Hey, it's Nick here, the handler for Dead Letter Bureau, and we're doing something a little different today.
Today I'm having a little chat with Tom from Stories and Lies.
Tom, anything you wanna say?
I thought I guess I'll introduce myself.
Hello, I'm I'm Tom Ogus.
I'm I'm one of the guys for Stories and Lies.
The nice thing about that podcast is we do share a lot of the work, which is necessary.
We can get into that later.
But I I guess I'm the primary.
I the guy that got it started and I do the most the stories.
Yeah.
Was your first show the redacted files or or first time recording something, or have you done a bit of things before that?
Yeah, so I mean redacted reports was the first really the second.
Really the second.
Now before redacted reports, I was on this there's this channel called Quests in Chaos on Twitch, which was about started ten years ago.
And I did that for a couple of ye couple of years, right before COVID and then into COVID.
But we had a show and I I played a role on one of the Twitch shows, and they turned that Twitch broadcast into a podcast.
Which I mean, it's just taking the audio from the Twitch stream and releasing as a podcast.
So it's not the same thing as what we do now.
But I I did that for a while.
I would I had no role in that.
I just showed up on camera, played a character for three hours, and then it would be a podcast.
But then Redacted Reports really was the first thing I did.
And then Stories and Lies is our our current project.
Yeah, so I like to kick things off with a lightning round just to do quick warm-ups and to get to know you.
What would you say your favorite T T RPG system is?
I mean right now it's Delta Green 'cause that's what I've been doing.
That's what I I'm I'm I'm in that mode.
You know, and I know that'll be my favorite until some new hotness eventually steals the spotlight.
Right.
So I mean if I'm stuck on a desert island, I mean it's gonna ultimately be masks of Nyarlathota.
It took three years for us to finish that story.
So if that's that that works for a desert island, you know.
It'll it'll carry you to starvation, right?
So
Most yeah.
Hopefully rescue, but starvation is maybe a little more likely.
Yeah.
All right.
So yeah, you're into Delta Green, Call of Cthulhu, uh, you know, these uh Lovecraftian systems, right?
what if Lovecraft is erased from reality?
Uh where the story lies find its next stories and lies find its next sandbox.
We're probably going to like gumshoe, you know.
I I'm I'm picturing something very rules light.
That's what I I think we asked we would go that direction as opposed to going for something more crunchy.
So yeah, the gumshoe makes the most sense.
'Cause we we kind of just improv this stuff anyway, so it works.
That's cool.
Yeah.
And you know, before we jump into the interview, how did you connect with this group?
Was it just a a mismatch?
Did you know each other all before?
Did you play at tables for years before recording?
How did you guys get connected?
It it's it's the amazing miracle of the internet is what it is.
And and it's one of those internet success stories.
And because I think many of us, maybe all of us, have played internet games online and I feel like most of the time those don't those kind of fall they don't go anywhere.
They like they come together, they break apart.
There's not a lot of connection.
It's hard to connect.
It's a challenge we have in the internet age.
The the guys at stories and lies.
I met Taylor, who was a very first guy who very first producer.
And he and I I I
kind of core to this.
He and I played together during COVID on online on Discord.
And so I had that connection with him.
And then uh Matt, who's one of our founding members, he and I were both on another Discord for another show, which the it's gosh, Mayday.
Gosh, they have Doom to Repeat.
Was a we were both fans of Doom to Repeat by by the Mayday podcast, whatever they're I forget what they're called again.
Yeah.
But we were just on that Discord, like two guys on a Discord talking about Delta Green.
And at some point I was like, Man, I really wish I could do this again.
I missed these old, you know.
And he is like, Man, I'd love to do that with you.
That was that was it.
That was like the conversation.
And he and I connected and we he and I and and Taylor, who I I I invited Taylor.
I like, I Taylor's great.
I I brought him back.
Sure.
He brought his friend Wes.
And Wes is just chaos incarnate.
And it wasn't so much fun.
So we just all got together.
We did a game that was not released.
We just did a test game and had a great time.
And we're like
Gotta keep doing this.
And so we we went forward.
That was that's I don't know, we're we're like a hundred and seventy episodes later, you know, here we are, right?
Absolutely.
Yeah, it's incredible.
And just like the quality.
And I mean, so like I got into Stories and Lies probably it's about two years ago now, maybe a year and a half ago.
And so I listened to the backlog all at once, right?
And you know, you could not just the quality in the production growing, but like your guys' performances, your gameplay, like your presence at the table, it is evolving
constantly.
And then now this God's teeth one.
There was one episode where you guys are just chatting about what to do next, or like right after you meet each other.
And it goes on for like 30 minutes.
And it's still some of the best role playing out there, right?
Not to just not to glaze too much, but you can you can see the evolution and you have a group of people that is really special, I think.
Appreciate that we we have an episode in Ladybug and I think it's the third episode, which I think it's called Copy and Conspiracy.
Yeah where I I as the handler, I I I don't know what I said.
I maybe said three or four words in that episode.
I I said very little.
I got got the characters together at a coffee shop and they just started role-playing.
And that was one of the earliest things we ever did.
And it was like that moment was like, Okay, this this we got something good here.
Cause we just had three players playing three different characters.
And then just interacting with the s with the scene from three different perspectives.
You know, and it was just we watched it unfold and it was and that's always been a thing.
We in our show we've got these moments of character conversation and then moments of s tension.
And we kind of bounce back and forth between that as the pacing allows, basically.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
Is that a hard thing to balance as like I mean, as a handler and a player, do you do you ever get the sense you're like, we've been talking too much or oh, maybe we need to add
some tension?
Does that actually occur to you or does it feel natural now?
it it does occur to me and I try to do something about it, but the the hardest part is if I'm not the handler.
That's the hardest part.
My instincts are I have a certain ticking clock in my head.
Okay, we've talked long enough.
