Cthulu Town, Magical Alexa, and Just Go Home

D&Daniel

Thank you for being a friend traveling down the road and back again. Yes, I'm here to thank patrons Hedwig Carlo, and our new friend Tom for supporting the podcast and keeping me in dice and frivolities have a probably bad day

Pencil

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

Paper

and i'm paper. And today's probably bad RPG idea is the cultists successfully performed the ritual to free the Great Old One before the investigators can stop them as they don't care about humanity or earth the eldritch horrors promptly head off into space without doing anything to anyone. The rest of the campaign is the cultists and the investigators sitting in awkward silence.

Pencil

So maybe like, you know as much as people talk about eldritch horrors, being uncaring towards humanity, they do tend to at least be actively malicious. And I think there should be more cases where cthulhu's just like in the town square. Like he's not attacking anyone. He's just sat there, like you might sit next to an anthill you just like hanging things off his tentacles sometimes.

Paper

I quite like this idea just because of the implications of firstly dealing with the cultists who are now no threat but should probably be punished for something. And also, people in the 20s frantically rushing to invent space travel.

Pencil

Think what it should be is the cultists are the ones frantically rushing to invent space travel, you know so they can go to their gods and get it to like do something and you are frantically trying to invent space travel first and this becomes like an internal war within NASA because half of NASA wants to event space travel to like keep control of it away from the cultists and the other half want to invent it to go find Cthulhu and i don't know slap him until he returns to Earth

Paper

feel like a fun story would possibly be the cultists having infiltrated NASA.

Pencil

Yeah. You've got Yeah, you've got to you've got to get into NASA and find out which leaders of nas- NASA are cultists

Paper

the answer the President

Pencil

I mean it didn't really surprise anyone. I feel most presidents of the USA are probably servants of the Great old ones.

Paper

So yeah. I also like the idea of arresting the cultists and then just trying to work out what extant crime they've done.

Pencil

Yeah, you have like, got people possessed by shades of the demons between the stars. Does that count as kidnapping?

Paper

Maybe endangerment.

Pencil

Like I feel like it's one of those campaigns that noone would play cause it would be uncomfortably boring. But I feel like there are some interesting campaigns on like, you know, the legalities of the supernatural. Like if I mind control you, that should absolutely be a crime. But like, what, what does it count under?

Paper

Well, that's the thing like there is a cost of potential of because it doesn't fit under anything else. It Coming under the beautiful broad umbrella that is criminal mischief. It's a real thing you can be charged with.

Pencil

These cultists have been extremely mischievous and must be centered a naughty step at once.

Paper

Well, the thing is they kept rubbing their hands together and giggling which didn't help their case.

Pencil

Prison is just the naughty step for grownups discuss. But yeah, if you got something like say cursing someone where you have this weird- by like you've caused them harm. But also is really hard to say in what way

Paper

Yeah, like, can you put it under the general like assault because assault implies physical harm, which hasn't necessarily actually done?

Pencil

I mean, like if I curse you to be hit by a car that's probably straightforward, but like if I curse you so that it's you know, everything you say is interpreted in the worst way possible. What What? What have I done crime wise, like libel maybe?

Paper

Maybe I was thinking possibly slander and they're virtually the same thing.

Pencil

Yeah, supernatural slander.

Paper

If you possess someone, couldit be argued that you've committed the crime of false imprisonment against their soul

Pencil

Yeah, possibly or I guess arguably also fraud.

Paper

coercion.

Pencil

Yeah. And summoning the Great Old One is arguably treason

Paper

It depends what for  although I guess the standard would be to bring down like down governments would be a part of the plan.

Pencil

Yeah, although I do like the implication of I summon Cthulhu just to hang out like the investigator will try and stop this ritual to free a Great Old One. And they fail and Cthulhu comes out and they just sit down and have coffee and talk about their days.

Paper

Well that people are always summoning you know, extra planar beings to do their bidding. But you know no one ever summons them just to ask how are you?

