Muses of Play: Powered by the Bakers, Pt2

A game is “done” when you stop thinking about it, right? The Bakers complicate that in the best way, and it instantly changes how we think about tabletop RPG design, publishing, and the long life of ideas. We start with the deceptively simple question of finishing, then follow it into Apocalypse World, Burned Over, and the broader Powered by the Apocalypse ecosystem where iteration, hacks, and play communities keep a design alive for decades.

From there, we zoom out to the craft problem every creator hits sooner or later: how do you keep your work from turning into an echo chamber? We talk about avoiding insular design, why it helps to play with people who are not game designers, and how “outside” inputs like movies, museums, walks, concerts, and conversations with other creatives can reshape mechanics and story procedures. If you care about playtesting, creative collaboration, and making games that land with real tables, you’ll find a lot to steal here.

We also get personal about inspiration and values. Place and history matter, including the messy histories under our feet and the responsibility to amplify underrepresented voices. Then we shift into family creativity across generations: different brains, different processes, different remix instincts, and the hard-won skills of staying respectful and genuinely invested when creative conflict shows up.

We wrap with a candid segment on social media, kids’ privacy, and media literacy, grounded in ongoing critical thinking rather than one-size rules. If this hits for you, subscribe, share the episode with a designer friend, and leave a review. What’s one creative choice you’d change, and why?

Transcript

A Very First Game Origin

SPEAKER_09 0:00

And I went to work and came home from work and I said, Hey, how was your day? And Vincent said, Well, I wrote a game. I'm like, oh, that's great. And what's it called? And I said, it's called Kill Puppies for Safe.

SPEAKER_06 0:16

Welcome to Muses of Play, a podcast about creativity, inspiration, and the messy joy of making games and art.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

We'll chat with designers, writers, artists, and makers about where their ideas come from, how they shape their work, and what keeps them going.

SPEAKER_06 0:32

I'm Sarah Doom. I write fiction, design games, and make art. I'm deeply invested in creativity and inspiration, and I'm always looking for ways to incorporate others' routines and rituals into something I can do.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Welcome

Part Two Setup And Support

SPEAKER_00 1:04

back to Muses of Play, and welcome back to part two of our conversation with the Bakers. In part one, we covered a lot of family, origins, and the lived experience of building games in the Baker household. Here, we shift things a bit, we get more into the craft, how our ideas become procedures, mechanics, and how the powered by the apocalypse lineage continues to evolve through play and iteration. It is the design as a conversation, not just at the table, but across the years, across projects, and across generations is what stands out in this second part of our conversation. If you're enjoying Music of Play and want to support what we're building, you can back the show on Patreon. That support helps us keep these conversations going, bring in incredible guests, and spend time shaping episodes like this one. While you're there, also make sure to check out and support Sourdom on Patreon as well. Her work at the table and behind the mic is a big part of what makes this show what it is. So we've paid the bills. Let's talk to the bakers.

When Are You Done Designing

SPEAKER_00 2:15

I had a question about when something done. And um, it's we've answered it. What's in my head, when I first wrote that down, I was thinking about Apocalypse World, right? Uh, you you folks put that out, then you did a second edition. In between there, you did burned over. And before you announced you were doing uh a book in a big full burn, my thought was I I would like to know, because it feels like maybe they're done with Apocalypse World. I want to ask the question, right? How do you know you're done? And then we saw the Kickstarter news and all the other news and the buzz. And I'm like, well, I can't ask that question because it's not done.

SPEAKER_09 2:59

Nancy, you want to answer that one or address that one?

SPEAKER_03 3:03

Yeah, well, we can.

SPEAKER_09 3:04

Yeah, you had an answer to that uh recently, I think.

SPEAKER_03 3:08

Uh yeah, no, my my sort of doing a bit answer is that um sometimes you abandon a game after you've made the book, and sometimes you abandon before you've made the book, and it's all just abandoning.

SPEAKER_09 3:31

Yeah, well, and I think this like this goes back to like uh an old in joke about designing the very first role-playing game that we put out in terms of uh publication, which is your fault. One of your faults. Um so I had gone back to work uh and Elliot was three months old, and so there was Vincent home with little um just about uh three and a three and a half year old Mary and three-month-old little tiny baby infant Elliot. And I went to work and came home from work and I said, Hey, how was your day? And Vincent said, Well, I wrote a game. I'm like, Oh, that's great. What's it called? And I said, It's called Kill Puppies for Satan. And so that was pretty funny. Um we printed that off at work um after hours and uh abandon it. This is the abandonment part. Abandoned copies on various local game stores, none of which ever contacted us whatsoever. So I feel like that set the precedent for going, well, it's out of our hands now. You know, we abandon it at some point along the work. It's abandoned, it just might be abandoned to be shipped away.

SPEAKER_03 4:59

Yeah. Once it's in your hands, I can watch the other hand done.

SPEAKER_06 5:03

Yeah, you're no longer responsible for it once it's out in the public.

SPEAKER_03 5:07

Yeah. So this is uh Dogs in the Vineyard is done. Like that game is over. I'm I'm finished with that game.

SPEAKER_02 5:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:17

There's a process of like once you publish a game. Oh, I used to I used to say this to people all the time that you learn more about a game in the first two weeks after you've published it than you ever knew about it in the years leading up to that. And then like we haven't gone well, other than the pandemic, we haven't gone a year without ever playing the conference. Yeah, we published it first edition and then second edition in 2016. I guess we've stopped running it at conventions, but that's a brand new development. Um like the last time I ran it in conventions was just immediately before the pandemic.

