Against Legal Advice We Watch Scourge of Worlds

Pencil

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

Paper

and i'm paper.

Bev

And I'm Bev,

Paper

we have a friend.

Bev

Yes, your first ever friend in the main podcast stream.

Paper

We needed emotional support for this one.

Pencil

Yeah. So the purpose of this podcast is mostly to confirm that we do have friends and people like us, but also to discuss the movie what was movie called I can't remember was that forgettable

Bev

oh, it was called the scourge of worlds apparently. Which got on my tits for the entire film. Yeah,

Paper

I don't know if it's like a US UK thing. But we pronounce it scourge. Which sounds better with the word worlds. So I'm sticking with scourge.

Pencil

Okay. Yes, it was the first interactive D&D movie with 990 possible stories,

Paper

but only four endings?

Bev

Did we find three of them? Or does dying horribly not count?

Pencil

We found two of them because died. So yeah, we found so that

Paper

if you die, it sends you back and gives you a different choice. So we found two actual endings because it went to the credits.

Pencil

But yeah, so the premise is you have the you have D&D 3.5 edition characters sample characters from the rulebooks. Those are the main characters. And one of them is trying to find an artifact that was created by taking all the evil in the world and making it stronger. And then to the surprise of everyone involved that went badly. And now they're trying to release it on the world for unclear reasons.

Paper

And there was an angel for some reason who spoilers was actually a baddy. which I think we all saw coming

Pencil

mostly the trying to find the artifacts of the incarnation of all evil and using it to kill everyone. Which tends to be a bit of a bad sign. If any of you were talking to angels out there.

Paper

So this is the fourth in the movie we've watched. Um, we noticed the trend of the less Courtney Solomon is involved the worse the film is, the first one was okay, he directed and produced it. The second one was less Okay, and he just produced it. The third one was garbage. And he owned the company that produced it but wasn't actually involved. And then he's got no connection to this one at all. And it's shite.

Bev

i'm still not convinced that this wasn't a ps1 game where the budget just ran out before they could make any actual gameplay. Like, its very own. It's early 2000s animation if you're thinking Shrek put that aside out of your mind. Think of a Crash Bandicoot cutscene. But disturbingly human looking characters.

Paper

Yeah, cuz the thing about Shrek is that it was really cutting edge. This is two years later, but significantly worse.

Bev

Oh, Shrek does have a guest appearance running the tavern

Paper

Yes, there's a generic Scottish innkeeper, who is also like the best voice actor in it

Pencil

Yeah. Because like, I can understand, you know, maybe maybe they didn't have the tech to create animations. But the voice acting was really bad. And like, I don't think you blame that on being in the 2000s. I was in the 200s i can speak words. I mean,

Paper

I feel like the 2000s was the point when people were starting to realize like, oh, we need our animated characters to actually sound good. I can't find any information on the production of this. By the way.

Pencil

The Wikipedia article is, I believe, something like seven lines long in its entirety.

Paper

five lines. two lines describing the format and when it was released introducing the concept of choose your own adventure, and the director gets a line. And that's the whole thing.

Pencil

Like, that's just like,

Paper

genuinely I've been everywhere I could think of and found no information about the production of this. Like IMDb is literally just a list of actors who don't have pictures, because I guess none of them did anything else.

Pencil

It's entirely possible this film, was lost

Bev

see this is this is why we got lost. At one point,

Paper

there is a directors edition, though, which has extra scenes and options,

Pencil

might have seen the direct addition, sorry, because there was a scene that I remember because I realized that I mean, I had seen it before, at some different point, the path where the villain who's the cleric who wants to destroy the world gets his actual backstory. Like he gives his actual backstory, and I ca'nt- that didn't happen in this effort. We just don't really know why he's doing what he's doing.

Bev

And then an angel came down and said, You need to find the glowy ball inside the cube, because it will purify all the evil in the land, which is technically true, because as we said, it was made by taking evil and distilling it down into its most evil form. In a metaphor for nuclear weapons, I think

Pencil

metamorphism thing,

Paper

I think calling it a metaphor is giving them more credit than they're due honestly,

Pencil

it's a sort of like nuclear weapons.

