Unburied Dumpster Pit, Knuckle Dice, and Not Very Fun Holes

D&Daniel

Welcome to a whole new year at the probably bad podcast and to celebrate I've... I've got nothing got nothing special prepared, but it's been really hard. Been a horrible year apart from tabletop Tim that was a beautiful surprise (enemies to lovers) Anyway thanks to our patrons hedwig and carlo.

Pencil

Hello welcome to the probably bad podcast a podcast which is definitely bad. I'm pencil

Paper

I'm paper. Today's probably bad RPG idea is invert all the challenge ratings in the monster manual. Dragons are small and root in trash cans songbirds are threats to continents.

Pencil

Just want a small dragon who roots in the trash can to be honest, I will love them. I will call them Timmy and I will give them snacks

Paper

I feel like the idea of a dragon that just holds your rubbish like a borrower

Pencil

I like the idea of it's still like you know the size of a house it's just harmless and rooting in your trash can like it's smol but not small.

Paper

Yeah, it's an UwU Smol bean and but also still gargantuan

Pencil

like yeah, it is you got this dragon and you know it's a small smaug style mighty for like swords and my shields like scales that that's what he says. And then it just someone comes out and sprays water on its nose until it stops rummaging in the trash.

Paper

Trying to imagine how something that big would go through the trash does it just sort of pick through with a single fingernail.

Pencil

It has like tweezers you just go outside and there's a dragon going through your trash can with tweezers. The alternative is everyone has a really big trash cans

Paper

I mean if we're going pseudo medieval there's there's always middens (and if we go) like a landfill but you don't bury the stuff at the end.

Pencil

If we go wildly anachronistic there's dumpsters

Paper

like could indeed be dumpsters

Pencil

well if we're combining the two unbury the dumpster pit also

Paper

that's the first part of the title sorted

Pencil

Also is the songbird normal size because I feel yes (I feel like it is yeah) yeah like it's normal size normal speed but anything it touches just explodes

Paper

what if it's normal size but flies at supersonic speeds and just flies through people?

Pencil

Yeah. I like that it go it like it just keeps going faster and you need to stop it before it reaches relativistic speeds and explodes

Paper

but if you leave it too late to try and stop it, it will you won't see it until it's already gone through and just left a bird shaped hole in your friend who is now dead.

Pencil

Yeah, everyone dies at least in hilariously cartoony ways.

Paper

I do think there should be more slapstick in d&d it's true

Pencil

Yeah. Roll to like when you do a critical hit you knock like them into a piano and then they come out with piano keyteeth, and they play a little song. Actually, every time you do a critical hit, it's a whacky slapstick is a great idea. If you do a critical failure, the GM does like a very graphic description of the horrible injury you inflict to make you feel bad

Paper

like it. But I was just thinking because I think a while ago we did as a homebrew elemental worms that were like earthworm sized, but also incredibly powerful elementals

Pencil

Yeah. And if you subscribe to our Patreon, you can see them.

Paper

Well, I was just thinking I really liked the idea of something. Maybe, you know, maybe not every frog is ultra powerful. But there are frogs with God powers crawling around with the regular frogs.

Pencil

counter argument. Every frog has got powers

Paper

I'm talking about in the game.

Pencil

Fair enough. I think I do like the idea of like, you know a god incarnating as a frog. And you just don't tell the players that's what's happened until they show up and Like in in deities and demigods, which is d&d sourcebook, for those of you who don't know, one of the plot hooks is that you piss off the god while it's in an incredibly small minor form. And now you need to go and seek out the secret of divinity and become a god yourself in order to stop this random frog showing up and smiting you

Paper

That sounds incredibly fun.

Pencil

Yeah, you need to become God quick before the God mouse. I think like God mice should still be vulnerable to mousetraps. They can't die because they gods, like, you go down and it's just stuck in there and then it can't use any of its divine powers unless you let it out.

