D&D Court: NPC Overload and The Flirtatious Aarakocra (w/ Siobhan Thompson!)

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This is a Headgum Podcast.

Dungeon, Dungeon, Dungeon.

Welcome to Dungeon Court, everybody.

We are your Supreme Court justices, Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, joined by the Loli, Loli, Loli, Loli, Loli, Loli, Loli, Loli, Loli, Loli, Lowly, Loli, Loli, Loli, Loli, Loli, Lowly, Loli, Loli, Loli, Loli, Loli, Loli, Loli, Bailiff, Jake Hurwitz.

Keep it coming.

You can't hurt me anymore.

Loli, Loli.

2020.

No.

There's three extra lowlys.

Fucking kill him at the end.

He counts.

Yeah.

He's

He looked proud and powerful when he was a justice last time.

So

we got to put him back in his place.

But then we've got our special guest, Siobhan Thompson.

Siobhan.

It is an honor and a privilege.

Welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Get to be really serious.

No jokes allowed.

Ooh, I like it.

Finally, some austerity on the court

to balance my shit out.

And with that, with that,

I think we need to swear in, Justice Thompson.

Finally.

Finally, I'm on freaking dungeon court.

Are you ready?

Am I ready?

Yes.

Is this when I do this?

Jake, are you going to show?

Yeah, are you going to guide it at all?

Well, I texted Siobhan ahead of time.

He texted me.

Okay.

I texted her the oath earlier.

And you said, I'm not going to talk on my show.

I said, you'll know when the time is right.

Leave all the time.

He did not say that.

He did not say that.

I'm just showing everybody else the text just so that they know that you absolutely did not say that.

She was reaching for her phone.

It looked like she was ready to go.

Yeah, she was reaching for her phone.

Siobhan.

All right.

Please take the oath of the high crit.

I, Anna Siobhan Coney Thompson, 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.

Amen.

You're here.

Welcome.

So serious.

So serious.

Best note ever.

That was so somber.

Yeah.

So somber.

So somber.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I've listened to Dungeon Court.

I know how serious it is.

We are pretty fucking good.

Also,

as a secret first name guy, it's always fun when I play someone else with a secret first name.

You just never know when the names get together.

You just never know.

Yeah.

It just keeps going.

Is it too late for me to make up a secret first name?

Or too late.

What if your first name is so secret?

Yeah, if it's Murph.

Yeah, Murph Experiment.

Murph Emily Axter.

Murph Emily Axter.

I didn't take his last name.

I took his last name.

But I took it first.

Secretly.

You did it surreptitiously.

Nice.

Sneaky.

There is a thing in fairy lore where if the fairies know your name,

then they have power over you, which is why...

I don't know if this is actually true, but like a lot of Irish and British people go by their second name and not their first name because the first name is the first time.

Yeah, because otherwise the fairies will fairly.

be.

Is that what Rumpelstiltskin is about?

It is kind of what Rumble Stiltskin is about.

Just because you're a fairy doesn't mean you have to be a cop.

Don't tell me that.

Don't nork on other fairies.

Don't freaking nork on me now.

And with that, hear ye, hear ye.

Crit is now in session.

The honor of the.

Can I just say, can I just say real quick?

No, I just want to say, no, I want to give Jake some credit here, right?

Because he really dropped the ball first off with like throwing it to Siobhan because he just didn't do it at all.

So it was super sloppy.

But the Rumble Stiltskin poll was really good.

And I just want to give him credit for that.

So we knock a couple lowlies off.

I say, yeah, we can knock one lowly off.

From the last three or from one of the first ones?

Of the extra ones.

Okay.

Okay.

So go ahead.

Only two extra.

Good Rumble Stiltskin poll.

Thanks, man.

Go ahead.

Thanks, man.

I actually know a lot about Rumpelstiltskin.

You guys can talk about it.

What's the second thing you know about Rumpelstiltskin?

Here you

is now in session.

The honorable Supreme Court Justices Oxford, Murphy, Tanner, and of course, Thompson presiding.

And our first case comes from Lucy Pickle.

Lucy writes, May it please the ever-awe-inspiring judges and their little baby bailiff.

I present.

No, he's so cute.

It's so cute.

He's lowly.

Everyone leave.

