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In this episode of The Reformed Brotherhood, Tony and Jesse continue their deep dive into the Parable of the Prodigal Son by examining the often-overlooked character of the elder brother. While the younger son's rebellion is obvious, the elder brother's self-righteous moralism represents a more subtle—and perhaps more dangerous—form of lostness. Through careful exegesis of Luke 15:25-32, the hosts explore how religious performance, resentment of grace, and merit-based thinking can keep us far from the Father's heart even while we remain close to the Father's house. This conversation challenges listeners to examine their own hearts for traces of elder brother theology and calls us to celebrate the scandalous grace that restores sinners to sonship. Key Takeaways Two ways to be lost: The parable presents both flagrant rebellion (the younger son) and respectable self-righteousness (the elder son) as forms of spiritual lostness that require God's grace. The elder brother's geographic and spiritual position: Though physically near the house and faithful in service, the elder brother was spiritually distant from the father's heart, unable to celebrate grace extended to others. Moralism as a subtle distance: Self-righteous religion can be more deceptive than open rebellion because it appears virtuous while actually rejecting the father's character and values. The father pursues both sons: God's gracious pursuit extends not only to the openly rebellious but also to the self-righteous, demonstrating that election and grace are sovereign gifts, not earned rewards. The unresolved ending: The parable intentionally leaves the elder brother's response unstated, creating narrative tension that challenges the original audience (Pharisees and scribes) and modern readers to examine their own response to grace. Adoption as the frame of obedience: True Christian obedience flows from sonship and inheritance ("all that I have is yours"), not from a wage-earning, transactional relationship with God. Resentment reveals our theology: When we find ourselves unable to celebrate the restoration of repentant sinners, we expose our own need for repentance—not from scandal, but from envy and pride. Key Concepts The Elder Brother's Subtle Lostness The genius of Jesus' parable is that it exposes a form of lostness that religious people rarely recognize in themselves. The elder brother never left home, never squandered his inheritance, and never violated explicit commands. Yet his response to his brother's restoration reveals a heart fundamentally opposed to the father's character. His complaint—"I have served you all these years and never disobeyed your command"—demonstrates that he viewed his relationship with the father transactionally, as an employer-employee arrangement rather than a father-son bond. This is the essence of legalism: performing religious duties while remaining distant from God's heart. The tragedy is that the elder brother stood within reach of everything the father had to offer yet experienced none of the joy, fellowship, or security of sonship. This form of lostness is particularly dangerous because it wears the mask of righteousness and often goes undetected until grace is extended to someone we deem less deserving. The Father's Gracious Pursuit of the Self-Righteous Just as the father ran to meet the returning younger son, he also went out to plead with the elder brother to come into the feast. This detail is theologically significant: God pursues both the openly rebellious and the self-righteous with the same gracious initiative. The father's response to the elder brother's complaint is not harsh correction but tender invitation: "Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours." This reveals that the problem was never scarcity or the father's favoritism—the elder brother had always possessed full access to the father's resources and affection. The barrier was entirely on the son's side: his inability to receive sonship as a gift rather than a wage. This mirrors the historical situation of the Pharisees and scribes who grumbled at Jesus for receiving sinners. They stood adjacent to the kingdom, surrounded by the promises and covenant blessings of God, yet remained outside because they could not accept grace as the principle of God's dealing with humanity. The invitation still stood, but it required them to abandon their merit-based system and enter the feast as recipients of unearned favor. The Unresolved Ending and Its Challenge to Us Luke deliberately leaves the parable unfinished—we never learn whether the elder brother eventually joined the celebration. This narrative technique places the reader in the position of the elder brother, forcing us to answer for ourselves: will we enter the feast or remain outside in bitter resentment? For the original audience of Pharisees and scribes, this unresolved ending was a direct challenge to their response to Jesus' ministry. Would they continue to grumble at God's grace toward tax collectors and sinners, or would they recognize their own need and join the celebration? For contemporary readers, the question remains equally pressing. When we hear of a notorious sinner coming to faith, do we genuinely rejoice, or do we scrutinize their repentance with suspicion? When churches extend membership to those with broken pasts, do we celebrate restoration or quietly question whether they deserve a place at the table? The parable's open ending is not a literary flaw but a pastoral strategy: it refuses to let us remain passive observers and demands that we examine whether we harbor elder brother theology in our own hearts. Memorable Quotes The father's household is a place where grace produces joy, not just merely relief. The elder brother hears the joy before he sees it. That's often how resentment works, isn't it? We're alerted to the happiness of others and somehow there's this visceral response of wanting to be resentful toward that joy, toward that unmerited favor. — Jesse Schwamb There is a way to be near the house, church adjacent, religiously active, yet to be really far from the father's heart. The elder brother is not portrayed as an atheist, but as a moralist. And moralism can be a more subtle distance than open rebellion. — Jesse Schwamb God doesn't keep sinners from repenting. The reprobate are not prohibited or prevented by God from coming to faith. They're being kept out by their own stubborn refusal to come in. That's where this punchline hits so hard. — Tony Arsenal Full Transcript [00:00:44] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 477 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse.  [00:00:51] Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast with ears to hear. Hey brother.  [00:00:55] Jesse Schwamb: Hey brother.  [00:00:56] Parables and God's Word [00:00:56] Jesse Schwamb: Speaking of ears to hear, it struck me that this whole thing we've been doing all this parable talk is really after the manner of God's words. And one of the things I've really grown to appreciate is how God speaks to the condition of those whom he addresses. He considers our ability, our capacity as his hearers to process what he's saying, and that leads into these amazing parables that we've been talking about. He doesn't speak as he is able to speak. So to speak, but I didn't mean that to happen. But as we were able to hear, and that means he spoke in these lovely parables so that we might better understand him. And today we're gonna get into some of the drama of the best, like the crown jewel as we've been saying, of maybe all the parables. The Parable of the Lost Son. We spoke a little bit about it in the last episode. Definitely want to hit that up because it's setting you up for this one, which is the definitive episode. But now we're gonna talk about this first, this younger lost son. Get into some of all of these like juicy details about what takes place, and really, again, see if we can find the heart of God. Spoiler. We can and we'll,  [00:02:04] Tony Arsenal: yeah,  [00:02:04] Affirmations and Denials [00:02:04] Jesse Schwamb: but before we do both of those things, it's of course always time at this moment to do a little affirming with or denying against. Of course, if you haven't heard us before, that's where we take a moment to say, is there something that we think is undervalued that we wanna bring forward that we'd recommend or think is awesome? Or conversely, is there something that's overvalued that's just, we're over it. The vibe is done. We're gonna deny against that. So I say to you, as I often do, Tony, are you affirming with or deny against?  [00:02:31] Tony's Nerdy Hobby: Dungeons and Dragons [00:02:31] Tony Arsenal: I'm affirming tonight. Um, I don't know how much the audience realizes of a giant ridiculous nerd I am, but we're about to go to entirely new giant nerd depths. [00:02:43] Jesse Schwamb: All right. I  [00:02:43] Tony Arsenal: think,  [00:02:44] Jesse Schwamb: let's hear it.  [00:02:44] Tony Arsenal: So, um, I was a huge fan of Stranger Things. Some, there's some issues with the show, and I understand why some people might not, um, might not feel great about watching it. You know, I think it falls within Christian liberty. But one of the main themes of the show, this is not a spoiler, you learn about this in episode one, is the whole game. The whole show frames itself around Dungeons and Dragons, right? It's kind of like a storytelling device within the show that the kids play, Dungeons and Dragons, and everything that happens in the Dungeons and Dragons game that they're playing, sort of like, um, foreshadows what's actually gonna happen in the show. Which funny if, you know Dungeons and Dragons lore, you kind of learn the entire plot of the story like ahead of time. Um, but so I, stranger Things just finished up and I've kind of been like itching to get into Dungeons and Dragons. I used to play a little bit of tabletop when I was in high school, in early college and um, I just really like the idea of sort of this collaborative storytelling game. Um, whether it's Dungeon Dragons or one of the other systems, um, Dungeons and Dragons is the most popular. It's the most well published. It's the most well established and it's probably the easiest to find a group to play with. Although it is very hard to find a group to play with, especially, uh, kind of out in the middle of nowhere where I live. So this is where the ultra super nerdy part comes in.  [00:04:02] Jesse Schwamb: Alright, here we  [00:04:03] Tony Arsenal: go. I have been painstakingly over the last week teaching Google Gemini. To be a dungeon master for me. So I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons more or less by myself with, uh, with Google Gemini, and I'm just having a lot of fun with it. Um, you can get a free copy of the rules online if you, I think it's DND, the letter NDND beyond.com. They have a full suite of like tools to create your character. Access to a basic set of the core rules. Um, you can spend a lot of money on Dungeons and Dragons, uh, and if you want to like really get into it, the books are basically textbooks. Like you're buying $300 or 300 page, $300, 300 page textbooks, um, that are not all that differently costs than like college textbooks. You'll buy a 300 page Dungeon master guide that's like $50 if you want a paper copy. So, but you can get into it for free. You can get the free rolls online, you can use their dungeon, the d and d Beyond app and do all your dice rolls for free. Um, you, you can get a free dice roller online if you don't want to do their, their app. Um, but it's just a lot of fun. I've just been having a lot of fun and I found that the, I mean. When you play a couple sessions with it, you see that the, the um, the A IDM that I've created, like it follows the same story beats 'cause it's only got so much to work with in its language model. Um, but I'm finding ways to sort of like break it out of that model by forcing it to refer to certain websites that are like Dungeons and Dragons lore websites and things like build your, build your campaign from this repository of Dungeons and Dragons stuff. So. I think you could do this with just about any sort of narrative storytelling game like this, whether you're playing a different system or d and d Pathfinders. I mean, there's all sorts of different versions of it, but it's just been a lot of fun to see, see it going. I'm trying to get a group together. 'cause I think I would, I would probably rather play Dungeons and Dragons with people, um, and rather do it in person. But it's hard to do up here. It's hard to get a, get a group going. So that's my super nerdy affirmation. I'm not just affirming Dungeons and Dragons, which would already be super nerdy. I'm affirming playing it by myself on my phone, on the bus with Google Gemini, AI acting like I'm not. Just this weird antisocial lunatic. So I'm having a lot of fun with it.  [00:06:20] Jesse Schwamb: So there are so many levels of inception there. Yeah. Like the inception and everything you just said. I love it.  [00:06:27] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Well, what I'm learning is, um, you can give an, and, and this is something I didn't realize, what ai, I guess I probably should have, you know, it's not like an infinite thing. Um, you can give an AI instructions and if your chat gets long enough, it actually isn't referring back to the very beginning of the chat most of the time. Right. There's a, there's like a win context window of about 30 responses. So like if you tell the AI, don't roll the dice for me, like, let me roll dices that are related to my actions, eventually it will forget that. So part of what I've been doing is basically building, I'm using Google Gemini when the AI does something I don't want it to do, I say, you just did something I don't want it to do. Gimme a diagnostic report of why you did that. It will explain to me why it did what it did. Right. Why it didn't observe the rules. And then I'm feeding that into another. Prompt that is helping me generate better prompts that it refers back to. So it's kind of this weird iterative, um, yeah, I, I don't, I'm like, I maybe I'm gonna create the singularity. I'm not sure. Maybe this is gonna be possible. We should sit over the edge. It's gonna, it's gonna learn how to cast magic spells and it's gonna fire bolt us in the face or something like that. Right. But, uh, again, high risk. I, I, for one, welcome our AO AI dungeon masters. So check it out. You should try it. If you could do this with chat GPT, you could do it with any ai. Um, it, it, it is going to get a little, I have the benefit because I have a Google Workspace account. I have access to Google Pro or the Gemini Pro, which is a better model for this kind of thing. But you could do this with, with chat GPT or something like that. And it's gonna be more or less the same experience, I think. But I'm having a, I'm having a ton of fun with it. Um. Again, I, I, there's something about just this, Dungeons and Dragons at its core is a, it's like a, an exercise in joint storytelling, which is really fascinating and interesting to me. Um, and that's what most tabletop RPGs are like. I suppose you get into something like War Hammer and it's a little bit more like a board. It's a mixture of that plus a board game. But Dungeons and Dragons, the DM is creating the, I mean, not the entire world, but is creating the narrative. And then you as a player are an actor within that narrative. And then there's a certain element of chance that dice rolls play. But for the most part, um, you're driving the story along. You're telling the story together. So it's, it's pretty interesting. I've also been watching live recordings of Dungeons and Dragon Sessions on YouTube. Oh,  [00:08:50] Jesse Schwamb: wow.  [00:08:51] Tony Arsenal: Like, there's a, there's a channel called Critical Role. Like these sessions are like three and a half hours long. So, wow. I just kinda have 'em on in the background when I'm, when I'm, uh, working or if I'm, you know, doing something else. Um, but it's really interesting stuff. It's, it's pretty cool. I think it's fun. I'm a super nerd. I'm, I'm no shame in that. Um, I'm just really enjoying it.  [00:09:09] Jesse Schwamb: Listen, nerdery is great. That's like part of the zeitgeist now. Listen to culture. It's cool to be a nerd. I don't know much about d and d. I've heard a lot about this idea of this community that forms around. Yeah. The story, correct me if I'm wrong, can't these things go on for like years, decades?  [00:09:25] Tony Arsenal: Oh yeah, yeah. Like, you can do there. There, some of this has made its way into the official rule books, but basically you could do what's called a one shot, which is like a self-contained story. Usually a single session, you know, like you get a Dungeon master, game master, whichever you wanna call the person. Three to four, maybe five characters, player characters. And one session is usually about two hours long. So it's not like you sit down for 20 minutes, 30 minutes at a time and play this right. And you could do a one shot, which is a story that's designed to, to live all within that two hour session. Um, some people will do it where there isn't really any planned like, outcome of the story. The, the DM just kind of makes up things to do as they go. And then you can have campaigns, which is like, sometimes it's like a series of one shots, but more, it is more like a long term serialized period, you know, serialized campaign where you're doing many, um, many, many kinds of, uh, things all in one driving to like a big epic goal or battle at the end, right? Um, some groups stay together for a really long time and they might do multiple campaigns, so there's a lot to it. Game's been going on for like 50, 60, 70 years, something like that. I don't remember exactly when it started, but  [00:10:41] Jesse Schwamb: yeah.  [00:10:41] Tony Arsenal: Um, it's an old game. It's kinda like the doctor who of of poor games and it's like the original tabletop role playing game, I think. [00:10:47] Jesse Schwamb: Right. Yeah, that makes sense. Again, there's something really appealing to me about not just that cooperative storytelling, but cooperative gameplay. Everybody's kind of in it together for the most part. Yeah. Those conquest, as I understand them, are joint in nature. You build solidarity, but if you're meeting with people and having fun together and telling stories and interacting with one another, there's a lot of good that comes out of that stuff there. A lot of lovely common grace in those kind of building, those long-term interactions, relationships, entertainment built on being together and having good, clean, fun together.  [00:11:17] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Well, and it's, you know, it's, um. It's an interesting exercise. It's it, in some ways it's very much like improv. Like you, you think of like an improv comedy like show I've been to somewhere. Like, you know, you go to the show and it's an improv troupe, but they're like calling people from the crowd up and asking them for like different scenarios they might do. It's kind of like that in that like the GM can plan a whole, can plan a whole thing. But if I as a player character, um. And I've done this to the virtual one just to see what it does, and it's done some interesting things. One of the campaigns I was playing, I had rescued a merchant from some giant spiders and I was helping, like, I was helping like navigate them through the woods to the next town. And we kept on getting attacked and just outta nowhere. I was like, what if I sort of act as though I'm suspicious of this merchant now because why are we getting attacked all the time? And so I, I typed in sort of like a little. A mini role play of me accusing this guy. And it was something like, Randall, we get, we're getting attacked a lot for a simple merchant, Randall merchant. What happens if I cast a tech magic? What am I gonna find? And he's like, I don't know what I'm gonna find. I know I don't know anything. And then I cast a tech magic and it shifted. I mean, I don't know where the campaign was gonna go before that, but it shifted the whole thing now where the person who gave him the package he was carrying had betrayed him. It was, so that happens in real life too in these games, real life in these games. That happens in real, in-person sessions too, where a player or a group of players may just decide instead of talking to the contact person that is supposed to give them the clue to find the dungeon they're supposed to go to, instead they ambush them and murder them in gold blood. And now the, the dungeon master has to figure out, how do I get them back to this dungeon when this is the only person that was supposed to know where it is? So it, it does end up really stretching your thinking skills and sort of your improvisational skills. There's an element of, um, you know, like chance with the dice, um, I guess like the dice falls in the lot, but the lot is in the handle. Or like, obviously that's all ordained as well too, but there is this element of chance where even the DM doesn't get to determine everything. Um, if, if I say I want to, I want to try to sneak into this room, but I'm a giant barbarian who has, you know, is wearing like chain mail, there's still a chance I could do it, but the dice roll determines that. It's not like the, the GM just says you can't do that. Um, so it's, it's a, I, I like it. I'm, I'm really looking forward to trying to, getting into it. It is hard to start a group and to get going and, um, there's a part of me that's a little bit. Gun shy of maybe like getting too invested with a group of non-Christians for something like this. 'cause it can get a little weird sometimes. But I think that, I think that'll work out. It'll be fun. I know there's actually some people in our telegram chat. Bing, bing, bing segue. There we go. There's some people in our telegram chat actually, that we're already planning to do a campaign. Um, so we might even do like a virtual reform brotherhood, Dungeons and Dragons group. So that might be a new sub channel in the telegram at some point.  [00:14:13] Jesse Schwamb: There you go. You could jump right in. Go to t.me back slash reform brotherhood.  [00:14:18] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Jesse, what are you affirming since I just spent the last 15 minutes gushing about my nerdy hobby?  [00:14:23] Jesse Schwamb: Uh, no, that was great. Can I, can I just say two things? One is, so you're basically saying it's a bit like, like a troll shows up and everybody's like, yes. And yeah. So I love that idea. Second thing, which is follow up question, very brief. What kind of merchant was Randall.  [00:14:39] Tony Arsenal: Uh, he was a spice trader actually.  [00:14:42] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. I don't trust that.  [00:14:43] Tony Arsenal: And, and silk, silk and spices.  [00:14:45] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. That's double, that's too strict.  [00:14:47] Tony Arsenal: He was actually good guy in the, in the story that developed out of this campaign. He actually became part of my family and like, like, like got adopted into the family because he lost everything on his own. Randy we're  [00:15:00] Jesse Schwamb: talking about Randy.  [00:15:01] Tony Arsenal: Randy Randall with one L. Yeah. The AI was very specific about  that.  [00:15:05] Jesse Schwamb: There's, there's nothing about this guy I trust. I, is this still ongoing? Because I think he's just trying to make his way deeper in,  [00:15:11] Tony Arsenal: uh, no, no. It, I'll, I'll wait for next week to tell you how much, even more nerdy this thing gets. But there's a whole thing that ha there was a whole thing out of this That's a tease. Tease. There was a, there was a horse and the horse died and there was lots of tears and there was a wedding and a baby. It was, it's all sorts of stuff going on in this campaign. [00:15:27] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. And I'm sure. Randy was somewhere near that horse when it happened. Right?  [00:15:32] Tony Arsenal: It was his horse.  [00:15:33] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, exactly. That's  [00:15:35] Tony Arsenal: exactly, he didn't, he didn't kill the horse. He had no power to knock down the bridge The horse was standing on.  [00:15:40] Jesse Schwamb: Listen, next week, I'm pretty sure that's what we're gonna learn is that it was all him. [00:15:45] Tony Arsenal: Alright, Jesse, save us from this. Save us from this, please. Uh,  [00:15:49] Jesse Schwamb: no.  What  [00:15:50] Tony Arsenal: you affirming, this is  [00:15:50] Jesse Schwamb: great.  [00:15:50] Jesse's Affirmation: Church Community [00:15:50] Jesse Schwamb: It's possible that there is a crossover between yours and mine if we consider. That the church is like playing a d and d game in the dungeon Masters Christ, and the campaigns, the gospel. So I was thinking maybe is it possible, uh, maybe this is just the, the theology of the cross, but that sometimes, like you need the denial to get to the affirmation. Have we talked about that kind of truth? Yeah,  [00:16:14] Tony Arsenal: yeah,  [00:16:15] Jesse Schwamb: for sure. So here's a little bit of that. I'll be very, very brief and I'm using this not as like just one thing that happened today, but what I know is for sure happening all over the world. And I mean that very literally, not just figuratively when it comes to the body of Christ, the local church. So it snowed here overnight. This was, this is the Lord's Day. We're hanging out in the Lord's Day, which is always a beautiful day to talk about God. And overnight it snowed. The snow stopped relatively late in the morning around the time that everybody would be saying, Hey, it's time to go and worship the Lord. So for those in my area, I got up, we did the whole clearing off the Kai thing. I went to church and I was there a little bit early for a practice for music. And when I pulled in, there weren't many there yet, but the whole parking lot unplowed. So there's like three inches of snow, unplowed parking lot. So I guess the denial is like the plow people decided like, not this time I, I don't think so. They understood they were contracted with the church, but my understanding is that when one of the deacons called, they were like, Ooh, yeah, we're like 35 minutes away right now, so that's gonna be a problem. So when I pulled in, here's what I was. Like surprise to find, but in a totally unexpected way, even though I understand what a surprise is. And that is that, uh, that first the elders and the deacons, everybody was just decided we're going to shovel an entire parking lot. And at some point big, I was a little bit early there, but at some point then this massive text change just started with everybody, which was, Hey, when you come to church, bring your shovel. And I, I will tell you like when I got out of the car. I was so like somebody was immediately running to clear a path with me. One of those like snow pushers, you know what I mean? Yeah. Like one, those beastly kind of like blade things.  [00:17:57] Tony Arsenal: Those things are, those things are the best.  [00:17:59] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. You just run. And so you have never met a group of people that was more happy to shovel an entire large asphalt area, which normally shouldn't even be required. And. It just struck me, even in hindsight now thinking about it, it was this lovely confluence of people serving each other and serving God. It was as if they got up that morning and said, do you know what would be the best thing in the world for me to do is to shovel. And so everybody was coming out. Everybody was shoveling it. It was to protect everyone and to allow one into elaborate, one access. It was just incredible. And so I started this because the affirmation is, I know this happens in, in all of our churches, every God fearing God, loving God serving church, something like this is happening, I think on almost every Lord's day or maybe every day of the week in various capacities. And I just think this is God's people coming together because everybody, I think when we sat down for the message was exhausted, but. But there was so much joy in doing this. I think what you normally would find to be a mundane and annoying task, and the fact that it wasn't just, it was redeemed as if like we, we found a greater purpose in it. But that's, everyone saw this as a way to love each other and to love God, and it became unexpected worship in the parking lot. That's really what it was, and it was fantastic. I really almost hope that we just get rid of the plow company and just do it this way from now on. Yeah, so I'm affirming, recognize people, recognize brothers and sisters that your, your church is doing this stuff all the time and, and be a part of it. Jump in with the kinda stuff because I love how it brings forward the gospel.  [00:19:35] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. That's a great story. It's a great, uh, a great example of the body of Christ being, what the body of Christ is and just pulling together to get it done. Um, which, you know, we do on a spiritual level, I think, more often than a physical level these days. Right, right. But, um, that's great. I'm sitting here going three inches of snow. I would've just pulled into the lot and then pulled out of the lot. But New Hampshire, it hits different in New Hampshire. Like we all d have snow tires and four wheel drive.  [00:20:02] Jesse Schwamb: It's, it's enough snow where it was like pretty wet and heavy that it, if, you know, you pack that stuff down, it gets slick. You can't see the people, like you can't have your elderly people just flying in, coming in hot and then trying to get outta the vehicle, like making their way into church.  [00:20:14] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:20:15] Jesse Schwamb: So there was, there was a lot more of that. But I think again, you would, one of the options would've been like, Hey, why don't we shovel out some sp spaces for the, for those who need it, for, you know, those who need to have access in a way that's a little bit less encumbered. Oh, no, no. These people are like, I see your challenge and I am going to shovel the entire parking lots.  [00:20:35] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. It used to happen once in a while, uh, at the last church, uh, at, um, your dad's church. We would, where the plow would just not come on a Sunday morning or, or more often than not. Um, you know, what happens a lot of times is the plows don't want to come more than once. Right. If they don't have to. Or sometimes they won't come if they think it's gonna melt because they don't want to deal with, uh, with like customers who are mad that you plowed and that it all melts. But either way, once in a while. The plow wouldn't come or it wouldn't come in time. And what we would do is instead of trying to shovel an entire driveway thing, we would just went, the first couple people who would get there, the young guys in the church, there was only a couple of us, but the younger guys in the church would just, we would just be making trips, helping people into the, yeah. Helping people into the building. So, um, it was a pretty, you know, it was a small church, so it was like six trips and we'd have everybody in, but um, we just kind of, that was the way we pulled together. Um, yeah, that's a great, it's a great story. I love, I love stuff like that. Yeah, me too. Whether it's, whether it's, you know, plowing a, a parking lot with shovels instead of a plow, or it's just watching, um, watching the tables and the chairs from the fellowship, you know, all just like disappear because everybody's just, uh, picks up after themselves and cleans and stuff. That's, that's like the most concrete example of the body of Christ doing what the body of Christ does. Um, it's always nice, you know, we always hear jokes about like, who can carry the most, the most chairs,  [00:22:04] Jesse Schwamb: most  [00:22:04] Tony Arsenal: chairs. Uh, I think it's true. Like a lot of times I think like I could do like seven or eight sometimes. [00:22:10] Jesse Schwamb: Uh, you, that's, so, one more thing I wanna say. I, I wanted to tell you this privately, Tony, 'cause it just cracked me up 'cause I, you'll appreciate this. But now I'm realizing I think the brothers and sisters who listened to us talk for any length of time and in the context of this conversation, but the church will appreciate this too. On my way out, I, I happened because I was there early and the snow was crazy. I parked way further out, way on the edge of the lot to just allow for greater access because of all the shoveling that was happening. And by the way, I really hope there were a ton of visitors this morning because they were like, wow, this, this church is wild. They love to shovel their own lot and they're the happiest people doing it. Some sweaty person just ushered me in while they were casting snow. Like,  [00:22:47] Tony Arsenal: is this some new version of snake handling? You shovel your own lot and your impervious to back injuries.  [00:22:53] Jesse Schwamb: Uh. So I was walking out and as I walked past, uh, there was a, uh, two young gentlemen who were congregating by this very large lifted pickup truck, which I don't have much experience with, but it looked super cool and it was started, it was warming up, and they were just like casually, like in the way that only like people with large beards wearing flannel and Carhartt kind of do, like casually leaning against the truck, talking in a way that you're like, wow, these guys are rugged. And they sound, they're super cool, and they're probably like in their twenties. And all I hear as I pass by is one guy going, yeah, well, I mean that's, I was, I said to them too, but I said, listen, I'd rather go to a church with God-fearing women than anywhere else.  [00:23:36] Tony Arsenal: Nice.  [00:23:37] Jesse Schwamb: I was just like, yep. On the prowl and I love it. And they're not wrong. This is the place to be.  [00:23:42] Tony Arsenal: It is.  [00:23:43] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. This is the place to be. Yeah. So all kinds of, all kinds of good things I think going on in that in the house of the Lord and where wherever you're at, I would say be happy and be joyful and look for those things and participate in, like you said, whether it's physical or not, but as soon as you said like the, our young men, our youth somehow have this competition of when we need to like pack up the sanctuary. How many chairs can I take at one time? Yeah. It's like the classic and it just happens. Nobody says like, okay, everybody line up. We're about to embark on the competition now. Like the strong man usher competition. It's just like, it just happens and  [00:24:17] Tony Arsenal: it's  [00:24:17] Jesse Schwamb: incredible.  [00:24:18] Tony Arsenal: I mean, peacocks fan out their tail feathers. Young Christian guys fan out. All of the table chairs, chairs they can carry. It's uh, it's a real phenomena. So I feel like if you watch after a men's gathering, everybody is like carrying one chair at a time because they don't wanna hurt their backs and their arms. Oh, that's  [00:24:36] Jesse Schwamb: true. That's  [00:24:37] Tony Arsenal: what I do. Yeah. But it's when the women are around, that's when you see guys carrying like 19 chairs. Yeah. Putting themselves in the hospital.  [00:24:42] Jesse Schwamb: That's what I, listen, it comes for all of us. Like I, you know, I'm certainly not young anymore by almost any definition, but even when I'm in the mix, I'm like, oh, I see you guys. You wanna play this game? Mm-hmm. Let's do this. And then, you know, I'm stacking chairs until I hurt myself. So it's great. That's, that is what we do for each other. It's  [00:25:01] Tony Arsenal: just, I hurt my neck getting outta bed the other day. So it happens. It's real.  [00:25:05] Jesse Schwamb: The struggle. Yeah, the struggle is real.  [00:25:07] The Parable of the Lost Son [00:25:07] Jesse Schwamb: Speaking of struggle, speaking of family issues, speaking of all kinds of drama, let's get into Luke 15 and let me read just, I would say the first part of this parable, which as we've agreed to talk about, if we can even get this far, it's just the younger son. [00:25:24] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:25:25] Jesse Schwamb: And again, don't worry, we're gonna get to all of it, but let me read beginning in, uh, verse 11 here. This is Luke chapter 15. Come follow along as you will accept if you're operating heavy machinery. And Jesus said, A man had two sons and the younger of them said to his father, father, give me the share of the estate that falls to me. So he divided his wealth between them. And not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together and went on a journey into a distant country. And there he squandered his estate living recklessly. Now, when he had spent everything, a severe famine occurred in that country and it began to be impoverished. So he went and hired himself to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. So he went and as he was desiring to be fed with the pods that the swine were eating because no one was giving anything to him. But when he came to himself, he said, how many of my father's men have more than enough bread, but I am dying here with hunger. I'll rise up and go to my father, and I'll say to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired men. So he rose up, came to his father, but while he was still a long way off. His father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him. And the son said to him, father, I've sinned against heaven and before you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his slaves, quickly, bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet and bring the fat in calf and slaughter it and let us celebrate. For the son of mine was dead and has come to life again. He was lost and he has been found and they began to celebrate.  [00:27:09] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. This is such a, um, such a, I don't know, like pivotal seminal parable in the Ministry of Christ. Um, it's one of those parables and we, we mentioned this briefly last week that even most. It, it hasn't passed out of the cultural zeitgeist yet. A lot of biblical teaching has, I mean, a lot, I think a lot of things that used to be common knowledge where, where you could make a reference to something in the Bible and people would just get it. Um, even if they weren't Christian or weren't believers, they would still know what you were talking about. There's a lot of things in the Bible that have passed out of that cultural memory. The, the parable of the prodigal son, lost son, however you wanna phrase it, um, that's not one of them. Right. So I think it's really important for us, um, and especially since it is such a beautiful picture of the gospel and it has so many different theological touch points, it's really incumbent on us to spend time thinking about this because I would be willing to bet that if you weave. Elements of this parable into your conversations with nonbelievers that you are praying for and, and, you know, witnessing to and sharing the gospel with, if you weave this in there, you're gonna help like plant some seeds that when it comes time to try to harvest, are gonna pay dividends. Right. So I think it's a really, it's a really great thing that we're gonna be able to spend, you know, a couple weeks really just digging into this. [00:28:40] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, and to define the beginning, maybe from the end, just slightly here, I like what you said about this cultural acknowledgement of this. I think one of the correctives we can provide, which is clear in the story, is in the general cultural sense. We speak of this prodigal as something that just returns comes back, was lost, but now is found. And often maybe there is this component of, in the familial relationship, it's as if they've been restored. Here we're gonna of course find that this coming to one senses is in fact the work of God. That there is, again, a little bit of denial that has to bring forward the affirmation here that is the return. And so again, from the beginning here, we're just talking about the younger son. We have more than youthful ambition.  [00:29:19] The Essence of Idolatry and Sin [00:29:19] Jesse Schwamb: This heart of, give me the stuff now, like so many have said before, is really to say. Give me the gifts and not you, which is, I think, a common fault of all Christians. We think, for instance of heaven, and we think of all the blessings that come with it, but not necessarily of the joy of just being with our savior, being with Christ. And I think there's something here right from the beginning, there's a little bit of this betrayal in showing idolatry, the ugliness of treating God's gifts as if there's something owed. And then this idea that of course. He receives these things and imme more or less immediately sometime after he goes and takes these things and squanderers them. And sin and idolatry, I think tends to accelerate in this way. The distance from the father becomes distance from wisdom. We are pulled away from that, which is good. The father here being in his presence and being under his care and his wisdom and in his fear of influence and concern, desiring then to say, I don't want you just give me the gifts that you allegedly owe me. And then you see how quickly like sin does everything you, we always say like, sin always costs more than you want to pay. And it always takes you further than you want to go. And that's exactly what we see here. Like encapsulated in an actual story of relationship and distance.  [00:30:33] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I think, um. It's interesting to me.  [00:30:39] The Greek Words for Property [00:30:39] Tony Arsenal: You know, I, I, I'm a big fan of saying you don't need to study Greek to understand your Bible, but I'm also a big fan of saying understanding a little bit of Greek is really helpful. And one of the things that I think is really intriguing, and I haven't quite parsed out exactly what I think this means, but the word property in this parable, it actually is two different Greek words that is translated as property, at least in the ESV. And neither one of them really fit. What our normal understanding of property would be. And there are Greek words that refer to like all of your material possessions, but it says, father, give me the share of property. And he uses the word usia, which those of us who have heard anything about the trinity, which is all of us, um, know that that word means something about existence. It's the core essence of a person. So it says, father, give me the share of usia that is coming to me. And then it says, and he divided his bias, his, his life between them. Then it says, not many days later, the younger son gathered all that he had took a journey into the far country. There he squandered his usia again. So this, this parable, Christ is not using the ordinary words to refer to material, uh, material accumulation and property like. I think probably, you know, Christ isn't like randomly using these words. So there probably is an element that these were somehow figuratively used of one's life possessions. But the fact that he's using them in these particular ways, I think is significant. [00:32:10] The Prodigal Son's Misconception [00:32:10] Tony Arsenal: And so the, the, the younger son here, and I don't even like calling this the prodigal sun parable because the word prodigal doesn't like the equivalent word in Greek doesn't appear in this passage. And prodigal doesn't mean like the lost in returned, like prodigal is a word that means like the one who spends lavishly, right? So we call him the prodigal son because he went and he squandered all of his stuff and he spent all of his money. So it doesn't even really describe the main feature or the main point of why this, this parable is here. It's just sort of like a random adjective that gets attached to it. But all of that aside, um. This parable starts off not just about wasting our property, like wasting our things, but it's a parable that even within the very embedded language of the parable itself is talking about squandering our very life, our very essence, our very existence is squandered and wasted as we depart from the Father. Right? And this is so like, um, it's almost so on the head, on the on the nose that it's almost a little like, really Jesus. Like this is, this is so like, slap you in the face kind of stuff. This is right outta like Romans, uh, Romans one, like they did not give thanks to God. They did not show gratitude to God or acknowledge him as God. This is what's happening in this parable. The son doesn't go to his father and say, father, I love you. I'm so happy to stay with you. I'm so happy to be here. He, he basically says like. Give me your very life essence, and I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go spend it on prostitutes. I'm gonna go waste your life, father, I'm gonna waste your life, your existence, your bias. I'm gonna go take that and I'm gonna squander it on reckless living. And I guess we don't know for sure. He, it doesn't say he spends it on prostitutes. That's something his brother says later and assumes he did. So I, I don't know that we do that. But either way, I'm gonna take what's yours, your very life, your very essence. And also that my life, my essence, the gift you've given me as my father, you've given me my life. In addition now to your life or a portion of your life. And I'm gonna go squander that on reckless living, right? Like, how much of a picture of sin is that, that we, we take what we've been given by God, our very life, our very essence, we owe him everything, and we squander that on sinful, reckless living. That that's just a slap in the face in the best way right out of the gate here.  [00:34:28] Jesse Schwamb: Yes, that, that's a great point because it's, it would be one thing to rebel over disobedience, another thing to use the very life essence that you've been given for destructive, self-destructive purposes. And then to use that very energy, which is not yours to begin with, but has been imbued in yours, external, all of these things. And then to use that very thing as the force of your rebellion. So it's double insult all the way around. I'm with you in the use of Greek there. Thank you. Locus Bio software. Not a sponsor of the podcast, but could be. And I think that's why sometimes in translations you get the word like a state because it's like the closest thing we can have to understanding that it's property earned through someone's life more or less. Yeah. And then is passed down, but as representative, not just of like, here's like 20 bucks of cash, but something that I spent all of me trying to earn and. And to your point, also emphasizing in the same way that this son felt it was owed him. So it's like really bad all around and I think we would really be doing ourselves a disservice if we didn't think that there's like a little bit of Paul washer saying in this, like I'm talking about you though. So like just be like, look at how disrespectful the sun is. Yeah. Haven't we all done this? To God and bringing up the idea of prodigal being, so that, that is like the amazing juxtaposition, isn't it? Like Prodigal is, is spent recklessly, parsimonious would be like to, to save recklessly, so to speak. And then you have the love the father demonstrates coming against all of that in the same way with like a totally different kind of force. So.  [00:36:02] The Famine and Realization [00:36:02] Jesse Schwamb: What I find interesting, and I think this is like set up in exactly what you said, is that when you get to verse 14 and this famine comes, it's showing us, I think that like providence exposes what Sin conceals.  [00:36:16] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:36:16] Jesse Schwamb: And want arrives. Not just because like the money ran out, but because again, like these idols, what he's replaced the father with, they don't satisfy. And repentance then often begins when God shows the emptiness of light apart life apart from him. That's like the affirmation being born out of the denial. And so I think that this also is evolving for us, this idea that God is going to use hardship, not as mere punishment, but as mercy that wakes us up and that the son here is being woken up, but not, of course, it's not as if he goes into the land, like you said, starts to spend, is like, whoa, hold on a second. This seems like a bad idea. It's not until all of that sin ever, like the worship of false things collapses under its own weight before it, which is like the precursor of the antecedent, I think, to this grand repentance or this waking up.  [00:37:05] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I also think it's, um.  [00:37:08] The Depths of Desperation [00:37:08] Tony Arsenal: A feature of this that I haven't reflected on too deeply, but is, is worth thinking about is the famine that's described here only occurs in this far country that he's in. [00:37:17] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah.  [00:37:17] Tony Arsenal: Right. So even that's right. And this is like a multitude of foolish decisions. This is compounding foolish decisions that don't, don't make any sense. Like they don't really actually make any sense. Um. There's not a logic to this, this lost son's decision making. He takes the property. Okay. I guess maybe like you could be anxious to get your inheritance, but then like he takes it to a far country. Like there's no reason for him to do that. If at any point through this sort of insane process he had stopped short, he would not have been in the situation he was in. Yes. And that, I love that phrase, that providence, you know, reveals, I don't know exactly how you said it, but like providence reveals what our sin can bring to us. Like he first see sins against his father by sort of like demanding, demanding his inheritance early. Then he takes it and he leaves his country for no reason. He goes to this far country, then he spends everything and then the famine arises. Right? And the famine arises in this other country.  [00:38:13] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:38:13] Tony Arsenal: And that's, I think that is still again, like a picture of sin. Like we. We don't just, we don't just take what the father has and, and like spend it like that would be bad enough if we weren't grateful for what we have and what we've been given, and we just waste it. But on top of that, now we also have taken ourselves to a far country. Like we've gone away from the good, the good land of the Lord, as those who are not regenerate. We've gone away from the, the Lord into this far country. And it's not until we start to have this famine that we recognize what we've done. And again, this is, this is where I think we get a picture. There's so many theological, like points in this parable particular that it almost feels a little bit like a, like a. Parable that's intended to teach some systematic theology about for sure, the oral salus, which I think there's probably a lot of like biblical theology people that are ready to just crawl through the screen and strangle me for saying that. But this is such a glorious picture of, of regeneration too. [00:39:16] The Journey Back to the Father [00:39:16] Tony Arsenal: Like he comes to himself, there's nothing, there's nothing in the story that's like, oh, and the servant that he was, the other servant he was talking to mentioned that the famine, like there's nothing here that should prompt him to want to go back to his home, to think that his father could or would do anything about it, except that he comes to himself. He just comes to the realization that his father is a good man and is wise and has resources, and has takes care of his, of his servants on top of how he takes care of his sons. That is a picture of regeneration. There's no, yeah. Logical, like I'm thinking my way into it, he just one day realizes how much, how many of my father's servants have more than enough bread. Right. But I'm perishing here in this, this foolish other country with nothing. Right. I can't even, and the, the pods that the pigs ate, we can even, we can get into the pods a little bit here, but like. He wants to eat the pods. The pods that he's giving the pigs are not something that's even edible to humans. He's that destitute, that he's willing to eat these pods that are like, this is the leftover stuff that you throw to the pigs because no, no, nobody and nothing else can actually eat it. And that's the state he's in at the very bottom, in the very end of himself where he realizes my father is good and he loves me, and even if I can never be his son again, surely he'll take care of me. I mentioned it last week, like he wasn't going back thinking that this was gonna be a failing proposition. He went back because he knew or he, he was confident that his father was going to be able to take care of him and would accept him back. Right. Otherwise, what would be the point of going back? It wasn't like a, it wasn't like a, um, a mission he expected to fail at. He expected there to be a positive outcome or he wouldn't have done it. Like, it wouldn't make any sense to try that if there wasn't the hope of some sort of realistic option.  [00:41:09] Jesse Schwamb: And I think his confidence in that option, as you were saying, is in this way where he's constructed a transaction. Yeah. That he's gonna go back and say, if you'll just take me out as a slave, I know you have slaves, I will work for you. Right. Therefore, I feel confident that you'll accept me under those terms because I'll humble myself. And why would you not want to remunerate? Me for the work that I put forward. So you're right, like it's, it's strange that he basically comes to this, I think, sense that slavery exists in his life and who would he rather be the slave of,  [00:41:38] Tony Arsenal: right? [00:41:39] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. And so he says, listen, I'm gonna come to the father and give him this offer. And I'm very confident that given that offer and his behavior, what I know about how he treats his other slaves, that he will hire me back because there's work to do. And therefore, as a result of the work I put forward, he will take care of me. How much of like contemporary theology is being preached in that very way right now?  [00:41:58] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:41:59] Jesse Schwamb: And that's really like why the minimum wages of sin is all of this stuff. It's death. It's the consequences that we're speaking about here. By the way, the idea about famine is really interesting. I hadn't thought about that. It is interesting, again, that sin casts him out into this foreign place where the famine occurs. And that famine is the beginning of his realization of the true destruction, really how far he's devolved and degraded in his person and in his relationships and in his current states. And then of course, the Bible is replete with references and God moving through famine. And whereas in Genesis, we have a local famine, essentially casting Joseph brothers into a foreign land to be freed and to be saved.  [00:42:39] Tony Arsenal: Right.  [00:42:40] Jesse Schwamb: We have the exact opposite, which is really kind of interesting. Yeah. So we probably should talk about, you know, verse 15 and the, and the pig stuff. I mean, I think the obvious statement here is that. It would be scandalous, like a Jewish hero would certainly feel the shame of the pigs. They represent UNC cleanliness and social humiliation. I'm interested again, in, in this idea, like you've started us on that the freedom that this younger brother sought for becomes slavery. It's kind of bondage of the wills style. Yeah. Stuff. There's like an, an attentiveness in the story to the degrading reversal in his condition. And it is interesting that we get there finally, like the bottom of the pit maybe, or the barrel is like you said, the pods, which it's a bit like looking at Tide pods and being like, these are delicious. I wish I could just eat these. So I, I think your point isn't lost. Like it's not just that like he looked at something gross and was so his stomach was grumbling so much that he might find something in there that he would find palatable. It, it's more than that. It's like this is just total nonsense. It, this is Romans one. [00:43:45] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And these pods, like, these aren't, um, you know, I guess I, I don't know exactly what these are. I'm sure somebody has done all of the historical linguistic studies, but the Greek word is related to the, the word for keratin. So like the, the same, the same root word. And we have to be careful not to define a Greek word based on how we use it. That's a reverse etymology fallacy. Like dunamis doesn't mean dynamite, it's the other direction. But the Greek word is used in other places, in Greek literature to describe like the horns of rhinoc, like,  [00:44:21] Jesse Schwamb: right,  [00:44:21] Tony Arsenal: this, these aren't like. These aren't pea pods. I've heard this described like these are like little vegetable pods. No, this is like they're throwing pieces of bone to the pigs.  [00:44:31] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah.  [00:44:31] Tony Arsenal: And the pigs, the pigs can manage it. And this is what this also like, reinforces how destitute and how deep the famine is. Like this isn't as though, like this is the normal food you give to pigs. Like usually you feed pigs, like you feed pigs, like the extra scraps from your table and like other kinds of like agricultural waste. These are, these are like chunks of bony keratin that are being fed to the pigs. So that's how terrible the famine is that not even the pigs are able to get food.  [00:45:00] Jesse Schwamb: Right?  [00:45:00] Tony Arsenal: They're given things that are basically inedible, but the pigs can manage it. And this, this kid is so hungry, he's so destitute that he says, man, I wish I could chew on those bony, those bony pods that I'm feeding them because that's how hungry and starved I am. You get the picture that this, um. This lost son is actually probably not just metaphorically on the brink of death, but he's in real risk of starvation, real risk of death that he, he can't even steal. He can't even steal from the pigs what they're eating, right? Like he can't even, he can't even glean off of what the pigs are eating just to stay alive. He, he's literally in a position where he has no hope of actually rescuing himself. The only thing that he can do, and this is the realization he has, the only thing he can do is throw himself back on the mercy of his father.  [00:45:50] Jesse Schwamb: That's  [00:45:50] Tony Arsenal: right. And, and hope, again, I think hope with confidence, but hope that his father will show mercy on him and his, his conception. I wanna be careful in this parable not to, I, I think there's something to what you're getting at or kinda what you're hinting at, that like his conception of mercy is. Not the full picture of the gospel. Yes. His conception of mercy is that he's going to be able to go and work and be rewarded for his laborers in a way that he can survive. And the gospel is so much broader and so much bigger than that. But at the same time, I think it's, it's actually also a confident hope, a faith-filled hope that his father's mercy is going to rescue him, is going to save him. So it is this picture of what we do. And, and I think, I think sometimes, um, I want to be careful how we say this 'cause I don't wanna, I don't want to get a bunch of angry emails and letters, but I think sometimes we, um, we make salvation too much of a theology test. And there's probably people that are like, Tony, did you really just say that? I think there are people who trust in the Lord Jesus thinking that that means something akin to what. This lost son thinks  [00:47:03] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:47:03] Tony Arsenal: Exactly. They trust. They trust that Jesus is merciful and, and I'm not necessarily thinking of Roman Catholics. I'm not thinking of Roman Catholic theology for sure. I do think there are a fair number of Roman Catholic individuals that fall into this category where they trust Jesus to save them. Right. They just don't fully understand exactly what Jesus means, what that means for them to be saved. They think that Christ is a savior who will provide a way for them to be saved by His grace that requires them to contribute something to it. Arminians fall into that category. Right. I actually think, and I, I think there's gonna be if, if there's, if the one Lutheran who listens to our show hears this is gonna be mad, but I actually think Lutheran theology kind of falls into this in a sort of negative fashion in that you have to not resist grace in order to be saved. So I think. That is something we should grapple with is that there are people who fit into that category, but this is still a faith-filled, hope-filled confidence in the mercy of the father in this parable that he's even willing to make the journey back. Right? This isn't like right, he walks from his house down the street or from the other side of town. He's wandering back from a far country. He, he went into a far country. He has to come back from a far country. And yes, the father greets him from afar and sees him from afar. But we're not talking about like from a far country. Like he sees him coming down the road, it, he has to travel to him, and this is a picture of. The hope and the faith that we have to have to return to God, to throw ourselves on the mercy of Christ, trusting that he has our best interest in mind, that he has died for us, and that it is for us. Right? There's the, the knowledge of what Christ has done, and then there's the ascent to the truth of it. And then the final part of faith is the confidence or the, the faith in trust in the fact that, that is for me as well, right? This, this is a picture of that right here. I, I don't know why we thought we were gonna get through the whole thing in one week, Jesse. We're gonna spend at least two weeks on this lost son, or at least part of the second week here. But he, this is, this is also like a picture of faith. This is why I say this as like a systematic theology lesson on soteriology all packed into here. Because not only do we have, like what is repentance and or what does regeneration look like? It's coming to himself. What does repentance look like? Yes. Turning from your sins and coming back. What is, what is the orde solis? Well, there's a whole, there's a whole thing in here. What is the definition of faith? Well, he knows that his father is good. That he has more than enough food for his servants. He, uh, is willing to acknowledge the truth of that, and he's willing to trust in that, in that he's willing to walk back from a far country in order to lay claim to that or to try to lay claim to it. That's a picture of faith right there, just in all three parts. Right. It's, it's really quite amazing how, how in depth this parable goes on this stuff,  [00:49:54] Jesse Schwamb: right? Yeah. It's wild to note that as he comes to himself, he's still working. Yeah, in that far off country. So this shows again that sin is this cruel master. He hits the bottom, he wants the animal food, but he's still unfed. And this is all the while again, he has some kind of arrangement where he is trying to work his way out of that and he sees the desperation. And so I'm with you, you know, before coming to Christ, A person really, I think must come to themselves and that really is like to say they need to have a sober self-knowledge under God, right? Yeah. Which is, as we said before, like all this talk about, well Jesus is the answer. We better be sure what the question is. And that question is who am I before God? And this is why, of course, you have to have the law and gospel, or you have to have the the bad news before you can have the good news. And really, there's all of this bad news that's delivered here and this repentance, like you've been saying, it's not just mere regret, we know this. It's a turning, it's a reorientation back to the father. He says, I will arise and go to my father. So yeah, also it demonstrates to me. When we do come to ourselves when there's a sober self-knowledge under God, there is a true working out of salvation that necessarily requires and results in some kind of action, right? And that is the mortification of sin that is moving toward God again, under his power and direction of the Holy Spirit. But still there is some kind of movement on our part. And so that I think is what leads then in verse 19, as you're saying, the son and I do love this 'cause I think this goes right back to like the true hope that he has, even though it might be slightly corrupted or slightly wa

