Probably Bad 29: The Tragic Mr Cheese, Extant Characters and Anxious Democracy

(20th January 2021)

D&DANIEL

It’s me, D&Daniel, your loveable podcast mascot and friend. This podcast is brought to you by our listeners on patreon, especially Carlo and Hedwig. 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

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

Dice roll.

PAPER

The party are the proud owners of ravenloft’s first ever chuck e cheese. I mean this is an objectively bad idea because 4/5 estaurants fail in the first year, so it’s not going to go well.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah you think this is going to be about animatronic horror but it turns out it’s just about the fear of starting your first business.

PAPER

Roll a d20 if you get 17 or higher your business lasts out the year.

MOD PENCIL

Especially ravenloft where you have to account for vampires who only drink blood and werewolves that only eat people and so forth. I think part of the issue here is that both of us are british and i’ve never been to a chuck e cheese.

PAPER

I’m mostly aware of it through parody but i’ll do my best.

MOD PENCIL

Here’s what i know about chuck e cheese. It’s a children’s restaurant and it has a giant fucking rat and the giant rat just wanders around.

PAPERQ

I think it’s animatronic and sings songs.

MOD PENCIL

What’s the mascot thing? we’re already falling into infighting.

PAPER

There is a mascot thing it’s i’m positive there’s some sort of animatronic element and arcade games and pizza.

MOD PENCIL

If any of you know about chuck e cheese and want to let us know about various contradictions against chuck e cheese lore feel free to email us i suppose.

PAPER

I know the E stands for entertainment.

MOD PENCIL

Cause it’s Charles E cheese.

PAPER

Entertainment cheese.

MOD PENCIL

Now, ravenloft...

PAPER

We do know more about ravenloft.

MOD PENCIL

Has charles entertainment cheese been condemned to a dark domain for his sins?

PAPER

I think he’s trying to bring a little joy to the people of ravenloft. it’s gotta be a hard place to grow up. There should at least be a place where you can get a pizza from a giant at.

MOD PENCIL

That’s just a bare minimum for a good childhood and you’ve got to stop vampires breaking in and ruining it. My knowledge of ravenloft is there’s just vampires roaming the streets beating up fast food mascots.

PAPER

It’s basically the village from every gothic horror, right?

MOD PENCIL

For those who don’t know, Ravenloft is a D&D horror setting, it’s a spooky dimension full of gothic horror monsters into which people are dragged every so often around the multiverse.

PAPER

I think my biggest concern is assuming that Mr Cheese although the dash i in the name idk if that’s a mononym, if Charles-Entertainment-Cheese is just his name. My biggest concern is if Mr Cheese will be considered a monster considering he’s a giant animatronic part rat who goes around offering children delicious things in exchange for money.

MOD PENCIL

It is a setting with a wererat, i figure most people will imagine he’s a wererat.

PAPER

Yeah but generally you don’t want you children making deals with any kind of stranger, but especially not a giant sentient rat.

MOD PENCIL

To be fair if you picture a gothic horror town, there’s mist and there’s isolated unfriendly villagers and there’s a castle on the mountain or something on the mountain, a vampire walks in or a ghost walks in you just go “ok”, and like singing dancing animatronic rat man with a guitar throwing pizzas at people, it might throw people enough that they go hang on it doesn’t seem like a monster. cause all the monsters ae tragic and ethereal and sinister and that thing won’t stop singing shitty kid songs.

PAPER

If anything we need to give Mr Cheese a backstory to make people more comfortable with him he needs a tragic backstory.

MOD PENCIL

I was assuming horrible scientific experiment. Charles Entertainment Cheese was a young man who wanted to go into the entertainment business. couldn’t pull it off, turned to a government conspiracy to help him. They funded him but filled him with mutagenic chemicals and that’s how he became Chuck-E-Cheese. And then he was dragged into Ravenloft.

PAPER

I have learned chuck-e-cheese has a backstory.

MOD PENCIL

Was i close?

PAPER

I’ll tell you and then you can see. He grew up in St Marinara’s orphanage.

MOD PENCIL

I’m trying to imagine his parents dying.

PAPER

Just sit in that for a moment. And he loves the song happy birthday and he loves singing and playing music but e doesn’t know what his birthday was. We’re ignoring the part where the other orphans knew what their birthdays were, but chuck never knew his birthday and just wanted to sing happy birthday all the time and that’s why he opened a children’s restaurant that does birthdays.

