[Q&A] Bart Klick & Zach Stoppel (Theives Can’t)

[19:33] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> My name is Bartholomew Klick and I’m here with my artist and college buddy Zach Stoppel. I write and he draws a comic strip called Thieves Can’t, which is about playing D&D and takes place from the perspective of the characters. All the rules of the game are in-tact, and we hear about dice rolls and such from a DM (1)

[19:34] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> who is represented with narration boxes, but the perspective never comes off the characters themselves, or dips upward a dimension to show the players. It’s in the LitRPG genre, and we think we’re kind of unique in the miniverse that is D&D comics

[19:35] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> We’re currently making issue #2 of Thieves Can’t, and are hoping to put issue #1 in paper form and get it into gaming stores, or at least into our readers’ hands.

[19:35] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> And we also make supplemental gaming material, such as paper minis and small encounters.

[19:36] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> I think that covers us. 🙂

[19:36] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> The comic lives at (Link: http://www.ramen-empire.com,)http://www.ramen-empire.com, and our kickstarter for issue #1 lives here: (Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/529651417/thieves-cant-a-meta-comic-book-about-tabletop-gami?ref=user_menu)https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/529651417/thieves-cant-a-meta-comic-book-about-tabletop-gami?ref=user_menu

[19:37] <~Dan> Thanks, guys! The floor is open to questions!

[19:37] <~Dan> Can you describe the characters?

[19:38] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Sure. The story follows Sera, the DM, Candor Dauntless, a tiefling warlock and anime freak, Ormond, a halfling rogue and newbie rpg player, Reynauldo, a human paladin who wants to be a leader but is kinda bad at it, and Keelie, a half-orc barbarian who loves to min-max.

[19:39] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> The kickstarter also has articles about how we made each of these characters, and some of our old test art ^__^

[19:42] <~Dan> So do the characters talk in character or OOC?

[19:42] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> They do both. They’ll speak in-character to the DM about meta content, and about whether they get to use it, they’ll chastise one-another for not RPing, they’ll RP, they’ll talk in pure meta.

[19:43] <~Dan> But you never see the actual players?

[19:43] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> One of the things our comic is expressing is that so much of what you character is stuff done out of character. You’re you as much as you are your elf or your gnome. It’s about the experience of playing

[19:44] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Soo that’s a complicated question.

[19:44] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Thieves Can’t takes place in the Ramen Empire universe, and is obstensibly a game of D&D that the characters in that world are playing.

[19:44] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Sera is the name of the protagonist in Ramen Empire, and the other four people at the table are people she knows.

[19:45] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> We have a sort of guessing game going on with our readers about who is who, but none of that is critical for understanding Thieves Can’t, it’s more some fun interconnectivity that exists for people looking for it

[19:46] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> (Link: http://ramen-empire.com/strip/good-time-change-character-perspective-right/)http://ramen-empire.com/strip/good-time-change-character-perspective-right/ — this Ramen Empire comic shows Sera and at least one of the players. 🙂

[19:47] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> The art styles are pretty different deliberately, but we’re the same folk making them. x__x

[19:48] <~Dan> What is Ramen Empire about?

[19:49] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> It’s about friendship and film-making, and it covers three books which all have their own unique stories.

[19:49] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> It takes place in a magical world and is an urban fantasy with light magic.

[19:50] <~Dan> So Thieves Can’t involves people playing a fantasy game in a world in which fantasy is real?

[19:50] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Book One is a romance called Afterglow, where they try to film a Twilight knockoff. Book Two is a mystery called The Girl with Tiger Teeth, and is about the characters making a film noir, and book Three is called Phoenix Down, where one of the characters gets a lethal curse and must deal with it.

[19:50] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Yep!

[19:51] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> The characters all have some level of cognitive dissonance about this. For instance, here:

[19:52] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> (Link: http://ramen-empire.com/strip/afterglow2/)http://ramen-empire.com/strip/afterglow2/ and then (Link: http://ramen-empire.com/strip/afterglow3/)http://ramen-empire.com/strip/afterglow3/ — wherein an exchange student is unsure about whether rabbits are supposed to be able to talk

[19:54] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> So Ramen Empire is in a “real world” where magical stuff is kind of hidden / secret, ala X-Files or Buffy the Vampire Slayer

[19:54] <~Dan> So how does the players’ awareness of magic in the real world affect their playing in a fantasy world?

