Probably Bad 24: Long-Distance Wolverine, Fluffy Friends, and Pencil’s Redemption

(11th November 2020)

D&daniel

The wheel of time keeps on turning. Midnight’s children turn to noon’s adults. It’s already time for another probably bad podcast, which couldn’t happen without the loving support of mario, hedwig, matt and joining them now is carlo. They’re all terrible.

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… Experiment with style by having werewolf transformations happen in the style of magical girl transformation sequences. I think this is yours, but it ties into one I did a while ago which was describing all wildshape in the really horrendous way that animorphs does it.

MOD PENCIL

I feel like we’ve got two different, we’ve got the tones of the transformation completely opposite to the settings cause I like the idea of a lighthearted D&D game where the druid peels off their face and grows their limbs painfully and then a horrific game of hunting down monsters where players are going yeah, surrounded by roses and nice music and put on a pretty dress and they’re also a werewolf.

PAPER

Messing with tone is always fun. In the werewolf magical girl transformation sequence it’s basically sailor moon right, the power of the moon transforms you.

MOD PENCIL

It’s sailor moon if she just tears your throat out with her teeth, which I feel would greatly improve sailor moon. Yeah in the name of the moon you will be punished has a lot more like meaning when the moon is turning you into a wolf monster. It is very possible I’m getting obscure werewolf the apocalypse lore wrong so if I am feel free to not message me a long list of what the moon actually does.

PAPER

I mean I feel we can just talk about it as werewolves generally they’re a fairly common thing, I mean who doesn’t have werewolves in their game?

MOD PENCIL

Nerds. Take that whatever percentage of our listeners don’t have werewolves.

PAPER

I am also wondering cause in a lot of magical girl sequences there is an object they have that like goes and floats and then there’s magical beams of light everywhere. What would that object be for a werewolf?

MOD PENCIL

Just another wolf?

PAPER

It would just be – the obvious answer is themselves so it would just be the end of beauty and the beast but in reverse.

MOD PENCIL

I guess it’s like you know in the original myth you put on an enchanted tin and it turns you into a werewolf? Could be that.

PAPER

I mean there are a lot of original werewolves –

MOD PENCIL

In some original myths.

PAPER

There are some where you put on a belt and it turns you into a werewolf and then you take it off when you’re done being a werewolf.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah it could just be a belt. A footprint with water in it that just appears in the air and they lick it.

PAPER

I just want you to know nick just said furry cummerbund. I feel like that’s furry in both senses of the word isn’t it?

MOD PENCIL

I think the alternative is they undergo the transformationn and they’re now a nine foot humanoid monster and they also have a stick and they just hit you with the stick. They don’t use any of their werewolf powers.

PAPER

Just to give them some sort of item.

MOD PENCIL

They turn into a wolf that has a stick in its mouth, and the wolf is chasing you hitting you with the stick.

PAPER

I have a question – so in a lot of mythos sort of people who know they’re going to transform take off all their clothes – magical girl transformation that involves growing a very weird penis, cause like a lot of people who listen to this are on tumblr they know how wolves work.

MOD PENCIL

Ok full disclaimer I don’t know how wolves work and don’t know why people are growing weird penises.

PAPER

I don’t want to say it out loud so I’m going to send you a short message.

MOD PENCIL

Ok please enjoy our penis break from this podcast.

PAPER

Don’t say penis break!

MOD PENCIL

The plan is to drive away as many viewers as possible.

PAPER

Prepare for a live reaction to learning about knotting.

MOD PENCIL

Aah, ok I now know what that means I’m not sure I’m a fan of it. I’ve seen the word on tumblr a lot in the sense of something bad but I didn’t actually know the meaning and was too scared to look it up.

PAPER

Best part is out of the two of us pencil’s the only one who really does anything on ao3.

MOD PENCIL

Not knotting.

PAPER

I just get all this by osmosis.

MOD PENCIL

I feel our podcast is going a bit offbrand. Or possibly entirely on brand.

PAPER

Incredibly bad rpg ideas, ABO D&D.

MOD PENCIL

So… Magical girl transformations.

PAPER

I hate myself a little bit.

MOD PENCIL

To change the subject.