Puhumme mangaka Kamome Shirahaman vierailusta Desuconissa ja käymme läpi hänen kunniavierasohjelmansa sekä oman haastattelumme. Lisäksi puhumme Desuconin muusta ohjelmatarjonnasta. Lukujonossa luemme Shirahaman sarjan Witch Hat Atelier pokkarit 8-13. --- Kommentoi | Bluesky | Mastodon | X | Threads | Instagram --- (00:51) – KUULUMISET: CLOUD TABICINELTÄ - Cloud, Suomen ensi-ilta 22.8.2025 - Kiyoshi Kurosawa - Eturivissä-podcastin jakso 5, jossa puhuttiin Cloudista Sodankylän elokuvajuhlilla - Tabicine mainosti leffaa Desuconissa (04:03) – KAMOME SHIRAHAMA DESUCONISSA: ESITTELY - Kamome Shirahama - Shirahamalla oli päässään haastattelussa Witch Hat Atelierissa nähtävä silmäkoristeinen noidanhattu, joka piilottaa kasvot (kuva - siis hatusta mangasta, ei Shirahaman päässä, koska häntä ei saanut kuvata) Muut Shirahaman haastattelut, joihin viittaamme jaksossa: - BoDoïn haastattelu (heinäkuu 2018, ranskaksi) - Crunchyrollin haastattelu (elokuu 2024) - Anime Heraldin haastattelu New York Comic Conissa (lokakuu 2024) - ANN:n haastattelu New York Comic Conissa (marraskuu 2024) - Le Figaron haastattelu (helmikuu 2025, ranskaksi - haastattelun pääsee lukemaan ilman kirjautumista ainoastaan jos hyväksyy evästeet) - Jakso 6, jakso 43 ja jakso 46, joissa olemme aiemmin puhuneet Witch Hat Atelierista - Desucon jakoi Bluesky-tilillään Shirahaman kunniavierasohjelmassa piirtämän kuvan (08:43) – KAMOME SHIRAHAMA: TAITEILIJAN TAUSTAT - Moto Hagio - Katsuhiro Otomo - Naoki Urasawa - Bikke (14:53) – KAMOME SHIRAHAMA: ENIALE & DEWIELA - Jakso 113, jossa puhuimme Eniale & Dewielasta - Mangasplaining-podcastin jakso Eniale & Dewielasta (17:10) – KAMOME SHIRAHAMA: TUOTANTO JA TYÖSKENTELYTAVAT (22:38) – KAMOME SHIRAHAMA: TAIDE JA TAITEELLISET VAIKUTTEET - Etsaus - Art Deco -tyyli - Art Nouveau -tyyli - Gustave Doré, jonka mainitsimme myös Chainsaw Manin yhteydessä jaksossa 77 - Eniale & Dewielassa oli välillä myös visuaalisestikin aika raamatullista menoa (kuva) - Witch Hat Atelierin kannet - Japanilaiset pokkarit myydään yleensä irrotettavan kansivyötteen kanssa, joka peittää osan kansikuvan alalaidasta - Esimerkkejä Witch Hat Atelierin voimakkaista sivusommitteluista (kuva) (29:32) – KAMOME SHIRAHAMA: WITCH HAT ATELIERIN LÄHTÖKOHDAT (30:07) – KAMOME SHIRAHAMA: WITCH HAT ATELIERIN MAAILMANRAKENNUS - Witch Hat Atelierin maailmassa taiotaan piirtämällä erilaisia symboleita taikaympyröiden sisään (kuva) - Erilaisia taikatyökaluja (kuva) - Maailman mytologiaa ja historiaa kerrataan sarjassa kuvakirjamaisesti (kuva) - Samurai 8, josta puhuimme jaksossa 4 (47:39) – KAMOME SHIRAHAMA: WITCH HAT ATELIERIN TEEMAT JA HAHMOT - Brushbuddy-otus on helpoin piirtää (kuva) (01:04:38) – KAMOME SHIRAHAMA: ANIMESOVITUS - Animesovituksen PV näyttää aika hienolta (YouTube) (01:09:34) – KAMOME SHIRAHAMA: WITCH HAT ATELIER KITCHEN - Witch Hat Atelier Kitchen - Delicious in Dungeon, josta puhuimme jaksossa 9 - Drifting Dragons (01:11:47) – KAMOME SHIRAHAMA: JENKKISARJAKUVIEN KANSITAIDE - Shirahaman kansitaidetta löytyy esim. täältä - Witch Hat Atelierista löytyy tosi mielenkiintoisia tapoja, joilla sarjakuvan hahmot ja esineet ovat vuorovaikutuksessa ruutujaon kanssa - Tove ja Lars Janssonin Muumipeikko-sarjakuvissa ruutujaottajat ovat usein sarjakuvan maailmassa olevia esineitä (01:21:52) – KAMOME SHIRAHAMA: MUUT TYÖT - Star Wars: Visions -sarja, johon Shirahama teki hahmodesignit jaksoon Vanhus (The Elder, S1E7) - Jakson sarjakuvasovitus - Fate/Grand Orderin Dante Alighieri - Shirahaman X-ketju Suomen-vierailusta - Fate/Grand Orderin Louhi (joka näyttää vähän erilaiselta kuin Kalevalan Louhi, vaikka linnuksi muuttuukin ja käyttäytyy ikäistään vanhemman oloisesti) - Gallen-Kallelan Aino-taru (01:26:45) – KAMOME SHIRAHAMA: LOPUKSI Shirahaman mainitsemia tykkäämiään teoksia: - Magus of the Library - Ryuu no nemuru hoshi - Alfheim no kishi - Kingdom Come: Deliverance - X-Men - Young Justice - Aquaman - Greg Capullo - Pöllötalo - Dungeon & Dragons -elokuva - Wistoria: Wand and Sword - Cocon lierihattu, jota Witch Hat Atelierissa joskus tiisataan (kuva) (01:32:09) – KAMOME SHIRAHAMA: YHTEENVETO Ranskajulkaisussa monet nimet on lokalisoitu eri tavalla kuin jenkkijulkaisussa: - Richeh (リチェ, riche) on Trice - Agott (アガット, agatto) on Agathe - Qifrey (キーフリー, kiifurii) on Kieffrey - Olruggio (オルーギオ, oruugio) on Olugio - Beldaruit (ベルダルート, berudaruuto) on Berdalute - Easthies (イースヒース, iisuhiisu) on Ysheath (01:35:03) – DESUCON 2025 - Desuconin 2025 ohjelmatallenteet (YouTube) Ne Desuconin ohjelmat, jotka kävimme katsomassa (tai olemme ehtineet jo jälkikäteen katsoa Youtubesta): - Goonaamisen manifesti! - Kaksi isä ja ripaus taikuutta - perhesuhteet sarjassa Witch Hat Atelier (ei YouTubessa) - Tunteista taidetta - luomisen ilo ja tuska animessa ja mangassa - Torisohvan ohjelma “Musiikin kuvaaminen mangassa” Desucon Frostbitessä 2025 (YouTube) - Villainess-animet - Touniksen podcast Teheanicast - Mangakaksi Suomesta Japaniin - Enewald ja Edea - Silent Manga Audition, jolla Coamix-kustantamo ja sen Comic Zenon -lehti pyrkivät kasvattamaan ulkomailta kotoisin olevia mangokoita - Ylen artikkeli Silent Manga Auditionista vuodelta 2015 on jännä kyllä yksi asiallisimpia mangasta julkaistuja artikkeleita suomalaisessa mediassa koskaan - Enewaldin one-shot Records of April 3, 2037 - Twiitti sai aika paljon reaktioita lännessä - Mechaan siitä, monsieur - länsiteokset animemyllyssä - Cillan, Nitan ja Myyn blogi Afureko ja podcast Äänijälki - Sherlock Holmes Japanissa - animea ja kulttuurihistoriaa - Transmiehet englanninkielisessä mangassa - Jakso 112, jossa vastasimme Henrin kuulijakommenttiin siitä, miten coniin pääsee pitämään ohjelmaa (02:01:35) – HAMPAANKOLOSSA: TOILET-BOUND HANAKO-KUN - Jakso 113, jossa puhuimme sarjasta Toilet-bound Hanako-kun (02:05:51) – KUULIJAKOMMENTTI: ANIMEN SUORATOISTOPALVELUT - Jakso 110, jossa puhuimme Crunchyrollista ja animen suoratoistopalvelujen tilasta - Petterin uusin kausistriimilista (02:17:09) – KUULIJAKOMMENTTI: INIO ASANO - Jakso 110, jossa puhuimme Inio Asanon mangasta Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction - Asanon haastattelu, josta tässä on puhe - Shuzo Oshimi - I Think I Turned My Childhood Friend into a Girl, jonka käännöskohusta puhuimme jaksossa 69 (02:25:56) – KUULIJAKOMMENTTI: SARJASUOSITUKSIA - Hima-ten! - Tamon's B-Side - Ichi the Witch - Jakso 32 ja jakso 33, jossa puhuimme Act-agen käsikirjoittajan ahdisteluskandaalista - Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun - Is It My Fault That I Got Bullied? - A Witch's Life in Mongol - Animen julkistus-PV, jossa tosin on vasta pelkkiä kuvia mangasta (YouTube) - American Manga Awards -ehdokassivu - Jakso 79, jossa puhuimme ohimennen Paru Itagakin sarjasta Sanda - Sandan tulevan animesovituksen teaser-PV (YouTube) (02:34:04) – LUKUJONOSSA: WITCH HAT ATELIER 8-13 - Iilimatokimaira (kuva) - Pahaenteinen kuningas ja sen pahaenteinen poika (kuva) - Ininian lierihattu on tosi päheä (kuva) - Muistot pois (kuva) - Jakso 21, jossa puhuimme sarjasta Our Dreams at Dusk - Vähän oudon päälleliimattu apua tarvitsevan käsimerkki (kuva) - Custasin katkeruus (kuva) (03:16:26) – LOPETUS

