll probably throw that up there and then maybe like a few months later we'll drop that for the public consummation as well. But then yeah we're like the hope is to jump right into it. So like I said we're gonna record this thing tonight and do like our session zero for season two. Like talk about season advancements and that sort of thing. And then we'll probably end up setting the day to record the first, the first couple episodes of the season.

 

Kenzie:

That’s exciting!

 

Zack:

So hopefully people won't have to wait long. My guess is probably either end of June here or beginning of July we'll be right back at it.

 

Kenzie:

Well then if that is the case anybody listening to this episode, you can go listen to a couple episodes of this second season of These Silent Secrets.

 

Zack:

Fingies crossed that it’s already out for you and it's trucking along. And if not start at the beginning guys.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah go all the way back.

 

Zack:

There’s so much to hear.

 

Kenzie:

Why did you guys choose the every other week? Was it just like time constraints with everybody’s schedules?

 

Zack:

No so we when we first started doing podcast stuff like we were like, oh, yeah obviously the McElroy way is the way we have to do this right. And so it was like every other week and then it's just, you know, because I feel like when it came to Wildmoore like did you record everything and then start putting the episodes out or like?




Kenzie:

Yeah so well I guess –

 

Zack:

It sounded like you did the season and then started putting the season out.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah so we premiered on the 31st and our last recording session for the finale or for the epilogue that we had was like two days after that.

 

Zack:

Okay, so yeah. Yeah we're very much a like - we're recording as we're going essentially so like we'll record like you know 2 1/2 hours of a session which I normally split into about two episodes. And somewhere along that line like it's like alright well, you know, like maybe like a week after the first chunk comes out we'll schedule our next session. And just kind of like  we’ll record one, a couple will go out and we just kind of - when we can record, we record one.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah.

 

Zack:

So yeah it leaves I guess, a little also space to like, alright so we recorded last week, I've got, you know, another week to kind of get this episode together. So it definitely leaves some space to breathe in the editing standpoint. Did you edit all of your episodes?

 

Kenzie:

Yeah so I think because it's just me.

 

Zack:

Mm-hmmm.

 

Kenzie:

Like I do the audio editing, the sound design, all of that type of thing, it takes quite a bit of time and so I - it would not have been feasible to do our weekly release schedule if we had done it bi- weekly.

 

Zack:

Definitely, definitely –

 

Kenzie:

Yeah because this second season, we will still be recording when the episodes –

 

Zack:

As you’re going?

 

Kenzie:

Yeah like we've got a few in the in the bag so far, but we will be rercorindg like the last half of the season while the first half is coming out.

 

Zack:

Yeah I also very much luck out in that it's like I have the ability to hyperfocus on like trimming the dialogue and making that seem snappy. I am terrible at like music scoring and so I'm very lucky that Nicole's like yeah just send it to me, I’ll score. Things. And so like I do that first big chunk, get our intros and outros kind of put in and then I send it to her and she does the cool sound effects.

 

Kenzie:

Does she actually write some of this stuff for you guys?

 

Zack:

I think she has but she finds a lot of stuff on just like royalty free music archive or whatever it's called. So she browses around, finds some free stuff. But she has like I believe there's a few things that she was just kind of whipped out. She's a whiz when it comes to Garage Band, it's crazy.

 

Kenzie:

Oh, yeah, I do not have that skill. Not in my wheelhouse.

 

Zack:

Yeah, no, I am a - I'm pretty good at like a couple things. And my wife is very good at many, many things and so, I’m like, I lucked out here. But, yeah, it started with yeah just it was – like I said we were all very into The Adventure Zone - so like yeah, they alternate between – it’s like Adventurezone, MBMBAM, and they just kind of alternate. So we were like we’ll do every other week for Another Path and then Pet Shop started happening and so that was like our every other week, you know, every week we have something coming out, but the shows would alternate. And as we've added more and more shows in, it's just like we don't want shows, especially if they like are on the same day. Like, you know, we've got… I think it's By The Ghostlight like comes out the opposite Tuesday that we do. And so it's like we don't want like two of our shows to be launched on the same day.