Pencil

Yeah. There's a there's a move next time you use summon monster. Before you send it off to go fight something. Just ask it like, you know, how are you? Are you having a good day? I hope you weren't doing anything too important before I flung through a portal and made you fight a terrasque?

Paper

you up to the fight right now. Or do you need a moment? Do you want an energy bar first,

Pencil

I think more summon monster spell should allow the monster to appear just confused mid fuck. Please, I was at my child's birthday say before you throw them at a dragon.

Paper

I mean, didn't punish you guys once by making it so that when you summoned an imp it was in the middle of its shower, so it was just butt naked and angry?

Pencil

I think you did. Yes. Somehow to be the way to be out at most is the implication that imps normally wear clothes, I always assumed he didn't.

Paper

Well, this one did specifically so that it could now be naked.

Pencil

Sounds like an in thing to do.

Paper

This is why people like playing with me, I guess.

Pencil

Subscribe for more naked imp games. If we ever do make a company it should be called Naked Imp Games. Just to ensure it never gets anywhere successful.

Paper

But I do think it's a good way. Like going back to the idea. I do think it's a good way to do a sequel campaign. Like if you fail. It's not necessarily a TPK. Or just like, I guess you'd lost the RPG. It's okay, now we're gonna switch over into a system that's more suited for space travel. Or possibly try and homebrew some Call of Cthulhu space travel. That's really interesting.

Pencil

Call of Cthulhu has a fuck ton of supplements. I'm sure there must be some sci fi supplement somewhere.

Paper

Well, there you go. You just go like full Jules Verne 20s space travel in a big copper ship trying to find Cthulhu on Mars.

Pencil

I think if you want like if you wanted to make it a bit more like still in keeping with the thing, if Cthulhu or whatever, great old one just wakes up and just like doesn't do anything is just stood there and is sort of, you know, at what point is going to wake up and do whatever it's going to do. Like the it's trapped, but you know, it's a time bomb to figure out what's going on what is actually going to happen. And also then because you used to have everyone going like ah cthulhu is in the middle of the city.

Paper

You have until Cthulhu gets past his sleep paralysis. (You know people like) what would Cthulhu's sleep paralysis demon even look like

Pencil

I like to imagine just a bunch of asshole humans yelling at him to come deal with their problems.

Paper

It makes sense. Then you wake up and it's real

Pencil

that's why he destroys the world. If you wake up and your sleep paralysis demon is still just there, you're going to swing a punch. That's fair. I think like you know people, like you know, using Cthulhu's body as a resource in some way once he's been there long enough. And then he wakes up. And you know, everyone who eats Cthulhu steaks gets possessed. I don't know why they make Cthulhu steaks.

Paper

Because squid is delicious.

Pencil

Yeah, turns out Cthulhu is delicious.

Paper

I mean, imagine the size of the calamari

Pencil

I do weirdly like the idea of a society that's run off a Great Old One. And it's just not noticed because like, you know, in a same way, you don't necessarily notice. tics and skin mites. Skin mites is probably a closer analogy.

Paper

I'd like that. Especially because then you could have a whole thing of Oh, the Great Old One that our society is literally built on is dying. And we need to find a way to prevent this.

Pencil

You could have a full inverse view of occultists trying to like stop the investigators finding a way to permanently banish or kill or whatever to create all because, you know, that's what all your power was running on.

Paper

Oh, I like that.

Pencil

But yeah, so yeah, the Great Old One is just

Paper

the cancellation of the apocalypse.

Pencil

I feel this works best if you have like multiple factions, and it's just today we're canceling the apocalypse. They were canceling the canceling or the apocalypse. Today we're canceling the canceling of the cance-, and so forth. And that's the entire first session is just a GM standing there doing saying that in increasingly long editions.

Paper

What if they  are in different voices, though for immersion.

Pencil

Yeah. After about the fifth one, the players will have left but just keep going.