[19:56] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Zach says, “We’re striving to keep those elements separate so that interconnectivity isn’t required for the audience. Thieves Can’t’s goal is to be relatable to people who play Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, etc, and if they assume magic is real outside the meta and the table, that’s not relatable.”

[19:56] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Which is to say, “not much, if at all, and it’s done that way on purpose.”

[19:57] * ~Dan nods

[19:57] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> ((Personally, I want to put in a joke where Sera mixes up Fairies in game with Fairies from Ramen Empire, but he vetoes it every time I try to sneak it into a script.))

[19:57] * ~Dan chuckles

[19:58] * +Bart_Zach_Thievescant shakes fist at Zach

[19:58] <~Dan> 🙂

[19:59] <~Dan> How serious are the adventures themselves that the players experience?

[20:00] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Sera, the DM, tried to make as serious an experience as possible, and the players do what players do and subvert that.

[20:01] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Zach doodled you guys a quickie. x__x

[20:01] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> http://imgur.com/a/YsXq8)http://imgur.com/a/YsXq8

[20:01] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> That’s an RPGnet chat exclusive y’all :p

[20:02] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> also Zach’s spelling is… ahem. There’s a reason I’m the one typing. =)

[20:02] <~Dan> Thanks!

[20:02] <~Dan> (Welcome to #rpgnet, Cowabunga!)

[20:03] <+Cowabunga> Howdy

[20:03] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Howdy new person! Welcome

[20:04] <~Dan> (Cowabunga: Here for the Q&A? 🙂 )

[20:04] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> We have A’s if you brought Q’s

[20:04] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> …that was funnier in my head.

[20:04] * ~Dan snickers

[20:05] <+Cowabunga> Yeah. Just thinking about what i want to ask. I can’t see any previous comments.

[20:05] <~Dan> Cowabunga: Don’t fret. We’re a kind and patient people. 🙂

[20:06] <+Cowabunga> 😀

[20:06] <~Dan> Bart_Zach_Thievescant: What is the premise of the initial adventure?

[20:07] <&Silverlion> Are the Pc’s custom made or already created?

[20:07] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> (Link: http://imgur.com/a/YsXq8)http://imgur.com/a/YsXq8 — here’s a rundown for #Cowabunga

[20:08] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> @Dan — The initial adventure in issue #1 is about how the characters derailed the game in their zero session =)

[20:08] <+Cowabunga> Hey thanks.

[20:08] <~Dan> Ha!

[20:09] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> @Silverlion We have made character sheets for everyone =) They used standard arrays and are playing in 5e

[20:09] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> All the monsters and encounters are pretty by-the-book. We try to obey the RAW so that readers who are also players & DMs can figure out the backbone of what’s going on

[20:10] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Also it can create funny arguments.

[20:10] <+Cowabunga> Are the characters from previous dnd games you’ve played? Or did you have outside inspiration?

[20:10] <&Silverlion> ah interesting.

[20:11] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> @Cowabunga — The characters are not from any real game or any specific references, but they’re what we consider archetypical player characters. Zach made Keelie and Reynauldo, and I made Ormond and Candor, but they’ve never been in a real game

[20:12] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Oh!

[20:13] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Reynauldo and Ormond are based of Dismas and Reynauld from Darkest Dungeon

[20:13] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> So actually I lied on accident x__x

[20:14] <~Dan> On the flipside, have you ever considered playing a game using the characters?

[20:14] <~Dan> (Howdy, EggEmbry!)

[20:14] <+EggEmbry> Hello, Dan! 🙂

[20:14] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Zach has. We haven’t managed to do it tho

[20:15] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> @eggembry – here’s a quick intro to the Q&A: (Link: http://imgur.com/a/YsXq8)http://imgur.com/a/YsXq8

[20:16] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> @Dan Zach says he actually wanted to DM a game with these characters as premades and document what they did, but he never managed it.