I need to I'll interrupt and move the scene forward.
And I think Matt has the same clock in his head.
Matt and I are pretty in sync with how long the conversation could go.
Taylor can actually go a lot longer.
Like Taylor Taylor has a very slow clock in his head.
He can really role play the hell out of the scenes.
So when he's the handler, you know, we often
I obviously I get uneasy.
Sometimes I'm like, all right, aren't you should we move the scene forward here?
Let's go.
Yeah.
But it he eventually it happens eventually.
It works out.
Yeah, the the latest arc, like as it unfolds, you can see a difference in the pacing, right?
So still love it, right?
And I was in a game that the Patreon game that Taylor ran great as well.
And so like I got to experience him as a handler.
And yeah, he he likes to luxuriate in the scene sometimes.
And he's more like uh Well, what do you think?
It's not here's the answer to your question.
Well what what do you see?
You know, like
And you know, tries to get you to like suss it out more before giving you the answer as a handler.
So yeah.
Yeah.
So, you know, I'm curious with you've been doing this for a long time.
There you you said a hundred and thirty something episodes, right?
Not th I think we're like a hundred and sixty.
Hundred and sixty.
We're up there.
It's yeah, it's it's been a while.
So God, when did we start?
Um, did we start in twenty three?
I think we started in twenty twenty three.
I gotta look I gotta look back.
It's but it feels like a long time on one hand, and another time another hand it's just like I don't know.
Yeah.
I it could have been a long who knows?
Time time is a very strange thing.
That's all I know.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
What keeps you coming back and recording and being a performer as well as a storyteller in this?
What's the what's the core need that you're meeting through this project in your life?
Yeah.
I mean, number one, at the table we have a great time.
Like we we really enjoy those get getting together with the guys and eat we talked before, we talk after, we talked, you know.
So we have a great time.
I look forward to it.
I think we all look forward to getting together.
It doesn't feel like work.
The editing process is fun because we get stuff before it's released.
We get to have some say on how things are happening.
We get sneak previews.
I work on these scripts between you know, so there's always a little tinkering we're doing.
it comes out
And then it's like, wow, that sounds amazing.
I don't remember it being that cool.
So that's that's fun.
So this like ri it's ri reinforced.
It's reinforced the whole time.
And the last thing to me is because we share the load enough, um, we we all start getting these great ideas.
Like the current story that Taylor's doing, Golden Orchard, is an idea he had like a year and a half ago, like a long time ago.
And he is working on it, working on it.
He's getting all excited.
He's like hypes us up to do this story, right?
And then
And I've got a story I'm working on next that I've been working on for eight, ten months now.
And Matt's working God's teeth and he's super hyped.
So all of us are hyped to do these projects.
So that that internally gets us excited.
So we got a lot of fuel that kind of keeps us coming back.
Yeah, that's cool.
So you have enough of a time of a break from handling because handling is a a heavy lift, right?
Yeah.
I mean, even emotionally, especially with Delta Green, sometimes you're just like, whew, you know.
I I'm sure Matt feels that right now.
So but yeah, and you get this space to play and explore a character, not a bunch of NPCs in a story.
And that gives you time to kind of develop your own stories, it sounds like.
Yeah.
I I I still love the handler job.
Yeah.
'cause I care character characters we can talk about that later, but No no 'cause Handler's got a lot more stories to do than just one character.
And and one thing I like about the handler role is I get to constantly kind of read rewrite the story.
It's a lot of re editing all the time.
Like I'll have an idea and then someone at the table has a better idea and I just steal their idea.
Yeah.
That's what we keep doing.
So it keeps refreshing all the time.
It it's a lot of mental energy.
But it's it's very satisfying when it all works out.
Yeah, absolutely.
Feeling like the puzzle pieces come together and you're you're like this arbiter where you pull in all the different stories everyone at the table is trying to tell and you're able
to kind of piece it together.
And seeing that tapestry in front of you sounds like that's motivating for you.
Yeah, I I love that.
That keeps me um it keeps me thinking between games too.
As a as a character, I I might think about what just happened and then what would my character do in the future, but that doesn't that's not a lot of that's a very small
amount of uh brain power.
Right.
I I as when I'm playing, I can mostly just put the character aside and I come back to that character two weeks later and I kind of rethink it.
As the handler, I spend two weeks thinking about the story is what I do.
Exactly.
I just keep ruminating about what just happened, what I want to do next.
You know and it so it burns a lot more energy that way.
Yeah, it's funny.
I find myself, you know, similar.
I'm playing in a game somebody else ran and then I'm running stuff at the same time.
And if I play too late, because I, you know, I get up early, like I have kids, right?
If I play too late, my brain just doesn't turn off if I'm handling.
I'm going over what's gonna happen next and I can't sleep because of it, right?
Because that that role is like so cognitively heavy, but also satisfying.
It's gonna it's an excitement.
You know, as is the reason I can't sleep, not necessarily like a tax, so
Yeah, absolutely.
With putting yourself out there, it can be hard, right?
And you know, I I tag this as imposter syndrome or it can be any negative feeling that you get.
Do you ever second guess yourself in this process?
Do you ever release an episode and feel like, you know, that's not what I wanted?
I talk to other showrunners and they're like, you know, I have post episode blues or like I constantly suffer from imposter syndrome.
Does that ever seek its way into you?
N not not much.
But I'll back up.
I've been doing doing this for a little while.
I'm I'm I'm a little older.
Yeah.
It at my stage of life, I've kind of gotten this you you get a certain kind of confidence that's that it's gotten me to this point.
When I was, you know, twenty, thirty years old, I had a lot more um a lot more imposter syndrome, a lot more of like proving myself, proving myself, kind of like I did I do good
enough.
I can I do better.
And af after a while of doing that, yeah, that was good.
Sometimes I'll say to myself, I gotta wish it went some other way.
Sure.
