Not Another D&D Podcast - D&D Court: Big Moves, Vibes Combat, and the Tale of Maximum Groin (w/ Branson Reese!)

Episode Date: August 6, 2026

Dungeon Court is back in session! This week, Justices Murphy, Axford and Tanner, as well as Bailiff John, are joined by the the newly minted Justice Reese! Listen as we convene to pass judgement on your trials at the table!CREDITS:Sound Mixing and Editing by Trevor LyonDungeon Court Theme Song by Sam WeillerSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey everyone, Caldwell here with my friends Jacob, Julia, and Nathan from the DROPhee channel. Hello! We have some exciting news. We're making a video game. Whoa. It's called Dronsters, and it's a card-based party game where you draw your own monsters and then battle them to the death. It's so much fun, and we can't wait for y'all to play it. We just launched a Kickstarter to help finish it up, and we've got some sweet collectible rewards,

including some special high tiers, where you help us create custom art that goes into the game. We're also running a contest to decide what the Dronsters mascot would be, and if you support our campaign, you'll get a chance to vote for your favorite. So head to Kickstarter and search Dronsters to back the project now. That's D-R-A-W-N-S-T-E-R-S on Kickstarter. Hell yeah, that was some good spelling, Nathan. Love to spell. Love to spell. And we hope that this has to spell on you, that you will check out this game. Dronsters are Kickstarter. Again, thanks so so much for listening. And also, we're sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. This is a headgum podcast. Dungeon. Dungeon. Dungeon. Welcome to Dungeon court, everybody. Dun, done, done. We are your Supreme Crit Justices, Axford, Murphy and Tanner and the lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly. Wow, that's love.

Bailiff, Jake Hurwitz. Thanks for having me. And then we have special guest, Branson Reese. Thank you so much for joining us. Hey, thanks for having me. Thank you so much. And thanks for not holding me for like 10 minutes while it's not clear if I can talk.

Yeah. Really appreciate that. Yeah. Well, Scott, we got the weird lowly, lowly bailiff thing. So I'm like, I like to get that out. Yeah. We can really focus on the guests. Right.

Brush me aside. You have a little visual theater work we do sometimes where we like imagine that Jake is being like lowered into a pit or something like that. Oh, that's fun. Well, yeah. So if you have something you want to add, like, any sort of like mind palace sort of envisionment of like what sort of bad position Jake is in, feel free to go.

I did imagine you becoming more and more abject. Really? Just like darker and darker. Yeah, like flies circling you. See, for me, I just picture you killing it on a limbo. Oh, that's nice. Oh, that's beautiful. Like literally just getting under the bar.

That's nice. Winning you is a Richard Scary Worm with an alpine. Oh, yeah. Yeah. There's no way that's the first time. We've talked about lowly work. Not only is that not the first time, me and Murph on our fridge have a

Richard Scary Worm with a dune blue eye. I'll show it to you. It's a fridge magnet. We're in a lowly worm on this. Right, yeah. You are among friends. That's nice. And you know what?

Right now, you're just a guess, but you can be a justice. I sent you an oath that I'd love for you to read so we can swear you in. Absolutely. I Branson Reese do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the players as well as the DMs against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that I take this obligation of my own volition and that I will, well and faithfully, embark upon this noble pursuit of justice. So help me, gods. There we go.

Wow. It's a successful. to date, today to think. The way that you emphasize of my own volition, suddenly cast into doubt whether or not every other guest has, like, been here under duress. Yeah. A gun to their head right off screen.

Do it or you'll become like a lonely bailiff. You wouldn't want that, would you? And with that, hear ye, hear ye, crit is now in session. The Honorable Supreme Crit Justices, Axford Murphy, Tanner, and Reese presiding. Our first case today comes from Canadian Shubber. the mushroom. They write to the esteemed

justices, guest justice, and the guy getting everyone coffee. That's me. I'll have an oat milk latte, thanks, Jack. Nice. I bring the case of the eight shot, one shot.

That'll happen. That really will happen. I can't say from personal experience, but that could happen. Eight shot Axford. That's what they call it. Four part two part. Look, sometimes you plan a one shot

and the dock gets long. Let's just slowly pervert Emily's name until it's something like eight part mumbler. Eight shot mumble mouth. Eight shot mumble mouth. This is my nickname in college. I was in a consistent game run by a friend who needed to take a week or two off. Note a week or two.

So another member of the party agreed to run a quick heist one shot during our scheduled meetup until the DM Prime was ready. Justices. It took three sessions to get to the enacting heist, then another five to get through it. This would be fine if things were happening. but I sure you, things were not. In one of the upwards of four-hour sessions, all my magic jewel thief rogue artificer managed to do was enter one vent.

The rest of the party got through one door. I will admit that halfway through, I skipped a session or two for my sanity. When I came back towards the end, the team was disguised as scientist, but in a mess clearly designed to out us and initiate the final battle. And so desperate for something to happen,

I decided to out my own character and another, a famous wrestler, in order to hold him hostage and secure our escape. My team did not appreciate my big swing and thought I'd wrecked their plan. Justices, was I wrong to get us back to our regularly scheduled game? The DM Prime, who was taking time off,

did also want to get back to the game, but was still not happy with how I handled it. This is a mess. This is a mess. I want to know what is happening during these four-hour sessions if all you did was enter one door. But also, is everyone else having a great time

I'm like making up their plans. I'm a little suspicious because the tone of this is like, hey, guys, everyone's mad at me. Yeah. Which almost always, that means it's your fault. Almost always. Some tables just like to yap. They like to just like really meticulously plan out like every part of their strategy of a heist. You're right.

And I actually do enjoy that when it's a home game. I do love just like we sit there. Yeah. Crafting items. Yeah. Oh, we're going shopping. Can I try out a new sword? I want to try to steal.

Can I talk to this shopkeep painting minis while you just chat? Yeah. That's nice. Looking at schematic. And we're all laughing. We're doing bits. And somebody's like, we got to get to the final battle. You know what I'm going to say?

Yeah. You know what I'm going to say is DM Prime? They went out of their way to specify DM Prime didn't like the move. Yeah. And they're trying to do it to get DM Prime back in the seat. Back in the back. Is it possible? DM Prime said, I need one to two weeks off and then communicated to this other person,

vamp. Vamp. I know. Yeah. Let them forget about me. Things are bad at work. This story freaking zagged every time I thought I was going to zig. Because at first I'm like, oh, is this going to be about sort of navigating the social weirdness of like the new DM coming in and taking over?

Oh, yeah. And because the new DM's freaking rocks. Yeah. I thought there's going to be an Aquabats, Travis Barker, Blink 1182 situation. Oh, yeah. That's right. That's right. Sorry, what?

Yeah, I heard aquabats. And I got excited. And the rest of it, it fell off on me. Okay. So in Blinkled 82, Travis Barker is famously a very good drummer. Yeah, yeah, for Scott Rainer, who used to be the drummer for Blink 182, had. Man overboard. There you go.

Yeah. I got you. About him, you got me. And he wasn't able to do a couple of shows, so they had Travis fill in. And they're like, actually, this guy rocks. Yeah. And he never looked back. How did the aquabats come into this?

The aquabats, he was the drummer for the aquabats. Wow. So he left the aquabats. Yeah. Shit. The aquabets were like our silly party scott. I was just going to say, I don't mean to be, I don't mean to be rude, but the aquabets just didn't need the talents of Travis Barker. Think about what could have happened.

Think about the other world that exists where the aquabats, like get the notoriety that I think they deserve. Travis Barker stays on board and they like, they clean up their act a little bit. I don't think anyone. The aquabats are so clean. I know. I'm saying they like, they get out of the sillier stuff and maybe they do some like, it gets so serious. It gets so serious. You cleaned up Blink 182.

