Smosh Mouth - #61 - In The Mind Of The Dungeon Master w/ George Primavera

Episode Date: September 9, 2024

Amanda and Shayne bring on the mastermind behind Smosh's TTRPG adventures George Primavera to talk all about being a professional Dungeon Master! For FREE breakfast for life go to https://hellofresh.com/freesmoshmouth! 0:00 Intro 1:39 Meet George Primavera! 11:19 Getting into Dungeons & Dragons 31:14 Shayne’s one shot campaign 43:19 Improv and luck’s place in TTRPGs 53:22 Dread talk! SUBSCRIBE: https://smo.sh/Sub2SmoshCast WEAR OUR JOKES: https://smosh.com WHO YOU HEAR Shayne Topp // https://www.instagram.com/shaynetopp/ Amanda Lehan-Canto // https://www.instagram.com/filmingamanda/ George Primavera // https://www.instagram.com/dmgeorge_primavera/ WHO YOU DON’T HEAR (usually) Director: Selina Garcia Editor: Andre Gardere Producer: Amanda Lehan-Canto, Shayne Topp, Selina Garcia Production Designer: Cassie Vance Art Director: Erin Kuschner Assistant Art Director: Josie Bellerby Art Coordinator: Alex Aguilar Prop Master: Courtney Chapman Audio Mixer: Scott Neff Director of Photography: Brennan Iketani Camera Operator: James Hull Assistant Director: Amanda Barnes Executive Vice President of Production: Amanda Barnes Production Manager: Alexcina Figueroa Production Coordinator: Zianne Hoover Operations & Production Coordinator: Oliver Wehlander Production Assistant: Ovsana Tsaturian Post Production Manager: Luke Baker DIT/Lead AE: Matt Duran IT: Tim Baker Director of Design: Brittany Hobbs Graphic Designers: Ness Cardano, Monica Ravitch Senior Manager, Channel & Strategy: Lizzy Jones Channel Operations Coordinator: Audrey Carganilla Director of Social Media: Erica Noboa Social Creative Producer: Peter Ditzler, Tommy Bowe Merchandising Manager: Mallory Myers Social Media Coordinator: Kim Wilborn Talent Coordinator: Selina Garcia Operations PA: Katie Fink CEO: Alessandra Catanese EVP of Programming: Kiana Parker Coordinator Producer of Programming: Marcus Munguia Executive Coordinator: Rachel Collis OTHER SMOSHES: Smosh: https://smo.sh/Sub2Smosh Smosh Pit: https://smo.sh/Sub2SmoshPit Smosh Games: https://smo.sh/Sub2SmoshGames El Smosh (Spanish Dub): https://smo.sh/Sub2ElSmosh FOLLOW US: TikTok: https://smo.sh/TikTok Snapchat: http://smo.sh/OnSnapchat Instagram: https://instagram.com/smosh Facebook: https://facebook.com/smosh Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Get 25% off at ritual.com slash clinical. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Hey, welcome to Smosh Mouth. I'm Shane. And I am Amanda. And we have a very, very special guest. You guys have seen him. It's George. Oh, hello. Hi, George. What's going on? Thanks for having me. Of course. Duh. In your warm abode. I know. And you've been at this table before.

I have. You have ran. In this seat. Yep. The last one that you ran was Smosh versus Zombies. And a new one, Smosh versus Aliens, which stay tuned for the last episode of that, which will be coming out right after this.

And you and your friend Nick both also, you first came in to help us out with Sword AF. Yes. You guys, we needed some, we wanted some D&D experts to come in and like assist all of us in how to play and how to run it. And so you guys have been here ever since. But Dread has been so much fun. Oh, good. It's a blast to come play with you guys. That was so cool doing zombies. I didn't know what to expect. ever since, but Dread has been so much fun. Oh good, it's a blast to come play with you guys.

That was so cool doing zombies. I didn't know what to expect, and it's so trippy to be just sitting at a table with like, kind of nothing in front of you, except for the Jenga tower, and that's it. Otherwise you're just telling a story. Getting thrown in with no character sheet is wild. Yeah, I kind of loved that.

I mean, I loved having the character sheet when we did Sort AF and you guys really, like, went over what we needed to do and stuff like that. But it was so nice to go in with, like, a character that we all know,

like a 2000s high school popular girl who I played and we all got to choose these characters that we all know and love. Yeah, the session zero of that was very fun. So good. Everybody coming up with all and love. Yeah, the session zero of that was very fun. So good.

Coming up with all their nonsense. So good. So you do a ton of Dungeons & Dragons things. That's like your job, right? My bread and butter. It is weirdly my job now, yeah. Multiple, like you do multiple jobs in this sphere. I do.

So I, yeah, I have a podcast that I produce with my friend, Nick called hero club, where we take our D and D sessions, we record them live and then we mix them down with sound effects and music. So they kind of read like audio dramas, but they were recorded playing a game for like alive. So cool.

And then I do a show with critical role called the Reese layers take, which is a same kind of thing. We, we took our Hero Club formula and put it into the Critical Role universe of Exandria, which is completely surreal and amazing. Then some amazing Dread games

with you guys, and I do a bunch of miscellaneous stuff in the game space. So you are... How many D&D games are you playing a week week typically? Five right now. Whoa! Five right now.

Five different ones or like? Different ones. And you're also editing. And I'm editing. You're editing and producing. Full-time editing. Full-time editing, full-time producing. I have a dog.

I have a little dog. You have a little dog. I have a little dog that I've not seen because I'm playing D&D. I have no time. And you're playing five D&D games. Oh, yeah. Wait, what are those? How many of those are for fun and how many of those are for work?

All for work right now. Do you ever play D&D for fun anymore? It is fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of the same as like. I know, yeah, my hobbies got obliterated. I pointed this out the other week where I'm like, I realize I rarely play board games at home. I'm like, but I play them so much here.

And I always have a blast playing them here. But I realize at a certain point that I'm like... What, are you going to go home and repeat the task? I know, that's also the thing. When you've played five D&D games, you're probably not like, hey guys, let's get one going after work today. You know, but honestly,

I have the craving for like a home game really hard. It's so hard to get people around a table that often. That's, I've still yet to play D&D like outside

of this sphere. Yeah. And that's the story I feel like I hear all the time is from anyone who plays D&D of like getting

the group together is so impossible. Well possible scheduling even even scheduling a freaking improv troupe is like saving the world you're like all right we've got the date and then someone's like I'm sick and at least improv it's like if you're like pursuing acting or something like that it's like a productive thing to be doing for your career you can be just saying like hey I got these shows going on and then take all of the like any kind of career advancement out of it and just be like, we're going to sit for four and a half hours and pretend to be fantasy characters. It's a hard like thing to make time for in your day. But, you know.

But it's amazing. The more isolated we become, the more important stuff like that is getting around the table together. Yeah, of course. Absolutely. How did you because it's such a unique career that I feel like didn't exist until probably like 10 years ago was when D&D became like a career for people. The renaissance. Before that, it was just a thing people did for fun. But how did you end up in this?

Yeah, so I was an actor like a lot of people who move out to LA. I was a musical theater performer in New York. Amazing. Yeah, amazing. Yeah, it was fun. I did a very quick off-Broadway thing and had a stage disaster that scared me off the stage for the next 10 years. What was it?

Can you talk about it? Yeah, I can talk about it briefly without going like, ugh. But it's not a big deal to talk about it, but to experience it was like 40 car crashes consecutively all in a row. It was like a five-minute patter song that I had to go on and sing just really fast. It was technically off-Broadway, so I got in my head about it being a big thing. Of course.

