Vampire MLMs, Steve the Serial Killer, and Guns vs Wizards

D&Daniel

D&Daniel here, thanking Hedwig and Carlo for their continued support. And between you and me something strange happened. I met up with tabletop Tim and they didn't go terribly. We've agreed to do it again. Same time next week. I don't know what we are, but something's happening. It's very exciting

Pencil

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

i'm paper. Today's probably bad RPG idea is... vampires were once vulnerable to garlic and fire as medicinal items. As they lack that symbolism today, a rule all that modern vampires can only be destroyed by paracetamol.

Like I just really liked the idea of, you know, symbolism like that being updated. Like vampires are one of the like, more obvious ones I found because, you know, we don't believe that garlic can treat things anymore. But we do now accept that a vampire might be defeated if you just like vaccinate them.

The thing is, I would quibble the first part of this because garlic is a proven antibacterial, and they're trying to find a way to do that. And I have literally been cauterized in hospital.

they're still you, they're still ...They still have medical purposes, but they're not like medicinal items. Like you wouldn't go to a doctor and be given garlic and set on fire.

ok so it's more to do with the wider perception.

Yeah, like I slept with a lot like because yeah, it's magic. And it's symbolism and stuff. So it's something that can be considered magical not considered considered medicinal. Which does lead to the interesting thing that like if you stab a vampire that won't do anything that that if you stab a vampire, while yelling, I need to remove your appendix that might work.

so holy water wouldn't work. But among a certain subset water that you say looked at some medicine once might work

yet, what do you need to do is like because you know, in some of those, you have to determine whether the vampire is Christian or Jewish or Muslim or what have you to see what holy symbols work? You have to determine how well the vampire is aware of like medical science. Like do you want to get like actual drugs? Or do you need hyper diluted homeopathy?

The first step in defeating a vampire is getting them into essential oils.

I just I just love the idea of I set up a Facebook page for vampires where I try and convince them that rubbing oils on themselves will cure them of I don't know what vampires would even need curing of.

I mean, some of them want to be cured of vampirism. But yeah,

yeah, I guess if I try and convince vampires that homeopathic humans will like make them human again. You take a human and you put them in a swimming pool. And then you take the water from that swimming pool and put it in another swimming pool. And you keep doing that until you have a homeopathic human, and they'll be much more powerful than any existing human it will be able to punch through walls and fly.

What if you convince them that homeopathic blood is all that they need? And then they just starve?

just love this vampire. just chugging water. Just why isn't this working? I should be a super vampire.

Okay, you convince vthe vampire of the power of essential oils by tricking them into joining an MLM

I love this vampire hunter who isn't trying to kill vampires. They're trying to like financially, financially like steal from vampires by setting up vampire MLMs.

i mean everyone loves MLM vampires. Right? I've been on tumblr

I'm pretty sure this is what they're talking about. We're just getting into what the kids these days want Like, because yeah, the thing is

how good does the medicine have to be? Like can you just put a Hello Kitty bandages on a vampire?

I'm gonna say yes, because that's hilarious because you're you've just got this incredibly powerful ancient vampire running away from you because You chased him with plasters. You might be able to kill me, but can you kill me before I stick a plaster on your booboos

Paper

to be fair, some plasters do have silver in them as well. (Yeah. Like) double whammy

Pencil

alsso because werewolves are also defeated by silver As it symbolizes the moon, can I-

Paper

can you also defeat werewolves with plasters.

Pencil

Yeah. plasters are just incredibly useful on supernatural creatures. But what I was gonna say is could I kill a vampire? A werewolf with the Apollo lunar lander mode- module?

Paper

It does representing the moon.

Pencil

yeah I just need to land it on the werewolf.

Paper

I feel like this is a whole separate one that we need to come back to. I think we should focus on vampires for now

Pencil

Neil Armstrong can just defeat any werewolf in a straight fight.