MOD PENCIL

That is surprisingly tragic. Important question - in this first ever chuck e cheese, gothic horror setting. Is it haunted by chuck e cheese’s dead parents?

PAPER

Presumably. His parents are mr and mrs cheese he’s just chuck.

MOD PENCIL

Is this in a sinister way or are they just working there?

PAPER

Idk i’m just trying to work out if their deaths were any kind of comeuppance for calling him charles entertainment.

MOD PENCIL

His first act out of the womb was to stab them. That’s the dark act, the sin, cause in ravenloft every area is built around a particular kind of evil, it’s poetic, and that’s his one. He went here to atone for killing his parents over calling him Charles Entertainment.

PAPER

I want to let you know the reason he got the money to open a restaurant is he won a Pong tournament. It doesn’t add to the tragedy but it raises a lot of questions.

MOD PENCIL

The most important question if we’re doing this as an RPG - who gets to play Charles Entertainment cheese?

PAPER

See i was seeing him as a questgiver NPC.

MOD PENCIL

That makes sense.

PAPER

Everyone’s doing various jobs - someone does pizza, someone services the videogames...

MOD PENCIL

Yeah you work at Charles Entertainment cheese’s, the big rat is crying over his birthday, and you have to figure out his tragic backstory to lay the ghosts of his parents to rest while serving pizza and manageing the videogames and making sure everyone’s having a good time.

PAPER

I like it it’s like a murder mystery set in a children’s restaurant.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah cause every so often you get a customer who’s a werewolf or something and you have to serve them too. So each session is like count straad has come in and demanded his vampire children be given pizza and you need to sort that out. The overarching plot is figuring out who killed the parents of Charles Entertainment cheese.

PAPER

Once again we’ve reached the point where we have to say i would play this.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah tell us how it goes. Cause ravenloft is medieval technology, it’s a D&D setting. Is it downgraded to that level or does it have arcade machines and everything?

PAPER

I feel like the animatronics would be straightforward cause you’ve got clcokwork, but the arcade machines are tricky. I think having them be magic would be a copout, but maybe you just have good wholesome medieval family fun like bearbaiting.

MOD PENCIL

I love the idea of a fucking bear in a chuck e cheese.

PAPER

That may be excessive, yeah. Badger baiting.

MOD PENCIL

No, bear baiting. You go it’s my kid’s birthday. Hey, here’s a fucking bear, fight it and live.

PAPER

I think you’re misunderstanding what bear baiting is, but your version is more entertaining.

MOD PENCIL

Here’s your chuck-e-cheese bear spears.

PAPER

I prefer this version.

MOD PENCIL

I’m vaguely aware of what bear baiting is, but i’m fairly sure it’s not you have to fight the bear with a spear, but also...

PAPER

I think if you do the whole fighting a bear thing you should have the decency to do it yourself.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah. It’s like because charles entertainment cheese is a giant sentient animal he emphathises more with bears so he doesn’t do the whole sit around jab it while it can’t move thing, he does ok if ou want to do bear baiting you’ve got to fight with the bear.

PAPER

He doesn’t empathise with the bear enough to not do bear baiting, but he does replace the dogs with small children and that’s... better?

MOD PENCIL

Yeah, he’s a rat not a bear, so he doesn’t fully empathise. he’s closer than humans. That’s my take on how evolution works.

PAPER

And how empathy works.

MOD PENCIL

Rats and bears are related, human are a different thing, that’s how that works. I like the idea of a fully fucntional 70s disco arcade in a gothic town.

PAPER

Maybe that’s the second arc. The first is dealing with the deaths of mr and mrs cheese, the second is ok we’ve done that now where did this arcade come from?

MOD PENCIL

The second arc is just you describe an arcade machine, but you have no context for what an arcade machine is and see how long it takes for the players to figure it out.

PAPER

I like that, i’ve done that before with like a vacuum cleaner. In fact in the probably bad game i did it with a roomba. We called it the disc of cleaning.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah, i think we’ve got a pretty solid campaign idea here. i feel there should be at least one angry mob who are there to kill chuck. Sorry, Charles Entertainment cheese.

PAPER

That’s just background though.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah the background threat is stopping the angry mob, the main thing is figuring out who killed mr and mrs cheese, and you also need to intermittently deal with a raffle and a banshee who doesn’t want the pizza.

PAPER

Does the banshee have a karen haircut?