[20:16] <~Dan> Awww. That’s a shame. 🙂

[20:17] <+EggEmbry> Thank you @Bart_Zach_Thievescant! 🙂

[20:17] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> He also wanted to make the adventure first and have it be a thing people could play to spoil the comic for themselves, but we found that winging the writing was far more effective as far as “is this comic funny” goes

[20:18] <~Dan> Any plans to release an actual adventure based on the comic?

[20:19] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> That’s a solid yes. We’re learning how to build adventures first. We want to be very confident in it before we try to sell it.

[20:20] <~Dan> (Howdy, ChrisGrey!)

[20:20] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> We are looking to put a 1-page dungeon in the book that’s exclusive to kickstarter. We have a few blank pages to fill because of how printing works.

[20:20] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Welcome, @ChrisGrey — here’s a quick intro to the Q&A — (Link: http://imgur.com/a/YsXq8)http://imgur.com/a/YsXq8

[20:20] <+ChrisGrey> Hey Dan…everyone

[20:21] <+Cowabunga> Are you ever concerned that you are two white guys trying to write female characters?

[20:22] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> We are very concerned about it. It’s why the designs for Candor and Keelie have gone through the most iteration. If you’re curious about that process, we talk a bit about it here: (Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/529651417/thieves-cant-a-meta-comic-book-about-tabletop-gami/updates)https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/529651417/thieves-cant-a-meta-comic-book-about-tabletop-gami/updates

[20:24] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Zach says, “I’m still fond of the first redesign for Keelie. I had invisioned her behaving much more like Pam from Archer, and the design represents more of that kind of character. Powerful but in a different way. I consulted my girlfriend and Bart’s girlfriend, and after talking to them opted for a more heroic design.

[20:24] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> ”

[20:24] <+Cowabunga> 🖒

[20:24] <+ChrisGrey> lol….Pam is one of my favorites from that show

[20:25] <+Cowabunga> So you do have female input? That’s really cool.

[20:25] <+Cowabunga> Yeah. I love Pam.

[20:26] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Absolutely. In fact, I want to put Angela Slater’s name out there as being one of our most fantastic beta readers. She helps us a lot in the editing and lettering phase.

[20:27] <~Dan> (ChrisGrey: Sent you a PM. 🙂 )

[20:27] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Our girlfriends also both play tabletop RPGs, so we’re a full clan of gamers and try to write through critical, academic lenses

[20:27] <~Dan> That’s awesome. 🙂

[20:27] <+Cowabunga> Sweet

[20:28] <+ChrisGrey> It seems we are all Spocks here

[20:28] <+ChrisGrey> with a sense of humor that is

[20:28] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Zach: “I went to college. I’m not very logical or academic.”

[20:29] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Me: “He’s lying. We just had the most neckbeardy rage-inducing argument about weapon speed in Greyhawk Initiative.”

[20:29] <+Cowabunga> Ha!

[20:30] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> (And come on, it’s so stupid that bigger weapons are slower. So dumb. That’s not how two-handed weapon fighting works. That shit is lightning quick. Speed = danger.)

[20:30] <+ChrisGrey> lol

[20:30] <~Dan> Would you ever consider having them play a different game?

[20:30] <+ChrisGrey> And actually most weapons were no more than 6 – 8 lbs

[20:31] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> @Dan We are seriously considering it after this arc, yes. =)

[20:31] <~Dan> Any particular games in mind? 🙂

[20:31] <+Cowabunga> Probably spoilers, but Keelie isn’t going to kill the little mushroom guy, right?

[20:31] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> @ChrisGrey Thank. You.

[20:32] <+ChrisGrey> Your welcome @Bart

[20:32] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> @Dan — Bart is leaning toward White Wolf or perhaps Mike Hall’s Urban Knights. Zach is leaning toward Spelljammer.

[20:32] <+ChrisGrey> oops *you’re

[20:33] <~Dan> What about switching GMs? 🙂

[20:33] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> @Cowabunga — The audience would surge through our subreddit and dismember us, so the myconid sproutling is probably safe. Probably.

[20:33] <+ChrisGrey> White Wolf is a lot of fun

[20:33] <+Cowabunga> Damn right they would.

