47: Matthew Broderick, Pregnant Liches, and The Evil Food Warehouse

Tabletop Tim: (satisfied little noise) Tabletop Tim here, reminding you that maybe, if you need to break into haberdasheries to cope with your problems, you’d be better off talking to someone, maybe someone who’s been in a tough spot before, naming no named, D&Daniel. Hedwig, Carlo, A Socialist Hobgoblin, if any of you are thinking about breaking into someone’s haberdashery, don’t. Enjoy the show

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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 rolling noise)

Paper: “A game where kaiju are rampaging through the streets. Alas, they are but 3 foot tall. Your mission: try to stop people hugging the doom monsters”

Pencil: Also apologies in advance if either of us sound weird, we both have colds

Paper: Yeah, I have been on holiday. I do not have covid, but I have some sort of disease from travelling on the London Underground

Pencil: I also don’t have covid, but my body is just imploding. Right. So

Paper: But yes, tiny kaiju

Pencil: Yeah, I feel like the general rule of (gibberish). The general goal of all GMing is to stop people hugging the doom monsters. Or banging the doom monsters

Paper: I was gonna say, hugging is a prelude in a lot of cases I think

Pencil: Everyone stop seducing the doom monsters. So, I feel like basically it’s just continuing on that, you know? Remove the bard and you’re probably done

Paper: Well, I like the thing of, because they’re so small, it would probably be harder to actually track them down. Imagine doing this in say a Monster of the Week or a World of Darkness type game

Pencil: Yeah

Paper: Where you’re just like “well, something keeps cutting out the internet”, and then you go, and then it’s just a tiny Godzilla using his tiny radiation breath to cut through the wires

Pencil: I like just Godzilla but he’s a dickhead. He’s not causing massive destruction, he’s just showing up, destroying the internet, and stealing your eggs

Paper: It’s the destruction he’s capable of

Pencil: Mmm

Paper: Maybe it’s not Godzilla, maybe it’s Minilla and he’s just starting out with some low-level mischief

Pencil: I now love the idea of a full 500 foot kaiju showing up to do low level mischief

Paper: (laughs)

Pencil: It shoots your house with a radiation beam and the only thing it does is destroy all of your spoons

Paper: It is radiation, but it’s about as strong as a microwave, so the popcorn in your cupboard just explodes

Pencil: Godzilla microwaves you all

Paper: (laughs)

Pencil: I think the other alternative is, of course, that they’re 3 foot tall, but they still have all the destructive capacities of a normal kaiju. Just this little moth thing waddles up to a building, and then lightly pushes it and it explodes

Paper: I feel like the natural balance of these two is it just walking down the street, but going through every wall

Pencil: Yeah, just this little 3 foot monster that wants to go from one side of the city to the other, and doesn’t care about what’s in the way

Paper: I mean, that’s basically the motivation of Godzilla in the really bad American Godzilla film

Pencil: Yeah, which, as we all know, is the best Godzilla film. It’s certainly the only

Paper: I have feelings about this

Pencil: It’s certainly the only one I’ve watched

Paper: Seriously?

Pencil: Yeah!

Paper: Wow

Pencil: I had a very deprived childhood where I only sat in a room with a single copy of the American Godzilla movie. Anyway, moving on from my tragic backstory

Paper: Yeah, I’m just trying to work out how the dates line up

Pencil: I was never born and will never die. So, kaiju. I think more kaiju should be resolved by hugs

Paper: In which case, I have exactly the Godzilla film for you. There’s one that’s basically about Godzilla’s son and a little boy (inaudible)

Pencil: Is that Godzuki?

Paper: No

Pencil: Is that a different thing?

Paper: It’s All Monsters Attack

Pencil: I am a fake, I am a fake Godzilla fan, by virtue of not being a Godzilla fan. The problem is I was raised alone in a room with nothing but a copy of the 1998 Godzilla movie. Yeah, so you’ve got big Godzillas with minor mischief, you’ve got little Godzillas with major mischief, which means you’ve also got, of course

Paper: The question is what abilities does 3 foot tall Mothra have?

