Episode 164 features Kat the Dungeon Mom, who is here to talk about being the game master.
Plus loving the performing arts, teaching, raising a child, concerts, events, and much much more…
Mentioned and Helpful Links from This Episode
Other Links
‘Time Machine’ is a great reintroduction to Minchin’s smart music
In ‘This Wheel’s on Fire,’ Helm adds needed voice to The Band’s end
Music created and provided by Henno Heitur of Monkey Tongue Productions.
–End Show Notes Transmission–
–Begin Transcription–
00:00:00:01 – 00:00:28:01
Agent Palmer
Previously on Agent palmer.com. Time machine is a great reintroduction to Tim Minchin’s smart music. In This Wheel’s on Fire. Levon Helm adds needed voice to the band’s end, and last episode was technically a double recording as Zapata and I recorded another episode you’ll hear eventually. This is The Palmer Files episode 164 with the Kat The Dungeon mom who who’s here to talk about being the game master, loving the performing arts, teaching, raising a child, concerts, events, and much, much more.
00:00:28:06 – 00:00:31:01
Agent Palmer
Are you ready? Let’s do the show.
00:00:31:06 – 00:00:54:03
Kat The Dungeon Mom
There was a lot of like, wait, what numbers do what I have to do math. This isn’t a game. Because a lot of it is just like the confidence to either make a decision or the confidence to say, I don’t know, let’s negotiate. Listen, I’ve done so much therapy since then, just like so much. And it’s fine now.
00:00:54:03 – 00:01:10:37
Kat The Dungeon Mom
It’s totally fine. We always had a gaming system, and it was a result of a tragic accident that almost killed my oldest brother. Because other people are exhausting.
00:01:10:41 – 00:01:31:24
Agent Palmer
Hello, and welcome to the Palmer Files. I’m your host, Jason Stershic, also known as Agent Palmer. And on this 164th episode is Kat the Dungeon Mom. I met Kat where most people meet people these days online. The difference here is that Kat is a wonderful person, no longer a stranger to me. And another example that you can find and connect with good people online.
00:01:31:37 – 00:01:56:00
Agent Palmer
Just don’t spend too much time there. Maybe play some games which we talk about, maybe go to the theater, which we talk about too. You’ll also hear us discuss writing and video game consoles. The concept of let’s plays, comedy, therapy, learning by doing, and so much more. But before we get into all that, remember that if you want to discuss the episode as you listen or afterward, you can find all related ways to contact Kat, the Dungeon mom, and myself.
00:01:56:00 – 00:02:17:39
Agent Palmer
In the show notes, you can see a link to all of Kat’s respective stuff at Linktree. Slash Kat the Dungeon mom, don’t forget you can see all of my writings and rantings on Agent palmer.com. And of course, email can be sent to the Palmer files at gmail.com. So without further ado, let’s roll for initiative.
00:02:17:44 – 00:02:27:44
Agent Palmer
Kat, you are the dungeon mom. So is this like, hey, hey, mom, I’m going to raid a dungeon. Get me some snacks. Is that.
00:02:27:49 – 00:02:44:23
Kat The Dungeon Mom
No, but not exactly. Okay. The. I wish I could say that there was, like, a super clever a reason behind it, but really? So my first ttrpg was Dungeons and Dragons, which I’m sure is the case for everybody.
00:02:44:30 – 00:02:46:57
Agent Palmer
That’s everybody’s. That was mine. Yeah.
00:02:47:10 – 00:03:08:54
Kat The Dungeon Mom
And so the the leader in Dungeons and Dragons, the person who sort of facilitates the whole game is the dungeon Master, the or the DM for short. And I was like, DM could also be dungeon mobs. So that’s what I went for. Again, not a huge big brain thing. But I was just like, this is this is just stupid enough now that I love.
00:03:08:54 – 00:03:17:36
Agent Palmer
It when you do an RPG. Yeah, I have dmed once in my life.
00:03:17:40 – 00:03:18:11
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Amazing.
00:03:18:16 – 00:03:43:08
Agent Palmer
I don’t I, I much prefer not the storytelling. I am a storyteller. But like, when it comes to that, I would much rather just role play. Yeah. You you clearly, don’t mind being in charge. Is that your preference? Like, if I were to be like, hey, we got four people together, someone’s going to have to DM.
00:03:43:13 – 00:04:01:52
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Oh, 100%. I would be the one to be like, yeah, I’ll, I’ll I’ll do it. Not because of, like a control freak kind of thing. Like, I don’t need to be in charge. It’s more of like, I want and I’m a nosy bitch and I need to know what’s going on, okay? At all times. I don’t like being in the dark.
00:04:01:56 – 00:04:12:32
Agent Palmer
Okay. So you want to know, you want to be like, I’m going to put this trap in front of them and see what happens. You don’t want to be like, where did this come from? That’s my job. Not your job.
00:04:12:37 – 00:04:33:32
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Yes, I do, I do love being a player, don’t get me wrong. But I am like, there’s there’s a common trope of the, like forever. DM yeah, it’s it’s people who like, well, we wouldn’t play if I didn’t DM and in my home games, that tends to be the case. I am, because my home game is is my mostly my spouse is family.
00:04:33:37 – 00:04:57:43
Kat The Dungeon Mom
But for online games, I do both. I am both a DM and I am a player, in a bunch of actual plays. And I love them both, but I do tend towards the DMing just because, like I, I want to know the full scope of this story. Okay? And sometimes I find myself when I am a player wondering about the like, oh, but what if we had gone this way?
00:04:57:55 – 00:05:05:03
Kat The Dungeon Mom
What if this interaction with this person had gone differently and I get lost in the like, sort of like the R.L. Stine Choose your own adventure books.
00:05:05:03 – 00:05:24:14
Agent Palmer
But isn’t that it? But don’t you have that as the DM? Anyway, like I set this up, they could have gone these three directions, but they went this direction. So are you still sitting behind your, your your, you know, whatever, your your shield, if it were, and going, like, what if they got over you?
00:05:24:14 – 00:05:35:39
Kat The Dungeon Mom
So. Okay, I’m going to pull back the curtain a little bit. Yeah. There’s, there’s going to be a little bit of that, but less than you would think. Because here’s the thing. No matter what your players choose, you can always put the answer right in front of them.
00:05:35:39 – 00:05:45:58
Agent Palmer
Okay? I mean, I have to as a player, I have to I have to understand that. I have to see that, that’s it’s a different thing altogether.
00:05:45:58 – 00:06:16:39
Kat The Dungeon Mom
But yeah, it’s it’s certainly the key to making the world feel more sandboxie than it necessarily is. I love and respect DMs like Brennan, Lee Mulligan, Matt Mercer, who are like, I have a 30 page PDF document of the lore of this city and and I adorable. I love you boys so much. That’s not me. I was an acting an improv teacher before I got into Ttrpg in 2020, and so I’m very much of like, here are the major plot points I need to hit.
00:06:16:39 – 00:06:27:03
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Here’s the information they need to have. Wherever or however they choose to achieve those goals is on them. I’m just here to give them parameters.
00:06:27:10 – 00:06:31:52
Agent Palmer
All right. So does D&D start in 2020?
00:06:31:56 – 00:06:35:21
Kat The Dungeon Mom
I mean, it started back in eight, what, 70s?
00:06:35:22 – 00:06:37:06
Agent Palmer
No, no, no, for you.
00:06:37:11 – 00:07:00:21
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Yeah. So I got into D&D, while I was pregnant, in LA during Covid lockdown. Okay. My wedding got canceled because we were supposed to get married in November of 2020, and my partner and I looked at each other and we were like, all right, so normally it’s marriage then, baby, but let’s flip flop them because I’m going to be home for the foreseeable future not doing anything.
00:07:00:26 – 00:07:26:06
Kat The Dungeon Mom
So I might as well, you know, cook a human. And so we did that and we had a small, like, five person backyard wedding, in November on the day, which is when we announced the pregnancy to everybody. But during that time, some friends of ours were like, hey, the the one of the one half of the couple was a forever DM and was like, hey, I want to run a DNA campaign.
00:07:26:11 – 00:07:44:52
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Do you guys want to play? And we said, sure, but we didn’t know the rules. So we started watching dimension 20 with Brennan, Lee Mulligan and the intrepid heroes to learn the rules. And then, like, we’re five episodes deep. Before we were like, oh, we actually like the show. So now I’m, I’m a big drop out stand, which I think is entirely justifiable.
00:07:44:57 – 00:07:49:50
Kat The Dungeon Mom
But that was how I learned to play D&D, was watching other people play that track.
00:07:49:50 – 00:08:22:34
Agent Palmer
So you and I have a few, things. We we were trying for a baby before we got married. We also got married in a in our backyard with nine people. So we went a little bit, and we did announce to most of the people there that we were with child at the wedding, so that that tracks, my wife learned Magic The Gathering by watching a very short lived show from Geek and Sundry called Spells Slingers with day nine.
00:08:22:34 – 00:08:23:10
Agent Palmer
00:08:23:10 – 00:08:24:04
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
00:08:24:09 – 00:08:49:39
Agent Palmer
And so I was like, I watch, I like, I’ve been playing magic since almost when it started. And so like, I was like, I want you to understand this, but like, this is a show. I found that I enjoyed watching that kind of explains it as it goes along. And it’s funny. And so that’s that’s kind of how she learned, and I think this is one of the things that’s great about the internet is like, you can.
00:08:49:46 – 00:09:00:26
Agent Palmer
And then we became fans of the show. And day nine as a personality and a streamer and other things. And that leads you to other things. And that’s just kind of the way it works.
00:09:00:26 – 00:09:02:38
Kat The Dungeon Mom
But yeah.
00:09:02:43 – 00:09:24:02
Agent Palmer
D&D is very much a, a very different I think all of these things you learn by watching and that’s fine. But doing vastly different experience. Yeah. So what was your first, you know, what was it like to just be I mean, obviously you were talking Covid, so were you digital for the campaign?
