Probably Bad 28: Big Hairy Men, The Movie Speed and the Johnnies Stabbington

(6th January 2020)

D&DANIEL

It’s a miracle, we have made it through the darkest of nights. Thanks to all of our patrons but especially hedwig and carlo. Welcome to 202fun.

Opening music

PENCIL

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

MOD PAPER

I’m paper. Today’s probably bad rpg idea is...

(rolls dice)

A supernatural campaign where in the end the supernatural doesn’t really exist. I thought we would start 2021 with this one as it’s the first probably bad post.

PENCIL

It’s responsible for what you’re hearing right now. It has a whole 24 notes.

MOD PAPER

I do really like it as a kind of  it feels obvious at this point but the idea it’s a very sort of paranoia thing where it’s like oh these guys are vampires we need to take them out we need to kill them all and they’re just guys.

PENCIL

Turns out a lot of things will die if you put a stake through their heart.

MOD PAPER

You just stabbed some emos, that’s nothing.

PENCIL

You successfully purge the goth population. Like to be fair my interpretation when i originally made it is you show up at the head vampires lair and it turns out it’s an elaborate prank. Your friends got together to convince you that magic is real and you’re a sorcerer.

MOD PAPER

Like call of cthulhu but it’s gaslighting.

PENCIL

Probably a better term for convincing someone they’re possessed by lucifer.

MOD PAPER

There is probably a good idea in there of a fantasy campaign that morphs into sci-fi. You think there’s spooks and spirits but they’re aliens which i realise is a doctor who episode but...

PENCIL

Yeah most of the time i’ve seen that is in a traditional fantasy sense. I’ve not seen many of them either in a traditional fantasy sense or doctor who where we know they’re aliens, i’ve not really seen the version where it’s urban fantasy where there’s vampires and werewolves but it turns out they’re aliens. I’ve seen it in high fantasy where there’s magic items but it’s revealed they’re alien technology, but i haven’t seen that with more occult urban fantasy.

MOD PAPER

I feel like it could be a fun twist on a changeling game. It’s not the realm of fey it’s another planet with different rules.

PENCIL

You could definitely do something with fairy magic and it turns out wfairiees are aliens cause there’s a lot of crossover with fairy magic and ufology anyway.

MOD PAPER

And there is the indisgunguitshable from magic rule anyway.

PENCIL

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a contrived ripoff of a world of darkness setting.

MOD PAPER

Yeah.

PENCIL

That’s what that’s called. You tell your players they’re playing werewolf. You play it straight until they turn into a werewolf but nothing happens cause werewolves aren’t real.

MOD PAPER

I like that they genuinely believe from the beginning this is real and it’s like no, you just need a rabies shot.

PENCIL

You’re bitten by a huge unnaturally big wolf under the full moon and you start to feel changes in your body and the next full moon you keel over dead from rabies. That’s the campaign - give your players rabies is what we’ve come up with here. we’re slowly escalating-

MOD PAPER

That does fit our pattern.

PENCIL

To wipe out your game group and go to jail.

MOD PAPER

Yeah I just my brain keeps coming back to Call of Cthulhu as an elaborate gaslight narrative. It would have to be done very carefully but it would be a really interesting story of the upper class brainwashing the players who are middle to upper working class into no you have to do what we say or the creature from the deep will get you. You realise what’s happening and you kill all the posh people.

PENCIL

You could do a legitimate horror based around the monsters aren’t real you’re being elaborately deceived into monsters being real. Going back to doctor who, or torchwood cause obviously we all want to talk about torchwood. There was an episode of that where they go to a town and think there’s monsters but it turns out it’s just the town people in charge of the town killing people i can’t rememeber the plot but the idea that monsters are misinterpreted, the idea of monsters are used to cover up a crime, that people are using monsters to get people to do what they want with the fear of monsters there’s definitely a horror story there.

MOD PAPER

Yeah the one good episode of sherlock was the baskervilles one where they think it’s a ghost dog but it’s a government conspiracy.