PAPER

Overall I really like this idea, especially if it does have the whole glowing while transforming cause imagine you’re watching this person and they start glowing and then their outline gets really fuzzy and you think they’re going to transform and the outline stops glowing and they’re just really hairy.

MOD PENCIL

I do like the idea you have the big transformation and have the magical girl thing of like – in the werewolf game you just turn into a taller furrier human, but you can still pass as human, it’s just that, they glow, they get body hair and they’re a few inches taller.

PAPER

It’s magical T!

MOD PENCIL

I— yeah. Sorry there was going to be a reaction to what you said there, but my brain didn’t work, so if we just cut out that last section and now I will say something witty. Nope, I’m not gonna say anything witty.

PAPER

It is though, it makes you taller and hairier, it makes you more like masculine looking, being a werewolf in werewolf is just being a trans guy.

MOD PENCIL

To be fair there are other transformations than becoming a trans guy.

PAPER

But I’m interested in this one.

MOD PENCIL

I mean like you know with the whole Gender Identity Clinic at the moment, asking a moon goddess to do it may be easier. Sorry went into actual politics there. Back to magical fantasy creatures.

PAPER

I do want to talk about the sort of animorphs style transformation as well-

MOD PENCIL

The horrific side of things.

PAPER

The last time I played a druid my go to form was a badger, but I feel like there’s not a lot to be done with that, but the other form I really liked for doing a lot of espionage was being a spider, and your skeleton moves to the outside!

MOD PENCIL

Just bursts out of your mouth and wraps around you and then you start shrinking?

PAPER

Yeah that’s a little bit bony venom! Question is when this happens presumably with a lot of disgusting noises sprout four extra limbs out of your torso?

MOD PENCIL

What I imagine is your skeleton wraps around you and then your ribs start expanding and turn into arms.

PAPER

Oh I like that. The concept is horrific but also I’m intrigued. I think that is maybe the problem with animorphs style transformation descriptions you just end up at least I do I’m really interested in anatomy.

MOD PENCIL

I feel like this is basically a game where you describe body horror to your friends every time they use their class features and it either works or like – sorry – it either works or people forcibly remove your ability to mouth.

PAPER

Your ability to mouth?

MOD PENCIL

I think someone has removed my ability to mouth. Ability to talk.

PAPER

I do like the idea of just describing every spell in the most horrific way possible. Like vicious mockery, ah well you said that he was a son of a bitch and now his ears are bleeding.

MOD PENCIL

You cast fireball and what happens is your head unfolds to reveal a flamethrower and then reseals itself.

PAPER

I like it.

MOD PENCIL

I feel it may be works better if most spells are described normally but there’s one spell where you cast magic missile and what happens is just your spine comes out your back, pulls out a gun and starts shooting people.

PAPER

Where was the spine keeping the gun?

MOD PENCIL

I don’t know anatomy but I assume there’s a holster in there somewhere.

PAPER

I was picturing more along the lines of bones at the end of your fingers shoot out and stab the person and they just fly back in.

MOD PENCIL

You can use magic missile a grand total of ten times your whole career and then you run out of fingers.

PAPER

No they fly back in it’s like long distance wolverine you can retract them.

MOD PENCIL

The power of if I throw my fingers they can return just sounds like a really shitty superhero.

PAPER

A little bit. Could you do it with other body parts, break off an arm and use it like a boomerang?

MOD PENCIL

I’m thinking magic missile but you fire your teeth like machine gun bullets.

PAPER

I’m getting very into this idea.

MOD PENCIL

Just invisibility but you just take your skin off.

PAPER

Less that you can’t be seen that no-one wants to look at you.

MOD PENCIL

Invisibility but you look so horrific no-one wants to look at you.

PAPER

Invisibility but you die and turn into a ghost.

MOD PENCIL

I feel like, yeah intangibility but you- actually in a world where the undead exists like ok this problem’s unsurmountable I’m going to die and come back as a ghost with a bunch more powers is not an unnreasonable – people never explore the implications that dead people keep coming back as super powerful monsters.

PAPER

Yeah…

MOD PENCIL

Cause there are genuinely a lot of characters in D&D who are like I died horribly it was the best thing that ever happened to me now I can eat souls.

PAPER

There is also the reverse that you guys did in one game which was oh we can’t work out how to cure this vampire so we’re going to kill her and pay someone to cast true resurrection.