Wipe his jigagaga.

Wipe his chigaga.

He's a baby.

I'm drooling on myself.

I present the case of the slow-mo wizard.

I've been playing in a campaign with some childhood friends for a few months now.

We've all played in at least least one campaign before, and we're having a blast.

The one problem is that every time it's our wizard's turn in combat, they take about three minutes to choose a spell to cast.

Yeah, that's tough.

Recently, I mentioned to this player before a session that maybe they could plan out what they were going to do on their turn before initiative came up because sometimes waiting for them brought the energy down at the table.

They got very quiet and gave a curt response saying that they could do that.

Oh,

that's tough.

That broke my heart to hear.

Yeah.

Then, Then, when it was their turn during the first battle of that session, they cast a spell that was entirely unhelpful and unrelated to the situation.

Yikes.

When asked why they did that, they said, oh, I was told I need to cast my spells faster, so I just went with the first one I saw.

Oh,

this person is there.

I knew right off the bat.

I was like, this person is not just being shy.

They're being rude.

The energy at the table was tense for the rest of the session.

Judges, was I wrong to ask our wizard to plan ahead for their turn, or should I have let them continue to pick good spells, though very slowly during during initiative?

I love the flex of being like, I'm actually not quick enough on my feet to be able to pick a fifth spell.

Yeah, in your face.

I'm a fucking dumbass.

Yeah, that's so true.

It's tough.

I mean, as somebody who has played a wizard, and especially once, I'm assuming that these people are moderate, like pretty high-level at this point, because it is hard to go fast.

You do have a lot of shit.

Yeah.

Having said that,

you have to be organized.

And like, if it's a group of, I'm assuming, at least four players, you have three other players' turn to at least go, well, if this happens, I'll do this.

And if that happens, I'll do this.

I was trying to think, my generous read was they're not picking it because they're politely watching everyone else's turns and so engaged with everyone else's turns.

Because I feel like that is a thing I struggle with:

definitely,

how do I plan my turn before it gets to my turn, but also like enjoy other people's turns?

Yeah.

But based on their response, yeah, they're just

being very snippy, right?

Yeah,

a snippy little wizard.

Yeah, this is

too snippy.

I also think that, like, wizard, you do get to plan your spells a little bit beforehand, right?

Because you're stocking for every day, stock them, yeah.

Like, yeah, you only have like a limited number, too.

Yeah, you only have a limited number, so like

I am slightly confused as to why this person is taking quite so long.

Unless they're like literally level 20 and they have because it takes me a really long time to think

in your face.

My memory is so bad.

Yes, I forget what spells do until I do.

Yes, I chose maybe the hottest class to do,

even though I knew as an adult that my brain was like.

Yeah, I think you could just be snippy back and be just like, maybe you should play a fighter.

What about a little.

A champion might be a good subclass for you.

Ooh, yeah, if you can't handle it.

What about a little wizard hourglass, but that's a minute?

Like,

they can take it from passive-aggressive to aggressive.

Yes.

And start using time pieces.

Maybe you can't be afraid of it.

Leave them where they are.

Yeah.

You sing the jeopardy song as they're going through their binder as well i feel like it's it's the three minute thing that like three minutes is a long time to take on your turn over like one minute deciding what you're gonna do is not that big a deal because i remember before we started dimension 20 of having that conversation with brennan and brennan being like when it gets to your turn it should be like we're doing like an order at like a busy deli counter or something like be ready to go and it never works out like that we always do a little bit of hemming and hawing yeah but it's like participatory at the table it's kind of like should it's it's metagaming to a certain extent but it's kind of right is this person sitting in silence yes and making everybody else sit in silence as well while they quietly read every spell that they have for the 800th time they did say it brings the mood down at the table yeah so it can't be it can't be participatory that's i do feel like you have to open it up to the table i know some people really hate metagaming and go really in on it i like the fact that it's a social thing like you're playing together so i know technically your characters are not talking on the battlefield probably but this isn't real everyone right also your parents just could be talking on the battlefield yeah they could yell they could be like should i do this spell or that spell yeah that's true what do we think the dm is thinking in this situation is the dm like also tapping their toe or is the dm sweaty sweaty palms gripping the table you don't think that they're like oh sweet i have a second to think no probably not for the full three minutes maybe not not forever yeah i feel like yeah anytime I've DM'd, I feel like I'm never relishing a silence.