Bev

I mean, I do think that instead of silos with codes, and whatever, we could just have a big glowing door that detects whether you have a heart would you just mean that Donald Trump wouldn't have been able to get to them at any point,

Pencil

all nuclear weapons are hidden behind some trials of the body, the mind and the soul

Paper

Don't forget the exposition wall.

Pencil

I did love the expos- Like, I feel like if you're going to have to put an exposition dumping it up, if some magical wall that gives you exposition dump,

Bev

you're saying that like the wall, just like opened a mouth made of bricks, whereas instead it just had some pictures on it. And then Miley the Elven mage who's wearing approximately an eighth of a suit of armor, just reads off the wall.

Pencil

You know, in the version I heard, I watched, like his family were killed in a way they couldn't be resurrected. And the angel told him if you've got this thing, purified it, so God would send his family back, which is a slightly more complex motivation rather than his current one, which is wouldn't it be great if I destroyed everything?

Paper

there was a playthrough where we were entirely like on his side for most of it, and we never got that. So that must be the director's edition just gives the antagonist an actual backstory

Bev

Well, there was that bit where we tried to go back to halfway through and so we watched it twice to get to endings. But we tried to just watch the last half. And we ended up in a place that we couldn't get to while playing it through normally, where the angel did describe how she tortured his entire family. And then I zoned out for a bit and everyone was asleep because of poison gas. Well, I don't know if that was the scene you remember? Or if it was one of those flashbacks where everything is blue and glowy.

Pencil

Yeah, just a blue grlowy flashback. Anyway. So yeah, what it was was, I mean, it's basically a bunch of very small scenes near the end, so do you want to fight this person or not fight this person? No plays another scene. It's extremely railroady, which you know, I can understand that they can't actually make like 40 movies, but it's very blatantly railroady.

Paper

Yeah, you play it once, and you're like, hey, maybe my choices affected the world. And then you play it again and you end up in exactly the same story beats at exactly the same time. And there's like, I can see how they managed to have 20 decision points, but only four endings.

Bev

Yeah, well, I thought we'd actually skipped an entire bit. Because the first time around, there were werewolves, or possibly just clerics who were -not clerics druids- , who were shapeshifting and we skipped past that bit, and then it forcibly pulled us back into the wolf fight.

Paper

Yeah, it was just a wolf fight in a slightly different place. Even though they have no relevance to the story, they're just like you will fight the wolves.

Pencil

Yeah, like

Paper

what it felt like the DM panicking because you're not a high enough level but they can't justify just leveling you up. So they're like, and then some wolves appear.

Pencil

Like it's sort of captured a feeling of DMing as done by a like very inexperienced DM who's constantly panicking every time you don't, like, do the thing they plan you to do.

Paper

Hmm.

Bev

Oh, yeah, someone who wrote one plot and thought that you do the obviously correct course of action, which we almost never did, because it was quite funny to try and reason with pretty much every enemy.

Pencil

My favorite, my favorite scene has to be the one where you're going through the woods you're trying to find a ruffian who's the bad Big Bad who does apparently have motivation in Director's Cut. You find a literal river of Bloods  and your Paladin could just go like, Well, whoever it is, it's their problem. Fuck him and just leaves. Like yeah, we could go.

Bev

Are we gonna talk about how he's the worst Paladin ever? Reptar the lizard man.

Paper

Absolutely. But I do want to say- I said that I didn't want to give the writers any credit. But I looked them up. Basically, they've been working together for like 20 years at this point and have written some interesting sounding shows like Mr. Meaty they wrote an episode of totally spies. And then they were also writers on Dark Crystal age of resistance. So I don't know what's happening there. But I good for them. I guess.

Pencil

I swear they wake u everyday and have to write another movie with no like preparation. But yeah, so anyway, the paladin has sworn a sacred oath to never give a shit about anyone, as far as I can tell is their motivation. He's just, he's just so committed to not helping people.