SPEAKER_09 5:58

And I mean we're about to start running at a convention again because you know here it is again.

SPEAKER_03 6:04

So publishing a game is sort of the opposite of finishing it. Like you sign up for more and more and more Apocalypse. Well, when you publish apocalypse, now Apocalypse World is a bigger part of your life, and there's more Apocalypse, more to do, more thinkable say with it. I don't think I guess so. There are games that I'm done with like Dogs in the Vineyard, although I still think about a sequel to Dogs in the Vineyard. Um sort of often. Not not as often as I but whatever. So like Poison, like um my game Poison from 2008. I basically never think so. I guess that's how you how I know a game is finished is when I never think about it. But apocalypse has another 20 years before I stop thinking.

SPEAKER_02 6:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:54

Maybe more. I mean it's 15 years old now. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_09 7:00

Yeah. We'll see. We'll see. Um one of the things that's really interesting about the question, like uh were we done with apocalypse? Well, with powered by the apocalypse, you know, there's tons of people doing things, a whole you know, root system of all kinds of different things that have sort of gone out uh laterally from there. But I I think one of the things that we were fortunate in and still are, and I think also as a family are, is that um we have avoided being in we've avoided defining ourselves by whatever our last work was, you know, because we're still interested in doing different work. Like you spent years getting really good at doing like foam uh buffer weapon stuff, like really good, and then that part, you're like, all right, I can plan it on with that, you know. Um it doesn't it and it doesn't define you. So we we I think there's a that's the process, and one of the ways of the process of letting go and moving on is that like this was great, but it doesn't define me. So instead of just churning out PB, you know, apocalypse world stuff, right? Which we could have done for the past 16 years, we're like, all right, that's awesome. What else? You know, what else do we want to do? Um, and I think that's part of that is the ADHD of it all. But there's also just like the world is really full of all kinds of cool stuff and you know, cool people to talk to about it. So why not do

Publishing As The Opposite Of Done

SPEAKER_09 8:48

more?

SPEAKER_06 8:49

Do you ever worry about like getting kind of tangled up and ensnared in this this wonderful you know game design interior discussion that you have with your family? Do you ever worry that there's not enough coming in from the outside to make sure that that others get it?

SPEAKER_09 9:17

Yeah, no, I I understand. No, that's a great question, you know. You have a because it could get an answer for that. Because it could get very insular.

SPEAKER_04 9:29

Yeah, and like there's definitely like this isn't entirely true, but it's a little bit true that it's only in the last like two years that I've started playing games that aren't related to games that were made in this house. Like most of most of my role-playing game exposure has been largely powered by the apocalypse. Um and games you've written, and game, you know, games I've written, games we've been working on in the house, like all that sort of thing. Like there is potential for for the game design in the house to get kind of self-referential, sure, and a little, you know, more borus.

SPEAKER_03 10:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:24

Um I don't know. Um we managed to avoid it. Mostly for the most part.

unknown 10:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:30

But it's still like, you know, at least for me, a lot of the time when I like with various gaming groups, when I'm like, oh, there's a game I really want to run for this group, a game I really want to play with this group. Currently, those are games that we're making in the house that I'm like, oh this game is so fun. I want to share this with my like, I want to share this. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 10:56

Um that's definitely true.

SPEAKER_09 10:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 11:00

I I mean that makes sense. That's what you're excited about right now, right?

SPEAKER_08 11:03

Right.

SPEAKER_09 11:04

Right.

SPEAKER_06 11:05

And and that's what we tend to run for people, is what we're excited about.

SPEAKER_09 11:08

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like there's a but like another piece of uh another part of the question, I think uh Sarah, as I'm hearing it, is it's also about like uh just other creative content in general, like other things. And you know, we do a lot of media analysis in the house. Um, we watch a fair amount of movies and television shows. Um, Toby and Elliot and um Vincent too, but I I really think of it as being something that Toby and Elliot do, uh, listen pretty critically to a fair amount of different like news podcasters and and other things like that. So we we have also, I think, in hand with being uh creative, part of that uh being a creative person and having creative processes of family is being analytical and being critical thinkers. And so we have an interest in making sure that we're taking in uh media and going to concerts and going to museums and going for walks in the park and you know, going to the corn maze and things like that. And it's definitely that is definitely one of the ways you get unstuck is when you are like when it gets like because you're just trying to you know produce and produce and create and create and create and create, write, do and you know, whatever you're doing, and then you're like, oh I need to switch gears, and yeah, like when something requires that I physically move out of my out of wherever I'm being creative.

SPEAKER_04 12:48

Um but uh the the question about like how do we avoid, or at least as I interpreted it, how do we avoid becoming our own little black hole of creativity? And like it helps that there's something in the water in Western mass.

