Hey,
During a Q&A at one point you said that in making the remote recording kits once COVID hit, you caused a shortage of a particular microphone - just curious, which microphone was it?
The Audio Technica AT2020 with all the associated accoutrements.
It’s still our standard microphone but we are looking to upgrade in the future.
Was the stuff in the transcripts such as [Around a Mouthful of Archivist] for your laughs, the readers, or both?
So stage directions were originally written by Jonny under duress because I insisted I needed to have at least some kind of hint as to what the heck was happening if I was going to direct and edit.
These days though we just accept that people are reading them and factor it in. I would say I am generally more comedic and specific than Jonny in my stage directions but then again this is the guy who wrote something along the lines of “weird sounding bullshit happens” in an official script back in the day so there’s probably not that much difference really.
after the release of magp 19 my friend thought it was odd to include such a prolific historical figure. I reminded him that Robert Smirke was a pivotal character in the magnus archives and arguably more important to history as he had been in charge of the construction most famous buildings in London built during the early 19th century, including the renovation of the royal mint Isaac Newton had been the warden of. Who do you think is more famous/more important to history?
I would argue Newton is more important to actual history.
Interestingly there was a quite a bit of back-and-forth about referencing Newton in Protocol.
On the one hand he is a prolific figure in Alchemy and slots into the lore very nicely. On the other hand though, he has been portrayed a lot and is very much a “go-to” choice for the time period. (See Rusty Quill Gaming as an example!)
We went for it in the end because practicality won out but it was still a proper discussion.
Hey Alex! I was wondering if you have ever thought about running an rqg sequel?
Have I thought about it? Yes.
Does that mean you should expect it? No.
There would be so many practical obstacles to overcome that I don’t know if it would even be possible.
Also sequels are hard work and high risk so there other new things I would want to try and make first.
Do you look at fanart often, and what are your thoughts on common headcanons for the way that characters look? Do you imagine some characters looking a certain way?
I don’t really look at fanart unless it is put directly in front of me even though I fully support it as an endeavour.
In terms of HeadCanons, I keep saying people are welcome to do what they want but I am always a little saddened when a fandom homes in on an “accepted” or “standard” portrayal because it just feels to me like closing a bunch of creative doors which seems a shame. That said, fandom is a weird and terrifying beast I do not understand so I’m not sure my opinion counts for much.
Hi Alex, I have a humble request.
during one of the protocol pre-launch livestream Q&A things, you and Jonny were talking, and you mentioned that Jonny had come up with a plot idea, that, on reflection, would quote “fuck up the universe worse than in archives.”
When protocol finishes, please could you release more on this? I desperately want to know what the plot point was, because HOW?! How could Jonny possibly fuck up a universe more than he did in archives? He basically engineered hell on earth last time!!
but I appreciate that this plot point is probably all spoilers, so yeah. After protocol is finished!
Yes. I promise I will share this when possible. In fact I think it will be earlier than you suspect.
As I’m relistening to RQG recently, I was struck by the fact that Hamid starts the story with a little bit of power, grows into a lot of power, and then basically has all of that power stripped away from him. He loses his magic, his family and money matter a lot less in the new world, and he presumably lost a ton of public respect and influence during Cairo with the scandals. Was this a deliberate choice, or just how things worked out with the story? It’s really interesting that when so much of Hamid’s arc was about learning to be responsible with power, he ended up having very little.
So Hamid’s arc was always to my mind an examination of personal responsibility in a world with a horrendous power imbalance.
Given that, there were a few ways it could have panned out depending on the player Bryn’s actions:
1) Hamid could have been corrupted by his power.
2) He could have rejected it.
3) He could have grown into the proper wielding of it.
4) He have been denied it and been forced to adjust.
I think in his heart Bryn was hoping for number 3 but we ended up at number 4.
To be clear, this was not a foregone conclusion, I would not be arrogant enough to claim complete control over the story that unfolded but I would say #3 would have been hard to achieve at my end without falling foul of power fantasy tropes.
As it is, I often catch myself examining the ending of RQG and looking for better alternates if I were to travel back in time and do it again but ultimately that’s not helpful. It is what it is and I should be glad we managed to bring the plane in to land at all!