Paper

Oh, yeah, like a god in the form of a fly can still get stuck to flypaper

Pencil

Yes. In the same way that God in the form of a human can still like be subjected to capitalism.

Paper

I mean, I was thinking be crucified but I guess also that

Pencil

that was yeah, the two things that can be bad for humans crucifixion and money

Paper

i mean would you want to be crucified because I wouldn't

Pencil

No here we're probably we're after God is we firmly do not want to be crucified. Please do not crucify us if you meet us in person. Editor Nick on your hand would very much love to be crucified so if you meet them in person, just just do it.

Paper

Yeah, but Nick's a little freak Hey, we're back to the idea (sorry Nick, I love you) Oh no nick is gonna edit me to sound really bad.

Pencil

Alright next Patreon content is going to be roast editor Nick for 25 minutes.

Paper

But I'm I think the idea of very small things being powerful would be a really interesting worldbuilding prompt. (yeah) Because it's like, how do you work around that?

Pencil

Yeah, like there's definitely something interesting in the idea of like, you know, this mouse, but it can destroy a city and there's something if you go to a wreck city and you know that the thing that destroyed it is here, but the thing that destroyed it is an inch long. So you know, you have no way of knowing if you're near it or not until it is too late.

Paper

Trying to work out how you would build a house in order to avoid the god mouse.

Pencil

Leave out cheese as an offering.

Paper

So I was thinking like, oh, maybe you could build it in a tree but they can climb.

Pencil

Okay, I have solution. God c't

Paper

God cat and devil mouse.

Pencil

Yeah. And I have a backup solution for dog for God cats, which is called dog. And then we have god horse.

Paper

Presumably in this world, the song is there was an old lady that worshipped a fly.

Pencil

There was an old lady who had a god fliy bound within her lest it torment the land. I don't know why they bound it there. Perhaps she'll die.

You know how you have a lot of horror tropes of ooh, this nursery rhyme is actually a spooky reference to some horror film. or eldritch bromination I think I think I knew an old lady who swallowed fly works one of the best for that.

Paper

Yeah cause the the woman does swallow a live horse. And that's not normal.

Pencil

No. Another firm stance we have here on probably bad RPG ideas.

Paper

I am now wondering though, like, because she swallows all of these things is the old lady. Is she the elder god?

Pencil

I feel the old lady is either the elder god or she's the prison of the elder gods. By which I mean it just puts a little lady in your campaign and she's just an NPC and then at the end, she just opens her mouth and Cthulhu walks out

Paper

that would explain her being so old

Pencil

yeah. You just say casually like that. Oh, yeah, she opens her mouth and Cthulhu comes out. No foreshadowing or build up.

Paper

My other question is, you know, the challenge ratings in the monster Manual do include various NPC statblocks (yeah) So maybe it wouldn't actually be that bad because Just a basic pickpocket on the street is also an incredibly powerful eldritch being

Pencil

you just you just enter the town and like the arc mage master of the arcane is getting noogied by some random villager because the random villager is now Level 20 and the arch mage is level naught point four. But yeah, just every there is a plot point here of one day every peasant gets godlike powers like magic is just unleashed and everyone gets incredible magic powers for a day and what happens

Paper

I like that like a magical purge

Pencil

yeah you're just like yeah there's a there's a character idea you are two like level 20 one shots of you are just a bunch of random peasants who have just suddenly become unbelievably powerful What do you do

Paper

I think the problem with running it as a one shot is what would the threat be

Pencil

like I feel like a threat would likely be

Paper

It's the- the a neighboring farmer.

Pencil

Like I was thinking it was just like you got whatever problems you had as a peasant like you know the local barons a dick and the local sheriff is not very helpful and the person next to the person who like lives near you, you're having personal problems with and then suddenly boom, you have incredible power for 24 hours. And it's more a kind of, I guess, character study of okay, what do you do now that the consequences aren't going to happen to you? Like do you try and level the barons house do you try and like you know, escape? What what happens?