00:09:24:02 – 00:09:26:24
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Yeah. We were we were digital for the campaign.
00:09:26:24 – 00:09:28:55
Agent Palmer
So you weren’t rolling actual rocks?
00:09:29:00 – 00:09:30:04
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Oh, no, we had physical.
00:09:30:05 – 00:09:31:02
Agent Palmer
Okay, okay, okay.
00:09:31:04 – 00:09:35:18
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Like on it was just on zoom. Like we didn’t have a virtual tabletop. Okay.
00:09:35:23 – 00:09:41:22
Agent Palmer
So what was it like when it’s like, all right, Cat, it’s time to roll. And you’re like, wait, what?
00:09:41:26 – 00:10:01:26
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Yeah. There was a lot of like, wait, what? Numbers do what I have to do? Math. This isn’t a game. So there I was actually up very opposed at first I, I struggled to enjoy it, but it was quality time with my spouse, quality time with our friends. And it was something to do that wasn’t talking about Covid.
00:10:01:28 – 00:10:20:31
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Okay. So so I did it, and I put up with it, and I played a Dragonborn fighter. And I think we only played like 5 or 6 sessions before I went into labor and, like, had our child. But somewhere in there I was like, okay, there’s something to this. And so even though the campaign was short lived, we continued watching dimension 20.
00:10:20:31 – 00:10:41:26
Kat The Dungeon Mom
And I continued, like being into the game. We bought, you know, the Dungeon Master’s Guide and the Player Handbook and all that stuff. And I tried to read it and I was like, I’m too ADHD for this. That’s never going to happen. And then I decided once, you know, the vaccines came out and it was safer to gather with people.
00:10:41:28 – 00:10:57:27
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Yeah, we invited some family members over, and I was like, F it, I’m going to run a campaign, and I homebrewed it so that I wouldn’t have to learn anybody else’s lore. Yeah. And it was fun. The, I was terrible at it, but it was so deeply fun, and and it just took off from there.
00:10:57:36 – 00:11:15:31
Agent Palmer
So you said at one point, well, what did you do before this? Like, what’s your background like? Because obviously, like, storytelling. I mean, I feel like you could I mean, you tell me you’re a storyteller and I’m like, well, I don’t know what. I don’t know what she is. She’s an actor, comedian, a writer like you could be anything.
00:11:15:45 – 00:11:32:58
Agent Palmer
So, like, what’s your background? Or, you know, like, because obviously you had a skill set of interest is one thing, but the skill sets required to be a DM like those are, I feel like you’re either born with them or yeah, or not.
00:11:33:08 – 00:11:56:24
Kat The Dungeon Mom
I mean, I would say to some extent, like a lot of it can be taught or comes from practice. Okay. Because a lot of it is just like the confidence to either make a decision or the confidence to say, I don’t know, let’s negotiate, okay. Because almost certainly someone at the table, unless you are all brand new, in which case it doesn’t matter anyway.
00:11:56:29 – 00:12:13:45
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Yeah. Like, chances are someone at the table is going to have some kind of inkling of like, oh yeah, this came up in another game I played, or I was reading about like, someone will know and being able to trust that you can have a conversation with your players and have everyone not be an asshole about it, makes a good table.
00:12:13:59 – 00:12:14:30
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Yeah.
00:12:14:35 – 00:12:19:42
Agent Palmer
Okay. But what’s the background like? Yeah. So what do you have before this?
00:12:19:46 – 00:12:46:31
Kat The Dungeon Mom
So I majored in arts administration and vocal performance in college. Okay. And I’ve had a string of, teaching jobs from, teaching, theater in an after school program in Akron with a local playhouse to teach, teaching kids music. So, like, mommy and me, music classes for babies. And then closer to sort of pandemic time, I started seriously studying acting.
00:12:46:36 – 00:13:08:00
Kat The Dungeon Mom
And I learned the Meisner method, which gets a lot of shit because it’s a lot of weird, like, repetition stuff. And, I will debate anyone about anything with Meisner. I have strong opinions, loosely held. It is a weird method, but it is near and dear to my heart. And then from that, I started teaching Meisner and improv and then.
00:13:08:05 – 00:13:26:55
Agent Palmer
Obviously the the the well, the teaching means that the leadership, the leadership of a group of unruly, players is not hard for you to deal with. And the improv background means that you can roll a little bit easier than, say, someone without an improv background. Yeah.
00:13:27:00 – 00:13:27:54
Kat The Dungeon Mom
It helps.
00:13:27:59 – 00:13:39:55
Agent Palmer
But I. I want to ask this question. Yeah. If I tell a 12 year old cat in the future, you will be playing Dungeons and Dragons. Do you believe yourself?
00:13:40:00 – 00:13:43:52
Kat The Dungeon Mom
I’ll be honest. I don’t know that 12 year old cat would know what the hell you were talking about.
00:13:43:52 – 00:13:46:13
Agent Palmer
Okay.
00:13:46:18 – 00:14:06:55
Kat The Dungeon Mom
But to answer the question you’re asking, I don’t think she would. I think she would be like any future that involves, like, doing something fun for a job. Sounds insane. So I think finding that out would be, a boon to her. I think she would be really excited about it.
00:14:07:06 – 00:14:13:20
Agent Palmer
Okay. I mean, what what did you want at that point?
00:14:13:25 – 00:14:22:22
Kat The Dungeon Mom
No lie. And I was just talking about this the other day. My greatest aspiration when I was 12 years old was to be a waiter at Olive garden.
00:14:22:26 – 00:14:25:52
Agent Palmer
Well, So why?
00:14:25:57 – 00:14:46:36
Kat The Dungeon Mom
So I had gone on vacation to Disney with my family. Okay. It was my dad’s, like, Christmas present to all of us. And we went to Olive garden for dinner every night. Because several members of our family are, like, allergic to seafood. And, like, there was a lot of picky eating. So that was like the one place nearby that people could agree on.
00:14:46:41 – 00:15:04:51
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Okay. And I just, I, I thought it was extremely fancy. I thought it was like the height of gourmet dining. It felt very upscale to me. And I was like, I want to work here when I’m older. And looking back on that, I’m like, oh no, there are so many red flags on the field, but someone needs to talk to this child.
00:15:04:58 – 00:15:16:38
Agent Palmer
Yeah, but I only see one massive red flag, and that is, you were at Disney and you’d show it like you could like that. That that’s the only red flag I see. Like, whoa whoa whoa whoa. You didn’t want. Yeah. You didn’t want a job at Disney.
00:15:16:38 – 00:15:21:45
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Like, no, I did that. Didn’t feel real or attainable to me that that’s that.
00:15:21:56 – 00:15:30:38
Agent Palmer
Well, I mean, I’ll give you, a million points for practicality. I mean, yeah, because, you know, that’s.
00:15:30:43 – 00:15:36:28
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Listen, I’ve done so much therapy since then, just, like, so much, and it’s fine now. It’s totally fine.
00:15:36:30 – 00:15:43:45
Agent Palmer
Okay. All right, all right. I mean, you know, can can you eat in an Olive garden now, or is that, like, off? Is that triggering?
00:15:43:50 – 00:15:55:14
Kat The Dungeon Mom
No, no, it’s not sugar. It’s just like I have a much more refined palate. Okay. In my mid to late 30s, and and like, I can, but I would not choose to.
00:15:55:14 – 00:16:07:13
Agent Palmer
I got very nice. All right. So, this is the question that I feel like I have to ask every geeky, geek adjacent person. Are you a writer?
00:16:07:18 – 00:16:08:09
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Oof!
00:16:08:14 – 00:16:09:50
Agent Palmer
What do you mean? Oof?
00:16:09:55 – 00:16:20:23
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Well, so there have been times in my life where I’ve been like, I want to write something, okay? But that has never materialized into something that I’ve written.
00:16:20:28 – 00:16:22:47
Agent Palmer
So you don’t start at all?
00:16:22:52 – 00:16:23:41
Kat The Dungeon Mom
I mean.
00:16:23:45 – 00:16:25:46
Agent Palmer
It’s not. Finishing is a whole different thing.
00:16:25:46 – 00:16:51:05
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Yeah, yeah. Like barely starting. What? What an English class we were taught was the pre-writing stage. Okay. So like, like doing a story diagram or, like, writing out the beats of the whatever. But I haven’t finished anything. And I think it is primarily because I, I do get so caught up in, in the moment, which I think is why improv has always pulled me.
00:16:51:05 – 00:16:53:29
Agent Palmer
Well, you have to be in the. Yeah, that’s. Yeah.
00:16:53:33 – 00:17:17:43
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Like taking that little nugget of inspiration and immediately building on it as opposed to like, okay, here’s the thing that is like long and planned out and, and you know, that’s not my not my jam. And I think and this is actually something I used to explain, like people who are big fans of like writing and, and, and really beautifully thought out dramas, they’re critical role people.
00:17:17:48 – 00:17:30:14
Kat The Dungeon Mom
And then absolute fucking batshit insane improv nerds. Our dimension 20 people. And like, there’s crossover, there’s absolutely crossover. But you almost certainly lean one way or the other.
00:17:30:25 – 00:17:42:48
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, we we kind of stayed away from some of that stuff just because I, we did have we had a I don’t know why we chose Pathfinder during Covid.
00:17:42:53 – 00:17:43:47
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Amazing.
00:17:43:47 – 00:18:16:30
Agent Palmer
But, and and my, my, my now wife didn’t, hadn’t played anything, substantial. And my, it was just the two of us and my buddy who lived in an apartment at the time, that was, I don’t know, 15 minutes away. It was a two mile, but not walkable. But he would come. We we we had it basically during that whole pandemic, at least three years, he would come over every Thursday night for dinner because I was like, well, you’re working from home.
00:18:16:45 – 00:18:25:02
Agent Palmer
You have to you have to come here like, I don’t I don’t care what socializing means. In zoom, you’re in your apartment by yourself. Come over. Yeah.
