Whatever This Is

I’ve decided to leave my old job in payroll behind and start learning something completely new: Ghost hunting! Or perhaps it’s more like ghost identifying, but that sounds less cool, so I’ll continue to call it ghost hunting for now. And I’m learning so much about it. All the paranormal activities that have been haunting the neighbourhoods for as long as I can remember. It’s certainly not been easy, but it’s been too exciting to properly put into words.

The van is a little cramped, but it has all that we need to complete our missions and Llama and I have already been discussing how to make the place nicer. Speaking of, that leads me to my favorite bit of this new job, my teammates. 

Moth is certainly on top of his shit. He has a lot of knowledge, it seems, of all the different kinds of ghosts. When I’m still frantically looking through my notebook on ghost behaviour, Moth is already calling out which ghost it is and why. Even when we’re not on the jobsite yet, Moth is going over mission reports and checking our gear. I’ve barely figured out how to use all our gear and that man is taking stuff apart and fixing things with some scrap and an old screwdriver.

Llama seems quite knowledgeable as well, but also makes the time to chat with me about other stuff regularly. We’ve already got some good plans of improving the van and I can’t wait to put them into motion. Now just to make sure we don’t go overboard and leave enough room for all the stuff we need for our missions. Both Moth and Llama are absolute saints, constantly taking the time to explain things to me. 

Though it’s still nice to know I’m not the only newbie around here. I’m happy to have Lennart around to goof off with from time to time. He seems to be picking stuff up rather quickly though, quicker than me at least, and is also very focussed when need be. Never in my life could I have done all this without this random group of strangers allowing me into their group and helping me learn the ropes.

Now onto even more exciting news. The van decorations. Currently, All available space is already being utilized to the max and there isn’t much room left for all the frivolous little things that I want and I’m sure my teammates would be very unhappy with me if I tried to move our back-ups under the table in favor of a mini fridge. Which to be honest, fair enough.

I spend a fair amount of time in that bus though, checking cams and keeping an eye on sanity/activity. So I’ve certainly got ideas to spruce up the place. 

Ideally, and I know this will be quite far in the future, I want to get a bigger van. With separate sections for the cute shit and the ghost shit. Perhaps even with seperate power sources. That way, if the cute section short circuits, all our gear and monitoring stuff will still work. I want to create an area with a little couch, though still big enough for at least two people to lay on. (Yes I appreciate the hammocks, but I also appreciate a snuggle, thank you.) A kitchen would probably not be very feasible, but a little space with a mini fridge, a microwave, or maybe even a slow cooker! I know we usually use insane-away on missions cus it’s quick and easy, but I think if they gave my special goulash a try, they’d find it (almost) as effective, and delicious to boot.

Okay, first off, I must show my colours: I have been watching their parent channel Outside Xbox almost since it began, and they are actually why I got a Youtube Premium account (Youtube, you owe these people more than 2/3rds of my subscription). They are my background noise. So obviously I'm biased, but this post is about the Oxventure channel and why I love it.

Lately, they've been marketing themselves as an actual play channel, technically rivalling Critical Role, but I don't like to think of them like that. To me, Oxventure is more storytelling improv that happens to use tabletop mechanics as a prop. And the reason that's an important distinction is because Oxventure is at its best when it's being silly.

So. Some background.

Oxventure is, in alphabetical order, Andy, Ellen, Jane, Johnny, Luke, and Mike, and a host of guests when they feel the need. It began as a one-off milestone celebration on Outside Xbox where everyone but Mike (he had a Car Thing) played Dungeons and Dragons--most of them for literally the first time--on camera. Since then, it has expanded into its own channel with six series of varying prominence and many one-shots.

If you want to see them at their most condensed and I would argue truest form, I recommend DnD but everyone is a Kobold.

Their shows can run the full gambit from silly (the kobold shows) to high adventure (Oxventure Blades in the Dark) to wholesome (Tea-Time Adventures) to absurd (DnD but it's Pokemon) to emotional body-slams (Oxventure Deadlands) to quietly creepy (Oxventure Wyrdwood). But at its core, whatever series you're watching, Oxventure is about friends gathering together to have fun as they make their way in a world that seems a bit insane.