Paper

What if they're just going to the toilet and are going to come back

Pencil

I just yeah, I really like the idea of this society based around just not a sleeping great old one but just like one that doesn't really care if humanity uses it. And sometimes it destroys things but gives off a lot of eldritch energy.

Paper

Kind of want to build a system just based on Cthulhu town now,

Pencil

I kind of want to build a setting based on Cthulhu town if we combine our forces

Paper

as if we aren't already trying to build an RPG.

Pencil

Yeah, that is true we can build two how hard can it be?

Paper

New from probably bad studios Cthulhunewtown.

Pencil

It's all going down in Cthulhutown. Sounds like a noir - a noir thing?

Paper

That sounds fun eldritch law. Yeah, need to do this]

Pencil

you're a hard- you're a hard boiled detective in Cthulhutown, human city, maybe Cthulhu has destroyed the world. But the survivors have sort of rebuilt a city around Cthulhu just you know, using all of like, the eldritch energy and eldritch like, life that comes things around him. So it's this post apocalyptic in 1920s eldritch city, sort of like noir thing I think if we've gone from a bad idea to inventing a game system it might be time to do some questions,

Paper

possibly but also the way you said because certainly town human city makes it sound like like a Chinatown but instead of like asian people, it's just full of squids.

Pencil

I mean, that is also a possibility just all the squids live in their own little part of the city and you got to go visit them. There is an interesting one with like, because you know Call of Cthulhu has all non human species your ghouls and your serpent people and whatever the fuck else there is. I don't know if they're like

I like the idea of a society like a world where they have all sorts of like, just, you know, they all just know each other. You can just go visit the deep, the deep ones

Paper

well, yeah, I mean, you go you go to 1920s New York. You've got you know, you've got Chinatown. You've got Little Italy, you've got Sneeple Village.

Pencil

Yeah, just yeah, just all of the like, if like species were like, you know, Cthulhu rights. Yesterday, right. eldritch horrors sealed in a world where there's no reason people can't be friends. Just like this optimistic future where we're like drawing energy from the sleeping great old ones and all of the different Cthulhu species work together. And we're building a better world purely because HP Lovecraft would roll in his grave at the thought of this. (he would) like, I've created a racially tolerant Call of Cthulhu game where the presence of the great old ones has pushed us towards like a better 1920s where all of the different-

Paper

If we make him spin fast enough we can then create power from the rotation.

Pencil

Like the big battle of the campaign is the ghost of HP Lovecraft insisting you put in more like, you know, dog whistles. (Yes) And you got to fight HP Lovecraft Just IRL.

Paper

I mean, I would be down for fighting HP Lovecraft right now

Pencil

like as popular as he was, for those who don't know, he was an absolutely awful person. Yeah. But yeah, I like, yeah, just all of the sentient, all of the sentient species are working together. The world is like drawing energy from the great old ones, which maybe is a little bit cursed, but like, you know, what can you do? We're going to space.

I do kind of want to make this but

Paper

yes, we can we can put it on the list.

Pencil

Now that we have like, a setting, which I think is the aim of this podcast questions?

Paper

Yeah. Before we do questions, I'm moving the plugs into the middle so that more people will hear them. So we have a Patreon. If you go to patreon.com/probably Bad RPG ideas, you can get access to a Discord server, and bonus episodes, and homebrew and hanging out with us. We're cool. But our patrons are cooler and nice. And you can also email us at probably bad podcast@gmail.com. And particularly want to emphasize that because we got a Tumblr message the other day, saying they didn't know how to contact us. And I think that that means I need to move this into the middle. Anyway, questions, which can also be emailed to us or sent on Tumblr. That's, yeah, we'll do better next.

Pencil

I feel it seems fitting with the vibes

Paper

sorry.

