Probably Bad 21: Secrecy Geese, Asserting Dominance and Harry’s Journey

(30th September 2020)

D&DANIEL

Look at you hacker, pathetic creature of meat and bo- no, sorry wrong script (page flips) Greetings, listener. I have survived my transgression. I am full of dice again. My belly rumbles with chance and probability, but anyway, I want to thank our patrons mario, hedwig and matt, and our new patron, ancelline. Thank you all!

Opening music.

MOD PENCIL

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

PAPER

And I’m paper. Today’s probably bad rpg idea is… (dice roll) A warlock’s patron is actually a wizard that did an elaborate scam that got in way too deep. He’s really just following them around doing an invisibility enchantment and casting spells as needed. That was submitted by rubikscube60. Before anyone says it, I know critical role has a god who spoilers is actually a fay being doing all sorts of weird shit, but I feel this is sufficiently different and I want to talk about it.

MOD PENCIL

And I don’t listen to critical role so nothing I say can be considered a rip-off.

PAPER

I think my first thought on seeing this you know there’s a lot of stuff that only one of those two groups can have – I’m imagining a warlock tries to cast eldritch blast and they’re just there like oh shit oh shit magic missile.

MOD PENCIL

I was just thinking of it as like the warlock – the patron’s like you get a special deal where you can cast all these extra spells and all you need to do is not look too closely into where the spells are coming from.

PAPER

I still like the idea they get the warlock number of spell slots, just the wizard’s really lazy.

MOD PENCIL

You have half the number of spell slots cause it takes me a while to get out of bed.

PAPER

I used the rest of my spell slots to stay invisible.

MOD PENCIL

That’s a point how long does invisibility last? Cause I know like it’s possibly like going into too much detail but I think it’s a few hours?

PAPER

Just a second… Concentration up to an hour.

MOD PENCIL

So yeah that’s why warlocks have so few spell slots, the wizard has to cast all of them they need to save some for themselves.

PAPER

You’re a special kind of warlock who can’t use second level spells I’m using those slots.

MOD PENCIL

You’re a special kind of warlock who’s less good as a bargain.

PAPER

It’s so they get third level slots early. Oh you want to summon a ghost horse to ride around? That’s fine, but you can’t use rope trick. That’s too much.

MOD PENCIL

To be fair has anyone ever used rope trick? Genuinely interested has anyone ever used rope trick?

PAPER

Must have done, but didn’t technically use it.

MOD PENCIL

Ok so there we go for the first time in d&D someone has used rope trick. I do like all the very minor pointless spells.

PAPER

Yeah they do have their moments they’re just very specific moments.

MOD PENCIL

Going back to the actual idea rather than the rope trick, cause I don’t know anything about it, one player is the warlock and the other three player characters are the wizard who are trying to keep up the bizarre pretense that the player’s a warlock.

PAPER

So it’s basically a farce.

MOD PENCIL

mm. The warlock has level 1 commoner stats.

PAPER

With the warlock as an npc this could be a fun one shot of trying not to get caught.

MOD PENCIL

or Give the warlock player like I was going to say give the warlock player a fake character sheet and make them sit on their own in a room.

PAPER

They might pick some things up if you put them in a different room.

MOD PENCIL

This is a normal D&D game but do you mind sitting in this soundproof room while we slip notes under the door?

PAPER

Playing a game of D&D just through passing notes would be interesting. I’m now wondering cause you know so many classes are online still, just like running a text based D&D game in a maths class.

MOD PENCIL

It’s all the fun of slipping notes in maths class but now you get to be wizards.

PAPER

Yeah!

MOD PENCIL

You take damage if the teacher suspects something. Ok so the teacher you’re trying to convince the teacher they’re all warlocks and all of you are passing notes to each other.

PAPER

I feel like we’ve gotten away from the idea but it sounds fun.

MOD PENCIL

Every time the teacher gets annoyed at something you cover the camera like there’s no-one there, I think what I’ve invented is a new form of psychological torture, but

PAPER

We’re two steps away from gaslight your maths teacher which we do not condone.

MOD PENCIL

It’s no steps away, so don’t do that. There’s some good advice. I think there’s an RPG around texting only done over text. I think it’s one of the ones that’s on my list to play so I can’t tell you if it’s good or not, but it seems interesting.

PAPER

To get back to the actual idea…

MOD PENCIL

To get back to the actual idea, which I think is gaslight your maths teacher…

PAPER

Yeah, um… I mean just thinking about some of the warlock patron options it’s not far off some of them, all that a warlock is really is someone who gets someone else’s powers to do the work.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah all they are is they have a magic sugar daddy. Like… I definitely think that an arch mage would work as a patron idea. Idk if it’s an official one but it would work.

PAPER

It definitely would.

MOD PENCIL

That’s an interesting class, archmage patron, or arch warlock patron who is now like being a patron to a new generation of warlocks. It’s warlocks all the way down.

PAPER

It’s unearthed arcana, but there’s a seeker patron which is someone that travels around searching for knowledge and is that not a wizard? An unusually sociable wizard.

