Full Camel, 8 Simple Rules and Makin' It Sexier

D&DANIEL

Here to introduce another episode of the probably bad podcast it’s me d&-

TABLETOP TIM

Mmhm tabletop tim here, your one true saviour of the podcast. I’d like to thank our new patron, karli, and our stalwart friends hedwig and carlo. Mhmhmhm.

Opening music

MOD PENCIL

Hello and 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...

(dice roll)

A great disaster has been unleashed upon the land. Your pcs are a committee formed to find a way to deal with it. As someone who does a lot of unnecessary worldbuilding i like this as a way to force my players to explore.

MOD PENCIL

I feel like there’s a lot of satire you could do here.

PAPER

Surely you’re not thinking about our government

MOD PENCIL

There’s a global pandemic and you’re the committee formed to dealw tih it.

PAPER

To clarify this idea is not covid satire it’s a post from 2017

MOD PENCIL

I’ts prescient satire.

PAPER

Oh.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah in terms of exploring the world rather than tearing down the government, yeah just you need to - it’s sort of like the plot of the 1st dragon age where you have to go to these various people and get them to help you or ask the to help you. If you made it a more political thing you could make it a genuinely good game i’m thinking.

PAPER

Then you bring down the govt. Cause who says the great disaster unleashed upon the land isn’t a terrible head of state?

MOD PENCIL

You need to just take down boris johnson and unleash a committee to deal with that. i think 3 minutes in we’re already discussing overthrowing the government.

PAPER

Thing is boris johnson isn’t the head of state the queen is. I think she’d be a lot easier to take down rip prince philip.

MOD PENCIL

We are of course deeply sad about the death of the nation’s favourite reanimated corpse.

PAPER

We’re definitely not responsible.

MOD PENCIL

This is a very politically started session...

PAPER

It’s not my fault he deanimated! But yes, i also like the idea of because the PCs are a committee you’ve got an easy way of bringing your party together, someone decided you guys were the ones in charge so go deal with that, that’s as much worldbuilding you need, maybe one of you is friends with the president.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah it explains if there’s no family bonding, what the fuck am i saying, no found family, or no family bondage as it’s now called...

PAPER

NO!

MOD PENCIL

Then that can be explained they all hate each other cause they’re all part of the same committee, it all works out, no-one likes each other, everyone fucks up the mission...

PAPER

Yeah it’s perfect, this may be the perfect campaign idea, cause your characters don’t have to like each other or even work together, they can find other people do it, form subcommittees, which is just democracy for splitting the party.

MOD PENCIL

What happens is when you level up you’re the GM and you GM the subcommittee, and your previous plsyers is the quest giving NPC and they set up their own small ones-

PAPER

You’re describing a D&D pyramid scheme.

MOD PENCIL

I am, and if you send some money to probably bad rpg ideas for each new person you get in these smaller RPG campaigns, then we’ll all be rich.

PAPER

It’s perfect.

MOD PENCIL

Ok we’ve got the point of straight up trying to scam our listeners.

PAPER

I’m gonna have to check the previous titles cause i’m sure pyramid schemes have come up before.

MOD PENCIL

They’ve probably been mentioned.

PAPER

Ok it’s a different pyramid scheme.

MOD PENCIL

Maybe too many.

PAPER

Yeah episode 4 has an afterlife pyramid scheme but this is a regular world pyramid scheme where you get the whole world to play D&D and get rich.

MOD PENCIL

It’s a tough time economically, you have to bububububuh-

PAPER

It’s not a pyramid scheme it’s multiclass marketing.

MOD PENCIL

It’s not a pyramid scheme it’s a pyramid dungeon. That’s why they’re pyramid shaped.

PAPER

I dispute the idea all dungeons are pyramid shaped.

MOD PENCIL

I don’t. If you think you’ve been in a non-pyramid shaped dungeon you’re wrong.

PAPER

Aah just didn’t explore it enough.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah.

PAPER

I’ve never been in a game that’s had a dungeon that’s just a straight up royal tomb pyramid with booby traps setup. Which is completely unrealted to the idea but since when do we stick to the idea.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah when we started the idea we talked about overthrowing the government and i talked about a pyramid scheme

PAPER

Just a normal sunday.