MOD PENCIL

It worked to be fair.

PAPER

It worked but this poor woman has died twice.

MOD PENCIL

She’s fine. I don’t think she was fine.

PAPER

She was not she was incredibly traumatised.

MOD PENCIL

I think she did go to hell at least the first time she died.

PAPER

Briefly yeah. In between the killing and the resurrection there was some hell time.

MOD PENCIL

But yeah anyway my point is I don’t know what my point is I think my point is your head is a flamethrower and you come back as a ghost and that’s how you get advantage to intimidating like a sick child.

PAPER

That tracks.

MOD PENCIL

With resurrection you can just die and come back as undead and when you don’t need it you die again and just get resurrected as a normal person.

PAPER

Yeah could you be a temporary lich?

MOD PENCIL

Yeah.

PAPER

If someone kills your lich form can you have an arrangement with someone to bring you back normal at the end of it?

MOD PENCIL

I don’t see why not. That’s just another transformation sequence where you keel over dead.

PAPER

It’s the transformationn sequence everyone gets to do.

MOD PENCIL

It’s not really related but I love the idea of the magical transformation sequence where you go up and you’re glowing and like the dress appears and you get a magical item and it stops and you just fall over dead.

PAPER

How else do you think they put bodies in nice clothing they do it before they magically transform into a corpse.

MOD PENCIL

Magically transform into a corpse sounds like a wizard trying to come up with a euphemism for their murder powers and not quite succeeding. I cast person to corpse. I don’t think we’ve done any ideas this episode we’ve just discussed horrible things happening.

PAPER

Yeah I think normally we transition to questions after we turn it into a game we would want to play but instead it’s turned into junji ito.

MOD PENCIL

So yeah, um… If you can find any ideas in the things we just said you’re welcome.

PAPER

You know what is a good idea though? It’s going on the 21st november to twitch.tv/theblakery to watch our first ever live show where we’re going to be doing this bit and then answering questions.

MOD PENCIL

You’ll get to see our faces and maybe our horrible animorphs transformation sequences.

PAPER

That’s twitch.tv/theblakery on the 21st nov at 8pm uk time. So questions.

Bread and thread promo. Question music.

MOD PENCIL

Yes. So our first question is loading cause my computer’s being – our first question is from first224. Odd question but would a pc tortlemug be able to catch lycanthropy from a werebear and if so how screwed are their teammates?

PAPER

I mean I can’t see how you couldn’t get lycanthropy?

MOD PENCIL

Yeah. So what’s the horrible animorphs transformation for turning into a bear? I think the shell unclips itself.

PAPER

I think the most important thing is that it would surely not be a werebear cause you’re not a person.

MOD PENCIL

Is there old english for tortoise?

PAPER

There is. A tortose. So you would be a tortbear. That’s the most immportant thing is the pedantry.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah, as the creature is tearing your throat out it’s important to make sure you’re using the right terminology.

PAPER

It’s only polite. I don’t think your teammates are any more screwed than you would be if anyone else was a werebear.

MOD PENCIL

Which to be fair… Actually no werebears are lawful good so you actually might be fine.

PAPER

You might actually just be an incredibly pedantic bear. You go around saying actually I’m a tortbear cause I’m not a human.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah what it does is it’ll transform and then it’ll correct your terminology then it’ll file your taxes.

PAPER

I like that idea of what lawful good is, it files its taxes on time.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah that is what paladins do, that’s the only thing paladins do.

PAPER

That’s true, paladins are just accountants.

MOD PENCIL

If you consider that a controversial opinion, you’re wrong. So I feel like the tortle, I’m just imagining a tortoise’s head and legs go into the shell and they come out they’re bears, or they’re bear body parts and that’s how it transforms.

PAPER

I was thinking if presumably going from human to spider your skeleton comes out of your mouth and wraps around you presumably the reverse happens going from tortoise to bear.

MOD PENCIL

Like I said its shell opens and closes.

PAPER

Maybe the shell twists around and goes partly inside and becomes teeth. A tortle doesn’t have teeth, where do you think the teeth come from?

MOD PENCIL

The shell just shrinks and becomes a head and then it chomps you.

PAPER

I honestly think the weirdest part of the experience – I’m looking up tortles and they seem to be orderly and lawful good, similar to werebear, so like- you just become fluffy.