00:18:25:03 – 00:18:27:50
Kat The Dungeon Mom
So you have to there’s like, you did the pod.
00:18:27:55 – 00:18:52:19
Agent Palmer
Yeah, yeah. So he was in our bubble. And, you know, sometimes we played magic, but like, we did pick up a campaign, that went on for a while. And he was the DM and a character. So we had three characters and a DM, and, it’s it’s weird to me because, I know a lot of people obviously started watching some of those shows or went back, you know, we have time now.
00:18:52:19 – 00:19:16:41
Agent Palmer
Yeah. And I always felt like it’s kind of like, as an example, I refuse to listen to a podcast when I’m recording on a day. I’m recording because I don’t want anything else in my head from another conversation. And so, like when that campaign was going on, I was like, I don’t want I’m sure I will enjoy these other D&D things, but I don’t want to be influenced by them.
00:19:16:41 – 00:19:30:05
Agent Palmer
The only thing that squeaked through that we watched was Harmon Quest. But that was so outlandish. I was like that. I’m never. I’m. Yeah, none of us are that funny. So it’s fine, but it’s.
00:19:30:05 – 00:19:33:07
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Just so far divorced from who we are as people.
00:19:33:07 – 00:20:02:31
Agent Palmer
Yeah. And so that was fun. And we, we he he eventually found a house an hour and 15 minutes away, so, like, we don’t quite have the regular every Thursday kind of, you know, getting back to it, but we try and game a bit and if not this, I maybe this is, I don’t I don’t know what you would call this, but we’re now trying to.
00:20:02:36 – 00:20:21:31
Agent Palmer
He was addicted. He got addicted to his phone for a while. I’m not going to throw him under the bus, but he kind of got addicted. And this is this is my one friend who kept this dumb phone for longer than anyone else. I think maybe he kind of knew, like, yeah. Oh, no, I think I’m going to like this a lot.
00:20:21:38 – 00:20:23:42
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Yeah. Got to get that sweet, sweet dopamine.
00:20:23:42 – 00:20:38:55
Agent Palmer
And so I, I keep yelling I, I’ve yelled at him every time he’s over and we’re hanging out and he pulls out his phone. I’m like I just yell at him. So for the last few times he does, he leaves it in his car and we basically hang out like it’s the 90s again.
00:20:38:55 – 00:20:40:00
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Like you have loved him.
00:20:40:02 – 00:20:52:23
Agent Palmer
We talk, we, maybe we’ll play games, but like, we try not to put on the TV or anything. We just kind of be with, like, be so, like, truly social.
00:20:52:28 – 00:20:53:23
Kat The Dungeon Mom
00:20:53:27 – 00:21:06:41
Agent Palmer
And since I knew him back in the 90s, I’m like, remember we used to do this? There was no real internet. Like, things took way too long to load. We were we’re okay. Like, you don’t need to know everything.
00:21:06:46 – 00:21:10:17
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Do you remember original YouTube? Like how long it would take?
00:21:10:18 – 00:21:31:51
Agent Palmer
No, because I, I skipped it like I was one of those people that, like, I look at, I remember the original GeoCities. Yeah. All right. So yeah, you know, and having, a site and just being like, this is great. And then just clicking like random or like neighbor or whatever and going to some other site and whatever.
00:21:31:56 – 00:21:54:45
Agent Palmer
And then that disappeared. And I remember Myspace being a big deal, and that completely falling off the face of the earth. And so like when YouTube starts and like I, I also remember like blip TV and Vimeo is still around actually, surprisingly, and I remember real player and so.
00:21:54:50 – 00:21:55:55
Kat The Dungeon Mom
I Napster.
00:21:56:06 – 00:22:02:18
Agent Palmer
Yeah. Well that’s LimeWire and I’m like yeah.
00:22:02:23 – 00:22:03:55
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Yeah the good times.
00:22:03:55 – 00:22:24:09
Agent Palmer
So I but I remember all they say I don’t, I don’t remember when I actually became a YouTube user. I mean it, but but it’s well after the origins of YouTube because I didn’t it would I’m not saying I was like over it, but like there was a part of me that was like, I don’t know if I want to watch videos on the internet.
00:22:24:14 – 00:22:27:41
Agent Palmer
I wish I was that guy. I was like, I don’t really that.
00:22:27:54 – 00:22:44:21
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Oh, no, I, I was very much part of the, the meme generation. So YouTube was really rising in popularity when I was in high school and it home was shitty internet. And then I got to go to college that had Ethernet, and it was like, I can watch flash videos in like 2.5 minutes. It’s amazing.
00:22:44:21 – 00:23:05:26
Agent Palmer
And that’s so I, I was ahead of you by enough that when I got to college and got wired internet, Ethernet and then eventually Wi-Fi by my junior or senior year, it was like Christmas morning because it was like, oh, LimeWire, I can I can download everything.
00:23:05:30 – 00:23:13:52
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Did you, did you have to go to, like, a class or an orientation where there like don’t illegally pirate music will charge you $10 million?
00:23:13:54 – 00:23:15:17
Agent Palmer
No.
00:23:15:24 – 00:23:17:45
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Oh, that was I remember the.
00:23:17:49 – 00:23:48:57
Agent Palmer
Okay, so I went to a very small liberal arts college, and I remember that some time in my, I want to say sophomore year we got in trouble because we found out that if you use the ten, 10 to 20, you could get free long distance charge to the college. Oops. As opposed to. So we apparently people within my class rang up one heck of a bill that we never had to pay because it went to the phone.
00:23:49:01 – 00:23:50:04
Kat The Dungeon Mom
That’s a maze.
00:23:50:04 – 00:24:00:55
Agent Palmer
Not anything else. So that was our that was my, I was a part of that, I guess, you know, because I incredible, you know, it’s just like. All right, well, yeah, I’ll call my grandmother. Why not? It’s free. Like, whatever.
00:24:00:55 – 00:24:02:16
Kat The Dungeon Mom
It’s like sticking it to the man.
00:24:02:16 – 00:24:10:06
Agent Palmer
Yeah. Like what? I mean, some of I, most of the people I know are finally out of debt from that experience.
00:24:10:11 – 00:24:12:26
Kat The Dungeon Mom
So what’s that like?
00:24:12:31 – 00:24:18:21
Agent Palmer
I mean, most of us, celebrated, like there was no tomorrow.
00:24:18:25 – 00:24:19:32
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Oh, I know, it’s just like, oh.
00:24:19:32 – 00:24:25:10
Agent Palmer
My God, what is this? Yeah. So, I what did you go for again?
00:24:25:10 – 00:24:31:17
Kat The Dungeon Mom
So the first time around, I went for arts administration with a minor in vocal performance.
00:24:31:17 – 00:24:36:32
Agent Palmer
So what I don’t I don’t even, I can’t even get what is arts administration.
00:24:36:37 – 00:24:43:45
Kat The Dungeon Mom
So essentially like business. But for arts organizations, I’m running a museum, a theater or an art gallery.
00:24:43:50 – 00:24:54:30
Agent Palmer
All right. Okay. And, I mean, obviously you just named a few things. Did you have one in mind? Like, was it like I’m going to be a to run a theater? I’m going to run a museum. Like what?
00:24:54:45 – 00:24:57:05
Kat The Dungeon Mom
I wanted to run a theater or an opera house.
00:24:57:18 – 00:25:08:51
Agent Palmer
Okay. I mean, we is that is okay. I, I look, I spent some time on the stage crew, you know, whatever, whatever. But I will say, what’s the difference? Like, I.
00:25:08:55 – 00:25:41:54
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Know that’s a completely fair question. So more and more, the differences are slighter. Okay. But generally, an opera house is designed with acoustics in mind. Okay. Because opera performers are not amplified. Yeah. And so the house really has to do some of the heavy lifting, making sure that the sound produced reaches the cheap seats, whereas theaters are much more likely to, they come in a wider variety of designs.
00:25:41:59 – 00:25:53:51
Kat The Dungeon Mom
They depending on their purpose, they’re much more likely to be sort of modern or modernized, with, with sound, sound systems and all of that. Okay, fun, fun, happy crap.
00:25:53:56 – 00:26:05:21
Agent Palmer
And I mean, is that still like a goal? Would that. Yeah. I mean, if I were like to be like, hey, you want to run my theater? Like the I mean, you’d still want to do.
00:26:05:29 – 00:26:24:55
Kat The Dungeon Mom
I mean, in a heartbeat. Absolutely. I do. So I am, the drama director for a local school system. Okay. So I get to, direct their elementary school and now middle school musicals every year, which is really exciting. We’re just, getting getting into the planning phase of that. Right now, which is awesome.
00:26:24:56 – 00:26:56:17
Kat The Dungeon Mom
And I love it, and I love working with the kids, but I did just this summer start back to finish a degree in social work, with the goal of applying it in both like a therapeutic ttrpg methodology. But then also just providing, like community facilitation and third space generation for families and parents and just putting supports back into our communities that used to exist and then suddenly disappeared.
00:26:56:17 – 00:27:24:27
Agent Palmer
Yeah, that’s all right. But before we forget, before I forget to ask this, I’m going to give you the floor. Okay. You have a minute? Sell me on musicals. Now, before you begin, I want to state that as a member of the stage crew, mainly sound or lights. I loved doing plays.
00:27:24:32 – 00:27:25:23
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Yeah.
00:27:25:28 – 00:27:57:36
Agent Palmer
I hated doing musicals. And I it’s it’s not the musicals fault. It’s just that at a certain point, and I love music. I can only listen to songs so many freaking times. And when you are like. And I still have this, like, oh, it’s a musical and there’s still a part of me that’s like, oh, I still have flashbacks to like 14 year old me being like, I’ve heard this song 15 times tonight.
00:27:57:41 – 00:28:01:03
Agent Palmer
Can you, can you save me?