Bev

Like it would be better if it just never came up. But quite often, you go like you see the river of blood and go, Oh, maybe he got attacked by orcs and the paladin just goes, he can probably handle himself. And then another bit the druids who are trying to keep the crystal safe are fighting a beholder and the correct course of action is to just say they've made their own bad we've got to go after the mystical key

Pencil

like it's not even done as like a greater good we need to sacrifice these people as much as well, they were rude to be so I guess the beholder's gonna kill them.

Bev

He also really flip flops on whether he's gonna help his mentor because baratheon is his, his his mentor who picked him out of poverty in childhood and trained him up to be a paladin. And he starts off by going after him for a bounty and then you get railroaded into letting him go and then you hunt him down. And then you decide not to kill him and eventually if you want the good ending you do have to just stab him a lot

Paper

it's important to note for this point, that the paladin does repeatedly state that he owes Baratheon and our life debt. Take the bounty

Bev

Yeah, it's not so much a character arc as a character sine wave.

Pencil

Yeah,

Paper

sorry, I I interpreted that in my head as you wave around a sign that just says I'm a paladin honest.

Bev

Those spinning signs and just whatever it stopped, it's help Baratheon and kill Barathion at random.

Pencil

Yeah, yeah, there's Lydda who is the rogue who as far as I can tell, just does the dreamworks face that that's her personality.

Bev

Oh, well, I mean, she does whine. We get the classic 2000 stuff. Do you want some cheese for that whine?

Pencil

She's snarky TM and yeah, I wanted to like push her off a ledge about 20 minutes in

Bev

maybe this is why the film's a 12 is not for the the one bitch at it whose name is Reptar The paladin. It's because it will cause you to have homicidal thoughts and you shouldn't be having those at the age of 10.

Pencil

Yeah, that it has occasional swear words, which is a dumb feeling of someone trying to like, get a 12 rating.

Paper

Yeah, I mean was Lydda specifically as well, though, it's like, she doesn't help. She steals from people that the others are trying to help. Like, there's a point where she ends up dangling off a cliff and you're like, you know what, she's kind of dead weight.

Bev

i Okay, no, I think Lydda has rights because she is right that they can't just walk into a tavern with zero money and expect to get a bed for the night. And she has a practical way to get more of it, which is a lot better than the arm wrestle that we had to go through. When we decided not to use Lydda's plan,

Paper

I forgot about the arm wrestling

Pencil

arm wrestle is so the guy is so sort of arm wrestling some, I guess, bandits I assume bandits for like money, and the bandits are cheating because they have magic gloves. So what the wizard does is very obviously cast a spell that shoots a beam of glowing light at the paladins hand, which point he wins. And it's just it's the most obvious cheating I've ever seen. There's a later point where she turns Lydda invisible. And she does it feel like this very obvious and loud chanting in front of the villain.

Bev

This is where it also fits into being an inexperienced DM, because it does just say that you can use an action to cast an invisibility spell and that it has a somatic component. It doesn't say that the enemies will obviously realize what you're doing, because it's not their turn yet, because they rolled lower in the initiative that they're- Yeah. Like it does adhere to strict initiative order.

Paper

See, that is the wild thing about this film compared to the other three to me is that we complained about those ones not feeling like a d&d campaign, because they all had a very obvious protagonist. And this is our punishment for complaining.

Pencil

This is the monkey's paw we get like for wishing for a game that feels like a d&d campaign. But yeah, like, Absolutely, like the main. So main thing, the climax of the movie, that's the word for the main thing of the movie. The climax of the movie takes place in the desert. I don't think we were given an even like a hand wave explanation about why we're in the desert now.

Paper

No, no, in a forest and then we were not not

Pencil

right, there's nothing like oh, we need to go here because that's where the villain is or something. And that also so in one of the path, Lydda meets the false angel who doesn't really do much, but does tell her to go help Baratheon and then later on, she's like, Oh, I like the angel person. But then in the pathway, that doesn't happen. She's still frequently like, Oh, I like the angel person- isn't really. She's not like we're not sure what how she knows the angel person.