But I I've kind of made peace with that feeling.
but because most of the time I honestly at the table, things go better than I thought.
I j it just really I have a plan going in and I do not cling to my plan.
Like my plan is like just pencil, felt pencil.
And I get so happy when like stuff happens that is not expected and I can do something cool with it, that that energy gets me through the times when ah shit, we didn't do a very
good scene.
Or I didn't I didn't role play that NPC very well.
That is something I do.
Like, ah fuck.
I could have played that guy so much better.
Um, I I I'll have minor, minor regrets.
I will give one example.
In in Ghost Lights, there's a pilot character they meet in, I think, episode four or five.
Now I had a I have a buddy that works for Southwest Airlines, who's pilot, a commercial airline pilot.
I sat down with him for like an hour and asked him a whole bunch of technical questions and how would this work and how would that work and the the fiction of my story, and I'm
like, and I was trying to soak all this stuff in.
For my buddy, so I could play him as an NPC.
I'm like, I'm gonna be this guy as an NPC.
I'm gonna use these technical terms, I'm gonna speak like a pilot speaks.
And when I actually at the table, I I I didn't do any of that shit.
Yeah, I barely remembered the stuff he told me.
I was forgetting my I So I was like, it was a kind of a B minus performance, I thought.
So from time to time, there's characters that I'm like, ah fuck, I could have played that character so much better.
But but other than that, I mean, I do feel
generally good about the work we do.
I'm I'm generally happy with our work and I have I'm pretty comfortable in my own s my stuff, you know?
Yeah, totally.
'Cause I've been I'm old enough now that I'm just like, Yeah, that's this is my stuff.
I hope you like it.
Yeah.
Wait, so wait, are we you know, you look like what, probably forty five, forty six.
Is that ballpark?
I'm actually I'm actually older than that, but let's Okay, okay.
Yeah.
I'll live with that's great.
Yeah, yeah, okay.
I'm forty and people think I'm like thirty five, so yeah.
You know, you've kind of grown into this confidence and you know, through being a skilled player and all of your your experience in recording and performing, it's helped you avoid
having to second guess yourself too much, right?
Yeah, I I I mean I did when I was a kid I did theater, you know, like like a lot of us did.
I was I did theater stuff, I did music and uh the whole deal.
Like I was performing stuff.
I I work in a field where I have to talk.
I'm an attorney.
I talk in court.
Sure.
You know, so I I got a left under my s experience under my belt that I can I can fake it real well.
Yeah, yeah.
You have a a high charisma score, so yeah.
Enough that I can get I can get by.
Exactly.
Yeah.
In that vein, but like when you produce the show from running, playing a character, recording the writing process, like which which part of the process is most difficult for
you and why do you think that is?
Yeah.
If any at all.
Right.
The writing is the hardest.
Okay.
But I that's because I I am the hardest on myself in that part.
when I'm roll role playing and acting, it's it's all impromptu.
And so I give myself a lot of grace.
I'm like, you know what?
That was I had that was first take, right?
We had no rehearsal, we have no script.
Whatever comes out, comes out, I'll live with it, you know.
Yeah.
But with writing, I I've I got time.
I can see it on this page, I can edit it, I can fix it, I can I can
I have power over that that um whatever it turns out, I have power over it.
I could have made it better.
So I put a lot of pressure on myself and like my earlier scripts I'm not as happy with.
Ob obviously we get better as we do this stuff.
But those and when I when I nail one, I that really satisfies me.
I I love that feeling like, yeah, that was good.
Um and I don't always feel that.
Like sometimes I just write it because I have to get something out.
Sure and then whatever, I'll do it better next week.
So totally.
Yeah, I mean if you w if you don't mind, we can hone in on that just a little bit.
When when you write something well and you feel good about it, like what's usually the process that unfolds for you?
Is it is there some sort of inspiration?
Is it just craft?
How does it usually come out well to where you're proud of it?
Yeah, i I I love a scene that I I don't want it's gotta be th three to five minutes.
It's a short scene where something is revealed.
At the end of the scene, the audience learns something new.
There's some there's a secret that we are gonna unveil in this scene.
You know, and you can't always do that.
That's hard to do.
But I love it when I can finish a script with some twist, some remark, some revelation that the audience, you know, light bulb goes off.
And if I g if I can nail that, then I I feel really good.
But sometimes it's just
doing fun character stuff.
I have like with with Morrison, for instance, is a character I write a lot.
Yeah.
He's one of my N PCs.
I I like the f to get more and more into him and do fun stuff with him and the other characters.
So I sometimes it's just just fan service or for me.
Write fun stuff for him.
Yeah, your performance of him, you like you can tell that you luxuriate in it, right?
Like that, like you come out when Morrison is on the the um wavelengths, I guess, not the screen.
But yeah, so yeah.
Yeah, I mean I guess, you know, kind of a lightning question with that, like, do you have a favorite N PC?
Yeah, I mean he's definitely one, obviously.
Um I I've had several different characters in our runs that that I just love those characters.
Yeah.
You know, and because with we when we we as handlers, GMs, whatever, we we I don't know, was it we play ten, twenty, thirty different people at once at the table?
We bring a lot of characters to life.
And we can't nail them all.
That's impossible.
But if you could nail just a couple, then that's the that's the goal.
So Morrison obviously is one.
in this in the same story, in the static story, that there's this gender character.
huh uh gosh, H Henry, I think.
Gosh, the old Harold.
Old Harold.
Yeah, yeah.
Is one of my favorite NPCs that I love that I could play him forever.
I don't know why.
But for some reason about something about that guy that I could really resonate with.
My my character, Nicholas, who is a PC, but really is a GM N P C Sure.
To me was one of my absolute favorite characters I ever played.
You know, got to I got to run crate
That's what I got to chew the walls with that character and I love that guy to death.
And then I'm trying to think who else from our stories.
gosh, that really comes to mind.
