MUP 20 - Bumps in the Night With A.S.G.

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Keeper Jon
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Re: MUP 20 - Bumps in the Night With A.S.G.

Post by Keeper Jon » Tue Dec 18, 2012 7:07 pm

Dr. Gerard wrote:
Keeper Jon wrote:
Eibon wrote:As an aside, people looking for a good Robert E. Howard biography should definitely try Blood and Thunder by Mark Finn.
Well, it looks like this is a rare out-of-print book, but a used paperback edition isn't too horrible. I'll be ordering this someday soon.
Nice! You know, for future show topics, REH would be really fun to cover -- but from a game perspective. We've done a pulp show already, but dialing into the flavor of a particular author would be a blast.


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Good idea. I like it.

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Re: MUP 20 - Bumps in the Night With A.S.G.

Post by PirateLawyer » Tue Dec 18, 2012 9:43 pm

I'm a new listener, having finally journeyed over here from the waystation that is Yog-Sothoth. Like others in this thread have said before me, I can listen to ASG by the hour; consequently, this episode was a real treat. I will definitely examine previous episodes and I'm sure I'll find much of value.

One minor quibble: I found the sound effects that censored some of the adult language from both the hosts and the featured guest to be more than a little jarring (and loud). Given both the general and the specific nature of MU's subject matter in this episode, which featured one of the hosts waxing rhapsodic over some of the gruesome and brutal trench warfare of WWI, just to list one example, I would think that some editorial restraint is in order going forward . . . my poor ears thank you in advance.

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Re: MUP 20 - Bumps in the Night With A.S.G.

Post by Keeper Jon » Tue Dec 18, 2012 9:51 pm

PirateLawyer wrote:I'm a new listener, having finally journeyed over here from the waystation that is Yog-Sothoth. Like others in this thread have said before me, I can listen to ASG by the hour; consequently, this episode was a real treat. I will definitely examine previous episodes and I'm sure I'll find much of value.

One minor quibble: I found the sound effects that censored some of the adult language from both the hosts and the featured guest to be more than a little jarring (and loud). Given both the general and the specific nature of MU's subject matter in this episode, which featured one of the hosts waxing rhapsodic over some of the gruesome and brutal trench warfare of WWI, just to list one example, I would think that some editorial restraint is in order going forward . . . my poor ears thank you in advance.
Welcome! Thanks for joining us. YSDC is all of our second homes as well.

Yeah, most of our shows don't have explict language, in an attempt to make our show as widely accessible as possible, and Keeper Chad, (aka Dr. Gerard), was trying out some new sound effects for the "bleeping," so that is definitely not the norm for our show. After it was all said and done, we all agreed that if we could do it over again, that the ASG show would've just been labeled as explicit and not done any editing at all. Live and learn. :mrgreen:

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Re: MUP 20 - Bumps in the Night With A.S.G.

Post by Dr. Gerard » Wed Dec 19, 2012 1:46 am

PirateLawyer wrote:I'm a new listener, having finally journeyed over here from the waystation that is Yog-Sothoth. Like others in this thread have said before me, I can listen to ASG by the hour; consequently, this episode was a real treat. I will definitely examine previous episodes and I'm sure I'll find much of value.

One minor quibble: I found the sound effects that censored some of the adult language from both the hosts and the featured guest to be more than a little jarring (and loud). Given both the general and the specific nature of MU's subject matter in this episode, which featured one of the hosts waxing rhapsodic over some of the gruesome and brutal trench warfare of WWI, just to list one example, I would think that some editorial restraint is in order going forward . . . my poor ears thank you in advance.
Yup, mea culpa. Sorry about that, I was trying to do it in an interesting way, but I missed about 25% of the cursing anyway in my haste. A question: for the first part of the show, I used a quiet die-roll effect for the bleeping, and then gunfire and explosions in the second part. Were they both just as jarring?

Also, welcome to the forum!
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Re: MUP 20 - Bumps in the Night With A.S.G.

Post by PirateLawyer » Wed Dec 19, 2012 2:36 am

Dr. Gerard wrote:Yup, mea culpa. Sorry about that, I was trying to do it in an interesting way, but I missed about 25% of the cursing anyway in my haste. A question: for the first part of the show, I used a quiet die-roll effect for the bleeping, and then gunfire and explosions in the second part. Were they both just as jarring?

Also, welcome to the forum!
Thanks for the welcome.