And I got on stage. The song started. I blanked for 30 seconds. Yep. And it is on a track. and it was me and the audience both wishing we were all not there yep uh and and then I got back on it and finished the song for like the last the four and a half minute patter song that it was but was like shaking like a leaf uh-huh and I was like the director the guy who would like who was his song and all

that I was like I'm so sorry. And he was like, yeah, well. And I went, yeah. And then I quit musical theater forever. I just got spooked out of it. And I was like, I. George. I got to be honest. I've never touched.

I don't have the ability. But musical theater always scared the shit out of me. Because every story I've heard about Broadway, off Broadway, I'm like, yeah, it's just the most terrifying industry that exists. It's begging for disaster. But also, I love musical theater. I will say, the blacking out and completely forgetting, it happens.

And it's definitely happened to me. I blacked out halfway through a whole sketch and my friend had to be like, who's in the sketch with me, staring at me. It is the worst feeling ever. You literally feel like you're drowning. You're like, I'm drowning. This can't possibly be real.

It feels like it lasts a decade, but it happens so much. I have close to moments like that. I mean, I definitely had a lot of auditions where I just failed so hard. So miserably. Countless times.

But it still happens sometimes when we're performing here at Smosh, especially when we do a live show or something where in my head I call it becoming conscious too much where you're suddenly aware of what you're doing and then it's like, oh no, I need to go

back. Stop thinking. Feel the flow. Feel the flow. Yeah, exactly. So I relate tremendously but I definitely, I definitely, that just is a real thing.

It's so real. So, okay. So anyway, we got out of there. You leave that. Unrelated, I was moving to Los Angeles already so I was kind of like,

well, I'm not going to pursue musical theater then in LA anyway. It's not like,, well, I'm not going to pursue musical theater then in LA anyway. It's not like, you know, there's a little bit of musical theater here that's great, but it's not as prevalent. It's not really. But I was already doing voiceover in New York and then

moved to Los Angeles. I was a waiter bartender for years and years, but was doing voiceover on the side. The pandemic came along. Me and we all got laid off during the COVID thing. Same, ditto. Yeah, it was 120 of us or something in the dining room, and they called 30 people out,

and I was like, those people are going to get laid off. And then they were like, you guys can go home to 110 of us. Yeah, was it March 15th? Yeah, that's the date. That's when I saved. I was trying to get out of work. They were like, you guys can go home for a couple weeks. And we thought, okay, we'll go home for a couple weeks and we thought

okay we'll go home for a couple weeks okay vacation two years or I never went back a year and a half later I never went back tried to go back

and had three panic attacks in a row because I just couldn't do it anymore of course yeah because your body you got out of the flow

the specials are what are they you know and I can relate so much and then I was on stage

sorry I want my chicken tenders I said Dijon yeah and it was so crazy hard

to get back in I was just like I can't do this anymore so I have to pivot and I just jumped into doing voiceover full time freelance

like online. Hell yeah. Barely made it work. Yep. And then. But it was a good time to do voiceover. But it was, it was,

everybody was kind of doing it, but everybody was sort of doing it without having gotten like all the equipment that I had already accrued. And like, I had a lot of knowledge about it already. Yours sounded a lot better. My, might've sounded a little better.

And I just also had been doing it already. A lot of people jumped into it without taking lessons and stuff. And that does matter when you're doing voiceover. Yep. So I did that for a little while. And then the Dungeons & Dragons stuff, all of a sudden, it had been kind of in the works for, I want to say, almost four years, doing D&D professionally.

And then it all sort of clicked uh during the pandemic we ran like this 45 person campaign and it was like a dnd immersion school for me and yeah 45 players eventually it became seven dms uh but for me for for the first month it was me running seven games a week every like one game a day every day holy crap yeah it was it was me running seven games a week every, like one game a day, every day. Holy crap. Yeah, it was, I mean, it was the best. It was like, pandemic, we got like the relief funds, so I was able to like, you know,

pay the bills. You said you had been doing it professionally for years before that. Yes, well, I'd like DM'd for private groups before. Got it. Yeah. Okay, so this wasn't like content, this is like. No, not content. Just going and running games for people. That's Got it. Yeah. Okay, so this wasn't like content. This is like... No, not content. Just going and running games for people. That's so fascinating.

Yeah. Online, it's just like... And now I've been playing with the same two groups for like two and a half years now. We play like almost weekly. Cool. Yeah, we've been through like...

Both groups have already been through a full campaign and we've started new ones. Wow. Right now, one of my groups is like, they're all level 18, where if you know D&D it goes up to level 20, so we're as like at the very bounds of what this

game can handle. From what I've heard I think you, maybe it was you and Nick who told me about it, like once you get to that point, it's like, it's silly town. Yeah. You're gods. You're just doing insane things, like you can destroy worlds. There's a ninth level spell,

which is the highest level spell in D&D called Wish. And there's a bunch of effects that it gives you. And then the last paragraph is like, or whatever you want, really. What? The DM will have to interpret whatever you wish for. You just can do whatever. Eventually you just get unlimited genie wishes, kind of.

That's incredible. Yeah, you're really just having a blast at that point. But it's a lot of fun if you're playing it with the right people. Yeah, of course. Now, are you always DMing these games? Always. When was the last time you played in a D&D game? The last time I played in a game as a player character

was a Hero Club project a while back that Nick DMed. I mean, professionally, anyway. I think the last time I actually played played was in a game where you DM'd, Shane. Yes. Which we can talk about a little bit. We will talk about that very soon. Yes, we will.

I played, like, of course, I got my first opportunity to play for, like, professionally. I went with the most anti-D&D character you can. I was, like, an accountant. Awesome. Was a bard. Wait, I love that.

And it was all about just like boring people to pay attention to me. You were like an energy sucker. Very much like a Colin Robinson. Yes, like vampire, energy vampire. So how did you get into D&D

in the first place? Nick and I were in college together. We listened to a podcast by Brian Poussain called Nerd Poker. Shout out Nerd Poker. It sounded like they were having so much fun and Nick and I played a drinking game to see

who was going to DM and I lost. And I went and bought the $100 worth of books and dice and stuff. Came back and taught everyone and it's been... That's so sick. So it wasn't like a childhood thing. This was something you picked up later on.

When I was a kid, I was like video game hardline into my veins obsessed. Yeah. And my parents put like this, you can only play two hours a day on Friday, Saturday, Sunday limit on us. So it was like Friday, I was on the bus like,

oh, here we go, playing Mario Kart, playing Madden, whatever game it was we were obsessed with. And it got to the point where, especially when I was younger, I would literally make board game versions of the game that I couldn't play to cope with not being able to play the video game. So you've been starting this journey of DMing and doing everything from the beginning. I was DMing before I even knew it. Yeah, right. You know what's funny? That's something I used to do too. Yeah, yeah.

I loved building board games. Now, I never finished them. Mario Party? Oh, I mean, I'm obsessed with Mario Party. But I was trying to make, and I realized I was trying to make like RPGs. I didn't have any frame of reference because I never played anything. Well, actually, that's a little bit of a lie. I did play D&D very briefly as a kid

because my brother had the Star Wars version oh yeah so he and I played like a couple sessions where we were like just a couple weird aliens on different planets doing stuff and I had such a blast he was a teenager, he had to go do teenager

things and I was a little kid but I remember just having a blast with that and then also my favorite board game was Hero Quest, which is like very, very bare bones D&D, I feel like. But I was often making maps and making lists of monsters and what their stats were. You were DMing Shane. There was no rules to it.

There was no actual logic or math to any of this. If I actually tried to run this, it would have been a mess. But I was telling my friends, I'm building this thing. We're going to have fun doing this. Never happened. So me playing Clue really set me up to play Dungeons & Dragons 2, right? Honestly, Clue is like logic deduction, and that's a huge element to playing D&D. I was obsessed with Clue.