I'm like, oh no.

I'm like, I better chit-chat.

Yeah, you're right.

That would take a very confident DM.

I better.

I'm like, ah, there's silence.

This is a good time for me to roll damage.

Yeah.

Nope.

I'm like, oh, I'm losing them.

I guess my zombie should have a stupid voice.

And that is, yeah, just to give like one more generous read here, maybe this wizard is participating in some sparkling banter and they're just like really lipving it up where everyone will say,

bringing the mood down.

They said they're bringing the mood down.

Let's ignore the passive-aggressive response.

Sure.

Do we feel that the action, let's pretend like this could have gone a different way.

Do we think that asking them to take a quicker turn is valid?

Yes.

Maybe it's got to come from the DM.

That's what I was wondering.

Like, maybe you got to bring this problem to the DM.

Oh, wait, David.

I'm sorry.

Did I misunderstand that?

No, this was another player, I believe.

Oh, so I do kind of agree that it's a, it feels like one of those social problems where you're like, hey, I need this one person to know this.

So DM, could you say it to the table and not single anyone?

That's interesting.

I think it's fine as a player to say.

I mean, you're another person at the table if it's boring and if everyone's bored.

We've been friends since they were little, they mentioned too.

Oh, that's true.

Right.

So like

you can literally be like, stop taking so long.

Yes.

Give your friend a dead arm.

Yeah.

Like, hurry the fuck up.

We're being each other all the time.

That is kind of true.

Maybe they weren't trying to be passive-aggressive.

Maybe they were trying to just joke around.

Just, yeah, right.

You could also just up the passive-aggressive.

Like, if you don't feel like this worked, when they're taking their fucking sweet ass time looking for spells, you just start having a random other conversation with the other people at your table.

Or you could just loudly say,

this feels like a bathroom break time for me.

Oh, that's good.

Oh, great time to order food.

Does anybody want matchos?

Or you could show how fast your turn can be.

Yes.

And pre-plan your turn as like a melee fighter.

You know what?

Bring the timer just for you.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, that's good.

I'm racing against myself.

This is nothing to do with you.

Bring one of those chest clocks.

Yeah.

You just said.

Wow.

Excellent turn in 15 seconds.

Personally, I like to take up as little space as possible.

Go.

I pre-rolled my attacks and my damage.

My turn is over.

Thank you.

I do get how, yeah, to give a little bit of a sympathetic read, you can get overwhelmed with your spells.

And I'm on camera taking a long time sometimes with my turns.

Yeah, for sure.

But I do think that there's an element of like,

it is your turn, you know what I mean?

Like, it is your turn in the hot seat so you are to you're not like performing for everyone but you are maybe a little bit like it is your people are waiting for you to contribute to the game in a way that's positive that keeps the game going whether that be a turn that's fast and quick and you help out your teammates and you make the game exciting or you take uh out a bad guy or it's you consult your teammates and you talk about the battle or something like that.

If it's a three-minute turn and you're talking to your friends, that's fine.

But if you're just looking through the book, that's kind of weird.

In addition to your personal stopwatch and the board game sound timer for the wizard, I think you could also ask them to read out everything they read, read it out loud, but in a silly wizard voice.

Long strike.

It sounds like we're on the player's side.

We're on the player's side that told the wizard to hurry up right so we're against the i think it's okay snippy wizard yeah yeah i think there could have been an improvement in the order of operations yes i i would agree i don't know what you could have said and i don't want a sunday morning monday morning excuse me quarterback for you but maybe we're the dm i guess so but i also feel like if they've been friends since they were children yeah like yeah fucking get over it like we're not like actors giving each other line reads on Broadway.

Like this is a friendly D ⁇ D for you.

I also feel like with all my friends, we all make fun of each other for specifically whenever we're ordering food whoever takes a long time ordering food it's just a common thing to be like jesus christ you ready

the problem is you're not making fun of each other enough yeah maybe you almost did it too politely like maybe instead of being like hey could you take quicker turns you should have just called them out right in the moment

yeah just give them a little tick tock bitch

say i'm bored i'm really bored maybe you need everyone at the table to make fun of you for taking your turns too fast.