[20:34] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> @Dan I’m not sure the reader would notice? But sure, why not? Zach says. “I am notable more opposed to switching GM’s. I want the reader to get a feel for the players as their characters, and we’d have to have everyone very established so that everyone knew that Sera was in a different spot.”

[20:35] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Bart: I’d also probably buy a new font for if, say, Lizhing started DMing.

[20:35] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> (I butchered her name.)

[20:35] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> @Cowabunga ❤

[20:38] <+Cowabunga> So do you have a plan in mind for the end of the campaign o

[20:38] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> I’ve got a summer 5e game running in the Sword Coast and Zach made a character out of Spell Jammer just to screw with me -__-

[20:39] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> @Cowabunga We know how the adventure ends and what the main locations are, and who the big NPCs are, but we’re not going to plan more than that because these characters have developed a life of their own and derail plans just like real players do.

[20:39] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Bart has thrown out no fewer than six full scripts because of stuff the characters kind of did on their own through natural iteration.

[20:39] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Writing is basically just healthily manifested schizophrenia.

[20:40] <~Dan> That’s deep. 🙂

[20:40] <+ChrisGrey> lmao

[20:40] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> ^__^

[20:40] <+Cowabunga> Whoa. So even though you said you wing it you actually put a lot of work into writing it.

[20:40] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Oh god yes.

[20:41] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Zach and I have gotten into, uh, near-violent arguments over story directions. And each strip gets at least 3-5 edits. And we throw out stuff that doesn’t work or works but is problematic.

[20:41] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Also, Gandalf the Bunny is joining us in this Q&A

[20:41] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> (Link: http://imgur.com/a/RGOqt)http://imgur.com/a/RGOqt

[20:42] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> ❤ ❤ ❤

[20:42] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> He is destroying our couch as we speak

[20:42] <+ChrisGrey> lol

[20:42] <~Dan> Awwww…. 🙂

[20:42] <+Cowabunga> Bunny!

[20:42] <+ChrisGrey> The way you guys write together makes me glad I write alone

[20:43] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> LMFAO

[20:43] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Zach and I had an argument because I went off over the summer to write on my novel and he went off to make his own video game and we neither one have gotten anywhere without the other

[20:44] <+ChrisGrey> lol, you guys are meant for each other, no gay joke intended

[20:44] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Mwah

[20:44] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> ^_~

[20:44] * ~Dan chuckles

[20:45] <~Dan> I note that the group lacks a cleric. Does that come up much in the comic?

[20:45] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> But no, Thieves Can’t is really, really Zach’s passion project and Ramen Empire is mine. So when we talk about these two stories with each other, our levels of investment create a lot of… energy.

[20:45] <+Cowabunga> I thought there was a paladin?

[20:45] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Bart says, “That’s kind of an artifact of 5e. They don’t need a cleric.”

[20:45] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> @Cowabunga Yep, Reynauldo is a Paladin.

[20:46] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Zach, “This is kind of a spoiler, but Reynauldo is min-maxing as a tank-healer, so they’re fine.”

[20:46] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Zach says, “He needs people to need him.”

[20:46] <+ChrisGrey> lol

[20:46] <+Cowabunga> Well now you’ve ruined the whole story with that spoiler.

[20:47] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Bart says, “Players in 5e will riot if they can’t get their short rests and get back their HP.”

[20:47] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Zach says, “You had us awake for three days fucker.”

[20:47] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Bart: “Boo hoo.”

[20:47] <~Dan> (Mind the language, please, guys. Family-friendly room. 🙂 )

[20:47] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> mb

[20:47] <~Dan> (No worries. 🙂 )

[20:48] <+ChrisGrey> That’s why I leave 5e to the short-attention-spans

[20:48] <~Dan> What levels are the characters?

[20:49] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> We almost had a Goblin Cleric, but her introduction to the story kind of coincided with the release of Volos and we couldn’t make a goblic cleric we liked who didn’t kind of over-run one of the other characters at the table. Also, we wrote out the story element that needed her

[20:49] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> They are currently level 1 and on the verge of level 2

[20:49] <~Dan> Are there any jokes about deadly house cats? 🙂

[20:49] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Ormond may or may not deal with Leveling via dream sequences that involve Tarric, the Leveling Warlock

[20:49] <+Cowabunga> Ha!