Yeah. Absolutely. Anyways, pretty cool stuff over here. Were you a board game family? Yeah. Huge board game family. Like, we grew up, like, Settlers of Catan,

Monopoly. Wow. You grew up Settlers of Catan? Settlers of Catan, Monopoly, Clue. I suck at Catan so much. My mom is an intense

card gamer, too. She would have everyone over for a whisk, whisk, whisk, whisk, something, something.

Wish? She was really intense about that. Yeah. No, it wasn't risk. I feel like. It's like whisk or something. I feel like I. There's a million.

There's something where she would have like 20 friends over and we'd play card games. Whenever I talk to any old person, they always have a new card game I've never heard of. Yeah. That's gin rummy. No, we have a new card game I've never heard of. Yeah, that's gin rummy. No, we were a huge board game family. We just, my mom was really intense about TV. We had super restrictions on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But my little sister would play

video games, but it was like still very restricted. Yeah. Whist. Whist. Whist. Yeah, whist. Whist with a T, not whist.

How do you play Wist? I wasn't invited You weren't invited? No these were her and her friends Oh I played Backgammon forever I've never played Backgammon Oh I played my whole trip home

We had a summer of Backgammon It's great We were not much of a board game family I mean a little bit when I was really young But overall not much So a lot of these games I have only played here Like even games like Settlers of Catan I have hardly played in my I love Sett lot of these games I've only played here. Like even games like Settlers of

Catan, I have hardly played in my life. I've never played Risk. Never played... You hate Settlers of Catan. It's because my brother ruined it for me. Oh, really? Why, he stole all the wheat or something? Whenever he plays with me... It is a game of

manipulation. Let's just be clear. It's all manipulation. It's a game of tricking someone into giving you what you don't want if you haven't set up correctly. Yeah. So my brother will just be like, hey guys, George always wins this game and I never win the game

but I can't be like, no I don't, no I don't. He's like, he always wins. He's gonna win, guys. He just blank faces everybody at the table to making sure nobody trades with me or anything

and he wins every game. Okay. He wins every game of CineCity. That's just your brother manipulating you. He sets up an embargo against you. He gaslights me as hard as he possibly can across the table from me and gets the other four people

or other two people to absolutely stonewall me on trades. Settlers of Catan. The fact that that's possible makes me not like the game. Yeah, you can't play Settlers of Catan ever again. He's ruined it for me. My issue with Catan is

whenever I've played it, and I've only played against people who play a lot of it, so I'm screwed. But that's the problem with Catan is you'll play like, I'm like 30 minutes into like a two hour game,

and I'm like, well, I've lost. I can see that I've lost. I can see that these kingdoms are going to kill me. And I have to just kind of. Who do I screw? You're done.

Yeah, it is true. It just becomes a spite game. Like, alright, well I can People get pretty upset. Yeah. My family definitely

gets like holds real grudges. Really? Oh, we were also a Pictionary family. Woo! Oh, Pictionary can be hilarious.

Pictionary can be like storming out. Temptation rage. Like you. I feel like you're always you're most mad at your teammate in Pictionary. Is that a pig? What are you drawing? What is that? They're like, Iing out. Temptation rage. Like you. I feel like you're always, you're most mad at your teammate in picturing. Is that a pig? What are you drawing?

What is that? They're like, I had two seconds to draw a pig. I freaked out. Anyways. Love that stuff. So, wow. So you've basically been, you know, DMing since before you were DMing.

Seeds were there, yeah. And now, I will say, you're like a certain percentage of people that in covid you actually kind of flourished a little bit maybe yeah i mean it was definitely an opportunity to investigate how far something like this could go right like it became really important to all of us um just like the fantasy of it like and the escape like that was definitely a thing but also just like the uh i mean like all of my friend groups collided which is something that is completely crazy that i don't really it was so like my friend vinny from high school who i hadn't previously talking to and

talked to in 10 years because i just put a call out on social media people who i hadn't talked to him forever were like i'll play whoa but like he knows like my friends out here who I met within the last you know seven years. So weird. So just very bizarre. People were going on vacations together at a certain point when the things went up and I was like you with them? That's crazy. Yeah yeah. Wow. It was really not. You did that George. I know. They all went to like

Norway and things like that. Norway to see the trolls. Are these all people who didn't play much D&D before? Like you got them into it? Mostly. I think a lot of folks had played and definitely played a lot. But there were probably, I would say, like 20 people who it was like their first experience with D&D. Wow.

I feel like maybe it's because I'm in L.A. I don't know many people who play it like in their free time. But a lot of people do it now. I feel like the best way to play it is is to make it a job yeah so that everybody does get together to do it it's fun it's very different it's very different though because when you play for narrative on camera your priorities are just different yeah i i definitely felt that when we did it it added a lot of pressure to be like oh i have to be entertaining and's tough, because then you're not just trying to tell a story

for your own sake. You're kind of like thinking about how this looks. Whereas, so the idea of playing D&D just for fun with friends sounds so exciting, because then you get to just craft it for the people at the table. And you're not worried about, is the audience going to like this?

And you kind of also get to take the reins off and just be like, well we can just do whatever. Let's get wild. It can be stressful when you're making a video out of it. Isn't it interesting to do something that you love and it's now your full time job? Yes, it is interesting. It's such a specific thing too.

It is so specific. My parents don't understand. I was gonna say, do your parents A, know what you're doing? My mom's like, that's thing, too. It is so specific. My parents don't understand. I was going to say. Really? I was going to say, do your parents, A, know what you're doing? My mom's like, that's great, sweetie. And my dad's like, okay. Yeah. All right, sure.

Right, of course. I think they're very proud, but they don't really understand. Because you're one of less than 100 in your type of job, if you think about it. Probably. Of people who are probably working and able to sustain mostly off of that, right? There's a lot of online folks who I think probably make a living out of it who maybe don't do it for the forward-facing camera stuff.

Got it. But yeah, it's a niche but growing world, I think. Definitely. I mean, it was always a thing I knew about, but I feel like before these past 10 years, it was more of just kind of like a thing you'd hear offhand jokes about. Like, oh, Dungeons and Dragons.

The nerds who get together in their basement to play Dungeons and Dragons. But now it's become like the cool thing. Yeah, it's had its little renaissance. Stranger Things made it kind of cool. I know. I was playing way before Stranger Things. Yeah, of course.

At least Stranger Things made it sort of mainstream, talk-aboutable, and then Critical Role exploded. In Critical Role, there are two, Vox? Vox Machina and The Mighty Nein are their animated shows. Mighty Nein hasn't come out yet, I don't think, but Vox Machina's into its second, and I think they renewed, they're really going. And yeah, they exploded.

They opened the door for a lot of other people, like Dimension 20 is something that cropped up from the Dropout folks. I feel like internet DMs are these kind of like, they're very cherished people, you know? But I also feel like, you know. I don't know nothing about that. Yeah, yeah.

I feel like, I will just say, I feel like Brennan Lee Mulligan and Matt Mercer are people that everyone's just like, oh, they're just wonderful. They're gods, George. You say, I feel like Brennan Lee Mulligan and Matt Mercer are people that everyone's just like, oh, they're just wonderful. They're gods, George. You have people like Matt, Brennan, you've got Aabria Iyengar, Jasmine Bular, all of these incredible folks

who have made their name DMing, and they go to conventions and DM, they do live shows, they go to England and DM in a castle. I mean, some of those people do that. I feel like there's a certain personality trait that I feel like I see in all of them. And I see it with you too, which is, I think in order to do this, you have to be such an

like observant, you have to be a great listener and you have to be such a like open-minded person. You know, what's fascinating, like doing this with you and like when you were teaching us all this stuff, like there's just no wrong answers. And it's so fascinating because you'll try to throw something at you and you're just like, oh yeah, for sure.