That's what Travis did. That's a clean band. Yeah, I think actually Travis Berger might have like imparted some like musical integrity, right? I think they strive to reach his level. Yeah. I feel like people used to, it's, oh, it's blink one 82, but you can't deny that one of them is a virtuoso. Yeah. Yeah.

Hoppice. But Travis is pretty good too. I need you guys to get at my level about thinking about the Aquabats making jerk off jokes in an album. Can you imagine that? What a world. I'm smiling. I like jerk off jokes I don't know that we have our

verdict yet but we do have our punishment it will be something to do with the aquabats Yeah you have to be with your drummer for the aquabats And push them towards serious music Serious music Serious music about jerking off Yes Being sad while you do it

Okay so but what Actually Green Day wrote that So what actually happens is Yeah So what it actually happens is actually happens, not any kind of Aquabat situation, but it's that new DM comes in, does a

bad job, and then this person tries to end it early and everyone's mad at you. Yeah, right. You're like, I'll save the day, I'll come in, I'll end this campaign and everyone's like, I'm having fun. I'm having fun. I'm pretty suspicious of this move that was made in these terms of like, and so

I made a move and it's not important what the move was. Right, yeah. Yeah, it's like outing them. So it's like, during a heist, they're just like, all right, fine. I'm actually Brad Pitt, And this is George Clooney. And the Ocean's 11. They also confess to missing some sessions coming back.

Suddenly the party is dressed as scientists. And without knowing the context, without knowing the context, they said in a disguise that was clearly designed to out them. But was it? You weren't there for that. It feels like if someone else in the group wrote in about the player that did this, it would sound even crazier. Because like this was by the submitter, and even by their own like admission, people. people were like upset by the move. Yeah.

I bet it was even more egregious. The skipping sessions into outing the other players like stealth mission. Not being there for two sessions and then coming in and outing everybody. And then that's what I think that maybe what happened was that this new DM wasn't your style, but maybe the rest of the party was on board. Even if it wasn't so much your style and even DM Prime was maybe okay with it. Or even if the DM wasn't good, it is still like, It sounds like you handled it poorly.

Yeah. Even if everybody else is like, hey, we suffered through this too and we suffered through the two sessions that you missed. Yeah. And we're on the final session to see if our heist is going to work and you just come in and ruin everything. You're right. Because if you, you're basically going in and compromising the final thing and it's like, we need to make this have mattered.

Yeah. It's not good, but it's ours. We spent eight weeks at this. I would love to hear this from DM Prime's perspective, too. Yeah. Hey, I've been trying to get out of this game for a while. And I've got this player who's like that Japanese soldier who didn't like not until the 70s did he like give up. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. I thought the war was still going. Yeah. Just still fighting. I was like, I gave up. I don't want to do it anymore. Yeah. I think there's, there's got to be something going on at DM Prime's work as well.

I feel like there's a big spill. I don't know what sort of spill, but maybe it's a metaphor. He works at Exxon Valdez. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. And he's trapped in time. He's still cleaning up the oil spill.

He's trying to make it seem cool. Yeah. He's trying to make it seem cool. and stuff like that. Oh, he's still doing PR spin for X-Ox-off. He's got a Dawn Soap. Dawn Soap is on his ass all the time. Okay, so I think we're, are we unanimously against this player?

Yeah, because the whole table is unanimously against that. Right. Because it's also possible we don't know why the new DM was slow. It is possible that they were just like, I don't know. Yeah, it's their first time. Yeah, it's their first time doing it. And then it's also maybe they're like really milking every single part of the heist. Yeah.

Or maybe they're just giving the party so much time to dick around. Well, let's also look at like the actual crime too. Because like making a big bold move at a table, I don't think is necessarily a bad thing. But it's kind of a faux pa though if you missed the last session. And I guess it's also the, it's the intent behind the big movie. Which wasn't like, I want to do something creative. It's like I'm trying to blow up this plan because I don't like the way anyone's. I heard professional wrestler and scientist.

disguise and to me that translates to somebody made a really good self-check like somebody did an incredible deception role or something like that this should not have worked and it did and the fact that you've come in and undermined it is really killing the five and you just fucking rip the coat off and you actually can't see him

yeah yeah but if I entered a space where all my friends are John Cena in a lab coat yeah oh I got silly friends I want to honor their their silly idea exactly yeah I might I might enter and be like shoot what happened last session I'm Professor Undertaker

If you do If you just two sessions in a row You have to come in and be kind of quiet Yeah You have to come in and just be like All right yeah you guys tell me what's up Yeah Just showing up being like I know what's going on here

And then everyone gets mad at you It's awesome And then like the one person that you're trying to You're going to the DM like hey man At least I got your seat back Yeah I didn't like that Yeah I want to be clear

What you did I think was cool Yeah But it's just completely unacceptable Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just picturing you just, like, scrambling up John Cena's abs to try and, like, rip the glasses off his face. I'm also picturing... You're not a scientist, John. I'm also picturing after your big move, you looking to DM Prime with, like, ready for them to be like, thank you so much.

And just like, their face, yeah. Yeah, they're checking their phone because there's somehow more oil spills. I thought that could only happen once. It's like, just weird localized ones. It doesn't make sense. All right. So yeah, what's the punishment? Punish the submitter.

Oh, maybe. We got oil. We got the aquabats. Yeah. Okay. Oh, I was going to say that I love giving people Halloween costumes and we are getting close to it. They could be John Cena and a lab coat for Halloween.

That's really good. That's almost too fun. It's kind of fun. That's kind of fun. What if you have to make a pro Exxon Veltez band called the oil bats? Yes. So it's like the aquabats. But instead of pool party, it's like, spilling oil party.

Right. So it's like it's catchy tunes about how oil spills are not that bad. Yeah. The crowd is going to hate you. People might know that it's a parody. You should be about how they're not that bad. You have to obscure the satire. Yeah. And at the end, at the end of every song, you have to say hashtag ad.

Yeah. Hashti-sponsored. Those ducks are fine. That's what it is. A ska sci-op band. Great. Yeah. Perfect.

All right. Sky-op. All right. Sky-op. Cool. So ordered. Our next case comes from Alex K. To the esteemed justices and the steamy bailiff, John.

Thanks. Wow. Not my name, but they think you're hot. Or maybe they're talking about someone else. I present the case of the over-eager vampire thrall. In a homebrew campaign set in 19- Innocent, sorry. In a homebrew campaign set in 1970s London,

my taxi driver wizard was exactly dropped to zero by a thirsty vampire. I was immediately raised as a thrall. and the DM said I was now against the party. I said about my task with wizardly dedication and absolutely fucking destroyed them. I caught most of the party with a fireball, dropping the paladin before kidnapping the barbarian and sending him trust up to Vampire HQ

where he was eventually killed. When the session ended, the DM said, good job, you barely needed any encouragement at all. It was at that moment, I wondered if I had gone a bit far. Justices, was I wrong to commit so much to destroying my party with so little provocation? Everyone had fun and the barbarians player is back with a new, even more hilarious character. But in my darker moments, I can't help but think I maybe didn't need to commit so totally to mass murder. So was I wrong?

I humbly await your judgment. I mean, sometimes you just want to freaking lose it, you know? Sometimes you want to let loose. I think that the DM told you what to do and you politely followed it with go. You've got to miss your hide inside your. Yeah and somehow you're in a dr. Jekyll and mr. Hyde with a happy ending You I love this person The fact that this didn't end with everyone mad at you

It shows that it was a success I will say though it's I feel like maybe they're playing different rules But if you're a thrall I don't think you have access to like your spells and stuff this must be some sort of room Yeah, I'm guessing they're just like yeah, you're just a vampire but you're also you yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, because otherwise you'd I guess would just be like a vampire spawn or something Yeah, that's... Thrawl as opposed to spawns. I guess that's different. I have no...