Pencil

So our first question is from Crashionalthinker in all those RPGs Do you think that somewhere out there was a landfill all the garbage you sell to vendors? I mean, you've got to put that stuff somewhere, right? I'd like to think that's where monsters come from, where you just throw all of those minor magical items together. And they're resentful over being abandoned and replaced with better items, and just all that magic blurs together and forms into a skeleton.

Paper

I do like that. It would, it would explain a lot.

Pencil

Yeah. Like all magic.

Paper

You know you go somewhere and people are like, oh, well, this area is full of magic, because people used to do magic stuff here and they left stuff behind and don't go there. It's dangerous.

Pencil

Like, oh, magical items are minimally sentient, like, you know, and when they're sort of all abandoned, just all that magic blurs together and that's produces like, that's why there's so many Alpha predators, even those societies even though like any ecosystem won't be able to cope with that many apex predators is because magic keep spawning them

Paper

that does make sense

Pencil

also why everyone dresses so ridiculously that's also a side effect of the magic. Yeah, I think. Yeah, so all magical, like sentient magical items are just magical items, which are, you know, sentient on a human level, but all magical items are like, you know, like, maybe animal level, like the level of a bird or something.

Paper

Yeah, like I feel like, because a lot of them are activated with a word. I feel like they've got to be kind of like an Alexa. They're just like always listening.

Pencil

Yeah, like, what not many people know is your magical items are aware of what you think of them. Like if you're like well, this is a shit magic sword it is crying on the inside.

Paper

And depending on how sentient they are, they will do slightly worse when you use them.

Pencil

I like the idea of just like magic items that learn like if you've got a sort of magic sword of plus one say and you use it mostly in mostly aggressively it'll get like more jagged and do more damage. Whereas if you use it mostly offensively it'll get like physically physically more resistant and be better at blocking and things like that. But like yeah minor minor things like that of like if you use the same magical item for enough times it learns what you use it for and reacts accordingly.

Paper

I like that because it's again that like Alexa level intelligence of machine learning

Pencil

yeah. Yeah, like you know, if you're if you're more of a sneaky going from ambush thing it might like learn to make you hard to see if you're more of a go in swinging. It might make you heal wounds faster. I actually really like this idea.

Paper

Yeah, I like it. I also like the idea of a magical apocalypse. I don't know why we're getting so apocalyptic today. Based on slightly sentient magical items talking to each other, and just doing the follow on like, AI rebellion thing.

Pencil

There was absolutely an interesting d&d idea of all of the magical items rebel. Like you got the magical constructs, which are the most obvious ones, but then you've got like, you know, just potions no longer heal people, magical swords like, try and attack you when you grab them. Just

Paper

that's the thing because the adventuring economy is so reliant on magic items, potions, (Yeah, it would take out) it would take out spellbooks like do spellbooks count.

Pencil

Yeah, I mean, just just like potions turn like, you know, poisonous would itself take out a decent chunk of the adventuring population before people figure it out.

Paper

Especially because people tend to save them for absolute dire circumstances.

Pencil

Yeah. Yeah, it's just everyone's magical items stopped working. That's most of the people who could deal with this problem down in one fell swoop.

Paper

And the rest would think magical items turn evil. Yeah.

Pencil

Which would explain why it's your first level players who like are dealing with this problem? Because they did they didn't have enough ma- because all of the like, you know, level 20 World savers, they will just take it out immediately when the magical items turned on them.

Paper

this would be a really good basis for like, you know that that post that goes round, that's like starting a d&d game. And the DM says, like, you know, there's no magic. There's no fantasy races. But you're still trying to play d&d, like, that is the one reason that this guy would not be a huge tool.

Pencil

Yeah, like, yeah, and you're trying to like, I don't Yeah, I guess you're trying to like, figure out why all the magic items turn on people and how to get them back. Especially if you also society in general depending on magic items.

Paper

Because the general explanation for a lot of the more modern stuff in in d&d type worlds is, oh, well, it's done by magic. We have we have a magical washing machine, and magical lifts and all that stuff that's and then they didn't.

