Hello readers!

I’m very excited to finally share what I have been working on for the past few months with all of you!

On March 10th, 2023, I had my good friend Amezerion over to my apartment to record my second conversation for my podcast. He used to be my game master back when I used to play Dungeons & Dragons and, as I mentioned in the episode, Amezerion has been a game master for longer than I have been alive and is undoubtedly the most creative person that I know. You can listen to the full conversation here, with time stamps provided in the video’s description and also at the bottom of this post.

Amezerion recently launched a website in which he hopes to offer to a larger audience his skills as an artist and as a game master for a wide range of tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs), including Starfinder, Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, and Blades in the Dark, to name a few. You can also find him on StartPlaying here, Instagram here, Pinterest here, and on Facebook here.

We touched on a number of fun topics, including his website, the Wizards of the Coast controversy, the recently released Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves movie, using TTRPGs as an educational tool for children, the Chinese spy balloon, aliens, and artificial intelligence. I learned quite a bit in that conversation!

This is my first video podcast, which I believe makes the whole conversation much more engaging. For instance, I will often have images appearing in the video for various games or public intellectuals that come up, which is an idea that I took from Lex Fridman.

Editing the video together was really fun, albeit time-consuming. I used Adobe Premiere Pro for general video editing, After Effects for specific visual effects, and some mild Photoshop and Audition for specific tasks. And this time, the final product didn’t take a whole week to render, so that’s definitely a step in the right direction!

I’m hoping to invest in a higher-quality video camera in the future as opposed to simply using my tablet’s camera. I already have a decent microphone, so I guess I’m about halfway to a modest podcast setup.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I’m hoping to get back into podcasting meaningfully this year. However, I don’t want to do this at the expense of my writings. I had previously hoped to publish on my blog at least once a month, but it looks like this goal may be overly ambitious. I will continue to try to find the right balance between these two creative endeavors this year.

Stay tuned for more conversations and writings!

Jo

Timestamps:

0:01:49: Introduction

0:03:55: Beginning of the conversation

0:08:15: What is a tabletop role-playing game?

0:09:28: What is an organic living world?

0:12:32: Wizards of the Coast controversy

0:17:07: Will Amezerion see the new Dungeons & Dragons movie?

0:21:01: Amezerion’s new website

0:23:48: Amezerion’s experience using SquareSpace

0:27:51: The platforms that Amezerion uses to play tabletop role-playing games

0:28:59: Are there any interesting ideas or themes that come up regularly in your campaigns?

0:31:37: Jordan Peterson and the power of stories

0:39:27: The importance of having a moral fortitude

0:47:16: The problem with money

0:58:34: Using tabletop role-playing games as educational tools

1:02:56: The Chinese spy balloon

1:07:40: The US government allegedly making contact with extraterrestrials

1:13:54: The collective intelligence found in ants

1:15:42: The noosphere

1:18:37: Will science ever relax their dogmatic commitment against mysticism?

1:18:57: Artificial intelligence

1:23:43: Rapid-fire questions