MOD PENCIL

Yup that’s what happened there.

PAPER

But genuinely playing a committee trying to find people to do stuff could be interesting, it could go 2 ways 1 where you go full camel, just find the weirdest solutions to everything, or you’re gonna just go and deal with it yourself and its’ a whole adventure cause i don’t think this is going to end with and we found a guy to deal with it and that’s the end of the game. I feel like i should explain full camel but i don’t want to. It’s there’s a thing about a camel being a horse designed by committee cause its’ so weird but it works. Like skyrim. I am wondering what kind of disaster could happen in a very straightforward D&D setting that would require a committee to deal with it cause the way most problems are dealt with is to stab it. So this has gotta be very sort of resource management there’s been a drought or something, which i think is not a thing that you really do much in D&D games like land management it could be quite interesting with a group of people who are genuinely into the concept.

MOD PENCIL

It’s one of those ones where you need a lot of player buy-in, who wants to do managing droughts, but...

PAPER

I guess like you said it would be a lot of player buy-in but idk the idea of using a system that’s designed largely for murder hobos as a management sim intrigues me.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah, originally when sim-not when sims what the fuck am i talking about - orignally when D&D was a thing there was a resource management thing that was meant to happen at the end you’re meant to go from exploring dungeons to starting your own dungeons...

PAPER

Yeah in the 5ed DMG there’s things about starting a keep and having servants but i feel it’s not the primary goal.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah i think maybe we need to make it the primary goal.

PAPER

I’m now wondering what RPG system would be the best for a management sim.

MOD PENCIL

Roll for shoes.

PAPER

I mean actually possibly.

MOD PENCIL

It’s good for distributing shoes if nothing else.

PAPER

Have you considered drama system?

MOD PENCIL

Uh.... No. Msotly in the sense that i don’t really know much about it, so feel free to go on a monologue.

PAPER

You take turns sort of being in charge of a scene i feel like it’s already kind of RPG by committee, you all have a vague idea of this is my character’s goal i like these characters i don’t like these other characters, and you just kinda, it sounds really bad i enjoy drama system but you do just kinda try and make it end how you want it to end over how other people want it to end and i feel like it could be quite interesting for something like you’re all members of the cabinet. plus it’s got drama right in the name so you know it’s ready for great disasters unleashed upon the land.

MOD PENCIL

I feel like it’s hard to ahve a non dramatic diastsre, everyone’s dying but it’s mostly chill don’t worry.

PAPER

I mean there are things that can be a disaster for one person what if the great disaster is the king’s new haircut? it’s a disaster for him and he’s going to make it everyone’s problem.

MOD PENCIL

Firstly i like the idea of forming a committee for the king’s new haircut.

PAPER

First you have to punish the hairdresser, you need to find a new place, fix the king’s hair.

MOD PENCIL

I want my first, you know when you pitch an RPG to your players, i want the pitch to just be me, slams down paper, just punish the hairdresser.

PAPER

Why are you slamming me down?

MOD PENCIL

When i pitch a new RPG the first thing i do is rugby tackle paper and yell punish the hairdresser.

PAPER

This is why i have bad joints.

MOD PENCIL

If i have to have bad joints so does everyone else.

PAPER

It’s why we don’t live together anymore. It’s a lot harder when she has to come across the pennines to do it.

MOD PENCIL

Sadly my own bad joints stop me. Anyway, what the fuck am i talking about?

PAPER

I don’t even know. Do you want to do a question?

MOD PENCIL

Yes i think we sort of reached the point at which it’s all gone a bit to shit.

PAPER

But for once we did not end up with an idea that paper is going to implement immediately.

Question music

MOD PENCIL

Ok this is from blatella, what are all the rules of being a fantasy dad?

PAPER

Ok i believe this question was because we’ve been playing baldur’s gate on twitch, twitch.tv/theblakery, that’s bakery with an L cause that’s my surname. And the father of the player character is basically like we’re gonna go on a big trip and when we get back i’m gonna tell you some things and then he doesn’t get back so i think rule one of being fantasy dad is don’t delay exposition. If theres’s something you wanna tell your kids just tell them you could be killed at any moment.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah i think the second rule is try and avoid turning evil and it will be very difficult you will very likely turn evil.

