Asterisks on Today's 'Axe' Episode

I will be busy DMing when todays episode of I Hit It With My Axe goes up (noon Eastern I believe). But here are some notes in advance...

-Justine's character is really a half-orc wizard--the other half just happens to be medusa (not gorgon in D&D a gorgon is a goofy bull-monster, and this is D&D, not Greek mythology). Other than the turn-to-stone thing, all her stats are as-rolled during filming.

-Is having Justine be half-medusa unbalancing?

In theory: no. She's a lower level than everyone else, she can't use her gaze weapon if her friends are looking at her, and it doesn't work that well. Plus Justine's newer than everyone else so she doesn't really know what she's doing--in different hands it might've been devastating.

In practice: also no. Having now seen 3 sessions of Justine playing D&D, I can report back that, practically speaking, she spends no more time center-stage than anybody else. Plus Justine's not a dick, so she doesn't hog the spotlight.

-She explains how it went down pretty well, but in case anyone missed it: I basically said "If you want to do this, then you're the object of the quest and you're half-medusa, do what you want with that information. If you don't, you can just be anybody you want."

-Connie's D&D anxiety dream brings up a relevant point for new players--I touched on it here. Basically, social situations where you're expected to be creative are a lot more tense and meaningful for certain people (I want to say "women"--in my experience this usually applies to women--but I know men who also have this issue. I can think of two right now.) You might have some friends pretending they're too cool to play when really they're just afraid.

-The person occasionally in the background is Caroline Pierce. She's wil be guest-starring soon but was in town doing some movies and had nothing else to do so hung out and watched us tape. She plays a history teacher in our Cthulhu game.

-All the PCs except Kimberly are on the ground, and, though a lot of the sequences where people are grappling up the walls to the doorways have been cut out, they happened. ( In case you're wondering how people got around.)

-As Chris of Vaults of Nagoh pointed out, the goblin palace is based on the Forbidden City in Beijing. The girls don't get too far into it before deciding to try to assassinate the king for kicks and running back the way they came.

-The credits play over the sketch of the palace and some hit-locaiton sketches, designed to be used with this system. I only use it on special occasions. Fighting a hydra is always a special occasion.