Welcome to the Tales from the Crit podcast. We are an actual play podcast featuring a
revolving cast of players making our way through micro RPGs, highly narrative tabletop games,
and the more popular and less known RPG systems from a wide variety of genres. Content may
not be suitable for children and content warnings can be found in the description. I'm Riley
Groves and I'll be your host, your guide, your GM on this episode of Tales from the
Crit. Welcome to Tales from the Crit. Today's a very special day. We are having our cast
party where we have everybody from season one here in one room and I'm very excited
to celebrate that we have finished the season. We put out a lot of content this year. It
was a lot of work, but it was super worth it. So we're going to go around the table
and each of you, why don't you go ahead, reintroduce yourselves and tell us what characters you
played over season one. Connor, why don't you go first? Hey everyone, good to be here
again. I'm Connor. This season I played Job, Mr. Flash, Danny, Elroy, and Hunter Gathers.
Awesome, you played a lot of characters. I tried. Mikey. Hi, on Broken Swords I was
Fitzy Ice Pickle and we deal in lead. I'm Cal McCray. I was Jack on Kids on Bikes and
Wolfgang in Now We Raid. Nice. Stefan, who'd you play this season? I, this season I played
Mad Pat inside of Broken Swords, Space Leash Brockets and Free Traders, Side of Barn and
Going Dark and Vlad inside of Time to Raid or whatever the raid game was. Now We Raid.
Now We Raid. Yeah. Good game. That was fun. I actually forgot about it. Very, very memorable.
You forgot about it and you don't know the title. It was fun. Awesome. Derek, who'd you
play this season? I played Nurt, Josh, Wes Wesley, Scotty Fitz and Heinrich. Tim. I played
Maxwell Cowell in Badge Quest. You sure did. Anna, who'd you play this season? And I was
Vivian Strauss in Badge Quest. Fuck yeah. Rebecca? I played Andy in Kids on Bikes, Skinny in
Quest, Bonnie in Badge Quest and Jesse Jane and we deal in lead. Fantastic. And John? Cool.
Good answer, man. So just as we start every episode, we're going to get to know each other
a little bit better. We're going to use the last four questions from our pod deck interview
deck first edition before we open up some new decks next season. So first question for
today, who would play you in a movie? Let's start with Rebecca this time. I picked Julia
Styles. She was in 10 Things I Hate About You. Yeah. I really enjoy her. Nice. She's
got the same round face as you do as well. Yeah, she kind of looks like me a little bit.
Wait, they were supposed to look like us? No, I don't know. She's just, she's the only
actress that someone was like, you look kind of like her. So that was my go-to. Okay. I
got a celebrity look. I took a celebrity look-alike test one time and got Forrest Whitaker and
that was... Yeah. My lazy eye was a lot stronger back then. So I retook it on a different website,
got Forrest Whitaker a second time. Wow. Yeah. For clarification, I look nothing like Forrest
Whitaker. No, not at all. Right on. Anna, who would play you in a movie? Well, I was
limited on actresses names that I remember, but I thought Catherine O'Hare. I think that's
her name. She's the mom in Beetlejuice. Oh, right on. Oh, yes. Yes. Nice. Cool. Tim. I
chose Jake Gyllenhaal. Oh, solid. I can see that. Yeah, you guys look pretty similar.
You might be taller than him though. I just like how he has a good skill. It's good at
what he does. It's good at what he does. All right. Derek, we already know yours. Sir Ian
McKellen. Just kidding. Who would play you in a movie? Well, I got compared to Sam Horrigan
as a kid when I was younger. Who's that? He is... The only thing I know him from is a
straight to TV Disney movie about skating in the 90s. Oh, okay. Was it Brink? Yes, it
was. Nailed it. Nailed it. And I don't know. What is his name? Jensen? Ackles. Jensen
Ackles. Jensen Ackles. Okay. Stefan, who you got playing you in a movie? So I don't think
he looks like me, but... And I also can't pronounce the name that I wrote down. Martin
Lawrence. Mandy Patinkin. Mandy Patinkin. Okay. Just because of the role he did inside
of like the Princess Bride or whatever the hell movie that was. I know. When you said
you were picking somebody from the Princess Bride, I thought you meant Andre the Giant.
I could see that too, yeah. Wolfly disappointed now. I mean, I didn't want to take Mike's
answer away. I wanted to be known. It's a dirty idea. All right, Mikey, who you got
playing you in a movie? I think John Candy. John Candy would make a good... He would do
a good job making me look a lot funnier. John Goodman would be another one. John Goodman.
Old John Goodman. Depends on what... Yeah, yeah, 80s, 90s John Goodman. Yeah. At this
point, it depends on what genre you're going for. Like if you want somebody super intense,
John Goodman would be great in this stage of his life. If you were to be played by an
old dude. If I were to be played by an old dude, I'd probably... Brian Dennehy. I had
originally thought Ian McKown, then I was like, no, I think I'm thinking of the wrong
name here. Ewan McGregor. He was one of those Jedi's that sometimes looks like Jesus sometimes.
Oh, we won. He was one of those Jedi's. He sure was, man. He was one of those Jedi's.
That's a solid answer. That's a solid answer. For myself, I would go with Tom Hardy. Yeah,
that's a good one. Yeah. Oh man, I want to switch to Bill Nye now. The science guy? No.
Bill Nye with a... Yeah, I could... The British guy, man. That would be an interesting... What
would he do? Fuck yeah. But like every time you play a character inside of like campaigns,
you always go with that one dude's voice. I don't know. I've done multiple voices. It's
the fucking weird guy. Oh man, I can't remember his name now. Christopher Walken. Yeah. You
always throw out a Christopher Walken's voice for like the first like five minutes and then
it turns into something hodgepod-y. Maybe that's just my first stepping stone to get
to the end of my journey. I like that. It's an evolution. Okay. Question number two. If
you were to die and come back as something, what would it be? Start at the middle of the
table. Derek, why don't you go first? I would have to go with an orca or another like large
whale. Something that lives a long time and just kind of... Apex Predator. Something that
gets to enjoy the ocean. Okay. Tim? I picked a large tree in an open field. All right.
Oh, that was... That's gonna be mine too. The tree sounds good. That was my runner up
too. That was tough between the two. We're all fans of trees and fields. We guys just
want to hang out in a field. Yeah. It's my favorite thing to look at. It just seems very
peaceful. I've got a couple of trees I like to look at. Hi, Bernadol Winter. Yeah. Sounds
good. Okay. People stay away because you're in the middle of a farm field and you can't
just go walking through someone's crops and you're just kind of doing your own solitude.
Cool. Anna, what are you coming back as? Well, since Tim stole my answer, I will change it
to a fox. A fox? Because they just chill around. Yeah. Eat rabbits. Eat geese. Have fun. They
play a lot. Yeah. General mischief makers. Yeah. That seems like you. You don't have
to deal with humans. Yeah. Cool. That's pretty nice. I'm gonna go house cat. I'm awfully
lazy and I would love it if I could just do whatever I wanted all the time. The house
cat would be a very cushy life. It's a pretty good choice. Yeah. Solid. It was definitely
one of the ones I was thinking was a house cat. If someone's taking care of you, you
just get to lay in whatever sunny spot you can find. Sounds perfect. Go outside now then
maybe. Sorry. Now is your chance to tell us what you would come back with. What did you
pick? I did write down cat, but an albatross would also be cool. Albatross is a very large
bird that does not land for very long. Okay. So being able to fly would probably be neat.
Yeah. Sounds dangerous. That's a good one. Solid. Mikey? I was thinking, I definitely
was thinking house cat. That was gonna be mine, but like my parents' house cats because
they're all just so fat and just like they are, they overdid it. But I think elephant
would be cool. A big elephant. That would be cool. Just wandering around. Asian or African?
African. I think they're a cooler one. Nice. Okay. I wouldn't need to take any notes then
either. You'd remember all your characters and how much money you spent on them. I know.
I would just be a steel trap up in the brain. All right. Stefan? So I was going to go with,
like as a joke, I was going to say dildo just because I would like to fuck other people
all constantly. But then I got told about bags of dildos on the ocean. So I don't think
I want to have that. But squid or an octopus, actually no, it's an octopus because I've
got told some stupid fact that apparently octopus punch fish for fun. And I'm like,
I would love to punch a fish. Just be chilling and be like whack. They're also super smart.
Yeah. Which I'm not, so it's good. It would be like a step up in reincarnation. Yeah.
Yeah. Up until like I got eaten by something. Derek as the whale. I kind of put them on
the same level of like Kings of their domain. I mean, I've seen like videos on Orcas and
they're pretty fucking mean. Orcas are gnarly. Yeah. They have a wolves of the sea. Yeah.
Going back, I feel like there's a really good joke there with punching fish and wanting
to be a dildo. You know where you can have like anime tentacles going on. I mean, I guess
I could live out the best life as an octopus. I'd get, especially if I got it. That really
sums it all up for you. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Grab a snack with one arm, punch a fish with the
other. And you still got six of them. And you still got six more. Anyway. Great answer.
I've come back as Norwhal. My first thought was like a crane, like a blue heron, because
they get to fly and they have a spear to stab fish. What's with the fish? I don't know.
Yeah, we all have to be fish, trees, or cats. How good is everybody at swimming? I'm good
at swimming. I'm pretty strong. Okay. So there's no like connecting tissue there because like
I'm shit at swimming. Unless it's for my life. Other than that, dumpy. Two of you can swim
really well. You said I'm all right. I've seen Mikey swim. Very pale. Albino. What's
that one whale with like the weird fucked up thing on its head? Norwhal. No, no, no,
no, no, no. The beluga. The beluga whale. The white ones. They're super big. Yeah. Hi everybody.
I think we all just want to be able to move in three dimensions. It's made of birds and
yeah. The tree gets to experience all three dimensions though. Grows underground above
ground. There might be some more. We might all figure it out. I feel like trees and cats
might move in more dimensions. The tree though is a problem if you get some bugs going on.
That could be an issue with the tree. Yeah, but if it lasts, some trees like the ones
in Europe are one tree. Yeah, if it lasts. Hundreds of them. What about one of those
shrimps that see in 26 colors? Oh, the mantis shrimp. That would be dope. And they punch
like super hard. What is it with the punching? They move their claws so fast it boils water
around it and that's how they knock fish out. You're thinking of the pistol shrimp. The
pistol shrimp. Have we all tried to punch a fish? Is that what this is about? I mean
fish. You know you can just punch things now. If any fish are listening to this podcast,
fuck you. Fish are not friends. Fish are food. Okay, question number three. What's something
that you like that others don't? I'd like to stay right on the fish topic. Anchovy pizza.
Okay. It is one of my favorites and it's very rare to find anyone that will take the risk
in enjoying an anchovy pizza. Okay. I've eaten them. I wouldn't say I fully enjoyed them.
Staying on the fish topic, I'm also going to pick food and mine is herring salad. That's
quite a weird dish. Everybody hates it. It's the fish, Herring, and then it's pickles and
apples and a bunch of really weird stuff and you eat it over like, I usually have it over
potatoes. It's so good. Riley hates it. It's super off putting in gross stuff. It's so
good. I'm so confused by the list of ingredients. Her mom makes it for their family and straight
up makes herself something else to eat because she hates it too. So now like at least when
I go over there, I don't have to. It's an old German dish. It's really fucking good.
It's worth trying I think. I'll try it. I want food. All right. Next time my mom makes
it, I'll bring you some. All right. I'd be willing to try it too, but it's fire. Yeah,
I'll try it anyway once, but. Okay. Who's next? I have one. All right. I really like
puppet movies and I feel like that's not everyone's cup of tea. Like Muppet movies or like harder
puppets? Harder puppets. Hand puppets. Well, like the Dark Crystal, like very elaborate.
Still Jim Henson. And the Labyrinth is also a really kind of darker one. I really enjoy
it. Yeah, those are fantastic. Okay. Who else has one? Derek? I really enjoy untangling
wires. I don't know why. Is that how you get your aggression out? You just yell at the
wires and. No, I typically like run for that, but I don't know. I just, I find myself getting
into it and just like the satisfaction of getting one out and done. The satisfaction
of getting one out. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Stefan? So, um, I kind of, I actually changed
my answer on this. Uh, Kishka it's a Polish blood sausage. It's got kind of like the texture
of corned beef and hash, but it's a completely different flavor profile. But if you find
out what the ingredients are, it makes you not really want to eat it, but it's so good.
Mikey? Um, I think mine would be probably for part of like working in a kitchen is just
like breaking down, like just like butchering chicken, like cutting chickens apart, like
breaking down animals and just like prepping stuff like that. It's just like, it just centers
me sharp knife, just cutting like de-boning stuff. Like it's just, and then cooking it
and eating it. Everybody likes that, but it's like the prep part is something I like doing
and I don't think a lot of people really enjoy. No, that's the part that makes me not want
to cook dinner at all. I just love it. Like just to de-bone like a whole chicken, it's
just like, and fast and just like, oh, all of a sudden it's done. It's like, now we cook.
Connor? Uh, so I couldn't really think of one because I was stuck on food and I have
a very bland palate, so I don't feel like I like many things that most people don't like.
But then Derek inspired me to find something. I really enjoy like technical troubleshooting.
Like someone's got a problem with their computer or phone. Uh, they call me and sometimes it's
frustrating, but it's very, you know, feels satisfaction when you're able to help someone
figure it out. I'll give my dad your number. Okay. He'll call you. I was gonna say on
Thursday you want to come help me out too? Maybe. Now that you say that, Connor. Well
dude, like you are really into spicy food though. I am, do enjoy some spicy food. But
I feel like there's a lot of people who do enjoy like, that's why all the peppers have
gotten so much hotter and so popular. There's that whole hot one show. I'm supposed to show
a lot of people that really hate spicy. I really hate spicy. Like I used to really like
be on mild, like I can go mild, can't go like super hot. My brother thinks that black pepper
is spicy. He won't eat things with black pepper on it because it's too spicy. And you said
you're, and you said you have a bland palate. Well, I mean, I made some ghost pepper hot
sauce recently. So I mean, I'm eating much hotter stuff, but I added a lot of beat to
it and didn't realize how much it was going to like cool the heat down. So it's, it's
very edible. Like it's not a, it doesn't seem like a chemical weapon. I thought you meant
you only eat like pasta with butter, bland oatmeal, white rice, naan. I feel like I don't
have like a, to differentiate between a lot of different tastes sometimes. Like this all
just tastes the same to me. Maybe it's all the hot stuff you're eating. That could be.
It's solid. I think for me, it's probably pickled sausage. Huge barrel of sausage fan.
You put a barrel of pickled sausages in front of me. I'll jump on that with you. Yeah. I
really enjoy those. You got to choose something else. Cause there's a lot you got, you got
friends with that. I don't, I don't even know what that is. And it's just sounds gross.
So yeah, I'm not a huge fan of pickled sausage. I'm not a huge fan of pickled anything. I'm
like one of the only things I wouldn't do. Like pickles is like the only thing I like
to do. I've never been very much to try the pickled pig's feet though. I was 12, I think.
They were honestly, I liked the pig's feet until somebody was like, that's pig's feet.
And I was like, my dad's like, Oh, I'm glad you like him. I was like, I don't anymore.
That was cool. Oh, and John, what do you think about all this? Cool. All right. Our final
question, the best piece of advice you've ever been given. I'll go first. If nobody
else knows. Okay. You got to queue it up. Go for it. I do. My dad once said to me, well,
the future is the future and we just don't know it. And I was like, that is true. It
was college times. Stressful. What advice was that? That was just, yeah, just don't
worry. The future is what it is. So just kind of keep going. Keep trucking along. It was
really vague in general and I really enjoyed it. I like that. I can go next if good. My
business teacher in high school told the whole class, if you want to retire now, buy gold.
Because I think it went from like $500 an ounce to like 7,000 in the next 10 years.
Was that Mr. Baldwin? Yup. He was the best. How much gold did you buy? None. Still the
best advice I ever got. Hey, I did the math out. I'm like, yeah, could have retired. Yeah.
You don't love it when old people tell young people what to do and they're like, no, we
know better. It's like, I was in high school. I was like, I'll buy gold when I get out of
college. And I'm like, that's not how the economy works. It's not going to hold at that
price. That's what he was trying to tell me. Solid. Who else has one? I've got one. All
right. Some of the best advice that I think I've ever been given was someone's told me
to remember when you're in an argument that most of the time to remember that it's you
and whoever you're arguing with against whatever the issue is and not you against the person
you're arguing with. And that's very helpful to remember sometimes because it can't be,
you know, if you're conflating what's going on with the person you're arguing with, it
makes it hard to get through things sometimes and communication is important. Fuck yeah.