PAPER

Yeah especially if you’re a single dad just the loss of your spouse is gonna be a problem.

MOD PENCIL

I think you need to find an ogre who will look after your kids cause you’re going to die or betray them and ogres are quite big so they can defend your children.

PAPER

That makes sense.

MOD PENCIL

Something is going to kill them in 30 seconds, possibly you, find an ogre that you can’t take out.

PAPER

So that’s rule 3 is ogre babysitter.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah i think honestly just don’t be a fantasy dad, if there’s a child just leave. Which makes you a shitty person, but it does ... no they will find you 20 years down and you’ll have to come up with some bullshit story about prophecy or something

PAPER

So rule 4 is don’t abandon your kid. rule 3 have someone else raise them, rule 4 but stick around.

MOD PENCIL

What you ideally need is for the ogre to be their actual dad and you’re in a cupboard and every so often you open it and go i’m proud of you son and close it.

PAPER

Rule 5 don’t have a vizier, that specific title, just don’t use it.

MOD PENCIL

Chancellor is also a bad idea. Just don’t delegate.

PAPER

Yeah, that’s a good basic one.

MOD PENCIL

Check your baby for prophecies early. cause there’s going to be a prophecy on your baby, cause they’re half demon or cursed by the fair folk, and it’s important to get all that in writing so you know what’s on it, so it’s you don’t wnat to find out 1/2way into their teens that they’re cursed ot kill their dad which they probably are.

PAPER

Yeah and rule 7 is maybe train them up yourself.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah.

PAPER

Rather than them having no skills until you die or disappear. Prepare them for the world rather than telling them on your death bed they’re the man of the house, which is another problematic thing i’m not going to get into.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah rule 8 is to not succumb to patriarchal stereotypes. But yeah basically the important thing is you’ll die in a few years and it’s important to tell them the information and skills they’ll need, and don’t tell them in cryptic prophecies like the path to your future lies under the lion’s eye do it in the sense that i buried some important treausre under that statue of a lion.

PAPER

Maybe write it down as well.

MOD PENCIL

Share with your wife who rarely has any role in these stories.

PAPER

She’s normally dead.

MOD PENCIL

Doesn’t stop it in a fantasy world. Bring her back resurrection magic is all over the place.

PAPER

Teach your child speak with dead.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah like you know stop whining about it there’s ghosts there’s speak with dead there’s resurrection magic, sort it out.

PAPER

See pencil i think you may have broken one of the rules there cause you’re saying become a necromancer which i think is a violation...

MOD PENCIL

What i’ve done here is create a villain backstory for the dad. It’s really hard to avoid succumbing to evil in fantasy.

PAPER

Or just in life.

MOD PENCIL

I wish i was a necromancer irl as well. So that answered nothing.

PAPER

But it did give me a merch idea.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah don’t be evil, tell your children everything, hire an ogre and play basketball.

PAPER

Yeah.

Question music.

PAPER

So we just have one other question which is any recs for books to base my campaigns on which my players won’t have read? I feel like this is probably a DM that has based something on something their players have read before isn’t it?

MOD PENCIL

Yeah. The entire oxford english dictionary.

PAPER

That’s no good if you’re running a game i’m in i did read the whole dictionary when i was 8 it’s why i’m like this.

MOD PENCIL

The entire oxford english dictionary but you put up a sign forbidding paper from entering on pain of rugby tackle.

PAPER

What about the entire english thesaurus?

MOD PENCIL

The entire oxford.

PAPER

Just read every sign in oxford and base your game on i guess the layout of the city?

MOD PENCIL

I feel there’s probably a legitimately good game there if you’re in a city with a lot of like you know forgotten history and stuff you could pull out.

PAPER

I guess so i am running a monstter of the week game set in york cause york has so much spooky history in it.

MOD PENCIL

But also that’s not the question we were asked. You did have a book idea...

PAPER

Yeah i’ve just finished reading horrorstor which is genuinely terrifying read horrorstor, but i think just the - i need to be careful with spoilers cause nick is in the room and is going to read it.