Emilio e Giada parlano del nuovo barbaro e del nuovo stregone Viaggiate con noi a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://travelsanddragons.it/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ o sosteneteci su patreon ⁠https://patreon.com/DueDraghiPlus⁠ #dnd #dungeons&dragons #actualplay #podcast I nostri link

¡NUEVO PROGRAMA! Llegó la hora. Por fin os traemos el monográfico dedicado a Baldur's Gate III, el mejor juego de 2023 y uno de los mejores de la historia. Vuelve el rol en estado puro, y vuelve Dungeon & Dragons por todo lo alto de la mano de Larian Studios. Nos acompañan en esta gran aventura por los Reinos Olvidados: Angel "Bizarre", de Deep Games, Edu Harkonnen, de Kanagawa Podcast, y Zaphariel, de La Voz de Horus. Esperamos que os mole.

Alex Barker, CEO and Founder of The Happy PharmD returns to break down trends in the pharmacy job market. Summary In this episode, we welcome back Alex Barker, PharmD, Founder and CEO of The Happy PharmD. Alex shares an update on trends in the pharmacy job market, including his outlook on the trajectory of the profession, projecting into the landscape of 2024 and beyond. He shares his thoughts on the #pharmageddon movement, with recent walkouts and efforts to unionize making headlines. He also breaks down a recent survey he posed on LinkedIn that shows the desire for more remote work opportunities and more pharmaceutical industry roles. About Today's Guest Dr. Alex Barker is the CEO and Founder of The Happy Pharm D, a nationwide coaching firm guiding pharmacists to inspiring careers and more fulfilling lives. Alex is an accomplished public speaker, a published author and teacher. Since 2017, his coaching program and career development seminars have guided over 2,000 pharmacists into new jobs and roles they love. His book Indispensable: A prescription for a fulfilling pharmacy career, has motivated countless pharmacists to love pharmacy again. Alex is a husband and the proud father of two daughters. He loves drinking coffee and eating good guacamole (though not at the same time). When he isn't working, which happens occasionally, he plays Nintendo, Dungeon & Dragons, and reads comics. Mentioned on the Show The Happy PharmD  Alex Barker on LinkedIn The War On Normal People by Andrew Yang Subscribe to the YFP Newsletter

Vuoden odotetuin digipeli, Baldur's Gate 3 on julkaistu tietokoneille. Korkean profiilin teos on ollut arvostelumenestys ja noussut mm. pelipalvelu Steamin ladatuimpien ja pelatuimpien pelien joukkoon vain muutama viikko pelin julkaisun jälkeen. Kulttuuriykkönen tutkii, millainen roolipeli on kyseessä, ja lunastaako se kuinka hyvin valtavat odotukset? Peli perustuu samaan Forgotten Realms -fantasiamaailmaan, johon Dungeon & Dragons -pöytäroolipelit ja keväällä 2023 julkaistu elokuvakin pohjautuvat. Millaisen version tuosta hyvin värikkäästä ja monia romaaneja käsittävästä maailmasta Baldur's Gate 3 tarjoaa? Asettaako peli uuden standardin digitaalisille roolipeleille, vai löytyykö pelistä kaikesta hehkutuksesta huolimatta edelleen toivomisen varaa? Vieraina roolipeleihin erikoistuneet asiantuntijat ja pelisuunnittelijat Laura Kröger, Juhana Pettersson sekä Sulka Haro. Juhani Kenttämaa toimittaa.

This week, Michael Weingartner (he/him) joins us for Muppet Treasure Island. It's like Treasure Island, but with Muppets. Does Jim have government permission to pillage and plunder? Is Carol Channing a gateway show to puppets? Did Kai not watch the effing movie? “I'm the guest, so I can't be wrong.” - Michael Weingartner To keep tabs on Michael's upcoming happenings in the Philadelphia area, follow him on instagram @michael.weingartner. Coming this fall at ComedySportz @cszphilly in Philadelphia, Michael will be directing a new improv team and also performing in an improvised Doctor Who show and also in an improvised Dungeon & Dragons show. Click HERE to listen, like, follow, rate and review. It really helps the show! Captain's Log Shout-out: Click HERE to help out with The Other Host's vet bills for their cat Oliver's surgery.

(00:00) There's a new Lord of the Rings show coming to Amazon. Dungeons + Dragons is making a comeback. (15:42) Jim McBride covers the New England Patriots for the Boston Globe and joins Toucher & Rich to talk about training camp with the Carolina Panthers.   CONNECT WITH TOUCHER & RICH Twitter: @Toucherandrich | @fredtoucher | @KenGriffeyRules Instagram: @Toucherandrichofficial | @fredtoucher Twitch: twitch.tv/thesportshub 98.5 The Sports Hub: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

(00:00) There's a new Lord of the Rings show coming to Amazon. Dungeons + Dragons is making a comeback. (15:42) Jim McBride covers the New England Patriots for the Boston Globe and joins Toucher & Rich to talk about training camp with the Carolina Panthers.   CONNECT WITH TOUCHER & RICH Twitter: @Toucherandrich | @fredtoucher | @KenGriffeyRules Instagram: @Toucherandrichofficial | @fredtoucher Twitch: twitch.tv/thesportshub 98.5 The Sports Hub: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Today we start with the most important question , “ In a movie where the last scene is the main villain sacrificing themselves for the hero of the movie , what would their last line be ? “ , In this episode we cover some amazing topics including , Insidious 5, Disney live action remakes' next project is “ Lilo & Stitch”, Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ getting a sequel, then we break down trailers for “ Dungeon & Dragons” ,” Rob Zombie's Monsters”, “Halloween ends”, “ Orphan, First Kill “ Follow us:  Facebook Twitter Instagram

Hello Dad, if you're not my dad you don't have to listen to this one; but if you want to lean more about what D and D is then give this one a listen. I explain what it is, how to be a cool Dungeon Master and what a player character is. I want you to have a nice entry into this world of Dragon Dungeons so how in and Roll For Fun!Please follow, subscribe, leave a review and share with a friend if you enjoyed.

10 Dungeons & Dragons World Building Tips Get 20% OFF @manscaped + Free Shipping with promo code CRIT at www.manscaped.com. Your dice will thank you. "When playing Dungeon & Dragons, there's nothing quite like being the Dungeon Master. While players are able to experience exciting adventures and play their characters with more freedom than nearly any other type of game can allow, DMs are in control of the entire world the campaign inhabits. In addition to controlling all NPCs, a DM is responsible for creating a fleshed-out world for players to explore. The type of world a DM establishes can vary greatly, drawing influences from everything from their favorite video games to their favorite shows. While this may appear daunting at first to new DMs, there are many ways to develop the world of a campaign and provide a campaign with a great deal of diversity. So today, we're going to examine ten things that new Dungeon Masters can do to improve their world-building skills for their campaigns!" Paul Disalvo In this episode, we discuss 10 Dungeons & Dragons World Building Tips from CBR.com by Paul Disalvo. We add our own thoughts and comments to an already wonderful article. Full Article: www.critacademy.com/post/10-dungeons-and-dragons-world-building-tips ❤️ Do you want to become a better D&D Dungeon Master or Player? If so, then make sure to smash that Subscribe Button! http://www.youtube.com/c/critacademy?sub_confirmation=1

This episode we talk about the newest version of Dark Alliance and give our take on this new action rpg.