Paper

Okay, so this isn't it's flipped for everyone it's just flipped for these peasants like more of a misfits

Pencil

Yeah. I guess also so just flipped for everyone. I feel like if nobody original post is flipped for everyone, but like the other way round, so now like the king has lost all of his power. Like, is it a day of fools is the thing where like, all of the power structures are inverted? (yeah) like that. But like mystically mystically enforced.

Paper

I like that a lot. That that would have made the Hunchback of Notre dame go very differently.

Pencil

Yeah. The hunchback can now shoot like fireballs.

Paper

You know what good for him. He deserves it.

Pencil

Yeah, he's had he's had a bad day. But yeah, I do actually really like it. I really like the idea of a setting where the day of fools is mystically enforced, like there's one day a year where it's not just oh the nobles are playing along. Now for one day, everyone who is powerful is legitimately like stripped of their power and it is legitimately given to legitimately given to the common folk. As like a divine thing.

Paper

The one day a year where democracy happens

Pencil

yeah. Democracy day it can be called

Paper

I like the idea of everyone preparing for democracy day by like, everyone basically gets one wish. And then it would presumably be absolute chaos. If everyone has the power to pass laws.

Pencil

Yeah, everyone can pass one law a year, they're all just Yeah, and I guess in a mystical in like a fantasy setting, you can also be like, you know, all dragons and arch mages and stuff lose their magic. Which means you can now go noogie a red dragon

Paper

Yeah, I'm kind of into this as a concept. Presumably, you can also like, repeal one law instead.

Pencil

Yeah, probably there's gonna be a lot of everyone just repeals everyone else's laws, because they're all terrible.  But

Paper

isn't that a form of democracy because people have to agree for the law to stay for more than 10 minutes.

Pencil

Your force what we set up is a situation where the gods do the equivalent of locking all the humans in a room and they can't come out until they agree on something.

Paper

There's worse ways to run a country (there sure are) new one shot idea that happened and the humans agree to attack and dethrone God.

Pencil

Ultimate Fool's day Yeah, I guess he ev- like the example of a variant of the God mouse is just you have a mouse as a familiar, it is a god, it currently does not have any powers because it's a mouse it would like to change this, because everyone's voted them out on democracy day.

Paper

That's fantasy Big Brother

Pencil

in fact all the gods are put in the Big Brother house as ordered by the law on democracy day.

Paper

And they also can't come out until they agree on something.

Pencil

Yeah. This all seems a very good system, or at least a better system than our current one.

Paper

I would be willing to try it

Pencil

Yeah, I mean, I would be happy to swap places with the powerful elite for a day. If you're listening Jeff Bezos, you know, call me. I'm happy to be incredibly wealthy.

Paper

You'll take that one for the team, will you?

Pencil

Yeah, it is a noble sacrifice. But apparently, someone's got to do it. And it's going to be me.

Paper

If you want us to be incredibly wealthy,head to patreon.com/probably Bad RPGideas,

Pencil

especially if you're Jeff Bezos.

Paper

So yeah, our first question is, what's the worst dice? Just absolute dogshit.

Pencil

I'm gonna say all of them purely to like, lose all of our listeners

Paper

thing is I did receive for Christmas, some very weird shapes of dice. I'm personally I'm personally against the existence of the D7. It confuses me.

Pencil

What what does a D7 look like? I know it's hard because this is an entirely audio.

Paper

Well imagine a perfectly balanced shape. (Okay) with seven faces. Actually No, it doesn't even have seven faces is the problem.

Pencil

That is certainly a problem for a seven sided dice.

Paper

I am now finding the picture that I took of the D7 so that I can show pencil.

Pencil

We can then both smugly like talk about the fact that you can't see it.

Paper

Well, if people are listening, they can probably Google it which I continue to use as the verb for search engine. And because if we all do it, Google will lose copyright on the word Google if it becomes a generic term. So yeah, there's a D7.

Pencil

Yeah, it's like a (I hate it) Yeah, it's not quite a sphere. But it's it's weird. Yes, I agree. It is a weird, bad dice.