MOD PENCIL

You’ve got exactly the same tortle but furry. You’re fine everything’s great pet your new friend or the same friend. Pet your now furry friend.

PAPER

You do have a better sense of smell but also if you smell something bad you’re too polite to comment on it. The player’s more screwed than the party cause you’ve lost your external natural armour.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah. Only on full moon. Every full moon you become fluffy and adorable and nothing else changes.

PAPER

That sounds about right.

MOD PENCIL

I hope that makes you feel better about your werebear tortle friend.

Question music.

PAPER

So our second question is anonymous. How to run a real world campaign without getting all late buffy about it. I’m assuming late buffy means escalating a ridiculous amount and getting overly grimdark.

MOD PENCIL

Like real life. The serious answer I’d say to this question is don’t keep trying to top your last enemy in terms of sheer power. Once you’ve got something that can destroy the world it’s hard to get something that can destroy the world more, maybe try something that’s less objectively powerful and more a personal threat, the key thing is more you have to survive until it goes away rather than you have to stop it, those kind of things.

PAPER

Yeah I think the avengers series has this problem where they threaten the world and then the universe and now what?

MOD PENCIL

Yeah there’s supernatural where the last I checked I think they’re fighting god’s big sister or something ridiculous likke that.

PAPER

Sounds about right.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah rather than going for a bigger threat go for a bigger kind of threat.

PAPER

It sounds like an opportunity for almost a slice of life kind of game where it’s just like hey you’re just I’m assuming this is real life so just living your life you’re working in a shoe shop then suddenly someone takes away all the shoes oh no.

MOD PENCIL

I feel like you can avoid getting all late buffy on it by just not introducing any threats it’s just like this person working in a shoeshop and you all roleplay this person in a shoeshop.

PAPER

Assuming the system you use for this is just roll for shoes.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah you just roll to see if there are shoes in arms reach or if you have to walk a bit to get the shoes. So yeah don’t introduce any threat and that’ll stop it being all late buffy.

PAPER

Or you make the threats rather than being all existential you just make them silly.

MOD PENCIL

You start off with like the world ending demon god and every time after that you just slowly decrease the scale of threat.

PAPER

Have you considered making the bbeg octodad? It’d be really hard cause he just looks like an ordinary human father.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah. You have to determine which of these normal human fathers are octodad. Yeah… I feel like any rpg would be improved by revealing the big bad has been octodad all along.

PAPER

Octobad.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah.

PAPER

I feel like there’s the option of going more outlandish. As we all know, moon’s wet. Could you go to the moon? Cause real world is not the same as realistic. Maybe you’ve saved the world and now you’ve got to save the moon from whatever’s hatched from within.

MOD PENCIL

after you save earth You’ve got to go through all the moons and planets in the solar system…

PAPER

As long as they’re all extant bodies then technically it’s still real world.

MOD PENCIL

Lots of things are in the real world. So your job is to stop someone stealing neptune.

PAPER

I would play that though.

MOD PENCIL

There’s a joke about uranus here, but I can’t work out what it is.

PAPER

Someone is invading it.

MOD PENCIL

Someone is invading uranus and you need to stop it.

PAPER

We got it.

MOD PENCIL

So the takeaway here is mix up the threats you’re going with rather than progression, whether that is a good way or in a someone’s invading uranus and you’ve only got a shoestore to stop them way.

PAPER

That is the thing though isn’t it real world is such a vague phrase. Most sci-fi is real world, like war of the worlds is a real world thing. Call of cthulhu is a real world thing.

MOD PENCIL

I think it depends on whether you see real world in the sense of crime thing that’s realistic or real world in the sense of you know world of darkness, if you open your back door there’s a vampire god there.

PAPER

It’s very easy to get as the question said all late buffy – with wod.

MOD PENCIL

With WoD the important thing is use only one or two sourcebooks at most, don’t try to use all the sourcebooks.

PAPER

Unless that’s the kind of campaign you want to play. Maybe you want to get all late buffy about. You know valid. But I was going to say all campaigns are valid but I’ve heard some stories.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah. Most campaigns are valid, except you, you know who you are, stop it.

PAPER

That is the tagline.

Question music.