That's a good one. You want to go? Yeah. My dad told me one day, he said it a bunch of
times, my dad always gives like just the random spurts of wisdom. But one of these like, he's
like, I'll tell you what my father told me. God hates a coward. Basically means if you're
going to do something, do it. Solid advice. Okay. Stefan, I'm interested in hearing what
advice you are going to tell us. I'm afraid. Well, so I, it's a tie up between two. So
like my dad gave me like two pieces of advice. Um, it was anything you learn, you'll always
have so prioritized like your education, like doesn't matter if like you're learning it
from a book or if you're learning it hands on, like anything you learn, you, you'd never
lose unless somehow you lose your memory. But that sucks. Um, and then, uh, the, the
other one is, uh, if you find a job that you thoroughly enjoy, you'll never work a day
in your life. Like you'll just go to work and you'll enjoy going to work rather than
being like miserable about a lot of shit, which has been true because that's how I got
inside of the career I'm in. So Tim, what advice you got for us? Uh, I got some great
advice a couple of years ago that I actually use very frequently, which is, uh, when, when
your tummy hurts, you go into downward dog and it can really alleviate that gas bubble
and then you feel a lot better. Fucking solid. That is good advice. All right. Works every
time. Useful. Good for you. Who hasn't gone yet? I'm the last one I think. All right.
Anna, what you got for us? My advice is pretty common, but just wear sunscreen. Cause I went
to Florida with Rebecca when we were 14 and didn't wear sunscreen and now my shoulders
have a bunch of sunspots on it. So now I wear sunscreen. We said we didn't need it. We thought
we didn't. Nerds use sunscreen. We're too hot for sunscreen. And then we were. Yeah.
We were lobsters. It also doesn't matter if you're tan or not. You wear the fucking sunscreen.
Cause if you're tan, you get an even worse sunburn than like white people. Cause it takes
you like six hours in the sun to then get the sunburn. And then once you get that sunburn,
you're like second degree burned all over your body. It's terrible. Yeah. Mikey and
I didn't wear sunscreen when we went to the 4th of July, probably the first time I haven't
spent it like with family or something like that or friends. We just took off and went
to the beach. Is Mikey not a friend? With like a group of people, right? It was just
like me, him and one other person. And we went and we got to the beach around eight
o'clock in the morning. We drove five hours to get there. We spent the entirety of the
day on the beach till like five o'clock. And when we finally went to leave, like you could
tell something was wrong when I was walking cause it was so hot. And then we sat down
in this restaurant and every person in there was fucking staring at me, him and our other
friend and like simultaneously we realized we were bright. Yeah. And we also felt like,
wow, it's really cold in here. Yeah, it was awful. So one by one we went to the bathroom
to see what we actually looked like. And it was awful. And the worst part is it was the
best day. We had like a great day just frolicking on the beaches as three dudes and we were
all younger, you know, in our twenties. So we all needed a break and driving home was
miserable. The AC, no matter what it was on, was too cold. And when you roll down the windows,
it was like a hundred degrees and it just felt like sandpaper raking across your skin.
It was the best of, it was the best of days and it was the worst of days. I was going
to sleep that night. So I was trashed. I absolutely fucking garbage. I remember you guys coming
home. The rest of the month was rough. I got blisters, like huge blisters all over. The
doctor said not to go out in the sun for three years. He told me to wear a sun hat and long
sleeves. He was like, even when you're driving, cover your driving arm or cover your left
arm that's looking through the window. Like don't, don't do it, man. Don't go out in
the sun. And I was like, that's crazy. We had our first date. We had those boils. And
you still stayed in the van. Yeah, they were boiled. They were huge and they were gross.
That was, that was, that was a bold choice by me. I remember. Was that, was that Charliefest?
We were, Charliefest was right after that. Like the next weekend. Yes. And Alex wouldn't
stop smacking me on the shoulder. Everybody kept touching us and patting us on the back.
It was, ah, it was torture. It was awful. No one touches you until you have a sunburn.
It's uncanny. It was a glorious time. It was miserable. Like, yo, you want to go fuck with
Mike? Slap him real hard on the top of the shoulder. You probably need to slap me hard
and just, you know, just poke me a little bit. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no. It was awful. Best piece of advice I've ever been given. It's a hard,
I've got a lot of good advice, but probably the one that's most general that sums up my
dad probably the most is him just telling me to pay attention. And that's, like, goes
on almost everything, you know, new job, pay attention to what the manager is doing, what
the guys above you are doing. Learn wherever you are and pay attention. A lot of times
he was yelling at me because, like, I was staring at my phone while he was teaching
me things and stuff like that. Pay attention. But as I got older, pay attention really meant,
you know, pay attention to what's happening around you, not just, you know, what you're
working on. So probably that. That's good advice. It's helped me get pretty far. Another
piece of good advice that I've gotten was everyone you'll ever meet, no matter what
knows something you don't. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Another one I got was, uh, swing away, Merrill.
What? Yeah, my name is Merrill, right? And so my brother had a wife and she got crushed
by a truck and then an alien came into our house and my brother was like, you know, swing
away. So I started smashing a bunch of water glasses to defeat them. It's one of the episodes
that I've heard. I believe it's the movie signs. It's the movie signs. Yeah. Oh, swing
away, Merrill. I didn't. I have a piece of it's not so much a piece of advice, but it
was more criticism. It was, um, your favorite piece of criticism you've ever received. Constructive
criticism is advice in a different delivery. And I've given it as advice and quote unquote
advice as well. Uh, it's, um, you're not doing good enough, do better. Oh, no. I hate that
criticism. That's more of an inspirational quote than non-institutional advice. Criticism
is really advice you didn't have. That one goes on a poster. Yeah, that's, that's like
the hang in there cat fucking poster. That is not, that is not something that like you
want to hear every day. Well, that's a lot of good advice. So listeners go take all of
that and improve your lives. Yeah. Cause we all have it together. I feel like when we
all get together, this is a solid self help podcast. Yeah. We're changing season two.
We're going to help. I don't want to be part of this. You need it the most. Season two
we play that, we play that mental illness kind of game. Talk about this. No, I'm not
playing these games from podcast to group therapy real quick. All right. So that's going
to do it for our pod deck interview deck questions going into season two. We actually have four
decks that we're going to be able to pull from. I've got the pod deck interview decks,
uh, third and fourth edition. You also have the what the fuck edition and new and totally
not the same, um, is the RPG campfire card deck. And so we're going to use this one to
actually answer questions less about ourselves and more about our characters when we're playing
some of our longer arcs throughout season two. Cool. Can we do a preview of the, what
the fuck deck? Yeah. I was going to say that sounds more like what you better play those
every single time I show up for a podcast. Apparently we can't really didn't expect me
to ask for a sample. I think it's really not open. I glued it shut. And then you asked
to open. So these are more seem like kind of intrusive and um, like rattle a few off
and answer. And do you have a birthmark? If so, where is what reoccurring? Why did you
always tell your parents or teachers? What is the strangest skeleton you ever discovered
in someone's problem or in their someone's closet? Actual skeleton. Actual. Um, it was
only about two feet long. It was disturbing. Has anyone started a rumor about you? If so,
who, what was it about? Can you do any tricks with your tongue? Dude, I feel like these
are all questions you would ask somebody on a date. What's the worst thing you ever found
in somebody else's closet? What's Devin? Give me birthmarks. The hottest podcast game this
year. We're gonna fuck your podcast co-host. All right, we're gonna move on. We'll revisit
the WTF deck. Can I borrow that for some dating market? No. I think there's a better list
of questions in the New York Times you can find. I mean, some of those sound like they'd
be fun to ask. What do you think, John? Can I have a birthmark? Sounds good. Stop touching
the knob. My knob toucher. You're gonna go blind if you keep touching my knob. Dude,
it's right there and it's shiny and it's just like, eh. It's shiny. You just gotta deal
with it. It's that polished that it's shiny. It is a shiny barbell at the bottom of the
mic stand. You're trying to be like, I gotta lift this. You should see a doctor about that.
Oh god. Oh no, Riley did. Finally. Welcome to the asshole club. The circle is complete.
There's a reason why you put me next to you. So let's take a look back at some of our favorite
moments from season one. I guess we should head back to that entrance. I see these lunatics
crossing the street now. Yeah, let's get ready to go in. We're already through the front
door. All right, that's our cue. I'm gonna head in. Jack, Josh, and Billy. What does
their distraction look like? Gonna run in, run right to the front desk, scream trick
or treat and run right down the hallway, hitting every door heading for the stairwell to the
second floor. I'm gonna do the same thing but while spinning. There's a whirling dervish
in, I don't know, I'm just causing chaos. Yeah, let's roll fight for both of you. That
seems the most reasonable. So check of eight. I got an eight on my V8. Nice, you can roll
again. 14. Nice. 14 and 10. Nice. You guys do a wonderful job of making a distraction
as you're tearing down the hall, hitting the fucking doors and Jack, you're spinning around
in circles knocking shit over. You guys are just going fucking crazy through here. There's
attendants like coming around to the desk trying to chase you but you guys are just
tearing up and down the halls. Billy on the other hand is doing a pretty bad job of being
a distraction. He found a vase full of candy and he like kinda is eating a bunch and just
going, distraction. You know, he's not quite fulfilling his job. You guys at the back door,
you find it still open or unlocked anyways. You broke the lock earlier so it's easy to
get into. Okay, we're gonna go in. Danny, what are we gonna do about the locker? I don't
really know. I still have this crowbar that I took from Josh and the screwdriver and also
I can kind of pick locks pretty good. You know, my dad's got a foot locker at home that
I've been practicing on. He does cigarettes in there. Why didn't you say that earlier?
And do you have any cigarettes? I do. I have a couple of cigarettes though. Oh good, let's
smoke some of them later. Yeah, later. We should do this now though. We should do this now.
So yeah. Sounds like they're making some noise upstairs. I guess we should do this now. Yeah,
I think we can hear them stomping on the hallways above us. I'm gonna roll grit to try and pick
the lock with my street smarts from lock picking. Grit is the one you think you can go with,
huh? That's street smarts, yeah. It's my street smarts. Oh, okay, yeah, sorry. My bad. Yeah,
go for it. I got a 10. Fuck yeah. You're picking the lock? Yeah. All right. Because it's just
like a simple master key situation for all of these things, it'd be ridiculous if there
was a different key for all of them. You do manage to pick this lock and get it open.
All right. Oh, nice job. Cool. And you guys are right. There is a tunnel behind here?
No. Different building. Different building. That would be awesome. But it's just a regular
locker. Danny, that's just a locker. Sorry, I gotta go to the eye doctor, right? It was
just dark in there. I couldn't see anything. I thought it just kept going. I think you're
just getting excited about this. As you open up the locker, you find a set of wet women's
clothes dripping down into the bottom of this locker. They're like soaked and there is a
book and a wallet on the top shelf. That was mine. I submitted that one. That one's hilarious.
I forgot that Connor just couldn't see. I was like, I don't know what's in here. It's
a tunnel. I love them. I mean, never mind. You guys wanted that secret tunnel so bad.
We really did. That would have been awesome. Billy and the Candy. Just that kid. He had
super powers. Yeah, well like, just like- I mean, at a cost. Yeah. He tried to read.
Didn't he get a nosebleed towards the end? Any time he used his powers. That's not healthy.
So you get for using too much of your brain. Not on English class. He was busy being used
for, you know, ice breath and earthquakes or something. Cat loving. Cat loving. His
brain was cat loving. Candies and kitties. The cat one was mine. That one was hard. Yeah.
It was fun to pass them around though. And many people got to be Billy. I did like that
system. I actually stayed in a hotel recently where herds of kids were running up and down
the hallways. Should have brought candy. No. Oh, that's not good. Sorry. No, you don't
want to do that. It's thinking of Halloween. This wasn't Halloween time. Okay. What are
you guys like? The wolves are coming. You talked about a rock slide. We'll wait until
they get- Yeah, I mean, if they're coming, they're here, I'm going to go. I'm going to
use my fireball to create the rock slide. Okay. Roll for rock slide. Here we go. So
the wolves are coming through the canyon and as I see them, I'm like, all right, they hit
your traps. I'm going to launch the rock slide now and I aim my fireball up at the rocks.
And get a 12. 12 plus three. So a 15. Yeah, you create this rock slide. The wolves start
to break through into the clearing that you guys are at and the rocks come down. And what
used to be like a pack of 20, which was more like 17 when they came out of the woods due
to traps. Several of them get wiped away by this rock slide. And now you're looking at
closer to around 10 or 11 wolves. You ready to go down there and rip them up? Yeah. Yeah.
Just let out my blood curdling. Climb up over the rock side and jump down ready to grab
one and like try to snap a snack with my hands. A typical thing. Seven. Seven plus three.
Damn it. On a 10. Yeah, you succeed. Just like getting on the horse, but you just- Yeah.
Just like the way I grabbed the horse, except for I grabbed one of the dire wolves and just
squeeze until it pops. Okay. You are a horrifying creature. I don't like this. We're friends
with a monster. We're chipping away at them. What are you going to do, Fitzy? I'm going
to make a future note. Never allow starfish people. It's like the most OP thing in any
game now. It's like rabbit poker. Cool. You thought minotaurs were all right? Starfish,
man. Man starfish? Man star. Man star. Patrick. Mad Pat. Mad Pat. Oh, God. So yeah, I'm going
to run out and whatever one just didn't get exploded right next to me. I'm going to go
in with my- I'm going to cleverly go at it with one with my magic ice tagger and see
what I can do. I got 10. Yeah. On a 10, you can successfully turn this one to a snow pile.
Snowflakes. They just ash into nothingness. Yep. There's about six wolves left. Just looking
at the devastation around them, they've kind of gotten close enough to you guys now where
you're a bit surrounded. However, they're a little wary because they've seen their compatriots
get destroyed by boulders splatted by starfish and squeezed to goo and turned to a snowball
back to Mr. Flash. All right. Now that the wolves are closing in, Mr. Flash pulls out
his great ax and runs up to the wolves and gets a nine plus- There's like no way for
you guys to lose at this point. Are we only supposed to use the traits that are like-
No, you- No, it's literally all your traits plus-
Yeah. So I mean, I come up and I just slice one's head right off as its body just limply
falls on the head and it goes and hits the one next to it. As you do this, it just so
happens to be the largest of all of them. You have killed the alpha wolf of this group
and the remaining five starts to whimper and then they realize they messed up as they back
away and then reform in a group and take off back into the mountains. Then you guys have
successfully killed a bunch of wolves. I take my great ax and I just skin the freaking alpha.
It's my new coat. While doing that, you find items inside their stomachs and to everybody
draw a treasure. I was going to take the alpha's head and replace my fishbowl. Strength. Strength.
Plus one magic hat. Are you going to get different hats for every hand? I go over to the alpha
's head that you just cut off and I just suck your cup onto the top of it and peel the skin
off and then put it over the bowl. Oh my God. Excellent. I'm wearing the body you've got
to hand. I have an ancient great sword. That system was deranged. The system was fine.
What happened in that entire episode was deranged. Man Pat was a monster. Man Pat was a monster.
That was where we learned that a sentient starfish the size of a human being is something terrifying.
Where was the inspiration for that? What's with the starfish? Squirt-bump square pants.
You're just Patrick. That's Patrick Star. Less anthropomorphic and just more like what
it would be. Anthro. Well he said you can be anything and they're like I'm a human,
I'm like I'm going to be Patrick Star. Mad Cat. Yeah. Turns out starfish if they were
on a scale of human size would be horrifyingly strong. And just horrifying. And horrifying.
All around. I like the fishbowl though. I like the eel stumping. Draw angry eyes on
him. He's angry. That was like the most fucked up character that I've made. I'm sorry. That's
the most fucked up character anybody's made. Ever in any game. So far. So far. Yeah no
shit. Oh man. That was a good character. I want to make that character again as a villain.
Just like a Halloween special or something. Where there's a terrifying monster that someone's
made an accident. That's awesome. Yes. We have our season 2 finale. Could be like a
spongebob live event with there's children and then there's like a chemical explosion
or something. And then Mad Pat is created. Like the Toxic Avenger but like. Oh so like
more. Fish from swimsuits. So like a Toxic Avenger meets like Finding Nemo. Like that
sort of scenario. On ice. On ice. I'd watch that. You're writing this down right Mike?