I'm back! After several weekends of just busy, I'm finally back. In this week's episode of The More You Know, I'm joined with dungeon master Steve Kelsey. It's finally time we explore the world of dungeons and dragons. This is a topic that I've always been curious about and I think a lot of people misunderstand. Steve takes us through us his creative world of dungeon and dragons and exposes the true fun and entertainment aspect of it. As always keep an open mind when listening and I hope you enjoy this episode. If you enjoyed this episode please rate this podcast on Apple Podcast and be sure to subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcasting platform so you get every episode as soon as they're released. Visit MoreYouKnowPodcast.com to see extra videos from this episode --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/themoreyouknowpod/support

Beergames el podcast vuelve de nuevo al ataque! hoy nos reunimos para comentar la presentacion de square, sus novedades, noticias...tambien repasamos novedades en el mundillo de los juegos de lucha, ese mundillo que tanto adoramos, y nos metemos con el nuevo dungeon & dragons..¿nos habra gustado? al turron!!!

Comentario sobre el horror gótico en la tierra de las brumas, Ravenloft. Basado en el material de 2 edición de Dungeon&Dragons. Una noche de terror. Un mundo asfixiado por el miedo y el espanto. Vampiros que rigen la noche, cambiaformas que merodean por los bosques, necrófagos que buscan venganza y esqueletos no muertos que acechan a una población temerosa. Si hubo alguna vez un mundo con necesidad de héroes, este es el mundo de Ravenloft. Síguenos en nuestras redes y escúchanos en diversas plataformas: https://allmylinks.com/pastasroleros --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/pastasroleros/message

This week, I talk to Dr. Megan Connell (Geeks Like Us), Amelia Herbst (Geeks Like Us), Peter Jung (Roll for Kindness), and Jamie Flecknoe (Roll Play Lead) about their experiences using video games and Dungeon & Dragons in their therapeutic, counseling, skills development, and leadership work with adolescents.You can follow Dr. Connell on Twitter @MeganPsyD and on the web at MeganPsyD.comYou can follow Amelia on Twitter @wanderingshrink You can hear both of their work on the Brain Noodles podcast & on Geeks Like Us at twitch.tv/g33kslikeusYou can follow Jamie on Twitter @Rosey_Games and on the web at rollplaylead.orgYou can follow Peter on Twitter @RollForKindness and on the web at rollforkindness.comAs always, you can follow the show at @UntenuredTracks

***What’s up in Babblot*** 3:50 Springtime gardening absorbs time Game Toppers Accessories   Kids and soundtracks Board game reviews   ***Sponsor break*** 12:10 The latest game from Arcane Wonders   ***Things that make the King go Hmmm!*** 16:42 UK Games expo sponsorship and cancellation Gen Con, Essen? Impact to those conventions.   ***What game is behind the door*** 32:54 Our quiz show section, where we quiz our guest, Scott Morris  in our dungeon, about games. Can you guess what the answers before us? ***Sponsor break*** 1:06:40 Late pledge on a Game Topper   ***Peoples Poll*** 1:07:38 What did you say? ***The Babble*** 1:12:41 How did this Covid-19 situation affect the supply chain? --------------------------------------- You can find us at Board Game Theater page for all episodes and Board Games Everybody Should... Like us on Facebook, Twitter or our guild on  Board Game Geek 2248 Big Thanks to Arcane Wonders and Game Toppers for their support. Music and effect by The Balance Of Power & Syrinscape And watch the live stream of the show here: https://youtu.be/gZfnq8TiFQE Games mentioned:   Foundations of Rome, Overbattle : The all war, Titan, The 7th Citadel, Time of Legends: Joan of Arc, Dungeon & Dragons, Sheriff of Nottingham, Otys, Arkeis, Too Many Bones, Magic: the Gathering,

This week the guys introduce a new direction for the podcast.  The podcast will no longer solely be about video games, but will begin incorporating other topics as well.  This week they talk about times in video games that they have played where they think the violence has gone too far, then get into all things Dungeon & Dragons.  Be sure to check it out!

Happy Easter Peeps! Get ready for magic and adventure, it’s a show about Dungeon & Dragons! “Nice” Doug joins us to explain how you should make a podcast where adults play D&D. Good luck with that. We check in on Patrick Michael’s newest podcast and his latest stand up set. Also, we break down Howard Stern’s new podcast. If you make it to the review and voicemail segment, I apologize for the echo. I have a feeling Vic, like Howard Stern, doesn’t own headphones. Maybe we can help her out with our Patreon money. Check out the Isotopes performing live on Friday, April 17th at 8p EST. https://theisotopes.com/ http://bit.ly/watp-patreon

IT'S TABLE TOP TIME!!! Baby Barbarians, give a warm welcome to special guest, Elias Thompson - friend and DM of Dayeanne Hutton & Amber Plaster! Elias gives a brief overview of Dungeons & Dragons for anyone new or unfamiliar with the cult-classic game from 1974. The crew then discuss their current campaign - DRAGON SLAYERS! - and how Daye and Amber are liking their FIRST ever experience with it. They start rumors about which celebrities are fans, as well as share some thoughts about what they've learned so far from the game. Don't miss this super fun episode that's sure to make you smile at least once or twice. Elias Thompson: Twitter - Instagram - Twitch TIME CODE OF HONORable mention: 00:05:12 - D&D looks a lot different today. The original four classes are discussed 00:05:59 - "Satanic Panic" of the 80s 00:22:00 - Dice, D20 & Laura Bailey on Critical Role 00:24:00 - Matt Mercer & Pathfinder 00:25:07 - How does Zelda fit in Dungeons and Dragons? Zelda Universe TV - Realms of the Wild 00:30:00 - Gossip about celebrities who we imagine play D&D 00:35:00 - HarmonQuest 00:37:20 - D&D Beyond 00:39:32 - t=The only time Amber will ever be beta 00:41:44 - "I can't wait to make my crown of bones!" - Daye

In this special Christmas edition of a Mailbag episode, Adam, Dan, & Terry try their best to answer your questions about everything from Dungeon & Dragons 5th Edition to what makes them so damned awesome. Questions were submitted by: @alexander_anotherskip_davis @avatar_idalia @breakyourheroes @colton_adrian @cluelessgamemaster @eldentenner @its.me.jon.snus @kickasslaura @pepperina_sparklegem @ser_baggio @she_hulk_out @thundertoss And Adam's brother Dave.   Available On: iTunes | Spotify | Podbean | YouTube Don’t forget to Like/Follow/Subscribe/Whatever when you listen!   Social: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter Email: info@itsamimic.com Intro/Outro Music by: Cory Wiebe Shout Out Music by: Isaac Callender Logo by: Kate Skidmore

Happy Thanksgiving! Join the adventurers of Hoody, Kevin, Mike, and Erick as we battle the forces of evil in our first Dungeon & Dragons experience called The Feast of Legends! What will happen when Kevin is turned into a noble steed? Will Sir Mike become a great party companion and woo his enemies? Plus what happens when Sir Erick gets a little power hungry?All will be answered in Part Two of our epic journey!Thank you so much for listening and following us and if you don't follow us then do it now!!@themikeanderickexperince@mrerick@bigradio1

Happy Thanksgiving! Join the adventurers of Hoody, Kevin, Mike, and Erick as we battle the forces of evil in our first Dungeon & Dragons experience called The Feast of Legends! Will we make it through the Forest of Freshtovia in time to get home for Thanksgiving dinner? Who will fall victim to a great knife in the back? Who will be easily confused by riddles? All will be answered in Part One of our epic journey!New Episodes of Crisis on Infinite Podcasts come out every Thursday! Make sure to rate us and subscribe to us on your platform of choice and send us a secret message and we'll read it out loud!

I dig into the latest happenings and unrest in the little town of Deadwood as I recap and discuss UnDeadwood Part III: I Got My Wish.

Frida har lige udgivet en digtsamling, Christian skal fejres med Dungeon & Dragons på morgendagens fødselsdag og Michael har fået virus på sin nye computer efter 36 timer – alle ting, der skriger på en freestyle rap.Mund de Carlo har også en svær imitations-udfordring med i anledning af DM i freestyle rap. Kan MC Ollie og Elbanovic lyde som de gamle freestyle legender? 

Old Man Grognard calls the show about magic item McGuffins. I talk about the influence both Dave and Gary had on D&D. https://anchor.fm/radio-grognard https://www.enworld.org/threads/the-dueling-essays-of-arneson-gygax.667050/ Voicemail # ‪(347) 509-5168‬ Support The Tavern www.amazon.com/shop/eriktenkar (affiliate link) https://ko-fi.com/tenkar https://www.patreon.com/tenkarstavern --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/tavernchat/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tavernchat/support

As the panel of Dungeon Masters digs into the newest class addition in Dungeon & Dragons, they find new and interesting player hooks, and decipher the strange mechanics that imbue Warlocks with their magicks. They discuss the patrons of The Hexblade and The Celestial from Xanathar's Guide to Everything, and The Undying from Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide. SUMMARY: We discover that Saruman is a Warlock, and Death Note and The VVitch are about Warlocks, but most importantly Terry's wizarding house is Slytherin and Dan's is Hufflepuff. Adam, however, can't seem to find his, despite his best efforts. Brought to you by: WILDBOT3D.COM Your online home for 3D printed table top gaming accessories and terrain. On-Air Shoutout: @theluckyrogue Current Gear: Microphone (USA) - https://amzn.to/2WWuCsz  Microphone (CAN) - https://amzn.to/2WTZ69G Available On: iTunes | Spotify | Podbean | YouTube Don’t forget to Like/Follow/Subscribe/Whatever when you listen! Social: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter Email: info@itsamimic.com Intro/Outro Music by: Cory Wiebe Shout Out Music by: Isaac Callender Logo by: Kate Skidmore This post or video contains affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission for purchases made through our links.

Joined by Michael of The G-Nome Project and Lady Emma! This episode we hear a surprising confession from a raider; talk with Michael about how to introduce Dungeon & Dragons to kids & young adults; get conflicted with excitement and worry at the idea of Disney buying Activision-Blizzard; play some trivia AND MORE! LET'S START THE GNOME TRAIN! Links Discussed: Box Office: 'Avengers: Endgame' Passes 'Avatar' to Become No. 1 Grossing Film of All Time Wireless Sesnor Tags Disney Investor Thinks Company Should Buy Activision Spider-Man in television Elsa from Disney's Frozen donning battle armor by ZFischerillustrator From the Community: Laura Post, voice of Queen Azshara, will be on Mentally Obsessed podcast on July 30th Preorders for the blue foil Jaina print by Bex’ XSplit Express Video Editor Classic "Added in Content Phase" Item Filters Now on Wowhead Recruiting Writers for WoW Classic DUNGEON IN A BOX Delivers D&D to Your Doorstep | Geek and Sundry Epic Fail Podcast Episode 198 - Not A Disney Podcast How Thom listens to FrazlCast every week Check out our friends Technically PvP! Our website is FrazlCast.com. Email the show at show@frazlcast.com, tweet us @FrazlCast or leave a voicemail (you can also call 1-440-536-3711). The Gnome Train Intro is by Ali of Dungeon Fables and All Things Azeroth and the opening music is by Brandon T. Blaylock. Around the Table bumper made by Epicinsanity. Frazley's avatar made by BozPotatoz. FrazlCast is part of Dragon Powered Studio. Join the Sparkspans Community for discussion during the week at Sparkspan.com. Please consider supporting FrazlCast with Twitch bits and/or a Twitch sub.

Neste episódio, Balbi, Sembiano e BraveSword trocam idéia a respeito do Ghosts of Saltmarsh, um dos últimos lançamentos da linha do Dungeon & Dragons, entrando mais profundamente no cenário de Greyhawk a partir de módulos clássicos e propondo novas e interessantes opções para jogadores, kit de campanha marítima, um material incrível para um bom sandbox na região escolhida além de uma riqueza incrível de mapas e recursos para o mestre. Analisam o melhor e o pior desse material que, sem dúvida, deixou todos com vontade de jogar. O verbete aberto da Cyclopedia hoje foi D para "Demogorgon", o Príncipe dos Demônios. A chapa esquentou e o bagulho ficou sério, então cola aí! As músicas utilizadas no episódio hoje foram "Your Girl" por The Polish Ambassador, "Beyond the Realms of the Opposites" por Mudang, "Spring Village", "Arabesque" e "Dark Amulet" por Matthew Pablo. Ao fim temos a música "Forever You" por Lobo Loco. Os links do episódio de hoje:Ghosts of Saltmarsh   ***** Quer ajudar com as nossas vinhetas provisórias? Manda três audios pro meu whatsapp! Grave no gravador de som do seu celular, de um lucal sem barulho ambiente, e envie para o meu whatsapp, falando o diálogo da vinheta clássica ou algo parecido: Arquivo 1 - "Oi, quer café?" Arquivo 2 - "Café com que?" Arquivo 3 - "Café com Dungeon" O whatsapp é este a+55 11 93087.9341   ****   #Paracegover A capa tem acima de tudo a etiqueta em vermelho, imitando uma mancha de tinta, o logo do Dungeons & Dragons em sua 5a edição. Logo abaixo, podemos ler em branco o título da coluna "D&D Cyclopedia" e mais abaixo, em vermelho, o nome do Podcast, Café com Dungeon. Abaixo disto, o número do episódio e seu nome,"Demogordon", terminando a coluna com a assinatura do canal: um losango vermelho com um D6 e um D4 empilhados, lembrando uma casa, e o escrito "Regra da Casa". Ao fundo, um espaço circular delimitado por uma borda branca, tem a fotografia de uma miniatura do Demogorgon, um ser de corpo lagartóide, tentáculos como membros e duas cabeças ferozes de babuíno. ____________________________________ O Café com Dungeon é um podcast oferecido pelo canal Regra da Casa. Siga nosso Instagram para um complemento visual de nosso conteúdo, além de anúncios, sorteios e atualizações.Você pode dar feedback sobre nossos episódios no twitter e no facebook.Confira também nosso conteúdo em vídeo no Youtube!