I'd have to say the latter was more grating, but it's not like I wasn't startled by the former. I can only give my subjective opinion; for me, the endeavor to censor the mild profanity was unnecessary and disruptive to my listening experience. Moreover I do think the entire exercise is pointless in the first place; the subject matter of the podcast is for a mature audience anyhow, so why try to censor run-of-the-mill profanity that I, for one, regularly hear at the gaming table?

But again, this was a minor quibble. The podcast quality was excellent overall and you had a first-rate guest who was his usual entertaining self.

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Re: MUP 20 - Bumps in the Night With A.S.G.

Post by WiseWolf » Wed Dec 19, 2012 5:07 pm

Dr. Gerard wrote: A question: for the first part of the show, I used a quiet die-roll effect for the bleeping, and then gunfire and explosions in the second part. Were they both just as jarring?
I liked both, the dice and the gunfire, although I agree, this is mature content anyways. Our kind is used to explicit content. Let anyone who listen to do it under their own risk, it is not that bad either, just a few words here and there that do not come as offensive but more as colloquial, but it is your show, your rules.

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Re: MUP 20 - Bumps in the Night With A.S.G.

Post by Dr. Gerard » Wed Dec 19, 2012 6:31 pm

Good points -- and if we did that again we'd certainly watch the sound levels more closely.

For sure, bleeping ASG was not the best route, and the decision was done in a rush to get the show released. Frankly, I thought it would be sort of funny to use sound effects for bleeps, but I wasn't thinking about how it would be distracting as well.

None of us are particularly sensitive to cursing, and we certainly don't try to whitewash the material, but we know some people prefer to listen to the show out loud at home, instead of on headphones, and have kids around. So we made a decision to keep the episodes clean(ish) and leave the APs...um...dirty.

We can always just skip the cleaning for guests and put an explicit tag on it, and I think that's what we'll be doing from now on.
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Re: MUP 20 - Bumps in the Night With A.S.G.

Post by Keeper Dan » Tue Dec 25, 2012 3:58 pm

Indeed. Guests will get a pass on what they want to say.

As captain of this ship, here's my take on the language thing. I modeled this show after several podcasts that I listen to. Yog Radio, HPL Literary Podcast, The Signal, & Order 66 chief among them. Order 66 is the only one of those with cursing, and that's only episodes with a specific sound clip at the beginning to specify it as such.
There's also the mention that the game is for mature players anyway. I disagree to a point. I see no reason why a 14 year old can't pick up this book and play fun monster hunting, historically inaccurate games with his friends. I believe that encouraging young people to play RPGs is how you keep the hobby moving forward. And my belief that CoC is one of the best games on the market means that I want the kids to buy this game, and listen to our podcast.
There's also the angle that the source material for the game we're about had nothing of the sort. Have there been any indications that HPL used a lot of cursing? I don't recall that being mentioned in any of his letters to other authors. With his mastery of the language, I'd think that HPL would use such words sparingly at best to not dilute their impact when used.
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Re: MUP 20 - Bumps in the Night With A.S.G.

Post by WiseWolf » Thu Dec 27, 2012 7:26 pm

Keeper Dan wrote: There's also the mention that the game is for mature players anyway. I disagree to a point. I see no reason why a 14 year old can't pick up this book and play fun monster hunting, historically inaccurate games with his friends. I believe that encouraging young people to play RPGs is how you keep the hobby moving forward. And my belief that CoC is one of the best games on the market means that I want the kids to buy this game, and listen to our podcast.
That is a good point, Dan. And the dice sound is not annoying at all. I like that one.

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Re: MUP 20 - Bumps in the Night With A.S.G.

Post by Scriven » Mon Jan 07, 2013 4:47 pm

I'm particularly grateful for Keeper Dan's editorial policy regarding the language usage. As a practitioner of the art myself, profanity doesn't particularly bother me unless becomes excessive or deliberately crude/abrasive. That said, I do tend to listen to the podcast while doing housework or driving in the car, often with a little person in tow -- so the editorial moderation is appreciated, at least by this listener. I think the dice sound effect was just fine -- less invasive and easier on the ear than the other sfx used.

One has only to listen to an episode like this to get a good sense of just how extraordinarily erudite CoC players tend to be. I for one don't often hear this kind of insight and breadth of historical, military, political and literary knowledge in other RPG discussions. Of course, ASG is an extreme example -- he can hold forth on just about anything -- but that observation also includes the Keepers/Hosts of the show.

Only two episodes to catch up on, now.
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