SPEAKER_09 13:08

This is true. Um it appears so, yeah. Like I'm like, we're we're really lucky to have like Emily and Epi are uh like a nice good long walk that way. Julia Bond Ellingbow lives across the street, and like she and I see each other at conventions in other countries more than we do across the street because our just our schedules don't line up. Uh Joshua C. Newman um lives, you know, 20 minutes that way. Um, and that's just like you know, the ones that I can call up right now. Like living in New England means we're all very close together, but um, we are. There is definitely a like there was a little bit where people were like, should I move to Western Mass? This is back in the early 2000s. And we're like, no, not if you already have a job. We'd love to have you live here, but please don't move here without a job. It's not a good idea. Um

Avoiding Being Defined By One Game

SPEAKER_09 14:06

yeah. But it leads to that, it leads back to that other question. Like, one of the ways we avoid being uh becoming really self-referential and just like um just iterating constantly on our own design and you know, digging ourselves into a little corner is by you know chatting with other people and intentionally saying yes. And someone's like, Oh my god, you want to hang out? Yeah, like I'm gonna, my dear, dear friend Whitney Delaglio of Toasty Seahorse Studio, um, we're gonna hang out so old school tonight, she's gonna call me on the phone.

SPEAKER_04 14:46

I remember when I used to do that. Yeah, I did think of another thing, yeah, which is that for the most part the people we play games with in the house, like as you know, the the house group has changed over the the decade plus.

SPEAKER_09 15:10

Yeah, 17 years as established.

SPEAKER_04 15:13

Most of the people we play with, or at least for my from my generation, are not game designers. Right, yes, yes, that's really there are there are other kinds of creatives, you know, there's uh musicians, yeah, comic artists, uh programmers, animators, yeah, uh painters, yeah, that yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 15:38

But knitters.

SPEAKER_04 15:40

Only a couple like I mean it started before any of us were really like any of us siblings, any of us kids were really doing game design. Um like only two of the probably twenty probably twenty different people we've played with over the years have really done have really like stepped into the game design thing kind of at all.

SPEAKER_09 16:14

What are you thinking of?

SPEAKER_04 16:16

Um Josh Savoy and Alex Jansen has done a little bit of the game. A little bit yep yep.

SPEAKER_09 16:22

Yeah. But Josh is the Josh Savoy is the one who's like who um you know wrote the news playbook and has like been like in the credits of a lot of these different games because you know we raised him to be that way.

SPEAKER_04 16:37

And um it means that not only are we getting outside perspectives on the games that we play, because a lot of what we're playing It's usually our own games. But we get we get perspectives from people who aren't who aren't looking at the games through a a design lens. Like we get perspective from people who are just like playing the game without any um uh I guess like industrial stake without any like they're not they're not trying to learn from it.

SPEAKER_05 17:38

They're not examining the games from um things they haven't thought of for their own design.

SPEAKER_09 17:46

Like I mean Micah uses games he played to uh inspiration for the comic book.

SPEAKER_04 17:54

Yeah, but it's very but it's very different.

SPEAKER_05 17:57

Like whereas you know, with another group, um I've been playing like a lot of games that I never would have thought to play otherwise.

SPEAKER_04 18:10

Um and uh to be insular and to to stray into the into the towards the event horizon of that black hole. Um seen a lot of things that it's like, oh, this is why we make the games make our games the way we do, so that we avoid falling into these pit traps of making games that are really boring to play.

SPEAKER_02 18:45

That was nicely done.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

That was nicely done, yes.

Keeping The Work From Going Insular

SPEAKER_09 18:51

But the game you're playing with that group now, they're running Dread. Oh, yeah, and it's you know um Epidai Ravishall's Dread. Yeah, uh, which is using it.

SPEAKER_04 19:00

Started a yearly tradition. This is the third year where um my friend Oz will run will run Epi's game Dread, but they're running it they gloss it with slightly off from how it's supposed to be because they run it as like a three or four-week campaign rather than a a one-shot, like rather than a strict one-shot, which is how dread is supposed to be.

SPEAKER_09 19:29

Um they also do it with this gloss of like this year it's this year it's Hunger Games Dreads, and it is intense.

SPEAKER_04 19:38

Last year it was dread inspired by the podcast Old Gods of Appalachian. And the year before it was um Jurassic Park dread, and that seems really good.

SPEAKER_07 19:51

I'm so old.

SPEAKER_04 19:52

It is hard this game, it is hard for anything we play to live up to Jurassic Park dread because it was so terrifying and it's so funny.

SPEAKER_09 20:04

Um yeah, but so that's a way we really do cultivate that that piece.

SPEAKER_04 20:11

I don't know if Oz realizes this, but they're doing game design, they're changing their their you know, their their it's the the hack what you like, make what you like, make what you love. They're doing exactly that of taking this game that's meant to do, you know, a one-shot slasher horror hype story, and saying, okay, now what if what if you were all the the killer for each other? I have to be careful not to just start gushing about how um interesting this Hunger Games game is. But it's not cool.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Yeah, I I'd like all three of those premises for dread. So right? Yeah, all three of them. I'm in the wrong town. I gotta move the mask where you guys are. I'm in the wrong place.

SPEAKER_07 20:59

I mean, if you have a digital job that you can bring with you, yeah. Oh my god. There's Boston, there's Worcester, there's Springfield, there's Holyoke. You there's lots of like good cities.

SPEAKER_09 21:16

If you need a big good city, but like, dude, um for teased Julia and I for years that she was really considering moving toward town, and then she didn't, and we were I'm still sad. So, like, you know, I know that you are probably just making a a nice offhand comment, but that would rock.

SPEAKER_07 21:52

Then we could do this in person.

SPEAKER_00 21:54

Yes, we could.

SPEAKER_06 21:55

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm I'm not going to. Pretend I'm I'm in Chicago for at least 10 years.

SPEAKER_08 22:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 22:06

Yeah, that's good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

No, my kid and I we're looking at we've probably got a runaway about a year, maybe two years on the long side, and we'll leave Kansas City. He'll graduate in the spring. And he's looking at tech, maybe trade schools.

