Alexander J Knowall

Hey everyone, I thought it would be a good idea to establish some ground rules to guide interactions on here so without further ado: 1) I get to change and or ignore my own rules as and when I like. It's my blog so tough. 2) I won't even consider answering an ask unless it meets the following criteria: a) I haven't been asked it before on Tumblr. b) It is worded as a question. c) It does not ask me to rule on canon for content I make. d) It does not ask for takes on real people. e) It has a positive tone (seeking to become positive counts) f) It is not a callout (e.g. why are you so rubbish etc.) g) It is not asking for confidential information on business and/or Intellectual property h) It is not just rephrasing a previous question because people didn't like the answer. i) It's respectful. j) It is not just a veiled story request (e.g. why don't you make these characters kiss etc.) 3) This is not a press conference or an interrogation. If you want to ask serious questions about Rusty Quill and other proper topics send them to [email protected] 4) If you DM me I will ignore it on principal. Not because I don't like you but because I am receiving so many that I can't be fair with it and it's just generally unwise anyway. 5) Remember we are all human. That means we can make mistakes, change our minds, be flippant, have a bad day and give bad advice. Please show a little grace rather than trying to catch people out. I do not support dogpiling in any situation. 6) Be kind. The fastest way to get yourself blocked by me is being unkind even if you are in the right. Some of the cruellest and regrettable actions I have ever seen have been fuelled by righteous indignation. 7) Be wise. Internet culture moves fast. Not everyone knows everything you know and not everyone needs to know everything you know. You aren't helping me if you appoint yourself "chief brainbox educator supreme" and try to school people on how things should be. Let's just all keep it chill yeah? 8) Be patient. This is not my job. This is barely even counts as a good idea! I run my social media when I can but I don't have deadlines and I don't have sociability quotas. I might do a flurry of activity when I have time then go quiet for months. Just go ahead and assume if I am not posting it's for a good reason. 9) One question per person. Don't worry it doesn't annoy me, its just I don't know if its fair me using all my social media time budget on a single person and leave others unanswered. UPDATES: 10) I am not a helpdesk for Rusty Quill. If you are having technical issues, personal logistics questions, complaints or similar you need to direct them to official company channels, ideally via email to [email protected]. Moving forward I am going to have to ignore these asks due to them drowning out other asks.

In regards to meeting you for Crossed Wires I had a really weird, maybe silly question and I truly want to avoid embarrassing myself for the future.

Do you wish you had more meet and greets with you and RQ employees?

I ask because I don't really find any videos or photographs of you meeting fans online and it just makes me wonder if you enjoy it or allow your interactions to be posted on the internet.

IM GENUINELY CURIOUS

If its a personal thing, or maybe accessibility thing like making appearances and having time for them, I don't expect that you should make appearances for fans and be forced to make content for fans.

Please ignore if too personal! I'm also just more afraid of being completely awkward during our meeting. Thanks and can't wait!

*(I am referencing the video posted by Martyn and cannot un-hear it and it is forever ingrained in my brain)

(to be clear, i'm not asking about the killing-and-eating-people thing if it were just that i would be unconfused but what fear would then also act like a demon afterwards??? like?????????)

Firstly, thank you so much for creating RQG. It's been one of two DND podcasts I have on CONSTANTLY for about 5 years now, and it will forever have a very dear place in my heart.

Now, as somebody trying very hard to learn to be a DM, I always pay attention whenever you mention things about DMing throughout the podcast. During the dungeon crawl that was Shoin's (I'm not sure how to spell that name) lighthouse/underwater/underground base, you mentioned that you tend to build that sort of stuff from the end point back. I was wondering, is that indicative of your process for all arcs of a campaign, and how far in advance/detail do you typically end up planning?

(And, if it's alright, could I ask how you keep your players on task without feeling as if you're railroading them?)

Hey this is a kind question but strap in, the answer is more complicated than you might think. So in terms of where to listen, as always first port of call is our membership platforms like Patreon etc. you get all the episodes ad-free and a bunch of bonus content and in exchange we get more reliable income that lets us plan better etc. We try to keep our prices lower than average but I totally get that some people can't afford stuff right now so then the next best port of call is a dedicated podcatcher app. There's not much difference between them: Pocket Casts , Podcast Addict etc. all work the same way so ads served will work as normal and we still get a kickback that pays for production. I will exclude AI driven tools that do things like clone episodes, summarise them into soundbites or strip ads entirely. Those are actively harmful to us and are often acting illegally. After that things get a bit more confusing. Spotify is... an odd platform for Podcasts. To massively oversimplify: Podcasts do not get a per-play payment like music tracks do on the platform unless they are hosted by Spotify directly. Instead we have to provide the podcast with ads attached. They then take that copy and add their own ads on top of the existing ads. We keep our money from the ads we attached originally and they keep the money from those extra ads. That means we don't have a say in how many extra ads there are or what they are advertising and we don't get any extra money even if they attach loads of extra ads. We do however, indirectly benefit from being seen as popular on an app with such a large market share (because that lets us convince people to spend more advertising with us directly) so it's a bit of a mixed bag at the moment. It's a better system than it used to be but there are multiple reasons that historically we have chosen not to be hosted by Spotfy and I won't get into that here. (not throwing shade, just businesses doing business things) Another confusing one is Youtube. On the one hand, listening via Youtube is good for us as it boosts our visibility on the platform meaning the algorithm is more likely to encourage people to listen. On the flip side though the monetary value on ads is far, far lower than for the other podcast platforms etc. so again it's a mixed bag. And all of that is before factoring in a push for Video-first driven by major corporate entities which messes with that balance. This is actually a huge topic with tons of nuance and ongoing changes. Our marketing lead Callum gives presentations to major players in the space on just this question, explaining how it all works and interrelates etc. ( I am NOT the expert in that regard so I could be mistaken on some points without realising.) If I had to summarise it all into something simple though: The most profitable way to listen is on our membership platforms. If you cant do that then dedicated podcast apps that serve ads are a good choice. That said, by far the most helpful way to listen is with as many of your uninitiated friends as possible so that you can pollute their minds with our horrific nonsense and turn them into fans.