MOD PENCIL

Yeah the banshee is the ghost of a karen who cannot rest until she has seen the manager.

PAPER

But the manager is too busy being sad about his dead parents so you have to lay the ghosts to rest so you can get the banshee a meeting with mr cheese. It feels wrong calling him chuck, so mr cheese.

MOD PENCIL

He’s not your friend, he’s your boss, so he’s mr cheese.

PAPER

Exactly.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah i think we’ve got a good campaign here which isn’t what we’re meant to do at all. i aplogise to all our listeners.

PAPER

There is no greater achievement than describing arcade machines in medieval terms.

MOD PENCIL

Questions i believe.

Bread and thread plug here!

MOD PENCIL

Our first question comes from blatella.

PAPER

Read the full name.

MOD PENCIL

Yes, sorry. From blatella, envoy of the swarm. My apologies. What is the funnniest permutation of one class acting like another? I would say rogue/paladin either side. Either a rogue who wears shiny armour and says yes i’ll save you, then they just mug you, or a paladin who just sneaks into your house while you sleep and takes care of your every day poblems for you.

PAPER

I think that second one you’re describing a large number of household spirits.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah which is what i aim for with a paladin.

PAPER

I would like a warlock that acts like a cleric - sets up a shrine and prays every day. Especially if it’s a demon warlock. gets super uncomfortable with it. Dude if you don’t stop praying to me i’m taking away your eldritch blast. oh, mighty patron, please do not punish me so!

MOD PENCIL

Warlock who acts like a wizard in the sense that they say oh yes i learned these powers and definitely didn’t get them by calling up the fay realms and crying down the phone until they give them magic. Yeah, i can definitely cast spells.

PAPER

I was gonna say warlock that acts like a bard, but i literally have a warlock in my current campaign who is trying to get powerful enough to be worthy of fucking their patron. So i think we’ve got that covered.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah i am not in the current campaign but i do hear bits of it. I hope they are getting close to fucking their patron.

PAPER

They reached level 2.

MOD PENCIL

Fighter who acts like a wizard. Hear me out. They walk up to you, they’re dressed in robes, symbols, they take out a leather bound tome, which has an image of a demon or something on the front. They open it and start intoning dramatically then pick up the book and throw it at you.

PAPER

There are some wizards that would do that anyway.

MOD PENCIL

They’re a wizard in that they describe everything behind the signs on the sword every time they hit you with a sword.

PAPER

Barbarian that acts like a cleric. Chops you to pieces but says a prayer over the pieces so you can get a good afterlife. Though that’s just a paladin.

MOD PENCIL

I think we’re coming up with characters that exist which is a problem because everyone plays bullshit characters. I am a fan of rogue that acts like a barbarian. It’s stealth if no-one’s alive to see you.

PAPER

The classic you’re invisible if no-one’s looking thing?

MOD PENCIL

Yeah you’re invisible if no-one’s alive to see it.

PAPER

I think that’s how a lot of people play metal gear tbh.

MOD PENCIL

I’ve never played metal gear so i’ll take your word for it.

PAPER

No witnesses if you kill all the witnesses.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah. What about an entire party who acts like barbarians? You have the standard rogue fighter cleric wizard, but they go into rages if you try to beat them up.

PAPER

Again, there is a certain type of  player who does this.

MOD PENCIL

Anyway, my point is - idk what my point is. It’s 2021 my point disappears into the air as soon as i’ve finished thinking it. There are no words, only sadness. But next question!

Question musique!

PAPER

My next 5e character is a medium humanoid lawful neutral slash small swarm of tiny aberrations, chaotic evil. Thoughts? This is from badgerpunk. This is like the oppoosite of that thing of people are individually good, but a mob is awful. Cause you’ve just got aberrations who are individually awful, but collectively okay and i’m really enjoying that.

MOD PENCIL

The question is how many abberations do you need to take out of the swarm before they become an asshole?

PAPER

The question is how many constitutes a swarm?

MOD PENCIL

Yeah cause i like the idea that the more you damage them the more of a jerk they become.

PAPER

One of those people who really snaps if you do anything wrong.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah i think... what do i think? Do they just do a vote on whether or not they’re gonna be a jerk? cause they want to be evil but they feel nervous cause there’s so many people around them and they don’t know if they want to do evil, so they dial it down a bit?