I mean those are the ones that come to mind, I guess.
From all the stuff we've done.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's great.
I mean it's a it's a wealth of you know, you said hundred and sixty something episodes.
There's a lot of characters in there, right?
So when are you going back to space?
I'm just kidding.
Maybe hopefully soon.
I I loved that.
I I'd I'd love that sidetrack, but I think I what did I play?
I played like no NPCs in that story.
That's an amazing story.
Barely, barely played NPCs in that story.
They were barely on screen in the the final aspects of that chapter of the very first chapter.
Yep.
That was a e that was a I love that story for a lot of reasons, but it's just such a different vibe to what we were doing.
And the world building with the character intros you would do before each episode was so interesting.
And you're just like, wow.
I have s like just this like three minute thing gave me such a different understanding of that PC, right?
So it was yeah, it was really good.
So and it was very tight too.
It was it moved quick and it was action the whole time.
So in like role playing action, not like you know.
Yeah, I arc it's Arc one five we're talking about.
Yeah, that's uh it's such it's such a story at a time for everything else we're doing.
Totally.
Yeah.
and I I forget about it sometimes weirdly enough because it's not it's Call of Cthulhu.
It's not part of our storyline.
You know, but but it's it was yeah, it's it it was a wonderful I was I wouldn't say experimental.
It's it's tight, but it's just it was just a different and it's a great story.
Well, very well produced too.
Get did an amazing job on the production of that story.
You know, when did you bring get in and like what did you do yourself before that or as a group?
How did how did that evolve?
Yeah, so when we started out, Taylor ob was the initial producer, editor, he was running the back end.
He managing the website.
he did all that stuff for us.
He it was and he was overburdened like crazy.
Yeah.
And then every single weekend, Taylor was editing and he was not an experienced editor.
But he also was kind of peculiar.
He wanted things to sound a certain way, so he'd spent hours and hours, Saturday and Sunday, on the episode that would be coming out on Monday.
And then the next weekend he'd be do the same thing.
He's
His entire weekend was getting ready for that Monday release.
And we were encouraging him and and like trying to keep him going, but his battery was going down, and he was a soldier for it.
But um, while he was also running Painting Darkness and editing at the same time, which was crazy, Ged, out of nowhere, he's like a college student's a college student who's a
wonder cun.
He's an amazing guy.
He just sends an email to Taylor Out of the Blue, like this stranger to our our Gmail address.
We have a stories in lies Gmail address.
Taylor happens to open it up and he's like, Hey, I'm a freelance editor.
I like your podcast.
cool.
This guy actually lists someone listens to us.
This is amazing.
He's like, Hey, do you guys need any help with your editing?
And so and he's that but he he charges for the service.
It wasn't like he's looking for work, right?
Yeah.
And so he's like, here's a list of my work.
Here's a link to all my samples, my experience, blah, blah, blah.
Taylor, Taylor loves it.
He sends us all this stuff.
He's like, Can we hire this guy?
And Matt and I and Wes are like, yeah, sure, man, we'll all chip in.
This is w this is worth it.
We're gonna help you out.
We know this is a burden.
We'll help you out, man.
So we bring him in like in the middle of painting darkness, too.
It wasn't even we're like, just take over, man.
I think it's like episode seven or eight or something, and you can like suddenly hear the difference in this quality in the middle of that story.
He's been with us ever since.
And like the fun part is initially he was like a uh a guy we hired to do production, right?
Yeah.
And then we like brought him into the fold and and we're like he's like telling us creative stuff.
He's like overruling us on things and suggesting things to us.
We're like, Hey, let's do this song.
No, no, no, let's do a better I got a better song for ya.
Yeah.
He kinda took he took over all that aspect of production and uh we've been better off.
Yeah.
Yeah, he's like an editor and a producer too, it sounds like, which is great.
Yeah.
So yeah, he he's hilarious when I see him in Discord and stuff, and he's seems like an all around solid guy.
So and yeah, does he do every episode then or do you s sometimes Taylor go back and do some?
Like maybe this Yeah, go ahead.
does a few.
Um Taylor mostly the idea was Taylor would do the Patreon and we've been really remiss in doing the Patreon.
But he's edited a cup Taylor has done a couple of our behind the scenes episodes.
Sure.
That didn't require any kind of production work.
So Taylor would just do those.
But otherwise, anything that requires, you know, SFX, um, more advanced theme music, whatever.
I mean anything that gets touched.
It gets it gets been involved in it and pretty heavily involved.
And a lot of our later productions as far as what it's gonna sound like.
And I like I like that forget almost has an idea, like a director.
Like this is the this is the direction this story should go in.
And this is the the the sound I want for this story.
Like, you know what I mean?
Like he has his I'm so cool.
'Cause he he also he works in film.
He does editing audio for film.
He's got he's a busy guy.
And we just I just hope we don't lose him.
That would be that would be
Yeah.
Fingers crossed.
So yeah.
Kind of switching gears.
When you first started recording, it could be with anything, right?
Like what advice do you have for yourself, you know, you know, X years old Tom, to, you know, you sitting down to first start these projects?
Like what advice would you give yourself?
it's hard to say.
I mean, 'cause I y you gotta give yourself a whole lot of grace, a whole lot of latitude and let yourself make mistakes.
And y I don't wanna be like I would not tell a young version of myself, you know, a a whole bunch of extra rules or a bunch of extra boundaries.
Because we all had to learn by screwing things up, yep, by getting by deadline pressure, you know, by um well there's a lot of mistakes and things you make along the way that
should help you get better.
I mostly just
Just tell it's gonna be great, keep it up, and that kind of stuff.
It's mostly encouragement.
Encouragement.
If I'm talking to a young myself or just a young whoever, a young person who's starting this, you know, um, you you gotta you gotta love it.
Otherwise, why are you doing it?
But if you do love it, then like, you know, go for it.