Pencil: Flaps

Paper: ‘Cause Mothra’s the one that’s trying to not have everyone die all the time

Pencil: It just shows up and make you breakfast in bed

Paper: That’s nice

Pencil: Tidies your house, does your laundry. It’s just a tiny little helpful kaiju

Paper: You say tiny, it’s still a 3 foot moth

Pencil: It’s big for a moth, small for a kaiju. Size is relative

Paper: I guess so

Pencil: That’s why in my next D&D setting everything’s 3 foot

Paper: Except they’re 3 fantasy feet

Pencil: Yee

Paper: Which are all a metre

Pencil: This is my hobbit, who has three fantasy feet

Paper: But I mean there is also…’cause kaiju generally, their thing is they represent human hubris and

Pencil: Mmm

Paper: The terrible things that happen when we try and do science, and things like that, so are these the results of smaller scientific mucking about?

Pencil: It’s a scientist who’s something fairly minor, but is just incidentally a massively arrogant hubristic asshole

Paper: Ok. See what I was thinking with Godzilla comes from nuclear weapons, maybe you get a three foot sheep from doing Dolly the sheep, but you’re suggesting that it’s from doing very minor science, but being a prick while doing it

Pencil: Yeah. You just sit there very smugly like “ha-ha, I’ve taught children the periodic table”, and then Mothra climbs out of your school desk and starts punching you

Paper: I mean, I’ve definitely had teachers like that

Pencil: “What was that child? You can’t give the entire electromagnetic frequency off the top of your head? Detention” and then Godzilla picks them up and throws them out of the classroom and all the children cheer. I’m not bitter over school

Paper: Everyone claps

Pencil: And all the kaiju clap

Paper: (laughs)

Pencil: I just imagine a setting where it’s a city that’s under attack by kaiju, but just incidentally to the plot. The main plot is still, you know, you’re trying to capture this notorious jewel thief or something, but just also, incidentally, Godzilla is rampaging through the city. Sometimes you’ll steal something and look up, and he’ll just give you a thumbs up. Godzilla hates capitalism, probably

Paper: I mean, that’s the vibe I get. There is also something to point out, I think, which is that the etymology of kaiju is just strange monster, strange creature, so theoretically if anything is weird and three foot tall, it could be considered a three foot kaiju

Pencil: Anything that is weird is a kaiju, discuss

Paper: I’m just thinking I have worked with small children, I have known many weird things that were three foot tall

Pencil: All children are kaijus

Paper: And they can be a hell of destructive force when they want to

Pencil: The big bad of your campaign is every child in the city stood on each other’s shoulders like some kind of child Voltron rampaging through the city?

Paper: But do they have an enormous trenchcoat?

Pencil: Yes. It’s an enormous trenchcoat shaped to look like a bad Godzilla costume. No, it’s an enormous trenchcoat and a Godzilla head

Paper: Amazing

Pencil: A plastic Godzilla head

Paper: So if anyone wasn’t sure what to be for Halloween, there you go

Pencil: All you need is another several thousand children. Yeah. I think we’ve had a good Godzilla

Paper: Other kaiju are available

Pencil: Yeah, but I wasn’t

Paper: Pencil doesn’t watch as many B-movies as I do

Pencil: As I said, I’ve watched exactly one work of…I raised in just a box with a copy of the D&D Dungeon Masters Guide, and a copy of Godzilla (1998), and nothing else. That is my entire exposure to media

Paper: I mean, really, it’s just surprising you don’t run more Matthew Broderick themed campaigns

Pencil: Oh Matthew Broderick, every NPC in every campaign I run is Matthew Broderick, I just didn’t think it was worth bringing it up

Paper: Ok, that’s fair

Pencil: That’s a fact. Every time I talk about a person, I am actually talking about Matthew Broderick. There’s a fun probably bad RPG idea fact

Paper: Definitely. It certainly recontextualises several game sessions with you

Pencil: You’re welcome

Paper: (laughs)

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Paper: So our first question, I think this is ‘cause last week we were talking about ghost pranks. “What pranks would other undead do?”