00:28:01:08 – 00:28:29:35
Kat The Dungeon Mom
I’m going to go with the unpopular choice and say, no, I can’t save you. And, and it’s because I think people who love musicals, myself included, there’s just a sense of sometimes words aren’t enough. Okay? And so a musical kind of is there. It gives you another platform with which to express an emotional moment. And I say this again, as a meisner trained actor who, emotional moments are my bread and butter.
00:28:29:40 – 00:28:35:58
Kat The Dungeon Mom
But just I’m also someone who randomly breaks into song just in my regular life.
00:28:36:03 – 00:28:36:46
Agent Palmer
Okay.
00:28:36:51 – 00:28:49:01
Kat The Dungeon Mom
So for me, it was very natural, but, I understand that it is not everyone’s cup of tea, and I absolutely would not, try to to ham fist anybody who was like, no, thanks.
00:28:49:01 – 00:29:07:27
Agent Palmer
Yeah, yeah. I mean, my, my wife loves Hamilton and she saw it. Yeah. Before she moved in, she saw it, I think once or twice. And then obviously when it came out, we sat down and watched it together, and I was like, I like that. Yeah, I don’t ever need to hear it again. Like, that’s that’s very much where I am with musicals like.
00:29:07:27 – 00:29:08:33
Agent Palmer
And that’s fair.
00:29:08:37 – 00:29:09:54
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Right. It it’s. Yeah, I’m.
00:29:10:00 – 00:29:37:45
Agent Palmer
I’m, I’m. Yeah. It’s I just I think and I, I think maybe it would have been better had I not done any musicals in high school and college. I think not having been exposed to that kind of repetition, like, because for people that are like, oh, but it’s just a song. It’s like, yeah, but even, I don’t know, pick your favorite band like, I mean, Dylan doesn’t count because he never did the same song the same way.
00:29:37:45 – 00:29:59:40
Agent Palmer
But like the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, like, these are bands that have done the same song for like 30, 40 years. They still put a different spin on it. But when you’re doing it for people who are paying for a ticket, you you can’t like, yeah, this is what is expected. Hopefully they can perform it to some level of.
00:29:59:45 – 00:30:00:08
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Yeah.
00:30:00:08 – 00:30:09:59
Agent Palmer
Whatever. And so as someone who’s got to hear that during all of the rehearsals and during whatever, whatever, there’s a there’s an emotional scarring that I don’t know.
00:30:10:04 – 00:30:11:31
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Yeah.
00:30:11:35 – 00:30:13:09
Agent Palmer
That ever goes away.
00:30:13:13 – 00:30:28:46
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Yeah. No. When I in college found out, like, how rigorous Broadway performance was and how, like, specific and spot on every single, I was like, no, I’m so good. Okay. Nevermind. Just kidding.
00:30:28:51 – 00:30:56:49
Agent Palmer
Now, what about comedy? Like what? I mean, you like improv. So, like, was standup ever, a thing? I mean, obviously, look, you and I, I’m a little bit older than you, but you and I are the generation that grew up with Whose Line. Oh, really? In the kind of like, syndication and so there were a lot of when I got when, you know, from high school through college and beyond, like, there were a lot of, hey, let’s start an improv group.
00:30:56:49 – 00:31:05:30
Agent Palmer
And like, obviously that was something that maybe was a little more underground before us, but for us and people after us.
00:31:05:30 – 00:31:05:57
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Oh yeah.
00:31:05:59 – 00:31:22:59
Agent Palmer
It’s like, oh my God, let’s do that. Yeah. Let’s oh, 100%, let’s do that. So but but there’s a very different line between improv and troupe comedy versus just like I’m going to do standup. Yeah. But was there, was that a track at some point?
00:31:23:04 – 00:31:39:33
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Absolutely not. Okay. And it’s so funny because I’ve had multiple it’s like several times a year, I get told, like, oh, you should do standup. You’re really funny. Several of the people who have said that to me have been my therapists, and I’m like, that’s probably not a good I.
00:31:39:33 – 00:31:42:31
Agent Palmer
Don’t know that that’s okay.
00:31:42:38 – 00:31:48:30
Kat The Dungeon Mom
I’m not winning it. Therapy today. I think I’ve also made a stand up comedy.
00:31:48:34 – 00:32:11:46
Agent Palmer
Yeah. I mean, I love, few stand ups, but I will be the first to admit that the moment you turn back, the moment you go behind the curtain, these are some of the most some of them are healthy now, but some of these people are the most damaged people you will ever. Oh, yeah. Meet. Correct. And so I’m like, oh, it’s kind of one of the reasons that I’m like, oh, thank God.
00:32:11:46 – 00:32:19:28
Agent Palmer
I’m not like friends with the I mean, look, I love my friends. Some of them are pretty damaged and they’re not comedians. Yeah.
00:32:19:30 – 00:32:47:23
Kat The Dungeon Mom
No. To really listen it’s not a it’s it’s not a prerequisite, the comedian thing, but no like stand up comedy again. So hard. So practiced and so pre-written and honed and a bunch of work that I have just not prepared do, I have all the love and respect in the world for stand up comedians, but it was just never going to be a thing that that drove me.
00:32:47:28 – 00:32:59:49
Kat The Dungeon Mom
And I see a lot of people crossover between improv and and standup. Yeah. And if you can do that, bless. Godspeed. I am not that person. I for me, never the twain shall meet.
00:33:00:00 – 00:33:15:01
Agent Palmer
Okay? And we haven’t covered it outside of tabletop. Like, are you gaming like, weird? Video. Like, is there, is there never a game? I mean, I’ll try anything once. Like, what’s.
00:33:15:06 – 00:33:42:16
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Oh, yeah. I’ll try anything once or I’ll try anything twice. Shit. Because you never know, the first time could have been an off day. That’s true. But no, I mean, I grew up on the Mario games and Legend of Zelda. And, for all of the things my siblings and I did not have in childhood, we always had a gaming system, and it was a result of a tragic accident that almost killed my oldest brother.
00:33:42:20 – 00:33:42:31
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Yeah.
00:33:42:38 – 00:33:43:54
Agent Palmer
This is a good story. I’m guessing getting.
00:33:43:59 – 00:33:45:29
Kat The Dungeon Mom
A good night.
00:33:45:31 – 00:33:46:36
Agent Palmer
Yeah. All right. Yeah.
00:33:46:40 – 00:34:12:59
Kat The Dungeon Mom
I talked to him on the phone, like, three days ago. All right. Okay. So he. We lived in a very rural part of Pennsylvania, and, you know, we were not the wealthiest people. And so my parents, for some reason, ended up with a second hand, like, snowmobile, like, run down shitty snowmobile. And my brother was, like, 12, ten at the time because I had not been born yet.
00:34:13:04 – 00:34:36:24
Kat The Dungeon Mom
And he gets on the snowmobile, and either he was, like, pressing down the throttle and didn’t realize or something had gone wrong, but the snowmobile crashed full speed into a tree. And he almost lost his leg. He didn’t. He has the leg. He has a gnarly scar, but he can fully walk, and it’s fine. But as you can imagine, it was a long recovery process.
00:34:36:24 – 00:34:58:45
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Yeah. And so to occupy him, my parents got him an Atari and we always forevermore had had gaming systems never, never the year they came out. Never the latest one. But we always had like a Super Nintendo and then an N64. And then I got a Gamecube at some point. But yeah, we were we were always gamers.
00:34:58:49 – 00:35:07:04
Agent Palmer
I was not like I my first. True. If we discount the Game Boy.
00:35:07:09 – 00:35:07:42
Kat The Dungeon Mom
The Game.
00:35:07:42 – 00:35:30:14
Agent Palmer
Boy if you discount that though my first consoles, the Gamecube I bought myself in college. Nice. Because I got a computer when I asked for Nintendo, like, that was I. That’s what I it was a hand-me-down, but still, like, that was, Yeah, it was fine. And I learned some things, but, like, I kind of. But I had to go to friends houses to get that experience.
00:35:30:14 – 00:35:39:59
Agent Palmer
Like to to sit and watch somebody else play insert game from Nintendo or Super Nintendo. I had to go somewhere. I had to travel to do that.
00:35:40:04 – 00:35:53:07
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Hearing you say that brought a I thought forward of do you think that’s why Let’s Plays are so popular on YouTube? Because so many of us grew up watching like, siblings and friends play games that now we’re just like, we sit on YouTube and watch strangers.
00:35:53:11 – 00:36:13:25
Agent Palmer
100% that I put that together. There’s no risk. Because remember, even the quote unquote multiplayer of like, say, Super Mario Brothers was one at a time. So even if we were playing together. Yeah, you’re watching me, and then I die, and then I’m watching you.
00:36:13:25 – 00:36:16:17
Kat The Dungeon Mom
So they’re truly rooting for you to fall in the hole.
00:36:16:21 – 00:36:38:34
Agent Palmer
Yeah, that’s my choice. I want to go. I want to go, yeah, when? But there are a pussy. And I immediately go to one place with this, which is yes, we all had that experience. But like, I go to college where, one of my friends disassembled his Gamecube enough to flip the switch from English to Japanese to be able to play Japanese games.
00:36:38:34 – 00:36:54:03
Agent Palmer
And he got Wind Waker imported, like, before the American release, but he didn’t know any Japanese. So like we he played it, we watched him and he played it based on just symbols and colors of text within the game.
00:36:54:16 – 00:37:05:09
Kat The Dungeon Mom
I would have immediately fallen in love with this man. When I tell you, I would have been such so down bad for a nerd like that. That’s so funny to me. Did finished the game.
00:37:05:12 – 00:37:12:28
Agent Palmer
I believe he did. Yeah. And then I think we I think he played it again when we got it in English and then. Yeah. So like I mean.
00:37:12:31 – 00:37:14:26
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Champion what an absolute hero.