Paper

That will be impressive considering he is in fact that dead

Pencil

it is a supernatural world like

Paper

I will I will consider the possibility that you could beat a werewolf to death with one of Neil Armstrong's bones.

Pencil

Yes. Anyway, vampires.

Paper

Because you said about vaccinating before I do like the idea of just running around with hypodermic needles, jamming them into corpses in case one of them's a vampire.

Pencil

Like light stake thing except far far smaller.

Paper

would a placebo work.

Pencil

Yeah, that's that's what i was gonna ask like, if I go to a vampire? Yes, this is this is medicine. And in fact, it's just skittles Will that kill the vampire? If, if it is medicinal items, could we use a vampire to skip a lot of medical testing to determine whether or not a given medicine works...?

Paper

see the problem is then you're going back to is it because it's medicine? Or is it because it's considered medicine?

Pencil

Yeah. Okay, so what we need is we need bo-. So we need to double test double blind test it so we have like 10 Vampires. We give some of them medicine which isn't particularly well known, so won't be considered medicine by most people. We give some of them fake medicine. We give some of them popular medicine or we give them some of them fake or no medicine and we see which ones burst into flames.

Paper

Okay, so you're suggesting that it's both?

Pencil

I've suggested that we need to do like studies to determine which one it is. I'm suggesting that as well as the MLM vampire hunter scam. There's also my hunter organization that just tracks down vampires and rubs things on them to see which ones affect vampires.

Paper

How do you get close enough to the vampire to rub things on it without getting bitten? i hate to ask, but I have to ask.

Pencil

So, as we all know, vampires are weirdly horny for like 18 year olds. (That's true) So we just leave like, you know, a bland but sexy 18 year old and they're just there and as vampires get closer, she rubs something on their face. We're gonna go

Paper

we recruit basically children to do experiments on vampires. Yes.

Pencil

I fully expect to finally be canceled as I deserve we just we just we just we just put like the things in a high school and when the vampires come into the high school as they apparently enjoy doing it, they just swing down and hit them in the face. This will hit a number of children in the face but will also help us discover what children are weak to.

Paper

But I mean it's medicine so it's fine.

Pencil

Yeah. Like you know, we've just we've just put buckets of aspirin over all the doors like with Dennis the Menace

Paper

I'm just now imagining because there's there's medicinal honey. (Yeah). So I'm now wondering you know, presumably that would hurt a vampire but would regular honey

Pencil

I think what it is is you rub the honey on the vampire the vampire just laughs at you. And then you go that's what you think that's medicinal honey, and then they burst into flames.

Paper

we are back to we can convince the vampire that things are medicine

Pencil

yeah you need to write medicinal on the tub with a Sharpie.

Paper

the tub?!

Pencil

Yeah, that's where you get honey, in tubs.

Paper

I wish I could buy that much honey honestly.

Pencil

You get your bathtub full of honey. You shove the vampire in and you write medicinal on the side and then you've defeated Dracula

Paper

honey is that thick you could write medicinal on the honey as long as you didn't disturb it too much.

Pencil

you can convince enough people you have healing hands. It's a magical trap. I guess that is the premise of like, you know you can cast healing on the undead and it kills them. Hmm. I just combined two things. You could also beat a fairy to death with a laptop If you'll go with iron represents like, you know society and civilization and technological process as opposed to nature and whimsy and therefore you can both beat a fairy to death with a laptop and hit them down with a car.

Paper

I don't think either of these are made of iron traditionally,

Pencil

no, but they all like, you know, symbolisations ofhuman civilization.

Paper

Could you beat a fairy to death was a copy of the game Civ

Pencil

Yes, I'm going to say yes. If you get a fairy if you trick a fairy into playing the game civilization, it will burst into flames. That is, I believe what happens in a number of traditional European folktales?

Paper

I think so. Yeah.

Pencil

But back in those days always had to be a board game and it was a really big board.