I just want to ask, is it okay if me and a few of my friends make a podcast in the same universe/inspired by the Magnus archives? We’ve been planning this for a while but I wanted to ask if you were okay with it.
we wouldn’t be doing it for profit or anything, just for fun :)
So that’s a question that has to go via email to mail@rustyquill.com For various reasons, I’m not really allowed to give permission for company related stuff as a private person.
Hello! I just wanted to check, who was the lead writer on episode 22 of Protocol? The episode credits say Jonny, but I noticed your name is listed on the transcript.
Either way, what a fantastic episode - I'm absolutely loving the existentialist themes the show is getting into!
Huh, weird.
I did write TMP 22 with Jonny editing. Looks like an admin error, we’ll try and get round to fixing it at some point. Honestly, most people assume Jonny writes it all anyway so I don’t think anyone will be shocked by this revelation.
I found out about tma from my friend because he asked me to make an edit of michael distortion and got into it a few months later. I LOVE TMA. I mostly listened to the whole thing three times when I was mostly offline because I have the 200 episodes downloaded on YouTube and now I'm finding out that there's some stuff I missed, there's bloopers, q&a and I was in the wiki because i wanted to see how many times the admiral was mentioned and theres one what the ghost episode? IM GOING INSANE. I love tma. I think it's rotting my brain... it's everywhere, it's in my veins. I need to know everything but when I try to search these things up on YouTube it only shows me rusty quill gaming which I will be watching later but where do I find the other stuff where is the best place to listen to tma and find every extra lore even if it's just the tiniest squeeze of lore? I need to know y'all really did an amazing job with tma, I don't think I'm ever going to get tired of listening to it. I need to relisten to it before hell— I mean... School starts again. Lord save us for another year of merciless torture. Also I was trying to type this fast and forgot to say hi. hi Mr Alex, I hope you're having an amazing day/night when you see this. I promise to listen to all the podcasts rusty quill has after I learn every little squeeze of tma lore. Where is the best place to listen to and learn every little squeeze of information of all of rusty quill podcasts? (I absolutely did not install Tumblr just to ask this what do you mean 😓😓😓)
Lovely to hear from you and thankyou for the kind words.
To list good locations for TMA Lore:
1) The podcast feed is obviously first port of call and includes some bonus materials between seasons
2) Our Patreon has an absolutely enormous amount of content in there now and I believe it should at this point be organised into collections so you can just look up TMA and it’s all there for you (although that is behind a paywall)
2) Any video QNA’s/events etc. not included in the main feed should be on our twitch channel.
3) Rustyquill.com has various links dotted around that have snippets too
4) The fan wiki is a very strong resource. Like any wiki there is the odd error here or there but for the most part its astonishingly accurate and detailed.
5) Special mention to whoever keeps our TV Tropes pages up to date. It was when I saw a proper entry for The Magnus Archives on that site that I actually started to call myself a “proper” writer.
In RQG, did the party ever clock that what the British Museum sent to François Henri was the Rosetta Stone imprint for the translation that Carter drunkenly bemoaned in Cairo?
I quite liked that little microcosm we saw of the consequences of upending infrastructure with no change management, particularly as that idea echos across the campaign.
Oh you caught that did you! I don’t think they ever did. I could be wrong though. I love putting in little stuff like that, stuff that doesn’t really matter but gives you something to discover on a re-read.
Who out of the tma/tmagp (your choice) crew would be better at monopoly?
Lena. Because Lena.
Hi Alex, will you and/or Jonny be joining any of the Live Drops on Patron? It was a super fun listening experience. 😁
Hope you’re doing well, and that you get to play Control with Jonny soon (stream scheduling on Nightmare mode, as Jonny put it!!)
I am not booked in for a live drop but I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re asked to attend premieres/ finales.
Control stream is rebooked although I forget the specific date. (I think there’s an update about it on Patreon today.)
Alesis Newman….. Alex Newell…. Self-insert? (Kidding, but man. That is one SIMILAR name)
Ironically I believe that was one of the fan-submitted character names from the Kickstarter so there is probably a listener out there right now reconsidering their opinions on coral!