MOD PENCIL

It is a very good book.

PAPER

Yeah just cause it starts off in this very mundane place then shit gets wild very gradually and in ways that like you think you know which way it’s going but then it isn’t and i think that would be quite a good thing to base a camapign on this spooky ikea.

MOD PENCIL

It’s got that sort of thing of where you can predict the vague plot but not - anyway if you did write horrorstor please give us money i think we are just advertising your book. In terms of books my mind went to one of the weird parts of the bible that no-one reads you’ve got revelation and exodus and genesis -

PAPER

Just acts.

MOD PENCIL

Just one of the weird little ones that no-one cares about.

PAPER

What’s the book that’s half genealogy?

MOD PENCIL

IDK but that one.

PAPER

Base it on the odyssey but specifically the chapter that’s just a list of boats.

MOD PENCIL

Dante’s paradise, it’s like the hell one except instead of all exciting fire things you sit around learning about virtue.

PAPER

I think the problem is we don’t know what books your players read.

MOD PENCIL

What you need to do is go up to your players before the campaign - hey are there any books you always wish you read but you haven’t got around to - like oh i wish i’d read house of leaves, then you find the books on the list, read them all and then do a campaign about them.

PAPER

See i have two problems with this. Problem 1 is there’s a good chance that you’re gonna remind them oh yeah i’ve been meaning to read that and they go away and read it - and two a lot of books you’ve been meaning to read but never gotten around to are shit - like james joyce’s odyssey or a bronte novel which would be very dull campaigns.

MOD PENCIL

Ok so we resolve the first problem by after they say it break into the players’ house and stealing their copies of the books. For the second problem add sexy swordfighters.

PAPER

Some of them already do have sexy swordfighters, there’s sexy duels.

MOD PENCIL

Make them sexier. That’s my GM advice.

PAPER

I have to say i don’t think you’ve been following your own advice.

MOD PENCIL

No, i never follow my advice and resent the accusation.

PAPER

What if you go to your players’ houses just pop in for a cup of coffee or something and while you’re there just take candid photos of their bookshelves cause then you know which books they have read and mean to read, and just avoid those, and if the players ask what you’re doing just say oh i forget what bookshelves look like when i describe them in game so i need reference images.

MOD PENCIL

I kind of love sometimes i forget what bookcases look like as an excuse for a totally unnrelated thing, like why are you eating my lunch oh sometimes i forget what bookshelves look like. it sounds like a spy code but no...

PAPER

In that case i’d think you were having a stroke.

MOD PENCIL

To be fair will probably also make you less worried about the lunch, it works either way.

PAPER

It’s a distraction.

MOD PENCIL

In the event your players get suspicious keel over dead. I think we’ve reached GM advice literally just die. I’m not sure we can do much worse.

PAPER

Yeah for the actual question you could always do what i do which is read a lot of really bad pulp horror books and read them for encounters.

MOD PENCIL

Mills and boon.

PAPER

We’re circling back to just make the campaign sexy. Combine mills and boon with arthur herzog’s the swarm and just romance a sentient cloud of killer bees, they’ll never see it coming.

MOD PENCIL

If you put a cloud of killer bees in your game the players will romance it anyway, so you ought to plan for it.

PAPER

Question is is there a swarmkeeper ranger somewhere in that cloud of killer bees or is it the hivemind?

MOD PENCIL

Hell yeah there’s a cloud of killer bees. You get to be in a polycule with this one ranger and their thousand bees.

PAPER

It’s perfect. I think we need to end the podcast there cause i don’t think we’re going to get better than that.

MOD PENCIL

Morally i think we ought to end the podcast there before we say more things.

PAPER

Ok yes the things we say at the end... if you have a question or if you are the writer of horrorstor and want to thank us for our gleaming review that’s definitely made sense you can email probably bad podcast @ gmail.com, if you want to join our discord where we play the terrible ideas and get access to homebrew and bonus episodes we’re playing feast of legends again but this time we’re taking down queen wendy, go to patreon.com/probablybadrpgideas, and remember, but i don’t think it’ll be hard if you’ve listened to this episode...

BOTH

Remember to have a probably bad day.

Closing music.