SPEAKER_09 22:23

Um and you could go to Oh my god. You could go to Rochester Institute of Technology. Those are all in the Northeast.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

No, you're right. You're right. So the plan is in that year and a half, two year space, is do some recon, go to a bunch of different cities, look at a bunch of different places, and figure out what feels good. So yeah.

SPEAKER_09 22:51

Well, not to go back to the world psychic maelstone that we mentioned at the beginning, but Massachusetts is at least like holding on.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Yes, right. No, that is true. That is very true.

unknown 23:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

I

Getting Fresh Inputs From Community

SPEAKER_00 23:07

think this moves us to your your points of inspiration, right? Because it sounds like, right, uh, it's the the different creative outlets or inputs and the different inspirational inputs, right? That keeps uh well, that gets us from Apocalypse World to Under Hollow Hills, which uh I will admit I was skeptical when Jed said, hey, let's run this. And I'm like, ah, whatever. And I it's probably my favorite now. I love what it does. And I love uh yeah, I love it. Uh it's yeah, it's my favorite. I'm glad I played it. I'm glad Jud ran it. So yeah. But they're two very different, right? They're two very different things. And so I think what I've heard is it's all the creative inputs and all the inspirations. What what are some of those uh inspirations? What uh what do you what do you what are the inputs? What do we pull from?

SPEAKER_09 24:03

Yeah, yeah. Um I think you wanna do you want to go first on that, Vincent? We've been talking, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

And it could be current, whatever you're currently because in my yeah, yeah, yeah, in my head, that's the what's your favorite song? And I'm like, well, what what time is it?

SPEAKER_09 24:21

Okay, so one of the things that I know inspires us um is the history of where we live. Um it is there is we live um at a place on the Connecticut River that was um uh a gathering place for the indigenous people within 100 miles to come every year for the shad run because everybody needed the shad. So we live on ancient peace grounds and treaty grounds, um, even before there was treaties, really. It was like places where everybody would come hang out, exchange of ideas, um, you know, everybody worked together to get the uh shad out of the river because everybody needed it to get through the winter. Um and then when we wound up, when there wound up being the uh three different colonial governments of the Dutch government and the French government and the English government putting pressures on these uh local people, um the like bend in the river that we live on became the rif uh refugee camp. Um, and it was hard times because they're trying to negotiate these three different you know, treaties with these three different um uh colonial governments. Uh it sucked, man. It was bad. And um that's sort of the beginning of King Philip's war. Uh we live, you know, the there's a massacre site, uh a mile is the crowf is right over there, that um we know the history of very well. We've walked on those grounds. We we we have uh colleagues who uh who belong to those tribes, Wampanoag and you know, uh Narragansett and so on like that, people who were uh uh whose ancestors were impacted in that. And um in is it 2014? Is that right? This um ceremony of reconciliation. 2006, I think we would have to look at yeah, um, the the the three towns around um said things are not so good around here. Maybe we ought to make right, and contacted the five tribes, you know that you know, and said, How do we make it right? And went through this whole process of reconciliation, and like, here's how you make it right, and what it involves is stewardship of the land in a holistic way, then we will welcome refugees, and that's one of the reasons we are uh our town is officially like a sanctuary city, blah blah blah blah blah, and that we'll tell this story so that we have all pieces, and this is bedrock for us for Vincent and I. It's bedrock in the way that we conduct our lives in a way. It's it it influences Vincent's graphic design, you know, his in painting classes, uh, you know, when he was painting um last year, it influences some of like the textile stuff I do. It definitely influences all my uh museum work because you know underlies one of my base operating uh procedures, which is to uh identify, listen to, and amplify underrepresented voices. Um that's my purpose for being here. Um, and that that can lead to a lot of inspiration, you know. So um, you know, history is messy and always with us. So there's that. Um we endeavor to get out into the world and see the world around us and things and people

Inspiration Rooted In Place And History

SPEAKER_09 28:07

and talk with different people all the time so that that um stays like a nice bubbly soup and it doesn't turn into like just you know homogenous keep turning out the same thing. Um yeah, that's kind of where I'm at in terms of like where my inspiration comes from. It's very much very, very rooted in those underlying principles and um experience. Um, and then filtered through other lenses of my own experience of like I don't know, growing up as a poor kid in the 70s in rural upstate New York, and then moving to San Diego and being in San Diego in the 80s, which what the heck was that? Um and you know, going through like when we were kids, right? When we were kids in America, all we had to worry about was was were we gonna die of the AIDS or a nuclear bomb?

SPEAKER_00 29:03

Right, a nuclear bomb, yes.

SPEAKER_09 29:04

Right, yeah, that's cool, you know, one or the other, but now you know it's a very different scene.

SPEAKER_08 29:13

Um so I think that's that's kind of where my inspiration is, and like it even even into the textile stuff, you know, I have a whole bunch of other people's creative outlets that I can choose to continue or reinterpret. And that that you know, that's that's my stuff.

SPEAKER_02 29:36

Where do you get your ideas? Uh depends on the project.

SPEAKER_09 29:44

Um because Toby did this weird thing with making sprites and then using those as color palettes to make color flower things and a whole entire creative world. I don't know where that came from.

SPEAKER_02 29:57

That one I don't think.

SPEAKER_04 30:03

I don't know. I don't um I don't notice my inspirations very consciously until after I've after I've already drawn on them.