Oh, wow.

You're like the two-pump chump of the turn team.

Did somebody cast sleep?

Yeah, make some real DD branded jokes about.

Actually, I'm 100% pivoting to, I think that you don't need to say anything else, but just passively, aggressively say, did someone cast sleep anytime you're bored on whistling.

I'm snoozing.

I don't got enough hit points to define myself.

I'm not spelled.

I'm a low-level character.

Yeah, let's recall all the stuff, okay?

So you're going to make sort of catskills, comic roast

roasts using D and D language.

You're going to bring various time pieces to time.

Yes.

But also, third thing, time yourself while you're going super fast as you're turned.

I also think if you want to be really passive-aggressive, you could learn all of their spells off by heart.

Yeah.

You can just kind of tell them what to do.

And if you want to be just straight up aggressive, you could just kick them under the table.

Yeah, oh, yeah, or actually

above the table.

You put an egg timer on the table and then you twist it to start it ticking, and then you pick up the egg timer and you throw it right at their head.

Nice, nice, nice.

Okay.

Okay, I think we've been really constructive about this.

I think this has been super constructive.

Wow.

These are all solutions and punishments.

Yeah, this is

a real grab bag here.

Yeah.

Okay.

This is tough because you have to, as the person who kind of won this case, you have to be a roastmaster/slash, I think attack someone yes slash we gave you a lot of good material yeah so it's like a high school athletics yeah you also get to buy a bunch of time pieces it's a lot of notes you as the writer of this scenario have to go away and pick the parts of it that you need right but all of the notes are perfect and valid so that's gonna be tough i have another suggestion which is you know those little um things that uh people wear while they're playing soccer that tracks like all of their biometrics yeah

and maybe your whole table could each wear one.

Oh,

it's projectively boring as fuck.

Like, look how much everyone's heart rate goes down when it's your turn.

Okay, so that's another problem you have to bring.

Everyone at the table is legally dead when you

all right.

And just one more, actually.

Just one more.

Okay,

we don't have enough.

We're not spitballing.

Yeah.

Yeah, good.

Yeah.

So maybe you bring some of those like rubber bands that they put on lobsters.

Yeah.

You put those on their hand to be like, hey, stop sniffing, bud.

Stop snipping.

Oh, stop snipping.

What?

Oh, because we were getting snippy.

Because you were getting snippy.

Right.

That's nice.

Or you can be like, hey, you say, hey, I designed a new subclass for you, and it's the snippy wizard.

And so it's like Blade Dancer Wizard exapped with scissors because he's so snippy.

Oh, it's like a wizard, and they could have cutting words.

And they have cutting words.

Oh, you can call them wizards.

They have snipping words.

He did it.

So just print that out.

It doesn't have to be, I mean, get it professionally done at like Kinko's or something.

It actually looks like sort of a player's handbook.

I'm picturing a snippet.

They have cutting words, but they also have, it's like at level three, every turn you take must be under one minute.

Rounds for you take a full minute instead of a normal six seconds because you're 12 pounds.

Disadvantage on charisma checks if you have to respond in an appropriate amount of time.

So just, yeah, design a whole subclass.

for that.

Yeah.

Easy enough.

And hand them a lobster.

No, just the rubber bands, Jake.

Come on.

As soon as you rubble still skinny.

The the lobster could deliver the subclass, though.

Yeah.

True.

Wow.

All right.

Jake's back.

Whoa.

Rumpled Stiltskin style.

That was the second thing you know.

Our next case comes from the angry cat.

They write, please, the court, esteemed judges and baby DM bailiff James.

Okay.

Did you choose every baby one?

No, there's just a lot of baby ones these days.

Okay, okay.

He just says control fine to go for baby.

I needed it to be as canon as possible that I'm a baby.

He's just preparing people for when he DMs.

We're not mad at him.

How am I supposed to DM?

I'm a fucking baby.

I bring you the case of too many NPCs.

I planned a campaign where 15 PCs play one-shot-like missions rotating the PCs in groups of four or five to improve our guild's fame.

So that's games of four or five people at a time rotating.

Got it.

Yeah, it's kind of fun.

That That seems like really experimental and fun.

And I personally can't.

And it sounds fun, but this person did write into the show.