Go, go for it, man.
It's have fun, put it out there.
And if it's something that you enjoy, I think the joy comes out.
And um in the technical stuff, it's great.
I mean, I love it.
But that's that's not why podcasts fail or succeed.
I don't think that's it.
It's about does it does the audience like it?
Does it resonate?
Does it connect?
Yeah.
Is it something that people enjoy and want to hear more of for whatever reason, you know, emotional or otherwise?
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
Completely agree.
And on that note, like where do when where do you get character inspiration?
Like when you're sitting down to play rather than uh handle, how do you come up with a character?
Where do you get ideas and
Yeah, it's uh it it's tough because I feel like it's all been done.
Number one.
Right?
It's hard it and if you try to make that character no one else has done, that character is a cliche.
So like like and I've seen plenty of podcasts or st role playing games where people pick this the weirdest guy you can think of that no one's ever thought of before, and it just
doesn't fit.
And it it just seems like a caricature as opposed to a person.
So um it it's hard to make a character that it's the way we do it internally,
It's a we we talk a lot about I I like I ask questions of who is this guy?
What were they doing before?
What matters to you?
You know, what how do you how does he view this?
How does he view that?
Who or is we do a lot of talking about are these people and we try to discover things about them, you know, even before we play.
I mean, sometimes more than others, wouldn't w with stories and lives for for the initial cast for Ladybug.
I don't know how this happened.
This is Taylor's fault.
I'm a I'm gonna blame Taylor for that.
Taylor loved Dorothy from the get go.
Like that's his that's he's been playing her forever.
Yeah.
That's our longest standing character.
He started writing short fiction featuring Dorothy's background.
And then that got Wes to write a story.
And then that got Matt to do a story.
And then I like wrote some shit as well for Mike.
Like we all started writing little stories about our characters for no re just because we're all weird role play people, right?
Sure, yeah.
We're like doing this little, you know, fanfic for characters we have not yet played.
We haven't started recording yet.
We've started wow.
Who are these people?
And by the time we did episode one, I mean, I knew who Willow was.
Yeah.
From talking to Wes, from reading these stories.
I knew the kind of things I wanted to seed into those conversations.
I had we had figured out who George Lewiston was, the character who starts out dead.
In episode one, he's dead.
Yeah.
And he's an integral care part of the background of all these people.
And I knew who he was, his connection to these people.
I'm seeding things in to his backstory.
And and we just then you have to let your players who would love their characters, right?
Yeah.
light and let them play these characters out, interact with each other, then they start mixing up this uh and it's chemistry happens and then great things happen and then you
move the story along, right?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And it yeah, it does it absolutely comes through, right?
So and the the fact that you all that pre-conversation, you know, in like film, they'll have actors sit together.
I mean i theater too and like get to know each other.
They're if they're couple, they should have dinner a few times before they play a couple, right?
So it makes sense that you guys would develop so much and like basically spitball these guys out and start giving them shape, right?
In like
Mythos or these um role play like D one hundred role playing games where you have to embody like a human, like there's so much opportunity to do that, right?
When I think of the OSR, like the old school renaissance, you know, you're you're basically creating character off random role tables and that's it.
And it's it's a lot more difficult to get into something like that a lot of the time.
And plus they have like three hit points and die anyway in like a session, but
But I think that like that's why that's what I love about Delta Green, Call of Cthulhu and things like that.
You're you're able to enact things that are real more often, right?
Not saying you can't do that in, you know, high fantasy and things like that, but there's just something special about, you know, this this is somebody who's gonna face like
realistic but impossible odds, you know.
One thing like is I feel like our characters are relatable.
Yeah.
Because they're humans in in very human situations with families, with obligations, with responsibilities, with uh humans humans' moral values, like that hopefully our audience
shares, right?
Yeah.
And then when these characters are having these struggles, these these value struggles, these ethical struggles, you hope the audience is also sharing those struggles and feeling
the same pressure of what would I do if I was in that situation.
So I think that's pretty relatable.
Um I
Moving forward just a second.
Yeah.
We're doing God's Teeth, you know, as well, which is something that is a campaign and not just a story.
So for God's Teeth, we did a lot of the same stuff we did for Ladybug.
Except we didn't write any micro fiction.
But we did a lot a lot of conversations about who these people are, what they were.
Not just section zero, but even between that.
And a character I play in God's Teeth, I'm really excited about because I spent a lot of time figuring her out.
Yeah.
Before I even started role playing her.
So that's that's part of
That's part of the sauce, I think, is it's getting in the head of these characters early enough and that you can really jump in there and and you're and you wanna find out what
happens to this person.
You get attached.
For better or for worse, right?
You get attached to these characters.
Yes, yeah.
Yeah, it's for Savannah.
Was this something in your head that had been kind of floating around before God's teeth, or when when God's teeth came up, you're like, Okay, I'm gonna do some thinking and pick
this out.
Like how did you come to that character?
Yeah, I mean it's a lot of I don't know, it's hard to I don't remember but I do remember this.
Um at some point I I wanted to based on what other people are doing, right?
I wanted to go the federal agent, but I didn't want to do a federal agent.
I ended up with a marshal, but I didn't want to be a marshal.
It's bunch of this process.
Yeah.
But I I ultimately chose a character that actually my sister is the i inspiration for a lot of this stuff.
That's for the fun part for me.
Yeah.
I took my sister in her background and and completely changed it, obviously.
Sure.
I but you start I start with a real person like and her and a background in a story to figure out how to emulate a lot of this the day-to-day stuff.
And then I started adding, adding, adding details and background and talked to Matt about details that may may or may not ever come out.
I don't know.
Probably probably will knowing Matt.
But you but I did start with a real human person who I know.
And then I went from that person and developed a whole other person.
That's cool.
Yeah, that's that's awesome.
A lot of people like look into other fiction a lot of the times and I think that's where you can get into the caricature.