SPEAKER_05 30:20

Um like I'm writing a a fantasy novel series. And um there are scenes in it where I'm like, oh wait.

SPEAKER_04 30:42

I got I got this thing where all the crows attack from Kiki's delivery service. And I didn't even realize I didn't even I wasn't like, oh I should I liked that thing. I should do something like that. You know, like it's it's all very sort of kind of just like all the background radiation.

unknown 31:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 31:02

All of the like And then it comes filtered through, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:05

Yeah, and like I and this even like this kind of happens also within creative projects. Um like a lot of how I create stories either um when I'm writing or when I'm running a game, is I start by just throwing out interesting imagery and interesting characters and like I throw a bunch of stuff out there and then somehow everything manages to connect, like pieces just fall into place So it's sort of it's sort of that at every level of the process where it's like there's just a bunch of interesting stuff out there and as I go pieces of it just connect and and just fall together in in new ways. Um just because I aren't here I want to speak to Toby and Mary's creative processes or look ins where they find inspiration.

SPEAKER_05 32:37

Um

How Elliot Connects Story Elements

SPEAKER_05 32:43

what I can tell Toby's inspiration process is sort of like they find something that they like and they think, okay, if I was doing that, how would I do it?

SPEAKER_04 33:04

If I was if I was like um you know, I don't think it's at all unfair to say the demon tree that Toby and Dad are making the demon tree because Toby was like, oh, Elden Ring is really compelling to me. If I wanted if I want a game that scratches the same itch as Elden Ring, but it's a role-playing game, but yeah, yeah, yeah. What would that look like for me? Like if I if I were to create a if I were to create something, like how would I and they they will just go, Toby will just go. That's also true.

SPEAKER_07 33:52

Like it's in charge of Batman, here's what Batman would be like, and then it's like, oh my god, can we please put you in charge of Batman?

SPEAKER_04 34:01

Well, and they're like, okay, if if I was doing Batman, here's what Batman would be like, and then like two months later, they would be they're like, Okay, if I was gonna do Batman again, we go down and buy to that this Batman had prosthetic legs, and it's like this is great, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 34:22

They just they they are a machine of yeah, I I don't know, they they they they have like a ton of creative drive.

SPEAKER_09 34:33

Um, it's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03 34:35

Sketchbook about once a month. They they fill their sketchbooks about once a month, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

Wow, you need to go get them speak to.

SPEAKER_03 34:44

Yeah, no, they just texted. I need to go pick them up. Um bye. It was good to see you.

SPEAKER_02 34:52

Yeah, it's good to see you.

SPEAKER_03 34:54

Um let's let's talk again soon. Yes, I would appreciate that. That would be awesome. Awesome. Anytime.

SPEAKER_04 35:03

Um what you want to talk about. And for Mary, there's a little bit more, at least from what I've what I've seen, there's a little bit more of the sort of I can fix it drive.

SPEAKER_09 35:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:24

Where she's like, this is something that I love but I want it.

SPEAKER_09 35:27

But it's a bit different.

SPEAKER_04 35:30

This way this way or this way or this way. How how do I make something

Toby And Mary Creative Engines

SPEAKER_04 35:37

that doesn't fall short of what I want out of it?

SPEAKER_05 35:41

Yep. I think that's a good analysis.

unknown 35:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:45

Which is so totally alien to me. It's so true.

SPEAKER_07 35:55

And like I that's something that I like the two of you could not be more different in so many ways.

SPEAKER_00 36:02

Well, sitting over here, I'm listening, and I'm like, wow, there's three different approaches that are just there's there's they're not alike in any kind of way, totally different, like yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:13

Something that I I really appreciate about her, and I'm glad that she's having a good time living in Burlington with her friends, but also I miss having her around here because like the two of us would at times the like there would be times when the two of us would go for a walk every single night and just talk about our our different ideas, yeah.

SPEAKER_09 36:43

Um, you could still do that. If you put a you know, I did a phone call and put it in your pocket and walked around.

SPEAKER_04 36:49

That's true. I'd be funny. Um and that was always really fruitful because also like just in terms of like what media she consumes, like what shows she watches, what she like what internet content she engages with. Um, because also she's much better about having an online presence than I am. Like she um yeah actually makes internet friends and actually like on Discord, like and I yeah, um I'm technically in the Lumply Games Discord server, and technically in the Apocalypse World Discord server. I never say anything.

SPEAKER_09 37:38

She never there's a big group called Um I'm begging you to play another role-playing game. Um that I think might be Steve Jackson's forum, something. I don't know. Anyway, Mary's been in there for a while and has been a moderator there, and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Yeah, she's that's a very different scene. Um but I think it's just oh, you have one with yeah, that her like the media she consumes has some overlap with what I uh consume, not a lot, but not a lot.

SPEAKER_04 38:19

So her like direct creative influences, like her her background radiation is completely different from mine, and so we we not only do we have very different approaches to creativity and very different um uh relationships with inspiration, yeah. Um but her inspiration is coming from completely different sources than mine, and so we have entirely different insights into things.

Creative Conflict And Family Trust

SPEAKER_09 38:57

But so this is a thing though, and I wonder, Jay, because you also have two kids, um, like the ways that they're different, and like they have to learn to get to a place where they can do this because this this one you've just heard um Elliot talk about with Mary is hard one.

SPEAKER_04 39:12

Yeah, this is in the last 10 years ago, seven not like maybe not a good season. Five years, really, yeah.