PAPER

They’re forced to behave by social anxiety.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah each of them are chaotic neutral but each of them thinks the others are lawful good. And they don’t want to be good, cause they’re evil, but they don’t want to do evil because they think others might judge them for it.

PAPER

To quote a classic movie of our times, just because you’re a bad guy doesn’t mean you’re a BAD guy.

MOD PENCIL

The podcast has reached wreck it ralph level. It’s over we accomplished what we set out to do.

PAPER

Is that better or worse than Speed is the question.

MOD PENCIL

I’ve never seen either so i wouldn’t know.

PAPER

We’re watching speed tonight so that should fix it.

MOD PENCIL

For those at home, i don’t consume media. I spend all my evenings sat alone in my room sobbing while force feeding myself the D&D players handbook. i like this little democratic swarm who has been forced to be a good person or at least decent person by social anxiety.

PAPER

I’m just wondering though if they switch to a secret ballot would that balance out the social anxiety so they vote how they want to, would your character end up acting like some sort of brexit-trump hybrid?

MOD PENCIL

The other players have the arc of making sure the swarm doesn’t implement democratic reform. You send in little instigator aberrations to stir up trouble.

PAPER

Teeny tiny pinkertons.

MOD PENCIL

Teeny tiny pinkertons, new D&D species.

PAPER

I like it.

MOD PENCIL

If you cast detect evil on them it kills them cause every aberration goes oh no i’m evil and jumps off and runs away.

PAPER

So detect evil is like disintegrate on this character, cause they all run off in different directions.

MOD PENCIL

Yeah idk what information it gives you if you cast detect evil on someone and they just fucking vaporise. But i imagine it probably doesn’t reflect well on them.

PAPER

At the very least i’d assume they weren’t great.

MOD PENCIL

I can’t remember if it’s in 5th ed but it was in 3rd, if you cast detect evil on something evil enough it stuns you. Cause i guess like the inverse of that, they were so good detect evil just vaporised them through sheer indignance at the assumption they might not be good.

PAPER

I believe in 5e detect good and evil tells you of the presence of certain kinds of creature. I mean one of them is aberration so it would still work, but it would still tell you this person is made from aberrations. Which i mean would certainly be a thing to learn about your party member. Hey this is my mate Clive. he’s made of tiny evil creatures so don’t hold it against him.

MOD PENCIL

Now would it say this person is made of aberrations or would it say there’s an aberration inside this person?

PAPER

Thsat’s a very good question.

MOD PENCIL

That might give you some vey different opinions on what’s going on.

PAPER

It just says where the creature is located, so you’d know he contained many little aberrations.

MOD PENCIL

You’d know there were many aberrations where he was.

PAPER

Yeah so if they ran away you would just be like oh no they killed Clive.

MOD PENCIL

Clive hatched into a swarm of abominations.

PAPER

We must kill them all to avenge himm.

MOD PENCIL

This is the tragic backstory that leads to you getting sucked into ravenloft, working in a haunted chuck-e-cheese. We’ve gone full circle.

PAPER

Yes his name is clive cheese, father of charles entertainment.

MOD PENCIL

Turns out you were the one who killed Charles Entertainment cheese’s parents.

PAPER

Now you have to make the ultimate choice as to whether or not to tell him. If only you were made of tiny creatures who could vote on whether to tell him.

MOD PENCIL

Again i would play this. One of the characters is the surviving aberrations who have reformed into a child cause they’re smaller, who is in the chuck-e-cheese and they’re just a background character playing on arcade machines but the twist is they’re here to get revenge. It turns out that charles entertainment cheese has been playing happy birthday to his father who unbeknownst to him has come back as a child to his chuck-e-cheese, they have a heartwarming reunion, and he eats him cause he’s a swarm of aberrations. you level up, campaign continues, this time at a mcdonalds haunted by a clown.

PAPER

And on that note, we have a patreon. It’s probablybadrpgideas where you can get access to homebrew where we do nonsense like this but for you, and bonus episodes where we also do nonsense because this is a nonsense podcast, as well as a discord server.

MOD PENCIL

I was very emotionally invested in the story of Charles Entertainment cheese.

PAPER

This is the most i’ve ever cared about a fictional mouse.

MOD PENCIL

Poor mickey.

PAPER

If you have a question you can email probably bad podcast @ gmail.com Or message the probably bad rpg ideas tumblr, and...

BOTH

Remember to have a probably bad day.

Closing music. the rest... is silence.