I'm so glancingly familiar with the rules of D&D just by being on a paid D&D podcast. That earlier when you guys were talking about the eight shot, one shot, I was like, cool gun. Oh, whoa. I thought it was a gun.

Yeah, that would be a cool gun. You can jammer as many more than you want. That's good. You put them together, you get a huge eight-sized bullet. Every time it shoots one. I think that's how gun was. The more bullets you stuff in,

the more powerful is. All you need is some chewed gum. Stick them together. Yeah, Roger rabbit-ass gun. Eighth Bullets becomes one. Yeah, I would say... This campaign seems awesome. Yeah, 1970s London.

Uh-huh. 1970s London. Austin Powers kind of, right? Well, actually, I was thinking a werewolf in London. I think is from the 70s. Oh. Austin Powers would have 10 years earlier

been taken. So, like, it would be all about, like, the void left by Austin. Oh, yeah. Dampers swoop in. Yeah. After the party scene, the void left by the house.

Right. The power vacuum. When he becomes frozen, because that's at like the end of the 60s. Yeah. I was going to say, I bet that that's what this DM's plan was. There's going to end up being a heist to break out Austin Powers,

who is like a deity. That's just really cool world building. But then there's a vampire that eats mojo. Oh, would you love that. A mojo drinker? Yeah. I kind of think that you shouldn't feel bad.

It sounds like everyone had fun. You were given a directive. You played it like earnestly. Yeah. And everybody had a good time. It was just this one aside from the DM. Yeah. That you didn't need any encouragement.

It's also, it's really good. Also, the way you said it is not that I was like killed. You're like, as soon as I went to zero, a switch flipped. I became a serial killer. Literally, if you just nudged me in that direction, I will kill people for you. Can I suggest that what your DM said, like, yes, we all laughed at it because it does sound like, whoa, you're a psycho. But I actually think that that means that if you hadn't gone all the way, they were going to

encourage you to them. Yeah. Yeah. And you just bought it up to the world. You're like, I am here. I'm a taxi driver. I'm a wizard. It's 1970.

Austin Powers is no more. Nowhere to be seen. So vampires have taken over. Yeah. So vampires have taken over. Basil Exposition is doing his best to hold things down. I think you're bought in. And then your DM is like, you're a thrall and you're like, yeah, fuck yeah.

Let's go. I think everyone that plays D&D secretly has this desire. Maybe no matter how buried deeply it is, I feel like everyone like, there is always temptation in D&D to be like, what if I turned evil? And I feel like you got the opportunity to do that in like a very clean kind of controlled way. And I feel like, yeah, I embrace that fantasy a little bit. I would say kudos to you. If this were me, I would have pulled my punches.

But I would dream of just being at a table with people I was never going to see again and just really be what I could really be. Standing on a double-decker bus saying, Austin is dead. Holding his head. Is this your king? Does this make you horny? You're playing D&D with strangers. at a bar. I gotta say to

writer, caller, I do think you're evil but I think like stripped of any power or consequence it's fine to be evil. I don't think of a problem. Right. This is your time to do that. This is your time to break into Austin's cryogenic chamber. And also this isn't

even your character. Your character has been turned into an evil thrall. Yeah. It seems like the DM wanted this and that this was like baked into the setting. And everything's worked out. The barbarians got a new character. I would say nine times out of 10, usually when there's PVP, if someone really goes into it and loves it, it's like that person is wrong because the other person is usually upset.

But the fact that, like, everyone was bought in, it sounds like you just did a good job. Yeah, if I was playing at a table and there was PVP and I could feel the other person pulling their punches, that would genuinely hurt my feelings. So it was like, you know we're playing pretend, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's really true. Although it kind of does depend how long everyone's had their characters. I guess that's true.

Yeah, yeah. But I feel like it's fun. I've never been in this situation, but it seems fun to like just like have a whole session where it's just like, yep, now it's the funeral session. We're going to actually sit down and remember this character. We're going to print out pictures of them.

We're going to have a little like vigil. So they really lean into it. It seems fun. Have my Tom Sawyer in the Rafters moment. Like looking down. Oh, yeah. That's nice. I was also going to say that the DM had a fail safe in here

if people were upset to just have them come back as vampires kind of. Yeah. So like the fact that they did. didn't tells me that the DM's reading the room and all the players are cool. Given what we've read, this seems fine. To know 100% we'd have to talk to the pallet and the, uh, and the barbarian. But it seems on the level. Seems like you're good.

So wait, who we're punishing? So we had to the DM for that snide little comment. The snarky remark. It was so. The remark was full of snar. We have no choice but to fix someone. Are you sure? Are you sure that?

We must behead that, yeah. Fine. Well, behead the other. Yeah. It was. Yeah. up and ask for horrid. It doesn't make you horrid.

We agree it was a little snide. No, it was out of context. A teeny bit. I thought it was certainly Rye. It was Rye. Okay. And Rye is enough, Frank. Yeah.

For this court, for this court, to beat the shit out of you. Fine, we'll behead the DIA. Oh, that's, they bring you up on stage and you think they're gonna do like a little, like, play battle where like, oh, we must defeat this evil monster. And then they just fucking kick the shit out of it.

Yeah. That's cool. So you're like, you're like, you're like, on stage for like a skank contest. And like one guy's skanks really hard and they're like, all right, you're up. And then you start and then they just grab you and put your head on a block.

Well, a dude skanks so hard. He'll kick you. That's quite, so skank to death. Pick it up. I have a feeling this is gonna be the punishment for everyone. They play three notes of Martian Girl from Planet Z and then they just kick your fucking ass.

We sentence you to that one guy from the Mighty Mighty Boss Tones dancing on you. In the suit? The guy who just dances. Not the trumpet. No, not the trumpet. Didn't he get kicked out for being like an anti-vaxxer or something? I think that's the lead singer.

They're still around. Yeah. So the dancing guy's still in. He's all that's left. Bristin, I feel like that sentence could be applied to many, many bands, especially in stock space. I guess I didn't know that they're still around. The Mighty Mighty Boston's? Yeah.

The Too Mighty to Stop. Wow. They were my first concert. Whoa. I think we knew that. I think it's come up before. I feel like you've had like seven first concerts to be honest. Yeah, you just fucking lie and make shit up.

Well, actually, my first concert was Radio 104 Fest. There were a lot of bands there. Oh, wow. Okay. I went to see the Mighty Mighty Boss time. It's buttoned up, Hurwitz. Thanks. I'm not going to get skanked to death.

I didn't lie at court. Okay, so ordered our next case comes from Tierney L. To the upstanding justices, the outstanding guest judge, and the understanding bailiff. I give you the case of the case of the. unwanted plot armor. Ooh. I've been blessed with an excellent and long-suffering DM, who has dealt with my many feral hymbo characters over the last 20 years.

In our most recent campaign, I finally threw him a human paladin with a normal backstory. He has been thrilled to get a more serious story and less little stinker behavior. But a few months ago, for fun, I rolled up a new character, a multi-class bard monk goblin stripper named Maximum Groin. Okay. Yeah. So far so innocent.

It's really telling. Sorry, we had to cut around Murph cracking you up for 12 minutes. Merv couldn't breathe. We're finally back. And action. Max's mission, get ready, Murph. Max's mission is to restore his family's reputation as the masters of burlesque by finding the lost arts of polymetrics.

Just do improv. Just take an improv class. I showed it to my DM who rolled his eyes, inside. Kind of like what Murph is doing. Now, a few weeks later, when my paladin was making and failing death saves, I joked, well, it's okay. Max Groin is waiting in the wings. Oh. I cannot overstate the look of shock and fear on my DM's face. He insisted on the last death save being with advantage. And since then, has systematically avoided any damage to my character. You did this to yourself. Yeah. You did this to yourself. But I'm the tank. I keep

throwing my paladin into more and more dangerous situations and it's getting absurd to never get hit. how can I get my DM to attack me again? Am I wrong to demand the right to be wanted? Or is my unwanted plot armor just punishment for years of my rascally goofballs? It's that. Yeah. It's that. Listen.