SPEAKER_09 39:20

Um and so like that process of learning how to, I think that that when you're talking about like uh creative conflict, right? You have to like learning how to be able to engage with someone else's creative process in a way that is respectful and invested, you know, because those two things have to be in balance. Because if you're just if you're just being respectful, then you're a lot of like, oh I see. Well, that's nice for you, isn't it? And it's it's not investment in the it's it's uh there is a very different thing, but like you know, then it's like the my sister who had to acknowledge, oh, I'm overly invested, and I gotta sit back. But like that was hard won for the two of you. You had to really work to get there. Yeah. Is that the same with your kids? Do you know?

SPEAKER_00 40:12

Or like with no they and I don't know how much uh in my head, uh, as a good chunk of me is I grew up in the military, and uh a lot of stuff, I took all of it the good, the bad, the ugly stuff, and I didn't realize the ugly stuff until I was older in the military. Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 40:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:36

Uh so when I had kids, um, I will always say they made me a better person. I was terrible before I had my kids. I was. That's a whole nother conversation. But what I wanted at the beginning was to make sure that when the world's crazy and everything's falling apart out there, we could still talk to each other no matter what was going on, right? And in my head, my thought was I got to do that from the day they they come home from the hospital, right? Uh, I gotta start building that that trust first, right? Yeah, uh, and then everything else after that. And so um, I mean, we have to it's it wasn't perfect, right? We've got friction and and different things like that, but we could always talk things out and have conversations and through talking uh work things work these things out. So um so they're close. Uh and they will reach out and have conversations without me. And I feel good that they're able to do that and they don't have to bring it back to me. Then I feel like I won, I did the thing.

SPEAKER_08 41:41

So yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

All right, we're gonna run out

Ask One For Segment Explained

SPEAKER_00 41:49

of time. We have one more thing I gotta do. We're gonna do a new segment at the end of every podcast where we have a guest, uh, and we're calling it Ask One Ford. That's just a province. So here's how it works: every guest will leave a question for the next guest without knowing who that next guest is. Right?

SPEAKER_08 42:11

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 42:12

And so in our first episode, and because you guys are the first guest, um Sarah and I decided one of us would ask the other a question, and then that person would leave a question for for the bakers. So I will let Sarah, uh that's my New Jersey accent, I'm sorry, uh, ask for the question. I hear it and then I hate it. I hate it. I'm like, oh that's exciting.

SPEAKER_09 42:39

We'll have to think of what that question is. Okay, so okay, go for the question.

Social Media Privacy And Critical Thinking

SPEAKER_06 42:44

Uh so my question for you was what was your policy regarding social media, especially in regards to kids' privacy and creativity? Great question. Um I just this is extremely silent.

SPEAKER_09 43:00

Um so when Meredith was in first grade, um or thereabouts, yeah, kindergarten, probably kindergarten, first grade, doesn't really matter, right in that zone. Um and my grandparents died, and we brought home a whole truckload of their stuff, including a television, because um Mary desperately needed to be consuming the same media as her peer group, and wasn't, and we were watching her just be, you know, she was a weird bird as a little kid. Like, this is a kid who didn't really figure out how to do a conversation until she was 10. And I remember when she was 15, and there was like somebody couldn't make it to gaming, so it was just like people, and she's like, Oh, you just hang out. Out, you know, because the way that Mary's brain works is very like now. We're doing this, and we're doing it's very orderly, very structured, very planned, um, which made it a huge challenge for me because I was not that way, but uh so the media piece, like I didn't grow up with a television at all. Um, Vincent grew up with television, didn't really matter. Um, Mary, it was a strategic decision on our part to get a TV so that she could watch Pokemon and other things, so that she could have a common frame of reference with the other children in her class, which is interesting. So I talked to your grandma about that yesterday. Same experience with me and Barbie dolls, right? I didn't have Barbie dolls until I was in second grade, third grade, and I was like, mom, I know they're a uh oppressive stereotype that's not realistic, and etc. etc. etc. I know all that. I just want to play with the other kids at recess. Can I please have a Barbie piece? So the um social media piece and like the media at all piece is exactly the same. Like Mary needed it to be able to have a social interaction with her peers. Um, and then you and Toby grew up with it because the oldest kid had it. I think there's times, like there's definitely times I've thought that you and Toby would have done better, like if it was switched around, we wouldn't had a TV for much longer. We would have eventually, but you know, you and Toby are by by your natures much more outdoorsy. Like Toby is the one of the lot of you who will like put on headphones and just go, they have a little circuit, they walk around in the backyard for hours, listen to music, hanging out. You know. Um and I watched that happen again when Mary was 12 or 13, and like all of her sixth grade peers were starting to talk about um, I don't know, neo pets or something, like some kind of age appropriate online thing. Um and you were so sad because then that became a focus, and Mary would be like, I want to do the do the computer thing, and you were like you know it was sad, and it's yeah, it was really rough. So I like for ages we just had a um a desktop and it was just in the like everybody that was the desktop that everybody used, so there wasn't a like privacy issue, you know. Um there was a taking turns issue. Um and then by the time y'all were in high school, um you know, laptops had come out, and like there was a thing of like having your own laptops and things like that, and everybody having their own phone. And I have I remember sitting down and talking. I don't know if we ever got that talk, but I know I talked to Mary, and I don't know if I ever talked to you, but like, okay, you're gonna run into sexual content on this. I'm like, I'm a certified sex ed teacher for seventh through twelfth grade. They had been through all those discussions at the table, much to their embarrassment. And I'm like, this is what and why. Let it be a lesson to you. Um, but there was a there was a piece where I remember sitting down with Mary and saying, All right, you're gonna run into this. Here's what you need to know about that. Um, here's a piece that has to do with our household safety involving don't download anything. And here's a thing that has to do with your younger siblings' safety, in that what may be appropriate for you to be looking at is not appropriate for your younger siblings to look at. And you know, here's some books and here's some guidance, and like Scarlatine is a great site, go there first. Um, but that was that was really the thing, and then in terms of now, what I would wonder, what I would be concerned about with kids is like all the sort of like alt-right channeling, right? You know, yeah, and that is a heavy duty thing, but the way that we dealt with that is by being an aggressive queer positive anarch, anarcho-socialist, anti-capitalist. Yeah, like there was a group of people, never an opportunity for also when Josh was coming over and we're like Josh would say a thing because of his own background, and we're like, that is not how that works.