But when you like can ground it to a real person, that's um that's really fun.
And especially if somebody close to you.
Yeah, I I I I really I love that character and I hope nothing happens to her.
Uh whereas the character I'm playing in Taylor's story, which we just finished, yeah is one that I don't really love.
I mean, I I can play him, but I don't I don't relate to him or understand him at all.
I just do the best I can to fake that character.
As like Julian, my my tro my struggling artist character, yeah, you know, with who's a just a uh very uh you can see that he's not me.
I don't know.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
No, I th I've I thought you've been playing him well, like especially like the like he's an artist, but he's more kind of like a a mimicry artist or like he's good at copying,
right?
Like he can he can do that, but he may maybe doesn't necessarily have his own internal well of like ideas, right?
So yeah.
Yeah, I'm excited to see what happens with Julian.
I'm sure it's like what, next week or the week after?
Yeah, I for for our per ours for our purposes, I don't know when this is coming out as a recording.
It's gonna be like next week, right?
Great.
Cool.
Yeah, I'm excited.
From a storytelling perspective, God's teeth ends whatever's in between the next few chapters is over.
And you're, you know, setting the stage for your own story.
Like what what type of experiments do you want to do in the future with a storytelling?
Or what are you passionate about for yourself next?
And you don't have to reveal details, but just thematically generally like what's what's hyping you up.
I when I started out, I think like most handlers, GMs, whatever start, we we do tend to stay really close to the written materials that are that are really well done.
Delta Green's got some amazing published scenarios that are like a a crutch for you as a new handler, storyteller, GM, whatever.
And like I I started out with those, right?
And as I've been going along, I've been doing more and more of my own stuff.
Yep.
So I've I've been I've been mostly looking forward to creating my own stuff, and that's that's that's a hell of a
an ask, right?
Yes.
That that's a hell of an ask.
I I feel pretty good like, I'll figure something out.
'Cause I I I guess I have, but but I I don't have it yet.
So I I do after this after we do God's teeth, which is a second chapter, which is called Red Thoughts, like I'm on deck for the next story.
So I'm like I'm in this the batting circles, but I'm doing it.
And I'm actually working on it.
It's kind of fun because Taylor we're working on art for that already.
I'm working on we're working on characters for that.
We're we're all get working on that in the
Even though we're not playing that for who knows when.
But on that I'm up next.
Matt's gonna give me a breather doing more God's teeth.
And then after that I need something entirely new.
Entirely new.
And I don't know what that's gonna be.
I'm in that spot where like I think we've all been there as a handler where you're like, or GM, you finish a story.
People are the players love it, they wanna do something else, but you don't have something else.
Yeah.
Yet.
Exactly.
And so at some point inspiration will strike.
But I mean I'm up
Back to your original question.
What I'm doing with the next story, I feel good about because it's kind of it's kind of it's different.
And I really like doing stuff that's different.
It's a challenge.
Yeah.
It's a format's structure a little different.
It's a little bit more uh surreal, I guess, is the best way I put it.
It's not gonna be linear, it's it's a little more weird, which we've been had some good success with.
But after that, I need to find a new direction.
So yeah, we've we've had a lot of luck with kind of picking these themes of stories and then doing a
Doing uh following the theme, right?
Yeah.
It could be pulp, spy, spy fiction, you know.
Um I I don't even know what c you call days long since remembered.
Yeah.
But we always have these different kind of modes.
Yeah.
I I need to do something that's very much conspiracy war, is what I'm trying to do.
Something that's conflict in the na late nineties, Delta Green versus Majestic.
Yeah.
And I need to I need to find the the vehicle for that story.
Yeah.
I'll figure it out one day.
I don't know what day that is, but I'll figure that out at some point.
That's cool.
Yeah.
And that's a great fertile space, right?
That's like such a fun thing.
Like you're interacting with the unnatural, but then you have this deep state for lack of a better term, like destroying itself essentially.
So yeah, that's really cool.
And I'm really happy the Delta Green authors have done a great job of making a story world with a lot of great story hooks and built in conflicts and lots of wonderful gray areas we
can explore.
And I think um like I've been talking with the guys offline about the way I view the majestic group is different than other people.
Interesting, yeah.
Like I'm because I I like to view them as a a a committee of individuals, not like one single minded individual, right?
Sure.
Which means there's there's competing agendas.
Yeah.
And and this there's never one version of the of the um steering committee.
It's just it's just twelve different people's opinions.
It's a giant bureaucracy that causes a lot of trouble that it's it's it's gonna ultimately turn on itself because that's how this works, right?
Yeah.
But how do you get individual stories within that?
How do you show those stories?
How do your players affect those stories?
That's that's the challenge.
Yeah, that's interesting.
And I mean, I know play you're still playing through God's teeth, but you know, this isn't like spoilery or anything.
But the God's teeth is really it's not necessarily about the bureaucracy of like the deep state or the CIA or whatever it may be, but it is about the like that the system that can
just crush individuals and like getting lost in that and where can you even change or control it, right?
And I think, you know, Caleb Stokes like my favorite like um
probably author in the Delta Green space, you know, his he's very pessimistic with his like outcomes of that like question, right?
So I would be curious like what your, you know, answer to that is.
You don't seem as pessimistic as Caleb, I guess.
So
Yeah, I I I find these systems to be somewhat agnostic or somewhat some of like like law lawful neutral, I guess is the better to put it.
And individuals can push the levers in either direction.
So I don't I don't view the system as corrupt.
I view it just individuals within the system, you know, bend and shape it.
It depends on who you have at the levers.
Yeah, it's like a mechanism of control, right?
Like you have this s it is like yeah, a system, right?
And there has to be intent behind the system that like causes the pain, right?
Or causes, you know, like things to get better, right?
Like that intent behind it is important.
Yeah.
I mean I know Caleb has a very much a sense of the soulless system, right?