My favorite moment in Dread was when Spencer, when I pop up as my second character as Ruben because my previous character had died, I pop up and Spencer, typical Spencer was like, yeah, and I blast with a flamethrower. And you're like, okay, yeah.

Okay. All right, let's move on. And everyone's like, uh, what? That's one of my favorite moments. I love that moment. I also feel like for me, someone who does comedy, like I feel like you also get the,

you get, you're like so funny. You like get it. You know what I'm saying? Oh, that's a good idea. No, truly. We're playing and we're playing like get it. You know what I'm saying? Oh, at that point, I didn't know about that. Well, we're playing and we're playing like 2000s and I'll say something

that feels like something only your close friends would get and you pick it up immediately and you bring it right back to me. That's a lot of credit to you guys though because you do set up these characters so clear that it's very easy to see where they're going.

No way, George. You're just so funny and so easy to play with. And I feel like that's such a gift to have as a DM. Yeah. And to also be like, okay, you made this decision.

Let's go for it. Like Spencer doing the flame throwing. And it's like, okay, it's such a specific skill. And I mean, it's, it's,

you don't realize until you, you try it. I mean, you know, Damien, it was his first time doing it. And I remember him talking about like, okay, this is going to be a lot and stuff. And like I mean, you know, Damien, it was his first time doing it. And I remember him talking about like, okay, this is going to be a lot and stuff.

And I feel like you saw him progress throughout the two seasons. And then I did, and we can talk about it here in a second. I did do a one-shot that I ran with you, Nick, and Alex Tron. And doing that, I was like, this is crazy. Oh, it was hard. This is really hard. Yeah. Shane, very good DM, everybody. like, this is crazy. Oh, it was hard. This is really hard. Yeah. Shane, very good DM, everybody.

Very, very good. Well, in the one session I did, but it was a lot of fun. But I also think I have a lot of respect for people who do it and really get down into the weeds of all the rules and stuff. And I've heard people talk about the different levels of playing D&D,

of like, if you play it really by the book with all the math and stuff. I've heard people talk about the different levels of playing D&D of like playing if you play it really by the book with all the math and stuff. Which I love. Yeah I've heard people talk about like oh it takes like certain moves to get your armor on. Uh huh. And I'm like. Ten minutes to put on heavy armor about a minute to put on medium. That's

I might yeah I think that that's right right? It might be five minutes to put on medium and one minute to put on light, but I can't remember. I feel like light armor would be a minute. Or his brain is filled with so much useless information. It's not useless. You're making a career out of it. It is very much about to be useless

because they're about to release a new edition that changes rules, and I'm going to have to disappear. So do people really have to stick with when they release a new thing? It's like, we got to do this. No, because you could easily just say, this is a D&D fifth edition campaign,

and you know you're going to be playing with that whole set. And who is releasing these new rules? Is it like two dudes in an office? It's Wizards of the Coast. It's two, what? That's the company. No, it's two wizards on a coast. It's two wizards who live on the coast.

Wizards of the Coast, they put out new additions to keep the game fresh. It's a good thing and a tough thing. Tough thing because sometimes it can come across like they're just sort of releasing new content to try to get people to buy more stuff. But then sometimes you look at those new rule sets and you're like, but that is an improvement on the rule set. And I do kind of want to like incorporate that into the game um i think and i also do think like despite it being a little bit like they're they're trying to like reinvigorate like their actual machine i do think it is good to keep the game relevant by keeping discussions alive about like what are better rules yeah so i do think it's also like a smart play to do that. And I do, I mean, I've looked at a little

bit of like what the new 5.5 or whatever it is is going to be, and I do like a lot of the stuff they've put in. I'll probably move on to the next edition. Is it just new rules, or do they add like new monsters and new things? Yeah, they'll reinterpret monsters sometimes, they'll add new ones, they'll mostly, the way this

one works is it's like 5.5. They haven't changed the core rule set, but they've changed a lot of how interactions work and some of the fundamental things that make a class feel the way it feels, they've changed. I saw someone talking once about, in one of the previous editions of D&D, that every monster had a morale-like thing.

Oh yeah. Where basically when you're fighting something, you roll this thing and it's like, it determines whether it's like, it decides it's gonna to try to run away from this fight or not. And I was like, that's cool and makes a lot of sense. Because nowadays you fight anything, it's like, yeah, it'll fight

you to the death. But it doesn't have to because if I as the DM am like, that thing is a monster and it doesn't have an intent to be here, at half hit points it's going to run. You know what I mean? So I'll know that in my head as like a, I'm going to let this thing bolt as soon as it realizes it's not going to eat right now. Right.

You know what I mean? Right. So yeah, it's sort of, the rules are as complicated as you want them to be, but also they can be as loose as you want them to be. That's sort of why I feel comfortable like breaking the rules, because I know the rules backwards. I can be like, well, I can institute a penalty for a failure if you're trying to bend the rules in this way. And all of a sudden we're wagering, and all of a sudden everybody leans in at the table of like, well, I can institute a penalty for a failure if you're trying to bend the rules in this way.

All of a sudden we're wagering and all of a sudden everybody leans in at the table of like, oh, what's going to happen? It could be bad. You know? So it's like a... Do you even have much fun playing or is DMing really actually a thing you enjoy? I've talked about this before.

I love DMing. I don't have as much fun playing as when I do DMing. Is that because you're watching the DM and going, mm-mm? Just kidding. Uh-uh. Man, you're really pooping the bed, my man. No, no, not at all. I really love the DM part of it is actually the fun part for me.

It's all the time in between where all the other players are doing their thing. My brain can't stop because I'm DM trained to be listening to everything. And I just I'm like, don't talk. You can't you can't like rest. You can't like just be in rest. But then again, you've DM something when we did a practice round and you really let us go for a while. Yeah. And you like let it happen.

I'm listening and I'm waiting. You're listening to everything. And as soon as I feel like it's time to like grab the reins again and like bring in the next stimuli to the narrative or whatever, I can. And it's not, you know, so there is a permissiveness to being a DM

that makes me feel less stressed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What makes doing it for content so hard, though, is you kind of have to keep it moving. And that's where I'm like, damn, to play it on your own time, then you get to really be like, wait, hold on, let's settle for a second and talk about this and stuff. Or longer.

But when you're doing it on camera, it's like, okay, I have to keep it going to a certain degree. I would say folks like Critical Role, they really breathe and take their time and do those big, long sessions, and people love that. And you have then folks like Dimension 20 who edit quite a bit harder than Critical Role. They really like going from pace.

They have a different pace. But that's because those are all comedy folks who came from an improv background and a sketch background. That are like, I'm tagging you out. Yeah, I'm tagging you. Next scene. Beats, beats, rhythms, rhythms.

And the CR people are like acting voiceover artists. And they are here to act. And also, they're all buds. They just hang. They're just hanging out. It's crazy how different the different ones are. We have coworkers here who are just such huge fans of some of them. Yeah.

The people who are diehards for Critical Role are diehards for it. I think Andre, I don't think he'll mind me saying this, but he's just like, I hardly watch movies or TV because I watch Critical Role. Well, it's great storytelling. That's what he's into. And you don't know what's going to happen. In a world where so many things are being

bought up by these huge corporations and everything is starting to kind of look the same. How refreshing is it? It's from someone's mind. Especially, I love watching them because they have such great voices. They give a voice and you already know the backstory of the voice without them

telling you about it. They already have clicked in and you're like, oh, I know this person. And then you don't even need to see it. I mean, it's really cool that they make some of their campaigns animated, but it's like, you don't even need to see it i mean it's really cool that they make them you know some some of their campaigns animated but it's like you don't even need to see it you're really listening whereas d20 is so fun as well but it it's also it's so different because it's like a long form improv yeah that you're with with with d with dungeons and dragons and it's like it's it's also feeds did you know that many products for pregnant women do not have their own clinical trials for safety or efficacy?