Paper

Yeah, like what? Because they are in that path they are told about the angel by Baratheon, but also at this point, they know he's bad. So it's like why would you then see this thing that's obviously working with the bad guy and go oh, hey, you're a friend.

Pencil

Like as far as I can tell Lydda's main motivation about travelling as well This angel is pretty clearly must be one of the good guys.

Bev

Yeah. Would you not trust glowing Mr. Burns? That's who it is

Paper

it is isn't it? i bring you love

Pencil

Yeah, like, yeah, I guess to be fair, like, that monster is hot and I'm going to do to campaign to try and bang it in fitting with a lot of d&d character motivations.

Bev

Oh, does this make it the first queer d&d film

Paper

if you're gonna go down that route- We should have got the option-

Pencil

Yeah roll to seduce

Paper

if you're gonna go that route though. We should have had the option to smooth to the beholder.

Bev

Like beauty is in the eye of the beholder?

Pencil

I think Yeah. I feel what this gave me what this game slash movie needed to be really realistic. Is a smooch shoe Beholder option. A smooth option for every character, but all of them end with your death.

Bev

Oh, get speaking of deaths. I did like we got the bad ending first where we release the evil into the world, which does just turn out to be a fuck of massive dragon. And I like a good fuck off massive dragon. It does disintegrate us. But I feel like the concentration of all the word world's evil shouldn't just be a very big lizard.

Pencil

Like it does sort of have the problem this is a Dungeon and Dragons world. Well, you know, it does already have dragons

Paper

Yeah, I'm pretty sure at one point we do see a dragon skeleton. So it's like we've established that they're just a thing.

Bev

Oh, no, that's after you get the thing of all evil but don't activate it. Then put it in your pocket and go off into the sunset to go and have another film to go and bury the thing. You walk through a dragon skeleton as a nod to the other ending. And it almost winks at the camera.

Paper

Yes, I'm getting the order mixed up because it's very repetitive playing it even just twice.

Pencil

Yeah, I'm mostly going to take the over the bu bu bu. Yeah, I assume was meant to be like an evil god dragon but they should probably have made that clearer.

Paper

It's just a dragon.

Pencil

This is dungeons and dragons. We are already aware of dragons.

Paper

Well, the thing is like, doesn't the angel lady ride the dragon at the end as well? Yeah, so it's like, it makes it seem like the evil was already released. And now it's got a dragon. Yeah, like so. Oh,

Pencil

it feels like the whole point was to get it cool to ride around.

Paper

Which like, if you want a bad D&D movie about someone trying to get hold of a dragon? May I suggest the first one the only half decent d&d movie?

Bev

Yeah, full disclosure for quite a lot of the first run through I was attempting to negotiate a Chinese takeaway, and may have missed some of the more crucial plot moments like, why are we in a forest? And exactly what happens to the dragon? Like,

Paper

the answer to those questions is we're just there.  and it flies away, and it's the end.

Bev

To be fair, to me, the journey of my kung o chicken, vegan chicken to my doorstep was a bit more thrilling than the journey of these three guys to somewhere in a desert. It was delayed. There was a little map that I had to send my partner to go and find a bowl. strife and turmoil, like and then my and then the Kung po had peanuts in it, which is a top 10 anime betrayal.

Pencil

I was gonna sa-

Paper

I will be honest, I was more invested in that story than I was in playing this game

Pencil

Like it's a it's a game where if I had if there was a skip button, I would be pressing the skip button a lot.

Bev

The true the true concentrated form of evil is MSG.

Paper

I like MSG.

Bev

So do I just wanted to make a joke.

Paper

Yes. We spent two pounds thirty nine on this DVD. And I've I feel like we did not get our money. So

Pencil

no, like it's just like, it's way too repetitive to work as a movie. Like, bad as a movie because they've got to like do it  so things still work, whichever. Whichever option you choose, which means nothing seems particularly meaningful or it gives you like

Paper

yeah, like I can vaguely imagine like a six year old in 2003 Getting this and being like, oh, it's like a video game. But also it's a 12 so the six year old probably wouldn't get it

Pencil

a 12 year old would definitely like

Paper

I don't I don't know who this is for. Yeah,

Bev

Pencil can you remember when you watched it?