Paper

I also think at this point, it might be time to move on to questions before we just go through ways to trick every supernatural creature.

hazel

Hi, I'm Hazel, and I present the bread and thread podcast with Liz also known as paper from probably bad bread and thread is a podcast about food history and domestic history. And generally social history, we delve into a lot of different things. So if you'd like to know which country has laws against importing sheep, what cookbook will tell you how to make a great martini and also how to survive a nuclear bomb attack, or why you are using a fork right now. Then come over to bread and thread, and give us a listen. You can find us on Spotify. or wherever else podcasts are. Oh, I don't know.

Pencil

So anyway, onto goblins. So our first question is from Anon I said that like anon is a person thank you for your various questions anon where what are the best and worst public places to have a game session? funeral for both

Paper

I can say from experience that a pub is a surprisingly bad place to have the game says

Pencil

yeah, I can imagine

Paper

you think it's gonna be great. And then people who have had a little bit too much to drink, come over and try and join in or ask you about the game. Like I think in terms of best it needs to be somewhere where people aren't going to come and talk to you

Pencil

I feel like okay, so this is gonna make me sound like a twat. But I feel like graveyard would possibly be a good place if it was the right kind of game as long as there's not a funeral happening obviously.

Paper

Yeah, like an old graveyard

Pencil

Yeah. Or like you know, and one of like, if you get to a safe place one of those like abandoned buildings. Urban explorey buildings

Paper

Oh, that'd be very good.

Pencil

Yeah, like especially yeah if especially if it's like a horror or conspiracy or supernatural themed one. Like if there's a horror one you can also release a serial killer into the building at the same time to like, you know, increase the mood

Paper

your pet serial killer that you have on hand

Pencil

like you know, you just call your friend who's a serial killer and you're like Hi Steve. Would you mind helping out with my game night? I know I insult you regularly on probably bad RPG ideas but

Paper

i feel like I do also need to just say the obligatory go play in a library support your local library they need footfall

Pencil

yeah I think my in terms of worst places funeral-

Paper

playground

Pencil

yeah playground - my mind for some reason jumped on maternity ward.

Paper

That would be pretty bad. Just the occasional scream from up the hall

Pencil

introduce the babies to like RPGs early

Nick Blake

what is a maternity ward for if not character creation?

Pencil

badum-tish.

Paper

you spent the previous nine months creating the character this is just their debut.

Pencil

this just sounds like a really weird pickup line. Hey want to like join me in some character creation.

Paper

It's really weird pickup line because that's not let's have sex. That's let me impregnate you.

Pencil

Yes. You will notice I've not successfully picked a person up before. Have a bad places um,

in the middle of a shopping center in December. Just sat on the floor right outside of a jewelry shop,

what you need to do, yeah is sit in- sit in the store in the middle of December and take all of the like, most prized like things people buy and just put them in the game as props so no one else can get them.

Paper

The must have Toy of the Year represents the BBEG. You can't have it till we're done.

Pencil

You will either get people very annoyed or you will be literally murdered.

Paper

But then you just bring back your friend Steve to take revenge

Pencil

Yeah, this I really like Steve, the serial killer is really useful. And it's a shame that I've completely alienated him by repeatedly insulting him on my podcast.

Paper

yeah Steve is your go to name for like an absolute shithead. Just,

Pencil

I apologize to any listeners called Steve

Paper

So if your name is Steve, and you're listening to this, (stop killing people) send us an email explaining how you're not a shithead. Otherwise, we will continue to assume you are

Pencil

right. What are good public places, I noticed all the good public places I suggested are places where there won't be the public.

Paper

Yeah, like I think the main good ones would be like a library, a game shop. I mean, games, expect groups of people to do things

Pencil

train might work if you want like a strict limit on how long the game can be

Paper

You could do you could do a short RPG on a train. Yeah. Like if you're getting the train, I don't know. From York to London or something, you could probably get a one shot done

Pencil

courtroom and thenyou can argue to like the court for that. No, you don't understand so I didn't do any of those crimes. I was just role playing. Allow me to demonstrate.