 

Kenzie:

That makes sense.

 

Zack:

So yeah it's easier for us to make sure like if one episode of something goes out, there’s mo another episode overshadowing it or something.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah.

 

Zack:

But yeah! I think I fully forgot what the original question was.

 

Kenzie:

I had just asked why you guys chose to do biweekly and I think the idea was or the consensus was the Macklemore’s did it.

 

Zack:

The McElroy’s did it so why not.

 

Kenzie:

That was a weird Freudian slip from the rapper Macklemore.

 

Zack:

Yeah, hey, we love Macklemore.

 

Kenzie:

Oh do we? I don’t know if that’s a widespread –

 

Zack:

I don't know the song Dance Off featuring Idris Elba goes way too hard.

 

Kenzie:

I have not heard that.

 

Zack:

You need to look that song up immediately. It's got Idris Elba, the actor, in it. Like yeah I heard that and I was immediately like, what wait, what am I hearing? It’s a very strange song.

 

Kenzie:

I don't think - that to me in the same vein of like when Vin Diesel put out music randomly a couple of years ago.

 

Zack:

I'm sorry what?

 

Kenzie:

Yeah, yeah. I’m pretty – yeah, sorry that I had to be the person to tell you. I think it was only one song.

 

Zack:

Was it all about family?

 

Kenzie:

Yeah I think it's called The Fast and the Furious.

 

Zack:

Nice.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah (laughs).

 

Zack:

Hey I gotta say I saw the new one just – I was bored - and so I went and saw it, oh my god, Jason Momoa slaps in everything he’s in.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah? I have thought about just watching all of them for no reason.

 

Zack:

Go for it.

 

Kenzie:

If I ever had a time.

 

Zack:

Tokyo Drift kind of bangs.

 

Kenzie:

I don't know anything about them except that none of them - that the cast in its entirety, none of their familial relationships make sense because none of them look alike.

 

Zack:

Yeah.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah except for like they tried to make just like a bald guy one time be Vin Diesel’s twin but he was just a bald guy that didn't look like Vin Diesel.

 

Zack:

Well, John Cena is Vin Diesel’s brother.

 

Kenzie:

Oh, is that it!? It was John Cena, okay.

 

Zack:

Yeah John Cena’s his brother. I think that he was the bad guy in the last movie because every bad guy ends up becoming a family.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah, I mean that's very TTRPG coded.

 

Zack:

Yeah.

 

Kenzie:

So now that you are creating a ton of stuff, do you ever actually get to play home games anymore?

 

Zack:

Oh Kenzie, I’m in too many home games.

 

Kenzie:

Oh no!

 

Zack:

So the first group I started playing Monsterhearts with, we've played on Tuesdays for about pretty much since lockdown happened because yeah, I guess much like you I saw that Critical Role one shot, you know, right around Valentine's Day, right before the big, bad, lockdown happened at beginning of March. Those like two, three weeks I would not shut up about Monsterhearts. It was my last couple of weeks working at a Panera Bread and I worked there with my friend Griffin and he told me to shut up so many times. I was very excited about this game and then I took a long-term subbing position at the Toledo School for the Arts, covering for their middle school theater teacher who was going out on maternity leave. I was there for maybe ten days and then we went fully online.

 

Kenzie:

Mm-hmm.

 

Zack:

Yeah me and then two - and then a husband and wife duo that are some good friends of ours -Zann and Carlin - they also worked at that school and then also my wife was in grad school and then, you know, other people, we had Griffin who worked at Panera Bread still, we had Jason, who worked at one of the restaurants at the Hollywood Casino in Toledo and so all of us were like, we have so much free time now.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah.

 

Zack:

And so like let's try this other game and everyone's like yeah maybe we'll try a new system and I was like, “Guys!”

 

Kenzie:

Griffin was like shut up. Shut up.