Pencil

Yeah, I feel like we've got two neat post apocalyptic campaigns, which is why I'm glad this is neat, post apocalyptic RPG ideas as a as a podcast.

Paper

Don't say that or the Tumblr blog will pop up tomorrow.

Pencil

But yeah, I feel like I do. I do. Like just all magic items are sentient. And either they eventually turn on people or they're just like learning things.

Paper

Or both, (or both) There is the idea of his of obviously the option of they gain self awareness. And that's why they turn on people.

Pencil

Weird, possibly bordering on some kind of bizarre psychological horror idea is you got your standard adventurer with like, you know, they will have you know, two magic rings a magic necklace magic armor, magic cloak magic sword, magic boots, magic got everything. While each individually isn't sentient, because their magic is sort of like, you know, slightly merging together. Like, their set of magical items is now sentient. Which means if it looks like they're going to remove one or put in a new one or something, the set of magical items will start considering that a threat

Paper

character that is, would probably be mechanically a warforged or something like that. But it's just a collection of magic items held together by this vague aura containing the body of a dead adventurer.

Pencil

Ye I actually do like that character. (character concept right there) Alternatively, contain the body of a still living adventurer who's just been completely subsumed by the magic items, depending on how horror-y you want to go.

Paper

Like it like they can still talk. But they can't do anything I think is the worst one.

Pencil

So do you just are talking to like some noble adventure and at the end, they lift up their helmet and there's just like, the decaying corpse of the actual adventure in there and it's just been the armour this whole time.

Paper

Oh, I meant the adventurer is alive and trapped inside.

Pencil

Yeah. (And can talk). Yeah, there's just this constant muffled noises and then occasionally like the helmet goes off and they're just like help me I'm being worn by a suit of armor.

Paper

The great adventurer Brian the magnificent known for his war cry of oh shit help.

Pencil

I don't think this answered the question at all. But

Paper

what was the question again?

Pencil

Do you think there's somewhere in ARPGs? Where there's where they put all the garbage you sell to vendors? (Yes) I think the nonmagical garbage probably get some residual magic too. So like all those rats stay all those like rat beats. They now are magical too

Paper

Oh, yeah. Yeah, after after all of that, I think my answer is YES.

Pencil

YES. (YES) OKAY. YES, and it does lead to the apocalypse.

Paper

The nobleclearlightbulb. We'd like to know what our favorite premade campaign is. So fun fact, I've only ever played one premade campaign and it was the Lost mines of fandelver.

Pencil

I've only ever played the curse of strahd. So I think I'm gonna have to say the curse of Strahd.

Paper

Actually, to be fair. We have also both played feast of Legends.

Pencil

Actually, yes, that is a fair point. So here's my argument for why feast of Legends is the best pre made RPG argument number 1

Paper

I'm putting my elbows on the table and leaning forward intensely.

Pencil

Argument number one, I would like Wendy's to give me money. Argument number two, it's, you know, it's unique. You can't argue that it is definitely a premise that hasn't been done before. By RPGs. To the best of my knowledge, you know, Curse of strahd we've had vampires before, we've had like, you know, Gothic Horror before, but I'm pretty certain this is the first, magically ensuring Wendy's gets a corporate monopoly on fast food in a fantasy Kingdom setting that I know of, it's ideal for satire. Because you know, you just stick in whatever fast food company you want. Maybe you have visitors from like, somewhere else. I want Wendy's to give me money. I don't know if that's been like, brought up enough. But if I if I compliment this enough, Wendy's will give me money. And also, you know, you get to eat in real life while you play it. So there we go. Other Other pre made campaigns you can't if you have eaten while playing curse of strahd, you haven't actually played curse of strahd You now need to go restart it. So there we go. That is why feast of Legends is the best pre made campaign and game wendy's if you listen to this, give me money.

Paper

I like I feel like there must be some premade campaigns I would enjoy doing. (Yeah) But what I have found is that they do not account for the absolute chaos Gremlins I tend to play with.

