The Night of No Tomorrow

D&Daniel

Hello, thank you for listening to today's probably bad podcast. Thank you to our patrons Hedwig and Carlo and our sponsors of this week's episode, Milk. It's wet.

Pencil

Hello, and welcome to the probably bad podcast a podcast which is definitely bad i'm pencil

Paper

I'm paper. And today we watched the first episode of the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon

Pencil

it certainly was a thing.

Paper

Yeah.

Pencil

So a quick overview of what happens. A group of children just get sucked into d&d world there's surprisingly little like ceremony or build up for this. They're just in the d&d world now.

Paper

Yeah, they're so they're at a carnival, and one of them has won a toy unicorn. And they go on a Dungeons and Dragons themed ride and are immediately forced to fight Tiamat with weapons and powers that the Dungeon Master zapped into them.

Pencil

Firstly, dungeon & dragons theme park when? Secondly, yes, so Dungeon Master is a weird little goblin man who teleports round and effectively railroads the plots like they seem to be the Dungeon Master as in the person running the world. Which is an interesting concept. But yes, there's just a teleporting little man who gives them plot hooks.

Paper

Yeah, and he does also assign them all classes. I have to assume based on the personalities based on the fact that the rich kid is a Cavalier and the nerd is a wizard. The other characters probably get personalities in later episodes, or maybe not but also they're all teenagers except for Bobby who is eight and a barbarian which I do actually quite like. eight year old barbarian just makes sense to me.

Pencil

Yeah, I mean, the average eight year old would probably thro- beat someone to death if they could. So they don't beat Tiamat. But they do go to find Merlin the wizard. Who live lives in a magical flying castle.

Paper

Yeah, they're told that there's an enemy they need to look out for who has white hair. Oh, I think the phrasing is you will know him by his white hair. (yes) Which will be relevant. So they go up to the castle and they find Merlin who's who's all like, I can't grow hair. Also, here's my white bunny. One of them calls it a rabbit. And it's like, no, it's a hare. And no one makes the connection.

Pencil

He actually says a white hare and nobody makes the connection.

Paper

Despite again, most of the cast is 15.

They also have to leave behind the unicorn who incidentally is voiced by the voice of Fred Jones from Scooby Doo... cause sure

Pencil

yeah, the unicorn is awful.

Paper

Yeah, it just kind of occasionally looks at Bobby in a cute way and is inconvenient. And I'm pretty sure they left it behind so the animators wouldn't have to keep drawing a horse

but yeah, so they they trap Tiamat in Merlin's basement

Pencil

Tiamat is somewhat less impressive than she is in the mainstream game.

Paper

Yeah, they just lure her into a hole and then put some heavy wood over the top because apparently fire can't burn through wood like the thing they used to keep the wood on top is magic, but the wood itself doesn't appear to be.

Pencil

It's just wood like it is I do like that they defeated one of the most powerful and iconic d&d villains in 20 seconds by putting n- putting her in a basement

Paper

D&- probably bad RPG idea, put the big bad in a hole and leave.

Pencil

Anyway, so they do that,

Paper

and then  Merlin basically kidnaps one of the kids because the wizard who is called presto, apparently, like that's his actual given name. And it's like, yeah, he's gonna be my apprentice now and then tricks him into freeing dragons from the ether. Because plot twist this guy with with a white hare is the guy with white hair that they were told to look out. (I mean) all of five minutes ago,

Pencil

to be fair, given the fact he's the only other person in the world other than the main characters. It's also a clue.

Paper

No, don't forget, they go to generic medieval esque town, which has a super racist caricature of fortune teller.

Pencil

Yeah, so dragons attacked a town and start murdering people. So they go back to the back to the castle to undo the spell that released the dragons. And in my favorite plan to defeat Vengar, they just let Tiamat out the hole again.

Paper

they hide the special unburnable wood so-, she just goes after venger.

Pencil

And then she just leaves.

Paper

Yeah.

Pencil

I really love Tiamat in this because she's sort of she acts very much less like a major villain or more like just someone who's been woken up and would like to go back to sleep and everyone keeps yelling at them.

Paper

I mean, they do give the main head an actual cat face. So my theory is Tiamat has the personality of a cat. Which is just alternating between sleeping and choosing violence.

Pencil

So yeah, they undo the spell. The GM just magically puts the plac- plots back on track at the end. So he has a magic hat to give them his power and none of the characters have actual powers. They have magical items that give them the power of that class.

Paper

Cause Venger takes away the hat and does very much get away at the end. (yeah) Because it's a kids cartoon.