[20:50] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> @Dan are you referring to how CR 0 creatures will sometimes mop the floor with parties at low level?

[20:51] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Because a small swarm of house cats is terrifying if the DM doesn’t make them behave like house cats x__x

[20:51] <+xyphoid> only bad systems require clerics really

[20:51] <~Dan> Bart_Zach_Thievescant: Yes. 🙂

[20:51] <+xyphoid> (clerics are the worst)

[20:52] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Zach has specifically avoided that because it’s his pet peeve. He wants to show things that are fun about the system, not broken. Also we want Wizards of the Coast to like our comic if they happen to ever see it :p

[20:52] <~Dan> (Welcome to #rpgnet, JohnDesmarais!)

[20:52] <+ChrisGrey> I made a rewrite for clerics back in the day for 2nd edition….made them less fighter-like

[20:53] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> @JohnSedmarais welcome, here’s a short intro to the Q&A — (Link: http://imgur.com/a/YsXq8)http://imgur.com/a/YsXq8

[20:54] <~Dan> (Howdy, Will!)

[20:54] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Zach says he used to play a Cleric in 2nd ed with a house rule where they got action-based XP rather than kill-based XP. They would leave the dungeon to go heal, then go back and fight. He ended up 5 levels higher than everyone else

[20:54] * +Will laughs

[20:54] <+ChrisGrey> lol, that’s clever

[20:54] * ~Dan chuckles

[20:55] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> I’m gonna take a second to plug the kickstarter since we haven’t been really talking about it. We’re 3/4 to our goal and have 12 days left and this might be the only chance to get a paper copy of this comic. =) (Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/529651417/thieves-cant-a-meta-comic-book-about-tabletop-gami/updates)https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/529651417/thieves-cant-a-meta-comic-book-about-tabletop-gami/updates

[20:56] <+ChrisGrey> brb

[20:56] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> but also kickstarters are kinda boring to talk about and i’m terrible at self-promotion x__x

[20:56] <~Dan> Can you give some examples of typical player behavior that you bring up in the comic?

[20:57] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Zach, “Well, someone above asked about whether Keelie was going to kill the Myconid Sproutling, so we’re definitely addressing Murder Hobos as a trope. Angela and Myself have both been guilty of being murder hobos at times.”

[20:58] <+Cowabunga> How much does the paper comic look like the web comic? Like, does that translate well to pages?

[20:58] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Zach cont’d. “And while it hasn’t come up in the comic yet, Candor gets very bored in long combats and gets very excited about talking to NPCs and RPing with her friends.”

[20:59] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> @Cowabunga I didn’t even begin to launch a kickstarter until I had solved that problem. Starting in issue two, we have been designing for print in advance, but for issue one, I had to go through and make edits to make sure it would look good in print form. We never expected it to get the traction it got, and we didn’t think about working for print in advance.

[21:00] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> I think that a careful reading will show some of the “web-comic-ness” of it, but that ultimately we’ve designed a good-looking book. I’m happy to share some sample pages alongside their web counterparts tho

[21:01] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Let me dig up the PDF and do some uploading. My connection might break while I do this because of throttling from my isp =)

[21:01] <+Cowabunga> That would be cool.

[21:03] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Here is are the web versions: (Link: http://imgur.com/a/rK2gz)http://imgur.com/a/rK2gz (imgur is just easier to use than my own website for now. Because I am not a web designer and it really shows!)

[21:04] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> And here are some sample pages from the printed form. I had to re-arrange the panels, obviously, but also I had to re-letter them

[21:04] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> (Link: http://imgur.com/a/uGxW1)http://imgur.com/a/uGxW1

[21:04] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> ((Those are small resolution because they are screen caps from a zoomed out PDF to show page structure. The print is quite readable in the real thing!)

[21:07] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> We’re working for print in advance now, through, so I won’t have to do this sort of Dr. Frankenstein design work in the future. Thank God.