Paper

My favorite part is that it has, you know it has a few faces, but the numbers aren't  the faces, some of them around edges, and some of them are on corners. And some of them are on the bit between a face and an edge. And it's bad and I hate it.

Pencil

Anyway, so the worst dice is I'm going to argue the D6 because it is mainstream and basic.

Paper

Oh, you're a dice hipster. Are you?

Pencil

Yeah, I only I don't roll a d 20. I just roll 10 D2 they're very new kinds of dice you've probably not heard of them. They're called coins.

Paper

I think my favourite dice is the D 100. It's very nice. Because I have a metal one with all different colors and it makes a good noise when I roll it.

Pencil

Metal dice do make good noises the 1 million is also a bad dice.

Paper

Yeah, that would have to be just impractically large in order to work

Pencil

yeah, D1 million or my car

Paper

but in a way aren't just any sphere any wizard orb technically has many many faces because if you zoom in far enough

Pencil

yeah that's why all wizard start battles with behold my D infinity before throwing their orb at you

Paper

it's true.

Pencil

if you fought with them and they didn't do that they're not really a wizard. Go back and sue them

Paper

i'm trying to work out what the worst die would be if you could like, make it out of anything.

Pencil

The worst? So sodium dice would be bad.

Paper

That would be pretty bad. Ice dice

Pencil

But I don't know, I feel like there's some kind of thing with ice dice where you've got to get through the dungeon before your dice melt.

Paper

Well, but also every time you use it, it would speed up the melting process.

Pencil

Yeah, it's, it's either, like a very insightful, like, discussion on mortality and preserving resources or it's shit. Which is the case with a lot of games to be honest, liquid dice. I just go time for me to roll initiative and pour my coffee on the table.

Paper

Gaseous dice just blow and declare a number.

Pencil

Gaseous dice or saying numbers (you know what dice i hate) What dice do you hate?

Paper

The ones that have little plastic, like creatures and stuff inside, because they're really really cute. But I also know that they're not balanced. (yeah) So it's just it's, it torments me. It's like I want you but I can't actually use you.

Pencil

So there you go the worst dice is one that has a little dragon inside it that continuously makes you roll natural ones. I'll keep getting... ooh living dice. You just use a cat.

Paper

would be Pretty bad.

Pencil

This is my cat. I'm going to just put them on the table and see what they land on. Oh, no landed feet again.

Paper

What if you get a hedgehog? Ok (Yeah) And then you attach little pieces of cardboard shaped like numbers to its spines at various points. And then when it curls up, because obviously it's not enjoying this experience. Just give it a little roll and see what number comes up on top.

Pencil

Yeah, I can see no way this could go badly. You take metal dice. But they don't have numbers on them. And you just throw them at GM until GM agrees you got a natural 20.

Paper

see to me, that sounds like a good die if you're a player

Pencil

Yeah, but I'm like a perpetual GM. So I would prefer not to be beaten with metal blocks until I concede that the players win Although, maybe that's just me being selfish.

Paper

That is fair. Like I am a forever DM. But on Sundays when we record, I get to play D&D. So I'm in player mode right now.

Pencil

Yeah, so to answer your question, I think generally just most dice that are made of meat.

Paper

Yeah, that's gonna warp over time apart from anything else.

Pencil

If you want to excite your game group, look into your dice bag and just go in a horrified voice "They're made of meat" and then leave and see how people react. Also the D 12 can get fucked.

Paper

thing what you do is you say they're made of meat. And then you just pull out those like knuckle bone D6s that are actually fine. Because that's been dice for 1000s of years. Yeah. And then just look at them. Like, what, what did I say?

Pencil

Or you say, oh, yeah, I got knuckle bone, dice, and then you just take your hand out of the dice bag. And then you get your GM until they agree you rolled a natural 20

Like that's how nerds challenge you to a fight. You keep going like that. And I'm going to end up rolling my knuckle bone dice they say as they put their hands into fists.