PENCIL

Take any world of darkness sourcebook but it’s a government conspiracy at the end of it. That’s your idea. The other sort of idea -

MOD PAPER

Sorry, someone at the door.

PENCIL

The government is onto you. While paper is getting their package, let me sing you a song. Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo do doo do do do do do do do... bonus patreon content. Just doing a little podcast to myself.

MOD PAPER

A little podcast to yourself?

PENCIL

Yeah the sort of other way i could see this going is a more kind of cryptozoology sense where there are genuinely other creatures out there but discovering they’re not supernatural and are just undiscovered lifeforms.

MOD PAPER

I like that. Mothman is real but he’s just a big moth.

PENCIL

Yeah there are other kinds of humanoids than homo sapiens running around, and it’s like a demystification game.

MOD PAPER

That is a monster of the week i want to be a part of.

PENCIL

You get the supernatural stuff and it’s like ok it can’t shapeshift that’s ridiculous so we’ll look for some kind of humanoid wolf creature.

MOD PAPER

You could maybe make bigfoot and werewolves the same creature it’s a big hairy man.

PENCIL

Yeah i agree with you.

MOD PAPER

That’s my new cryptozoology theory. bigfoot is a werewolf. It’s a big hairy man.

PENCIL

Yeah i agree with you i also like the idea of a big hairy man as a supernatural creature, these are the four core world of darkness books, werewolf, vampire, mages and big hairy men. Big hairy men, the bearening.

MOD PAPER

I’d play it. But we know i ran a feast of legends game and therefore have no taste.

PENCIL

I feel like if paper says they’ll play your game that is a criticism of your game.

MOD PAPER

It’s like when i say i’ll watch a film you need to take it with a big pinch of has willingly watched plan 9 5 times.

PENCIL

Yeah. Before we plan the factions of the big hairy men rpg, they include live in the woods and shave except on a full moon, i believe we have questions.

Question music. Bread and thread plug.

MOD PAPER

Yes, if you have a question you can email... i forgot the email... you can email... what is the email?

PENCIL

Isn’t it just probably bad podcast?

MOD PAPER

Yes, if you have a questionn you can email probablybadpodcast@gmail.com And message us at tumblr probablybadrpgideas. First questionn they’re all anonymous, how to find a d&d group, wrong answers only.

PENCIL

Terminally.

MOD PAPER

Explain.

PENCIL

No. Find your rpg group terminally. I feel the best way to do it is you take a copy of Volo’s guide to monsters and leave it in a bear trap and you just sit and watch from the woods.

MOD PAPER

Aah but what if the person flicks the book out with a stick or are they too wily to play with. They’ll solve all your puzzles.

PENCIL

It’s testing their puzzle solving ability so if they’re caught by the bear trap, but if they think to bring a 10 foot pole everywhere they go, then they’re suited to D&D.

MOD PAPER

I like it.

PENCIL

I think this is building towards build an actual dungeon full of traps and monsters which i guess in this context is angry animals in your dungeon.

MOD PAPER

Or big angry men.

PENCIL

Fill your basement with bear traps and big angry men and anyone who survives gets to be in your D&D game.

MOD PAPER

This is terminally this is Saw.

PENCIL

Yeah. I mean the Saw movies got weird i can see a D&D theme.

MOD PAPER

You go into your local game shop with tracking devices and you slip them into peoples pockets so people can find them wherever they are, so you can always find your D&D group.

PENCIL

The best part is you don’t have to tell them you’re a D&D group so they can just be reading and you climb through the window holding character sheets and go “it’s D&D time”.

MOD PAPER

You ring up five consecutive phone numbers and say hey guys you wanna play D&D? And if they say no, you need to pick different phone numbers cause these ones suck.

PENCIL

There’s many different phone numbers.

MOD PAPER

Yeah theoretically infinite.