And by the way, you're not sorry. I can be under your tone. Speaking as a goofball at heart. A rascally goofball. A rascally, if you opened up my heart, you'd see it. It's just a perfect sphere full of clown noses. Is a little guy being chased for back times. Exactly.

I think that it's always funnier with characters like this to have that just like accidentally happen Like the fact that you've got this like thoroughly thought out Very silly backstory is like too much You gotta just like jump on a pole randomly And like do a really good deck save And then you start stripping then and there Max Gray needs to earn

Yes The pole dancing exactly Yeah and like also like you I think that if you want to come up with such a wacky thing You have to let your DM fill in some blanks so that they're bought in on it too. Yeah. Because you're like,

I'm trying to discover the lost art of polymetrics. No, maybe your DM has a suggestion that they will actually get excited about. Yeah, right, because a goblin stripper is kind of a cool. You got it. Right there, we're happy.

You got it. That's cool. You got it. You bring it up to the DM and the DM says, oh, interesting. I actually have a city that they could be from. Yeah. And then you've Philadelphia.

No, Maximum Goy is from Philly. Yeah. Is polymetrics supposed to be like saber metrics? What's going on here? I'm guessing pliometrics. Plyometrics, there you go. What are plyometrics? I think it's some kind of exercise thing.

All right, I'm going to look it up. So I'm guessing they're doing like a pun on pliometrics, but with pole. Okay. Because pole dancing. And I imagine polymetrics, which I didn't know what that is, but I thought it could be a thing. Okay. Exercises in which muscles exert maximum force and short intervals of time. So you're just, you're in pursuit of a, like, horny version of exercise.

size. Okay, got it. I think I could be. That's sex. Grow up. Just have sex for you. Just fuck like everyone else in D&D. But you know what? Okay, let's take the goofy examples out. You're coming in with too much and you're not giving your DM enough chance to. If you want to play a goblin stripper, then let the DM say what works for them about that.

You know what I think they have to do? I think we can skip right ahead of the punishment here. I think you have to surrender this character. You have to safely surrender this character to your DM and they have to show up as an NPC that everyone can beat up. Whoa. Oh, wait, I actually forgot to read a PS because there was a PS. Maximum groin has siblings and their names are juicy, itchy, and red. Yeah, surrender.

Right. Juicy groin. But again, let's be sure this is like a serious character. You comment and you're like, my character is from a town called Nevermore and this thing happened. And my God is this God. The DM might say, there's actually... Someone jizzed in all the wells, sir.

But, well, I was going to say that the DM might say, oh, that God isn't real on my pantheon. You're thrusting too much world building on your DM without being open to any receiving any. Right. Yeah, yeah. It's collaborative storytelling. Yeah. And Maximum Groin is taking, I'm taking the reins.

Yeah. It is weird, though, to have, so to play Max Groin's advocate for moments. Whoa. Who saw this coming? Who saw the coming? But there is, it is a little weird to just, like, straight up, not target this paladin. Yes. But it's also, I mean, the weirdest thing is that you're now trying to get this paladin killed.

Yeah. And also, it sounds. Yeah, it sounds like your problem with the DM is the meta-ness of all of it. But you're literally sitting there being like, I don't give a shit if this character... Like, there's someone standing over my character with an axe, and I'm like, can't wait to play my other character. And he's like, you've ruined that moment. Yeah.

That is no longer a cool, interesting story. Yeah, yeah, you're right. You took your... Saying no worries as you're rolling your third death sentence. Yeah, it's really different. It's okay, because Alexander Fart is waiting to show up. Yeah. I gotta say too, in all of your talk of what a little stinker you are,

you might have missed that your DM sounds like your DM's got pretty good comic instincts too. Because if I'm playing a character that wants to die, the automatic thing, like a funny DM will do is like you can't even get hurt. It's only funny because you seek death so hard. Was the DM the stinker all along? Yeah, you might have been out stinkers. Yeah. I've also played with PCs that like have a death wish.

you are kind of like great every battle you're just trying to get killed and now I feel like but I my character I can't play a character who's going to let you die right yeah and then when you do die I'm going to have to pretend to be sad yeah yeah you know there's also a world where the DM just likes this paladin a lot like you said you gave them a normal backstory like maybe they're just not done telling that story yeah even though you clearly are yeah yeah so I think you you brought the meta into this before they did and it's I mean obviously like rolling with advantage on a death save in all likelihood that's going to mean you save but that's not I mean that's putting your finger on the scale but it's putting your finger on the scale it's not like

jumping on it yeah yeah it's not saying you pop back up yeah so you started it yeah this is on you did this to yourself the horns come in yeah so yeah you might not be the littlest stinker here but I do think that is a good idea for a game show which is to have the littlest stinker the littleest stinker who's the littlest thing we all we're all stinkers we're all The little is here. Yeah. They're all on an island and they're just playing pranks on each other. And we're going to figure out at the end of this.

Oh, that's cool. Who is the littlest stinker? We're trying to disappear. They get so little. Yeah. There's just banana cream pies just like littered throughout this island. Yeah. It's all one-to-one Fossey bear.

Yeah. Fossey bear humor is little stinker humor. Okay. So we're all against this player here. Bleak, yeah. I think they might actually enjoy it if they got skink to death. That's really true. Oh, yeah.

You can never die. Yeah. Just as the player. The player. Yeah. The heat death of the universe will not affect you and you'll float infinite rain and avoid. That's cool. And all that you have is one Aquabat CD.

Wow. That's hardly a punishment. Myths and Legends, volume two, I believe would be. Cool. That's the fountain of youth. But nothing to play it on.

Nothing to play on. Why don't have it all? So that you go mad and at some point eat it, hoping that you can hear it that way. Wow. Yeah. All right. Cool.

So fucking order. If you just had an Aquabat CD, the stages you would go through with that thing. Oh, you would become religion. Millenniums, it would be insane. Yeah. Yeah. It would become like your talisman. It becomes your heart.

Yeah. You would love it. Yeah. You would love it. It would love it. It would be like everything. It would become nothing. Yeah.

It would kind of be like the ring to go on. I think. You could wear it like a ring. You could. Yeah. Fun fact, gang, you can wear it. Elijah Wood's sliding on an aquabababat. You just have to get your other fingers out of the way.

After all, and instead of invisible, he could just hear it a little bit, basically. Sauron's eyes scour. Would the ring still be a hit if in one scene Elijah would slid on

an aqua matcad steed? It was otherwise your faythorns come dressed. The ringlets just want to like hang out with them. Oh dude, do you know mustard plug? Bormir being like, if I could just borrow your aquabats TV.

It was like you know. I'm like the Tolkien scholars are so fucking pissed and there's just director's commentary that was like Elijah loves the aqua He loves it. And we thought it would be fun to put it in there. Elijah insisted it was in his contract. All right.

So ordered. You're reshooting Lord of the Rings with Aquabat CD instead of a ring. Yeah. Our next case comes from Scaws back on the menu voice. Explained it to Tolkien scholars. Token's estate. We're cutting you in. You guys are going to be rich.

We're re-releasing everything. Aquabats is suing us. We have the funds to cover. We can buy them out. The Nazgoul's mounts are now giant aquabats. It's perfect. One ban to rule them all. The ghosts now skank when they join me.

The old king. All right. Our next case comes from Gicky. Hey there, Nadpoles. This episode is brought to you by Mint Mobile. You know when we were kids, summer meant freedom, no homework, no teacher. is no school. And as adults, summer still means freedom thanks to Mint Mobile's summer sale.

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wireless plan for just like I said, 15 bucks a month, go to mintmobile.com slash pawpaw. That is mintmobile.com slash pawpaw. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at MintMobile. dot com slash pawpaw. That is it. There is no catch. Up front payment of $45 for three month, 90 for six month, or 180 for 12 months, plan required $15 per month equivalent, taxes and fees extra initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy includes up to 20 gigabyte hotspot, capable device required availability speed and coverage varies. Seamitmobile.com for details. Hey everybody, this message is sponsored by Raycon. It's back to school season.

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From my experience, they're great for an early evening run when you want to enjoy the twilight that still be alert to your surroundings. The essential open earbuds are the perfect back-to-school companion. Go to buy raycon.com slash paw-paw open to get 20% off. That's raycon.com slash p-a-w-w-w-o-p--------------------------------. Thanks to Raycon, RayCon for sponsoring. Goodbye, sweetie. Gicky writes, dear esteemed Justices Murphy, Axford, Shinobi, and guests. In my early days of DMing, I was really worried about making fights unbalanced, either too hard or too easy. So I would not give my monster's hit points. Instead, I would determine behind the screen without my player's knowledge

when it felt right for a monster to die. This is reading like a confession, but I see how to say. It went well for my game, so I posted about it on Reddit and was promptly dressed down and lambasted by the community for fudging roles and railroading my players. Wait, you were lambasted on Reddit? It's unlikely. We're all of the coolest, smartest people online go to avoid? One commenter wrote an essay in which they said my players were lions and I was refusing to let them hunt.

Yo! Okay, wait, no, this is good. Everyone in this thread, we can just like, we got to contain them. I feel like we can just like, this is a honey trap for the worst people in the world. Let's just keep them all there. Yeah. This comment thread. And you're denying them the hunt.

Yeah. Get everyone's IP address. That was commenting on here. Over time, I've learned to let go of control over combat to such an extent, but I still remain quietly adamant that for a new BDM, this was perfectly acceptable. I leave it in the hands of the court. Was I wrong to deprive my lions of their hunt?

Or was I right to protect myself from getting bit? It was just so the wrong metaphor. It's just getting on the side of the sun. It really, it does. go to show you how Reddit commenters view themselves. Yeah. Just someone who's like

eyes are like so weary from 20 hours of computer using a day. I am a wild peace. I stalk the Savannah. As I shout at my mom for more mountain dude. It's close as the blinds. It's really hard to wrap my head around this one because at first I am lightly like,

well, you don't want to fudge it because then that makes it so there's no, like the players don't know it, but they might catch on at a certain point. And it's like, you're taking away stakes for yourself, too. Because for me, I personally really like the moment where you're like, oh shit, this guy's at 5 HP and you're at 5 HP. And we're going to do kind of a roll off to see what happens here. So that part of it, you're taking away from yourself.

But man, it's hard to side with the guy who said that you're all naughty players are lions. Yeah, two people are wrong in this case. Ultimately, that guy's getting sent. There's no heroes in the story. I think that you're missing out on it. And I think that there's ways to, rather than fudging HP, there's ways to, if you're like, uh-oh, I made it too strong, there's ways to float exit strategies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I feel like that's the thing to fudge.

It's like, this monster came in to destroy you. Uh-oh, things are going bad. Is there a way that I can give them an escape? They're not even fudging anything. Fudging is like, oh, you know what, I just add timor HP or like, you know what, this, I'm going to change that role so it doesn't hit to make this last. But there wasn't even HP. Well, that's still fudging. I mean, you're still...

Yeah, but it's like beyond fudging, I think. It doesn't even rise to fudge. Yeah. It's such a strong line. Fudging is, fudging I associate with a word that sounds like it, which is smudging, slightly changing. This is like just concocted. This is like, almost conducting. You know, like you're kind of like, this feels like the moment and you killed him.

You're playing God. But there's only one king in this jungle. It's true because like... Vibersers roar. Vibes being. combat ultimately does come down to like, how am I feeling today? Yeah.

Which is a shame, but it sounds like this guy's just starting out. I don't think it's a huge deal. Yeah, I don't think it's the biggest deal. But I also think that you're missing out on, like I feel like it's also fun in the opposite direction when you made it too easy.

And then your players kick your ass. And you're like, okay, learning experience. But it's fun for the players. It's funny for you. That is true. And if you're just doing vibe-based combat, then they never kick anyone's ass, which also was really fond. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, we just, in one of our more recent episodes, we had one fight that was supposed to be, like, sort of medium danger, ended up being major danger. Yeah. You guys, like, almost die. And then the next fight was supposed to be same level and everything, and you guys just beat their asses. Yeah. And that's just it. And it feels good.

And it feels good to have both ways. Yeah. I mean, it is, I hate to rely on the law of the jungle, like this Redditor, but it's true to, Like the jungle is full of animals that'll kill you. And I feel like you have to like rely on that narrative a little bit, which is that like, you know, you do not know how this is going to go. Like the moment you step into the jungle, you might get bit by a snake. You just don't know and you have to let the dice rolls determine that a little bit. Or you might get kissed by a snake.

You might. You never know. It's just as likely. It's just as likely. Literally 50. I had an on again, off again thing with a snake for six months. Whoa. Because this is, I mean, the most people.

Biting and kissing. She was so hot and cold I think I was in a coma for having you But I woke up and she was there Also you'd said it's like there's other ways out of That aren't just like reducing to zero Like the monster can see a framed picture and go like Vanessa and run away

Actually that is the only other way Yeah That's the other option try that Yeah that's in the Vanessa strategy Vanessa exit I do respect though that you are kind of saying like this was just a good way to start So it's like you know that you've clearly found out how to do it otherwise. So like I feel like that makes it even more.

Yeah, this was your. If it got you in the DM chair, if it made you feel comfortable in the DM chair for the first couple sessions, then it's even more innocuous. This is like your version of DM training wheels. It's like, you know, if they just want to have HP, I'll just decide when to call it. I would encourage people to say if they're designing encounters and they're worried about this, start like do like waves of enemies or do like start it with like maybe airing on the side of too easy. See what your players can do. and then make it harder as you go along. Yeah, I do love having, like, you know,

like on Initiative 20, this other monster and just the battlefield, and you're like, I can pull that trigger if the fight is looking too easy. Like, somebody else is going to arrive. Right. Also, it's fun to learn about your player. Like, I ran a game where they met, the first, like, encounter they had was not hard.

And they, like, just failed their first role. And they're like, we got to get out of here. It's way to be on. Oh, my friends are cowards. That is so funny. I miss I surrender I'll do anything

It's a giant catarney I'm not a lion I'm not a lion Make me a fucking vampire I'll be a troll I swear to God I'll kill everyone This lion

Wants to go to Trader Joe's I'll kill my friends In real life That's good though That you didn't have to Resort to Vanessa No they didn't even come up

Right yeah Babies Vanessa I wrote the five fucking Bill. Or I was in a game one time where we were fighting rats. We were like, oh, these must be like strange rats. And finally the DM was like, the rats have one hit point each.

You guys just aren't doing well. Yeah. And that was so funny. It was like worth everything imploding. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Accidentally making it too easy is fun and funny and accidentally making it too hard. You just come up with a couple fail safes, like a couple excuses for like someone to help them in a dire situation, a way for them to escape in a dire situation. But also like kind of no harm, no foul.

It got you comfortable. It gave you the confidence to start DMing. Especially if it's early combat. If it's just like bandits attacking them on the road, it's like it all goes to shit. You could do like total party knockout. Like you have to kill everyone. They knock them out and steal their gold.

Your biggest mistake was asking Reddit. Yeah. That's what you were wrong to do. Yeah. Ultimately we're talking about this commenter who said that they were lying. But ultimately you were posting. Yeah. That is actually the gravest sin.

what you did twist your finger don't you understand we've seated it to the box yeah yeah they're munching on your data now yeah well you should have just

asked AI AI would have said it was fine yeah it's programmed to like agree with you all the time and enjoy your brain excellent work my lord no one else would have thought of it but you you have a part to play in this world

but it's also like as a DM you shouldn't fudge anything but if you did fudge something, you got to take that to your grave. And you didn't take it to your grave. Yeah, you tattled on yourself. To Reddit.com of all places. You tattled it on yourself to Reddit.com.

And for that? Yeah. I got to say also, just for full clarity, I am big time code switching here. Like, on Rood Tales, I let Zach Oyama hack gasoline one time. Like, I actually, in practice, do way worse than this all the time on microphone for money.

I don't think that's fudging, though. I feel like someone being like I have a crazy idea and you being like sure fucking roll for it. Yeah. Like I don't think that's fudging at all. I think that's literally being like I'm kind of rooting for this. Let's see if the dice are you. Yeah. Sure. It's also like as a DM, sometimes you can't

just say yeah, this happens. Like you're the storyteller, you're in charge. Like you don't have to roll if you don't want to. I've let Joe Lepore successfully argue with a bullet heading at his character. The bullet was like, I can't go on like this and like die. Yeah. But again, I still think that that's funny. Yeah, I guess it's okay.

And that's also the vibe and you're working within the logic of your game. Yeah. But if it's actually, get on my level. If we want to find out if it's really okay that we have to ask this Reddit comment.

Right. Yeah. Because they might not be okay with it. What are we doing? We should just be asking them. Can I have his username? Shit, it's mine. Yeah.

Words. I remember for saying that. Only through action. All right. All right. Yeah, who gets fun is the Reddit Commentter? Yeah, yeah. Should we, do the Reddit commenter and the submit?

Oh, I know. The Reddit commenter, if they're not a bot, has to go survive, jump into a zoo, the lion cage at a zoo. Okay. Okay. And see how the lions hunt. We've Fortnite dropped them into a zoo. Yeah, with their DMs guide. Great.

And we're holding the security back to no shots at the lions. That's not great. Yeah, yeah. Right. These are lions, let them hunt. Yeah. I think we have explained. Yeah.

We explained to the zookeepers that this is a matter of honor. I think that that'll be more than enough. They do have a code of honor. Yeah. They have a code. Yeah. Okay. So ordered.

Our next case comes from Lisa. Leisha writes, to the Supreme Crit Cuties and a guy with them. I think it's Jeremy. Super close. Jeremy and the cuties. Right? I present to you a battle case.

Our DM does not agree that a round takes six seconds, but instead one minute because a lot of things are done. By his logic, the barbarian rage will last only one round. When I point that out, she says, I'm nitpicking. What are your thoughts on the rounds? They're lodging. And how long they last?

Best wishes from a small town in Ukraine, lots of love. I mean. So this is simple. Yeah, yeah. This is just like, I think like, you can just like open a book, I think. The DM is just like, yeah, six seconds. But I mean, you guys are running around a lot. I would say, here's a power fantasy.

I see what the book says. It's crazy that the DM was just like, You can't nitpick because I'm already nitpicking. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. It is a power fantasy. So it's always very weird to just like take things away from your players and just be like, you're actually not allowed to do what your character is supposed to do.

But actually, no, if you watch an action movie with a battle, they really do do a lot really quickly. You could argue you could get more than two attacks in six seconds. Six seconds is actually a long time. Because like, you know, in a real battle, it wouldn't be all of us standing quietly while Emily did one thing. And then Caldwell does one thing. In a real battle, all of it happens kind of at once. I don't think I've ever not done something for six seconds in my life. A long time.

Right. Even sitting still for six seconds, you're like, oh, my God. I'm breathing like 12 times. I think we should count to six right now and just see how long it feels. Okay. One, two, three, four, five, six. Yeah, Emily punched me in the neck three times. And that was no Mississippi.

Yeah. a superhero like to be a D-Kard. And Emily's still in a rage. She's still so mad. She's still so freaking pissed off. Yeah, I could do a bonus action and an action. Yeah. I could run up to a guy, punch him, and then unbuckle my belt.

I like for role playing purposes to make the rounds seem a little bit longer. Because if you have like the, you know, I don't know, you have your bad guy say something. I kind of imagine these battles as being like Dragon Ball Z fights where like the actual turns are when you do something cool. But otherwise you are still just like tussling. There's pause. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Curl and Master Roshi slowing it down.

Yeah, right, right. You're blocking, you're parrying, and then it's your turn. It's like, that's your attack going on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a really good thing. Totally. Yeah. So, like, there is a world where you're like... But everybody has this different, like, movie happening in their head.

And what you have to revert to is what the book said. You have to keep the rules for, like, the fight, I feel. But as far as it, I don't know, if there was a version where the DM was like, oh, there's a battle happening. And during this battle, this other thing happens. And if you were like, it's only been 18 seconds, that I think would be a little nitpicky. But as far as using your abilities and shit, that's bullshit.

Also, like, also, I think that it's worth pointing out that all of the spells and abilities are designed with rounds being six seconds in mind. So if they really want it to be a minute, then they need to adjust the duration of spells. Yeah, right. Yeah. I'm just picturing this DM playing like Final Fantasy or Pokemon or something, being like, why are they just standing there? What's going on?

They can't get over like the basic abstraction of time that is required to play an RPG. You know what you're right. I would say like there are definitely like final fantasy battles where my round takes more than a minute. Yeah, because I'm looking at all my spells. I'm looking at my items. Yeah. Cloud is going so fast. The problem with like rage exists in the opposite end already.

It's like I've never been really pissed off and like calmed down in a minute. Yeah. It already just should be longer. Yeah. It's like, yeah, two weeks. And then it turns, it goes from rage to kind of like resentment. Right, yeah.

Barbarian has entered resentment. Barbarian has to go take a shit and look at their phone for an hour. I'm trying to think of what resentment would be. I feel like it's striking with like, it's got to be like disadvantaged, distracted strike. I was going to say that it's like disadvantage on charisma checks because everyone just senses you're foul.

Yeah. That'd be really fun to find, make like an intelligence style barbarian with resentment. and they just get like petty revenge. Yeah. Grudge, like, oh, I never forget a slight. Yeah.

It's the passive-aggressive-aggressive-barian. Oh, I'm incensed now. I'm incensed. I also think someone can double-check me on this. I think that the new D&D, I think that the rage is last for 10 minutes. Whoa. There you go.

I'll check that out. You get 10 minutes, and what this DM is sort of arguing is that it actually lasts about six seconds. Yeah, like mechanically. Like, come on. Yeah, that's wild. Ten minutes makes sense for rage. 10 minutes really does make.

sense for a rage. Yeah. Because it's like, that's enough time to like you, you get it out, you have a snack. You're still feeling, you are still feeling resentable.

Yeah, you're like, you're, you'll stay angry. Right. You'll stay like, but you can kind of go into the, man, that was crazy. That was crazy.

Yeah. I'm above this isn't who I am. Right. I would say around minute nine, you're getting there. Yeah. Your breathing is returning. I do think about once a day,

but this isn't the real me. The other 23 hours, 50 minutes, that's who I am. But also part of being in a rage is that. is that you have to hit or get hit so imagine the whole time you're also getting punched. Yeah. Just make bad. Keep in the range. Right. The tricky part is

it does say in 2024 you have to find a bed and just kind of flopping it angrily to end the range. Enter tantrum. Yeah. You need a snack to leave the range. You need to yell into a pillow. You don't shout they don't get me. You have to scream, fuck everyone to no one.

Just say, this. This is fucked as you house pretzels. I love the idea in like an argument in your marriage, going to your room and yelling they don't get. I'm curious what the time for every, I'm sure it's different for everyone. If someone was hitting you for 10 minutes, even if you're not fighting back,

you're just getting hit for 10 minutes when you would switch from a rage to what the fuck is happening? Yeah. You're still okay. You're just getting hit. How are they doing this? Yeah, way before 10 minutes for me, I think. I think by the third punch, I'm like, this is my life now. Yeah.

It was always true. I think you're describing torture. There is a world. If like a really old person was, if I was just like online at the grocery store and a real old person just like kept punching me and you like, stop. Stop. Yeah. I'm trying to buy popcorn.

Yeah. You couldn't punch back because it looked so bad. I definitely wouldn't punch back, but I also was a good. gonna be like, I'm not gonna back down, I'm gonna stay in life. Maybe you'd grapple them. Well yeah, I think you would. Oh, that's really good.

But you can't even grapple them because they're so old. So you'd have to kind of just like. I was trying to be. You're just blocking with your little like, with your cart thing. Yeah. Actually, I think now we have to all each go around

and say what we would do to neutralize an old person if they hit us at the grocery store. Right. This is like the weird. We've all thought about it. Oh yeah. This is the weird sort of fantasy. Double leg take down into a elbow.

Go on. I think I would in an ideal world I'd duck a punch and then try and get behind them and not go for a rear naked choke I try to pin their arms behind them Oh that's good

That's nice I think I'd just be like I voted for Romney I'm a Romney voter Just tell them a hurtful truth The rage is instantly cancelled Shake my hand I feel like I would just like be What I would do is I would keep saying quit it

Quit it and I would just like Casually make my way over to the and like throw heavier stuff at them. Oh, that's actually good. I think if you back, if you back away kind of knocking like watermelon. Yeah. Like they're not going to be able to get through.

Yeah, that's difficult terrain. Yeah, that's difficult terrain. That's good. That's ball bearings. That's real life ball bearing. That's right. A big like bushel of grapes.

Yeah. Just pull them off the buttons. Knock over a fruit stain like a Hong Kong action. Yeah. Yeah, I think I'd do like a bad Jackie Chan. That's what I'm getting out. Yeah. Take like salami and I'm trying to block their attacks with that stuff like that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. do hilarious business with a ladder. All while being like, I'm so sorry. Quit it. Yeah, this is great. I think that's my approach.

Branson, what are you? I like where your head's at with the Romney thing, because I do think the idea of striking an old person makes me want to like genuinely cry. Like, it's so disgusting to me. I think it would probably roll like a real life like history check. Oh. I know about Bing Crosby.

Yeah. Like we're the same. Try to get on their level. Yeah. I like Buck Bunny. Yeah. Dick Van Dyckson, all right. I never had any grandparents.

I've always sought an intergenerational friendship. Whoa. And then you go for a hug. Yeah, yeah. It's like fucking clocky. Yeah, it's a fight, flight, freezer fawn. That's the other.

It would fawn. I think I would tell on them. Right. Oh, that's to the cash sheet. Tattle. Whoa. Yeah, people forget about tattles. Tattle's another one.

This guy's hitting me. Yeah, I would defend myself with my cart, get it in between the hazard trying to punch me like mounted combat yeah like hey are we gonna do something about this guy manager I would say in a masculine way so it didn't seem like I was tired

it's not like I'm hurting my feelings you're not saying I need help you're calling everybody else about doing this situation of this grocery store has gotten out of hand they don't understand me

this is Fox I guaranteeing old person would be like, the situation has gone out of the And I'll curse so everyone knows I'm a cool dude. I pulled my pants up and be like, you like this, right? Yeah, you know, you guys hate sagging, remember? Oh, your day, your butts out. Let's talk about wars.

Yeah, just all of them. Yeah. Which I support them all. What the hell were we talking about? Oh, punishing this DM, who says the rounds are a minute long. Oh, God. So we're going to. Yeah.

All right. Oh. You got to survive 10 minutes in a grocery store of old people. That's great because, yeah. I mean, maybe the skanker from the Boston is like 65 now. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. He could still wallop you.

Yeah, yeah, I think so. I know, but the issue with the elderly attack is that, um, is that you're like, oh, this is, this looks bad if I fight back. Yeah. So now this DM has to deal with, I'm getting skanked on by someone in the AARP. Right. And they're like, hey, we're going to stop this guy? And everybody's like,

No, he's just having a good time. Oh, you know, we do. So, yeah, I think the guy in the Boston's is too young to be old enough to not do any damage. Yeah, I think with how fast he skanks, I think he could hurt you. I'm going to find out his age. Yeah, let's find out his age. Skank's a dizzying speech. Yeah.

What do we think about maybe like a, um, so skanking does keep you young. Yeah, it's true. I found. But what, yeah, it's new jogging. It's a super old guy. You know I'm 71? It's a super old guy in a suit. Yeah.

That is going to skank at you and hit you. And then we hire someone else to be at the girl. store who keeps saying is that the dancer guy from the mighty mighty boss tones he seems a little old but I think that might be him yeah he could maybe be keeping time he could be like emceeing this event so I think that it needs to be sort of like a mr. beast style game where we're just like slowly putting more and more old people in the grocery store this guy is pretty he's pretty young yeah how old you guys want to get oh my god it's pretty when did when did Ben Farr come out okay

I think he's sorry I shouldn't say that he's pretty young surprisingly he's younger than I thought he was. I want to say surprisingly young. 52. 48? Yeah. The youngest he could be. Yeah. 23. Honestly, I feel like I'm five years old. Wait, I want to array. I would strike from the record that I was surprised at how young he was. Take that out of your out of your mind. But I did. You struck it from the record. No, it's struck from the record. I'm skewing people too low. He's a skank and baby. We got it. Is he 57? Yeah, late 50s. I think I'll go 58. I'll price is right. Yeah. I'll still go

low. I'll say 48. I'm staying with 52. Okay, Murph's right. Whoa. On the money. Wow, yeah. That is pretty young. His name is Ben Carr, ladies of the challenge. Yeah, I don't think you can join A.

Barr could still kick your house. Yeah, he kicked by skanking at you. Wow, he's got a lot of skanking left in his life. Okay, so we have to remove him from this punishment. Yeah, yeah. He's there. You get your, you get skanked on my old person in front of. The punishment occurs in 20 years.

Oh, that's the, that's good. Some day, not today, not tomorrow. Ben Carr is going to come skank on that. That's awesome. Yeah. Prepare yourself for seven, no, eight years from now

when he is officially a card carrying ARP. Yeah. One day your happiness will turn to ash in your mouth when you hear Ben Carr skanking towards you. This is, this is brilliant. We should do more punishments

that are curses where we just like point a finger at someone who says like, one day Ben Carr will skank you to death. You're dropping your daughter off at college. Like, steps what's that can you imagine if the if like the shoes too like obviously checkered bands or whatever but if they had like little little heels oh oh okay so you get said this dam's gonna be killed all right uh okay we said skank to that yeah yeah yeah if anything this is actually merciful

it's faster yeah you'll hear trumpets on the wind and you'll know okay so ordered and with that shall we step into church yeah so we're gonna do a confession now oh great yeah yeah I got sins. Oh yeah, and usually it's someone else's, but if you got something you want to get off your chest. Oh, sure. Just like a regular sin too, not d-d-related. Oh, yeah.

I steal a lot. Pushed down an old man. Maybe just like not holding the door open for a woman with a stroller. Oh, no, I steal, but I do that from the baby. I steal the stroller, but I hold the door open. I'll steal like the kid's sippy cup or whatever. I hold the door open. He can't appreciate it.

I like milk because it's a good distraction while I steal. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And it's fair because those kids are not eating all those Cheerios. So yeah, that's true. They're getting everywhere. They're making them everywhere. They're making a mess.