Pencil: What a vampire does is, it invites you round to its, you go to sleep, it puts fake vampire fangs in your mouth and puts red eye contacts in, and then it tries to trick you into thinking it turned you into a vampire while you were sleeping, and seeing how long it can keep this up, and it keeps trying to bullshit things. You’re like “but I’m holding garlic” “oh yeah, you probably ate enough of it in life that you developed an immunity” “I can go out in the sun” “yeah, that doesn’t kick in until a few hours so I’d go back inside probably” and sees how long it can keep it going for (getting quieter) before you realise that you’re not a vampire

Paper: Sorry, can you say that again, ‘cause you turned away from the microphone again

Pencil: Just keeps it going and sees how long it takes you to figure out that you’re not really a vampire. And then it does this three more times, and then on the 4th time it actually does turn you into a vampire, and then it’s seeing how long it takes you to go from “yeah, you’ve played this one on me before” to realising that, no, you are now a vampire

Paper: See, I like this, because it seems like it wouldn’t be taking advantage of any of a vampire’s abilities, but the stealth stat you would need to put contacts in on someone else would be so high that only a vampire could do it

Pencil: Yeah, that’s one of vampires’ little known powers

Paper: I like the idea of a vampire making you think that there’s a ghost

Pencil: Hmm

Paper: You would need to be somewhere like a hall of mirrors, or possibly the Palace of Versailles, for this to actually work, but I think you could do it

Pencil: Yeah

Paper: And I think it could be quite fun for the vampire to run around watching you trying to deal with a completely different problem. You’re putting down salt circles and the vampire’s just like “mmm, tastes vaguely like blood”

Pencil: I like the idea that vampires compare everything based on how much it tastes of blood, but yeah

Paper: It’s like humans saying things taste like chicken, it’s what they’ve got a frame of reference for

Pencil: True. Yeah, vampires just run around a hall of mirrors being a ghost. I think liches prank you by just making random things you own into their phylactery. Just like “have you seen the remote?” “ha-ha! The remote?! I think you mean…my soul!” And then you destroy the remote and kill the lich, it’s a bit of a prank that can very easily backfire

Paper: Yeah, I feel like the lich didn’t really think that one through

Pencil: The lich plays a prank by making you into their phylactery

Paper: Now I know that’s an idea you’ve posted before

Pencil: It is! I think the idea that I posted was making your child into a phylactery, which is, on the rules of D&D, strictly possible

Paper: Wait, does it not say it has to be an object?

Pencil: No, all it says is it has to be something that the lich created personally, which, very arguable, a child is

Paper: I guess it’s whether the lich is allowed assistance in creating, ‘cause most species’ aren’t parthenogenic

Pencil: They are as long they’re making…so, as long as they’re making…they’re allowed assistance as long as it’s still clearly them making it, if that makes sense

Paper: So if the lich is the one that carries the child

Pencil: Yeah as long as, the lich would have to be the one carrying the child, but in that context, yeah. It has to be over a certain gold piece value and it has to be at least primarily made by the lich

Paper: Well, as we know, babies are priceless

Pencil: Yeah

Paper: So that’s fine

Pencil: It is one of my favourite technically possible if you really fuck with the rules ideas

Paper: That is a wild one

Pencil: Yeah. Yeah, there is no time limit on a lich making a phylactery, which is presumably so a lich can have a monument or a statue or something for its phylactery, but it does mean you could have a baby

Paper: That is good to know, they said, definitely not making notes for future campaigns

Pencil: Yeah, so a lich…the other thing a lich does for a prank is it hides its phylactery in the sofa or something, and then it goes up, sits next to you, and dies, and you’re like “oh no, the lich is dead”, and then they just climb back out of the sofa, because that’s where their phylactery is, and it scares you

Paper: Like naked Danny DeVito crawing out of the sofa in Always Sunny

Pencil: Yeah, exactly. I bet you didn’t know Danny DeVito was a lich

Paper: (laughs) Oh no!