Hello fellow Stranger Things fans! We have a doozy here for you today, as we launch our exciting new project. If you didn’t think we were hip before, think again! Our first show on pop culture, coincides with the release of Stranger Things Season 3. How convenient! Most of us would much rather be playing Dungeon & Dragons and fighting off demodogs rather than working. Guest, Ellie Hamlett, joins hosts Natalie Dowzicky and Landry Ayres to dive in to the many ’80s references made throughout the show. We do not claim to be experts in all things Stranger, but being a super fan must count for something. Stay tuned to the very end where Landry Ayres, newly appointed game host, puts the pressure on Ellie and Natalie to name as many movies from the 1980s as they can. Enjoy!If you like the format of this show, please be sure to leave us comments on our social media platforms. We look forward to exploring more hidden dimensions with you soon! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In today's episode, we'll tell you how Matt makes over $4,000 a month selling his books on Amazon. FULL TRANSCRIPT Jocelyn Sams: Hey y'all. On today's podcast we'll tell you how Matt makes over $4,000 a month selling his books on Amazon. Shane Sams: Welcome to The Flipped Lifestyle Podcast, where life always comes before work. We're your hosts, Shane and Jocelyn Sams. We're a real family that figured out how to make our entire living online. Now, we help other families do the same. Are you ready to flip your life? All right, let's get started. Shane Sams: What's going on everybody? Welcome back to The Flipped Lifestyle Podcast. It is great to be back with you again today. Super excited, I am so excited about today's guest, because it is just gonna bring back so much nostalgia and my childhood and teenage years and college years back into my brain when we talk about this subject today. Our guest today is Flip Your Life community member Matt Davids. Matt, welcome to the show, brother. Matt Davids: Yeah, no problem. Thank you for having me. Jocelyn Sams: Matt, when I saw you in the community, I knew that you had to come onto our show. Because Matt works in the RPG game industry, which is ... Okay, I guess it's just RPG, role playing games. Shane Sams: Dungeons & Dragons, all these cool things. We're gonna get into this, and I'm gonna be really pumped up about it. It's awesome. Jocelyn Sams: Yeah, so before I met Shane I had no idea what a role playing game was. After I met him, I still don't really know what it is, but he is really, really excited about them and has been playing them for a very, very long time. Longer than some of our listeners have probably been alive. Shane Sams: I think the first time I ever played a role playing game, I played Dungeons & Dragons when I was like ... Gosh, like 12 or 13 years old. I've always been into creative stuff and reading, you know, like science fiction, fantasy novels, Game of Thrones kind of stuff. The game is all pencil and paper and dice, right? Matt Davids: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Shane Sams: I remember the first time I ever played we didn't have any dice because we couldn't afford to go buy the dice. We're just a bunch of kids. Matt Davids: Yeah, I've been there. Shane Sams: So we took hats and we like ... There was a 20 sided dice, so we wrote the numbers 1-20 on paper and we threw them in a hat. Then we had a six sided hat and a 10 sided hat, and that's how I cut my teeth on role playing games. Matt Davids: Yeah, absolutely. I mean it sounds very similar to me, too. I was nine when I first played Dungeons and Dragons, and yeah. I came home from that and I had to make dice, so I just wrote them on a piece of paper and threw them in a hat. Shane Sams: Oh, love it. I love it. See, I knew there was gonna be some kind of connection in this episode. I just knew it was gonna happen. Jocelyn Sams: Well, and I saw Matt in our community and I saw what he was doing, and I thought, "You know what? This is a really cool business first of all, and I know Shane's gonna be really excited about talking to him." So I knew that we had to have you on the show, so thank you so much for being here today. Matt Davids: No problem. Shane Sams: Also, too, we always say that our community is extremely unique, because a lot of other communities it's like sales and life go just until the end of the Earth, right? We have so many different people doing so many different niches and so many different business ideas that it's really cool to see like, "Man. You can actually make money doing this." And Matt is actually making four to five thousand dollars a month off of his RPG business. So without going any farther, without spoiling anything else, tell everybody a little bit about you, about your background, and about what you're doing online right now. Matt Davids: Yeah. Well, I went to college in Kentucky. I went to Asbury, which is in the little town of Wilmore. Shane Sams: When he says little, he ain't jokin. Wilmore is a little bitty place. Matt Davids: Yeah. When the college, and there's a seminary there, when they're in session, the town like ... I think it increases, like triples or something the population of the town I think. So I went there. I kind of had my hopes set on becoming a screenwriter, and I did the starving artist thing for awhile. That really didn't work out too well, so I ... At another point in my life I became a missionary and I went to Haiti. I came back from there and then I've been working in search engine optimization ever since. Shane Sams: Wow. That's amazing. That's another part that's very fascinating about your story, and I feel like the world is changing around all sorts of things, like how we used to view things. You know, like back in the '80s, I'm gonna date myself here a little bit, so anybody that wasn't born in the '80s that's listening, I'm sorry. Jocelyn Sams: Turn this off. Shane Sams: Yeah, turn this off. Jocelyn Sams: I'm just kidding. Shane Sams: Back in the '70s and '80s, Dungeons and Dragons was this taboo thing and they thought all these kids were devil worshiping and all this stuff. I am a Christian, and you were a missionary, and low and behold we played role playing games and nothing got us messed up or off the beaten path, right? Matt Davids: Yes. Yeah. Shane Sams: Now it's just such a part of pop culture. You know, you have Stranger Things where the kids are literally on the show playing Dungeons & Dragons, and then I was just reading the other day that there was this massive surge in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. It's up so high in sales it's overtaking other board games and things like that, like how it's surging in popularity because we're all online and we all see that this stuff is good, harmless fun, right? Matt Davids: Yeah, oh yeah absolutely and yeah to be clear, you do not have to worship Satan to play Dungeon & Dragons. You do not have to. Jocelyn Sams: There are probably people out there who do but you know... Matt Davids: There probably are. But, you don't have to. Shane Sams: There's a way to get into it that way. I think that's the first time that we've ever had to clarify that someone wasn't worshiping Satan, in their niche. Matt Davids: Yes. Shane Sams: So this is good for all you guys- Matt Davids: Yes, I have never worshiped Satan. I have never had the desire to worship Satan. Shane Sams: Okay back to the missionary stuff, let's refocus. Jocelyn Sams: Thanks for clearing that up. Shane Sams: Alright, so when were you a missionary in Haiti? Matt Davids: I was a missionary in Haiti through 2009 and 2010 and I was there during the earthquake, when the earthquake actually happened. Shane Sams: Wow, like were you in Port de Prince? Matt Davids: Yes I was in Port de Prince. Shane Sams: Oh my goodness. Like what was that like? Matt Davids: Well you know I thought I was gonna die. It was January 12, 2010, about 4:50 pm in the afternoon and there was just a kind of a quiet beautiful day. Haiti in January is beautiful because it's like 75 or something, degrees, and it's beautiful. You know I was working in an orphanage and I was sitting on the second floor of this little building that I lived in across from the orphanage and I just started noticing this little tremor and I heard some of the kids down in the courtyard just kind of getting scared about it and I walked out onto the little veranda and I remember myself saying, I was like, "Don't worry, it's just an earthquake." Well at that point the little tremor became something else. The ground just started shaking, like going just up and down, maybe like a foot and bouncing around, then the whole ground just like moved three feet to the left and I'm watching the orphanage building that's in front of me. It's a very big building, just swaying back and forth. Matt Davids: The wall of the compound, because everybody's in a compound there. The wall of the compound just breaks and collapses. The water tank on my roof of the little apartment that I was in breaks and I get hit with water. And the sound of the earth just going, you just can't imagine, you just can't even hear anything, it was just so loud. And then like, things started calming down just a little bit and I noticed the youngest girl who's in the orphanage, she was three years old and she was sitting down in front of the orphanage building and I'm just watching concrete blocks and things falling around her and I kind of got my wits about me. I said, "Okay, well I guess I'm not gonna die," and so I ran down there and grabbed her and all the other girls had run out into the streets, so I ran out into the street, got them together and I said, "Okay, we're gonna start praying," and I got a big Amen that day. Shane Sams: Wow. That is unbelievable. Like absolutely. Jocelyn Sams: Yeah like I'm kinda speechless on that one. I mean I've obviously never experienced anything like that but wow. Shane Sams: And like I guess the next few days were just like packed with rescues and helping people and all that because it destroyed like 80% of the buildings. Matt Davids: I think it was even more, I think it was 90%. Yeah like, the official death toll was like 350,000 people, so if you can even imagine that. Shane Sams: Gee, man. Wow. Matt Davids: I still can't really even imagine that. Shane Sams: Have you been back since? Or how much longer did you stay after that? Matt Davids: I stayed a few days and then we'd kind of were all, wanted to, the head of the orphanage and stuff wanted to evacuate us and stuff so, I was evacuated at that point and came back to the states but then after a few months I went back and I stayed there for a few months, tried to wrap up some of my work and that. I actually wrote a movie and shot a movie there that kinda went, I did some film festivals with and stuff but- Shane Sams: Wow. Crazy, dude. Matt Davids: But yeah it was something else, it was something else. Shane Sams: I mean, when you've faced something like that, the other challenges in life kind of get smaller, right? I mean when you really see, like true devastation like that, like gosh, you know, and once you put the pieces back together for yourself, because I'm sure that was like post traumatic stress stuff going on there. How did that kind of get you thinking about your future and what you wanted to do with your life, like did things change for you after that? Matt Davids: Yeah definitely. It just kind of really, yeah it kinda made me step back and think about a lot of things and made me take things more seriously and to be more intentional about the things I'm doing, yeah absolutely. Shane Sams: Do you have a family right now? Matt Davids: I do now, I do now. Shane Sams: Yep, yep. So do you have kids? Matt Davids: I do. I'm married, I have three boys. Shane Sams: Okay so were you married then or single? Matt Davids: No I was single. Shane Sams: Awesome, awesome. Well I'm glad you made it back, brother. I'm glad you made it through that and I'm a big believer that God puts people right where they're supposed to be at all times and hey man, if you weren't there, that little 3-year-old girl might not have got picked up and those people might not have anybody to pray with and I just appreciate you for doing that, that's awesome. Matt Davids: Thank you. Jocelyn Sams: And I love how, you said, "Oh yeah we have three boys," but what you didn't mention were how old they are. Tell us how old they are because I can relate to you on this one. Matt Davids: Okay so yeah I have a 4-year-old, a 2-year-old, and then an 8-month-old. Shane Sams: Oh my goodness gracious, you are outnumbered and they are little. Jocelyn Sams: So we also started our business when our kids were super little, so I totally understand what you're going through right now. It is not easy, it's not easy to be a parent of young children anyway, but it's really not easy to try to start a business while working full time and having little bitty children. Matt Davids: Yes. Shane Sams: What does your wife think about the roleplay? Matt Davids: Well she likes roleplaying, she actually has played with us a number of times and she enjoys it. Shane Sams: See, look at this model wife. Jocelyn Sams: Matt, gimme a break, you know. Matt Davids: The business, however, she wasn't really on board for the business. Shane Sams: Why was that? I'm looking at your sheet that says you started like 2015ish, really starting to put these resources together, getting them on Amazon. So are these like, are these roleplaying modules, are these adventures that the players go on, like what are these resources that you are selling or that you started selling on Amazon? Matt Davids: Yeah these are resources that help the game master run their sessions. So I don't really do adventures or things like that. I do some setting kind of material but basically these are, there's a lot of random tables, or different things that help the game master not have to prepare a lot before the session that they run. Shane Sams: Interesting. Matt Davids: So in roleplaying games, just to explain a little bit, if somebody out there is not familiar, there's a group of players, they create characters that they assume the role of and then there's one player called the game master, dungeon master, and they run the session. And so they present the players with obstacles and different things like that throughout the world and so running a game can be a challenging thing so I make resources for the game masters so they don't have to spend 20 hours prepping a session just to hang out with their buddies. Shane Sams: And I always equate when people are like, "What is that?" When they're talking to me about it, I always say it's like, "Remember those choose-your-own-adventure books? Well that's kind of what roleplaying games are. Like the players are all the characters in the book, the game master is kinda like the book. You're the narrator, you're like, okay what do you want to do? Go left? Or go right? Right? So it's like that, that's their job, is to weave the story and then the characters' jobs, the players' job is to live the story and actually change the flow of the story. You're not like forcing them down a path, you're giving them as many paths and choices as possible and I can tell you, I used to plan a game when I was in college and we played like every Sunday night and man, it was a lot of work. Like you had to like, really think about things and be prepared because you never knew what the players were gonna do. Matt Davids: Yeah. Shane Sams: Like, you didn't know what to do, left or right or up or down or sometimes they just go backwards. Right? Matt Davids: Yes. Shane Sams: So your resources are not full adventures then, they're not like the story, it's like maps or dungeons or whatever. Matt Davids: Yeah I have dungeon maps, so the game master can just grab a map and kind of fill it and then I have random tables that help cut down the prep of, because you have rooms or you have places and your players always want to explore those rooms and places if you don't want to spend five hours deciding what is all on that one place, you can just use my resources to roll dice and you'd figure out what's in that room. Shane Sams: So this is almost like filler. Like because the big companies, like Hasbro, who owns Dungeons & Dragons, like, betcha didn't know that, folks at home. The same people making the Uno cards are making the other stuff too. They sell the big adventure but you're like the side adventures that randomly pop up, kinda deal. Matt Davids: Yes. Kind of. And just also to fill in extra, just extra flavor or if... I also find a lot of game masters don't even like to run some of the big published adventures. They kinda want to do their own thing but they don't want to spend four evenings planning for two hours with their buddies, so they wanna, they just wanna be able to come in and you can just grab my books and just roll that and just roll dice on those tables and that and you know exactly what your, get items and things right there. Shane Sams: That's amazing, yeah. Jocelyn Sams: Okay so tell us a little bit about what you're selling right now. So know that you're selling the books and the resources, but how are you selling those? Shane Sams: All on Amazon? Every bit of it? Matt Davids: No, I'm selling some on Amazon and then there's a third party marketplace for roleplaying games, it's called DriveThruRPG and then of course I have my own website which is, DiceGeeks.com. And it's just the word "Dice" and the word "Geeks" just kinda squished together. Shane Sams: Which is the greatest domain name I have ever said out loud on this broadcast actually. Jocelyn Sams: Yeah we were discussing that earlier. But like that is an amazing domain. Shane Sams: So is the bulk of your income from Amazon? Matt Davids: Yes. Shane Sams: Okay. It is just interesting. I want to break this down for a lot of people, because we just went into game speak, we went into the table, y'all. That's where we went right there. But like this is really fascinating how these templates can be applied to all businesses. Like because you're selling, we'll say Amazon is your primary place you're selling. But you have a website and you're kinda selling it in multiple third party market... that's what Amazon really is, right? You're selling it, people are searching for stuff, you're selling stuff there, you're selling stuff on this third party market, you've got your website, that's your thing and you've done this consistently over time and it's built this... A lot of people would love to make $4- to 5,000 doing something they love, you know? Shane Sams: And it works that way in almost every business, like we see, like we have our education websites. We have our website where we clearly sell lesson plans for teachers, we have third party markets, we have this one called TeachersPayTeachers, where we actually sell lesson plans on and you just kind of find all these places. Really, all you've done is you've created a resource that saves people time, which is one of the best things you can do in any niche... if you can save people time, or get people somewhere faster, you are going to make money, okay? So and then you found third party markets and you've built your own site and if everybody would just do that, consistently, they'd eventually make a little money and that feels pretty good at the end of the day to wake up and see that somebody bought your books overnight, right? Matt Davids: Yeah absolutely, absolutely. Jocelyn Sams: So tell us a little bit about, what are the challenges that you're facing right now? So I know that you're making some money on third party sites. What are you doing on your own website right now? Matt Davids: Well yeah, not too much actually. On my own website, you can see the products which lead you to the marketplaces and of course I collect email addresses and I am also, I blog about game master tips, so tips and things like that to improve your games and cut down your prep time. Jocelyn Sams: Okay. Shane Sams: And that, the sales there like what would you say is the percentage of traffic in sales that your website is actually delivering right now? Matt Davids: Oh gosh. Shane Sams: Just ballpark it, doesn't have to be perfect. Matt Davids: Yeah probably like 5% or less. Shane Sams: Interesting. Jocelyn Sams: Okay. Shane Sams: So what's your greatest fear right now that you're just relying too much on Amazon and these third party markets? Matt Davids: Yeah absolutely, absolutely. Shane Sams: Yeah because if they change the algorithm you could be bottom of the list or. Matt Davids: Yeah I know. Shane Sams: Have you seen spikes like that in your revenue? From a month-to-month basis? Matt Davids: Yes, yeah I definitely see sometimes and then also just like, listening to some self-publishing podcast or whatever hearing people talk about what's going on with Amazon or something like that. I can definitely track when they're changing things, absolutely. Shane Sams: Do you find that, are your sales very seasonal? Like you average maybe four or five thousand, but like, you find like, is Christmas time really big and other times very slow or anything like that? Matt Davids: Not yet and the reason for that is that, I've really just, in the last six months or so, really started getting consistent income. And like I mentioned before, I said my wife wasn't into it too much as a business at the beginning, because at the beginning when I started in 2015 really trying to do something like this, I was going to my day job, coming home, working on this until late into the evening and stuff. And I would make like $5 a month or something like that. Shane Sams: Hard to generate the belief when you're bringing home- Matt Davids: Exactly, exactly, so... Jocelyn Sams: Yeah it's a bit of hard sell when you have a new baby, because at this time I assume that you had a pretty brand new baby. Matt Davids: Oh yes, yeah our first son was just a few months old at the time. Shane Sams: You're like, "Check this out baby, I got $5, that's at least three diapers." Matt Davids: Yeah and it only took me a month to make $5. Jocelyn Sams: Yes, listen I totally understand what your wife was thinking at that time. Shane Sams: Yes. Jocelyn Sams: She's like, this is ridiculous but the cool thing about it is that you keep going and you keep making sales, which is really good. Shane Sams: Because you had some consistency. I'm looking at your sheet again, it says that you got 10 books for sale on Amazon, right? Matt Davids: Yeah. Shane Sams: And you've got four... Matt Davids: Eleven. I just launched one a couple weeks ago. Shane Sams: Oh, prolific. We're getting prolific around here. You've got 49 resources available for free on the marketplace, now is that just to generate leads? Matt Davids: Yeah most, not all 49 are free, but probably, yeah probably 40 some are free and there's a few paid ones that I have on the marketplace. Shane Sams: Right so generally what you've done is you're finding your traffic from these marketplaces and then trying to, and they buy your books and then hopefully they buy more. How big is your email list right now? Matt Davids: My personal email list is getting close to 4,000. Shane Sams: Oh wow that's amazing, yeah. Now is that coming from your website? Matt Davids: That comes from my website, yeah. I've done some Facebook ads just to drive some traffic to a lead magnet. Shane Sams: Perfect. But you've not really sold a lot to them or do you just sell them to the Amazon links? Matt Davids: Yeah I sell them to the Amazon and to the DriveThruRPG links. Shane Sams: Okay gotcha, okay interesting. So your blog is generating leads and you're driving traffic to these third party marketplaces and a lot of your sales are also coming from just people searching for this stuff, right? Matt Davids: Yeah. Shane Sams: Okay, so what do you think is next then, like what would make you happier, make you feel more diversified, make you feel safer about your income or even growing or maybe like what's holding you back from doing something like a membership or a recurring revenue type thing? Matt Davids: I think the only thing that's holding me back from doing kind of recurring revenue or membership is that, I can't, I don't really understand the model, like I don't understand what exactly I would offer in a membership and I just, I have a hard time understanding like, community building and stuff. I mean it's just, I don't know, I try to look at it and I try to understand it but it's just hard for me to get my head around some of that. So that's kind of a big thing but you know I did create, I created a PDF on self-publishing, with like a strategy that people could use on the third party marketplace DriveThruRPG and I've tried selling that, I just don't really know exactly how to market that very well, but I mean another thing though is, it's just like, I love creating the books, I love creating the books, so like creating something about, self-publishing or business strategy just doesn't do it for me and so I'm just kind of struggling with some of those things. Jocelyn Sams: Okay. Well the good news is that if you don't love doing something, you don't have to do it, so that's something really exciting. One thing that I wanted to kind of pull out of this questionnaire, we have everyone fill out a little questionnaire and one thing that you didn't mention is you say that, "I don't know if there's a need for a recurring model in the area of roleplaying games", I found that kind of interesting. Shane Sams: Oh, Matt. Jocelyn Sams: And I think that's a big assumption that a lot of people have that is not necessarily true, it's a story that we tell ourselves. Shane Sams: That's right. And also too like, of course there's hobbies and things like that, but man, D&D is like golf. If you're into golf, you're buying golf stuff. You know what I'm saying? Jocelyn Sams: And not everyone is going to be into it. Shane Sams: That's right, but if you're into collectibles, you're collecting everything. That's what that game really is, like people buy the miniatures, they buy every book they can get their hands on and it just becomes this passion, right? And that's usually some of the best, like you don't need a new putter, but you gonna buy one when Nike releases a new one, right? Like that's what golfers do. And it's the same thing with gaming stuff, there really is probably a need for this and actually it's very interesting because the game master's job is often the hardest in the game and two, they're the ones who are usually the most obsessed with roleplaying games, they're the ones paying the most attention, spending the most time on it and that's usually the person that you really need to give something recurring, something because they need their fix, you know what I'm saying? Matt Davids: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Shane Sams: Which is, I would be willing to bet that a lot of people that buy your books buy a lot of the other books, like you have repeat buyers in that Amazon system somehow because they're like "Whoa, this book was cool, I'm gonna go buy five more of Matt's books." Right? Matt Davids: Yeah. Shane Sams: That's all recurring revenue model is, is how you bought the one thing, it was so good you're gonna give me money the next month and I'll send you the next thing. Right? Matt Davids: Yeah. Shane Sams: So let's talk about that a little bit, let's talk about how we can, one, maybe up some of the sales on your own site, but two, create a membership or recurring revenue out of this, okay? Because wouldn't it be nice to know you're making $4- to $5,000 a month instead of, "I made $4- to $5,000 last month." Like that's why we shift to the recurring revenue model, like if I know that I have enough members to give me $5,000 a month, and I know my average member stays for six months, let's just guess, okay? Now that your whole equation changes to the future instead of the past, not, "well the last couple months I've made $5,000 a month." It's "wait a minute, I can predict now that I will make $5,000 a month for the next six months, which lets me buy ads to grow that and get it to $10,000 before I get there." Shane Sams: Does that make sense? Matt Davids: No, absolutely. Shane Sams: And like that's what you really want, is that's why we're so, a lot of people get mad at us sometimes, like some of the only criticism we really get for the podcast is, "man y'all talk about memberships every time." Well like yeah, because that's how you're free and that's how you have predictable, stable income for your family and that's how you know that you can invest into ads and hire people and grow to whatever you wanna become because you've got money that you know is coming in and you don't have to worry about paying your lights. Right? Matt Davids: Yeah, absolutely. Shane Sams: So one, you touched on this a little bit, about the community aspect. Which really surprises me that you went down that path because dude you're a game master, that's all you do is create community every Friday night when your buddies come over, right? So it's like, you're just trying to create that for DMs, like I can imagine like a space of those dungeon masters in a colloquial terms, alright. But you're just, your community would be something where, I would guess that you would come on and talk to these people about being a game master, like these tips you send out or these emails that you're like, "Hey here's a tip or here's a blog post about the tip." You really would just go on live and discuss that with people, right? And share that with people. It doesn't even have to be a big forum, it can be just a Facebook group where you go live every other week or something like that. Shane Sams: But I was talking to Jocelyn in the car on the way back from an appointment we had earlier and we were talking about you and your business and I'm like, this has to almost be like a physical thing if you were gonna do a recurring membership, like because that's one thing in roleplaying games people love is to flip through books, right? Love the paper, love the pencil, love to flip through books, like, I'm almost even thinking like some kind of monthly printed newsletter, where you send them a resource or you send them ideas and you send them maybe even a little worksheet that they get to pencil in some stats or something, right? Shane Sams: And I can see people paying for that, man. If I was a game master and I was really fired up and I was like, "Man, twice a month, I get to go hang out and geek out with other dungeon masters, right? I get to be led by this guy who's wrote 11 books, you know? And then I get that Christmas present in my mailbox once a month, not my email inbox, like a physical printed thing that I get every month. I think you could charge anywhere from $50 to $100 for something like that a month. And it would only take a hundred of those game masters in the world and there's a lot more than a hundred of them, so all of a sudden we're double your income. And be consistent with it. Have you ever thought about doing anything like that? Matt Davids: Yes, absolutely. I've definitely thought about it and that was actually kind of what I had been thinking about, was something that was recurring and that was physical that they could have. Yeah I'm just kind of struggling with the idea of just then producing... cause I can launch a book now on my own schedule, if I had to do something every month, I'm just kind of struggling with some of those things. Let's like, how do I create processes to get that out every month? How do I create engaging content and then how do I find those people that are willing to pay, if you're saying $50 or $100 or something like that a month, where do I find those people because in a lot of the forums and stuff that I hang around in, people are complaining that they have to pay $4.99 for D&D Beyond, which is just launching and just things like that that. Matt Davids: So I just keep kind of struggling with how to make it work, but I mean I think the idea is sound, it's just like I don't know how exactly I can make it work. Shane Sams: Well for one thing, the only people that post in those forums complaining are the people who are cheap, that are freeloaders. Jocelyn Sams: Who are freeloaders. Shane Sams: And that's why they're in the forum, freeloading and complaining. Jocelyn Sams: And you know what? That's fine, like there are always going to be those types of people in the world, it's not a big deal. There are always people who think they should get something for nothing. Matt Davids: Yeah. Jocelyn Sams: But thankfully, there are a lot of other people who believe in paying, trading money for value. Shane Sams: Yeah you only need 50 people to pay you $50 a month to make $2,500 a month right? Matt Davids: Yeah. Shane Sams: I would be willing to guess that somewhere in the world, as big as this thing is... Jocelyn Sams: Probably on your email list. Shane Sams: Right, exactly, you got 4,000 people who have opted in, who have said, "I want more game materials." Now, maybe 3,500 of those people are cheap and they are gonna complain about it, right? But maybe there's 50 to 500 of them that aren't and they just love the game so much and they're older, they've got good jobs and they just do this as their hobby for fun and they love it, like it's the same thing as the golfer analogy. They're gonna go pay for it, right? And a lot of the people, like, what's that famous show now that's on, it's a huge podcast and they just did a KickStarter to raise money, they actually have a podcast where they play D&D every week and it's like... Matt Davids: Critical Roll. Shane Sams: Critical Roll, that's what it is and they bring in famous actors, these, some of them play, some of them... like these are like, world-class A-list actors that come in and play these games. Matt Davids: Yeah they're voice actors. Shane Sams: They're voice actors, right, exactly. And some of them are learning D&D, some of them are playing D&D, but they do it every single week and that podcast has millions of listeners and they did a KickStarter. They raised enough money to make an animated movie about their game. Listen, there's people throwing money at them just to go make a cartoon. Matt Davids: Yeah. Shane Sams: There's gonna be somebody that's gonna be willing to pay for this, so you gotta get past that block immediately. Matt Davids: Okay. Jocelyn Sams: Okay, so as of right now, you have 4,000 people on your list, if 200 of them, that's 5% of your list, bought something from you right now, which is a totally doable number, I mean that's a lot of money. Shane Sams: That's like 200 times, let's say that you charge something like $29 a month, what's 200 times 29, Jocelyn? Let's do 200 times 30. That's $6,000, right? Matt Davids: Yeah. Shane Sams: So it's like... Jocelyn Sams: So that's on top of the money you're already making for your books. Shane Sams: Yeah this is not a mountain that we have to climb, it's really just like a hill we kind of have to pop over. Matt Davids: Okay, yeah. Shane Sams: Okay? Now as for the logistics, like the logistics is probably as easy as... are you in St. Louis? Isn't that where you work? Matt Davids: Yeah, St. Louis. Shane Sams: Alright you're in a big town, man. There's a print shop somewhere that will do this for you, all you have to do is upload a customer list once a month and the file. Usually it's just go to the local print shop and say... a lot of times, these print shops will actually handle the mailing for you, like there's online places too but... Matt Davids: Yeah there's online places that do it. Yeah I've looked into it, so yeah. Shane Sams: For sure. So I mean just check around, I actually recommend going a little local even if it costs you a little more per unit because it's just nice to be able to walk in, have somebody to talk to, you know? But online's fine, whatever you wanna do. Matt Davids: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Shane Sams: Basically it's as easy as create PDF upload, create Excel customer list, upload and you do that once a month. And then if you, then it's just about showing up, maybe once or twice a month, maybe once a month, right, just to talk to GMs, give them some tips, let them ask you some questions, right? Be their leader. So it's not like you're, this is not a huge ask in hours. The only hard part is the content, but luckily you have 11 books and 49 other resources online right now that 90% of your list has probably never seen, right? Matt Davids: Yeah. Shane Sams: So you can just repackage and re-shift around things, maybe it's five resources a month, so that's 60 resources a year. You already have 49 and 10 books, like you could pull things from other things you've already done and put together a nice 10-page newsletter type thing which is more than enough content for a GM to flip through, get a few great ideas, go have a blast over the next four weeks with their friends and then look forward to the next one. Or they're not even gonna be able to use all those ideas in one month, right? Matt Davids: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Shane Sams: So like they've got this library, like I subscribe to this email newsletter that's like, it's all about subject lines and copy and all this amazing stuff and I've got this, what do you call the little things that sit on your desk where you put folders in... just like a file holder or something and I have the last two years of them and I can just go flip through them. I love that file folder. Jocelyn Sams: Yeah it's like a, how many pages would you say it is? Shane Sams: It's an 11-page, stapled thing on paper and I paid $99 a month for it and it's worth every penny. Like when I get it, it's the happiest moment of the mail of the month, you know? And like that, that's what you're trying to create here, is Christmas every month for these GMs and a nice place they can go talk to somebody that gets them and they don't have to talk to their players and they can just geek out about being a dungeon master for an hour and a half. Jocelyn Sams: And you don't need everyone, you just need a few. To make a really good living. Okay. Everyone's not gonna like it and that's okay. We've talked about that over and over on the show, you know. Shane Sams: And if you're worried about the hours you're gonna put into it, it's really not gonna take that much time every month. Because if you show up for an hour and a half member call, you spend about an hour and a half getting the newsletter ready and you're pulling from resources you created, maybe you create one new thing a month, just to kind of add something, you know there's always something new in that thing, right? Matt Davids: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Shane Sams: And then the rest of it is fleshed out with stuff you've made in the past that's spread out through different books, like, man that's really probably about five, six hours of work a month, to set this thing up. Matt Davids: Okay. I mean it's... Jocelyn Sams: Matt, you don't sound very convinced. Matt Davids: Well I'm just, I'm thinking pretty hard over here. Cause I have thought about it but yeah I'm just trying to go through it in my head again, just trying to see how I could make it work and... Shane Sams: What scares you the most about it? Because something's holding you back, I can feel it. Matt Davids: Yeah, yeah something is. Pretty much for all of 2018, I released a lot of free content on my blog, I put out dungeon maps, city map and a free random table and I was just dumping content and I did a like a Patreon launch for it. If you're familiar with Patreon, and I thought producing that much content, I could get some Patreon followers and I got like a couple. Shane Sams: How much were your tiers? Matt Davids: It was like, $2, $5, $10, $20, and like $50 ones or something. Shane Sams: Right. But see like, look at the difference though. You got all this content and you're asking people to support you and that's fine but man there's a big difference than what's behind the platinum wall. There's a reason people drive by the country club and they want in, right? Matt Davids: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Shane Sams: It's because it's premium and it's exclusive and it's like, you could call it Elite Game Masters and make people feel really - or something - and make people feel really good about themselves and like... Jocelyn Sams: Dice Geeks Elite. Shane Sams: Dice Geeks Elite. Jocelyn Sams: That's pretty good. Shane Sams: Only the best. You could make people apply, like alright you have to fill out an application to even get in, right? And then you can look through them and send them a sales pitch, but it's like, they got to tell you how many hours a week are you playing? How much time do you really put in your game? Right? You know like whatever, you could come up with something fun to make it cool but there's a big difference in saying, "Hey, I'm already gonna make this stuff, if you'd like to come support me, come support me." Then, "I'm making amazing stuff and you can't get it unless you pay at the front door" right? And that's what pushes people, it's why people line up around the block to get the new iPhone that costs $1,200, which really only has two new apps than their last iPhone. It's like they want anything they can get that other people are not getting right then. Right? Matt Davids: Yeah. Shane Sams: Like that's kinda what you're trying to create, is some kind of exclusive. This is the elite thing, this is what real, if you're a real G, if you're toying with this, buy my book, but if you're in it for real, come on down. Right. And you could do things for them too like you could tell them, like every month I'll send you a PDF copy of my paperback books. Right. That in of itself... how much do you sell the books for? Matt Davids: Right now they're, the smaller books are $7.99, although I'm gonna raise those prices here and then a bigger book is like 15, $14.99. Shane Sams: So man you could say like, "When you join, every month I'm gonna send you the PDF of this book, right? Cause now it's $29 to email them the PDF and you're gonna get the printed newsletter, right? And that printed newsletter is gonna cost you $5 to ship, so you're gonna be making like $25 a member, every month. So like you've got all this stuff, you're not really putting the extra work in, but you're making it feel good, like a club, like a belonging, like a community, I'm elite and that's why they will give you money for it, right. Shane Sams: Now are we really gonna have to work on this launch? Forums and you need to go through some of the trainings on like, cause this is gonna take a email campaign, this is gonna take a launch campaign, it's gonna take probably some kind of live webinar to sell this thing and get these people in there. Matt Davids: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Shane Sams: But once you've seeded, it's gonna stay full and you've got an endless supply of customers. Jocelyn Sams: Okay so let's pump the breaks just a little bit, because I feel like we're getting a little bit overwhelmed, so let me tell you what I would do if I were in your situation right now. Matt Davids: Okay. Jocelyn Sams: So what I would do is I would start emailing my list. Do you email them very regularly now? Matt Davids: Yeah once a week. Jocelyn Sams: Okay. So what I would do, is I would sort of put some feelers out there and I would say, "Hey guys, look I'm really excited about something that I'm getting ready to start. I'm going to be starting my Dice Geeks Elite, TM." I'ma trademark that. Sorry about that, Matt. Matt Davids: Oh, no. Jocelyn Sams: I'll send you my marketing bill, okay? Matt Davids: Oh that's great. Jocelyn Sams: Anyway, I would just say, "I'm planning on starting this, this is what I had in mind. What else would you like to see? What are you interested in?" See who's opening that, see who's clicking it, see who's responding. Those are the people that you really want to start targeting with future messages toward that. There are gonna be some people who write you back and say, "This is stupid and I'll never pay for anything." Remove them from your list because... Shane Sams: Bye. Jocelyn Sams: Yeah. And that's the beauty of being a list owner, okay? But most people are gonna write you back and be like, "This is amazing, I cannot wait, this is what I would like to see you do." Okay? And that's not scary, right? You're just telling people you have an idea and you're asking them what would you like to see? Shane Sams: And then you start dripping out after the fact. Let them tell you, you'll have people write you back, you'll have people complain, blah blah blah. Jocelyn Sams: You could do a survey, you can do a Google forum. Shane Sams: Like get them involved, they can feel like they're... what do dungeon masters love to do? Create things. Help me create this. Then you start sending them back a thing that says, "What if you could get a weekly, or monthly thing? What if you could get all of my books? What if you could get this, that and the other? People are gonna be like, yes yes yes. Whatever it is, right. Once in a while send them a D20. Doesn't matter. Just like, all this stuff's going on and then when you launch, you've got all this hype built up and you'll find those couple hundred people that are hiding in the weeds you know. Matt Davids: Okay. Shane Sams: I just did some math, okay? Matt Davids: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Shane Sams: Alright. I'm actually looking this up right now with actual public data from a publicly traded company. Alright, so it is estimated that 20 million people in America today have played Dungeons & Dragons. Okay. Matt Davids: Yeah. Shane Sams: It is estimated that 6 million people in the world play it regularly. I think regularly is once a month on this. Okay. Alright. If the average play group is four people, that means there are 1.5 million people out there running games. You need 200 of them to make $6,000 a month. Matt Davids: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Shane Sams: That make sense? Matt Davids: Yeah. Shane Sams: So like don't be afraid. 99.9% of these people can hate paying money for anything. That's true for all people. It's 80/20, right. Matt Davids: Yeah. Shane Sams: We just have to find the ones that are willing to do it, right. Matt Davids: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Yeah. Shane Sams: I think you could do it. You got such a great following, you got such a huge product library. And man if you just say, "I've written 11 books about this," that's giving you so much more street cred than anybody else could ever have. You're perfectly qualified, you're perfectly positioned and we just have to put it together and make it happen. Doesn't have to look exactly like me and Jocelyn just laid out, it's just how we would do it. Jocelyn Sams: And you don't have to do all this stuff tomorrow, okay? Sometimes I think people feel like, "Oh if I'm gonna start, I have to go all-in." Basically right now, all you need to do is just gather some information and figure out what people want. That step alone is going to help you immensely. Matt Davids: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Shane Sams: Yeah and we're recording this podcast in March and you told us off air some exciting news though, you're gonna go all-in on this in April, right? Matt Davids: Yes I am. Shane Sams: You're leaving the day job and you're like, flipped lifestyle, here I come. Now let's grow this thing and ready to go, right? Matt Davids: Yeah absolutely, yeah. I am ready to do this. I want to work for myself, I want to do what I love and it's just amazing that this time in this place in the world that I have this opportunity, it's just amazing. Shane Sams: Yeah, Matt, to be able to take something that you've grown up with, that lets you be creative, that you're passionate about and actually put food on the table with it. Matt Davids: Yeah. Shane Sams: That is the opportunity that everybody listening to this podcast right now has, you just have to go out and make it happen. It might take time, remember, Matt's been doing this for what, since 2015? Matt Davids: Yeah. Shane Sams: Right but and you've gotten to the point now though where in a few days you're gonna have total control of your life and your family's future. That is absolutely amazing. Let's just take it to the next level and we'll help you do it. Okay? Matt Davids: Okay. Shane Sams: Alright man, what a great conversation. I am so glad that I literally got to geek out, not only about online business today and I actually got to geek out about geek stuff and talk about Dungeons & Dragons on this podcast, so I appreciate you for giving me that opportunity. Matt Davids: No problem, that's why I'm here, Shane. Jocelyn Sams: Yeah thanks for putting that in his head too, I'm sure he'll start that up again soon. Shane Sams: And I'm just saying, I'm looking for a play group. I'm just saying. Matt Davids: Oh well there you go. Shane Sams: Have a go. I mean I may be jumping into the game here man. Honestly man, thank you so much, just for coming on the show, being transparent. Our podcast is so bizarre, because a lot of podcasts, the guests are used to being podcast guests, but our people, everybody that comes on this show is just a real member of the community, a real person out there with their own idea, their own niche, making it happen, and it's hard to open up, tell everybody, like "oh this is going on and I might be quitting my job next week and I wanna grow," and it's hard to talk about that but I really do appreciate you and all our other guests because without you guys being that transparent, all the people that listen to our podcast can't be inspired, can't learn, can't grow too, so thank you for doing that, man, I really appreciate you for being on the show. Matt Davids: Yeah no problem. Thank you for having me on. Shane Sams: Alright and then we got one more thing. Since you were a missionary, and we always ask all of our guests, would you like to share a Bible verse? And I would guess that a former missionary would probably have a Bible verse that brings them a little inspiration that they might just share with the world, so you have a Bible verse for us today? Matt Davids: I do, I do. It might sound a little negative at first but I can explain it just a little bit. But there's proverbs 18:9, and it says, "One who is slack in his work is brother to one who destroys." And like I said, you might seem a little negative but just thinking about that and just kind of thinking about where I was when our first son was born and I was working a day job that my wife left her job and because that's what we wanted to do. And just realizing that I wasn't making enough money and kinda just looking at my life and realizing that I was coming home from my day job saying that I was spending time with my family but I was spending an hour on Facebook or an hour here on YouTube or something like that and just the idea that it was just, that I was slack in my work, that I was no better than somebody who destroys something and so, just some things with the earthquake and some different things that happened in my life, it's just I realized that it was time I needed to get to work and really put some food on the table for my family. Shane Sams: Ah dude, that inspired me. When I hang up, I'm gonna go work. I told Jocelyn before I got here, like I think I'm gonna take the rest of the afternoon off but now you said that, I'm like, nah man I'm gonna go write five emails. Because I don't want to be slack in my work. Thank you so much for sharing that verse. That is an awesome and powerful message. Matt Davids: No problem. Shane Sams: Alright guys, that wraps up another amazing episode of the Flipped Lifestyle Podcast. Take everything that you learned today to heart especially that last thing about being slack in your work. You've gotta put the work in and you've gotta get started and you've gotta keep taking those baby steps forward if you're ever going to get to a successful place. Like when Jocelyn and I started out, it took us 13 months to even be in a position to even think about quitting our job. Matt started back in 2015 and he's just now quitting his job and ready to grow in scale this amazing, passion-based business and you could be in the same place a year from now, two years from now, three years from now. If you get started. If you put in the work. We never sugarcoat anything here on the podcast, guys. It takes effort, it takes commitment, it takes dedication to change your family's future, just like we did and just like Matt did. We know you can do it too. Shane Sams: That's why we make this podcast and that's why we have the Flip Your Life community. If you need help coming up with your business idea, if you need helping taking your next steps in your online business journey, we would love to help you inside of the Flip Your Life community. To learn more about the Flip Your Life community, go to FlippedLifestyle.com/flipyourlife. That's all one word. Flippedlifestyle.com/flipyourlife. We have plans starting as low as $19 a month to give you all the training, all the community, all the support you need to start your online business, become and stay self-employed and flip your life. That's all the time we've got for this week. Tune in next week, we're gonna have another great guest from the Flip Your Life community. Til then, get out there, take action. Do whatever it takes. Flip your life. Jocelyn Sams: Bye.