I'm jotting it down. Mike's never taking notes. I don't know what you're talking about. How
much money do I have? Yeah how much money do you got? You're not keeping track of my
money. I'm just buying stuff. That was bad. You guys leave HQ with $270 in your pockets
and begin making your way down to Point Pleasant, New Jersey. Are we really taking the river
on a pontoon boat? Yep. Okay. It's canon. Okay. Okay so are you guys like getting on
a barge or hoping for a ferry situation or like you have a pontoon boat? This is a homemade
pontoon boat. It's just two pontoons with just plywood and boards across that is just
wide enough for us to drive this thing onto and sit on it. It's like a Huckleberry Finn
situation. Terrible. Okay. There's a little bit more room than that. We can get out and
stand on the other side of it. Yeah it's like two feet all around it. And the back a little
bit more so we can like sleep. Okay. And a storage bin on it. Somebody, whoever is piloting,
whoever is steering this contraption with your Huckleberry Finn back propeller thing,
who wants to roll for Tradecraft? Who wants to give me a technical roll? Who's got a plus
in tech? I have a zero in tech. There we go. We got our man. Six, two, plus one. Nine.
I know how to use the DeWalt drill pretty well. Okay. You guys are floating down the
river. You do like, you're able to keep it together for quite some time but as you know,
you start getting tired as it's a long way down to the out. You realize you're going
to come out, like where are you planning to dock this pontoon situation to drive out of
the water? Otherwise you're going to hit the ocean. I'm not the one planning this. We're
waiting for just south of the Washington, the George Washington bridge. So we have to
hit the shoreline under the bridge. Well at least we got a Bronco. We should be there
the other day. It's not exactly hard. I saw guys out there on jet skis. I saw some dude
out in a canoe. Shanty. I've seen some crazy things floating down there. So out of nine,
you risk being compromised. We'll say at this point, it's not like a compromise thing necessarily,
although you don't have any permits, but you don't have a motor either. So you don't need
one according to New York state law. However, you're going to take a minus one as like you've
dashed into some rocks and stuff because it's taking you hours and you're the only one actually
steering this thing. So give me one more trade craft roll to see if you hit those docks and
drive right off. That's a five. A five total? Yeah. The boat sinks. Yeah. So the first leg
of your journey, it was going pretty sweet until one of these jet skis drove by too close.
For some reason, he did a dick move and cut some of your pontoons off. You guys made it
so close to the dock before this fucking barge thing fell apart. Now your Bronco is kind
of submerged in the water. We'll say you're kind of at the boat launch, right? Except
you can't get into the vehicle at this point. You got to get it out. Hey, is there any other
cars? I was just thinking that. Is there any cars? What does the bargain lot look like
today? Yeah. Is there like another truck that's launching a boat that we could be like, yeah,
help us tow this thing out? Yeah. There's definitely another boat. Or no, another truck
around that has like a trailer hitch and stuff like that. All right. I swim over to the boat
launch. I see the guy backing up his F-150 in and just got done putting his boat in the
water. He's going to park there. I'm like, hey, before you drive off, can you get a rope?
We need to just tow this guy out of here real quick. What kind of asshole launched this
boat like that? I'm sorry, sir. We had a really bad accident back there. Our boat just fell
apart and there was transporting this rare antique super American truck that we need to
be good patriots. Well, I remember seeing that truck before. Well, hmm. And give me
an interpersonal role. Please, sir. It would really be really helpful if we could be helped
out in that situation. I rolled a four. I think the worst thing that happened in American
history was that OJ Simpson trial. Go fuck yourself. And as I'm swimming, I swim over
and when I hear this, I just walk up. Is he still in the truck or is he? No, he's driven
away. He's gone now. He went to go park his truck. I tried guys, but my interpersonal
skills failed me. He just went to go park the truck. Yeah. I'm going to start walking
towards the parking lot. Okay. You're going to go mess him up in the parking lot, aren't
you? No, I'm just going to take his keys and take his truck. By messing him up in the parking
lot, aren't you? I plan to just push him in the water and drive away. So you're going
to attack the guy. So we're going to partially steal the car. This is going to be a combat
role. How are you going to do it? What are you going to do? Because I will say, on a
failure- Can I do an observation and try and pickpocket him? Or is there another? What
would it be, pickpocketing him? It would be an engage role anyway, so it's going to be
a combat role. Okay. Because you're engaging him. So roll well because he's not the only
person in his parking lot. I'm going to try and pickpocket him. 10. 10. All right. Yeah.
On a 10, describe what you do as you walk up to this guy. I'm just going to do the old
shoulder bump. Bump him and swipe his keys in a pickpocket and walk past him. Oh, I'm
sorry. Hey, asshole. Watch where you're walking. My mistake. I'm sorry, sir. You ain't from
around here, are you? No, I'm not. Sorry. Why do I sound like this? I don't know. This
is New Jersey. I just moved here from somewhere more hickish. Enjoy your day on your boat.
Yeah. Are you with that other fellow on that dilapidated boat? No, but he sank my car.
Well, he deserved to. He goes and gets on a nice 24 foot pignon boat. You know, coming
you guys very expertly. It sails away. Not sails. I'm going to wave. I'm going to wave
out until he's out of sight and then I'm going to get in his truck and beep until these two
find out and figure it out. Okay. Are you stealing his truck? Is the Bronco done? I
think the are we stealing his truck or are we just going out the Bronco? I shouldn't
steal his truck. It's a much nicer truck than the Bronco. You see the boat he just got in?
This has got four doors. I'm going to just take the license plates off the Bronco. That's
thinking. The Bronco is like half submerged underwater. Yeah. All right. Give me. Sunk
in half floating pontoon boat with a truck getting out. Agent gathers. Why don't you
give me a technical role to get these license plates off here? Careful. You're failing.
You're going to drown. Shit. Got a six. With zero tech? With zero tech. Okay. Yeah. You
get the first one off. I'll give you the first one, but the second one, like you're underwater
entirely too long. You fucking gulp up some sea water before realizing like you're drowning.
Take one. I mean, take one off your body armor. I guess. That's some salty water. Yeah. Super,
super gross. It's Jersey. Yes. Oh God. It's right. So you die. You're dead. You ingest
sewage and die. All right. Guys, I only got the one license plate. I'm pretty sick now.
We had plates on that. I guess so. At least one. Super American truck. Super American.
Appealing to his values. It's a part of history right there. Yeah. We picked that because
of OJ. We did. That was it. Definitely. The clip goes into talk about OJ. He comes up.
He does come up. I think they had announced the Broncos release and we were all excited
too. Oh yeah. That was right around that time. Yeah. Sure. We'll save that. Absolutely. That
was a good game. Yeah. That was a good game. Didn't we all die? Oh yeah. That's the only
one. The only one that was failed. I walked away. Yeah. Yeah. But you killed the person
we were supposed to protect. Oh, he didn't. He didn't. I just let it happen. Yeah. No.
The other agents came in and like, rest in peace Fanny. Whoops. That's why I walked away.
I was a killer at the mall. Well, I'm not, I mean, my character's not the one that blew
up the living room. That is true. It is your fault essentially. You blew your own body
in half. I forget what I was trying to do. You were taking a reaching charge and you
rolled it into a rope like shape and you threw it and rolled super bad and it got wrapped
around the ceiling fan and then around your body and you blew in half. Yep. The tracks.
The tracks. That's why I voted for that one on Instagram. I was like, I think this one
needs another play through cause that was... Well, we have a fun escape from. The first
one, the first time we played it, like didn't we have audio issues or something? Yeah. The
first time was the better time probably, even though the one we recorded was really good.
The first time was, was super great. We were rescuing a bunch of moms from their own moms,
their own mothers from the Boston aquarium. And boy was that sucker heavily guarded. I
will tell you. And a light machine gun in close quarters came in. Yeah. The light machine
gun at one point we're like, we just learned that you can just chew through barricades
if you just shoot at them long enough. I mean, if you roll bad enough consistently, something's
going to happen. There's even a shark. There was a shark. That was a really good one. I'm
so sad that one didn't make it. It was. Me too. Definitely why I voted for it. I was
like, oh yeah. Try to recreate. You know what? Maybe it deserves a spot in like some bonus
episode territory in season two. Be down for that. I would love that. The redemption going
dark. Yeah. It's like an Archer when, uh, what was it? ISIS became a real thing in real
life. Yeah. Shifty guy with a bottle, a lot of, uh, a lot of war wounds. Yeah. We got
to switch the name of the agency. It's a, what was the name of our agency? The B team.
No, no, the D team. I'm going to pull out the compass and just asking if this is the
right way. Hey, why aren't you telling us where to go? Well, we're on a lake. I mean,
there's mountains. You can see them. There's the only ones that aren't the ones we just
came from before. That is true. Are we going the right way? Yeah. The compass says you're
going the right way. I forgot the talking compass. Well, I believe we're headed the
right direction. So, uh, up this hill, we shall go. I suppose you guys, uh, begin to
hike into the mountains to the West and just wandering the mountains, I guess, following
the compass, but the compass seems to be like wavering a little while you're in the mountains
and pointing it in many different directions. Every time you look at it, it's like pointing
somewhere else and it's pretty confusing. But as you guys kind of hike it through these
passes, eventually a small man begins to make his way towards you whistling as he, as he
hikes through this pass. Hello, sir. Oh, hello. Hello. How are you? Where are you off to this
fine morning? I am just making my way through the mountains. Where are you off to this morning?
We are in search of a, of a, of a creature, a cast cast creature, a chaos creature. And
what is that? I don't believe we're sure. Hoping you would know. Well, perhaps it would
behoove you to know that if you take the path to the left here, you will run into an area
where a lot of travelers have recently encountered some strangeness. Sir, you're saying left,
but you are pointing right and I am not sure which way you mean. I apologize. Left is right,
right is left. Go down this way that I am pointing. The right way. That's right. Sure.
All right. But that sounds exactly like what we were, what we were sent to look for. It
does. Yes. Do you have any, anything leather bound on you? Only my breeches. May I buy
them off of you? No. Literally off of you? No, I do not think so. Not even for a bag
of shannis? A whole bag? They are my only breeches. What about two? But you could buy
new breeches down the street at the Spire. What if we trade breeches? I do not want to
trade for mountains without breeches. We seem about the same size. We do. It is like two
feet shorter than you and like much wider. It's close enough. You want to try mine on?
I do not like this pattern. Head to the left, you find what you're looking for. That's
the right again that you're pointing at. Stop. I don't know. Head to the left. To me it's
the left. Head to, head, head, head's this way that I am pointing. That's the right.
And it's a no on the pants. And it's a no on the pants. These are my pants. Should I
use a loosen and make his pants fall? Yes, Joob. Yes. I'm not going to. Oh. What a good
illusion that would be. Well, I must be on my way. You must. I think you should get going.
Bye. I'll plop. Thank you for your time. And he whistles as he works his way out, holding
very tightly to his pants. He's very concerned about his pants right now. Want to be at all
get a good chuckle over the pants? I can't believe he didn't give us the pants. For two
bags of shinies he could have bought a whole store full of pants. A whole new pants. We
could have just taken his pants probably. But for another time. I thought we were. The
absurdity of trying to barter somebody's pants off while getting directions. We needed the
leather. I think if we tried for just a few more minutes we could have got those pants.
If we rolled for it or something. Eventually I would have caved for sure. Oh man. Should
have kept going with it. It might have turned into a salt before that. That's okay. You
gotta loosen and push them down. Grab the pants. And they say real life doesn't reflect
games. Sometimes a little too close. Sometimes art imitates life. This scene reminded me
the listeners won't know this, but in our first campaign as a group we found these invisible
goats that kept trying to eat the leather pants of our friend, what was his full name?
Christophorus Angelican. Yes, Chris Angel for short. Some things were pulling at his
pants and that was hilarious. That was a good time. Yeah. That was a good character. The
magician. The magician is a good class. What are you talking about in our hallway tent?
That was my favorite thing from that whole first campaign. I set up my tent in the hallway.
I'm so sad that your favorite part of the entire campaign came in the third fucking
session. For the next two and a half years it's been a fucking slog. There was a little
bit of a slog toward the end, but no way. I just can't believe your patented sleep darts
are in here. That wasn't my thing. The sleep arrows you mean? No, that was me getting fucked
by Riley. Riley being retarded was even better. I hit him with a sleep arrow. You're standing
over top of him while he's asleep. Any arrow is a sleep arrow at this point. Yeah, I hit
him for it doesn't matter. And then his wife woke up. No, no, no, he asked me to roll to
see if I hit. And then his wife woke up screaming. That was awesome. We had to kill her too and
burn the house down. I killed her and then I laughed. No witnesses. This is our home game.
This has nothing to do with the podcast. Nothing at all. I like the quest arc we did though.
I like the system. It's fun. It takes a lot of the math out of the traditional tabletop
role play games. You one die. It's much simpler. You win, you lose. We home brewed the shit
out of it to great effect. Our own campaign. Yeah, our home game. Yeah, anything that changes
in the recording when we played Quest is because I'm just stupid and forget things sometimes
while I'm GMing and like that happens sometimes. Yeah, Izzy does a great system to base off
of and build a home system off of. Maybe we should keep following the creek and look around
the fish and shack for that other light that fell. I think it kind of went in that area.
Near Pickle Park or not that far. I think it was just below Pickle Park. Yeah, at the
fishing place. Okay. Yeah, let's go check out the bait and tackle place. Okay. As you
guys hit Main Street to cross over. We look both ways. Good. Next to Biggles Bridge, you
guys cross over the road and as soon as you hit the main road, a pair of headlights lights
up. Oh shit. It doesn't. It's not like this is that limo guy again. It's not a car that
was just sitting there. It comes down the street next to you down Strock Street where
you live and turns and aims its headlights directly at you. Scatter. Scurry. Yeah, get
out of the way. No, no. Bonnie, it's your dad. Oh, damn it. Bonnie. Yeah. You get in
this car right now. Oh, but you and your friends in this car now. But Vivian's dad is missing.
We need to... Okay. Well, deal with the cat another time. Get in the car. Guys, I have
to get in the car. So do your friends. Sorry, Mr. McGinnis. Vivian, get in this car. This
is my friend Max. Max. Hi. Get in the car. Sorry, Bonnie's dad. Get in the car. Yes,
sir. It is after midnight. We didn't realize it was so late, dad. Why are you even out
of the house? How did you even get out? We were looking for frogs. So your cat's lost.
You're looking for frogs. What are their excuses? Well, the cat likes the frogs. The magic came
and told us we should go outside. We thought there were aliens. The frogs were aliens.
That is the only believable one. Get in the car. That's the one I believe. Get in the
car and... Okay, well, if you believe it, then can you come look with us? I want to
believe. Come on. Podcast done. That was the best joke that could ever be made. We don't
need to keep doing this. It's over. The end. The end. You guys win. You win the badge quest.
Mr. Molder. I mean, Bonnie's dad. Get in the car. I don't want to hear anything out
of you again. Nothing, Bonnie. Get in. But dad... Get in the car. No allowance for two
weeks. Dad, the Scholastic Book Fair is coming up. With a classic blossom biscuit. Bonnie,
I swear to God, get in the car. Sorry. I've said we get in the car like six times. Okay,
well, at this point, you finally realize who's dead. He's just yelling at us still. We're
all sitting. There's a vein, your dad's bald. There's a vein that comes down and you can
see it run down the entire length of his head and it's basically pulsating. It's a very
tense and quiet car ride home. Guys, my dad's really mad. I think he might need blood pressure
medication. That vein is... This gets really angry. Does it get worse? Vivian, Maxwell,
get your things. I'm going to bring you home. What? The sleepover's over? That's right.
It's all done. But dad, you can't wake up everybody's families. It's after midnight.
You're going to worry them even more by doing that. Vivian, I already called your parents.
Oh, yeah. You've been here for one second. Maxwell, I don't know yours. You'll just
have to tell me where you live. That works for me. Okay. Go get your stuff. Yes, sir.
Bonnie, you sit in the bathroom. No, you sit in the kitchen cabinet until I get back. I
have to sit in the cabinet? Yes. No more talking to your friends. But the cabinet... You're
not going to sit in the kitchen cabinet? No. I'm going to sit in the kitchen cabinet. Okay.
And I'll climb in the cabinet under the sink. I give... Maxwell gives Bonnie a sad wave
as he turns and walks out the front door. I'm in like the pantry somewhere where you could
actually sit. I was basically like knees to her chest as her dad closes the door shut
to lock it. I was picturing like Harry Potter. No. Just over the cabinet. Your dad is not
abusive. Your dad is not a piece of shit. It's a full-size pantry. There's even a little
stool in there, you know, to reach the top shelf. I'm going to eat some snacks while
I'm in here. That was a lot of fun to play that one. It was fun to feed into like the
kid thing where you just ramble on forever and ever, which I know Riley kind of hated.
I didn't hate it, but I will say it was by far our longest arc. Yes. And there was a
lot of great role playing in it. So it made sense not to cut it out. You guys did a lot
of talking. It was actually pretty easy. I also could have pulled out like one storyline,
I think, from the whole thing to have cut it down a bit. Cause like, man, there was
a lot going on. There was a lot, but it was a lot of fun. Yeah. We had a lot of ends to
tie. It was interesting how it all came together in the end. Yeah. Which was really well done.
Good job, GM. Oh, thank you. Yeah. I feel like it was one session at the end of it.
You kind of like laid out everything, like all the goals we had. And I was like, oh man,
that's everything that we now have open to us. Like it expanded very quickly. Yes. We
did find a lot of mysteries all at once, it seemed. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. I liked how when
you guys got into the role playing of it, you did use like random child logic to really
make his adult characters have to work their way around the conversation in a different
form. I tried to very frequently switch ideas halfway through a sentence. That was kind
of like my strategy. Like that was my main thing where I was like, I feel this is how
the kid would think. He would just suddenly completely 180 and not even like flinch that
everyone else has no idea what's going on. You did do that very well. Yeah. I grew up
doing that. My mom was not happy about it. Fuck. I forgot what I was going to say. I
feel like I had a lot to say when we were listening to the clip. I like after the end
of that last clip, to punish Bonnie, I get put in the food closet. I get put in the pantry.
Maybe it's like my time out room. That's weird. Okay. So to clear that up, it was never that
you like get, it's like a big pantry. Your family's rich. So it wasn't like, I just
have a feeling that a lot of people thought that it was like a locked in the tiny cupboard
situation. Bonnie's dad's a good guy. Just want to clear that up. I know. It's still
a weird place. Just a storage room with a chair. It's not the Matilda closet. No. Jokey.
Little Harry Potter thing under the stairs. No, it was nice. There's probably Cheez-Its
in there. Definitely a lot of snacks in there. Yeah. 100%. It's really not much of a punishment.
Thick newtons. No, he just didn't know what else to do with you at the moment. I also
love the aspect of getting in trouble with the new friend that hasn't met your parents
yet. Being there as a kid is really rough. It's super awkward when you're the new friend
and you're like, nah, hello. But Bonnie's dad and Max have a really good conversation
in that episode. They do. Yeah. Doesn't he ever try to tell me I have to go to school
at some point? But I do it from home. He's like, no, you have to go to school. Oh no,
these guys try to convince you that you have to do something. The teachers are going to
make us go to school. Oh, right. Because you guys are sneaking around Pickle Park. I also
liked when you put yourself in a position where you had to be Bonnie's dad and Vivian's
mom and have a conversation. I always love that. Almost nothing I hate more than playing
two characters that are just talking to each other. You do so good. It makes me so uncomfortable.
But you set yourself up for it to happen. Go get your mom on the phone. I was like,
okay. It's got to happen at some point. That's why I really like kids on bikes because then
you guys could also play the NPC. Yes, Billy, that was very cool. Yeah. That was a fun way
to do that. Kids on bikes had a lot of mechanics that I liked. Yeah. Seriously good. Yeah.
Kids on bikes has one of the best character creation things with like the relationships
and shit like that. It's more than the character creation. It's like the dynamic of the group.
Yeah. And the world around you too, which is cool. I definitely agree that the character
and world building and that with the questions that it asks and it asks each player to come
up with rumors that could be true throughout the town. You can build off of that. Yeah.
That's a great one. We've used it in a couple other ones. When we did use it in kids on
bikes, we happened to throw a town rumor in that you had already planned. Oh no. Mikey
named like four things. He talked about a cult as a town rumor and I was like crap.
He mentioned something about the bookshop guy being the cult leader and I was like,
okay, crap. And then I think there was something else. Like I was convinced you saw my notes
before we started because I was like, damn, he knows everything about this fictional town
in my brain. Well, it works out. Then you have to plan less. Yeah. You already did it.
Yeah. That's pretty cool. You were able to build the story off of those suggestions.
Makes you look like a better GM. It does. And less of a predictable one. We also did
it for the, we deal in lead. We did those questions and stuff. That was a lot of fun
too. Yeah. We also did them for a batch class. And it really formulated the group. Just tightens
the party. Just like. Yeah. It makes character creation easier because you're like, oh, well
if this happens and I have to work around, I love that. Yeah. Also helps to get into
the character a little more. Yeah. With the backstory thrown in. Yeah. So over the last
couple of months, we've been dropping some Ask Me Anything opportunities on our Instagram
and we have a bunch of questions sitting here in front of us. So what we're going to do,
we're going to go around whoever wants to grab a question out of the pile, grab it.
And then we'll all or somebody or whoever it's directed towards will answer. Cool. Tim
looks like he wants to grab the first question. Sure. I'm going to Billy this whole thing.
I can't read. We know. Everybody here knows it. This is for everyone. What was your favorite
arc you were not on? Oh, mine's going dark. I really like the, um, the spies stuff. That
was really fun. Good game. Kids on bikes. I really enjoyed Badge Quest. I thought that
was a lot of fun. I laughed out loud a lot when I was listening to that with my headphones
on people like, what is he doing right now? Like, oh, just headphones. You sing, like
listen to something funny. So then I just stopped listening to it in public and only
when I was mowing my lawn. So you're just laughing, mowing your lawn. That looks better.
Is it an electric lawnmower or a gas? It is an electric lawnmower. Oh, so they just hear
you creaking. I'm right there with you. Badge Quest was my favorite that I wasn't on. Nice.
Mikey, I mean you have no fucking clue, but just from what I've listened to, no, I'm probably
going dark because I, I would have more fun pretending to be like an agent rather than
like a kid, like as far as like making the boys ghost, but you were a kid. Yeah, but
I wasn't, I didn't do a great job at it. Well, I mean like that's cool. Take your own criticism.
That's good. Do better. Kids on bikes was, uh, that was my favorite one. Yeah. Yeah.
That's a good one. I really enjoyed it. I had a lot of good giggles. I really enjoyed
a lot of the interactions between Connor and Rebecca's characters are really good. And
I thought, uh, Mikey has pretty good lines in there. Personally. I really liked the Quest
arc. I thought that was fun. I've played Quest, so I enjoy that system to begin with, but
it was really interesting to see how other people would play their characters. Fuck.
Yeah. And skinny was cool. Thank you. Skinny was a lot of fun. Nice. Who wants to grab
the next question? Well, do you have a favorite one that, that as far as like DMing? So as
far as DMing, do I have a favorite one? Uh, probably not. I've enjoyed differences in
a lot of them. Um, I really enjoyed running kids on bikes. I really enjoyed badge quest.
It's a super simple system. Um, I'm really enjoying we deal in lead as well. That's a,
that's a really fun one. I don't know, but if I was a player, I think I would really
like to play in we deal in lead. That's a, that's a fun one. I'd like to play a cowboy.
It is been, it's been fun so far. Yeah. That game's really great. I really enjoy that one.
We all forgot to mention early on, um, four of us played lieutenants and escape the dark
sector, but none of us can remember which one we played. So, oops. I feel like my character
was either lieutenant hall or lieutenant oats. Cause I remember thinking that in my head
a lot while we were playing the game. I don't remember. Oh, sounds familiar. That was the
card game. Yes. Didn't we all die inside that? Yeah. Yes. That's right. We didn't lose just
one. We lost two. I think I died. Yeah. We didn't, we didn't win. We did not win. No,
I thought, like I thought it was just like, kind of like only we had the same thing happen
and going dark. Only one of us survived or something silly inside of that one. So, um,
escape the dark sector is a all or nothing game. So the, because two of us died, none
of us made it even though Derek and I did survive that one. Technically that room, that
was the last year. That was tough. Cool. Who's got the next question? This one is for you
Riley. Oh shit. What are your biggest challenges GMing for the podcast? Why is this written
in your handwriting? Why is it saying Mike? Anyway, here's the thing. Obviously we ask
people to send their questions in on Instagram, which means we have to write them down on
cards because people don't send them to us in the mail. That's also my handwriting. Yeah,
it's not mine. Let me rephrase. So aside from re-explaining things to Mike, what are your
challenges? That's a whole subreddit right there. The most challenging thing is learning
and remembering all the rules of the different systems. Um, because often I'm thinking about
the next one while I'm writing the one we're doing or, you know, certain things blend in
or I forget some mechanics that are, um, in certain systems. There's a lot. I'll get better
at it, but it does make it tough and highlighting some of the, some of the bigger mechanics
in games. You know, it's not difficult when you have a card that's the size of a playing
card because there's not many details on it, but some of the other ones are like, you know,
full fledged books and you can't remember all the cool things that happened in that.
So that's the biggest challenge. I especially like with the really simple ones around the
card, how there's aspects where the players can just try to like create part of the world
and you're like, Oh yeah, we'll go with that. No, that's, you know, you might think this,
but actually this is what's happening. Yeah. What do you got? What genre is the most entertaining
to play? Is that an everybody question? Yeah. I would assume sounds that way. Yeah. Well,
I have an obsession with Cowboys, so I always think the old West is my favorite genre to
play. I also really liked being a kid in badge quests. That was, that was really fun to play
into. That was definitely different than what I would normally go in for. Cause I definitely
prefer fantasy games to play. I think those are the most fun. Badge quest would have been
my first experience outside of a fantasy setting. So it's a hard question to answer with my
limited experience. Like I feel like a, uh, like a sci-fi Western would be like the cake.
Like that's what I'd want to play. Like a firefly universe. Like fuck. Yeah. That'd be awesome.
That's actually somewhat like the, the one I'm trying to play with them. I've been playing
through right now is, uh, is trying to mix the fantasy and the sci-fi together to try
and find a good balance of it. When you say play, do you mean run and play or play play?
Because like, I love like my favorite to run, which is like, yeah, it's playing is the Gothic
horror for you guys. Like I loved running that. I liked making this absolute monstrosity
in my brain and then hearing you guys all make something completely worse than yours.
Is that the one with the bodies getting chopped up in the basement or something? Yeah, that
was, that was, that was that one. So like I, I pictured like dead space, you guys all
put something completely different together. And I was just like, this is great. I love
making them half bad. It's kind of like him with a manta Claus toboggan. It's just this
giant praying mantis. And my mind went, no, that is absolute terror. You're still have
bits of skin on it. No one ever said manta Claus had bits of skin left on his Santa's.
This is the joy of GMing that everyone's mind goes to the worst thing they can think. Like
terror. That's my favorite thing to play. Mikey? I really liked the fantasy stuff, like,
you know, but I've been having fun in space. We deal in lead is probably like the first
like Western theme. And so far I'd have to say that playing, playing cowboys and like
dimension hoppers, like that's getting pretty fun. So I think my new favorites gotta be
probably like the, the weird fantasy Western genre. Nice. Connor, what do you like playing?
I definitely typically like, you know, fantasy things where there's still casting and stuff
like that, but playing a lot of the other ones we've played where there wasn't stuff
like that, like going dark and kids on bikes where it was more reduced definitely gave
me a expanded view on like what is, what could be fun when playing games to say like that.
But you don't have to have fireballs and things like that. Just, you know, you're just playing
a good game with a good group. Have fun playing anything. Yeah. It can be really fun to play
in like sort of a quote unquote real world situation. Except for the starfish, like a
giant starfish that's, that should never go in anything ever again. Is that your real
world? Yeah. My dreams every night. Part of my life now. Yeah. Yeah. Fantasy is always
cool using some crazy sword or like spells. Like that's always awesome. Being a 12 year
old kid sneaking into a creepy house in the block. And like the only thing I was a pocket
knife. Like that's a whole different type of atmosphere. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. I don't
think as, as a GM, I don't think I have a favorite because I enjoy it. I've enjoyed
probably, you know, one reason why the podcast started was so we could experience all of
these different types. I don't think I have a favorite, although anyone's either kids
on bikes or, or badge quest have really elevated to like a really high status for me because
they've been so fun to run and to see how people play differently. Cause like, you're
not a big dude with a sword. You're a kid. And most of the time you're like a, you know,
all right kid at best at doing things. And so that's, it's been something that I didn't
expect to enjoy so much. No one said pirates among this group. Pirates is a pretty big
fucking deal with us. And we've had a lot of fun playing pirate on ships in our other
games. Yeah. I love doing seafaring sessions. They're one of my favorite things. It's just
DM and to play. It'd just be a space pirate or a fantasy pirate. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like
pirate is more of a character choice versus a nest theme. Typical swashbucklers. Yes.
We only did like one swashbuckler themed like thing out on camera. And it was like the one
you played. Oh yes. I did do the one on the boat. That was nothing but swashbucklers.
But we've been on ships a lot in our original private campaign. Um, when Connor had that
great captain's shirt. But I never wanted to be on the ship. We were forced into the
water so much. Water's a good direction to shoe hole. I mean, yeah, it brought me to
that island. I got that magic carpet and that was really dope. But that was the only good
thing that came from the water. And only you know that that carpet was magic. Yeah. Yeah.
All right. Somebody grab a question. Oh no. This question's for everyone. What was your
favorite system to play? We played in season one. Badge class. Yeah. Kids on bikes. I
definitely love the, the character development thing that it has going for it. Like we've
talked about it at length already. We, I think we're all on board though. It's, it's pretty,
it's pretty great for adapting into other systems. So I think that's gotta be my favorite.
I think kids on bikes is also my favorite. Yeah, me too. As far as like mechanics and
gameplay, that one was probably the most different, I guess. That one was really cool. Although
I liked in badge quest, you only play with D sixes. That's pretty cool. I don't know
the reason why I like quest a lot is just as like a boils it down to just a D 20. Yeah.
I think going dark was one of my favorite ones for the system and the building of characters
and how it played out. It's solid. I like just about every single one of the card game,
like the small card game, the ones that you popped out like pretty good. So now we raid.
Going dark. Going dark. Dark Sector. Dark Sector was actually a pretty fun little, that's
like more a board game though. Yeah. It is. It was kind of like a board game. But that
was good. Yeah, now we raid was a good, that was a fun time. That was a good situational
game. I don't remember what we did inside of that, but like. That tracks with your character.
It tracks with your character. Yeah, he was drunk a lot and we raided a village and we
were successful. And he was high on shrooms the entire time. Kept eating berserker mushrooms.
Sounds about right. Yep. Axe in the bag of mushrooms. You had a ship full of treasure
and gold that you were riding on. Oh shit. Okay, so this one is a little less directed
directly towards what we played. But the question is, what cast of fictional characters would
be the best adventuring party? This was my question. The Muppets. Oh, the Muppets. Nailed
it. I was thinking Golden Girls. Oh my god. I would murder them. That was a great one.
I was thinking community. Well, we've seen it and it was great. I mean, like you definitely
wouldn't go with like Sesame Street or Barney. But you absolutely could. But they would absolutely
drive you insane like three minutes down the road. Eighteen. Eighteen. We did murder them
alone. How about It's Always Sunny? I was just thinking that. I don't know if you'd
last long with them though. No, but they would each survive. Yeah, they're all just like
the worst rogues. They're all terrible people. The Cast a New Girl. Oh yeah. All right. It's
a good one. I like the main guys from Monty Python. I definitely watched that. I think
I would do Sabrina and her aunts. Oh, that's a good one. What about the Street Sharks? Street
Sharks. That'd be terrifying. It'd be awesome though. Wait, do you guys remember Battletoads?
They made a movie or something and I saw it and I was just like this is terrifying and
fucking so bad. Just saying. The Cast of That 70s Show. Yes, definitely. No, they would
not make the best adventure. They'd argue about it the whole time. It'd be awful. It'd
be a nightmare. It'd be terrible to travel with. They would always have weed. It'd be
one of my favorite episodes of That 70s Show. Oh, 100%. I think every show should have a
D&D episode. What if you did like Adventure Brothers? That'd be good. I love that. To
everyone, what is the best part about having your own podcast? Facing the anxiety of hearing
a recorded voice. Yes. Nailed it. Yup, pretty much. Nailed it. That's the best, right? Yeah.
Best part, actually the best part of this is watching Riley's face when you do something
that he doesn't want to put into the thing. Like smoke the microphone. The look of disappointment
in Riley's face. That is the best part of this. I'd expand that to Riley's many facial
features. That's why I've been hiding it right behind the microphone a lot more. I'm pretty
sure if he could get like a nerf gun he'd probably shoot us. Yeah, I don't think it
was quiet enough. If I didn't have to edit it out. Yeah, definitely. I think the best
part is looking forward to being able to spend that time with people I like, you know, hanging
out with. So yeah, just like that build up is always great. Yeah, me too. I like having
a reason to like get everyone here and play together in person because we play our own
private game but we're virtual for part of that so it's nice to see everybody's faces.
Hey everybody. We're virtual for one part of that. Yeah, it's good to see everybody
face to face. Hi guys. Hi buddy. And also play new stuff that it's like we would just
not consider part of like your comfort zone. It's just like it's not like fantasy. It's
just like I like playing like this kind of this archetype of character. It's like, well,
that doesn't exist in this game so you better figure it out. I also like that it lets us
play because we have so many different RPG games we want to get to and this gives us
a reason to like do it but do it fucking quickly so you can get through something. Because
otherwise they don't be three year arcs. Not turning quest into two and a half years. Yeah.
Probably homebrewing it and like some weird 5e amalgamation. But that was also us getting
used to roleplay and... Yes. We were very timid at the beginning. Yeah. Yeah. This party
was like years in the making. Mikey was supposed to GM fucking three years before we ever played.
That's like seven years ago. Yes. I got, yeah, I wanted to do it first and then Riley was
just like, yeah, you're done. No. You never did anything. No. No. Years went by. That
is not what happened. I had a character I was super excited to play and I sat there
with that character sheet for fucking years waiting for you to actually... I remember
that what was his name? Ailes Losh. Ailes Losh. Stumble duck. I had a character too and then
all of a sudden he's like, yeah, I'm gonna start, Riley's gonna start a campaign. I'm
like... Yep. Because it was never gonna happen, man. I mean, I work a lot. I know. I agged
on getting to... If you could get the knowledge from the books without having to read them,
you might have a little more progress. Yeah. They don't do great DM guides and audiobooks.
Really should have tried through osmosis. My honest question is, would you guys have
actually enjoyed a campaign where Mikey was running it? It never would have gone anywhere.
We don't know. No, no, no. I mean, just because of the simple fact that it was like... See,
so if I never do it, I can't ruin it. That's true. You're always a good DM and test guy.
Yeah, you'll always do the best. No, no, I'm just... I'll just... I've got a credit score
of zero. That's not good. Terrible. No credit. Bad credit. Dead people have better credit,
dude. There's more of them. My favorite is getting to play with all of you guys. And
at the end of the day, I'm happy to have something that we can look back on now for like the
entirety of the rest of my life and be like, ah, cool. Check out what I did with my friends.
I had friends. Yeah. Also, the internet's forever. The internet may be forever. Could
be. Could be. We'll see. Somebody grab a question. Who was your favorite character to play? Lieutenant
Abbott. Maxwell Cowell. Good answer. I really enjoyed playing Vivian Strauss as well. Yeah,
it was a lot of fun. Yeah. Badge Crest was a really good game. It was. It was a good
game. And my favorite character might have been Andy in Keds on Bikes. Yeah. Mine's a
tie between Job and the Magic Compass from Cadillac. I like your Magic Compass voice.
Right now I'm having the most fun with Cal McCray. My favorite character to play was
Mad Pat just to watch. Just to watch the sheer shenanigans of like the whole thing. Like
that was fucking funny. I enjoyed playing as Saudi Fitzgerald. Awesome. Because you
were the only one that walked away at the end. Did you abandon, you abandoned him. I
killed him. You guys were already dead. I just decided not to draw attention to myself.
The only other part that I remember from that one that was like Derek walked away at the
end. Well, like the first, the first one that the audio was corrupted, he went in by himself
and like me and him like went into like the basement by ourselves like with each other
and it just, ours, ours was just so much worse, but we were a distraction for him. I was doing
great on the upper floors and they were literally just shooting the foundations. Like we'll
take it down. No, we have to save people. No, no, no, no, no. In our defense it was,
we were rolling very bad. I had silent pistols and you had like some large machine guns.
I had a large machine gun. He had a machine gun or something. Yeah, we were bad. This
one's for everybody. Who's your favorite character that you didn't play? Ooh. That one's a lot
harder. Skinny. Thank you. Mad Pat. Honestly, Billy for me. Watching you, like hearing you
guys here play Billy, playing Billy, it was fucking hilarious. Mikey did not want anything
to do with Billy. He was such a shy little boy when we were recording. He was like, Billy
loves candy. He had loves candy. So he should have talked the entire time. Anytime candy
came up. He was like, yep, I love candy. Sure is great. It's hard to pick. I feel like all
of the characters from badge quest were great. I just enjoyed the interactions in that. I
think maybe Vivian might have been my favorite. Just like the fierceness of a, like this little
kid like, all right, I'm going to get my rifle and shoot something now. She was a lot of
fun to play. She was a savage. Yeah, she was. A good population of Kleinville died because
of Vivian. Whoopsie. Because of Vivian? I mean, it was all of them. Collectively. I
mean, collectively, the human beings. The old lady was definitely Vivian's fault. You
were the push behind the group. I mean, you straight up were shooting people. That's true.
You were really the driving force of not to like Samantha. Like you were on team anti-Samantha.
Well, I think she got a little cocky when she survived death and she was like, I'm a
mortal now, so this is going to be easy. My favorite character that I didn't play, I'm
liking how John's doing Bet, Betsy, Betsey, Betty Bob. You play this one. I know it's
always bubbling in my head. It's like either Betsy or Betty, but yeah, either way, the
old BBC. BBC is a fucking great character. That voice, it slays me. He's having a great
time. When I first heard that, I literally gasped. I was like, oh my God. It was shocking.
Oh, Betty. That's a good one. It is. What do you think, John? Man, I think my favorite
would be, was it Jimmy that you played in Kids on Bikes? Oh, I think I played Danny.
Danny. Danny. Yeah. I think that was one of my favorites so far. I feel like in my head
my inspiration was like a cross between like Danny Zuko from Greece and just one of the
kids from Stand By Me. That's exactly what it looked like. That's what I was drawing
on. I was like, all right, this is something from here. That's awesome. Perfect. Danny
was a great character. Thank you. So, this question for everybody, and it seems to be
a pretty easy question. Do you prefer to create chaos or play the hero? There's a lot of chaos
in this group. Yeah. It's like the Michael Scott answer. It's like, I want people to
be afraid of how much they love me. I want there to be so much chaos. I'm the only hero.
Only I can be the hero. Because I created the chaos. Because I created the chaos. In
a lot of characters you play, and I've played with you in our private game, you do strive
for the honorable hero as much as possible. You're very much Aragorn. But we're really
not. We really don't. You guys are not. He does strive to be honorable. You're one to
talk. Chaos. You're an agent of chaos in almost every game. In life. Every character
I've played with you has been chaotic. Everyone. Anyone that you've ever been a part of that
I've been a part of too? Chaotic evil. No. At least chaotic neutral. But Freddie became
a good hearted person toward the end of that campaign. Like in the beginning I was the
asshole and then everybody else in the party turned into assholes and I had to be the normal
one. You did become the normal one. After you were promised a city. Yeah. Did I get
shot down? I mean if I chill you gonna make me mayor? In it to win it. Realistically it
did take you three years to redeem yourself during that campaign. No. One open revolt.
Okay. 60% of the campaign. 65. I want to be as chaotic as possible in a game but I feel
like it's just mean to Riley a lot of the time. You still did one of the funniest things
with the magic item in that game was like the sponge from Quest that you could put all
the water in and you just turned it into like the most epic disgusting flask of liquor and
mixed drink. But a swimming pool in the mouth. It's like a drip tray. That was disgusting.
I think it took till like the end of the campaign for I to be like um this has just been in
my pocket like this is really gross. Why is he drinking brown water out of that sponge?
A lot. All the time. It's not brown water kid. Um I think I go heroic more than chaotic.
Somebody's gotta balance out some of our other group. I do like the end goal to be heroic
but a little chaos sprinkled in is always nice. Yeah you're a good chaotic person. It
always seems like we're trying to do the right thing. It's just you know stuff happens.
Sometimes you gotta burn a house down with the farmer inside because you're covering
the evidence that your friend just burgled them. And then you just hide in the shadows
and make sure no one saw it. And then you think about it three years later. That farmer's
kid. And if he's having to leave with a couple new horses. That farmer's kid's kind of
heroic about that anyway. They had those horses tied up. We liberated them. The initial intent
of trying to warn somebody else that danger was approaching. Well then I think it was
approaching much faster. Yeah. Wakes up looking at the tip of a fully drawn bow with an arrow
in it. With Freddy over top him. Say night night. It's just a sleep arrow. Hang on. And
Freddy was on the side of the winning side. The hero side. I never said I was a hero.
Mayor Freddy. Dude that was great. Hang on you know what was heroic inside of that? He
was covering up for his friend. Honorable. Very. Who inspired your character or NPC character
and their choices? Like the personality and their choices. Personality and choices. Yeah.
Okay. Let's see. Bulk Hogan was based on Hulk Hogan. Oh. I like from literature and everything.
Or like TV or whatever. Who inspired your character choices? Their personalities. Like
who were you basing it off of? Whether it be a writer or an actual character. Yep. The
Tyrant from Quest was based on Joffrey Baratheon. Tammy and Tommy Garvey were based on nobody.
Tammy wasn't even her name. She had a different name in the first episode. I don't know if
you forgot it. In preparation for this I went back and listened to that where I had to make
a disclaimer that I started calling her one thing and then immediately just switched her
to Tammy. Where she stayed Tammy forever until the end of the game. I like the way you fit
that in there. In the episode she was like, this is the only time we use this name. There
was no other way for me to conceive on changing it. I was like, maybe I'll go back and record
Tammy. Myself saying Tammy and interject it into the episode anytime we say Jane or whatever
her name was. I was like, nah, there's not a fucking chance. Well it's so awkward when
you do that because you're talking to them and you're just like, Tammy. It just doesn't
match up the way you're talking. I definitely drew on shows that I like or characters that
I like from different shows or books or things like that. Like I was just saying about Danny
Zuko and the kids from Stand By Me for that one. Or the magician from Quest was from Resident
Development, George Oscar Blues. That was a good one. Hunter Gathers is a character
from the Venture Brothers. He was a high ranking OSI official or something like that. Andy
was a culmination of her name's Andy in The Goonies, but then also some Nancy from Stranger
Things. Yeah, you can definitely see that. Yeah, because Nancy's awesome. She's so cool,
but Andy's a better name. And she was supposed to be kind of popular or something. There
is a movie called Psycho Goreman, which I really enjoy. And there's two characters in
that. One's a boy, one's a girl, and they're brother and sister. The girl's name is Missy,
and she is very much like Vivian Strauss. Right on. She's wild. She's always up for
a fight. Nice. See, I thought Vivian was just based on you as a younger child, but like
exponential like really zooming in on some character things. Some character traits that
I got over. Yeah, embellishing her. Making them a whole lot worse than they were in real
life. Yeah. I never really thought about it, but I've kind of been thinking. I feel like
it might be Shaggy. Oh, really? Like for Scooby-Doo, you know? It's like those quick things, quick
to hide, like the amount of times that Max hides behind Vivian. It's like a very frequent
reoccurring thing. It's like tall 12 year old boy hiding behind the tough one of the
Scooby-Doo. Nice. Because she'll fix it. Very Scooby-Doo. Very Shaggy. Yeah, I never noticed
it, but now that you say it, that makes so much sense. I lifted two of my characters
out of some book series that I like from Michael Sullivan and Craig Anderson, and I kind of
took Josh as like a mixture of Dennis the Menace. And at the time, Mike and I were working
at a hotel, doing some work on a hotel, and I mixed what the kids were doing there with
like a Dennis the Menace and had absolutely terrorized people that are staying in the
place. I don't know, a lot of mine were just off the cuff, like random shit that goes through
my head. Like Mad Pat was my favorite character, but like that was based off of Patrick Starfish
and the fact that I got the word mad and I think starfish instead of like my character
creations and I'm like, what the fuck am I going to do with this? You got the word starfish
in your character creation? No, he got like, it was like pointy or regenerative. Yeah,
regenerative. And I was like, what the fuck regenerates? And somebody said starfish and
I was like, Patrick Starfish. Awesome. Now we're stuck here. It was a long walk to get
there, but we got there. But that's just the way my, that's the way my fucked up brain
works. Like if you ask me why I made characters a certain way, it's like, oh, because of this
amalgamation of this amalgamation, that amalgamation. I also made Jesse Jane based on Sadie Adler
from Red Dead 2. Yep. Cause she's also a bad ass bitch. I like bad ass ladies. I definitely
took Val Kilmer's Doc Holliday from Tombstone for Cal, but like a little more, just trying
to use big words. Definitely that cadence. Yeah. Usually I try to find a voice and then
I'll try to write down like three tenets of what the character, like when it comes down
to important decisions, which way they would lean essentially. And then I just go from
there. I don't really, usually I don't, I don't think I intentionally think of someone
else and try to go over their style. Any more questions on the table? I got one left. It's
for Anna, Tim and Rebecca. What was your inspiration for your badge quest characters? So I wanted
to have fun with it, with the backstory of a kid. Like I didn't want it to be like, I
had a very boring, not boring, just like standard childhood. So it's really cool to see this
kid who like never sees his parents, but it's like surviving on his own as like a young
kid and kind of can do what he wants. I also wanted to try to come up with a reason why
there would be a boy playing, like participating in the Girl Scouts. You know, I wanted to
try to go on a fun route with that. So I made up the business idea that his dad put him
into this like camp for business is kind of what he thought I was like entrepreneurship.
And then it ends up being like essentially like the Girl Scouts. That's awesome. And
then, yeah, I kind of had this idea that the parents would be potentially like spies or
something because I didn't know exactly how the game would go plot wise. So that's kind
of what I have them. I dropped like at the very end. But yeah, essentially that was kind
of what I was thinking. Just kind of this independent kid who's trying to do his best,
but really at the same time, you just see how he's kind of scared of everything because
he's always been bumped around on his own. So yeah, the friend, I think you kind of see
that he adjusts quickly to having people that he trusts, but it doesn't go too far. Like,
you know, with Samantha, no one likes Samantha. Yeah, that was a good character choice to
just decide you don't like her just because we don't like her too. You're just like, well,
I got it. I agree with my friends. Yeah, they've known everyone longer. If they say she's bad,
they're like, she's bad. Well, I think it was kind of easy to get inspiration because I
was a Girl Scout when I was younger. So I tried to picture myself at that time, but
also definitely make her more chaotic, messy personality and rough and tough. Yeah, because
we were in Girl Scouts together. So that did make it a whole lot easier to make the character
of Bonnie. I mostly just kind of magnified my own flaws as a child and made them worse.
And then I also made her rich because I wanted her to be kind of bitchy because in our character
creation, one of the things was that like, I kind of make fun of Vivian for not looking
nice all the time. So I was like, well, she should be rich, right? She should be rich
and have a nice sense of style. So that was where that ended up. And we were actually
neighbors when we were children. So that was nice as well. Yes, we did grow up next to
each other. So this was a really easy campaign to do together. Fuck yeah. Well, that's the
end of our Ask Me Anything questions. So now I want to take some time to revisit where we
started so long ago when we first started recording. And we're going to listen to our
first playthrough that we recorded of Summer Break, where we play some kids creating and
defending their fort. So super raw, you'll see how far we've come from where we started.
And I hope you guys enjoy.
Welcome to the Tales of the Crit podcast. We are an actual play podcast that focuses
on micro RPGs and short stories. We're going to feature a wide array of different gaming
systems, different games and different game types here. Let me introduce you to our players.
There are six of us here. Unfortunately, we only have four microphones. So we're going
to take turns to play different stories with different groups of folks so that you get
to hear a different combination of players each game and through each different arc.
We might not feature the same people each time. So we're going to go around, do some
introductions so you guys can get to know us a little better. Starting off, what a better
way to introduce ourselves than to say what character class and what race you would be
if you were in a game of D&D. Stefan.
We were playing a game of D&D and I can pick any creature in character class. I honestly
wanted to play and I've had that in the back of my head for the longest time. I want to
play a bugbear rogue because with the advantage to reach and stealth attack and also with
the lore behind bugbears, they are actually kind of good for it. Like they're normally
front liners. So, well, like, I don't know how to explain it. But that would be me. Derek,
what would you like to play?
Hi, my name is Derek and if we were playing a game of D&D and I could choose, I would
be a half elf fighter because you could use the advantages of being an elf for a magic.