So it clearly is.

It was too many.

Cool concept so far.

Yeah.

Cool concept so far.

I don't know.

Maybe Jake's just peppering in some brags.

The DM is an old friend, and we've played many games together.

This campaign takes place in his homebrew world.

Okay.

The specific mission that we're currently on is to kill a dragon.

Cool, right?

Yeah.

We are level three.

Okay.

Okay.

I was scared, but I thought maybe we'd go go and it would be some other creature or even a young dragon.

Yeah.

No, it was an adult dragon.

Oh.

In order to have a chance, the DM presented a party to go along with us.

25 NPCs.

Like a mob.

If it was just a mob, that's fun.

That's kind of fun.

It's a mob of commoners.

They all have five hit points.

Okay, let's keep listening.

What was the action comedy?

This party.

This is button.

Mub loves commoners.

Yeah, you made it cool, but it is 25 NPCs, all with their own character sheets, places and initiative, personality, and voice.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

One mob.

Okay, okay, one.

Mob, one stat sheet is a mob.

But did they hand out the character sheets to all the people?

It doesn't sound like it.

They continue.

We camped out on the way to the dragon, and the DM insisted we talk to and interact with all NPCs.

Oh, my God.

Jesus Christ.

You guys have to write a book.

You have to.

The camping alone took two sessions.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

You have to do that.

The travel time was another session.

And now we are finally fighting the dragon.

The problem is that we are all fed up with this quest.

We cannot move on until we finish, but none of the players want to go into this fight with 25 NPCs,

some of which are way higher level.

So I humbly ask.

Oh my God.

Are we in the wrong to want to skip this dragon and go do other missions?

Or is our DM just having fun with his characters and I need to endure what will be a slog of combat?

I feel like

some DMs do this and it's almost like cucking their players or something.

It's just like, it's just like with a better hey like this actually is about me not you yeah that's just right

the books solve this they give you weaker monsters to fight there's no need to do this there's i mean even

a mob yeah yeah you do the mob 25 people that act on one turn yeah that have no personality or different character voices people would think it was i think players would really like having a mob on their screen every i would like we have to kill this dragon right

and if you said to to me, there's 25 NPCs, please interact with some, that I'm like, this is onerous.

I would just rather talk to the PCs.

If you said to me, there's a mob, interact with it.

And I talked at them and then

they cheered back at me like a rowdy mob.

That would be a fun conversation.

This one's the audience.

Take a lesson, though, for this DM because I do feel like if it was just a mob, if it was just a mob, I guarantee the players would be like, what?

A mob?

Who's in the mob?

Who wants to go talk to individual people?

Well, I can just imagine you guys going through and being like, what's your name?

Right, but at this point, it does feel like the players have just been tricked into going to see a one-man show.

Yes, exactly.

Which we've all had happen.

But it does feel like abusive.

Yeah.

I'm just thinking about my mom back home.

I hope she's okay.

Yeah, whatever, man.

What was your name?

Your name was Sildar.

Okay, that's one.

And I'm his brother, Tildar.

Okay.

Wow.

And you're also wanting to go see your mom back?

No, I miss my dad.

They're separated.

Oh, you guys grew up separately, but you reunited for this dragon.

This is for two sessions.

Two sessions.

Yeah, we had to parent trap, but it didn't work.

So we had a bon about killing the dragons, or are we just going to get a little bit of a message?

Can I just talk to the person in my actual party?

Yeah.

Can we talk to somebody else at the table?

Do we think they need to Irish exit?

Like, as soon as they get to the entrance to the cave, and all of the crowd is like cheering, and like the mob is like rushing.

This is so funny

to abandon these 25 people.

You go in, we'll go around the back together from the back.

We'll watch the door.

Just hide behind.

Can I get cover behind the higher level characters that you created?

At level three, you're so easily dead.

Yeah, yeah.

And an adult dragon, you can't survive.

You can't survive a hit.

No, you can't survive a claw.

Yeah, that's one hit.

And they have like hundreds of hit points.

Yeah, yeah.

If I were setting up something that my players didn't want to do, I would be okay with them being like, I think that we actually want to not fight the dragon.

I would be okay with that.

I feel like you're fully within your right to like even be like, hey, a couple of us have been talking about doing something.