MOD PENCIL

The one wizard who can hold a conversation with someone for more than two minutes. That’s how they became a patron. Also going back to the original idea, cause you could do it with other classes I like the idea of a druid who is constantly a tree near a warlock…

PAPER

How would you explain there’s trees everywhere we’re in this terrible dungeon and that tree that grew outside my house is also here.

MOD PENCIL

There’s the mystery of the campaign is where this tree keeps coming from – whether you were chosen by nature spirits or there’s a dryad and then we go to the stupidest possible explanation where there’s a druid disguised as a tree following you making you look cool.

PAPER

A druid that occasionally casts command and says ignore the tree. Wait can druids cast command?

MOD PENCIL

They can do all kinds of things but I don’t think they can cast command, they can hit you with branches.

PAPER

Do a gaes (pronounced geese)– you will notice it but you are not physically capable of acknowledging it.

MOD PENCIL

Druid invisibility is just summoning a goose into your face and while you’re distracted by it they walk into place.

PAPER

I meant gaes, but yes.

MOD PENCIL

Aah yes, that does make more sense than summoning geese. But also…

PAPER

If there are geese flying in your face are you really going to notice a vaguely familiar tree?

MOD PENCIL

The warlock must solve the mystery why geese keep manifesting in their face. You’ve got the warlock who’s convinced they have magic powers by the wizard but the wizard isn’t a wizard they’re being convinced they have magical powers by the warlock and it’s an endless cycle.

PAPER

Where does the magic actually come from? The druid. This mysterious tree.

MOD PENCIL

I do like this game that’s full of twists and secrets but they’re all incredibly dumb. You put up a bunnch of intriguing mysteries to begin with and every layer you uncover the players just get worse and worse answers.

PAPER

The person who asked on the patron exclusive server about good secrets for character creation, enjoy these secrets.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah it turns out you don’t have magic there’s just a tree behind you.

PAPER

Shall we move onto questi

Question music

PAPER

Ons?

MOD PENCIL

Maybe we should… Our first question comes from b-deh- our first question is anonymous rather than the ubiquitous be flexible, do you have any dm tips for a first time DM? Yes I am aware what blog I asked for gm tips, bring your worst.

PAPER

Eat the D20 in front of your players to assert your dominance.

MOD PENCIL

To be honest, I’m not sure that’s better than lock your player in a soundproof room and only pass them messages through the door like in terms of actual advice, the best sort of system I’ve found is from monster of the week which is the mystery tracker which essentially you write down what would happen if the players did absolutely nothing, and you can extrapolate how people react to what they do. This is what the villain would be doing if no-one stopped them, so you have a good grasp of their overall plans, and then it’s much easier to see how plans change around that.

PAPER

While your players are the protagonists, they aren’t the only people doing things and things will continue without them.

MOD PENCIL

And onto terrible ideas.

PAPER

I’d say use your characters backstories against them like side quests surprising stuff that pops up, connections to whoever is doing the bad stuff, it’s fun.

MOD PENCIL

Backstories are a useful source of character or plot things, which is what paper said but better. But bad advice, eat the dice of dominance.

PAPER

Don’t like how one of your players plays their character maybe they’re one of the ones that refuses to go along with any plot hooks? Just slowly shred their character sheet until they agree to play the adventure.

MOD PENCIL

Eat their character sheet for dominance. Cause the player’s like oh yeah I’m taking this disruptive spell, and you eat their character sheet while maintaining eye contact.

PAPER

Find out what food the players like and then only bring snacks they don’t like to assert your dominance.

MOD PENCIL

Just like eat everyone else’s copy of the player’s handbook, and now only you know the rules.

PAPER

When planning your campaign be sure to include at least six background clowns. Your characters will be convinced they’ll lead to something but they never will.

MOD PENCIL

At the start of the campaign challenge your biggest strongest player to a fight to show that you’re not to be fucked with.

PAPER

Unfortunately if you lose they do become the dm so just watch out for that.

MOD PENCIL

Ideal D&D game, there’s no dm at the start but all the players just have a cage match at the beginning and whoever wins has to DM but that’s fallen out of favour these days. Though you can attract D&Daniel if you have a cage fight at the beginning.

PAPER

He lives in a cage so it’s a homing instinct.

MOD PENCIL

Any cage you have D&Daniel might be there. It’s not so much a D&D fact but it’s an important warning.

PAPER

If you ever see a cage in the woods throw some dice in just in case to appease him.

MOD PENCIL

I hope this helps with your first DM experience.

Question music

PAPER

Our second question is also anonymous, you’ve mentioned just making rincewind as a character, but what are your thoughts on the discworld ttrpg, general thoughts on rpgs based on established worlds? I don’t like them. I feel too much pressure to stick to established lore, especially if it’s an established world your players are into so I don’t do it.

MOD PENCIL

My main problem is a lot of fictional worlds are designed for a particular story. They’re based around those characters and their arc, and it’s hard to sort of disconnect it from them in an easy way.