Pencil

Yeah. And then the Dungeon Master reappears and just gives him the hat revealing he could have fixed all of the problems at any time he wanted, but would just rather than not

Paper

Yeah. Like the Dungeon Master is just full on the worst. So I think the main thing I want to talk about this episode is just how abrupt the introduction is.

Pencil

Yeah, it is. I think it's under a minute from we see these people in a theme park to we see these people having to fight Tiamat the queen of dragons

Paper

the thing to bear in mind is that this is the 80s kids watching this probably haven't heard of Dungeons and Dragons. And their parents probably only heard of it in the context of some people think it's Satan worship.

Pencil

But yeah it is just completely incompre- Like if you didn't already know what dungeons and dragons were this would be completely incomprehensible to you.

Paper

But I feel like it wouldn't be too bad overall, because the main named characters are a big obviously bad dragon and Merlin, and everyone knows Merlin. But the introduction (yeah) like Oh, it's a Dungeon and Dragons ride. It's a what? Oh, we're in we're in Dungeons and Dragons and this is the Dungeon Master. What?

Pencil

Like one thing I do like about it, Is it isn't it does feel very much not like you're in a dungeon & dragons setting it's you're in Dungeons and Dragons. There's a Game Master and they are railroading you on their plot

Paper

Yeah, and honestly not a particularly creative Dungeon Master so far like you named your wizard Merlin.

Pencil

Imagine if your worst dungeon master kidnapped you and put a gun to your head and made you play their d&d campaign and it's kind of like that.

Paper

Yeah, cuz they have legitimately been kidnapped. Like the reason they go to Merlin's castle in the first place is to try and find a spell to go home. And at the end the dungeon master's is like, Yeah, you did it. You saved the world. And then he just fucks off when Frank the Ranger they've all just got normal people names apart from Presto tries to ask him Can we go home now he just vanishes

Pencil

like yeah, He's just it really does like, it is really weird in that it does sort of feel like people being pushed being in a railroaded plot which they desperately don't want to be in. And I feel you could do some kind of almost a meta horror with the concept but instead it's just wow, what a tiny teleporting asshole.

Paper

I mean, you say desperately want to go home? Most of the time, most of them don't seem that bothered, like the main one that's complaining is Eric, the rich kid Cavalier. And he's mostly complaining about not having a horse to ride around in his cool armor.

Pencil

Yeah, who mildly want to go home to be fair they only show mild concern to being attacked by Tiamat, Queen of dragons.

Paper

That's true. I guess part of the issue is just it's a cartoon from the 80s and therefore the voice acting is not really there yet.

Pencil

We This was before we invented voices.

Paper

It was. They just had to sort of smack the faces into the microphone and try and convey emotion.

Pencil

Yeah. Yeah. expressing emotion wasn't invented until 1994.

hazel

Bread and thread plug

Paper

I will also say though, I feel like there's too many kids. (yeah) Like especially I think she's called Sheila, who's like a thief rogue kind of character. Like, she uses a cloak of invisibility to avoid Tiamat and doesn't do anything the rest of the episode because the whole time she's doing exactly the same stuff that the Acrobat is doing. Apart from the fighting parts when she just kind of stands there. (yeah) And like I get that thief is probably not a particularly combative class. But she also doesn't steal anything.

Pencil

Like yeah, the issue is the Acrobat does all of the Acrobat things

Paper

Yeah, like she pole vaults over the moat because the moat is just a hole in the clouds that the castle's on and she somehow manages to like, I don't know if it's meant to be like a 10 foot pole. But she's got a magical stick. And at one point, she like boomerangs it down a corridor, which puts out all of the lights. And I feel like you've got you've got a magic user you've got someone who can like could sneak down the corridor and put out the lights. But instead you're doing that

Pencil

Yeah, I mean, I guess I can excuse it in that these are 15 year olds who've only just been dragged into another world but still,

Paper

I'm sorry. I think the average 15 year old would think can we put the torches out with magic before goodness throw with this stick down the corridor and it'll put out all of the torches

Pencil

not according to the scientific evidence we just saw. Yeah,

Paper

I don't see the point of Sheila

Pencil

maybe she'll grow to like, be more relevant in later later session later sessions? So fuck it later sessions. This is just what [inaudible] What if your d&d characters were sentient, and didn't want to be d&d characters?

Paper

Yeah, like there's only two named female characters in this in this episode, and I have to assume in most of the show, so it feels kind of bad to be criticizing one of them but also I don't know why she's there. cuz you've got a Cavalier and the barbarian you could have just made one of them the thief, again a very good role for an eight year old character and had fewer characters to deal with. Because this is a party of six plus a unicorn (yeah) It's a lot for like a 16 minute episode.

Pencil

Yeah, it is. Maybe it will drastically improve but yeah, it's like I can only remember two characters names (go on) Hank and presto.