Like Branson's going to take care of those. All right. This confession comes from Jared W. Honorable priest of dice Christ, I bring to you all a confession. For the last two years, I've been running a campaign for my partner and three of our friends. All of these great people share one not so great character trait. They're all very forgetful. Hoping to counteract this trait, I now open every session with a Nadpot style recap.

And I've provided each of them a brief, or cheat sheet and I've gotten into the habit of printing and laminating custom item cards for every single item they get. Whoa! That's awesome! Hero! Sounds awesome. During a recent session, my players asked to loot a dungeon that I'd forgotten to prepare loot for. So I rolled a random loot generator that I found online and began spouting off what they found before actually reading the description of the items myself.

One of these items were the gauntlet of ogre power. Oh yeah. A wondrous item that instantly boost the wearer's strength score to 19. Our three friends all have decent strength already, 18, 18, and 16. So they offered the gauntlets to my partner, a warlock, knowing she loves loot and has a low strength score. My butthole clenched in this moment, as I realized this would make strength her third stat sitting at 19. She already has 19 con, 19 charisma due to rolling three sixes twice during character creation. So not wanting to give my partner the ability to want me more than she already does, I did something treacherous.

I simply did not make an item card for the gauntlets. as hoped and expected. The next session went swimmingly, as did every session after. And not a single person has mentioned these gauntlets, and my partner's strength score remains a lowly 12. However, I can't help but wonder if I have sinned against dice Christ by taking a page out of my player's book and, quote, forgetting something to make my life easier.

Forgive me, I beg. I think you're fine. I really think you're fine. You've gone so above and beyond. I think you're fine. Can I make a counterpoint, though? I don't think it's that big a deal if your warlock has 19 strength. Yeah.

They're not just going to go around punching people. No, no, no. It's for strength saves. Think about that. Oh, twice there too, yeah. Suddenly it means that, like, they have really good strength saves. They have really good athletics checks now. Yeah.

Okay. But if they don't have proficiency, they're still going to get womped nine times out of ten. I feel like you should have at least printed out the card and then just like had it there in case they ever asked. Printing out the card is going above and beyond. Yeah. Yeah. You gave it, you gave it to them.

You're just doing what's normal. You simply went 50% of the way rather than your normal 70%. Yeah. You're fine. That is a really good point. Like, they could have written it down.

They could have changed their stats and the fact that they didn't just means like, yeah, you've already done your job. You didn't recone anything. You gave them the gauntlets. You've gone so above and beyond and all this sounds so sweet. And if they,

I have a feeling if they went to you and said, oh, don't I have those gauntlets? You'd be like, yes, and then print out the thing. Yeah, yeah. I thought this was going to be that you changed it, that you changed its abilities, and I was actually going to be okay with that. Yeah, I would have been fine with that too.

Yeah. I think you get into Costanza territory if they come to you and you're like, what are you talking about? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I should do that. But I also don't think you would based off of everything you've said. Oh, I have a low opinion of you. I think you would do it.

Your players are lines. That's why they forget. They're in the moment. They don't have language. Your players are lines. Let them hunt. This is the tough thing about items, though. Sometimes you get really excited.

I guess in this instance, you were not excited because you forgot to come up with items to them. But like, you give players items all the time. I do. I love giving items. Yeah, yeah. They will come back and bite you. Which is just kind of part of it. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm a little bit of two minds because I'm like, it's nuts that you have to do all the work as a DM. And then your players can't even write down what they have. But you are also training your players to be like that by like handing them sheets all the time. I think that, but I think that this is the only way for them to get the most out of the experience. Yeah, that's fair. And if this one situation, you're like, I'm going to wait to see if they ask for the laminated card. Yes. Ultimately, you're already doing a ton of work.

You just decided not to do this bit of work. And that's fine, because they should have done it. Yeah. So, you're good. You're good. You're totally good. So forgiven. So forgiven.

No one's skanking on you. No one's skanking on you. By the way, I think when you give your. players an item and it's a cool item and they never touch it until that finally yeah oh by the way i've got this i hate it it's like enjoy play with it a little yeah refresh my memory before it comes out of no yeah yeah you forget about it for six months or whatever and then they bust something out and you're like oh yeah i did give you a scroll of teleportation now you just don't have to fight this dude fuck i think i haven't dm'd enough to be annoyed by that because so far when someone remembers an item

that I forgot, I'm just like, you remembered. Yeah, sure. It's a fun callback sometimes. It's definitely not like an actual problem. It's just like enough of a like, yeah, come. You get into like the actual gift-giving mindset of being like, I got you this. Yeah. In our first campaign, they had a fight.

It was only like episode like nine or ten or something like that. And it was like it was the Duttle potion, like Professor Dulligan was a potion. And it was a potion that gave you a long rest. And the reason I did that is because they had just. been into a fight and I was like, but narratively, this thing has to happen that night. So I'll give them this potion. And they were all just like, I actually have a lot of HP. I'll just, we'll just save it.

And so they just had a free long rest like whenever they wanted. When did we use it for? You just used it like in the middle of a major fight. And we're just like glug, glug, glug. I have all of my spells back and I'm at full HP while I'm fighting someone. Yeah. My actions are just back. Thanks, dude.

Yeah. Thanks, man. That was sick. There's the thing on Root Tales Or anytime we jump forward in time Joe Lepore will just He'll be like oh and while we were out I acquired the blade of eternal slumbers

And I've started It's like you gotta just let him do it Because he only ever uses He's like then he's like well I cheated to get this So I'll only use it at like a time when it's really funny Never like actually get out of trouble That to me is the ideal circumstance It's like oh yeah he had a huge like cloud strife

Like sword on his back the whole time See honestly that's really that's great storytelling because it's like, where'd you get that? I want to know. I want to know what this side quest was. Oh, yeah. Well, what I really like about it, he's just like, oh, I got it from the dream lord. No further elaboration. He needs to make stuff up. Yeah, it's just a good guy at a party who's just got a cloud strife sword and I'd be like, so yeah, I want to know more. Where'd you get that, man? Hey man, not tonight. I'm trying to just have fun. Okay, sorry. I will say since joining the D&D space, odds of being at a party with someone with a cloud strife sword. Way up. Way up. Yeah.

We really have. I'm just saying, like, if you're wearing the cloud strife store, I'm going to ask you what the materia is. Like, and I feel like it's rude of you not to tell me. Yeah. I'm sorry if, like, you're tired. I'm sorry if you're just trying to, like, hang out. And you're sorry if Caldell is drunk and he's grabbing your wrist.

I'm just saying, tell me what it is. Is it Blasaga? I need to know. It's clearly restoration, magic screen. With that, we're going to go ahead and wrap this one up. Thank you all so much for listening. Thank you, Branson, Reese. Thank you for having us.

Do you have anything you'd like to play? Oh, Root Tales of Magic, my podcast. Yeah. We play D&D. It's a blast. Yeah, but listen to that. Listen to, oh, these those stars of space, our sister show. We play Lasers and Feelings.

It's a Star Trek pastiche. And would it kill you to read Swam Boy? Read Swam Boy. I'm going to say, I'm going to jump in on this plug. It's my favorite webcomic online. Oh, my God. Thank you so much. It's been kicking off right now.

If you're waiting to get in on Swan Boy, Noel goes to Hooters. is the art for you. Oh, thank you. We're going to hang out with Branson more over on our Patreon. Patreon.com slash Nadpod. That's N-D-D-P-O-D-D-O-D don't sing yet. All right. You can follow us on social media that may or may not use.

At C.H.4S. Me, at Caldysk, At Al-Exredd-E-R-E-R-W at Chaldexerwood. And Branson, where can people find you? You can find me. I'm all over the place. I'm, uh... If you should search my name online, I'll come along. I'll go. I'll search for Branson-R-R-R-E-S.

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