I'm bad at this. Anyway, Connor.
Hi, I'm Connor. So, if we were playing D&D, the character class I'd want to play would
be a night elf druid. The elves being people of the forest, they have a kin with nature
and druids use lots of nature magic and are in tune with the animals and nature. So I
think that would be a fun class to play.
And how about you, Mikey?
Hi, my name is Mike and I guess if I had to pick a class for D&D, I don't know, what would
be fun would be maybe an orc. Like a half orc. Rogue would be cool. Like a big half
orc rogue. I think that would be pretty fun. Like very contrasting to the usual of what
they would be. Like a big, brutish race but make them more stealthy and dangerous.
Alright, and Rebecca, what about you?
I don't know. I'm usually kind of some kind of elf and a rogue but lately I kind of want
to do a halfling rogue. Probably a lightfoot so I'm a little sneakier than half deer.
Awesome. And for myself, I think I at this moment, I'm feeling like I would emulate what
I do every day in my normal life which is a halfling bard. I am very short and I talk
too much so that's what I think I would go with right now if I was to pick any character
class.
What would your instrument be?
No instrument. I would rap everything.
Rap?
I would freestyle just all of it.
Do it right now.
The thing is I have no freestyling skills at all in real life so just like many of the
bards that you would find that would lose their head or not have any work, that would
very much be me. I also can't play an instrument.
Struggling bard.
Exactly. Very struggling bard. So the game that we're going to be playing tonight is
called Summer Break, Defend Your Childhood. It is by Joey Barranco and we actually pulled
that out of the Ultimate Micro RPG book and we're going to start with that one tonight.
It's got a 30 to 60 minute play time. There are one to four players so we're going to
maximize the player count here and playing tonight is Stefan, Derek, Connor, and myself
which my name is Riley and I never said that before.
We'll touch it up at the end. We'll touch it up with you.
Yeah. Fix it in post.
We're leaving them live.
Fuck it, we'll do it live.
I mean honestly like we're all starting.
We'll figure it out.
I'll just put it in a very poorly placed, Riley! At some point. Don't worry.
Hello everyone, my name is Riley!
Very clearly added in after the fact. So now we should probably read through these rules
so we can actually play the game.
Every kid is good at something. Distribute six points between think, feel, and do talents
to determine the modifier added to each dice roll. 1d6 plus talent.
Do we think you can treat zero points to one of the things?
I would say so.
Yeah, you're just like nothing and feeling. I am a sociopath. I'm just going through life.
I mean I... You said it was think, feel, and...
Think, feel, and do. And I'll explain those.
Think, feel, and do.
Everything in the do category.
Right, do everything. I don't think about it.
I just do.
Don't think, don't feel. Just do.
Oh dude, that's like a new make-believe.
I don't think we could all put all of our points into do though.
We have put all 24 points combined into do. None of us can think or feel. So think is
any action that requires a kid to use their brain calculating, hacking, or tinkering.
Feel is any action that requires a kid to use their heart motivating, deceiving, or
communicating. And do is any action that requires a kid to use their body jumping, running,
and throwing. How's everybody distributing?
I didn't do anything yet. I wanted to make sure that we weren't all putting the majority
of ours in the same one.
No, I split mine up evenly.
Is it six?
It's six.
Oh, okay. So it would be like one.
My original thought was put them all in think and do. And then I was like, oh, that was
the psychopath joke we just made.
You put three in feel and two in do. All right.
I'm going with four in do, one in think, and one in feel.
I'm going to do three, one, two. Three in think, one in feel, two in do. Does that give
us a good...
You're even across the board.
One in think, three in feel, two in do.
One in think, one in feel, four in do.
All right. You're the doer.
Even, Jack.
Emo Kid?
I guess so.
Yeah.
I don't know a good position for that. The hugger.
I named my kid Sam.
Solid name. That's a kid's name for sure.
Yeah.
That's a kid's name if I've ever heard one.
What'd you go with?
I don't know. I haven't... What's a kid's name? Sam.
I'm terrible. We've got Sam, Samuel, Sammy, and Samantha.
Samwise joins every other one.
Samwise joins.
I'm terrible at naming things.
Yeah, me too.
You got to name your kid.
Name my kid?
Yeah. Sam is taken.
Rico.
Rico. He's the foreign exchange student that cares too much.
Ralph.
Matt.
Nailed it.
Now, pick an age from eight to 14. What's the difference?
I feel like...
You guys have kids, so tell me, what is it like having an eight-year-old and a...
I don't have a 14-year-old. I got an eight-year-old.
I haven't gone through the 14-year-old yet.
I've got a 14-year-old and a 17-year-old, two 11-year-olds.
The 11-year-old still watches the Care Bears.
The 14-year-old wears makeup. The 17-year-old has a job.
I had a kid at 15, so that really throws my...
It's used me completely.
I'm like, yeah, 14. What was I doing at 14? School, three jobs.
I'm going to pick it. 11.
Yeah, I'm going to go with 11.
I'm going to go right before everything went down.
Where did I go?
12 to 13.
Last year at the park program.
Yeah, that was like...
When did you graduate, sixth grade?
12.
12? Yeah, I think that was like getting into high school was like everything went downhill for me.
And then I ended up moving and going from high school to middle school at that age.
So I was like, what is this? What is middle school?
Yeah, we didn't have a middle...
I'm so happy I wrapped my head around my kid's middle school. I'm like, you do what?
Yeah, you're in this building for three grades.
You still have recess, but they let you play with a bandsaw?
Yeah.
I don't know if those two things should mix.
That's awesome. We missed out on so much.
No, we didn't.
No, we didn't. Having a middle school sucks.
Yeah, middle school was terrible.
The way we did it was nice.
There was a distinct line between you're a kid and now you get trusted with you could lose a finger in school.
Yeah.
I don't think there should have been that jump. I should have been nowhere near Ed Hatch's girlfriend.
I know he hit me in the back of the head once. I thought somebody threw a math book at me.
I'm related to him.
Yeah, see what he did to you.
Yeah, he liked me.
Yeah, he did not like me.
Sam is 13.
Shit, Sam's 13. All right.
Kind of lame hanging out with 11 year olds.
You can't come candy singing rats.
Yeah, he's kind of lame.
He got held back.
How old is she, Frank?
Eleven.
Mine's 11.
Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.
No, we're not too far off at all.
I'm still a kid, Dan.
I definitely think that we want to have our fort either up high or in a cave.
Your fort is sacred. It is a place of safety, fun, and independence. It is a place where grownups can't enter.
Build your fort by spending fort points, FP. FP is determined by the number of kids plus six.
Add up the amount of FP from each fort trait to determine your fort's hit points, or HP, per game.
So we have 10 FP. Fortified walls cost 2 FP. These strong walls will give us plus 2 HP.
Elevated or underground fort costs 3 FP, which is what Connor was talking about.
Your fort is in a tree or in a cave. That would be 3 HP.
Weapons cost 5 FP. Your fort has weapons such as water balloons, slingshots, or snowballs.
Your kid can make a direct attack against a danger with a plus two to your action roll. Add plus 1 HP.
Alarm system costs 1 FP, and once per game, kids can act first on a turn. Add 1 HP.
And electricity costs 2 FP. Your fort has electricity. Add 2 HP. So we got 10.
I definitely think the weapons should be one we get. I agree. That's half the FP, right?
So we have 10. Yeah, we got 10 FP. What were the weapons? 3?
Okay. Weapons are cost of 5, but your fort has weapons such as water balloons, slingshots, or snowballs.
Your kid can make a direct attack against a danger with a plus two to your action roll. Add plus 1 HP.
So it gives the fort 1 HP, but it gives us a plus two on our rolls.
What has 2 FP? 2 FP is electricity. Fortified walls.
I think we should go with weapons raised, and then that leaves us with...
I see the fort you built in your head.
Yeah, I would agree. Weapons elevated or underground, and then either walls or electricity.
Yeah, that's where I was at. Yeah, that was the exact thing. Are we going with walls or electricity?
I'm saying... what does electricity do? It gives us electricity. Plus 2 HP.
I mean, were you ingenuitive enough at that age to be like,
I'm going to run electrical cables through the woods to this place that I hang out with my friends and not...
Extension cords? 100%. It's not saying we have to fully run electricity.
I grew up with Joey and Sean. We electrified the woods. We ran stuff all the way down behind Billy's house.
Yeah, but... okay. He was four doors away.
Dude, I just remember some of the shit that I built when I was that age, and it was not safe at all.
But thank God I didn't have power tools in the middle of the woods.
Oh, see, we had power tools. We had hydraulic jacks. We had farm equipment.
Electricity might open us to more things like, oh, I got this thing that's electric,
but also I couldn't really think of any when I was thinking of...
I felt like electricity was more of a wild card than walls, so I would grow with that.
I feel like if I ever went to a fort in the woods and they had fucking a light bulb,
that actually worked, and you didn't hear a whine of a generator, I figured it would be dope.
All of our phones will stay charged that way.
You guys didn't have a bathroom in your fort?
Dude, the whole fort was my bathroom.
My fort's real shitty. I got a Prime Star satellite dish that I dragged down to what I called Degobah,
which was the swamp here, and the sweet slide entrance,
which was just dirt that you just tumbled down and got real hurt.
And then you'd end up in Degobah by yourself, because like,
hey, I want to hang out in my swamp fort, and people would be like,
no, that sounds terrible. Well, it is. It's really unpleasant. It's really wet.
There's a lot of bugs, and there's a sweet, sweet Prime Star dish down there.
It'll get you nothing.
See if you could just electrify that swamp.
I could have just electrified the swamp and killed all those stupid mosquitoes.
This is the last fort I remember building with my cousins.
My mom got mad because we built it behind her garden, so she went to tear it down,
and she hit it with a splitting mall, and the splitting mall just bounced off.
See, like, me and my brother just, like, cut out, like, under the pine trees on the side of my mom's house,
like, it was like a wall of pine trees, and we went behind it and then went into it
and cut out, like, this, like, little room in there and fucking set up.
Like, we were in Smart, we put a fire pit inside of pine trees
that all the dead needles are on the inside, and we were sitting under it
thinking it was the coolest thing in the world.
However, I did see my niece's fort recently.
Well, recently, like, two years ago, she showed me her fort
and, like, was laying out the floor plan.
And I was like, damn, kid, this is the worst fort I've ever fucking seen.
She had four sticks on the ground, and she's like, this is where the window's gonna go.
I'm like, damn, you ain't even got one wall.
Nothing.
Danger manifests from fears of growing up.
Roll 1d6 to determine the danger of your game.
Each danger has a unique style and abilities.
Do we all have to roll 1d6?
No, just one.
I swear to God, it better not be the clown.
It's not. It is the alien.
Sweet.
Which makes a second attack.
Each danger makes an attack against your fort by rolling 1d6 plus the number of kids.
If the danger rolls higher than your kid, it damages your fort by 2 HP.
If the danger rolls a natural 6, it automatically triggers its special ability
listed in the following table.
Each danger has 6 plus number of kids' worth of HP.
That has 10 HP.
Gameplay. Your danger will stop at nothing to destroy your fort.
You must unite with your friends and defend it.
Take turns determining the actions and dice rolls for your danger.
Each turn requires one danger action and one kid action as contested rolls.
The highest roll wins that turn, and the winner may cause 2 damage to the fort or to the danger.
Or repair 1 HP to the fort.
Danger attacks first, followed by a kid.
Kids may go first once per game if the alarm system is installed.
The robot, which is a danger, approaches the treehouse fort.
Seeing Miguel, on the balcony, it charges up a laser beam and fires at Miguel.
Miguel ducks quickly and uses the fort's weapon system to dump a bucket of water onto the robot.
The robot rolls 1d6 plus 4 for a total of 5, while Miguel, using a think action for the water bucket,
rolls 1d6 plus think for a total of 6.
Since Miguel rolled higher than the robot, he wins the turn and decides that the water damages the robot's circuitry for 2 points.
Should we go around and be like, yeah I'm Matt, I'm fucking 11.
I'm Ralph, I'm 11.
Rico.
12.
I'm Sam, I'm 13.
13. Yeah.
Kind of a nerd hanging out with the young kids.
Well he's not hanging out with like, you guys could be my younger friends.
He doesn't think and feel very much.
Yeah, I'm kind of upset my parents got divorced, I got held back, acting out a lot.
Oh Jesus.
He likes rugby and heading the kickball wall.
My name is Matt.
I'm 11.
I think more than I do and feel.
I'm a thinker. I'm a mathlete.
Nerd.
I am a nerd.
And this nerdiness is going to come in handy.
Unlike you.
Hey, uh.
Mr. Fields.
I feel a little bit more than others.
That's about what I do.
I care.
I'm a good kid hanging out with a bunch of younger kids in the woods.
He's older than you.
Only by a little bit.
He acts younger. Look at him.
You're not going to hug me are you?
Nope.
You seem like a hugger.
I'm not.
I don't know why I pick feel. I really kind of...
Nope, you're the feeler this time.
Does this mean that I actually have to care about you people?
Yes.
Like when I'm playing and somebody gets hurt, I actually have to care?
Yeah.
Okay.
You get to sacrifice yourself.
Look at mom and say that you scraped your knee.
Ma'am.
And we all go to the Walter G. Hayworth middle school together.
This is all where we met at that school.
Yeah.
You want to be my older brother?
Older brother? Yeah, sure.
This is my older brother, Ralph.
I'm Ralph.
Ralph's your older brother now.
Ralph's your twin.
That's right.
Just write down these names.
I'm just going to write them down and draw lines.
Ralph's over there.
Ralph's over here.
Sam, my older brother Sam is over there.
And Rico.
Rico.
I mean, we're brothers.
I mean...
It's kind of a stretch from Rico to Ralph.
Is it though?
I mean, I could be the mailman's kid.
Mom just was promiscuous.
Summer break has happened from Walter G. Hayworth middle school.
And we find ourselves in our fort, which is a tree house?
It's a big tree house.
That we bring the electricity up in.
We've called in all the weapons from the neighborhood.
And we've set up some makeshift weapons.
Different sized sticks or different weapons.
We have them fully outfitted for the summer I had.
The first night of summer break before some of the older kids go into the high school.
And leave us 11 year olds still in the middle school.
Rico and Sam's last summer.
Yeah, but we're going to be in high school next year.
Yeah, you got bigger... you got other things to do.
High school brings on new challenges.
Women.
Drugs.
We'll still find use for the fort in high school I'm sure.
Yeah, we'll just come here when they're not here.
No more, no child left behind.
We're kicking off the summer of the sleepover.
In the fort.
Alright.
They did put electricity in there, so...
We did.
We got some sort of non-licensed music blaring in the background.
If we get an old TV from the side of the road and some gaming system,
that would be actually pretty dope.
To spend the night in something like that.
I was thinking more like this is in the 50s and we can just straight up go with jukebox.
Oh god.
Yeah, but why would we have... I was thinking more like 80s, like Nintendo.
No, the kids' science books back then still had the nuclear at home toy kits.
I mean...
Our fort's gonna be on the news.
Our fort has its own built-in fusion reactor.
Our fort is a multi-dimensional time-traveling fort, as in my mind.
This was clearly mid-2000s.
We're all time travelers and we're secretly just meeting at this one place.
So that was a loophole.
I think that's a different story.
No way.
Sounds dope too.
It should be. On the next episode, Tales from the Crit.
Just kidding, we're not running that next time.
Give me some time to figure it out.
Alright.
So we're in our tree house.
We're in our tree house.
We have electricity.
We've got electricity.
We got a slingshot.
Yeah, what weapons does everybody have? Wrist rocket?
Yeah.
Yeah, I got a pocket knife.
Yeah, I got some sharpened sticks too.
Well, classic. Classic sticks.
Dude, my parents used to let me run around on the machete when I was that age.
My parents don't care what you make.
They call that a knife.
Well, come to the woods where we were allowed to do just about anything.
First night of summer break.
Rico, you stand alone on the balcony.
The night grows dark.
The skies are clear.
The stars are fully out.
The rest of us looking at nudie magazines like eleven-year-olds do.
Listen to Leonard Skinnerd or the Beach Boys or whatever the kids are into those days.
And you begin to hear a slight hum.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
And far out from the fort, you see a glowing bright light and emerging in almost no time at all.
Before you have a minute to react, you see a short bulbous-headed gray alien.
Am I looking at Roger or ET here?
By description, more like Roger.
OK.
Although more menacing.
Yeah, more menacing.
Not cartoony.
Yeah, think like Roger mixed with Mars attacks.