00:37:14:26 – 00:37:38:45
Agent Palmer
But that’s that’s kind of like this thing of like all of that existed. The Let’s Play concept existed. But like for you and your friend where who’s ever how sad the console or whatever group you were in that was the let’s play. So yeah, of course, that’s why it is. I don’t know why it resonates beyond that, is the question.
00:37:38:45 – 00:38:04:20
Agent Palmer
But like, I know like so before our son was born, I mean, we kept the pregnancy kind of quiet ish. But at the time Steph was streaming on Twitch, maybe 2 or 3 times a week. And then she was, you know, in her third trimester. And I basically took over the channel to play one of my favorite games because, like, I had the dolphin emulator and it’s like I’m going to play Skies of Arcadia.
00:38:04:26 – 00:38:23:45
Agent Palmer
Let’s go. I’m going to do this. But it’s a very long game. And I hadn’t played it in maybe since college or maybe during my post college. I work in retail. I need some. Yeah, yeah. But it had been, 15, 20 years since I had picked up the game. I don’t know, some number. And so I played through it.
00:38:23:45 – 00:38:44:41
Agent Palmer
And obviously as we record this, I haven’t been back on Twitch since the birth of the child. It’s been six, eight days. I don’t know how many months, but it’s been a minute. A bunch of time. Right. In fact, I don’t think I’ve streamed this year, let’s say. Or maybe I have. But I’ve only streamed once, and I didn’t get that far in the game.
00:38:44:46 – 00:39:00:41
Agent Palmer
But I will tell you, this is all of this is a preface to say that in that 15 year age gap where between the last time I played it and when I started streaming it on Twitch on her channel, I would find less plays to put on in the background because it’s like, this is a comforting game to me.
00:39:00:52 – 00:39:31:56
Agent Palmer
And while I’m at work and stressed out and cannot play it, I can put it over there and somebody who’s just playing it, not with commentary, just playing it. I just hear the sounds and the combat happens and I don’t have to do anything. It’s just there. There’s a comfort that maybe our generation and below us have with video games that you find in older generations in syndication of television, stuff that, yeah, they just don’t.
00:39:31:56 – 00:39:48:54
Agent Palmer
It’s just not that accessible. I don’t know, I don’t, I don’t, I mean so I know why it works for us. I don’t know why it works for anybody below us because it’s like well you all have much easier access to everything. I don’t know why you’re not just playing it.
00:39:49:09 – 00:40:04:36
Kat The Dungeon Mom
That so that when I introduce my spouse to Let’s Plays because I was the big let’s player, let’s play kind of sewer in our relationship. And my spouse was like, this is stupid. Like, why would you watch someone else play a game that you could just play? Yeah. And I was like, just watch a video with me.
00:40:04:36 – 00:40:15:40
Kat The Dungeon Mom
And now my spouse, like, I they’ll be working because they work from home. And I’ll come downstairs into the room, they’re working it and there will be a markiplier video up on the TV and I’m like I thought that’s what I thought.
00:40:15:51 – 00:40:45:17
Agent Palmer
Yeah. Yeah. We, we Covid was a big one for us. We weren’t really a big twitch YouTube household until Covid. I think that’s kind of pretty standard for a lot of people who weren’t that big. We got into Minecraft, YouTube, I guess, if you will. And it just because of the crossover with the way the multiplayer servers work, especially the ones that are YouTube and Twitch related, it’s like, well, I like this person who that guy was interesting.
00:40:45:17 – 00:41:01:02
Agent Palmer
He showed up in this other thing, and then you just go there and now it’s like, now we’re at a point where it’s like, it depends. Like you can pre watch that video if you’ve got the time. You know, maybe I’ll watch this one, you watch that one and you just tell me what happened or whatever.
00:41:01:02 – 00:41:06:35
Agent Palmer
There’s just there’s just and that’s just Minecraft. That’s not even going beyond into other games.
00:41:06:49 – 00:41:18:20
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Oh, yeah. No, that’s fully real. And that is a struggle that my spouse and I also have, like, wait, you watched this without because we share a YouTube channel? Oh, yeah. And it’s like, you watch this without me faster. Yeah.
00:41:18:20 – 00:41:32:51
Agent Palmer
Although sharing a YouTube channel is easier because it’s like it’s in the history. Just watch. Yeah, but you know what I’ve watched as opposed to like did you watch this one I think I don’t remember, I have.
00:41:32:56 – 00:41:41:34
Kat The Dungeon Mom
An even harder than that is like the stuff that we’ve started and then one or the other or both of us have fallen asleep. And so we have to stop it or be like, oh God, how far did we get?
00:41:41:37 – 00:42:05:49
Agent Palmer
Uhhuh. And sometimes I think, yeah, that’s it. And there’s also like sometimes I’ll just get bored. Because it’s like, oh like you really want to watch this perspective, but I want to watch this perspective of the kind of similar thing you know. Yeah. Or something that is unique to maybe media of today is that these people that are putting out videos on YouTube also stream on Twitch.
00:42:05:54 – 00:42:25:35
Agent Palmer
And so if you’re saving a video to watch with your spouse, but you watch something live on a stream, you might be spoiled for the video that you are saving, right? There’s a whole different kind of like reading a review in the newspaper that’s like, and so-and-so dies. Like, wait, what? I didn’t even see that movie yet.
00:42:25:41 – 00:42:26:22
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Oh, dear.
00:42:26:31 – 00:42:49:22
Agent Palmer
Yeah. So there it’s a new media landscape. I don’t know, it’s it’s very hard to, I’ll ask because I’m fairly good. How are you at saving things? Like, truly saving. Like. All right. This is the seventh video. I found that was released today by somebody we like an hour ago. And you’re in the meeting or whatever? I can’t.
00:42:49:27 – 00:43:11:52
Kat The Dungeon Mom
I’m pretty good. Only once or twice have I, like, spoiled a thing for myself. And it was usually because, And it was almost always a drop out thing, like trailers, especially trailer drops for, like, new seasons of dimension 20, would come up on my TikTok feed, and I’d be like, shit, no, I have to wait until I get home.
00:43:12:01 – 00:43:23:27
Kat The Dungeon Mom
We can watch it together. So. So TikTok was was what was kind of fucking me with that. Otherwise I’m I’m I’m pretty good. I can it is one of the few areas in my life where I have a decent amount of self control.
00:43:23:35 – 00:43:26:33
Agent Palmer
Okay. Well, that’s I mean, look, you take the winds where you can.
00:43:26:33 – 00:43:28:30
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Yeah, absolutely. And I will take that dub.
00:43:28:30 – 00:43:35:27
Agent Palmer
So what are the other mediums like? We’ve covered a lot of mediums. Like are you a reader. Do you like music?
00:43:35:32 – 00:43:48:10
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Like love music. I actually a 20. God, was this 20, 25? 2023? I went to a concert for the first time.
00:43:48:15 – 00:43:49:11
Agent Palmer
Like, ever.
00:43:49:16 – 00:44:09:04
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Ever. Well, so I had gone to one concert in high school. It was a Hilary Duff concert. Okay. And I went with my best friend because her mom had gotten tickets for her and her little sister, because her little sister wanted to go. And then her mom had to, like, work or like something that night. And my best friend calls me and she’s like, please come with me to this concert.
00:44:09:04 – 00:44:17:31
Kat The Dungeon Mom
So I’m not the only person between like 13 and 14, okay? And I was like, all right. And it was a good concert. Like I didn’t hate it.
00:44:17:33 – 00:44:28:35
Agent Palmer
I can’t fault any of the Teenyboppers shows, because while you may not like the music the like that they put a lot into entertainment. The value of the performance.
00:44:28:39 – 00:44:48:58
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Like my girl was singing her heart out like she she crushed it. And it was a fine concert. Like, whatever. But so like, first concert that I cared about and, like, planned to go. And it was Lizzo in, in Cleveland, and I ended up going to like six more concerts that same year at the same venue because I was like, oh, this rules.
00:44:49:03 – 00:44:58:48
Kat The Dungeon Mom
And then by the end of the year, I was like, I’m so tired. I don’t want to if I want to listen to the song, I’m going to listen to it by myself in my house. Because other people are exhausting.
00:44:58:53 – 00:45:28:00
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I am, I can’t remember how I said it once. Like, I’m it’s not an introvert. I’m like, I’m very much an introvert, but, like, I can turn on the extrovert if I have to do in short spurts. But it is, like it’ll take a week to recover from, like a concert or whatever. And when it came to music specifically, like I used to go to concerts when I was a lot younger and, you know, big concerts, little club concerts.
00:45:28:04 – 00:45:56:15
Agent Palmer
And then, I don’t know, like something happened. Well, first, first, in full disclosure, the junior year of my, of college, in my undergrad and I was a 17 year old college freshman. So age wise, I was only, you know, 20 at this point. But I was the oldest 20 year old you have ever met. Like, I don’t know what happened in the sophomore to junior summer, that to me.
00:45:56:15 – 00:46:16:45
Agent Palmer
But I came back from my junior year not as an upperclassman, but as a senior citizen. Basically, I was like, I don’t want to as an elderly person. I was like, I don’t want to do anything. I’m completely done with all of this stuff. I’m just out. And that was basically when I went out. I’m done. And I’ve been to like 1 or 2 concerts since, but it’s kind of like diminishing returns.
00:46:16:45 – 00:46:33:46
Agent Palmer
I’m like, I’m kind of like, I know if it’s new music, I’ll listen to it in the comfort of my own home, and if it’s old music, I’ll listen to it in the comfort of my own home like I’m done. I’m done. And I don’t know. There are other things that happened that also made me an old man at that point as well.
00:46:33:46 – 00:46:38:09
Agent Palmer
And I don’t know what it was, but I was the oldest 20 year old you’ve ever met.
00:46:38:09 – 00:46:54:43
Kat The Dungeon Mom
I wish I had had more of that experience, because at 20 I was very much like chomping at the bit to get out and experience things. And I wish I could have had a little bit of that, more of that, like kind of frame of mind of just like, no, it’s we’re good.