Pencil: My phylactery is Danny DeVito. Zombies just…zombies aren’t very good at pranks, a zombie will show up and just pick up a thing and throw something at you, and then it will go “prank” and then it will leave

Paper: Yeah, zombies like to do got your nose on each other but, you know

Pencil: They don’t have them

Paper: It gets kind of gross

Pencil: Zombies try and do got your nose on you, which is even more gross and, frankly, very unpleasant

Paper: Mmm

Pencil: Skeletons just make incessant boning puns. It’s not really a prank, but they’re not very smart

Paper: And dracoliches prank you by destroying your village

Pencil: Yeah. I guess a lot of undead do the fun and whacky prank of burning down your house and destroying your town. Skeletons have one prank, which is admittedly very situational, which is, if you’re about to play the xylophone, the skeleton rushes in and replaces the xylophone with its own ribcage before you start playing

Paper: See that is a good prank because, despite what cartoons have led you to believe, ribs tend to be about the same size, so you’re probably not going to get all of the different tones that you want out of a ribcage

Pencil: Yeah. Like I said, it’s very situational, but it is a reasonably good prank. Especially if borehand a lich has made your xylophone into its phylactery

Paper: So then when you smash it out of frustration, the lich dies?

Pencil: Yeah, you smash it out of frustration. No. The lich has made the xylophone into your phylactery, without you noticing

Paper: Ok

Pencil: So when you smash it out of frustration, you die. I’m pretty sure

Paper: I’m glad it’s that way round, because I was starting to worry that liches just really enjoy the experience of dying and coming back

Pencil: I mean that would explain a lot about liches. Ghouls play pranks by

Paper: I mean

Pencil: Eating your arms while you sleep

Paper: (laughs) They just get the munchies

Pencil: Yeah. So the thing is, undead are actually, undead are pretty good at pranks, except for zombies and skeletons, but you don’t expect them to be good at it

Paper: Skeletons are just less squishy people

Pencil: Yeah. Most undead are pretty good at pranks, the main issue they have is that they do have problems, what’s the word, not going too far and killing you

Paper: Yeah I feel like once you’ve died yourself

Pencil: Yeah

Paper: The general concept of it probably loses a lot of its

Pencil: The thing is, yeah, with a normal

Paper: When your around it (inaudible) vanishes

Pencil: When you’re a normal person and kill someone, that’s bad, if you’re undead and kill someone you’ve just got a new friends. Perhaps the real reason the undead want to murder everyone is they want everyone to be their friends

Paper: What if ghosts want to kill people so they can help us achieve our final form

Pencil: Mmm. Yeah, the undead are just like “oh no, you’ve got meat all over you, let me help you with that”, and then we scream and then they look sad

Paper: (laughs)

Pencil: “Oh no, you got yourself trapped in a physical material existence! Don’t worry, I have a knife”

Paper: Death is sudden, painful, evolution

Pencil: Sudden Painful Evolution sounds like a rock band that was started by the undead

Paper: (laughs)

Pencil: They’re playing the skeleton as their main instrument

Paper: I mean, I bet if you strung a pelvis you could get some good sounds off it

Pencil: And other unusual ways to deal with zombie attacks in your games

Paper: (laughs)

(music)

Paper: Yeah, so the other question that we have. “In The Flintstones they use prehistoric creatures to replicate modern machines. What would the D&D equivalent be?”