[21:07] <~Dan> Heh. 🙂

[21:07] <+Cowabunga> Nice. So you’re the graphic designer too then?

[21:08] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> I suppose I am! I am the letterer as well as the writer, and over the years I’ve learned to do a lot of fun tricks in Photoshop + Illustrator

[21:08] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> When I first started, Zach had to kind of hold my hand through every little function, but now I think I know more about both programs than he does x__x

[21:09] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> (Way back in 2012)

[21:09] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Also Angela just yelled at me for not saying she helped me learn a lot about Illustrator too :p

[21:10] <~Dan> 🙂

[21:10] <+ChrisGrey> lol, that is absolutely hilarious….can’t wait to read more

[21:10] <+Cowabunga> Same

[21:11] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> @ChrisGrey @Cowabunga — Everything in both comics is available to read for free. Patreon and Kickstarter are our attempts at making it profitable. You can absolutely read more whenever you like at (Link: http://www.ramen-empire.com)www.ramen-empire.com — and we also mirror both comics on Tapastic

[21:11] <+Cowabunga> Well sure. But I’m all caught up right now.

[21:11] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> ❤

[21:12] <+ChrisGrey> Right on….great stuff and love the art style too

[21:12] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Thanks!

[21:14] <~Dan> In the time remaining, is there anything we haven’t covered that you’d like to bring up?

[21:15] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> One of the things we do for funding is make printable tabeltop paper minis + tokens for Patreon. If you guys want a page of Myconid paper minis / tokens and send me your e-mail address, I’ll e-mail participants today a free sheet of these. =)

[21:16] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> **tabletop

[21:17] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> …that was supposed to be a link? x__x

[21:17] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> I am bad at IRC

[21:17] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> (Link: http://imgur.com/xpzrgrT)http://imgur.com/xpzrgrT — there we go

[21:18] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> I suspect this is a thing I more excited about than other people though. XD

[21:18] <+ChrisGrey> I love the pillsbury doughboy looking one

[21:18] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Zach has a quick question

[21:19] <+Cowabunga> Lol. They look really nice, man. Really studio ghibli

[21:19] <~Dan> Very cool. 🙂

[21:19] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> “Ive never had a platform to crowdsource this question. How important is a grandiose story? Is it better for a reader to have a full dramatic story, or are the one-shot jokes more important to you?”

[21:19] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Thanks!

[21:20] <+Cowabunga> I like the thought of a dramatic overall story. But i don’t wanna lose the little jokes along the way.

[21:21] <~Dan> Well, I prefer the big story as a framework for the little jokes

[21:21] <~Dan> For this kind of comic, anyway.

[21:21] <+ChrisGrey> Story needs to come around often for sure, at least a couple times per issue

[21:21] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Awesome. He says thanks a lot. That clarifies an inner-argument he’s been having.

[21:22] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Thanks so much @Dan for inviting us here and introducing me to the RPGnet irc community. It’s been an absolute pleasure. Any last questions before we boot scoot?

[21:22] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> ((because I think this ends at 930 yes?))

[21:22] <+ChrisGrey> Not here….I wish you guys the best of luck

[21:22] <+Cowabunga> You guys are great. I hope your kickstarter does well.

[21:23] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Thanks! Feel free to hunt us down in the wild. And I’ll be in this channel every so often. It’s a good space and I like it =)

[21:24] <+Cowabunga> 🙂

[21:24] <+ChrisGrey> 😀

[21:24] <+ChrisGrey> Have a good night everyone

[21:24] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Adios!

[21:24] <~Dan> As a reminder, my Patreon is here: (Link: https://www.patreon.com/GMshoe)https://www.patreon.com/GMshoe

[21:25] <+Cowabunga> See ya?

[21:25] <~Dan> Thanks very much for joining us, guys!

[21:25] <+Cowabunga> See ya!

[21:25] <~Dan> If you’ll give me just a moment, I’ll get the log posted and link you. 🙂

[21:25] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Peace all! It’s been real and fun simultaniously. ^__^ I’m going idle to drive Zach home and grab some food

[21:25] <+Bart_Zach_Thievescant> Awesome, thanks!