00:46:54:56 – 00:46:55:42
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I don’t know.
00:46:55:42 – 00:46:56:21
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Good.
00:46:56:26 – 00:47:17:19
Agent Palmer
But here’s the thing. I can’t explain it like it’s like a genuinely I woke up one morning and I was like a very old man in a very, in a 20 year old body. I don’t need no clue. And it’s funny, as I’ve gotten older, when I turned 30, when I turned 40, my friends who have known me since then are like, oh, you’re finally aging into it.
00:47:17:31 – 00:47:28:48
Agent Palmer
Like it’s now finally age appropriate for you to be like, no, of course I’m not going to a concert. I’m old. Like, there’s no there was no reason for you to say that back then. Now it kind of makes a little more sense.
00:47:28:53 – 00:47:47:53
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Yeah, we’ll we’ll make exceptions like, an Irish music band. We like the High Kings, comes to Akron every year, and so we go see them, because they always do a good show. And then Otto Heart is coming to Cleveland in September, and I have a ticket to go just by myself. Okay. Because I like them.
00:47:47:53 – 00:48:12:39
Kat The Dungeon Mom
So, like, I will make exceptions when I’m like, okay, it’s going to be a chill crowd. It’s going to be fine, but I can’t do like. So I saw at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse, Lizzo, Simple Plan and Paramore all in the same year and it’s like, I’m tired. This is so much like the shows were phenomenal, but like the swarm of people, I was like, I’m so good, so done.
00:48:12:44 – 00:48:33:07
Agent Palmer
Before I became a very old 20 year old, I was a normal 18, 19 year old, and I remember going to see blink 182 on the take off your pants and yeah, take off your pants and take off your jacket, pants and jacket tour or whatever. Yeah, I just remember because this is my favorite concert story of all time has nothing to do with the band.
00:48:33:07 – 00:48:47:59
Agent Palmer
Or it does, but it doesn’t. So I don’t remember who opened for him. But there is, a woman in, I’m going to say, her 30s or 40s with 211 year olds, give or take a year.
00:48:48:04 – 00:48:49:33
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Because thank you.
00:48:49:37 – 00:49:06:40
Agent Palmer
For the, And look, this is blink 182, this, you know, obviously this is after enemy of the state, but if you only know the radio hits, you’re and you’ve never listened to the rest of any album from blink 182, you have no idea. Yeah. And you and.
00:49:06:45 – 00:49:07:45
Kat The Dungeon Mom
You go into the concert.
00:49:07:45 – 00:49:36:57
Agent Palmer
This woman had no idea. So a blink comes out and the stage show is just the three of them, with a flaming with the word fuckin flames in the background. That’s it, that’s it. And so when the when, when the curtain opens and they light the word, this woman, like, turned around because she was in a couple rows in front of us, turned around and I, I feel like I saw her die because she’s.
00:49:37:02 – 00:49:38:49
Kat The Dungeon Mom
She’s kind of solely.
00:49:38:54 – 00:49:51:55
Agent Palmer
Yes. She there’s no way she can protect I don’t know, her son and her son’s friend or whoever. These two kids that are with her, she cannot protect them for what is about to happen for the next 90 minutes.
00:49:51:59 – 00:49:52:59
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Amazing.
00:49:52:59 – 00:50:15:51
Agent Palmer
And then I after her soul left her body, I just watched the concert. I probably should have spent a little more time like I should have checked in and saw like how she was alive again. Like, is she in jail? Has she given up? Is she enjoying it now? I have no idea. I just know that that was one of those moments that, like, you’ll never forget because, yeah, you just go like someone didn’t do their homework.
00:50:15:51 – 00:50:36:44
Agent Palmer
Like, I don’t know what to tell you. And I just remember, like, take off your pants and jacket has some racy stuff on the album, like, I know rock shows on that album, but there’s some really crazy stuff I like. I’m gonna say it here, like, I don’t mind language, but there is some stuff on that album. And so I wasn’t surprised.
00:50:36:44 – 00:50:42:01
Agent Palmer
But like, oh, what a lady.
00:50:42:06 – 00:50:44:52
Kat The Dungeon Mom
That sweet woman, oh my God.
00:50:44:57 – 00:51:01:06
Agent Palmer
Yeah. And now and now I have a little human I take care of, and you have a little human you take care of. And I go, like, I’m not going to be like I’m. I tell myself this now, I can we haven’t had a year yet, but like, I’m not going to be like the he’s going to make mistakes and that’s fine.
00:51:01:15 – 00:51:07:01
Agent Palmer
But he’s going to come to his own stuff and that’s fine. But let’s be real, he’s going to learn to curse for me.
00:51:07:06 – 00:51:19:11
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Yes, 100%. I was stunned that my child’s first word was not fuck. It was in fact cracker, which I thought was weirder.
00:51:19:16 – 00:51:22:44
Agent Palmer
All right. Hunger, food. Food is a massive motivator, though.
00:51:22:55 – 00:51:43:22
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Yeah. It is. Kiddo was a late talker and my mother in law is nothing if not persistent. I love this woman to pieces. And so she was feeding him Ritz crackers and would, like, repeat it and kind of wait for a second. And so he finally figured out, like, if I say cracker faster, she’ll just give it to me.
00:51:43:27 – 00:51:48:10
Kat The Dungeon Mom
So that was what motivated kiddo to start talking. And did you say, honestly, bribery?
00:51:48:15 – 00:52:06:08
Agent Palmer
You say that. And now I’m thinking, like, should I start a poll? And like a, like, see if I could get some betting action on, like, what? His first word cannot be and like, can I coach him up like he’s already a, he’s a he’s oral. I’ll say that he’s tall. Yeah. He makes a lot of noise. It’s like, well, your mom and I met through podcasting.
00:52:06:08 – 00:52:36:41
Agent Palmer
It’s not a shock. Yeah. That you’re going to be a talker, but, Yeah. First words, I don’t know, like, he he’s been around, like, I’ll edit without headphones so I can hear him and he’ll be in an extra car seat. We have basically is another just listening to dad talk to some. But yeah. And, I just go like, well he’s hearing it all now, so, we’ll figure it out.
00:52:36:46 – 00:52:59:37
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Yeah. I mean, we fully would just like, watch actual plays and dimension 20 and everything with kiddo in the room. And, you know, there’s no really no holds barred there. Like, and I don’t honestly, I don’t think, you know, swears like, I don’t think I’ve ever heard them swear, at least not in my presence. And school hasn’t said anything to.
00:52:59:38 – 00:53:01:40
Agent Palmer
Oh, there you go. That’s, that’s you know.
00:53:01:40 – 00:53:06:39
Kat The Dungeon Mom
It’s just another part of language and it doesn’t serve their purposes. So they haven’t picked it up yet.
00:53:06:44 – 00:53:26:35
Agent Palmer
I mean, look, you and I can talk again in a decade and, Oh, that you don’t like it. I mean, I can, I know, like, because I know, like, even in the last, you know, five and a half months, like, things changed, right? And so, like, I know that like, change is the only constant that I’m going to have over the next 20, 30 years, whatever.
00:53:26:35 – 00:53:39:28
Agent Palmer
Yeah. And so, like, I’m all right with it. But it’s also like, like I and I know it. Maybe it’s because I avatar I’m like, I can’t wait. So you can talk, kid. Like, oh, it’s the best. Yeah.
00:53:39:33 – 00:53:40:16
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Oh, it’s so good.
00:53:40:16 – 00:53:44:36
Agent Palmer
People are like, why are you rushing it? I’m like, I want to know what’s in his head.
00:53:44:41 – 00:53:50:00
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Yes. Thank you. Like how I felt like I people looked at me like I was crazy when I said that.
00:53:50:04 – 00:54:07:09
Agent Palmer
But how can you not like it? Yeah. You love this child like no other. But like you want to know. Like it would be like having a partner who doesn’t talk to you. And that’s like, not a healthy relationship. So, like, of course we want to know what’s going on.
00:54:07:09 – 00:54:14:09
Kat The Dungeon Mom
So. Well, let me ask you this. And I have a reason. Did you do you, like, work with kids? Have you ever, like. No.
00:54:14:10 – 00:54:15:01
Agent Palmer
Like, well.
00:54:15:06 – 00:54:16:58
Kat The Dungeon Mom
I mean, development or anything.
00:54:17:03 – 00:54:38:02
Agent Palmer
When in college, I had a job helping at a youth. Okay. Like an after school youth program. Whatever it was, it was just like daycare for older kids, I guess is what it was. So, like, you know, we play guitar, we talk, we, you know, whatever. Just make sure they don’t hurt each other or do stupid stuff.
00:54:38:07 – 00:54:38:39
Agent Palmer
So I got a.
00:54:38:39 – 00:54:39:44
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Job that could be.
00:54:39:53 – 00:54:43:42
Agent Palmer
Right. Like, it’s just, All right, but, yeah, nothing. Nothing crazy.
00:54:43:43 – 00:55:06:17
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Like. Yeah. So I ask that because, I was a nanny for a decade, and eight years of that was for the same family. Okay. And I started when the oldest kid. What? The week she turned four months old and then kept through until the younger kids started school. So solid. Eight years. Yeah. And I remember when I started and I was like, infancy is my favorite.
00:55:06:17 – 00:55:24:54
Kat The Dungeon Mom
They’re little, they’re squishy, they’re cute, they’re snuggly. It’s great. And then she became a toddler and I was like, oh, and toddlers are hilarious. Like, I think this might be my favorite stage. And then she got to like preschool age and it’s like, oh, you have thoughts in your little brain like, this might be my favorite stage.
00:55:25:06 – 00:55:38:56
Kat The Dungeon Mom
And I found that as she got older, I was like, oh, I just like you as a person and getting to know you better so that by the time second kiddo was born, I was like, yeah, infants are cute, but like, I want to get in your little brain and.
00:55:38:57 – 00:55:39:31
Agent Palmer
I want to know.