This is a more mature episode that handles sensitive subject matter as it tries to address the delicate nature of issues at the table and personality differences among players.  To wrap up the broad strokes of the final tier, the panel of Dungeon Masters covers the concepts of social contracts, Session Zero, and respect.  Other than the game mechanics and RPG flavour, what are the logistics that should be addressed to keep the game fun and allow everyone to feel comfortable and free to take roleplaying risks?  The DM's attempt to open the conversation up this week and give their opinions on many of the taboo subjects that have historically been tied to the game. SUMMARY: After addressing meta-gaming in the last episode, the DM's turn their attention from the game to the table, and discuss the ideas of boundaries, morality, listening, and accountability while looking at the more unpleasant aspects of RPG's and Dungeon & Dragons. From financial limitations to challenging DM's about rules, from penalizing bards to making faux pas while playing other genders, and from misreading sexual encounters to dealing with problem players, this long episode covers a plethora of topics that cause static at a lot of tables.  The three Dungeon Masters work together to shed some light on how they handle problematic scenarios and the best practices for resolving some of the issues including when and how you should address things that make you uncomfortable, whether it's okay to quit your group, and how different tables handle different subject matter. Available On: iTunes | Spotify | Podbean | YouTube Don’t forget to Like/Follow/Subscribe/Whatever when you listen! Links: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter Email: info@itsamimic.com Intro/Outro Music by: Cory WiebeShout Out Music by: Isaac CallenderLogo by: Kate Skidmore