MOD PENCIL

Ok our next question – I don’t know why I said that in that voice – our next question is gaming snacks, wrong answers only.

PAPER

Dice. Cronch.

MOD PENCIL

I feel there’s no other good answer than dice, but this is a re recording and in the original recording I confessed to wanting to eat people. Because I kept suggesting the GM.

PAPER

Also the players be fair.

MOD PENCIL

The gm and the players and apparently most people are not sitting there planning to eat their game group, I thought I’d put that out there before putting out my suggestion which is definitely not your fellow players and gm, that would be wrong.

PAPER

That is the shortest redemption arc in podcast history.

MOD PENCIL

I have burned through all 9 alignments just offscreen.

PAPER

It wasn’t relevant… But yeah I do think you could eat your character sheets as an amnesia mechanic.

MOD PENCIL

Every time you get hit with a memory eraser spell you eat a chunk of character sheet.

PAPER

Ten candles but instead of candles burning down you just eat them.

MOD PENCIL

I like that it’s not relevant they’re candles except for the fact you want to make it worse.

PAPER

You could just have an array of normal snacks and just have that as the session timer when we run out of doritos tha game is over.

MOD PENCIL

I think it takes some of the tragic horror away from it. As you see your family die you become enveloped in the dark horror, eat some doritos.

PAPER

What if it’s not the players eating the doritos.

MOD PENCIL

I’m getting a spooky vibe what if there’s a goat in the room and every time it eats a dorito the nubmers go down.

PAPER

What you do is get your dog and put dog treats around the room and when the dog has found them all the game is over.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah the game space is just a dog and a pile of meat. And you have until the dog stops eating the meat.

PAPER

I’m worried we came up with a good rpg idea.

MOD PENCIL

I’m not.

PAPER

But think about it every treat represents an important npc who gets killed off when the dog finds and eats that treat.

MOD PENCIL

That would work I guess. It would need to be a bit more controlled than letting a dog loose in the house.

PAPER

No.

MOD PENCIL

Fair enough.

PAPER

Life is chaos pencil.

MOD PENCIL

What you need to do is you have the dog, then you just need to cover each of the players in meat drippings or something and when the dog mauls them their character dies.

PAPER

If you die in real life you die in the game.

MOD PENCIL

I don’t think this is answering the snack question at all I think it’s just inventing dog mauling.

PAPER

The best gaming snack the actual answer is obvious me I am a snack.

MOD PENCIL

I don’t have enough self esteem to make that joke.

PAPER

I’m sorry…

MOD PENCIL

Yeah I think I would go, assuming paper isn’t here, I would go for the rulebook as the dm is about to find out how badly you fucked up – ok you take damage and you take – and you take it and eat it before you find out how much damage you take.

PAPER

It would be a good way to deal with rules lawyers.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah. You want to check what page 37 says? Good luck getting inside my stomach oh god it’s come back to vore.

PAPER

Sooner or later it all comes back to vore with you.

MOD PENCIL

I tried to redeem myself from eating my fellow players but…

PAPER

Eating fellow players butts.

MOD PENCIL

You can’t see it cause this is a podcast but I did a little finger click.

PAPER

You did a what?

MOD PENCIL

Finger click. No, finger guns I did finger guns. It’s 2020.

PAPER

What even are words.

MOD PENCIL

If you would like to hear what words are – I don’t think we did answer that question but we certainly said things in response to it.

PAPER

Be fair the question did say wrong answers only and some of those were incredibly wrong.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah some of them weren’t actually answers. Yes, out of character, nickblake do we have the ending things?

PAPER

we’ve got your bit, It’s me that does the ending things.

Nickblake

We need to round off with that. And if you like, do a little rap.

PAPER

I do not like. Thanks for listening, we’re doing a live show on twitch.tv/theblakery – t h e b l a key, I can’t say letters – t h e b l a k e r y – 8 uk time, that’s just utc. If you have a question for a regular episode you can email probablybadpodcast@gmail.com or send a message us on tumb-lr, don’t know why I said it like that but on tumb-lr, probablybadrpgideas, we do have a patreon, which is also probablybadrpgideas, if you want access to homebrews such as the demon of minor anxiety or wrestleboys, the righter subclass, as well as bonus episodes, so thank you for listening and –

Both

Remember to have a probably bad day.

Closing music.