00:55:39:31 – 00:56:06:16
Kat The Dungeon Mom
What’s in there. Yeah. And the same thing with, with my my kid, like, adorable baby, super squishy and snuggly and slept through the night immediately. But like, now that we can talk to each other and have. Oh, it’s so good. It’s the best. Like I’m living it up. It’s so good I can’t recommend it. That’s.
00:56:06:21 – 00:56:29:43
Agent Palmer
I’m not much of a gamer anymore. Could I be I was once, I could probably be again. It doesn’t have to be. Ttrpg. Like dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder, a card game like Magic Gathering or Pokemon. It could be a video game or board game. It’s been a while since I played Stratego or Risk. For example. Still, these are all better examples than the icebreaker games at company retreats, which is why they’re called games.
00:56:29:43 – 00:56:51:40
Agent Palmer
They want to invoke fun. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. But your friends, your family, a game night with them could be a fun way to disconnect from everything else. Isn’t that the point of games escape just like books or movies or television? Only with games you always, or a lot of the time get to choose single player or multiplayer regardless of your choice.
00:56:51:52 – 00:57:12:02
Agent Palmer
Choose to play more. It’s good for you. And of course, most importantly, you don’t have to like everything games, musicals, books, movies, comedy, music to each their own. Try a new thing, but don’t force it. Thanks for listening to The Palmer Files episode 164. And now for the official business. The Palmer Files releases every two weeks on Tuesdays.
00:57:12:08 – 00:57:30:23
Agent Palmer
If you’re still listening, I encourage you to join the discussion. You can find all related ways to contact Kat, the Dungeon mom, and myself. In the show notes, you can see all of Kat’s respective links at Linktree. Slash Cat The Dungeon Mom. The music for this episode was provided by Henno Heitur. Email and comments can be sent to this show at The Palmer Files at gmail.com.
00:57:30:23 – 00:57:38:09
Agent Palmer
And remember, you’re home for all things. Agent Palmer is Agent palmer.com.
00:57:38:13 – 00:57:46:36
Agent Palmer
And.
00:57:46:41 – 00:58:19:11
Agent Palmer
She.
00:58:19:16 – 00:58:21:31
Agent Palmer
All right, Cat, do you have one final question for me?
00:58:21:36 – 00:58:45:00
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Yeah. So I this year decided that I was going to go to all of the gaming conventions. I’ll know they weren’t all gaming conventions. I’m like, oh, the conventions I could swing, which ended up being seven, okay. Which was a lot. So, after and so I still have conventions on the brain. So I guess my question is, do you do like conventions?
00:58:45:06 – 00:58:48:44
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Do you go to conventions? And if so, like, why.
00:58:48:49 – 00:58:53:40
Agent Palmer
I, I haven’t, I have, but not in a very long time.
00:58:53:49 – 00:58:54:39
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Okay. Fair enough.
00:58:54:39 – 00:59:22:10
Agent Palmer
So I know they weren’t conventions, but when I was in, let’s say high school, I worked at a little, little gaming store and, occasionally as a very the youngest employee, I would tag along to at the time, what would have been Magic The Gathering Pro Tour qualifiers. I think they would have been called or regional qualifiers at the time.
00:59:22:12 – 00:59:53:27
Agent Palmer
Yeah. And we would get a team and, you know, it would basically be first one to lose has to go back to the booth. So there was a financial incentive, but like, hey, we’re there. So like let’s see if somebody can win something. And that was my first true like convention experience okay. In some kind of way. And you know when you weren’t playing you were walking around and you’re like and look, I, I understand that like Magic The Gathering is not for everybody, but like I can now look back and equate it to like, oh, like this makes sense.
00:59:53:27 – 01:00:13:36
Agent Palmer
Like there’s a million booths just devoted to Magic The Gathering. But like, how is that any different than a million booths just related to Star Trek or Star Wars? Like, it’s not any different. And so that’s really my big kind of like con experience as far as like, oh, we would go to like Rhode Island or like places in New York or whatever.
01:00:13:41 – 01:00:41:50
Agent Palmer
I think we went to some places and PA were based in PA, but we didn’t really do much here. And then, then you almost have to fast forward until like after college. There are a couple. There were a couple local comic conventions slash geek conventions. They weren’t comic, but they were kind of like pop culture adjacent, where it’s like, oh, we’ve got, we’ve got a replica back to the future.
01:00:41:50 – 01:01:05:13
Agent Palmer
We’ve got a replica kit. And inside there’s some cosplayers and some people draw on stuff like all right, well, yeah. So I went to a bunch of those, which is surprising to me now that I think about it, because in between those two massive chunks of time, I had my first, panic attack and, like. And then they then they never left.
01:01:05:18 – 01:01:05:54
Agent Palmer
And so I just.
01:01:06:05 – 01:01:08:14
Kat The Dungeon Mom
They do that. Yeah. They show off and they move in.
01:01:08:14 – 01:01:31:15
Agent Palmer
Yeah. So I just have social anxiety. So thinking back on, like. But I still managed to go like, you know, one of the cons, which doesn’t exist anymore did well enough. Like, I saw Peter Mayhew talk and I saw, Nichelle Nichols talk like there were some name at these things, but and I don’t know, maybe it was because I was still a blogger, and, I mean, I was a blogger at that.
01:01:31:15 – 01:01:54:22
Agent Palmer
I still am, but I would write about it. So maybe there was a kind of like, yeah, I’m going to experience this for myself, but I’m also looking outside or looking in, I don’t know what it is. And so and recently my wife and my best friend went to Pax unplugged. Yeah, I did not. Now, there’s a reason they are.
01:01:54:27 – 01:02:15:35
Agent Palmer
I am like the reluctant like I will have fun when you get me to play the game, but I’m reluctant to say yes to playing the game. So like they went because they are the table toppers. Like that’s fine. Like I’ll play Magic The Gathering any day of the week. But like if you want to get a, a any ttrpg going or any board game going, it’s like you have to convince me.
01:02:15:35 – 01:02:33:28
Agent Palmer
And then I’ll probably have fun when I say when we do it. But I’m not up for hoarding board games. And so I was like, I’m not necessarily going to be the guy to go, but like, I don’t like, if you two want to go, I’m not going to stop you. Yeah. And so they went and they had a good time.
01:02:33:33 – 01:02:39:53
Agent Palmer
You know, my wife came back with more games than she would have had I gone with her like, you know, so it’s like, fine, that’s.
01:02:39:57 – 01:02:42:26
Kat The Dungeon Mom
The risk you take, the price you pay for staying. Yeah.
01:02:42:35 – 01:02:57:47
Agent Palmer
So you can, you can. That’s fine. And other than that, I know it’s not truly a con, but it has the feel of one we have. We haven’t been back in two years, but we have gone to the Pennsylvania Renaissance Fair.
01:02:57:52 – 01:02:59:19
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Yeah. Which is not.
01:02:59:24 – 01:03:05:20
Agent Palmer
Necessarily a convention, but it’s got that. It’s got the same atmosphere. Yeah.
01:03:05:20 – 01:03:18:13
Kat The Dungeon Mom
No, it’s no. Here’s the thing though. So like board game convention people, ren fair people and Kingston that that trio is almost a circle like that Venn diagram. It’s not it’s not full circle but they are holding hands.
01:03:18:13 – 01:03:42:42
Agent Palmer
Yes, yes. So that’s I mean probably I’m still not sure about I’m thinking one and a half year old is a little bit easier of a sell for me to take to Ren Faire than for the seven month eight month old. But I haven’t. I don’t don’t you dare. Because when this comes out, when this comes out, the season will be over.
01:03:42:42 – 01:03:43:26
Agent Palmer
So I don’t.
01:03:43:27 – 01:03:57:57
Kat The Dungeon Mom
I am going to push back on that a little bit. Yeah. Because like because, like when they’re little and squishy and they don’t want to run around, you can baby wear them. You can put them in the stroller and like, they just are where you want them to be. One and a half year olds want to fucking go and do what they want to do.
01:03:58:12 – 01:04:03:30
Kat The Dungeon Mom
And they have learned to temper tantrum like, I mean, you know, man, but.
01:04:03:30 – 01:04:04:01
Agent Palmer
Here’s your.
01:04:04:06 – 01:04:04:35
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Window.
01:04:04:35 – 01:04:27:12
Agent Palmer
But I will say, as someone who the last time we went, which was not my first time, but it was my first time as an adult. Yeah, I saw the two things I wanted to do, and I just went with them wherever they wanted to go. So if a one and a half year old wants to run around, I’m completely fine seeing the entire fair through whatever he wants to do.
01:04:27:12 – 01:04:52:52
Agent Palmer
I’m like, yeah, they can go off and I will be like, all right, where what? What? There’s a lot of shiny things and a lot of people dressed weird. What do you want to do? Just don’t say anything inappropriate and kid like, let’s go. You know? So that’s that’s it. I don’t know, like, I know if the local one ever came back, I would probably go, it’s a lot, I know.
01:04:52:52 – 01:05:00:46
Agent Palmer
Let’s put way I don’t manage my anxiety with drugs. I manage it just I guess, as best I can without.
01:05:01:01 – 01:05:03:17
Kat The Dungeon Mom
And show your audacity in spite.
01:05:03:19 – 01:05:28:19
Agent Palmer
Yeah, yeah. So I, you know, whenever I can travel less as an example or whenever it’s in a place I’m familiar with. So if the local one ever comes back, I mean, I’m probably there in a heartbeat. And I, I’m as much as I hate the internet, and I always say I’d shut it down or turn it back to dial up and just make people wait again, like, I, I’ve met a lot of people, some that are as close as you like.
01:05:28:19 – 01:05:55:02
Agent Palmer
You and I share a state border. I mean, like I’m on the other side of Pennsylvania, so. Right. But like, and so, like the idea of going to Ohio because I know other people there now you as well. Like, it would be like, all right, well, I can make I can, you know, if I can find a way to find a place that’s central to the seven people I know in Ohio, I can make it worth my while and, you know, have a home base and.