Irish Gaelic. Absolutely no shade on the others though. As a general rule if your people made Roman Invaders just quit and go home, you've got something special going on and I respect the shit out of you.

I have been mulling something over for a while and have decided to share. As part of my job, I read a lot of fiction that's still in development. After a while, you start to see the same errors, misunderstandings and shortcuts crop up repeatedly with different creators and it gets me thinking what is the most elegant way possible I could explain the issues to someone wanting to improve? The one that comes up the most often and is the hardest to explain is: "Why don't people care about my characters and/or story". It's always a thorny problem and I think I have a workable answer that applies in most cases: A story is a series of revelations regarding compounding, unintentional consequences to character decisions. The further you stray from this, the less people care. It translates to: 1) characters have to make decisions otherwise there is no drama 2) Those decisions have to matter otherwise there are no stakes 2) The consequences have to interact with one another. A affects or causes B affects or causes C etc. otherwise there is no progression 3) There must be some unintended consequences otherwise there is no conflict 4) The consequences have to be revealed (even at least implied) otherwise there is no conclusion This works at the micro scale in terms of dialogue: The specific word/tone/movement a character uses affects how another character reacts in an unexpected or interesting way which in turn causes another reaction and these layer onto one another until a decision is reached and a consequence implied thereby completing the scene. It also works at the macro scale in terms of plot: The decisions characters made in a scene prompts/affects the characters and context of the scene that follows (even if we don't know it at first) and by the end those layered interactions have been revealed to us and we see the unexpected or interesting result.

I met you and Jonny on Thursday (!!!!!), I just wanted to thank you so much for signing my jacket & being so cool about it (I had colourful hair & gave you the notebook & pins). I’m 15 and only go to Manchester once or twice a year from where I come from (very small town) so I was super nervous just to be in the city, let alone meeting you guys!!

All that to say sorry about how awkward I was, I don’t think I’ll ever be used to these kinds of interactions!

I had a question I wanted to ask for months, and it’s dumb, unrelated to everything you do. And I forgot, because ofcourse I did. But I wanted to ask the chicken question. It is to be pondered.

In a world where chickens grew hair like humans (imagine a chicken with an Elvis Presley up-do), do you think that the fact they’re gyroscopic would make it easier or harder to give them haircuts?

I occasionally trawl older questions I didn't get time for first go round and see what jumps out at me. I read this question and thought: "What a stupid question, obviously it would be easier!" Then I paused. Then I thought about it. Then I really thought about it. Then I finally came back to my original answer but via a much longer and involved thought process than I was expecting so... kudos. Good question. I think it comes down to the fact that they are still chickens. You can't ask them to put their head down or look left or up or whatever because they're chickens. They don't understand you and they don't want their hair cut. That means ultimately it hits the same territory as sheep sheering and an animal that doesn't randomly jerk their head is going to be much easier to deal with. After all, people train on mannequins for a while at barber college so really it would just be like giving a hair cut for a teeny ,tiny self-stabilising, mannequin that has a beak and an attitude problem.

I’ve been looking through some of the stuff the fandom does and thinks in regards to TMA, and—call me a snooty bastard if you wish—I think they’re missing out on a lot in relation to how they interact with the show.

The two episodes that come to mind are MAG102: Nesting Instinct and MAG103: Cruelty Free. I find that a non-insignificant number of people undermine the horror in these episodes. Specifically, they mock 102 for what they believe to be an absurd premise of a man falling in love with a beetle, and they refer to 103’s Monster Pig as cute, in some regard, for its proclamation of Dylan Anderson as “Friend.” I could speak at length about how this completely overlooks the nuance of both episodes, but you’d know better than I, and I wouldn’t want to embarrass myself popping the hood of a car you helped to design.

I suppose what I’m asking is, how do I avoid this tonal dissonance between work and fandom when doing my own projects? It has been a persistent worry of mine, that whatever I make shall be undermined by an innate desire in many fandoms to sympathize or soften, especially when such things are deleterious to full enjoyment of the work.

I cannot state enough that I do not aim to be pompous or establish that I am better than anyone. I am not. That is why I’m asking a superior artist—you—for advice.

It is my turn to pick a film for movie club. Any recommendations?