Paper

It's not the worst way of threatening to hit someone I've heard. Yeah, admittedly, the worst one was when I was in primary school. But it was better than knuckle bone dice.

Pencil

So the wor- okay, so to answer your question, the worst dice is punching your GM in the face. I hope that I hope that helps.

Paper

Hi, I'm Hazel, and I present the bread and thread podcast with Liz also known as paper from probably bad. Bread and thread is a podcast about food history and domestic history and generally social history, we delve into a lot of different things. So if you'd like to know which country has laws against importing sheep, what cookbook will tell you how to make a great martini and also houses via a nuclear bomb attack? Or why you are using a fork right now? Then, come over to bread and thread and give us a listen. You can find us on Spotify or wherever else podcasts Oh, I don't know.

Pencil

Our second question is also anonymous. Dungeons or dragons?

Paper

I feel like the first thing to establish here is how do you define a dungeon?

Pencil

If you put an orc in it, it's a dungeon

Paper

Well, it's just you know, for some people, it's only a dungeon if it's some sort of underground structure. But you could also argue for you know, any structure that you're exploring in the course of the game. Yeah, dungeon like is a wizard tower a dungeon is a magic school a dungeon

Pencil

like there's a lot of gray areas, which is why I'm going for mine if there's an orc in it it's a dungeon.

Paper

I like it because it's the least helpful definition.

Pencil

Yeah, if you put an orc in your cupboard your cupboard is now a dungeon and if you go in your cupboard to get like a plate, you've now gained experience with conquering the dungeon.

Paper

Whereas the dungeon that I sent some of my players into which did not contain orcs was not in fact a dungeon it was just a not very fun hole.

Pencil

Yeah, I guess Yeah, I would define a dungeon as a not very fun hall I think I would define a dungeon as like yeah, this is difficult. A structure that you go in as part of an adventure in a mostly violent manner I think so like the wizards tower counts a dungeon if you're going there to kill the wizard it doesn't count a dungeon if you're going there to hang out with the wizard unless to hang out with the wizard you need to kill all the orcs

Paper

What if you go there to hang out with the wizard and then the wizard turns violent does that does it then become a dungeon? Yeah,

Pencil

it becomes a dungeon as soon as the wizard rolls their knuckle D20 Don't know if the wizard is punching while casting magic or why they have D20s for bones but

Paper

they Cast Magic Weapon on their fists

Pencil

i cast magic weapon on my bones specifically and then I pull them out and hit you with them

Paper

Oh no although that would be a fun move for a zombie.

Pencil

Yeah, I cast animate skeleton on my own skeleton open my mouth really wide and shoot and like vomit out my own animated angry skeleton at you.

Paper

I think I think we've done this one before

Pencil

possibly for it is a thing I want to do. Anyway, back to the question dungeons or dragons

Paper

I guess dragons are at least easier to define

Pencil

yeah is the dragon my friend

Paper

make a charisma roll.

Pencil

I think I would choose dungeons just because in our current housing market, you know, sure I might need to get the um, gelatinous cubes out. But it's still better than most finding a house in most parts of the UK.

Paper

Yeah, I think I would also choose dungeons just on the basic that on the basic just on the basis. I'm going to start that sentence again. I think I would also choose dungeons just on the basis that a dragon is one type of enemy. And you can sort of fill that niche with a lot of other stuff. Whereas a dungeon, as we've established is just a structure where you have a bad time. I feel like that's a core part of most RPGs not just d&d.

Pencil

Yeah, I mean arguably all stories involve a place you have a bad time.

Paper

Hmm I think that sometimes that bad time is because of dragons. Sometimes it's because of other things

Pencil

actually, that's a common misconception all works of fiction a bad time is due to dragons

Paper

it's just off screen sometimes.

Pencil

Yeah, like in a rom com The dragon just shapeshifts into human form but the like asshole boyfriend is a dragon in all rom coms.