PENCIL

You get on a bus and you put a bomb on the bus so if the bus goes below 50 mph it explodes and then when you’re like if you’re stuck on a bus journey for a while who wants to play D&D?

MOD PAPER

If the bus goes below 50 dice rolls per hour. I feel like what you’re basically saying is find the tackiest film you can then copy it and play D&D with the survivors.

PENCIL

It perhaps indicates my point that i only know that the 50 mph bus thing is a film reference and not what film it’s from. I only know it as a reference and yeah, i feel that’s just choose the worst reference to the worst film you can and recruit the survivors.

MOD PAPER

Go throw a ball on a roof with a guy named Mark and whoever joins you is in your D&D group.

PENCIL

With a room reference i think that’s a sign it’s now time to move on to our next question which is also anonymous. How do you know when a sandbox campaign is over?

MOD PAPER

When a cat shits in it. I’m sorry, i had to get it out, you know?

PENCIL

I think generally if there’s nothing left for the players to kill... Then the sandbox is over.

MOD PAPER

The game can continue until everyone on the planet is dead?

PENCIL

Yeah. Based on the sandbox games i’ve been in the general rule is the players destroy everything. If there’s something that hasn’t been seduced or killed or burnt down the game is still going. To give an actual answer i think a sandbox game it really is a case of until people stop having fun.

MOD PAPER

I feel like running a sandbox game is all about placing various threads in front of your players and they’ll follow some and leave some, and you can escalate some of them or say they resolve themselves and it finishes when all those threads are used up.

PENCIL

Basically do you feel there’s more that you can do in this world and do think your players are interested in doing more in this world which is a very vague answer but you didn’t go to this podcast for good advice.

MOD PAPER

Yeah i think it’s basically either the players stop playing or you run out of ideas.

PENCIL

Which i guess you could argue is the point any campaign ends.

MOD PAPER

Yeah a lot of campaigns end before the end if you know what i mean cause scheduling happens. This is making me a little bit sad but it’s an issue.

PENCIL

I think the advantage of sandbox campaigns is a big campaign - it’s a lot easier to end a sandbox campaign if it’s clear the game’s not working, or at least it’s a lot easier to do it satisfingly to do a planned campaign.

MOD PAPER

Yeah i run a campaign for the group pencil’s in, it ran from level 3 to level 13 or something, and we wanted to do more with it but it’s like this is where these characters end up this is how the world’s ended up. So the campaign stopped.

PENCIL

It’s always important to not push the campaign past the point where the story is over. Don’t do a supernatural i guess.

MOD PAPER

Yeah. I think you can tell we’re recording this at the end of 2020, we’re getting very introspective.

PENCIL

The important thing is to accept the collapse of society, build a little hole and lie there and cry.

MOD PAPER

There is very much a feeling of loss when a big campaign finishes it’s weird. But then you get to start a new campaign, and if you’re lucky enough to be in a group with more than one DM in it, you get to play the game, then you get time to come up with another campaign to get sad about when it ends. It’s the circle of dice.

PENCIL

To answer your question, accept the impermanency of role playing games, everything has its time and everything has an ending. Which brings us to our last question, which is also anonymous, none of you have identities cause it’s 2020.. what’s a character you have no chance to play?

MOD PAPER

Oh so many, i have a problem where i make D&D characters when i’m sad.

PENCIL

Mine would be a competent version of myself.

MOD PAPER

You definitely played that. cause we did a campaign where we played magical versions of ourselves.

PENCIL

I don’t think i was in that one, so i’ve never played a competent version of myself.

MOD PAPER

Were you not? Oh no!

PENCIL

But yeah i think, what characters have i never played? I tried making a character for Nobilis, but there the problem was i was making a character for Nobilis.

MOD PAPER

That is an issue.

PENCIL

It was like, i was trying to do what was i doing? I can’t remember. This is a very unhelpful answer, and i realise while i say this you’re probably doing a reverse subscription where you take money off us once per month. But... so paper, you have characters.

MOD PAPER

I think the one i think about most is probably i made a little gnome wizard called bimpnottin cause it was one off the names in the book. she was a little old lady who was a quack doctor, she went from town to town with her friends selling fake medicine and being a general con artist but we only really got one session cause things happen, but i really want to bring her back and being a tiny little sleazy con artist again.

PENCIL

It’s an amazing name.

MOD PAPER

Yeah i grabbed it out the book cause i didn’t know anything about the setting. She didn’t like her name though, she went by Bea.

PENCIL

That’s what i’m calling any children i have. Whether in terms of being a parent or looking after them for an afternoon.

MOD PAPER

Noted.

PENCIL

I shall call all of them bimnoffin. I don’t think that’s the name, i’m just descending into gnomish gibberish.

MOD PAPER

Each of them gets a different gnomish gibberish name so you can tell them apart.

PENCIL

Children are basically gnomes...

MOD PAPER

They’re small, they like to fiddle with things...

PENCIL

And they’re magic.

MOD PAPER

And some of them live in the forest.

PENCIL

Gnomes are just children who have been released into the woods. Gnomes are just free range children.

MOD PAPER

You realise feral children exist, are you saying gnomes are just feral human children.

PENCIL

They’re feral human children who have learned to make ridiculous hats. That’s where gnomes come from.

MOD PAPER

Ok? I have a whole list though, i have one character i really want to play who’s a sad dad - you know the videogame trope of the sad dad - he’s a i think it’s called the way of the drunken master monk, because he’s a sad dad who drinks all the time, and he has 8 knives, his weapons are his fists and his knives and his sadness. i haven’t got to play him once and i really want to put him in a big campaign. He doesn’t even have a name i just call him knife dad and i love him.

PENCIL

Does he need a name? I would play a videogame that’s just a knife dad. like mario where you have dozens of children and they’ve each been kidnapped by a monster and you’re a drunken knife dad... I realise that’s not a mario plot at all.

MOD PAPER

I think that’s a monster factory thing, but i made this guy a while ago, and it just idk i’ve been in a couple campaigns that have started since then he just haven’t fitted. I need a moment for knife dad to really shine.

PENCIL

Yeah. What you need to do is you originally make another character, and when it becomes dramatically convenient-

MOD PAPER

I make another character, they die and next character is knife dad who’s that character’s dad. And then if knife dad dies it’s knife granddad. It’s just knife dads all the way down...

PENCIL

Then knife great granddad. who’s a ghost. Knife great granddad is just a knife floating in the air being held by a ghost.

MOD PAPER

That would be a really good excuse for playing a revenant. All my line have been killed so i’m back to avenge them.

PENCIL

You kill this guy and then another revenant pops up and you kill that revenant, and another revenant pops up...

MOD PAPER

Are they slightly bigger each time, like russian dolls?

PENCIL

Yeah, each of them has one more knife than the last.

MOD PAPER

You might have killed me, johnny 3 knives, but have you met my dad, johnny 4 knives?

PENCIL

I like this reverse surname thing they have.

MOD PAPER

It’s a nickname! Their surname is stabbington!

PENCIL

To answer your question, Johnny 4 knives stabbington, which is my answer to all questions from now on.

MOD PAPER

And on that note...

PENCIL

I think that’s as much stabbings as we can fit into a podcast.

MOD PAPER

Thank you for listening, as pencil said we have a patreon, probablybadrpgideas, if you want bonus eps, homebrew, access to a discord server where we do sometimes play games, largely based on probablybadrpgideas the last one was great fun.

PENCIL

We don’t i’m afraid have the anti-patreon where you get money from us.

MOD PAPER

Yeah. We have that and the email which i did remember eventually, which is just probablybadpodcast@gmail, i’m very tired. It’s been a year. But you’ll be listening to this in 2021 which will be slightly better maybe?

PENCIL

Or it’s when the aliens invade.

MOD PAPER

One of the two. So have a good year but

BOTH

Have a probably bad day.

Pencil sings a little tune.