 

Zack:

And everyone was like I don’t want to play this high school monster game and Zann, god love him, was like I’ll run like a three shot for you guys. And I was like yes Zann, I love you, and he ran three games and we're like this is really fun. And so he was like we'll do - we'll make it like a five shot. And then we did a full season. And then we did a second season of those characters and I think we're on like ten campaigns later, we're still going with that group, which I'm currently running for that one. So yeah double dipping on the MCing Monsterhearts train. But I've got one game that I'm playing in tonight and then there's one that's been on a bit of hiatus because we - different people were in shows that have all been sort of staggered so it was like we're like tech week, tech week, tech week, tech week, and so it's you know, we haven't been able to play that one for like a month or so but we're hopefully playing that one again soon. So I’m in like I don't far too many Monsterhearts game.

 

Kenzie:

I don’t know how you have the time because like –

 

Zack:

I don't socialize outside of work.

 

Kenzie:

Oh okay. That’s it.

 

Zack:

All my friends live, you know, hours from me. I also live forty-five minutes away from where I work so it's like anyone I'd want to hang out with, I don't want to drive forty-five minutes.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah.

 

Zack:

So I'll hang out with my friends online. This is my socializing.

 

Kenzie:

I think just like – I run an in-person game for some friends. I play in an online one weekly. Both of these game –

 

Zack:

Of the Monsterhearts.

 

Kenzie:

No these are both D&D.

 

Zack:

Okay.

 

Kenzie:

And then my friend just reached out to me and said hey we're trying to do another D&D, in-person game like once a month and we were all sending our schedules and none of them line up.

 

Zack:

That’s the worse.

 

Kenzie:

So I just don't know how - I commend you and I'm jealous of you. I also found that if I want to play games that aren't D&D, I gotta do it on the pod, because there's not like – not a ton of my friends are like we want to do anything  but D&D because everyone knows D&D and so everybody can just like play it. That's kind of how it is. Which I get, it’s fine.

 

Zack:

We'll talk. I'll get you in something.

 

Kenzie:

I'm in!

 

Zack:

We’ll get Tartaglione in the game, it’ll be great. Yeah, no, I just really fucking love Monsterhearts.

 

Kenzie:

I do too. I don't know what it is because I've, like, I'm very - I love Wanderhome as well, like that's what we're doing for season two. I have been putting feelers out in other games, specifically researching for the podcast and there are a ton of them that I really, really like but there's just something about Monsterhearts specifically, that is at my top.

 

Zack:

I don't know, it fosters like so much trust at the table. That group I play with on Tuesday, like, you know, especially my friends Zann and Carlin, like I've been close to my friend, Griffin, for years but like Zann and Carlin and like me and my wife like we were friends and we played in D&D groups together. But we were nowhere near as close as we are like after playing Monsterhearts together for so long. It’s one of those games you've got to trust the people that you're playing with. Like you're handling such intense stuff. Yeah it fosters so much like exploration. Like, you know, my - I feel like playing this game has taken, you know, my sense of what masculinity is and just changed it. Like before I don't think I'd be walking around with painted nails.

 

Kenzie:

You know what’s interesting about the painted nails things?

 

Zack:

Yeah?

 

Kenzie:

I know a lot of guys who play D&D, who now pain their nails - or play TTRPGs, who now paint their nails and I don't know if it is a being able to just explore creativity more or if it's a Matthew Mercer effect.

 

Zack:

Well, before Matthew Mercer I feel like Travis McElroy actually - like he's been painting his nails for years.

 

Kenzie:

Okay.

 

Zack:

And then yeah both Matt and Sam are painting their nails. But yeah I mean it's one of those things.. it's like I've got these things on my hands that like are so boring all the time and it's like so if I can put some color on them why the fuck not.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah.

 

Zack:

But yeah I mean it's just like - the game is just a good place to explore who you are. Like if you had asked me a couple of years ago like I was like, yeah I’m so straight. I’m the straightest guy. Like I am definitely nowhere near as straight as I thought I was.