01:05:55:06 – 01:06:15:21
Agent Palmer
Yeah, kind of do that stuff. And if it could be around a convention, that’d be great. But yeah, I just, I don’t know, I there’s a part of me that I’m a little wasted on a convention. And I’ll only say this the last time I was at a convention, I didn’t have the podcast, but I had the blog and the blog had a Q&A series.
01:06:15:26 – 01:06:40:10
Agent Palmer
I spent however much time to go in. I went around to a few things, bought a few things, walked down Artist Alley and I met, I don’t know, two people because I spent 45 minutes talking to each of them, and then it was like, I’m getting hungry. I gotta go like. And so it was like there were all these other people I probably could have met or like talked to, and it’s like, no, I spent 90 minutes with these two people.
01:06:40:14 – 01:06:58:07
Agent Palmer
Yeah. And I don’t as much as that’s cool. And I kind of. I know now that I’ve gotten to know a few more artists that they’re like it pouring, like, so if you want to come and talk, that’s the best. It’s like, yeah, it is, but I’m paying like $30 to get in and talk to two people for nothing.
01:06:58:12 – 01:07:00:02
Agent Palmer
It’s like there is a limit.
01:07:00:07 – 01:07:00:49
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Yeah.
01:07:00:53 – 01:07:14:03
Agent Palmer
To my craziness. As far as, like what I’m willing to pay for. And so that’s kind of like where I fall. I’m like, I, I don’t know, maybe who knows?
01:07:14:08 – 01:07:35:35
Kat The Dungeon Mom
No. And I think that’s real. You mentioned social anxiety, which is another thing you and I share. And then you, we talked a little bit earlier about like, gaming outside of Tpg’s. And my spouse, actually, my sources and their family are huge board gamers. Okay. And because we live in Ohio, Origin’s game fair is just in Columbus.
01:07:35:39 – 01:07:40:27
Kat The Dungeon Mom
So that was my first ever convention for anything. And and the.
01:07:40:36 – 01:07:45:29
Agent Palmer
How long ago was that compared to this year where you went to so many.
01:07:45:38 – 01:07:49:22
Kat The Dungeon Mom
So that was 2017.
01:07:49:27 – 01:08:01:49
Agent Palmer
Okay. So a good chunk of time what like let’s jump real quick. What what convinces you to go from like that’s my first one. And I kind of liked it to like this year where like I’m going to do all of them.
01:08:01:58 – 01:08:16:32
Kat The Dungeon Mom
So it wasn’t a linear progression. Okay. So we went to origins and it must have been 2019 because we were like, okay, this time I loved it. And I was like, all right, this time we’re going to get a connected hotel and we’re going to do it right. But then it was Covid. Yeah, okay. So we didn’t go.
01:08:16:32 – 01:08:40:11
Kat The Dungeon Mom
And then in 2021, we also didn’t go because I had a child. Yeah. And I was like June. No. But we did make GenCon okay. It’s just in Indianapolis. So a little bit further but not crazy. And I absolutely fucking hate it. It, it was so big and it was so overwhelming and I didn’t know what I was doing, and I was like, I’m never doing this again.
01:08:40:11 – 01:09:03:57
Kat The Dungeon Mom
This is terrible. Fast forward to last year, okay? My dad passed away in June, so I missed origins. And I was like, all right, well, I’ll go to GenCon instead. And I just I was into RPGs, so and a bunch of companies were like, hey, come GM a certain number of hours of games for us at a convention and we’ll buy your badge.
01:09:03:57 – 01:09:04:35
Agent Palmer
Oh, nice.
01:09:04:40 – 01:09:25:43
Kat The Dungeon Mom
And I was like, all right, great. So I applied to several, got accepted by two, and then ended up, going with Monte Cook games. Who publishes the cipher system? No, thank you, evil, all of Numenera, all that stuff. And I was like, I’m just going to try it. I don’t, I think 16 or 18 hours of games, that convention.
01:09:25:48 – 01:09:29:18
Kat The Dungeon Mom
And I was like, oh, I’m a working breed. I need a job.
01:09:29:24 – 01:09:34:20
Agent Palmer
Okay, you can’t just go walk through. You need a reason.
01:09:34:20 – 01:09:50:38
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Like, yeah, I got to I got to be there doing doing stuff. Okay? And I was like, all right, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. And then while I was there, I was like, hey, I really love you guys because they treat us so well. They take such good care of us during conventions. They buy us dinner. They they really take care, good care of us.
01:09:50:38 – 01:10:08:09
Kat The Dungeon Mom
And they’re lovely people. The whole the whole crew at Money Cook. And I was like, hey, what do I have to do to like, work with you guys more? And they said, funny you should ask. We’re about to release a grant program for new content creators to stream cipher system games or, or cipher related content. And I was like that.
01:10:08:09 – 01:10:24:00
Kat The Dungeon Mom
I’ll be there. I applied, I got the grant, I did the the show. It did fine. Some people watched it. Not a ton, but that was great. But I started building a name for myself in the AP community, and I was like, all right, I’m gonna commit to this. And I launched the Cat, the Dungeon Man brand.
01:10:24:00 – 01:10:34:44
Kat The Dungeon Mom
And I was like, well, the best way to meet people is to go out and meet people. So yeah, so origins GenCon, which are within a month of each other.
01:10:34:53 – 01:10:35:35
Agent Palmer
Yeah.
01:10:35:39 – 01:10:58:46
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Dragon Con, which is three and a half weeks after GenCon in Atlanta, Georgia, because I’m an idiot. Yeah. Cipher Con, which is online game hall con out in Wisconsin, Pax unlimited. And then I’m doing a local con called or I did a local con called corn on the cob, which is, sponsored by OD mall, if you’ve, if you’re familiar with them.
01:10:58:55 – 01:11:17:26
Kat The Dungeon Mom
So, like, you know, I made bad choices, but I got to meet a shitload of people and made connections and walked up to introduce myself to people who then greeted me by name and were like, hey, I love your stuff. And I’m like, what is my life? So my life got very cool, very fast and I don’t take that for granted.
01:11:17:26 – 01:11:26:40
Kat The Dungeon Mom
But also sometimes it means going to seven conventions in an eight month period and regretting your life and your four year old being like, who the fuck are you when you get home from work?
01:11:26:45 – 01:11:29:12
Agent Palmer
So are you going to pare down next year?
01:11:29:16 – 01:11:31:37
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Oh yeah. There’s no fucking way. Absolutely. No.
01:11:31:37 – 01:11:36:00
Agent Palmer
You’re still going to do like, well, four. But the spread out like every other. Yeah.
01:11:36:05 – 01:11:58:26
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Yeah. Like probably drag cause mostly it was, mostly to meet one of my players for my AP tender hollow, game hole con is is like Monty Kirk’s big convention. Like the whole crew goes. So that’s mostly just to, like, hang with them. Like the two big ones are really GenCon and Pax. You. I’d like to do a West Coast con.
01:11:58:26 – 01:12:05:48
Kat The Dungeon Mom
I’ve never gone out there for a con. The Midwest is real. We’re lousy with them. It’s just a con around every corner.
01:12:05:56 – 01:12:15:00
Agent Palmer
Yeah, well, I mean, I mean, it doesn’t mean that if you skip, it’s kind of like a good like a reliable train, though. If you skip this one, there will be another.
01:12:15:00 – 01:12:20:49
Kat The Dungeon Mom
There’s always another one. Yeah, exactly. I’m also like the queen of FOMO. Like I hate the. Oh, we.
01:12:20:49 – 01:12:23:31
Agent Palmer
Gotta break you with that. That’s that’s not good.
01:12:23:40 – 01:12:30:43
Kat The Dungeon Mom
I have paid a lot of therapists good money, and it’s still here, so, if you can do it, like, blessings of being more.
01:12:30:48 – 01:12:33:04
Agent Palmer
We’ll exchange numbers and we’ll figure. Yeah.
01:12:33:08 – 01:12:39:27
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Figure it out. Yeah. No, I just I want to be where the people are.
01:12:39:31 – 01:12:43:02
Agent Palmer
Okay. And I, only sometimes.
01:12:43:07 – 01:12:55:20
Kat The Dungeon Mom
Yeah. Like you were talking about being an introvert. And I was just like I also would consider. But my my spouse thinks I’m an extrovert. I consider myself an introvert, but I’m also just, like, a performer at heart.
01:12:55:24 – 01:13:12:20
Agent Palmer
Well, yeah, but but you’re not. But I. And but even though you’re performing for people like how many. Yeah. No, I yeah. No. Because like, people are like, how can you be an introvert and talk to people and put it out on the internet? I’m like, I talked to one person at a time. Yeah. And I share that.
01:13:12:20 – 01:13:14:07
Agent Palmer
Like that’s not.
01:13:14:12 – 01:13:23:53
Kat The Dungeon Mom
The. Yeah, but no. Even when I’m like when I’m at the conventions and doing like there is very much a big element of performance to it. Like it’s not that I’m being, you know, being.
01:13:23:53 – 01:13:25:53
Agent Palmer
Fake, but yeah, you got to.
01:13:26:02 – 01:13:50:32
Kat The Dungeon Mom
But there is like an elevated like dialed up to 11, like I’m generally dialed up to nine. But like when you meet me in person, it’s very much of like, hey, how do you do it? It’s like, girl, take a Xanax. Calm down. You gotta you gotta relax. I fully had, so I jammed 34 hours of games at GenCon this year, and I genuinely had no voice for the two days after I got back home.
01:13:50:37 – 01:14:02:25
Kat The Dungeon Mom
My husband is like, what is wrong with you? It was like so many things. So to start, yeah, how much time do you have? Like, yeah, it’s going to be a long conversation for. Amazing.
–End Transcription–
This transcription was processed by PalmerTech 3.1 and may contain errors for HUMINT (human intelligence).