Mm-hmm.
That just it just kind of causes misery by existence.
And there is there's guess some truth to that because so much of the system is dehumanizing and making making individuals into collectives, you know, and yeah.
And people get lost in the cracks all the time when you make everybody a you know, a square or a circle or try to make a one rule for all or whatever, you know.
Yeah.
So s systems are systems aren't good or bad, but they do have a lot of lot of negative outcomes, obviously.
As we're getting toward the end of our time here, anything else you want to talk about or like anything that you think is interesting, um, that's worth exploring quickly?
Yeah.
So what yeah, one I guess one thing I do want to say when I was I was thinking about this conversation here.
Yeah.
and some of the questions leading up to it.
Um I think one thing that is hard and for for me and maybe you know the same system, same feeling, is um when we make this stuff, like we make stuff sometimes we we could create
stuff that is amazing, that we love, are passionate about, we wanna share it.
It turned out better than we thought.
We're just so proud, right?
Yeah.
And this happens with
artists, with musicians, with any kind of people in the arts where you make great things and then it just never gets discovered.
And it that's and that is that is I don't know how to fix that problem, but that was in to me in the first two years, maybe even now, of doing this, that was my biggest struggle.
It wasn't doing the art and showing up and doing the work.
It was now that I've done it, does anybody even care?
Did anyone hear it?
Is there is there an audience?
And it's it's wonderful.
I love it when people do
Tell us, like people show up and tell us that they heard it.
'Cause that that's so reassuring.
Um, but it took a long time, at least for for me to for mainstream, I ph if it's a mainstream of Delta Green.
Yeah, to like even like I I felt like we people were listening to us, but almost like felt I felt for a long time like we were just kind of lost, like like a small group of
listeners in a big group of role players.
And whenever someone would talk about podcasts, it was always the same two podcasts that they would mention.
Sure.
Yeah.
And that that always bugged me.
It was it was irrational.
It was an emotional thing for me.
Like if you just listen to what we did, maybe maybe you would but it it has it has it's changed.
I'll put it that way.
It's changed as more and more people do the the word eventually gets out.
It just takes time.
So for anybody who's new and and and like it may take a couple of years.
And maybe be your not your first, second, or maybe your third story hits or something just happens along the run that catches fire for whatever reason.
Who knows the reason?
Yep.
I do feel like over time the art gets respect, but it it takes a while and that that can be frustrating.
Absolutely I mean, just like, you know, in the taking a micro and making it macro, like Lovecraft himself, right?
No fame at all um during his life, right?
So like very you're devastating for him like as a person, right?
But yeah, there is this like and this is what I think of like post episode blues, right?
Where you release something and then you get, you know, some like some people in Discord are like, yeah, this is great, da da da.
But then you're just
There's something in the back of my head sometimes where I'm just like, does anybody give a shit?
Right.
You know, like you're just like, you know, I love this, I love producing it.
So that's enough for me to keep doing it.
But then there is that voice that's like, but no one like how many people are really listening to it?
Like, you know, I don't know.
I mean, I do because I can I can see the the downloads, but yeah, it is a tough place to be, right?
And growing a show um can be hard.
But I I do think what you're saying, like just keeping at it.
And
Focusing on like the, you know, why you love doing it and continuing to push that weight, I think it does start to separate you from the people who are in it just to like get
listens or to monetize or to, you know, someday be able to play ads, right?
Like for me, I was like, I'll never I never want to make money off of this.
I just want to do this for fun.
I don't want to like ever have ads.
Maybe I would do a coffee or something like that just to pay for the cost of running it.
Um, but like
you know, just honing in on like your own values in the space, right?
And keep going, right.
And I think people will eventually see that and come to your show.
So yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean for I mean for us, we we all we love playing, we love doing all that stuff great.
We and that's that's a that's hell of a motivation right there.
But we we've talked about it internally, like none of us are gonna we're never gonna put ads on it, whatever.
Sure.
And the other guys that I work with are are very much cool.
Like if we have two listeners or or twenty or whatever, they don't care.
They're pretty much like, I don't care, I'm happy with the show, I like it.
Like for I guess for me I always I always got a little bit like I I just
I want I want the main I always wanted the mainstream of Delta Green to at least know it.
I don't know whether they like it or not, whatever.
But at least to have heard of it.
That was my irrational I don't know what that word is.
Insecurity.
That's my insecurity.
insecurity.
Yeah.
I mean, that makes sense, right?
And I think a lot of like when you do feel confident as a storyteller and you feel like your stories are good and you have something to share, it can be tough, right?
Like if you don't feel like you're able to share it, right?
It is a it's an audience problem, right?
Where it's like, I know the story's good, like it resonates with the people who are seeing it.
Like, how do I get more people to see this and and have it resonate?
with those people as well, right?
'Cause I think it does have something to offer the world, right?
And it's tough, like if you feel like that's not happening or that you can't execute on that like enough.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, so maybe that's something I would tell my younger self.
Yeah, it let it just let it be.
Have some patience.
Give it some time.
It'll yeah, it'll it'll work out.
That that that would be good advice for for young young Tom just starting this thing out.
Yeah.
I mean, what I will say is, you know, you know, I reached out to you first just because I respect you as like a creator and you know, we don't have a lot of connections between our
shows or anything, right?
When I think of okay, where I want to grow as a storyteller, somebody embodying a character, it is your show.
It's not glass cannon or like big ones, like I don't those the shows honestly kind of annoy me.
So but like it is it is really a stories and lies.
So yeah.
Appreciate that.
Yeah, I mean we're cause that we are not a live performance role play show.
Those are those those are different vehicles.
They're there to entertain, to do live improv using role playing games as a way to do that live comedy, whatever, that's their show.
Um You you did borrow Mark, didn't you?
Yeah.
It was amazing.
I love that.
Yeah.