Paper

What you do is you book your game, your game group tickets to the Orient Express and then you play a murder mystery. Genius.

i said that as a joke, but I'm kind of into it.

Pencil

I think what you need to do is book them to a completely different train that you insist is the Orient Express. While you were also able to go see Orient Express.

Paper

like how many well known trains are there because that's the only one I could think of flying scotsman?

Pencil

There aren't any well known trains. That is a firm blanket stance I'm saying here. But you're just on like the 1015 to Liverpool, but you're insisting it's the Orient express.

Paper

It's certainly an option.

Pencil

On that note the 1015 to Liverpool. Will Liverpool that's a public place.

Paper

Are you saying is this a bad idea to play RPGs in Liverpool

Pencil

i'm saying cordon off all of Liverpool and say that it's your RPG thing for the day everyone has to leave.

Paper

So is this like a large scale LARPing thing? Or just no one's allowed to be in the same city as your game group?

Pencil

Okay, it's a large scale LARPing thing but to avoid breaking immersion, because the LARP isn't set in Liverpool. No one else is allowed to be in Liverpool.

Paper

That makes sense. You don't want any scousers there reminding you that you're in Liverpool.

Pencil

There are 500,000 people in Liverpool like you know I'm sure

Paper

not anymore.

Pencil

I'm sure you could book hotels for them. And by you I mean the council obviously you-

Paper

i need to clarify as someone living in Manchester I do not feel the need to remove everyone from Liverpool.

Pencil

I don't

Paper

i've been there. I like it.

Pencil

Liverpool was just the first city I thought of - um, I guess I've now committed to removing everyone from Liverpool.

Paper

Apparently.

Pencil

if your name if your name is Steve and you're from Liverpool come find me

Paper

so second question is also anonymous. How would you put industrialization in a setting? by not playing d&d.

Pencil

Badly? Like

Paper

we went in two very different directions there I like it.

Pencil

Yeah, I think so. This is this is the hot take i put on Twitter, which you know, is a good start to a sentence. Which is yeah, d&d is a game that is very like It's a game that's designed to do a very specific thing. And that very specific thing is a dungeon crawl And, you know, that's where you have, like the rules for social interaction are so sparse because you know, you're not meant to be doing social interaction other than occasionally. So, in a d&d game, you know, it'd probably be fine if it was like, you know, just fluff like you're still doing the dungeon crawl but now it's a dungeon full of like, gears and robots and stuff.

Paper

Because they have they have mechanus and that aren't they so they Yeah, they theoretically you can have clockwork in a d&d game.

Pencil

Yeah. Like, you know, it would just like Just just be the same game, but like, it's reflux. So instead of an orc it's a robo orc. But yeah, I don't think it's good for setting building very much. Partly because as soon as you start building the setting, you start raising the question of wait, should we be stabbing all these goblins? but i woul-

Paper

I think, like I said it kind of jokingly, but my genuine answer is play a different RPG.

Pencil

But yeah, I think if you do want to have industrialization in like, your standard fantasy um i don't know fuck it give everyone guns. Give everyone guns except your players and make the dungeon really hot.

Paper

That's the only industrialization is guns.

Pencil

it's the only one they invented Yeah.

Paper

Yeah, I feel like you could you could maybe do as sort of very early industrialization, just like, and over there. There is a factory you won't be going in there.

Pencil

mm. But yeah, I think in terms Yeah. So I think what you would need to do. I think the interesting thing you couldlook at, would be firstly, is this magical industrialization or technological industrialization? Like, are we mass producing magical items? Or do we now have technology as a rival to magic? Because both of those would be interesting? Because in a lot of d&d, like, you know, power is basically cemented in the handful of people who have incredibly powerful magic powers?