Well, here's the thing.

I definitely have done that to Emily before.

That was definitely a thing that she planned a whole session and then we ended up just gambling.

It was in the middle of COVID and we were like, gambling actually sounds really nice and fun.

Can we just go do that?

Yeah, it's this is a tough one though, because I understand socially it would be weird for you guys now to ditch this mission, right?

And you've got through the worst part, I would think.

I feel like camping is the worst of this.

Yeah, no, no, no, the worst part is gonna be battle.

Yeah, if they all have individuals, like level 10 characters, yeah, that's the only one of them has and he

has the problem legitimately that the first problem had illegitimately, that he has to then plan 25 people's plus the dragon's moves

every turn.

There's no way like he can't pre-plan that many people yeah i want him to be like hang on a second let me i i wrote this bard let me see what they oh oh so they don't have cutting words but i i guess i give this other npc bardic inspiration like oh my god each player taking three minutes yes this is giving me ryan irfey energy and then that makes me want to know how many times his npc is crit oh yeah just rolling behind the screen that's a crit

that's another freaking crit

uh this guy actually crits on an 18 because he's a champion fighter and he's level 20.

Tildar's guy becomes a dragon.

This guy just becomes a dragon.

He was a dragon all the time, but you didn't see that coming.

Kildar is a dragon.

Sildar is the silver dragon.

Kildar is the gold dragon.

They're mom and dad.

They are separated, but they are gold and silver dragons.

They fly up into the sky.

You guys can't fly.

They don't take you.

You see the 2v1, the dragon.

Sildar rolls.

Sildar crits.

That would honestly be merciful.

Yeah.

Because then you can at least check out.

I'd rather, yeah, I guess I'd rather have the, if you're going to have like 25 DM PCs, I'd rather have them just crit on everything and end the battle really quick.

Yeah, that's true.

It's not too late to like talk to your DM and be like, hey, could we like condense this?

Like maybe each of us takes like four guys and we get extra attacks in battle or something like that.

Yeah.

There's fun ways to handle this.

I think you could pose this to your DM as being like, I'm a little concerned about how this is going to play out in battle of going through like 25 turns.

Yeah.

Just because it took us two sessions to camp

right yeah just that you made us talk to literally everyone is all

two sessions to camp and like we haven't even talked to cromlar yet like cromlar's just been over in the corner whittling

you said that we couldn't find him because his hide is too good but also we couldn't leave until we talked to him and my passive perception isn't very good so why are we still camping yeah the fog gate won't open until we talk to cromlar two sessions to camp is borderline real time.

That's a weekend.

Yeah.

That's a long ass time.

Okay, so yeah, so we're fully on player side here, not on the DM side.

25 is way too many.

And if you are going to have 25 people, you do have to just be like, this is an angry mob that wants to kill the dragon with you.

That's

funny.

And also, yeah, there's a, I got a

helpful tool at one point.

I got it from like DM's Guild, I think.

I forget who to shout out here, but somebody created like swarms of humanoids.

So like you can have swarms of guards.

That way you're not doing, you know, when we're having campaign fights and you guys are like in a castle and a bunch of guards are helping you or something.

Instead of me being like, an initiative 17, that's guard 2 and 3.

At initiative 15, that's guard 3, 17, 18, and 20.

It's like, there's just five guards.

They each do two damage each.

Yes, exactly.

It's just...

I do roll for it, but they do roll a D4, so it's two.

All of your like guards and stuff should just be in swarms.

Like, I would suggest just creating swarms, and I think the DM's guide even has a way of doing that.

So, I definitely wouldn't A, do fucking higher-level characters.

But this person has no control over that right now.

What sort of agency can we give them

this moment?

I think Caldwell's way about it was correct, which is to say, I'm concerned about the upcoming fight, waiting 25 turns to get to my turn.

Yeah,

and then after that, I think maybe you can throw an egg timer at him.

Yeah, after you throw an egg timer.

Yeah, after that, you could have a conversation to be like, I think this could be a little bit more organic.

Yeah.

You have to talk to 25 people.

I don't know why Gerald of Rubia is here.

I feel like it's weird that you just had him show up.

Yeah, it does feel like the punishment for this DM is go and write a book and stop.

Yeah, please.