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or prevent any disease. My, like, appetite, because it's like, oh, jump, jump, jump, jump. They're both, I think, like, really amazing examples of two slightly different styles of play, but, like, really, like, they still share the heart

of, like, D&D is, you know, it's like they love it. You can tell, like, Brendan and Matt, when they go in to play a game, likeD. It's like they love it. You can tell Brendan and Matt, when they go in to play a game, heading those games, they are inspired every time they get around the table, which is really a gift. It's such a fun thing.

I feel like we can get into the... People don't know this. Our fans don't know this because I haven't talked about this. The fans don't know. This is exclusive. Months ago, this was last year um uh while in between the first season of sword af in the second season i pitched to spencer and alex i was like

hey what if i did a one-shot campaign what if i because i it sounds really fun i'm really enjoying dnd like i think i'd have a lot of fun dming because i have storytelling and i was like what if we just do this one shot and we're like okay we talked about doing it um I will say just off the bat it didn't end up happening for scheduling reasons we we definitely overbooked ourselves uh here at Smosh for a while yes we did and so a lot of things couldn't happen and we also were just exhausted and we're like we don't understandable but I actually am so grateful for this experience that I planned a whole campaign and I actually ran it with you, Nick and Alex Tron. And so basically I got to experience all of it. So I bought all the stuff.

I bought the books and everything. I was reading through them because it brought back memories of when I was a kid, like what I was into of trying to create these things. Nothing better. And I love looking at stat sheets. Like, I love that stuff. That's so fun. And so I'm looking through. I'm looking through the rules.

I'm looking through the monsters. And I have this plan. And basically what Spencer and Alex kind of pitched that I like, too, was in the first season of Sword AF, we're playing as these, like, loser heroes. We're the underdogs. And in one of the first episodes, we come across a team of cool mercenaries. I remember.

The stereotypical heroes. Like bro mercenaries. They're the jocks. We're the nerds. They're the jocks. But you kind of only see them a couple times. They're just kind of like the douchebags who make fun of us.

They're like, we just killed a Kraken. What are you guys up to? And we're like, we're heading to bake pie. Hello? We're up to nothing. And so we wanted this one-shot campaign to be about them, the stereotypical heroes. Yes. And so

we, I was planning this whole story and what I decided is they're all at a tavern and they're, they've just kicked some ass, they're hanging out there and then suddenly this demon guy shows up. But he's kind of cool looking. He's like a Mr. Rogers-esque type of guy.

Silver Fox guy. Twilight. Yeah, very much. He's got a pipe. He's got silvery hair. He's wearing a cardigan. He's DMing right now. I'm doing it.

I'm like, where's my stat sheet? I don't feel ready. He shows uping right now. I'm doing it. I feel it. I'm like, where's my stat sheet? I don't feel ready. He shows up to them, and time freezes around them. He's this very powerful demon. And he's like, hey, you guys are heroes. You're some of the most powerful heroes in the world. And my son, who's 13, is a huge fan of heroes. So it's his birthday birthday and for his birthday,

all he wanted was to hang out with some heroes. So if you want to come with me to the underworld and hang out with my son for the day, I love the underworld and, and just make his birthday the best birthday. Yeah. I will grant you whatever you want. Like,

well, and he's like, but he does want him, he's like, my son is a douchebag, like, let me be clear. My son is a piece of shit, he is the son of the devil, so just, you know, whatever. He's not the actual devil, I named this guy, his name was Merlot, just for fun. Oh God, the wine that like, didn't do well. And then I called the, I called his name.

Sideways ruined. Exactly. Yeah, right? I had a lot of fun with the puns, like the neighborhood is the bad manners, because it's all like... Imagine a gated community, but for demons. Come on, the puns, man.

Yeah, it was so many puns. DMing is 80% puns. I love it. So they go, and they're at this mansion, right? And the mansion is also... Down the street is where Merlot has a casino and a stand-up club and all this stuff, a nightclub that he runs for all the demons. So basically the idea was they'd be left there with the son. And the son then very quickly is like, I want to kill my dad and overthrow him and become the leader of the underworld.

Wait, I love this. So it's kind of a choice of like, they need to help because it was like, hey, they were told to do whatever for the son. So the campaign is, how do we help the son overthrow his dad? Succession in the underworld. Literally.

So that was my plan. I planned out the map. I planned out like, here's every room in this mansion. Here's the underworld. So that was my plan. I planned out the map. I planned out like, here's every room in this mansion. Here's the casino. Here's the bar and the standup club. Here's all the monsters that are in every single place.

And I kind of, I was just having fun creating this world. And so I was like, okay, I got this. I know how this will go. I know how it'll end. Oh, that's good. Jordan's like, yeah, good luck with this. I know how this will go. I know how it'll end. Oh, that's good. Jordan's like, yeah, good luck with that. I know how it should end.

And I'm also, my big fear was, I'm like, is this going to be too hard? Because I threw in a ton of crazy monsters. But I'm like, but they all live here. You're in the underworld. So these monsters aren't going to just come out and attack you. But I put in like, I looked through the book and I was like I was picking the biggest, toughest monster. And so George, Nick, and Alex are playing. What kind of character, what were you?

I was playing like a wizard. Yes, you were a wizard. You were like this old wizard. Wizards on the coast? You were this old wizard. George, or Nick, Nick played as a paladin who was the most righteous paladin of all time god he starts off servant of the light and i'm like okay and i told you guys i was like i want

you guys to try to mess this up as much as possible i was like throw throw everything at me so that i'm prepared for anything so i they knew that this story takes place in the underworld i think i had briefed you guys on that. So the first thing out of Nick's mouth when we start this campaign is, and I will strike any undead being I see. Like, I refuse to not attack them. Stop. I was like, great.

So this all takes place in the underworld. You're like, thanks. It's gonna be that. Basically, you're gonna attack everything you see. And then Alex was a rogue. And so they start off in the tavern. I'm like, yeah, you see this lady by the bar. She's got a nice necklace on, whatever.

And Alex is like, I'm going to steal it. And I'm like, okay, we're just doing this. You guys immediately got into a fight right there at the bar and beat up a guy. But then I get you guys to the underworld. And just the way you're acting towards everything was just insane. I had to keep being like, okay, change of plans.

We had a mission to mess it up. I will say. You had a mission. You did. That was amazing. I had plans for how all this, I had laid all these things because basically what I hoped that they would infer

and figure out is the goal is to make the son believe in himself. If he believes in himself, he can become whatever he wants because he's a super demon. Now I left like motivational books all over the place. I left like all sorts of things that infer they did not give a shit about any of it, but they come to the, they,

they go to the son's room and he is trying to be a Twitch streamer is my whole thing. He was streaming on Lich. God! And how do you not glom onto that as a player immediately? So I'm like, he's a Twitch streamer. That's the whole thing. He's a Twitch streamer, and I was like, but that was kind of like,

I had not put much thought into that other than, yeah, he's just playing Twitch. That's when you find him. And you guys immediately are like, let's take the Twitch setup with us. Let's record everything we do and make him the most famous Twitch streamer. And I was like, you got it. Like that's what we're doing now.

And that became the whole focus of this campaign, this practice session that we did, and I had not prepared for any of that. So the entire time, you guys would do anything. And he'd be like, all right, let's turn to the camera and strike a pose. Let's start a hype train. And I was like, roll to do that. And he'd be like, all right, let's turn to the camera and strike a pose. Let's just start a hype train.

I was like, roll to do that. And I don't know the rules. So you guys would roll. You'd be like, we rolled a 13. I'm like, yeah. You're like, I'm just going to. OK. Sure.

And it goes insane. It gets to a point where I'm like, they roll up to the casino. And a valet opens the door for him. I'm like, it's like a skeleton valet opens the door. And Nick is just like, and I strike him immediately. They just, they,

instead of my, I had planned in this casino, I had, I had cards. I had dice with me that they could go into this casino and play any casino game they wanted. And I would have been prepared to do all of that. They could have gone to the standup club. They could have gone to the stand-up club. I had all these things, but no.

They burst into this casino attacking everything immediately. Dude, release the tapes. You don't have it. You don't have it. It was a practice session. Fans are going to want you to do a one-shot. Would you ever do another one-shot?

If I did a one-shot, I would want to do something different. Because basically, this ties in so much to Sword AF. What happens is they cause so much of a ruckus that I had to basically fast track it to the final fight. And Merlot shows up and he's like, what the hell

are you doing? And he then suddenly summons there in a gigantic coliseum in like a gladiator game situation and then merlot lets them know like every year his son asks to hang out with heroes because every year his son tries to overthrow him and every year he kills these heroes that that come here he's like you guys are dead he's like um and there's all these demons everywhere i've got like cthulhu like looking over and stuff. And I'm like, oh, I've got all these demons here,

but I know what you guys are afraid of. You guys, you're these heroes, but you know that you're just the side characters in this world, that the main heroes are out there and you're afraid of facing the fact that you're just side characters and you are expendable. And then he summons. Eldritch horror.

And then he summons the demon versions of all the characters in Sword AF. So like a demon version of Fernie and Dolores and all these things. And it ends with them fighting the Sword of Heroes. Did Dolores do any backflips or anything? She does some crazy stuff.

Any aerial routines? Well, this is also where I learned that you guys are professional D&D players. So I was like, this is gonna be really hard. I'm like, if we had been playing this and we faced these monsters

that I had created, I think we would have gotten our asses kicked. Yeah, probably. They didn't get hit once. Nick was like, okay, so I'm gonna put up this shield and okay, now what kind of creature is this. Nick was like, okay, so I'm going to put up this shield and

now what kind of creature is this? I was like, it's like an undead spirit thing. He's like, okay, good. So I get plus this. I get an extra D8 because they're fiend undead on a smite. They're saying so much stuff. I know they're not lying to me. I'm like, yeah, I know that's true. Yep, that's probably true

too. I mean, just crushing this shit. I was like damn okay but they they defeat him and then at the end the son is there and he's like now you guys are my servants here in hell forever basically I was like there's no win like you're gonna lose no matter

what you're in the underworld such a great DM move though because it was funny you got to the place you wanted to get to in a really fun, unexpected way. That's like the DM thing, man. Is that your hope, usually, to get to the place? Yeah. That I roughly plan? Yeah, I think so.

Right? Because when we were moving through, you saw all the things we were passing, right? But then you still had these little leapfrog stones where you were like, well, they're going to get here, the casino. They're going to get here. It doesn't really matter how they get there as long as they get there, right? And I had thought about, I'm like,

what if they try to just go off the grid? I'm like, okay, and then we'll just go off the grid. And if they went off the grid, would you try to bring them back to the place you wanted it to end? My fail safe was that I'm like, no matter what they do, they're going to piss off the devil. Like, they're going to cause so much chaos.

I knew they were going to cause so much chaos that no matter what, they're going to piss them off and they're gonna piss off the devil. Like, they're gonna cause so much chaos. I knew they were gonna cause so much chaos that no matter what, they're gonna piss them off, and they're gonna end up there. They're gonna go there because they're gonna piss them off. So that was my failsafe. And it worked. I love that. But it was funny, because I had you plan so much, and then it doesn't happen.

And I remember you told me a thing once about how you had, like, planned all these artifacts and things for your players to use. And they were just like, yeah, we're going to burn this place down. Nick loves this story. Nick's like, because I was still a new DM and I had punished them so hard through this campaign. I killed like three of them. They had old new characters.

They were coming in as like we were traveling through hell. And I was like, all right, time to pump the brakes. I got to give these guys a power bump. we're going to give them some stuff to handle the stuff a little better they i had betrayed them so many times as their dm that they were like all these magic rings all bad burn this house to the ground and they burned the whole thing to the ground and i was like i 12 insanely powerful magic rings that i just went oh threw it away and we kept going and i was, all right, they don't want it. Because you can't, you can only,

do you plan out your whole campaign with like route A, like different choose your own adventure, like multiple ways to get there? That's a great question. It sort of depends. If I'm DMing like a 10 session campaign for Hero Club, I usually have like a pretty good idea of where I want because I usually plan things in like 3 episode

arcs is my favorite thing to do so I'll know the general idea for those last couple arcs but I'll wait until I've seen the first 2 to really populate them with any details because one of the craziest things I've ever experienced in a game was we're playing an Indiana Jones kind of campaign

sort of time period 1910s a little prior we're playing like an Indiana Jones kind of campaign sort of time period, 1910s, a little prior. Fun. And it was like all magical artifacts and stuff called City of Mirrors. And on the hunt for the City of Mirrors, one of our NPC guests just like improv'd a monkey idol that they gave one of the players. And I was like, oh, well, that's a cursed item.

I don't know what that's gonna be. But I just like quickly wrote some lore for whatever this thing was. And then it was speaking to them in their dreams and trying to convince whoever had touched the idol. It was like, hey, he's gonna kill you when you speak for me. What?

You have to stop him from killing you because he'll get all my power and you won't get any of my power. And he would appear to them as heightened versions of themselves. So to the British explorer, it was like, my good man, hello. And then to the pilot guy, he was like,

hey, we're flying. I'm the monkey idol from your dreams. That's so funny. But they both rolled natural ones to resist the monkey's pull in the same episode back to back. And all of a sudden, I'm like, well, I need an extra episode to resolve this. That's so funny. So we wrote like a mushroom trip episode where they had to resolve their differences with the monkey idol and themselves. And it was like, you know, so I didn't plan.

And like that was like a huge gift that I hadn't planned too much. Right. It's good that you didn't plan too much. Yeah. But you had the ending kind of in your mind. I knew we were going to end up like in City of Mirrors. Okay. Okay.

And I knew roughly what the City of Mirrors was because we were doing a lot of like Norse and Judeo-Christian blending of like mythology. So I knew like what it was, but I didn't know how we were gonna get there. I didn't know if we were gonna get there and blow the place up or if we were gonna try to take the place's power. Kind of both ended up being the case. But yeah, one of the things I love in Sword AF

in the second season is when you guys go to the Fey Court for the first time and you're all trying your different ploys. And you guys felt to the Fey Court for the first time and you're all trying your different ploys. And you guys felt that the freedom opened up and you guys expressed your characters in this really true way, especially you and Chance with your aerial routine in the middle of the thing.

It's super fun. When you get your weaponry in that final dungeon where you're like you got like a machine gun yeah you know it well because you edited I did I did I was one of the editors for Sword AF 2 yeah yeah yeah it was crazy I mean the tough thing

with Sword AF was doing it all in one week you know because with our schedule I think the problem is with our schedule. We've done that too. It's a tough schedule. And we were also learning, like I was learning it and, you know, fitting it in while also filming

all the other things we do. Oh, yeah, that's a lot. And so... When you add other stuff to it, that's where it gets really crazy to me. I think that was ultimately why we like, are like, we're like, okay, after this season, we're taking a break.

We need, or, and Dread is so much more easy because we can film it in a day. Yeah. It's like not as much prep for it. There's so many TTRPGs out there. D&D is not the only one. Dread's not the only one.