Paper

Yeah, Hank is he kind of becomes the leader presumably because he's the one that looks the most like He man.

Pencil

Yeah, he is. He is the handsomest one and odo is in charge.

Paper

Yeah. I quite like Hank though. Like he's he's determined and he's a ranger which makes me biased towards him

Pencil

Yeah, there's the rich Chevalier

Paper

He genuinely good leader. (yeah) he is the Fred

Pencil

Yeah, like you know you don't like he's not got much of a personality but the personality he does have is pretty good. Yeah, Hank spends all of his time complaining about things.

Paper

No, Eric spends all his time complaining about things

Pencil

I got them mixed up. Eric Yes. Eric spends all his time complaining about things. He does sound like distressingly like Jerry Seinfeld.

Paper

Or his his voice actor has the same background as Jerry Seinfeld, apparently.

Pencil

Ah, being Jerry Seinfeld. (yeah) he's the he's the voice cracking one in the way that is moderately annoying. Probably more of annoying if he wasn't like being compared to compared to the unicorn.

Paper

Yeah, like I did look up a little bit about the show before we watched it apparently. Him being like that was pushed by parents groups because cartoons had to have the moral of the complainer is wrong. So he's there to complain about things and then be wrong.

Pencil

I mean, that does fit in with what his character was like.

Paper

Yeah, I just I love the concept of that. Like, no, we need to teach our children to conform because it's the 80s and we're done with all of the interesting culture now

Pencil

I mean, you know, we want to like negate the Satanism of a doc Doctor Who? of dungeons & dragons also probably Doctor Who let's be honest,

Paper

but consider if everyone else is a satanist and you're complaining, that logic makes you wrong. Like if all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it? Well, yeah, cuz the complainer is always wrong.

Pencil

If there's one thing, if - as well as voice acting, the 80s had not yet invented good morals for children.

Paper

True. Yeah you're not wrong there.

Pencil

You can tell this was invented before morality or voice acting became a concept. I say invented the word would be made. But I'm sticking with invented. Like the Whitehair twist was reasonably good. If a little over broadcast.

Paper

It was it was badly executed, I think. (yeah) I kind of see why. Because again, this is a show for children. And everyone in the 80s knew that children were really stupid and needed things really spelling out for them

Pencil

Yeah. Yeah, it's important to remember, we are a pair of grown adults complaining about children's media. Yeah, so very 80s like I do hope it sort of keeps going more into the dungeon master is just forcing these children to be in his d&d game.

Paper

Yeah, like, honestly, the basic concept isn't the worst. Like it sounds like a concept that you would do for an actual campaign.

Pencil

I hope the Dungeon Master is the big bad, (that would-) I doubt it. But I hope the dungeon master's the big bad

Paper

though I bet he does have some sort of big secret that he's keeping from the kids.

Pencil

Yeah. big secret is that he actually is their dungeon master from back on Earth who's just got like, really sick of people not following his railroaded campaign and learns actual magic

Paper

He's a real version of Tom Hanks from mazes and monsters.

Pencil

Yeah. Or just Tom Hanks for mazes and monsters. This is what he's doing now.

Paper

You know what he is? He's the DM from that one Chick tract.

Pencil

Yeah. But yeah, so basically imagine if the world's worst GM had magic powers and was kidnapping stereotypical children from the 1980s and that's episode one. Join us next time for presumably Episode Two unless something goes very wrong.

Paper

I mean, next episode will be a normal one you know, but come episode 70 I think the next episode is called the eye of the beholder. Where it's like they really used up that pun earlier didn't they

Pencil

Yeah. It's one of those like obligatory puns.

Paper

Yeah, I just I wish they'd saved that beyond the second episode. Because looking at these episode titles, I think it is the best one.

Pencil

People, people will be held.

Paper

That's nice.

Pencil

It's a shame. beholders don't hug you.

Paper

They could if you let them?

Pencil

I don't know if they could they don't have arms.

Paper

They hug you with their tentacles.

Pencil

Just imagining hugging someone with my eyeballs now.

Paper

I would rather not imagine that, that is distressing.

Pencil

I feel that's a reasonable takeaway for the end of this review.

Paper

So yeah, if if you want us to. If you want to force us to watch the next episode, in about 20 weeks, consider subscribing to our Patreon patreon.com/probably Bad RPG ideas for bonus episodes, which are definitely better than the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon. And homebrew including, I believe cheese elemental is coming up you can also send us a question for a regular episode on Tumblr at probably bad RPG ideas. Twitter at badprobably or by emailing probablypodcast@gmail.com. So watch out for tiny bald men in robes.

both

And remember to have a probably bad day.