Pencil

Yeah, I think the issue with pre made campaigns is like, they can be very cool. They can have very cool ideas. But because they're almost by definition, quite focused. Like it's very easy to get off the roots. Like i've been thinking of playing like impossible landscapes, which is a Call of Cthulhu premade campaign. So we're going back to the beginning. And it looks really cool. But also it does still have the issue of I'm vaguely worried that you're that like adventurers are gonna go careening off like the premade path five minutes in. And all of the Cthulhu monsters are just going to be sat there looking sad.

Paper

Yeah, I've definitely had games where like, you know, because the premade stuff, it puts in a lot of flavor text. And then people naturally want to explore some of that. And you just they're like, that's all I can tell you. I have 50 words. I can't tell you or anything else. I just end up making stuff up. (Yeah) because they keep asking and wanting to go places. And at that point, you're not really playing a premade campaign anymore.

Pencil

Yeah, I - what have i been... Like I'm pretty good improvisation if I might be smug on broadcast. But yeah, I think the issue is, eventually you're going to have to start making stuff up and that's fine. But this is why I generally, because I generally don't plan campaigns very much, I just have broad ideas of what's likely to happen, who the major key players in the in the world are and what their plans are. And I generally sort of improv, which is good, because it means that when my players do things, I mean, usually when I say when when players do things, sometimes they still do things that send things wildly off the track. In one of my games yesterday, the players killed the person who was going to be the big bad two- -s two sessions in so I've kind of got to like, redo that, but still, it's easier to do that with one you've made than when it's like, a pre made campaign.

Paper

Okay, because then you just sit there like, I have nothing for you now go home.

Pencil

Yeah. Because yeah, because Yeah, cuz it's a good one I like be like, okay, cool. Bring in this NPC. Whereas, if the entire, you know, I think it's also because, like, you know, it'd be like, what have like a 30 quid book at least. (Oh yeah) And it's just like, okay, yeah. Because if you've got a second ago, no, that NPC doesn't die, even though you've got all the roles. (he was only unconscious!) Yeah, which is always a bit of an always a bit of a bad taste. Of just Yeah, you can't, you came up with this great plan and you implemented it, and you've got all the rolls right. But sadly, you know, the 60 pages, say no. Basically, what I'm saying is, if you use pre made adventures, you are a scrub come fight me. Like, unless you're Wendy's and

Paper

i think they assume everyone is a beginner. (Yeah) but if you have someone who's played in more campaigns, they're gonna want to go and do more stuff. Because the thing is, they expect you to follow a very specific, like, order of events, and also to think a very specific way, that I think a lot of people who are certainly the sort of people I prefer to play with, aren't going to necessarily think that very A, B, C, kind of way you'd like go A to D to Zed. It's I don't really know how to describe it. It's great fun for me, and presumably for them. Unless it's a premade campaign.

Pencil

Like, I think what I would like more of, essentially, and there are some RPGs to do this pre made sandboxes where it's more of a kind of, you know, like a setting but

Paper

feel like it's more of - yeah, I was gonna say it seems like more of a setting document than a campaign that you could just take plug and play.

Pencil

I feel like there's some way to sort of get between the two.

Paper

I have not come across it.

Pencil

I will add this to the list of things I shall make. I feel that was slightly more of an actual discussion on gaming rather than nonsense. I tried my best by defending Wendy's and I didn't even get paid for it.

Paper

If you do want to pay us like I said, Patreon. That's, that's the end of the episode, I guess.

Pencil

Yes. Sorry for the lack of wackiness at the end. Would you like me to discuss why clowns are the best d&d species? Like most people call them elves but they are clowns.

Paper

Let's get it back to some nonsense right at the end. Trying to think of something nonsensical. Describe the ideal big bad in three words, and then we'll finish

Pencil

elf tree clown.

Paper

Perfect. On that note...

both

and rmeme