Pencil: Fire elemental oven

Paper: I feel like that’s an easy answer

Pencil: It is, but it’s the only one I’m gonna give. Podcast over, have fun. You could use a mimic, but rather than using its shapeshifting, you use it as glue, ‘cause it’s got that adhesive thing. You just have a little pot full of mimic, and take it out and you smear it on things

Paper: You could have the mimic take the form of a little jar, and then you can just wipe it on things

Pencil: You could use as elf as a security camera, they’ve got good eyes

Paper: I feel like using…ok, I was going to say I feel like using sentient creatures is kind of dodgy, but the ones in The Flintstones appeared to be self aware

(crosstalk)

Pencil: Everything in The Flintstonesverse is just a person that we have stuck into some kind of contraption

Paper: That’s kind of horrifying when you think about it

Pencil: Yeah

Paper: All those creatures are…Dino! Is Dino sentient? Is he better at hiding it?

Pencil: Possibly Dino is spending the entire show plotting for a chance to get revenge on The Flintstones. On the final episode of The Flintstones, Dino talks for the first time, and he’s like “I know where you sleep”, and then kills them all in their sleep, and there’s hyperrealistic blood. Probably predicts some terrible future or something

Paper: See I was just thinking that Dino and Fred have a very elaborate kink scene going on

Pencil: I feel like this indicates a very different, a major difference between our two worldviews

Paper: (laughs)

Pencil: But anyway, you can use giants as building material, they just stand there and form columns, ‘cause they have their arms in the air

Paper: You could definitely…if you attached a blink dog to a cart, could you get instantaneous cars?

Pencil: Everyone just rides blink dogs to work

Paper: Except sometimes your blink dog, you’ve got to keep blinders on it like a horse

Pencil: Hmm

Paper: ‘Cause if it spots something right before you go to work, you don’t know where you’re gonna end up. Actually, that might be a one-shot I will have to run at some point

Pencil: Mmm

Paper: (laughs) Sorry

Pencil: I guess you could use any monster as building material if you try hard enough

Paper: Some dragons are good, so you could get a good one with ice breathe, I can’t remember offhand which one that would be

Pencil: Believe silver?

Paper: Yeah, so you get a silver dragon and you make friends with it, and then you open up the first frozen food warehouse. Just become captain birdseye

Pencil: Yeah

Paper: With your dragon friend

Pencil: Or you get a white dragon and set up the first evil food warehouse

Paper: I’m gonna need you to elaborate on this

Pencil: It’s like a normal food warehouse, except every so often a dragon attacks you while you try and get out the frozen pizzas. It’s just “yeah, I’ve got all this food for you, it is inside a dragon’s mouth, the dragon will kill you if you try and get it, so how fast are you mate?”

Paper: You can hang the packets on the teeth

Pencil: Yeah

Paper: Make it into a fun fairground game. Like operation

Pencil: So you’ve got a choice between the silver dragon frozen food warehouse, which is if you’re boring and you just want to pick up food, and the white dragon fast food, frozen food warehouse, which is if you’re fun and you want to fight a dragon while you’re getting your groceries. I know there are neutral dragons, the gem dragons. I don’t know if there’s an ice one of those

Paper: I feel like the good dragons are like “yeah, I’ll help you preserve your food, it’ll be a great time”, the evil ones try and eat you when you try and retrieve it. The neutral ones are just kind of like…they’re like the shop assistants in Iceland

Pencil: Yeah

Paper: They’re just kind of like (incredibly flat) “oh did you find everything? Ok. See you later”

Pencil: I like that neutral dragons are just sad

Paper: That’s just my voice

Pencil: They’re not morally neutral, they’re just too sad to take a side

Paper: Nah, I’m afraid that’s just my voice when I’m not trying (laughs)

Pencil: You’re learning more and more lore about the probably bad hosts

Paper: I like the idea of them getting more full on like a shop assistant though, and they just get really into loyalty cards

Pencil: I like that just in general with dragons, you burst into its lair and it’s like “hi, would you like to sign a Regular Adventurer Card?”