Pencil

I was I was small but I can't remember how small

Bev

were you scarred by the word bitch and the couple of times when someone gets bitten by an unconvincing Wolf?

Pencil

yes, that is the tragedy that led to me eventually doing this podcast to finally get revenge on this movie. I hope you -

Paper

it's why pencil's like this.

Pencil

like this theray podcast. But yeah, I think because yeah, like it doesn't work as a movie. You know, none of the things work like everything has to be done, it could work on its own, which means there's no way to do a cohesive plot. It also doesn't work the video game, because it's really uninteractive, like, in almost all cases there's an obvious right choice as to what you want to do. And the choice which will kill you. Like, yeah, I can think of maybe like two or three times when it wasn't Yeah, obviously, one of these choices is going to result in your death.

Bev

I mean, there are over 990 unique story combinations. I don't know how many of those are just, you get the additional orc scene. Yeah, and then do the rest of it the same?

Paper

Well, yeah, cuz it was 900-odd potential routes. But there's only four endings. So I think it's just which cutscenes you get honestly

Pencil

and just in which order

Bev

it's all cutscenes.

Paper

Yeah, but you know what I mean, though. Yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah.

Pencil

Basically, if you ever wanted to play like a shitty PlayStation two game, but you didn't want the gameplay you just wanted to cutscene. This is the ideal movie for you. And I think only you, you're the entire target demographic.

Bev

I mean, if you want to watch it with friends and cause an argument, that's also a valid use of it. And you can use it as a Frisbee might be worth two pound 37. If you feel

Paper

it's not the 2.39 we paid for it, that's still a 2p ripoff I feel like the only fun way to to like, view this honestly would be when everyone's a little bit drunk.

Pencil

Yeah, I think like, if you feel you have too many friends and you want to deal with that, you can invite them to like, play this with you.

Bev

Yeah, if you want to swiftly lose a friendship, or perhaps swiftly gain a friendship through a shared horrible experience?

Pencil

Yeah, it really did just it really did feel like just playing a game with a very inept DM. So if you take that as a selling point

Bev

maybe watch it before your first DMing session to set the bar really low for yourself?

Paper

Yes, it's gonna build your confidence.

Pencil

Yeah, show it to your pla-play it with your players before your first DM session. So how bad did do you do? Like? Well, it was better than Scourge of Worlds

Paper

that's what it is.

Pencil

that's -

Paper

it's the session zero film.

Bev

I think you mean scorj of worlds.

Pencil

Skyge of worlds

Bev

Skadge of Worlds.,

Pencil

do we think we have anything particularly more to say or

Paper

see this is my problem. I feel like I should do some sort of like actual film analysis. But also like, like, what is it?

Pencil

Yeah, like conventional film analysis sort of assumes that there is a plot to analyze is the issue.

Bev

I mean, I did teach you all the word Devlin when we watched it, which is the point where the title either makes sense, or appears in the text, which is on the exposition wall, because that's where we get literally any information about what's going on and the rest of the time. We're just sort of doing stuff.

Pencil

Yeah. Yeah, I think the issue is yeah, like, all that, if we're going to proper review, it would require like, you know, we discussed the plot or character arcs or those kinds of things. It just didn't happen.

Bev

It did have some conflict. Like everyone was annoyed with the rogue for stealing.

Paper

Yes, resisting because I think Bev said when we were actually I keep not knowing whether to say playing or watching when we were experiencing when scourge of worlds Yeah, both said it was it felt like the Rogues player had just done character creation separately and just tried to Jam Jam her into this story. I think. I think it kind of feels like they all did it separately, but only one of them actually got to actually use his backstory.