 

Kenzie:

That happens!

 

Zack:

We were talking about, like, you know, all of the character art that we used for things, I'm like I'm like, yeah this game’s really altered the way I feel about like how - what I find attractive in people and I'm like yeah, I’m so fucking here for it.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah, I mean, I love the transformative nature of games like this. But we are coming to the end of our hour here and I thought that would be fun to close us out, is if you had like a memorable or fun memory from a moment from a table that you've played at, that like really sticks out.

 

Zack:

Oh yeah.

 

Kenzie:

That you'd like to share.

 

Zack:

Oh, I've got too many to count. No the big one, it's one of my favorites, I love - like you can ask anyone I play with - I love inter-player conflict. Some of my favorite moments I always think back on are the ones where me and a friend of mine are like sreaming our heads off at each other. And then like afterwards we’re like I love you, I love you so much. So like when we had moved back from Minnesota, we had you know join back in with that group, you know, the game group which had devlolvd and lost people and gained people and changed the system, so they were playing 5e at the moment. And that campaign had already been going on for about a year and a half. Like off and on, characters had switched in and stuff. But, so me and my wife came back , you know, we were playing in this game, obviously like our characters were kind of the outsiders, we hadn't been with this party forever. But there was a bit between me and Chase Greenlye, who's, you know, like I said the godfather of Ghostlight Media where something was happening and he told my character like, hey this isn't your fight. And at that point like he'd been with these people, he'd like, you know, ressurected them and so like there was just this like - you could tell the whole room was like, oh shit, he did not just say that. And so me and him were just like laying into each other. It's so funny how you like - the emotions of someone who doesn't exist just fill you. And so yeah it was just this moment of like you could tell he had a moment of like I just said the wrong thing, oh no.

 

Kenzie:

But then you lean into it, you know.

 

Zack:

No, definitely. And it's yeah, we sat there and screamed at each other. Some people finally got us to break it up and then there was a moment where everyone was like (sighs). I love you buddy.

 

Kenzie:

(laughs)

 

Zack:

Those moments are so great. Like how can you test a friendship, like fucking, you know, like be like fuck you! And then two seconds later be hugging the shit out of someone because like it was such like just a cool moment that happened.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah, I also really love inter- personal relationships –

 

Zack:

I love screaming at my friends.

 

Kenzie:

Or conflict in games and my favorite thing is - I think I've noticed it a bit more because I've been watching the newest season of Dimension 20 and so because it's politically focused –

 

Zack:

Yeah.

 

Kenzie:

Like all of those PCs are insight checking one another.

 

Zack:

Yeah constantly.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah, and then to contrast that with Critical role where like once they get into their group, they don't often insight check one another.

 

Zack:

Yeah.

 

Kenzie:

Like if somebody says something, you take them at their word, even if they might be lying and then later on, that deception comes back and bites everyone in the ass, which I really like. I really like.

 

Zack:

No, it’s real –

 

Kenzie:

So I'm kind of on the edge here about like whether you call for checks against PC's because I kind of like the idea of not doing it and then you just having to exist in a space where somebody is choosing to lie to you and you just will never know.

 

Zack:

Yeah, oh, fuck, god. Now I’m like I just want to play like right.

 

Kenzie:

Well you get to play tonight so..

 

Zack:

I do get to play tonight. I do get to play tonight. That'll be great.

 

Kenzie:

Well thank you so much for coming on  and chatting today.

 

Zack:

Absolutely.

 

Kenzie:

This has been awesome.

 

Zack:

I've loved this. This was so nice.

 

Kenzie:

Yeah so fun! For everybody, who is watching - or if you're on our Patreon watching or listening if you're not, go check out These Silent Secrets –

 

Zack:

Please!

 

Kenzie:

And everything Ghostlight Media is producing and making over there. But this is the end of this and until next time. Bye, everybody.

 

Zack:

Bye!