And Mark, I I'm so jealous of Mark's voice.
Like every time I hear it, I'm just like, man, this guy has such a voice, right?
Like, and he I mean, cause he's fairly new to the crew, right?
I don't know how new he is to role playing, but like like lightning in a bottle with that guy, right?
Like, I'm just like, whoa.
But yeah, like I love the idea of putting a cow, you know, or a human brain in
Well, I don't want to spoil too much, but like you know what I'm saying.
Some Migo business and I wanted to s have one of our characters sent off like that.
So it was it was cool that you guys were open to like sharing that with me.
I loved it.
Yeah.
That's really cool.
I mean I yeah, I I really I I I like where our show fits in the I don't know what you call it, cosmology.
But that's the kind of sh that's the kind of game we like to play.
That's really yeah.
It's not like we're we did it intentionally.
That's just the way we like to play gaze games.
Yeah.
We're very we're very character centered.
And in and my I mean I I went to school as a writer.
That's about my I'm talking about my background is writing.
Yeah.
Um, and then I went to law school
Because I want to get a job or what I want to like make a living.
I want yeah, yeah.
I want to pay my rent.
Yeah.
You know what mean?
But I I I have I have some training in in writing and screenwriting and all that stuff in theater and all that.
But and my what I was taught early on, this idea of a story is a character in conflict.
It's character in conflict.
That all boils down to it.
And it's not the conflict that's the story, it's the people that are in it and what decisions they make.
And that's and that's the audience.
We're following these people and their decisions.
And that's that's what gets us interested as an audience and television, movies, whatever.
It's about following a character through their conflict, their decisions, their struggles.
And that's that's always been my focus when I've done role playing games.
You know, well, not always.
When it was D and D that w it wasn't it it was but we I do have a background in doing the white wolf storytelling game system.
That was one of my first
Formative role playing uh for rays and that's all about characters.
oh
I've never heard of it, so I'm gonna note it here.
Yeah.
I'll I'll if you give me one minute, I'll I'll give you that I'll I'll give you that go.
So so White Wolf is a company that came out in the nineties that was very much angst, you know very it was grunge angst the crow kind of stuff, you know.
Yeah, yeah.
But it they started out with Vampire.
That was their first game.
Vampire the Masquerade.
Oh and they made bunch of other games.
Yeah.
World of Darkness story.
But all their games are were a twist on the convention.
That was their novel twist.
Was these people.
And then it could be a vampire, right?
But vampires are interesting because they have been living a long time.
They have a hell of a backstory.
And it's all about their interests, their desires, their conflicts, their and it's very social as opposed to dungeon crawl fighting.
There's there's combat like there always is.
But sure.
It really is when we made vampire characters at the table, it was okay, your guy was born in 1842.
Where has he been for the last two 120 what it years?
What's his story?
Yeah.
and so it was focused on the people on their backstory and that got us thinking about these characters.
More so than the monster of the week.
Yeah, exactly.
Like how how can I use these two spells in the next combat encounter?
Right.
So yeah.
No, that's great.
Yeah, sorry.
Why I didn't realize it was the company that did World of Darkness stuff, but I I've never played but like there was a show called Have you heard of Real Lich Hours?
It they did a world of uh like World of Darkness, Vampire the Masquerade season where they just did like the one of the video games, but then use that as a way to go through the
source books and
Get an understanding of factions and classes and things like that.
Very interesting show.
So yeah, it's worth the listen.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Well, Tom, thank you.
I appreciate you sitting down with me.
Um, it was great to like meet you this way and um that you're able also just to be a little vulnerable with me and talk through some of the insecurities was awesome to hear.
And I think people who listen to this will appreciate that as well.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
I I I'm happy to talk about this.
I I I do love this stuff.
I I really honestly do.
I mean, I've I've got a day job, I've got a career, I've got a family, and those things are those things are important.
Yeah, obviously.
We we we got our we both have kids, we've got we got professional jobs we've got we've been trained for and educated for that we gotta do.
Um but we I think we all need like a little s I don't know, that creativity.
I need I needed that something in my life and
And for some people it's it's that could be painting, you know, it could be gardening, I don't know.
It could be pottery.
It uh some some guys is golf.
I don't know.
But this is my thing, man.
This role playing games, I just decided when I was, I don't know, thirty or forty, that even though I've got a career, this is not some stupid kids game I w you know, it's not
some fun, silly hobby.
It's just something that I enjoy.
I I really love this stuff.
and and I wanna keep doing it and I wanna
I'm happy.
I love talking about it.
I love participating in it.
I like trying to make something better than what I've done, you know, before, I guess.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think you're you're you're succeeding.
So like, yeah, I think you should definitely keep it up.
So and I know you will.
So yeah.
Awesome.
Well, anything you want to plug before you go?
I know you're wrapping up an arc and you're about to start um the next part of God's teeth.
Anything else you want to mention here at the end for people to check out?
I I'll say mean if if if people if people are hearing this and are not are not familiar with us, I mean that's that's great.
Uh that's um we're our podcast is called Stories and Lies and it's a little and persand, which messes up your search.
But but we we do primarily Delta Green settings and stories.
And and I I am the I guess I'm the primary handler, I don't know.
But we do rotate storytellers, right?
And we've been telling a couple of different long form stories and we
Do it it's really about I'd say about three stories a year or basically is how we do it.
We're every Monday, every Monday we got a new chapter, about an hour long podcast comes out.
Um and if if you like it, I I hope people enjoy it.
We do it the audience and if you want to say hi, we've got a a Discord and stuff you can say hi and we'd love to we'd love to we like hearing that too.
We like to praise it.
So thanks for everybody who's listening.
I hope it's been a great thank you, Nick, for having here.
I I like of course I love talking about this stuff.
Yeah, no.
Yeah, it's great.
And I'm learning from just hearing you talk about it.
So it's it's awesome to have this conversation.