PAPER

What I’m saying is if your characters aren’t relevant to harry’s journey…

MOD PENCIL

Yes what we’re saying is your characters aren’t relevant to harry’s journey and are thus unlikely to get involved in lots of big world things.

PAPER

I think the discworld rpg might be better because the whole world is very developed so there’s more you can do with it.

MOD PENCIL

It helps that discworld doesn’t have a main character or main plot it’s a collection of short stories. I’m running an rpg that’s set in an, what’s the word, established world, nickblake edit out my being crap please – it’s in the magnus archives I needed to essentially put it on a different continent to avoid repeatedly running into lore to avoid conflicting with everything.

PAPER

It’s difficult with an ongoing series because at what point have you diverged from canon, and at what point have you diverged from canon enough that it’s no longer in that setting, and can you do other stuff with it or do you need to still stick close and it gets very foggy.

MOD PENCIL

It’s easier if you are going to – it’s easiest to say this is non canon, this is an AU, because it makes it easier if you mess up the lore of it and it allows your players more freedom or there’s the possibility of saying you can’t do that because it messes with episode 13…

PAPER

Yeah I feel unless it’s post canon you either can’t do anything big or it’s an AU.

MOD PENCIL

I think the best way to do it is simply if you want to do it in the area the story happens, kill the main character and your characters are now the main character.

PAPER

That makes sense if you play in an established place, what you want to do a lot of the time is be the protagonist of that setting.

MOD PENCIL

Essentially the point of established things is you want to be luke skywalker or harry potter or whoever you want to be.

PAPER

Nobody plays a lotr game to hang out in gondor.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah you want to be the fellowship, so you should just be the fellowship.

PAPER

I feel like we got ranty but I hope we answered your question.

MOD PENCIL

Yes, um…

Question music

MOD PENCIL

So, our final questin is from blatella… If you nut in the astral plane, do it push you backwards?

PAPER

I’ve been thinking about that one and looking at the actual description of the astral plane in the dungeon masters guide and it sounds like more of an ocean than sort of a void really so I feel it wouldn’t push you backwards as make the waters a bit murky.

MOD PENCIL

So there’s no 5th ed manual for planes yet, so I looked up a 3rd ed manual for planes and it seems the astral plane in that is more of a psychic void, so my theory either it would push you backwards if you believed it would push you backwards it’s a mental realm so if you believe it would push you backwards it would push you backwards or it pushes you like psychologically backwards, like it regresses your development every time you nut in the astral plane.

PAPER

What if you just can’t get yourself there? There is a secondary question to ask which is can you nut in the astral plane?

MOD PENCIL

Yeah in a lot of cases you’re not in your actual body in the astral plane you’re in an astral form, so can astral forms nut?

PAPER

Can god nut is the real question you’re asking blatella.

MOD PENCIL

Sorry, got the book of planes open, astral forms, again all 3rd ed, they don’t biologically heal and they don’t die which implies they’re not biological anymore…

PAPER

Yeah if you can’t do the big death you can’t do the little death.

MOD PENCIL

And that is why…

PAPER

That’s what I always say.

MOD PENCIL

That’s true I did live with them for a year and they did say that at least once a day. Completely unprompted. But yeah it seems like ok it seems like if you go there in astral form you can’t nut, and it can’t push you forwards or backwards…

PAPER

Aare we debating it pushing you forwards now? What is the anatomy of the astral form?

MOD PENCIL

There’s a lot of weird biology in D&D, I’m sure there’s a creature with a dick growing out of its back.

PAPER

We need to be inclusive.

MOD PENCIL

Mmm but if you go there physically it depends on whether or not you think it’ll push you backwards. I don’t think the astral plane has enough physical matter, no that’s a thing that pushes you backwards cause there’s not a lot stopping you.

PAPER

But there is homebrew settings – in mine the astral plane is the void between other planes. It would push you backward in my personal astral plane. So really consult with your DM.

MOD PENCIL

Ngl, nutting will push you backwards in my personal astral plane I can’t tell whether that sounds like a pickup line or shooting someone down, but it sounds like something.

PAPER

It feels like a threat. Oh buddy it push you backwards.

MOD PENCIL

But yes, in case you were wondering that’s the first question I did proper research for, so I’m glad we have a semi official answer.

PAPER

On that note, thank you for listening, if you have a question you can email probablybadpodcast@gmail.com or message probablybadrpgideas on tumblr. If you want to support us you can go to probablybadrpgideas on patreon, get access to the discord server, homebrew, which when this episode goes up, the other things that aren’t quite owlbears will go up, and bonus episodes, the most recent of which is night at the ninja museum, where I take my games group through being ninjas trying to rob the ninja museum.

MOD PENCIL

It goes about as well as you’d expect.

PAPER

But nick does really cool music for it. If you don’t want to pay for that nonsense you can also leave a rating or review or share us with someone doesn’t matter who, maybe not your priest if you don’t want to be excommunicated, whoever needs nonsense in their life.

BOTH

And remember to have a probably bad day.

Closing music