You know, there's lots. I would love to do a one shot. You know, I think that's, that seems manageable. I would want to come up with a new story, but,

D&D is great because it's like common. It's like when you're talking languages in D&D. It's the one that most people have some familiarity with when they know TTRPGs, and then you can kind of branch out from there to other interesting ones too. You mentioning that your friends rolled natural ones brings me to something I wanted to ask,

which is, do you believe in luck? The concept of luck, because it's such an integral part of RPGs, of video games, of everything. You believe in it. Yeah, a thousand percent. How could you not believe in luck? It's funny. I've seen too much consistent bad luck and too much consistent good luck to not believe in it.

So I'm a skeptic in general. But when it comes to luck, I, on an instinctual subconscious level, am such a believer because of my bad luck in certain spheres. He has really bad luck rolling. This is a perfect segue. So hopefully we're going to turn something around right now. I love this.

So I have a little surprise in my cute little bag. We're just going to refresh your luck with some fresh dice sets for you guys. I tried to pick stuff that kind of perfectly emulated. This is for us? For you guys, yeah, yeah, yeah. I got you a little dice gift.

Are you serious? We're gonna get the bad luck out of here. So that's Dolores as I could get, and then I couldn't decide which one for Fernie, so you can mix and match them, because you've got the nature and you got the fire. Thank you. So feel free to split them around and mix them up.

That's so cute. And they're like rubber, so the sound people won't be mad at me. That's awesome. George. Oh, and then this won't mess up the table. Won't mess up the table. I was gonna like, metal dice,

and I was like, they will destroy their table in three rolls. So Spencer So Spencer now is gonna be like why didn't we use rubber dice before? So they're fun to just like switch around I rolled the six and I got a one in no way That's very you that d6 away and you get the green D. So okay. Okay. Yeah, I've heard about people talk about dice jails. Yes. Yes Yeah, thanks. Thanks. Don't this is so fucking hell dice jails. Yes, yes. Dice dunce caps. This is so fucking awesome. This is really sick. Thank you. Take them into your next journeys. Look at that.

Okay. Ten. Okay. I have pretty good rolls. I have pretty good luck. I think you have good roll luck. The D20s are the arbiters of if the set's going to be lucky. Yeah, so where my luck was really bad was before we did D&D,

we did a series called Board AF Legacy Legacy where we played Betrayal Legacy. Oh, awesome. And it was a lot of fun. I've seen that thing. And the dice in that game are – they are zero to two. And you have several dice and you're rolling them. And throughout the entire series, I was rolling so horribly. People actually don't even understand how horribly I rolled.

It was bad. Because there were some games where I was rolling so badly that they would be like, and sorry if this breaks some of the fun. We don't do this often. But they would be like, okay, Shane, can you re-roll? You gotta re-roll. And I would re-roll like three or four times. It was really embarrassing.

Because it was like, otherwise, it was like, oh, your character just doesn't do anything or doesn't like talk yeah doesn't actually get to exist so let's re-roll for entertainment purposes here so you should yeah um but like it was so horrendous at a certain point like my character would be so juiced up and should be so strong that he's taking people out and i would roll six dice and get like a two. And it's like, I don't know how this is happening, but specifically with dice and cards, I have really bad luck. That's a lot of the things

that determine. I think I have general good luck. Okay. Overall. For life? In life, whenever I'm at an airport, I'm like,

I know things are going to work out today. Wow, I wish I was you. Wow, that's awesome. I would trade dice luck for that. Exactly. It's why I complain about it when I'm at the table, but I'm not sitting around going, oh, I'm the most unlucky person. I'm very lucky

in so many spheres that my, what I say to myself is, you know what, this is the area where I have bad luck, because I have good luck everywhere else. Like, everything tends to work out. You know, inconveniences always seem to subside for me in most ways, but dice.

Dice. Dice I have bad luck. You have bad luck. I feel like I have pretty good luck. I have pretty good luck with darts, with dice. Darts is skill. Then I have skill.

Dice is truly, truly... See, I just got a compliment out of that. I can replicate it. That's awesome. So how do we break Shane's bad luck? All right, should I roll this d20 and see what I get? Yeah. I think we definitely...

These dice are so cool, Forge. Aren't they fun? Thank you. You're very welcome. If I roll a nat 1, guys, what does it mean? Well, we've talked about it. Here I go. They're hard to read.

That is an 18, Shane. Yo! Yo! Wait, I hope you didn't transfer your bad luck to me. Now you have it. That's a five. That's my favorite number.

My favorite number. Okay. It's my favorite number. That actually counts as 20. Yeah. That's actually 20. That's my favorite number. We're good.

Yeah. It's so funny, man. That actually counts as 20. Yeah. That's actually 20. That's my favorite number. But we're good. Yeah. It's so funny, man. I know it's not the case. Because I would roll plenty of good times. But I would only think about the bad times. I don't know, man. I've seen some people, especially in our Reslayer's Take game, we have one of our players who literally seems like she can't roll above a five.

Really? Yeah. That's so frustrating when you're playing, too. Oh, I feel, yeah. I can see the frustration, but it does lead to some very funny stuff, so it's always, like, worth it. We're always, I'm always excited

when she rolls terribly in a very, you know, dire situation, but, like, as a player, you're like, well, I am incapacitated for the ninth time. Yep. You know, it can be tough. And then when you play Dread, you don't have to roll at all. You just have to pull be tough. And then when you play Dread, you don't have to roll at all.

You just have to pull Jenga. And yet, and you know what? And yet, and yet I was the one who died twice. Yeah, and yet it didn't really

work out for you, Shane. Yeah, how was your luck in versus Aliens? Well, since the second episode is coming out after this, I won't give away too much.

But I play a, we're all at a sleepover. We're all middle schoolers. I play the kid who has divorced parents. And I'm a little bit of an arsonist. As they are. I kind of hide things from my mom. My hair is always

slightly a little bit greasy and in one eye, so you can't see. What year does this take place? 2002. I love how that's the era that we't see. What year does this take place? 2002. I love how that's the era that we've picked. We're like, this all happened then. I think there's a world

where it's all happening at the same time. Yeah. You know, it's slightly different. There's always a chance. Yeah, there's always a chance. I feel like I...

Talk about bad luck. Yeah. Zombies and aliens all at once. Exactly. I feel like Smosh versus aliens, I feel like most of us had... We're...

I don't know if we had good luck I will say this because we've seen episode 1 we've seen episode 1 episode 1 is out we haven't seen episode 2 which is the finale we've seen what happens to one of our characters and that was certainly not luck

it was certainly because of one of the craziest and funniest decisions of a poll in the world where somebody went down to here and took one of the bottom. Was that me? I think it was Chance. I think it was Chance. Where he took one of the bottom but not the center one out. Nope.

And it was like. Took one of the sides. Took one of the side bottom ones out. And it was all of a sudden the tower's just like, the whole time. That's a Chance move right there. That's a Chance move. It was very fun.

I looked at it and I was like, yes. You know, that's so fun. The figures are so great. Was it in zombies? I'm trying to think if I actually, I tried to do that. I tried to do that where I tried to take a middle one. You did. And I thought that I could split the tower and it could perfectly land.

That was never going to work out. It was the most chosen thing that I thought I could pull off. It was never going to work out. Oh, yeah. It super didn't work. But it was very, I would love to see you try it never going to work out. Oh, yeah. It super didn't work. But it was very... I would love to see you try it one more time. I...

Oh, absolutely. I think I tried later, and I semi-successfully... It hit and then hit. I hope that after this last episode of Smosh vs. Aliens, I'm hoping... The last episode is crazy.

It's insane. It's one of the most pop-off games of dread I have ever played. And it would be... I'm excited to see it. Yeah, I can't wait. I haven't watched any of it because as of recording this, they're not out yet. Yeah, exactly. I don't know what's in store. I'm very excited to watch it, though, because

Dread was so fun. And if you haven't watched it, it's one of my favorite things that we've done. Must. But I'm so excited to get to watch one without having seen it or been there. It's so exciting. Yeah. It's a fun one, right?

