Holly Conrad Joins PAX Prime Acquisitions Incorporated

Penny Arcade's PAX West is coming up soon, and that includes their Acquisitions Incorporated Live Show, which Holly Conrad is going to be on. I talked to Chris Perkins and Jerry Holkins about how they managed to move her character from Dice, Camera, Action to Acquisitions Incorporated.

Chris Perkins: Yes. Now, that took a little bit of logistic ledger domain to make that work because Holly's character, Strix, is a Tiefling sorcerer. At the end of Season 2 of Waffle Crew, she disappears and reappears on the deck of an Acquisitions Incorporated airship, having been summoned by Omin Dran, the CEO of Acquisitions Inc., using a infernal contract that he purchased at a bargain price of nine gold pieces and change.

Todd Kenreck: Because, of course, Strix would be bought for nine gold.

Chris Perkins: A little-known fact that hasn’t been revealed yet, but I will reveal here for the first time, is Strix’s family is a long, old family of humans that basically sold their souls and became Tieflings. She is just one of many descendants of this, and an ancient contract had been rolling around in the planes for a long time tied to that family and devils. Just like companies who’ve been to buy debt, Omins moved in and bought a bunch of old contracts, and this was one of them.

Jerry Holkins: I had met Holly a thousand years ago probably at a PAX, I think it was at PAX West. She was cosplaying a shepherd, and I think that she was actually cosplaying … If I recall correctly, she was there as an official cosplayer for Biowear. I remember when I had seen her and we had met and I had come away with a supergood impression. Then I had seen her later and she … We were talking for a little bit, and then, she’s, like, “Oh, my god. I got to go.” I’m, like, “No problem,” and then, she just gets up on stage. Like, she was at a stage, and then, she gets up on stage, and then, the cameras come out and I was, like, “She’s a big ******* deal.” I was, like, “Oh, shit.”

You know how it is. You meet people who you get along with, but you’re sort of like in a shared context. Then, you see them in their own context, and you’re just like, “Holy shit. I just met a really cool person.”

Chris Perkins: When your players know their character so well they don’t have to think long and hard about what their character is going to do, so they’re sort of pushing at the boundaries of the adventure to see where they can poke holes.

Jerry Holkins: First of all, he is willing to go with whatever you want to do, and that’s a lot of fun, especially for the type of D&D that we play as Acq Inc.

Chris Perkins: They keep me on my toes because I have to be able to move with them and convince them that I’ve thought about all the things that they’re poking at, all the directions, when I haven’t really thought about them at all. I try to trick them into thinking I know more about what’s going to happen than they do, and it turns out to be complete bullshit most of the time.

Jerry is particularly fun to play with because he empathetically has … He has the DM gene, so he has a tremendous amount of empathy for anybody who is sitting in the DM chair. I think he can sense on some level when I’m steering the party to do something that he sort of helps me guide the characters in that direction.

Jerry Holkins: I don't know. I’m the sort of player that is like a adjunct DM, like I’m always trying to describe things, and that’s just like my normal mode.

Chris Perkins: Because he trusts my DMing instincts and he knows, as a DM, were he to do the contrary, it would make my life infinitely more difficult, so it is a blessing, more than it is a curse, to have another DM as a player.

Todd Kenreck: What does it feel like when you first get on stage? Like the first few seconds before you get on stage and once you’re there?

Jerry Holkins: Terrifying.

Chris Perkins: Do I like the energy of the crowd? Yeah, I do. When I’m aware of the crowd, it’s a great boon to have that energy there and I usually, over the course of a typical live game, forget that the crowd is there about 72 times. I forget they’re there, and then, there would be laughter or somebody will shout from the audience, it’s, like, “Oh, right. There’s people watching. Oh. God, I hope I’m good.”

Jerry Holkins: I’ve never gotten used to it. You would think, I mean I’ve been doing Penny Arcade for, what, next year it’ll be a full 20 years? Every time I have to go onstage, it’s the first time for the most part. Eventually, I can just space out enough so that I don’t have to experience time in a linear way. I can just kind of float along with it, and then, when I leave the stage, I’m, like, “That was an hour, that was two hours.”

After an Acq Inc game, I’m surprised to learn that two and a half or three hours have passed just because I haven’t experienced it moment to moment at all. I’m just completely like riding the time from beginning to end, just sort of trying to float along with it and react to things in real time.