Wicked Studios, LLC - the studio that brings you Return to the Bandit Kingdoms - presents Ravanna - Session 0, a home-brew Dungeon & Dragons 5e livestream. Kelwin the gnome enters the town of Tunstead in the Kipling Forest, looking for protection during his trip to the city of Dorloman. There he meets the halfling D'Nalsi and Tajeet, a strange creature from another place. Soundless River, the Tabaxi fighter, and Alistair Grant, the Human entertainer, musician, and biographer round out the group. Their initial meeting goes badly and it's downhill from there... Join DM Jairus, Atom, Amanda, Patrick, Phil, and Ryan play this entertaining new adventure in the kingdom of Ravanna every Friday night at 9:00 pm EST on https://www.twitch.tv/wickedstudiosllc.

Hey listeners! The latest  episode is here for you! This time we have 3 of the 4 Dungeon Dragons (as named by the local community) are here talking about the things in life that truly matter! Greedy and his Cards Against Humanity addiction The comic cinematic universes and where they're going Being honest about what you want both to yourself and others And finally how to deal with rejection in the kink world And of course the craziness that usually occurs during our shows. So kick back, relax and enjoy your time with the Gotham Press

Up in this one we're visited by friends old and new.  Bobby has a birthday party at the podcast and its attendants include a local frogpersonality and a renowned stand-up barbarian.  We rub elbow bones with ancient undead royalty and regional heart-throbs alike.  Things get out of control when we all sit down to listen to heavy metal while we do math together.  Best party forever.   PS - We play Dungeon & Dragons

Katy Rex is a Minnesota-based freelance writer, perhaps best known for Jade Street Protection Services for Black Mask Studios and the original graphic novel Strange Wit, which tells the incredible life story of writer Jane Bowles. Katy is also the editor of the comic book, Kim & Kim. Fabian Lelay is a comic artist and illustrator based out of New York. He is the artist of Jade Street Protection Services as well as Sea of Clouds. Fabian is also an artist in residence of Carmine Street Comics in NYC. In this episode, I talk with Katy and Fabian regarding their experiences working on Jade Street and together we cover a series of topics including: The girls of Jade Street as a rock band! The perils of Wikipedia clickholes! The girls of Jade Street as Dungeon & Dragons classes!

Katy Rex is a Minnesota-based freelance writer, perhaps best known for Jade Street Protection Services for Black Mask Studios and the original graphic novel Strange Wit, which tells the incredible life story of writer Jane Bowles. Katy is also the editor of the comic book, Kim & Kim. Fabian Lelay is a comic artist and illustrator based out of New York. He is the artist of Jade Street Protection Services as well as Sea of Clouds. Fabian is also an artist in residence of Carmine Street Comics in NYC. In this episode, I talk with Katy and Fabian regarding their experiences working on Jade Street and together we cover a series of topics including: The girls of Jade Street as a rock band! The perils of Wikipedia clickholes! The girls of Jade Street as Dungeon & Dragons classes!

On this week's episode of  Speakin' Geek Graham sits down with some of the cast of hit Dungeon & Dragons streaming series Critical Role. Liam O'Brien, Marisha Ray and Dungeon Master himself Matt Mercer discuss the ins and outs of bringing together Vox Machina weekly, their love of the fans and then they all discuss how Hitler would have made a great bard in DnD. Be sure to check out all the  episodes on the links below:http://geekandsundry.com/shows/critical-role/http://www.twitch.tv/geekandsundry

Streaming Murder brings murder mysteries to the internet airwaves.Audio Theatre...Flash in the Panby John and Toni Rakestraw"Where did you even get my story? Are you an internet troll, taking real people’s stories and turning them into twisted tales? I lost my husband, we have kids, bills… and you dare to make money off my pain and make me the main suspect in my husband’s murder,” wrote the irate woman from the internet. I had no idea who she was or how she fit into my story. I looked up her name, found her on Facebook, saw the article about her poor husband’s murder.  My story was very similar to that man’s demise. My main character, the wife who killed her husband… had exactly the same name as the email nut. Even worse, my murder victim had the same name, too!Dungeon & Dragons is all about Storytelling...Where Dice and Imagination Rule the Realm!Website - http://johnlrakestraw.com/Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/rakestraw.johnTwitter -  https://twitter.com/John_RakestrawTumblr - https://www.tumblr.com/blog/johnrakestrawSanta and Dungeon Master for hire - https://www.gigsalad.com/father_yule_john_rakestraw_springfield

Streaming Murder brings murder mysteries to the internet airwaves.Audio Theatre...Flash in the Panby John and Toni Rakestraw"Where did you even get my story? Are you an internet troll, taking real people’s stories and turning them into twisted tales? I lost my husband, we have kids, bills… and you dare to make money off my pain and make me the main suspect in my husband’s murder,” wrote the irate woman from the internet. I had no idea who she was or how she fit into my story. I looked up her name, found her on Facebook, saw the article about her poor husband’s murder.  My story was very similar to that man’s demise. My main character, the wife who killed her husband… had exactly the same name as the email nut. Even worse, my murder victim had the same name, too!Dungeon & Dragons is all about Storytelling...Where Dice and Imagination Rule the Realm!Website - http://johnlrakestraw.com/Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/rakestraw.johnTwitter -  https://twitter.com/John_RakestrawTumblr - https://www.tumblr.com/blog/johnrakestrawSanta and Dungeon Master for hire - https://www.gigsalad.com/father_yule_john_rakestraw_springfield

You are listening to Deep Paper Cut from John and Toni Rakestraw, produced by StreamingMurder.com. Our books are available at Amazon.comIt was a deep paper cut and I take blood thinners… the blood dripped all over the FAO Schwarz catalog by accident, but a few days later I got the items I’d dripped on. I kept trying to do it again and again… nothing! I discovered that you need a different person’s blood each time. Too bad the blood bank locks its blood safe too well. I’ve tried. Maybe the hospital will work… am I a vampire?We hope to see you next time here on the internet at my blog.Dungeon & Dragons is all about Storytelling...Where Dice and Imagination Rule the Realm!Website - http://johnlrakestraw.com/Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/rakestraw.johnTwitter -  https://twitter.com/John_RakestrawTumblr - https://www.tumblr.com/blog/johnrakestrawSanta and Dungeon Master for hire - https://www.gigsalad.com/father_yule_john_rakestraw_springfield

You are listening to Deep Paper Cut from John and Toni Rakestraw, produced by StreamingMurder.com. Our books are available at Amazon.comIt was a deep paper cut and I take blood thinners… the blood dripped all over the FAO Schwarz catalog by accident, but a few days later I got the items I’d dripped on. I kept trying to do it again and again… nothing! I discovered that you need a different person’s blood each time. Too bad the blood bank locks its blood safe too well. I’ve tried. Maybe the hospital will work… am I a vampire?We hope to see you next time here on the internet at my blog.Dungeon & Dragons is all about Storytelling...Where Dice and Imagination Rule the Realm!Website - http://johnlrakestraw.com/Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/rakestraw.johnTwitter -  https://twitter.com/John_RakestrawTumblr - https://www.tumblr.com/blog/johnrakestrawSanta and Dungeon Master for hire - https://www.gigsalad.com/father_yule_john_rakestraw_springfield

¡Hola jugones! Después del desastre del último programa, nos hacemos fuertes y venimos con dos temas que seguro que os van a interesar. El primero son nuestras Jornadas anuales del Dado del Miedo. En estas jornadas Mecatol-Rex abre sus puertas para que todo el mundo puede disfrutar de regalos, juegos de mesa, rol, mercadillo y más actividades. Además, Jose, nuestro rolero decano viene a hablarnos de Kickstarters y rol. ¡A disfrutar! - Supernovas. Actualidad del mundillo lúdico y sección Kickstarter por nuestro colaborador Belial. Juego del año Jaipur, Lords of Sidit, Mindjammer, Fate acelerado. Kickstarters: Strange Aeons y Collapse. - Cuartel General. El sábado 25 de octubre a partir de las 5 de la tarde, nuestra gran fiesta, las jornadas de puertas abiertas del Dado del Miedo IV. Nuestro Patrocinadores: Gen X Games, Juegos en la mesa, Holocubierta, Quimera, Mathon, Zacatrús, Dimento Games, Ludusbelli, Invasión de Talavera, Nosolorol, Other Side comic, Dracotienda y Crisis Leganés Comics. - Campo de Asteroides. Charla distendida sobre KickStarters de rol con Jose (Aoren) uno de nuestros masters más experimentados. - Torre de Control. Criticamos los juegos jugados los últimos 15 días: Warhammer 40.000 Conquest LCG, DoomTown, Smash UP, Race Formula 90, Rokoko, Dungeon & Dragons 5, Exploradores, Ghost Stories, Pandemia y Asante. - Sala de Comunicaciones. Participan Sergio del Rio, Juan Represa, Merino11, Goswhack, Vilvoh, Guille Soria, Asian Music,

¡Hola jugones! Después del desastre del último programa, nos hacemos fuertes y venimos con dos temas que seguro que os van a interesar. El primero son nuestras Jornadas anuales del Dado del Miedo. En estas jornadas Mecatol-Rex abre sus puertas para que todo el mundo puede disfrutar de regalos, juegos de mesa, rol, mercadillo y más actividades. Además, Jose, nuestro rolero decano viene a hablarnos de Kickstarters y rol. ¡A disfrutar! - Supernovas. Actualidad del mundillo lúdico y sección Kickstarter por nuestro colaborador Belial. Juego del año Jaipur, Lords of Sidit, Mindjammer, Fate acelerado. Kickstarters: Strange Aeons y Collapse. - Cuartel General. El sábado 25 de octubre a partir de las 5 de la tarde, nuestra gran fiesta, las jornadas de puertas abiertas del Dado del Miedo IV. Nuestro Patrocinadores: Gen X Games, Juegos en la mesa, Holocubierta, Quimera, Mathon, Zacatrús, Dimento Games, Ludusbelli, Invasión de Talavera, Nosolorol, Other Side comic, Dracotienda y Crisis Leganés Comics. - Campo de Asteroides. Charla distendida sobre KickStarters de rol con Jose (Aoren) uno de nuestros masters más experimentados. - Torre de Control. Criticamos los juegos jugados los últimos 15 días: Warhammer 40.000 Conquest LCG, DoomTown, Smash UP, Race Formula 90, Rokoko, Dungeon & Dragons 5, Exploradores, Ghost Stories, Pandemia y Asante. - Sala de Comunicaciones. Participan Sergio del Rio, Juan Represa, Merino11, Goswhack, Vilvoh, Guille Soria, Asian Music,