It's a fun one because I love the theme, everyone knows a sleepover, and all of us really know sleepovers, and we all had our own different characters, but we knew each other. And Angela is the cousin from like, her name's Tampa, but she's not from Tampa,

and she has bad sleep apnea. With her sleep apnea machine. Okay, there we go. And she's got a sleep apnea machine and it just, what I love so much about Dread is the ridiculous comedy that everybody knows.

You know what sets us apart I feel like from Sony, because I feel like Sony when they play D&D it's their opportunity to be like, Hot. The most hot,

like powerful character they never get to be. Meanwhile, us here at Smosh, it's like, not Chance. Chance is like, I'm hot. The rest of us are like, I'm this stupid little kid with asthma. I'm a CPAP machine and I look

gross and my hair's greasy. What's going on? Why are we doing this? He made himself really cool. He was like a really cool basketball player. Yes. Honestly, Chance became the drama of the episode.

Chance was the drama, yep. It was like his family, Chance was playing a middle school girl whose brothers weren't really paying attention to her and the father was more interested in the boys. It was a real story. Yeah. Wow.

It was kind of a little bit real. Wow. And then me thinking that's setting up Chance to probably be maybe the protagonist of this. And then as we've seen. Nope. Nope. Nope.

Maybe not. I am not sure who really was the protagonist. Well, it feels when, I can't say anymore, but the ending of this certainly sets up something sinister. Yeah, there's some stuff set up based on the outcome. You'll love it. I'm really excited. I'm really excited the gifts that George gave me as a character too.

I got to see some stuff before I got to the friend's house. You just kept giving us gifts and also That's what DMing, in an improv what gifts is like to set somebody up for something. It's all that DMing is. It's just support moves and gifts.

And also a lot of other things that are really complicated like thinking about everything all at once and creating a story, and when we mess it up, creating another story. Thanks, guys. I sort of, but again. I'm just going to shower George with compliments and watch him squirm a little bit. You have no idea how torturous it is.

I know. Really, one of the things I always talk about when I'm talking about anybody saying like, oh, that was so fun. It really is half or 75%, however,

you know, for five of us around the table. So it was 80% of us. It's 80% you guys. Yeah. And it's 20% me. And just because I am the wall off which things rebound

doesn't mean that I'm like working harder than you guys at the table. You know what I mean? And that's the truth for all of those dimension 20 Critical Role all those other amazing shows yeah but but it's you it's it's you it's like getting a good sorry I am so addicted I'm playing too much this

is a fidget spinner too they're good fidgets like I also feel like it's kind of squish them yeah you can squish a little bit they come back oh it's like having also a good audience too it's it's yes you say that we're doing a lot of the work but you're setting up this whole environment for us to play and we don't feel like if we do something wrong it's going to be bad we also feel like oh the possibilities are endless and if we say something weird you're going to be like okay well yeah we'll go with that i love a weird sentence yeah yeah that the best stuff comes from like the off the top improv where it's like that makes no sense but it's the funniest thing in this context to say and now we're gonna roll with that yeah i i my dream for the next or

one of the next dreads is to do a chosen multiverse where it's oh chosen oh that would be so fun oh yes please i have different thoughts on it but but I'm like, it could be anything. It could just be anything. Yeah, whatever you, we could be hunting crocodiles in the sewer, man. It could be whatever you want. Pretty sick. Speaking of sewer, can we do an it one?

Is that crazy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever you want. You can do whatever you want. I don't think there's any rules. I like the horror aspects of it. But there's something, I've also, and I know that Alex and Spencer joke about this a lot.

There's something so funny about, with Dread specifically, is that when the tower falls, you die. Yeah. That's the premise of it, which is why it's really funny to just be like,

okay, in this game, you guys are just going to the mall. Yes. And it's just like, oh, but if the tower falls, you die.

You do die. And it's just, oh, this is what I thought, I thought this the other day for Chosen's. If it's a Chosen multiverse episode, right? And the setup of it, the setup of it at the beginning is they were supposed to go somewhere or something.

And then a crazy explosion or something happens. They're like, oh, my God, we were supposed to die. Which means we've been final destination. So nothing is actually coming for them or anything. Just they're going about their days normally. But they know that they might die. So it's literally a Final Destination campaign. The water on the bathroom floor of I Forget Which Final Destination

gave me nightmares. I remember. Puddles on my bathroom floor. Dude, those movies are so stupid, but they are so good. But they're so good, and I haven't rewatched them in a long time. The premise of it is just like, yeah, you're going to die, dude. At any moment. Yeah, but it's Devin Sawyer.

And you're going to die a silly death. You're going to almost die nine times, and then the thing that you thought was definitely originally going to kill them definitely kills them. Oh, my God. Yeah. It's like, a pigeon? No, not the pigeon. The setup of those movies is so stupid because you're just like, okay, so nobody got an aneurysm?

Yeah, right. movies is so stupid because you're just like, okay, so nobody got an aneurysm? Like, you're just, oh no, it's that the, whatever, the fan nearby caught a wire and it's spinning and all this. And that got wrapped around somebody's neck. It's literally always a Rube Goldberg machine. It is a Rube Goldberg death machine. And then occasionally just a person gets hit by a bus.

Like, occasionally. That happens in, I think, two. Guys, this is ridiculous. Like, occasionally. You're being crazy. Yeah, I know. That happens in, I think, two. Does it? Always. A girl's like, guys, this is ridiculous. It's a full bus hit. You think that's going to happen in every movie,

when someone's in the street going, like, see you later. You're like, here comes the bus. Here comes the bus. And it's like, no. In my head, that was the, whenever Spencer was pulling for saying misogynistic stuff in Zombies, like, that's what I was waiting for, was him to miss it and it to be like a, huh, like, ew, your period. Some crazy thing to hit him.

I was praying he was going to knock the tower over on that, but it was still very fun. Oh, God. I wouldn't change it. You didn't plan that ending, really, at all. For zombies? Yeah. I had, like, five or six different ways it could go at the end that I kept super loose on purpose. I think Fruit Factory was definitely one of them. But what the Fruit Factory became was nothing compared to after you guys started like putting details in about it and like about your dad.

And like we figured out. I feel like that relationship between you and your dad we figured out really fast on the phone. Yep. And all of a sudden I was like I know that this is going to be. Tiffany's necklace. This is going to be overtly evil facility that she's kind of been clueless about her whole life. Once you have Tiffany's necklace with his full name in cursive, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Evil. Robert. Evil. Oh, man. Well, I'm very excited for these episodes of Smosh versus Aliens. Me too. And so much more. I mean, I think we will come back around to D&D.

We're figuring out what we want to do here at Smosh. The sky's the limit. But we have so much fun doing stuff like this. And we love having you around. So any excuse to bring you back. And you gave us gifts. You gave us gifts? This is our first gift that someone gave us

at Smosh Mouth, I think. Is it? As a guest. Put a plaque right there. George, your name's going to be here. What did you get, honey? I got a 12 on that one. We're above average.

You're pretty good. I got a 30. Hang in there. Oh, see, you're rolling rough there. Sick. Our luck has changed. I'm not going to be mad if you guys trade. Do whatever you want.

Oh, no. I'm going to match them. Nope, he's not taking my dice. Anyways, George, thank you so much. Thank you guys for having me. It's a blast. And thank you for watching. Check out George in all those places.

Yeah. Hero Club, everything that you do. I mean, you have so much wonderful stuff. I feel like you're everywhere. And definitely go watch Smosh vs. Aliens. Please. On Smosh Games. Yep. Check it out. And it out and watch smosh versus zombies it's so good episodes of that two episodes of smosh versus aliens yep easy a day of fun a day of fun a day of fun all right we'll see you later bye bye