SPEAKER_07 49:07

And he's like, Oh, it's Josh's wrong hour. I want it.

SPEAKER_09 49:11

You know, that's his heart. He really did like he was so um I so um good spirited about that. Like, I am so honored and proud of the way this that the three of you have turned out because like when you have a kid, you don't know for 30 years, right? It's a science experiment that you don't really know about, right? Um, and my hope is that uh I can raise people that I am glad to know, that are glad to know me, and I think I've done a good job. But I have you all 24-7, and to have that show up with some of our bonus kids who I only had for two hours a week, dang that's cool. That's really cool. So um the social media question is like to um to always be doing critical thinking. You know, you go to a museum, talk about the art, you see uh bee, talk about bees. You see, you're just thinking and keeping up so that so that the social media piece uh isn't uh ever taboo to talk about. And um it's always uh sort of well, isn't quite interesting. Why do you think that is that they're saying that? What does that sound? Like I remember when Mary was just learning to read, right? We're down in we're an hour away somewhere, reads the bumper sticker of the car ahead of us that says, You can't be Catholic and pro abortion. And she read that. I was like, What does that mean?

SPEAKER_08 50:53

Right, what does that mean?

SPEAKER_09 50:54

Oh my god, for the next hour, it was just like, Well, here's the description, here's the here's the meaning of that word, here's the backstory, here's the context. Next question. Okay, next okay, next one. We covered the Catholic Church, we covered original sin, we covered um the you know, we covered uh the Reformation, we covered uh contraception, first intercourse, contraception and pregnancy and miscarriage. Like on it was insane. So I think that's the social media piece. Um, and I think that that's not just for kids, I think it's for everybody. I think we're in a place right now where it's really easy for all of us to get into any given black hole of like this is my social media and be like, wait, even if I love it, right? What am I thinking critically about? Right? You know, what what's the whole picture? Like, I my stepfather was in the Navy for my whole like for a whole bunch of my childhood, and a whole branch of my family are career marines. So, like, and the reason I was in San Diego because he was stationed there, you know. So, like I relate to some of that, and it it's a process of figuring out um how to think critically about your own past. And you know, Vincent was raised Mormon for generations and had to like think critically about how to intentionally leave, you know, love his family part of a cult, you know. What do we, you know, so that cultivating critical thinking, I think allows everybody to encounter social media in a way that they can um consume it thoughtfully, mindfully. Mindfully. And I have this wonderful illustration of this. I was talking to my mom about this yesterday because uh my sister, my sister and I, like you and Mary, very similar upbringing, very different people. She lives 45 minutes 45 minutes up the hill where like there's no internet, you know, or at least there wasn't until COVID mandated that they had access, whatever. Um, so her kids had this like very low tech every outside all the time, all the time, all the time.

SPEAKER_04 53:15

And when we were young, I remember I don't know if it was during the pandemic or just before it, but I remember one year Serena um came to dad and said, Okay, oh yeah, my kids want to play video games. How do I be okay with that?

SPEAKER_09 53:40

Yeah, because she wasn't.

SPEAKER_04 53:42

What video games? Like what not just what video games should they play, but like what are games you would recommend and why? Right. What is what is worth learning from these video games?

SPEAKER_09 53:57

It was a really, really good, but then one of the things talking with my mom yesterday about that was like the concern, of course. It's like, oh, you're just online all the time here in social media and you won't be. But then like the ways that you and your siblings are now versus the way that your cousins are now, and like I they're very different.

SPEAKER_04 54:22

So and like also all three of us, like I can't really think of much discussion about like social media policy for the household because the three of us had such completely different needs and uses, and like Mary has like a lot of really important online relationships and a lot of like really important online social support networks. Toby has you know, a bit of stuff where they hang out with their friends online and like they um so funny. Follow vehicular man's slaughter, vehicular man's laughter on letterboxed. Um their their movie reviews are incredible.

SPEAKER_09 55:15

Yeah, vehicular man's laughter, yeah. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_04 55:19

Um I don't um you can't be bothered. I can't be bothered.

SPEAKER_00 55:29

I have stuff to do. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 55:32

I'm gonna go get coffee with Annika and making art and playing video games. Yeah, like and also like I don't know, I don't have anything to say on the internet.

SPEAKER_02 55:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 55:43

I mean, I'm sure I could, but I can't be bothered to. I'm like, no, I why would I talk to the why would I type things on my phone when I could rant to the people around me? Um but Elliot's the one sick of hearing me complain.