So like maybe his brains.
You can see his brains.
I was going straight alien movie.
Roger just alien movie.
Like the alien, like original alien.
You're mixing Roger from American Dead with with the alien from Alien.
Yeah, it's terrifying.
Zemo 4.
Yeah, Zemo 4.
I was hoping a little more Stargate.
We're all over the place in this podcast.
I'm surprised somebody didn't want to put the fort underwater.
That was an option in the swamp.
Take a bath.
Or just a really relive your childhood.
I do.
I can relive my childhood in this game and bring friends in a moment.
The alien raises its ray gun and points it at you on the balcony.
You hear it power up.
What?
Can I hit the dirt?
Oh, no, I don't even think to do that.
What is that thing?
I feel.
I feel like this is going to be bad.
I don't think you're going to do too good.
You should feel like you hit the dirt, right?
Yeah.
I feel like I should sit down.
I feel like I should scream and hit the ground.
I think that would do be a do action rather than a feel action.
Oh, no, I'm just saying this because it's the only thing that I'm good at.
So like I'll roll for a do action, but I'm not going to do it too good.
I'm going to feel like I should have done it better.
So do I dodge the ray gun?
You roll a three plus two.
Plus two.
So five.
Yeah, it's two plus one point for each one of us.
Oh.
I don't know.
That's just enough to beat you.
Is it?
I rolled a two.
Yeah.
So the danger rolls two plus the number of kids.
So I rolled a six.
Oh, shit.
I was right.
You rolled a five.
I rolled a three.
Yeah.
Five.
Three plus two.
I was like, I rolled a three.
So I turn around and Rico just into dust.
More pizza for us.
As you attempt to jump and hit the dirt, the dirt covered treehouse floor.
We don't wipe our feet when we climb the tree.
You just narrowly miss and the treehouse gets blasted by a ray gun and suffers two HP worth of damage, leaving the house slightly crippled with four remaining HP.
We only had six HP for the fort.
Yeah, we picked things.
We, yeah.
Weapons only gives you one HP.
Yeah.
Oh, but doesn't it start with some HP?
You would roll plus two weapons add plus two.
Oh, plus two.
So that's right.
So it would be like if I was doing something back to it.
Yeah, he was using weapon.
Why don't you feel it out?
Your kid can make a direct attack against a danger.
I mean, you didn't do that.
So yeah.
So I'm going to say we, the tree fort got blasted.
Don't wear balcony.
The balcony has been wiped off.
The balcony has been destroyed.
Now what we have, where will we have brunch?
Well, as the alien destroys the balcony, I'm trying to think of what it would do.
Probably start charging up toward the treehouse and begin to climb it, climb the tree.
So yeah, let's say that it's going to do that.
Just keeps walking.
So you would roll for attack, like, right?
Because you would see that.
I just watched the balcony get vaporized and you go flying.
So yeah, I would take, I think I would take the wrist rocket and shoot at it.
So that's a do seven plus two.
That's nine.
That's a one.
So three.
So did I obliterate the thing with a wrist rocket?
Yeah.
I mean, say what you do.
Pull the wrist rocket back in.
Since it was a nine to one.
I'm going to hit it in the head with a size marble.
What's out some gurgling noise as it takes, takes it.
Now is it like a steel bearing?
Yeah.
Or is it like an actual marble?
I don't know.
Glass marbles do some damage.
What color?
Cat's eye.
No.
Lucky cat's eye.
Like galactic star glitter.
That's the noise it makes.
That's a good hit.
I take it it's still alive.
Yes.
Now it's upset.
It's going to grab its ray gun and it's going to shoot at the doorway again for a one.
I see it picking its ray gun up and grab the satellite dish.
We just drag down to the fort and pick it up and use it as a deflector to reflect the ray gun back at it.
It sounds like it works.
Three plus I have a four to do and the two from the weapon.
Oh he did it.
He just got, as it hits the satellite dish, reflects back, the beam spreads out.
He's just like sunburned top half.
As the alien recoils it decides to retreat from the fort a little bit and set up a ranged attack.
You can see it setting up a mortar of some sort and it's like loading little colorful eggs into it.
It's going to go bloop, bloop, bloop.
Then it's getting ready to shoot it right towards Matt.
Shit.
Did you forget your name?
I'm at a loss.
No.
I think real hard because I'm the thinker.
As I see him loading up this mortar I'm going to take out one of our water balloons and trace it back.
Trace the line of extension cords back across the field to where they originated.
I notice that he's standing right near one of the unprotected plugs.
I'm going to fucking throw a water balloon as hard as I can right to that plug and try to create an electrical fire and electrocute him.
Rico, we forgot to wrap that power cord in plastic and duct tape.
We didn't do it on any of the other ones.
The monster got an eight.
I got a seven.
Plus two because of weapons.
Just nine.
He's got electrocuted.
The alien recoils again after he gets zapped.
The alien is having the worst time here getting just thwarted by these children. There's no way that this game takes 60 minutes by the way.
How could it?
If you went into super detail on everything that you were doing I guess it could but no way.
Right foot, left foot.
I walk.
You could be playing with engineers that are like, no.
Oh yeah.
And then they start doing like, yeah.
He got electrocuted.
He got electrocuted and he goes.
And he takes off again.
I believe he probably has tentacles for feet.
I don't know why. I'm changing what the alien looks like.
He's a gray Kodos and Kang from The Simpsons.
And he goes scurrying across the field at a tremendous pace and begins to climb the rope ladder of the treehouse charging his ray gun and firing it up through the hole towards Rico.
He seems to have a pretty good vendetta against Rico.
I didn't do anything.
You didn't let him shoot him the first time.
You didn't die.
You guys were the ones that hurt him.
I feel his pain.
I'm an empath.
I feel what he's going through.
So I guess I would. So he's coming up a ladder and shooting like up the ladder.
Yeah. Yeah.
As you know, just like in a show, all four of us are crowded around the entrance to the fort looking down at him and we're like, oh, shit.
Oh, I'm going to grab some of the debris from the what you call it, the balcony that he blew up and throw it over top of the ladder opening and just like just throw a bunch.
Like, I don't know. I don't know how to explain it. Like Scooby Doo just like pilot shit against a wall.
Just like this will work.
So like that would like heal the fort.
Are you healing the fort?
Yeah. Like, so I would figure like if you like put up like a barricade, it would like put up like some health to the fort because like I didn't attack him.
I just more or less barricaded against it.
Yeah. If you win the role, you get to add one HP, I think.
Yeah. Okay.
You reinforce the structure of it, preventing that alien from scurrying up.
Good thinking Rico plugged that hole.
Dude, it's like the only thought I could come up with.
I mean, I don't I feel like this thing's really going to try to kill us.
I don't know what it's feeling for.
It's for healing, right?
It's for like inspiring, motivating, deceiving and communicating.
Negotiating and deception.
So maybe this thing, you know, spoke English.
If only it didn't gurgle.
It wasn't just after the blood of children.
Well, we rolled them, got an alien. We could have gotten something else.
Yeah. Like a clown.
I'm pretty sure one of them is a clown. If we would have gotten a clown, I wouldn't want to talk to him.
Well, he's building, Rico's building a barricade.
I'm just going to spit.
I'm just going to spit down the opening.
I'm going to do it. And as you do that, it gets...
So I get it right in the eye and it falls off the ladder.
It doesn't really get up. It doesn't really get up to go.
It's like right in the eyeball.
And then the thing just like falls down a little bit further than what it was.
And as it walking around on the ground, kicking its tentacles, holding its eye.
What are you going to do?
I still fired up after you hit it in the eye and jumped down with my sharpening stick and just charged at it.
I'm going to poke it in the other eye.
Poke it in the other eye.
Yeah. Now the alien has spit in one eye and a stick in the other.
And it's dead.
I stab my stick down through the alien and then I see it's just stuck in the mud.
Yeah, that's my brother.
We got him guys.
What a way to start summer break.
We murdered something.
Then the peyote wore off and realized it was a turkey.
Did you bring the eevee bake oven?
Put this turkey in it.
Oh God, that would be terrible.
Murdering something.
Like what did I do?
Blood everywhere.
How would you explain?
I just got to wonder.
He'd be coming into the house covered in alien blood that would be in a different color than probably normal blood.
I found a sewer drain.
Try to explain that to your parents as you come in the house after the night that you spent in the woods.
I got into the sewer drain.
They're not going to ask.
They're going to throw your clothes out and make you take a shower.
They were probably half in the bag usually when we got home.
You should try having a mother who's allergic to alcohol.
I wish my mother was allergic to alcohol.
Maybe her dad would still be together.
I was just asking a question.
Okay, so next question.
Do we want to do another take? Do we want to run through again?
You guys want to get in on this?
Sure.
I'll play again.
Before getting thrown face first into the ferocious trauma that is high school,
cling to your final summer break with friends and defend your childhood fort from dangers that definitely are not allegories for adulthood.
Do do do do do do summer break.
Summer break.
Brought to you by...
The last thing you ate.
Chicken fingers.
Lots of people like chicken fingers.
Not lots of people like the finger chickens.
Alright, everybody ready?
So wait, yeah, how do we just put like six points into think, feel, and do?
I don't think that anybody turned a light bulb on or anything.
We did use the water balloon on electricity.
So that was a thing.
Otherwise, I don't know if it really was as helpful.
All my points into do.
I was thinking about that.
It's like you just tank do and like not think about anything.
Just do it all.
Yeah.
I mean, it works if you get like the alien again because there's nothing to really feel.
I think I'm going to go even even Steven this time.
I'm going to go even Steven.
You're going to even Steven also?
I'm thinking.
I want to think.
What is the definition of think?
No, in the...
Think's definition is any action that requires a kid to use their brain.
Calculating, hacking, tinkering.
Feel is any action that requires a kid to use their heart.
Motivating, deceiving, communicating.
So and do is jumping, running, throwing.
Use the body.
All right.
Tonight we are playing Summer Break.
The Defend Your Childhood micro RPG playing tonight.
We have myself, Riley.
We have Mike.
Hey.
Derek.
Hello.
And Connor.
What's up?
Tonight I will be playing a kid named Jack.
I am 13 years old.
I put one point into think, one point into feel, four points into do.
What's Jack looking like?
Jack?
He's an asshole.
He's got a long sleeve shirt underneath a short sleeve shirt.
He's got blue jeans and my t-shirt says something corny on it.
And a black and red backwards cap.
All right, yeah.
My name, my kid's Calvin.
He's kind of a tough little kid.
Grew up sort of like more of a farm kid.
Definitely has cargo shorts.
Loves the cargo shorts.
Some old school kicks and I'm 12.
And I put two into think, one into feel, three into do.
So I do good, but I think okay good.
He's not like an asshole.
He's kind of an all right kid.
He's just like a little sarcastic.
I am playing Charles.
He is 12 years old.
He, I've put all the points into think and do.
My character wears tan slacks and a sweater vest, collared shirt.
And feels nothing.
Excellent.
All right, tonight I'll be playing Kenny who's 10.
And he's got one point in think, three in feel, two in do.
And he wears a very heavy coat.
It's kind of hard to understand sometimes.
But he's also very quiet.
Uses lots of his time to collect his feelings.
Is he a collector of feelings?
Yes.
Did he collect all of Charles' feelings?
He did.
He was holding a hostage.
Nice.
Awesome.
And our danger this time is Kenny and his soul stealing abilities.
Kenny's.
And he's coming to get you.
Kenny is a lich.
We rolled a four.
So before we go ahead and look at the danger, let's talk about our camp, our fort, our abode for the summer, our gang hideout, our bat cave, our shell.
Can it be like a weird old camper that just like drove out into the woods and never drove out?
We like fortified it with some old fence pieces.
Added onto it.
Made a bit of a patio area.
You can get on top of it.
It's not elevated so we're thinking fortified walls.
Definitely fortified walls.
Yeah, definitely fortified walls.
So that leaves us with three left.
How much HP does walls give?
Two.
We should have ten fort points.
Weapons is five.
Fortified walls is two.
Oh, we've definitely got weapons.
Which we could do an alarm system and electricity.
Yeah, we could put it.
It could be gas powered.
I mean, we should do as many as we can.
So we could do electricity and.
That's everything.
But we can afford to do everything but elevated or underground.
Which would be fortified walls, weapons, alarm system and electricity.
So that's plus two HP.
Plus two more HP.
Plus two to our actions.
Plus one to HP.
And then we can go first on another plus one to HP.
So plus six to HP.
We can go once for the danger.
Once per game.
And we have our plus two for weapons.
Okay.
So six HP for the fort overall.
Got weapons and we can go first once.
Our fort, the camper that has been stuck in the woods.
With a working generator.
With a working generator, yeah.
Diesel.
Yeah.
Yeah, we siphoned the diesel fuel out of Calvin's dad's tractor.
Tractor.
To keep it going.
Calvin's dad's always pissed.
But luckily Calvin can withstand a good beating.
The whole thing works except for the drivetrain.
Yeah.
So the engine just powers.
Yeah.
This never stopped our imaginations.
No.
From imagining that we have cruised the cosmos.
Yeah, it's our Millennium Falcon.
It absolutely is.
And it has been since we've been childhood friends.
And are still because we're all children.
Currently in the process of being childhood friends.
How old is everybody?
I'm 13.
I'm 12.
12.
And a half.
12.
10.
Just turned 10.
Nice.
Double digits finally.
Double digits.
Big year for Kenny.
Cool kids.
We're all going to high school next year.
This is our last summer.
You're going to inherit the whole fort.
The whole fort, yeah.
This is all going to be yours.
You guys got to show me the ropes.
My balls just dropped.
You got to make sure the exhaust stack is clear.
Yep.
Don't let anything get by the exhaust.
Got to bring gas.
It's just a chimney pipe stuck to the end of the tailpipe going off the back.
Got to make sure that the armory is always stocked.
And make sure that the bed's clear for when you bring bitches back.
What?
I thought we said no girls allowed.
Over the door there's just a dog sitting there.
It's Rufus.
Rufus.
It's a girl, but it's name is Rufus.
No, just like a lot of feral cats live in the place when we're not there.
So it smells wonderful.
It smells terrible.
It smells terrible in here.
No amount of air fresheners or diesel has been able to cover up the scent of feral cat.
It's got a radio in the van.
What is our when suddenly as we all sit around enjoying just another random night throughout the summer,
we hear the clear and unmistakable roar of a dragon.
At first, clearly it's just our imaginations, right?
Has to be.
What the hell was that?
Sounded like a dragon.
It can't be a dragon.
It's too early.
It's got to be a bear.
Man, I've heard a bear.
That was no bear.
Yeah, that wasn't anything.
That wasn't a cow or anything.
All right, guys, I feel like we should get up and go check out what that strange noise was.
Go out on the...
You're right, Kenny.
Let's send Kenny out.
Kenny pops his head out of the roof hatch.
Scramble up on top of the RV.
Holy shit, it's a dragon, guys.
Guys, guys, guys, guys, there's a dragon out here.
No way, no way.
There's a big, big dragon.
It's coming this way.
I look out of the roof hatch and see if it's really a dragon.
Oh, man, it's getting closer.
I can hear the pressure of the wind from its wings blow me back.
It's a fucking dragon.
Are you sure it's not a helicopter?
Could be a helicopter.
It's a big...
Roars past and screeches.
Red Scaly helicopter.
I did hear the government was making those now.
You just got to stop listening to your dad's podcasts.
My dad is a stand-up man.
He is the only one fighting for this country.
He's dragging truth.
Dragon, dragon, dragons.
Well, what are we going to do?
Well, we're going to have to do something quick because it's coming in.
Well, it's got air...
I got it.
Let's just drive out of here.
You know the camper hasn't worked in years.
I mean, do you think we can figure out how to fix it?
We've never tried to move it.
Kenny's not thinking.
I could push it.
I could push.
Do you think it's on downhill slope?
You know what?
Jack's a doer.
I'm out the front door pushing on the back of the...
It's clear it's not moving, right?
It's not even on.
The tires are definitely...
Yeah, it's not starting.
It's not starting.
The wheels are definitely buried.
There's a whole tree growing up from one part of it.
I'm thinking my school bus.
That's exactly what I'm thinking.
No tires on the back.
Yeah.
I mean, it's clear.
Jack's not the smartest kid.
He's not getting a scholarship for smarts.
Maybe for the clarinet.
Jack, I don't think you're helping me.
We're not going anywhere.
We've got to do something else.
You guys got to push too.
We can get it out of here.
No, we've got to just...
We're fortified in here.