The original game/series/what have you is The Oxventurers Guild, which remains my favourite. Their motto (seen in Latin above) is "Everyone Should Have Thought Of Everything", meaning that they have a habit of just diving into things without thinking and then being shocked Pikachus when the consequences arrive.

The characters (and world) are a mess, but the thing that was most wonderful is that the group were learning how to play DnD on screen. They screwed up the rules, they lost dice, they forgot about feats... a running gag is that Mike, playing a paladin, has only the loosest concept of his own abilities and will randomly read his character sheet to discover something that would have been useful last session. Meanwhile Ellen made arguably the most powerful character, with what should have been one of the most powerful spells, and yet was the first knocked out in their PVP session because of a few unlucky rolls.

Johnny is an amazing first-time DM, too, because they just... let the group play. They run with the rules until the rules stop being fun. And that's what makes Oxventure so enjoyable for me.

I remember trying to watch a few Actual Plays after the first episode of Oxventure, and I can remember the exact moment I checked out. It was when a player made a joke, and the DM gave her a very direct Look and firmly informed her that if she didn't immediately take it back, there would be mechanical consequences.

Compare and contrast Johnny, whose attempt to show the Oxventurers Actions Have Consequences nearly ended with a bunch of evil skeletons realising that actually, they didn't realise how hard it was to avoid evil consequences so maybe they should cut the players some slack and stop giving such horrible consequence - wait! No! Bad bosses no make skeletons behave!

(We love the Sixty Skeletons, Flaming Skull Foreman, and Skeleton Donkey) (don't ask) (it only kind of makes sense in context)

But that's not all on Johnny - a lot of it comes down to the beautiful muppets that are the original players, and specifically Andy, Jane, and Mike, who have been a chaotic force of good online since they joined together to form Outside Xbox in 2009.

These three, and by extension all of Oxventure, are a little silly, always snarky, incredibly good at what they do but always beset by terrible luck and worse technology. They are also incredibly well-meaning (and hilarious) even when they're actively trying to be horrible (unrelated to this post but PLEASE watch their Hitman videos for further proof of this). And that carries through to their characters, who can be card carrying evil and yet still care so deeply about their friends that you can't help but love them.

An example of their chaotic competence is in an episode of their latest series Wyrdwood. There was a short of Johnny and Producer Zack talking about how Wyrdwood is a very creepy series starring the human equivalent of the Muppets, which is so true, but I would like to draw attention to a specific moment to prove my point:

In this particular episode, Johnny has created a truly terrifying scenario: trapped in mist with music playing beyond their hearing, the team are being picked off one by one despite specific measures to the contrary, until the characters played by the Oxbox trio are alone in oppressive danger. Things look dire. They know they're in trouble and helpless. It's only a matter of time before they're all gone.

They promptly spend the next five minutes flailing, yelling at each other, completely ruin Johnny's nefarious trap, locate their friends, and set themselves up to win the whole day while seemingly focussed entirely on figuring out which of them should be blamed for screwing up.

Even Johnny doesn't seem to know whether to be offended their whole scary vibe was just destroyed or impressed by how effortless the trio made it look, and I feel like that's the correct response.

And I think that's what I love about this series, and these people. They give me a kind of... exasperated hope for all of us.

I have to admit, when I first heard about Wyrdwood and saw the art, I was worried, because I thought Oxventure were going serious. But then, only a few minutes into the first episode, Jane uttered the immortal words 'Luck Pervert' to describe Luke's newest character and I knew we'd be fine.

These people are silly. They tell silly stories.

But they are stories about love, and friendship, and trying even against impossible odds, and making tough choices, and growing as people. All while you and the world around you are a complete mess and everything seems insane. You can still be better, and make the world better, even if it seems like you're just making more of a mess right now.

You watch, and you cringe, and you sigh and call them all 'absolute muppets', and then you cheer as they come up with some insane plan that shouldn't work and yet always, somehow, without rhyme, reason, or explanation... works.

They are silly, and they are heartfelt, and I suspect I will binge-watch the entire channel all over again this Christmas break.

Because while the Oxventurers' motto may be "Everyone should have thought of everything", the fact is no one has. So just go with what you've got.