Paper: “If you slay nine of my minions, the tenth one’s free!” Which I guess means they won’t fight back?

Pencil: If you slay nine of my minions you get a tenth blast of ice magic free. Which does imply normally you’re paying for the dragon to attack you, and I guess we’re back to really weird kink relationships

Paper: You pay for the dragon to attack you in that it does hurt you. You pay in a physical way rather than financial

Pencil: Yeah. I think, yeah, so drag…I feel like the fire dragons could also run a food warehouse, but it wouldn’t be as good

Paper: They could run a takeaway

Pencil: They could

Paper: You’ve probably seen all the Burger King adverts where they’re like “yes, the one good thing about us is we use actual fire to cook our meat”

Pencil: Yeah

Paper: Just get a dragon doing it

Pencil: “The one good thing about Burger King is we do have a dragon”

Paper: “The dragon has devoured The Burger King, now welcome to Burger Drake’s”

Pencil: “I am the new…” I like the idea…ok so new one-shot idea. You’re trying to protect The Burger King, you know, the head of Burger King, that’s what he’s called, from the dragon that he brought in to cook all of the burgers

Paper: (laughs) See, I’m now wondering though if dragon fire would give a different flavour to the meat, and if that would be a good thing

Pencil: I feel

Paper: ‘Cause you get descriptions that say stuff like brimstone

Pencil: Hmm

Paper: Which is basically the same smell as rotten eggs

Pencil: Yeah

Paper: And I don’t think I want that in my meat

Pencil: I feel like, yeah, generally it’s meant to smell like sulphur or brimstone, so I can’t imagine it would be good for the meat, and also it will try and eat The Burger King

Paper: But it won’t try and eat the burgers

Pencil: No, they’re too small, and they smell of brimstone

Paper: Yeah, it’s not worth the effort for a dragon. They’re like kibble

Pencil: I like the idea of you going into a dragon’s lair with a bowl, filling it with burgers, and then just putting it down and the dragon eats it like kibble

Paper: (laughs) It might work. You don’t know until you try

Pencil: That’s all dragons really want

Paper: Although it’s not good enrichment for a dragon

Pencil: Yeah

Paper: Really, you want to simulate live-feeding

Pencil: That’s why I’ve tied all of the burgers to hobbits

Paper: (laughing) Right

Pencil: And have them run around the cave

Paper: (laughs) This is another use for a fantasy creature: as dragon food

Pencil: Yeah. I feel like you could use a fiend for any kind of government or corporate bureaucracy

Paper: Satire

Pencil: Asmodeus is running the DWP. Nothing has changed

Paper: Fey would be quite good at that, actually, because they do love a contract

Pencil: Yeah. Again, we’re going back to good, neutral, evil bureaucrats

Paper: Yeah. On that note, I think it’s maybe time to end the episode

Pencil: Before we get into any political discussion

Paper: Yeah. Next episode is…not next episode, the episode after, is our Halloween special, so for reasons we need you to send us audio recordings of you saying the word “chess”. This is not a bit. Send us audio recordings of you saying “chess” to probablybadpodcast @ gmail.com. You can also send questions there, or to probablybadrpgideas on tumblr, if you want us to talk more about dragon fast food. What else? Yes

Both: If you

Paper: Sorry

Pencil: If you’d like to sign a contract with us, we do have a patreon

Paper: We do. At the $1 level you get access to a Discord server where we play one-shots and talk about RPG things, at $5 you get bonus episodes at $10 you get homebrew, and at $20 you get RPGs that Pencil and our producer Nick make. I believe so far there’s been one about a duck army, and one about meerkats exploring. I don’t know what the next one’s gonna be, I’m very excited to find out

Pencil: Yeah, meerkats exploring the post-apocalypse

Paper: Oh yeah. The way to get onto that patreon is patreon.com/probablybadrpgideas. But yeah, send us recordings of yourself playing chess, send us recordings of yourself saying chess

Both: And remember to have a probably bad day