We've got to just find a way to defend ourselves.
Charles is going to walk to the front, take the keys, and put them in the ignition and start the engine.
Just idle it up a little bit.
Let it sit.
And then just kind of look at you guys.
All right, Charles.
Charles activated the battle stations, guys.
It's time to go.
I can hear this.
I can hear our ship purring now.
I think we have to be able to take it out.
We need...
It's got air superiority.
We've got roof access.
Yeah, I think it's about time to get back inside.
Yeah.
Charles turns on the hot plate.
What's the kettle on?
We're sophisticated.
Are we having tea?
It's a camper.
It's got all this shit in it.
We've got a fully stocked fridge.
And he feels nothing.
We could withstand a dragon siege.
It's covered in grass and earth.
We could probably blend right in if we stop making too much noise.
Yeah, do you think that's what we should do?
Do you think we should just camouflage the shit out of it?
It'll fly right over us.
I think once Charles put that key in there, it's got its locked in on us.
I don't think it's going to just go away, guys.
It's a dragon.
The lights are on.
You know, the horn went off.
Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba.
Ba ba ba ba ba ba.
We're making margaritas in the blender.
Well, because we're kids.
Just mixing your ice.
Just mixing a bunch of salt.
I stole this from my dad's liquor closet.
Make sure you put water back in it to fill it back up to where it was before you put it back.
It's already mostly water.
We're having ice slushies.
At this point, we've had to brew tea to refill the bottles.
If you put cold water in it, it's condensation on it.
And then he'll know I took it.
Fuck.
Anyway.
And the dragon has landed.
Look out, guys.
It's coming in.
Just staring at us.
The dragon lands right in front of the camper and just puts one of its large claws on the side and starts shaking it violently.
I, as Jack, oldest and biggest, shall defend this fort of ours.
Huzzah.
Thank you, Jack.
I'm going to kick the door open of the camper.
And with my Swiss Army knife, I am going to attempt to stab the dragon in its thumb.
I roll a seven and do the dragon also rolls a seven in dragon and do not do not tiebreaker.
Well, just call to watch the night.
Nightly, I roll a seven plus two for weapons, so I actually roll nine.
We keep forgetting that because we keep forgetting the weapons that we have, which included this really sweet Swiss Army knife.
And I fucking dig this thing right into its cuticle of its thumbnail.
And yeah, that's how I do to damage to a dragon.
You hit it with the corkscrew function of your Swiss Army knife.
Yeah.
Dug it right in there.
Yeah.
I gave it a little twist, you know, got it right in.
I only put it up halfway so I could stick it between my ring finger and my middle finger.
You know, so it was real good punchy.
And I punch it right in there doing two damage to this dragon.
And I got it, guys.
We're good.
I scared it off already.
As the dragon backs up with the corkscrew stick and it screams and bursts a fireball into the air.
And you can feel the heat in the camper as the fire outside heats it up.
Yes.
I pulled Jack back in and slammed the door shut as the fireball starts to go off.
And all you smell is like his like shitty wispy mustache that is just starting to try and grow, but is like, you know, kind of really not coming in.
That dragon's going to pay, man.
It's just since the singe that right off and you're just like and and my eyebrows.
Yeah. And your eyebrows.
They're gone.
You're like you in the front.
Yeah.
He's really going to pay now.
You burned my sweet goatee off.
You smell horrible.
You look the same, man.
I don't know.
I mean, the eyebrows are definitely like that is unsettling.
But you never had to go to.
No, I did.
You're all just jealous.
You haven't hit puberty yet.
One hair does not make it a goatee or goatee than you got right now.
I'll show you my other hair.
I got the I got hair down there already.
Don't even I'm not even going to prove it to you guys because that'd be weird.
But like it's there.
Show us your vagina.
I'm not. Hey, it's my vagina.
Just then you hear the dragon rear up on its on its haunches again.
And it begins to suck in a giant gust of air.
I grab my Zippo lighter and some of the bug spray that we have in the camper to get to kill spiders.
And as he's sucking the air in, I flamethrower.
So he breathes in fire and chemicals.
So would this be a thinker?
This is a do.
I would think this is a thing either way.
Either way, the dragon rolls a five.
And I rolled a five plus what?
Plus your three three for do plus two plus two for a Zippo.
So yeah, you you were able to to the dragon mid breath.
All of a sudden begins to inhale this this noxious aqua net Zippo fueled fucking flame into it.
And instead of letting out a fireball, it begins to hack violently.
And like puffs of smoke begin to come from its mouth.
Way to go, Calvin.
I love these cargo shorts.
It's got everything in it.
So, yeah, after the after I get just gulped down this noxious fume spicy meatball,
I'm going to try and I'm going to fly up high and I'm going to come down hard either on top of the trailer and slam it if I can't flamethrow in it.
So, yeah, I'm going to I'm going to try and just slam it or slam the ground around it and shockwave or something.
I'm just going to continue to rummage through the cabinets in the first aid stuff.
Well, the well, the water is boiling.
Do I roll for fixing? Yeah.
So you'd probably roll a think.
Yeah. So.
And so the dragon got a seven to.
So there are no actual rules for how to handle the tie.
So we roll. Come on.
Shockwave.
Seven. A nine.
Right. No, no, an eight. Eight.
Eight because I'm not using a weapon.
So the dragon comes down the whole RV rocks, amber rocks.
I hold all the stuff that I'm doing together as the dragon.
I start trying to tear the roof hatch off when the dragon's trying to tear the roof hatch off.
I shout, come on, everybody, the dragon's over here.
We got to throw something at it or make noise on this side to distract it.
And I run to the other side of the bus and try and throw things.
I just grab some old shoes that were on the floor of the camper and I throw them up over the bus, trying to hit the dragon to draw its attention away.
Doesn't look like it worked. The dragon rolls a nine.
Yeah, I rolled a five.
The dragon just looks back as it gets hit in the ass with a shoe and just whips its tail down and shakes the whole camper again from inside the camper, like getting hit by a dragon tail.
And the six total HP that the four has nearly shakes it apart as it goes down to four HP overall.
As we know from living near the track there, you shouldn't drive a camper around demolition Derby and expect to live.
After the dragon shakes the camper, he takes a step back to start for another giant fireball and he rears back and looks right at the side of the camper and unleashes a huge flame towards the door.
As he does that, I'm going to grab the pot of water that is on the hot plate.
And I'm going to throw it right at the fireball.
I'm going to once again kick the door open. Classic, classic Jack move. Kick the door open and I'm going to huck this six cups of water at the fireball to attempt to turn it to steam as it's flying at me directly.
Did you just steal my kettle of water? Yes. Yes.
You will have no tea. It wasn't four tea. I rolled a five overall.
The dragon rolled a seven. So it doesn't sound like Jack put the fireball out.
The kettle is vaporized and the flame goes right through just barely missing Jack as he ducks back into the camper and it chars the outside of the door. That door is now melted and stuck and the only way out is through the roof hatch or one of the other windows.
Well, there goes my chemistry experiment. Hey, Jack's a doer, not a feeler or a thinker.
Of course, he's not that good at doing it either, apparently. So the dragon then hauls itself up to the top of the camper noticing it's our only real exit and begins to clamp his jaws down and peel away the remaining two HPs worth of structure that our fort has.
We're like dragon sardines guys. He's coming for us. We got to do something. We got to do it quick.
This bad boy is tearing it apart. Come on, Calvin, think quickly.
Don't use the boots. Yeah, I reach into my cargo pocket and I pull out probably just a pocket knife.
Stab him in the thumb.
I'm going to try and stab him anywhere I can. I'm going to try and get him like right up in the gums like if he's ripping the thing apart, you like poke him up in the gums. Get him like to carve like hit him and get some like gingivitis in there.
Wait, guys.
Have we tried pushing it.
Dragon.
Any of it.
We're really pushing pushing it didn't work.
So while Calvin's getting eaten.
I'm going to I'm going to go ahead and do a stab.
Nice.
That's an eight.
Seven. You got a plus two to weapons to.
Okay, so that's a 10.
Yeah, still only a seven for the dragon. Cool. For smog.
So yeah, you stab the dragon in the gums.
Yes, it reels its head back and lets out a mighty roar before turning and staring back down at the camper.
I'm going to use our alarm now to go first before the dragon this time.
I'm going to mix my chemistry experiment together in paint can and add cold water and shake it up and throw it at the dragon and try to get it to pop open with what we were talking about earlier exothermic foam.
Yeah.
So yeah, I mean that as a whether it's a think or a do I have the same thing.
I would think it's a think. Yeah, as the dragon.
I'm just going to go in for the next terrible.
I'm just going to go in for the next bite.
So I got seven roll.
Damn.
Got a nine.
Did not work. We don't have any like undue is.
So now right how the dragon fucking kills us.
This murderous assault.
The dragon just the whole that he's got from peeling the roof back off of the off of the RV in the woods with all of our cool stuff in it.
Just things that we've brought from all over the place sharpen sticks and you know rocks and sticks a weird shapes couple of deer antlers bunch of cans of empty sodas and a bunch of like empty snack boxes.
And he just puts his head in there and just breathes a big belt of fire.
Last thing we all see and feel is a bright burst of orange and heat.
And it's the summer will never forget each other.
Or be alive anymore.
As the camera pans back and sees the paint can just sitting off to the side.
Jasper from the track. Yeah. My dad brought the kill does or over and blew it up by throwing paint cans.
We all actually just carbon monoxide poisoning.
This whole thing was a hallucination. We're all just collapsed on the scene right after he put that in.
It's just exhaust.
It was like the last one last one left as he melts back into his non corporeal and then Rufus and then Rufus the dog finally wakes up from like in the shitter in there and like kicks the door like pushes the door open.
And we realize as we all sit there that it was all Rufus's dream the whole time.
We were kicking his foot and we're not.
Yeah, we're dead. We're dead.
I mean, it doesn't specifically say in the rules that all the kids die or anything.
It's your fork gets destroyed and you leave.
But like we were in the fort. We were well, did I have a dragon?
Yeah, we didn't make it.
You don't live through that.
Well, we certainly did a lot worse against that one.
I first saw that going a lot more like the first one with the alien.
You know, when you roll a two.
Yeah, none of us rolled very well.
So that was a good game.
I like that.
I mean, I feel like I don't know.
You're kind of limited.
You should put all your feel like you'd be more effective of a player if you put all your eggs into one basket rather than trying to mix them up.
Like, I feel like that was just.
Yeah, I don't.
I kind of agree.
It seemed that I mean, I'm sure I'm sure other people have different play styles, but that's how it would kind of seem to me would to be put all your eggs in one basket.
So you just like any action that you take, it would be.
Of course, I split mine last game.
We did great.
And I divided them up between two this game and we did poorly bad.
I think that you have to just think of a way to make whatever action you want to do be one of the ones that goes with what your strong suit is.
So you just got like, yeah, articulate it differently.
Like, oh, I inspire us all to do this because it's not like in this is really doesn't sound like each one has to be.
It sounds like it's the kids turn versus the dragons turn or something.
I don't know.
It seems like you could just have more free range with the actions and stuff, but it's difficult to think of any of them as something like any action you do is not just to do.
They're all do actions.
Everything you do, everything you do, just tank to everyone put six points and do and zero and everything else.
It seems like there's no penalty for having zero in the other ones.
All right.
Well, thank you, everybody, for taking a listen to our podcast night.
We played summer break to try to defend our fort as best we could to limited degrees of success.
We want to invite you to subscribe and listen to our podcast every time it comes out.
We're going to see you next next Tuesday.
See you next next Tuesday.
On Tales of the Crit.
Tales of the Crit.
Well, that was fun.
Yeah.
All right.
So let's take a look at some of the things that we will be playing in season two.
This list is neither exhaustive nor in any particular order.
I like my lists.
That's a good list.
Very confusing.
My grocery list literally has you walking the store like six different directions and you go by what it's listed as like bread and then it's like bananas.
Like, but like it's like you are chaotic.
It's like toilet paper. So like if you ever did that inside of Walmart, you would be like wandering for a day.
You cross it out. You're like, that's a alphabetical.
But tissue.
I'm not that.
Not that.
I am.
No, you guys don't do baby wipes.
Those are bad for your septic system.
Well, then I definitely don't want them hanging around.
What am I supposed to do? Throw them out the window?
I would guess in a trash can.
Dude, so that's what I want. I want a bunch of people coming over to my house and finding my shit wipes in the bathroom.
I think it's for your personal use, not for everyone.
Yeah, it's for your personal bathroom or you'd be like me and not invite people to your house.
So they just get some like washcloths and a bidet and it's much more financially friendly.
And feels a lot better.
Day is what's up.
Yeah, except for to install a bidet, you have to install a bidet.
They make easier ones now.
You just clip it on underneath the sink.
Or there's one that just replaces the toilet seat.
Either way, the best one that I've ever experienced had super blasto mood.
Pulse mode.
It had this button that said Max that I didn't try until the last day.
Dude, never again.
My head hit the wall.
But it did have a dryer and that was pretty nice.
So you can eliminate even the washcloths.
Just sit there and somebody gently.
Not so many.
Whatever its name was.
Thanks Max.
I've never used one of those fancy Japanese toilets, but I'm excited.
I really do have to ask how bad was the Max?
Really bad.
Somebody I don't know brought it up at dinner one night.
Coughing up water for days.
Yeah, it was pretty.
It was wrong.
That button is for if you're having constipation issues.
That button is for if you haven't had access to a shitter in three days and have just let the shit cake up on your ass.
And you needed somebody to come at you with a fire hose.
So it's like a pressure washer pointed at you.
It was fucking awful.
So anyways, will we be playing next year?
We're going to be playing in season two Bidet Installer.
No, we are going to be playing Monster of the Week.
It is.
Now, if I remember correctly, was that something the McElroy brothers touched on with one of theirs?
Amnesty.
That's my favorite one of their arcs.
I'm excited to play this one.
If you don't know who the McElroy brothers are, go check out the Adventure Zone podcast and all their other podcasts that they have.
But that one is very cool.
We will also be playing the Root role playing game.
Oh, that looks awesome.
Cute little characters.
It's like Redwall.
It's a lot like Redwall, yeah.
And it is based on a tabletop game that is super fun.
And so I'm very, very excited about that one.
I want to be a shrew.
I was looking at that game recently.
You could be the badger.
You'd be a good badger.
We will be playing Tales from the Loop, which if you don't know Tales from the Loop, this is a more sci-fi based game.
And there is actually, I believe, an Amazon show on Tales from the Loop.
Yeah, I saw it on Prime.
I haven't watched it yet.
It's very good.
Super interesting.
Is that Josh Brolin in it?
No, that's like the pit or the hole or outer range.
Outer range.
Different, but also awesome.
And we will also be playing A Quiet Year, which is a card based game.
It is narrative.
It is another one that's on the Adventure Zone as well as a few other podcasts that you might have heard of.
So those are just a few.
And we're going to have plenty of micro RPGs, one page RPGs, maybe a few more tabletop games and a few other systems that we like for next season.
But over the last few weeks, we've had you listeners voting on our Instagram polls to see what is going to be our longest arc, or this system that's going to have the longest arc next year.
And the winner of that one was...
Bop bop bop bop bop!
7C.
Yes!
That's nice.
So you mentioned we like to be pirates and we are going to get the chance to be pirates for a long time next season.
Yo ho ho.
And a bottle of rum, my friend.
And then the Revisited, we're going to go back to season one one time to take one system and replay it.
However, that one ended in a tie.
And the tie was between We Deal in Lead and Kids on Bikes.
So there's only one way to resolve this.
A tough one.
With a coin toss.
Alright, so what do we say?
We Deal in Lead is Heads, Kids on Bikes is Tails?
Yeah.
Alright.
Do it live.
Connor, what are we playing?
It's Tails.
Kids on Bikes.
Alright.
But because it was a tie, we are going to play some bonus episodes of We Deal in Lead for the Patreon next season.
So, consolation prize, We Deal in Lead.
Yay!
Alright, and guys, that's the end of our cast party episode.
We all have some shit to go do.
So, until next time, we will...
See you next next Tuesday!
...for season 2.
...and we'll see you next time.
Bye!
Thanks for watching!
...is naughty.
She's a sex addict.
Oh, geez.
Oh, no.
How did you discover this problem?
There you go.
I get some eyes looking at you.
John did die and come back as a dolphin.
I can see it.
Why do you just insert dolphin noises when it's John's?
I can do that.
Just point to me.
Every dude in here's got a beard.
What a good room to be in.
And if we could grow one, we'd have one too.
I'd have one if I could, sure.