SPEAKER_09 55:58

Elliot's the one who will show up to this sort of thing. Elliot's great on panel. We love having Elliot come to do panel and come be places. Uh, so that's really cool. So we need to think of a question for the next guest in like two minutes so that Sarah can hear it before we go.

Questions For The Next Guest

SPEAKER_09 56:15

Do you want to do that?

SPEAKER_04 56:16

Um yeah. Um the only question I can think of is a kind of aggressive one, which is um if there was one if there was one creative choice made by you or someone else that you could change, what would it be, why, and what would you change it to? That's my idea. I like that.

unknown 56:48

I like that.

SPEAKER_09 56:49

That's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_04 56:50

That is cool.

SPEAKER_09 56:51

I can go with that. Um, and I guess for me, if you if you want to take two, that way you can choose. Um I would say like a question that I would want from to ask the you know the next person down the line is um like what is the unexpected um piece in your creative process? Because there's a lot that we talk about that, like, okay, where do your ideas come from? Right, what do you do? But like for all of us, there's an unexpected bit. Right. Okay, what's the unexpected piece? Um so that's cool. You're just in time for last questions. Hello. You get to ask the next person. I don't have any kind of last questions. I don't think hi. We've been talking about you. You're awesome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 57:45

Hello. Hello.

SPEAKER_09 57:48

Back from their uh Dr. College from your stage class. I'm not back from college. I'm back from back from college. I'm back. Hey, Maggie Brown, who's awesome, and this is Sarah Doom who's also awesome, and we've known them for a long time.

SPEAKER_04 58:05

Did I even mean to do that?

SPEAKER_09 58:06

It was good though.

SPEAKER_00 58:10

Thank you all for doing this. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_09 58:12

Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, no problem. It was awesome. Um we don't all fit in the screen. Yeah, it's too much to contain. Um have us back anytime. If you're like, this was too rambly, we're gonna need to get those bakers focused.

SPEAKER_00 58:26

I think our thought is for the first season, we're gonna do six of these, which means three guests, and then Sarah and I will reconvene in between and talk about some of the previous guests and and creativity, what we learned, that kind of stuff. Um,

Kickstarter Plug And Closing Thanks

SPEAKER_00 58:42

and then at the end of six episodes, uh, we would talk about do we want to do this again? Or is it one season and done, right? Yeah, good enough. That's um really freaking cool. Yeah. Uh for me, my thought was this is how I uh cheat on my new project. I find out how everyone else is doing stuff and how they get unstuck and what tools, and then maybe that can help me.

SPEAKER_09 59:05

So I love it. Oh my god, thank you so so much. Damn, this was fun. And they like it, just like I delight. Like, um, we're gonna be at meta we're gonna be at Metatopia. Um, Vincent and I will. Elliot won't.

SPEAKER_04 59:27

It might be, but maybe.

SPEAKER_09 59:29

All right, well, we'll see.

SPEAKER_06 59:30

Um that's it. Any other links or things that you would like to hide?

SPEAKER_09 59:37

Oh, we are launching our Kickstarter in uh 11 days for uh November 3rd is when we're launching the Apocalypse World Burnedover Kickstarter.

SPEAKER_00 59:45

That is fantastic. I will be there.

SPEAKER_09 59:47

I'm so excited. What character did you play? What playbook in Under Hollow Hills?

SPEAKER_00 59:52

Uh I played um it's the I never get it right, it's the crow. Is it the crow?

SPEAKER_09 1:00:00

Oh, the feather cloak.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:01

Yes, yeah, and I love it. I love because he's got the honey cakes. And uh I thought I thought Judd was gonna kill me because I every every touchdown, I would do something with the honey cakes. Oh that is the best.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:18

Oh, that just makes me so so happy.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:21

All right. No, I loved it. I loved it a lot. I uh it's funny because I think there were three three of us who were voting on games, and I thought, why did he put that in there, right? And I'm like, I'm not worried about it because nobody's gonna pick that game, and we're gonna play something else. And I got outvoted, and I'm like, I'm in, we're playing it, whatever, right? And it was awesome. I loved it. I loved it. I bought it shortly after that, so I loved it.

SPEAKER_09 1:00:46

Yeah, that's like the the best. Oh my god, you're awesome. I'm a big Matt J. Brown fan. I had been for like a long time, but it's always a good day.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:57

See that I'm blushing.

SPEAKER_09 1:01:01

Yeah, I'm I'm serious. So uh come around. And if you like if you ever want them, New England's beautiful. I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:12

I would come visit, I would do that.

SPEAKER_09 1:01:13

Yeah, cool.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:14

All right, all right, so we're gonna see Sarah, and we'll uh um look forward to hearing from you somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:20

Oh right.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:21

You won't see me at Metatopia this year.

SPEAKER_09 1:01:31

All right, cool. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:35

Thank you.

SPEAKER_09 1:01:36

This was a blast.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:37

This was great. Yes. Okay, talk to you later. Bye. Bye.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:48

Thank you so much for listening. Please comment and let us know what you thought of the episode or your thoughts on creativity and making games. You can find us at the following. You can see my work at scorcha.net or support my work at patreon.com slash Sarah Doom.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:05

You can find me on Patreon as MadjZero All Letters, or at MadJZero.com. You can also catch the Bakers on Patreon slash lumply L-U-M-P-L-E-U-I. And we will catch you in the next one.