Paper

Oh, yeah. It's, it's set up for a mageocracy

Pencil

Yeah. And if I have a gun, then I'm suddenly a lot more of a threat to a powerful wizard than if I just have my fists. And I feel you could do something interesting with like, you know, it's unlikely the wizards are going to go down easily. And like, yeah, I feel like if it's like, yeah, the wizards have ruled for ages now with guns  and- I'm sure there are other things human beings have invented besides guns.

Paper

bringing in trains as a means of fast travel could be quite good.

Pencil

Yeah. That might also work because in a lot of d&d, there's sort of the conceit that you know, the dwarves live in one place, the elves live in one place the humans in one place, the orcs live in one place and like, you get the occasional dispersion, but generally, they're all in their own place.

Paper

Yeah. And it's like, that's never how the world has worked. Why would this world be different when they have magical travel?

Pencil

But yeah, now with trains Yeah, they can do that like properly and you can have like, different cultures meeting and you can maybe have a kind of hey the orcs aren't that bad. Or you know, the orcs are that bad, but at least they're not all that bad. One of in one of the games, I have cryptomancer... It's mentioned that essentially the reason there are orc raiders is because the main orc like nation is just incredibly hyper capitalist. And so to prevent the underclass from rebelling, they send them off to attack of other nations so that they think they have a glorious purpose and also,you know, die.

Paper

and that does make a lot of sense,

Pencil

and one of the possible story arcs it has is you and the orcs realizing that your enemies aren't each other. They're the nobles that both of you have, who are pitting you against each other to prevent you from rising up against them. This is, in no way representative of real life. Please don't take any real world inspiration from that story. But it would be an interesting way of like, doing the whole thing of like, you know, you for all this time, Orcs and goblins have just been vicious Raiders. But now that there's fast travel and that there's mass communication, you know, you can interact with them in a way that's more peaceful and you learn that hey, maybe like, maybe there's more nuance here than just rampaging Raiders. And maybe the real enemies aren't the orcs that have to like grab an axe and run across the world to fight you.

Paper

I like that it's um, it's industrialization as kind of an impetus for the plot rather than as this (Yeah) like big setting thing

Pencil

Yeah. And like yeah cuz I think because like d&d has a lot of the starting points for industrialization it's got enchanted items. It's got permanent spells it's got constructs Yeah, and I guess I feel the other way will be some kind of like magical hypercorp and then you've got Shadowrun Hmm. Basically, play Shadowrun or maybe don't I've never played Shadowrun maybe it's awful.

Paper

I've heard very mixed things about Shadowrun

Pencil

play Shadowrun and then email us vis a vis whether or not it was a good idea for us to suggest people play Shadowrun

Paper

I have been tempted by it a couple of times send us your Shadowrun reviews.

Pencil

Yeah. Next next pod- Next episode is just us reading people's reviews of Shadowrun assuming we get Shadowrun review I said next podcast,

Paper

it is called probably bad rpg ideas.

Pencil

I did say next podcast rather than next episode. So I hope you enjoyed the probably bad podcast sign back in for a new podcast which is just me talking about Shadowrun a game I have never played. There's orcs in it, I believe. are there orcs in it? There might be orcs in it

Paper

i like that cause you could say it about literally anything.

Pencil

And yeah, any game might have orcs in it

Paper

so yes, we do have an email address probablybadpodcast@gmail.com And we also have a Patreon where you get access to Homebrews bonus episodes, small games, and a Discord server where we play one shots mostly based on probably bad RPG ideas that's patreon.com/probablybadRPGideas and yeah, if you have a question email it to us DM us on Twitter at bad probably messages on Tumblr probably bad RPG ideas i'm saying probably bad a lot and it no longer feels like it means anything

Pencil

this is the problem with our name is that now food needs to refer to something in real life as probably bad we are incapable of doing so without giving an advertisement

Paper

but yeah, we'll be back in a couple of weeks [pause] and oh yeah. and remember to have a probably bad day. i know how to podcast not like it's been multiple years.

Pencil

Remember to have a probably bad day.