Paper

I was going to, you know, be snarky and get you to explain why the bad time was caused by a dragon in the last thing I read, but the last thing I read was Lord of the Rings.

Pencil

Yeah, that's dragons

Paper

That's definitely an argument that without Smaug Bilbo wouldn't have found the ring, so the Lord of the Rings wouldn't have happened.

Pencil

Yeah, see there you go dragons. I do like a setting where every enemy is dragons. Like you've just got the little dragons and the bigger dragons and the dragon people. But also, I like the idea of a setting where every enemy is a dungeon.

Paper

Like there's nothing to fight in the dungeon you just have to go and survive a certain amount of time in the bad time hole

Pencil

is set up like orcs, but they've just got like empty holes for faces. And what they do is they grab people and they put them in the empty holes and then they're in the bad time hole and they've got to find their way out of the dungeon, which is itself filled with orcs who have holes for faces who will grab you and put you in the meta bad time hole and you need to escape before you're too recursive in the orc holes

Paper

infinite bad time holes does sound like a bad time I'll admit.

Pencil

Yeah. Hence my new d&d spells summon infinite bad time hole

Paper

How do you get out of the bad time hole

Pencil

you need to find your way to the front of the dungeon which is the orcs mouth and then climb out to that, like basically all orcs have dungeons inside them. That's why they're the sort of classic d&d enemy. And once you're in there, you need to find your way up through the orc's esophagus and out of the orc's mouth.

Paper

Yeah, makes perfect sense to me.

Pencil

Yeah, I really like the idea of an enemy whose attack move is sending you to a dungeon.

Paper

Just I mean, I guess there is banishment and things like that. We'll just send you somewhere else.

Pencil

My other question for d&d. So you've got actual dungeons in places you imprison criminals? are criminals just put in the put in the Dragon's Lair is that why the monsters are so annoyed at us. Because like, if I say I'd like my castle to have a dungeon do I mean I would like my castle dive holding cells or do I mean, I like my c- castle to have a ridiculous logic puzzle game that summons giant spiders, because that's very important to clarify.

Paper

Well So firstly, I would say if we are sending criminals to Dragon's Lairs the the dragons have every right to be upset because traditionally sending criminals somewhere leads to colonialism. Secondly, if we've defined a dungeon as a bad time hole, I would say that a roomful of goblins and an oubliette are equally valid things to put in your castle

Pencil

Yeah, so how many bad time holes should my castle have

Paper

maybe just one of each type just to cover your bases then you can always expand later

Pencil

yeah I think new magic item portable bad time hole

Paper

like a regular portable hole but it causes damage

Pencil

it's a great a portable hole but inside it is an extremely angry hobgoblin like if I dig a hole in my garden and I put like a dark elf in it is it now a dungeon

Paper

I guess going by traditional dark elf alignment probably

Pencil

true it is now established that most dark elves just enjoy making pie I guess it's probably still a bad time hole in the sense that the dark elf probably doesn't want to be in a hole in my garden

Paper

throw a rabbit badger in there as well just to make sure it's a bad time hole

Pencil

Yeah, I think what we invented here is kidnapping.

Paper

Quite possibly, I think that's maybe the point to end the podcast.

Pencil

I am now copyrighting kidnapping of any of you kidnap people, you do owe me royalties.

Paper

And so yeah, like I said, we have a Patreon. ProbablybadRPG ideas if you want to give us money in exchange for access to a Discord server where we play one shots, largely based on things from the podcast so a little bit concerned about the next one. is going to be after after today

Pencil

Bad time hole, bad time hole

Paper

as well as bonus episodes, and homebrew if you have a question, you can message probablybadRPG ideas dottumblr.com Or badprobably on Twitter or you can email probablypodcast@gmail.com You can also do that just to yell at us for saying bad time hole so many times which will be perfectly valid. So yes, Happy New Year. And remember to have a probably bad day, and

Pencil

and remember to have a probably bad day.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai