Eddie O'Keeffe (DM)

Eddie O'Keeffe is the creator, DM and co-editor of Budgens and Dragons.

## Show Bio and History

### Pre-Budgens & Dragons

During Lockdown 2020, Eddie was invited onto a Dungeons and Dragons game with Bacon, Alex, Emmy, Oli, Reece and Gemma.

This was a mistake.

Eddie was told he could play as "anything you want" and to "be creative, use your imagination!" - so he created a character called Facebook Baby, a baby that could only communicate via his parents updates on Facebook. He was then told that this wasn't allowed, WHICH IS NOT BEING ANYTHING YOU WANT. Bacon tried to say he could be an Elf or a Dragonborn instead, but Eddie insisted he wanted to play as Facebook Baby. It was clear he was not going to take D&D seriously. Bacon eventually let him play as a baby, but without the use of Facebook or any other forms of communication. Also they could float in a magic bubble because fuck you.

This, along with the fantasy setting all D&D games seem to take place in, bored the arse off of Eddie. The endless rules, the complicated classes and species system whiched were made to seem really important but essentially amount to minor if any game differences, the numbers (Eddie suspects he has discalculia) were an overload of information for Eddie, and he had didn't return for a second game.

The idea of a roleplaying game had appealed to Eddie, but he was disheartened by the experience he had. One day he saw tweets from Billy Keable and Joey Emerald talking about the podcast Rude Tales of Magic, and his interest picked up again. The podcast is a mix of comedy, storytelling and D&D - but a few things stood out to Eddie. The rules were fairly relaxed. The editing was incredible. And most importantly: it was silly.

An idea brewed in Eddie's head about creating his own D&D game, but making it accessible for everyone. Strip away the fantasy landscapes, get rid of the modifiers, use your creativity to play as anything you want. Die by getting run over crossing the street. This last thought was a lightbulb moment. D&D games tend to be these big, epic adventures - what would happen if we shrink it down to something small, relatable, maybe even mundane?

Faringdon immediately sprung to mind.

The idea of setting off on an epic quest only to die by being hit by a car was very funny to Eddie. It stayed with him, he kept replaying it whilst listening to Rude Tales, at work, lying in bed trying to sleep. How cruel could this new game be? Maybe the weather could affect the gameplay? What happens if it's so wet outside someone slips over immediately and dies? One thing Eddie was aware of, and not a fan of, in D&D shows was the trope of characters dying and then coming back to life - it loses the drama element. Main Characters will never die because of this - so how about a game where all the Main Characters *always* die? The quest is never fulfilled and the pointlessness of D&D is spotlighted. It truly doesn't matter what the players want to do because the DM will do what they want anyway. As you can tell, Eddie was still bitter.

So what would the characters have to cross the road for? What would the quest be? Something mundane, every day and dull was needed to really hammer home the feeling of this new show. Buying a scratch card was the perfect choice. Nothing special, nothing magical, nothing very exciting at all.

Originally, Eddie intended for the scratch card to be bought in the Costcutters, through the alleyway. It was a route he took many times on days off from school or on lazy weekends., an unmemorable walk through an unmemorable town. But a name for the show was where he struggled the most. It had to have some D&D tropey nonsence in the title to trick unsuspecting audiences and players. During a conversation with Reece and Gemma, they casually brought up going to their local Budgens. As stupid as it sounds, this opened up the entire game for Eddie. Budgens and Dragons. The main NPC can live in the house as Mother. They can be old and crotchety, they can have an extremely loud and insane voice, there could be hidden dangers that the group don't know about which means they will never win the game!

7 months later, a Zoom meeting was called.

### Budgens & Dragons is born!

See Episode 1 for full details of this episode. TBA

There are four main pillars Eddie wanted to include in the game from the very start. Players can play as whoever they want, no restrictions. There are no modifiers in play, ever. No one is allowed to remember what has happened in previous loops. Everything is to be taken extremely literally.

This is designed to make the game fun, whilst also purposefully restricting so that people cannot just cheese the game. The tv show Taskmaster was a big inspiration for these pillars. Have fun, be creative, think outside the box, know that you are inevitably going to fuck up and lose.

The Do-Over system was added in fairly last minute, just to give people a chance in case they died immediately and then couldn't play for the remainder of a long session. The extra wrinkle of 'everyone has to agree' was added on the day the rules were written, as an extra 'fuck you' to the players.

Eddie has updated and tightened the rules after significant Lore changes, usually after a win. This is normally because players figured out a loophole which made Eddie mad.

Eddie provides the voice of all the NPCs in the game, most famously Mother. There is a full list of Character NPCs available here.

Elements of the game get updated frequently, sometimes Events change because they've run out of steam or Eddie upgrades them to make them more punishing and fun. An example of this is The Toll Booth, which started off as a blood donation and then turned into a Bell which gave random prizes to the players who rung it.

### Budgens & Dragons - Scrapped Ideas

Eddie's original idea for Budgens and Dragons was to go with a completely new story after someone had finally delivered the scratch card to Mother and completed the task. However, because the first win happened so quickly and fans of the show had grown so accustomed to Mother and the games setting, this was scrapped.

There was footage cut from the Motherlode episode where the next 'phase' of the game was supposed to take place. The characters (to Eddie's annoyance) correctly rolled a D20 to win money on the scratch card, and kept winning rolls to successfully spend the money on a holiday. This was where Budgens and Dragons 2 was going to take place, in the form of Budgens and Dragons: Beach Volleyball Edition. Eddie could not think of a fun and engaging way to keep the game mechanics going with this new mode however. He initially discussed potentially killing off every character who won the game so they couldn't come back, but that conflicted with some of his annoyances from other D&D games. He eventually settled on tightening up the rules and making the game harder to complete. Incidentally, this also led to the Motherlode episode (and the two episodes beforehand) introducing proper Lore for the first time.

## Other Info / Trivia

* Eddie is the younger brother of Alex O'Keeffe
* Eddie has yet to return to D&D.
* Eddie started his Comedy career as part of the sketch and improv group Knowing Smirk. They went to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2015 and 2016, the latter show was directed by Eddie.
* Eddie was roomates/lived with previous guests Jamie Davey, Joy-Amy Wigman and Oli Ryder. And Alex obviously.
* His favourite video game is Metal Gear Solid 4.
* His favourite wrestler is Edge.
* Eddie is a recovering alcoholic who hasn't had a drink since July 2016.