Pencil

Like again before it feels like a bad D&D session. It does feel like everyone shows up with their characters with no consideration as to what the plot is or anyone else characters. And everyone sort of like just just here is what they're doing.

Bev

Yeah, I want to know how the stick got up Miley's arse because is it installed in wizard school? Is it? Well, actually, both of the Elves were pretty stuck up.

Paper

I mean, I think that may have just been the stuck up elf stereotype.

Pencil

Yeah, there was like there was an elf druid who sort of the decoy big bad, you know, you'd think he's evil. But no, he's actually good. Except they don't really make him a decoy for very long.

Paper

He did a decoy for half a scene. Yeah. And

Pencil

then it turns out then then they reveal the truth. And he's just like, he's trying to get them to help. But he's just really obnoxious to them. And I guess to be fair, they do walk up to him just yell alright then elf, which I guess we put you off. But but he's just everyone is such an asshole

Paper

we have at least continued the trend in official d&d movies, though, of there's always a short criminal in the party.

Pencil

My favorite word for halflings.

Paper

But it's just really weird. Like, there's always either a dwarf or halfling. And they're always they're always a rogue Yes. Yes,

Pencil

it is. On brand.

Bev

It's because I can't reach the top shelf magazines. So they have to get thief powers in order to get them down and just go well, I guess, now that I finished my wank I'll make a career out of this.

Paper

Or if it's in the third one, you just combine the sex with the crime. Yeah.

Bev

I watched zero of these beforehand, but based on Episode 30, I was expecting a lot more. A lot more action, shall we say?

Pencil

This is the non sexy like the last one was a game was run by a DM who's clearly getting off on this. Yeah, I mean this one is a game is run by a DM who's only informed they were doing a session this morning.

Paper

The tome of annihilation one was very much it was very different to the others just because it was very very horny. And this one is very different to the others. Because it has no plot

Pencil

Yeah, like you can tell that like they didn't know how to do a choose your own adventure so they just made a bunch of interchangeable scenes that could go anywhere. Have I said that time is meaningless in space is an illusion

Paper

I mean, you are the philosopher

Pencil

yeah So to add so in a review of this movie, all things are meaningless nothing exists. This game is shit

Paper

now i'm even more thrilled that Courtney Solomon is involved with the new one that's coming out because like m- maybe I'm I do have I'm convinced of this theory now that the more Courtney Solomon is involved, the better the DND movie

Pencil

game idea get Courtney Solomon to just be in your D&D game it'll be great

Bev

the peak is clearly a film written by Directed by starring produced by like just filmed on a GoPro strapped to Courtney Solomon.

Pencil

Yeah, the ideal gay the ideal way of making them envious just nice. Keep Courtney Solomon in your basement and demand that she make fun of you.

Bev

I mean now we've moved the rowing machine out of the cellar. It's just not being used.

Paper

just make him do a one man D&D show

Pencil

One man D&D show or

Bev

just setup a table. Make it make him or her them do an actual play podcast where he has to move to different seats to be the characters

Paper

is this maybe on a podcast? Is it slightly different volumes as he moves towards and away from the microphone?

Pencil

That's how you tell the characters apart and yet we've made a better like DND medium than this one in conclusion is not very good.

Paper

So yeah, thanks for listening to this for not watching scourge of worlds um unless you're the patron that watched it in which case why are you listening to this? You knew it was bad.

Pencil

We get understand if you want a refund. Yeah.

Paper

We won't give it to you but we understand.

Pencil

Like it is our money you know. I hope you enjoyed this confirmation.

Paper

If you want to be a patron we have Patreon probablybadRPGideas if you want access to the server where we watched this, and bonus episodes and homebrew oh

Bev

my goodness, that sounds like an amazing deal.

Paper

This is a vote of confidence.

Bev

Yep, I didn't get into the server for free by simply knowing the host I assume I will now be kicked out now that my time is done and my usefulness is over. I request to be disintegrated by Dragon.

Paper

So thank you for listening and remember to have a bad day.

Bev

Remember to have a probably bad day

Transcribed by https://otter.ai