You have 25 fucking characters.

You have 25 characters.

Go have them talk to each other.

That's arguably too many for a book.

Yeah.

And all

maybe one of them can edit.

If you write it as a book, then the people at the table can elect to read it rather than being able to.

Otherwise,

you have to speak to everyone.

Just

imagine a medieval battle

being camped out with like a few dozen knights, and one of the knights going, You have to speak to everyone.

You'll fight better if you know them.

You must level up.

Yeah, level up your social notes.

It really makes me want to

like April Fools you guys and run a one-shot that I do this time.

Just do all of the worst indie chords.

Imagine like a grizzled old knight being like, everyone, icebreakers.

We're playing zip-zapzoff, and no, you can't opt out.

My name is Frank.

Two truths and a lie.

And if I had to describe myself with an F-word, I would also say that I am Frank.

Isn't that kind of fun?

Frankly, to sort of tell the truth.

Go ahead, what's your name?

Kildar?

You're a dragon.

I'm Jeff, and I'm gorgeous.

okay i'm a level 20 oh you're jeff with a g that's spongey we wouldn't have known that whoa

interesting i'll die for you jeff i'm also a dragon oh

a dragon with a g that's fun too

i wonder if you could maybe just say that like would you guys allow it s dms would you allowed it if one of your players was like i my character is a big surprise

this sounds like another dart that i've been

i i want it to be be organic.

I want it to be organic.

Can I bring it up?

If it was you, Emily.

Because you get this naughty voice.

Well, I mean,

Emily.

Emily loves to surprise, but they're always fucking buttoned up.

They're usually pretty buttoned up.

I think I wouldn't trust.

Thank you, Galwell.

I wouldn't trust Emily because I would think she was trying to trick me.

I wouldn't trust Caldwell because I'd know Bugs Bunny was hiding under the mother.

I think the only person I would trust with a secret at the table is Jake.

Because I'm playing Rumple Stilts right, baby.

And you've got to guess my name before I reveal my character.

Watson, there's so many other facts about Rumpelstilts.

I think, yeah, Rumple Stilts.

And we'll get to that, but we have to move on to the next case.

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This episode of NADPO is brought to you by Raycon.

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Corwin M writes to the supreme critical successes and the lowly critical failure.

That's me.

I bring to you the case of the not-so-legendary reaction.

I was running my very first game as a baby DM.

Shout out.

Wow.

Shout out to the baby DMs.

I designed 25 NPCs.

My players were mad because I kept putting the dice in my mouth.

You did a pre-battle icebreaker, as you do.

I had planned it all out and I had some cool homebrew monsters.

The Big Bad was a Magitech robot that was powered by lava.

Yes.

The players had done a great job killing all of the mobs, but each had taken enough damage that made it feel exciting.

Great.

Being a new DM, I had forgotten about the legendary action until it was one of my players' turns.

I had been doing layer actions though.

So I used the monster's legendary action to react to my player, and he got very upset when I hit.

And he said, Oh, do you feel cool killing my guy?

I'm on the point of the.

What is going on between you and this player outside of the game?

Because that is not.

All of these friends are not

a normal reaction.

Something else is going on.

What are you not telling us?

Who else

are

we doing?

They're not fucked up with who's significant others.

you've got to go to the motherfucky school of razz it makes you sweet it's a summer school it's eight weeks he's so mean but you come out of it a better friend

do you feel cool killing my guy oh my god i was pretty taken aback by it because everyone had seemed to be having a good time i did roll the damage in front of the board as per justice murphy's advice in prior cases okay

he survived with one hp which i thought was pretty cool he didn't even go down he didn't even kill his guy but the mood was still bad but what the maniac no what do you feel good killing my god should i have not used the legendary reaction since i had forgotten about it up until then or was i right to use the legendary actions

well all right i thought that legendary actions you could just use them after the player's turn right

so that doesn't sound like that's what happened oh really i don't i've never used a reaction rather than as a so a legend but i thought that legendary actions could be reactions uh i think you would need that spelled out it sounds like this new DM was like, oh, fuck, I forgot to do a legendary action.

They're actually going to attack you.

Like, as the person was declaring their attack.

Oh.

So I think.

I'll say

I've never run a monster with legendary actions.

So I just assumed that some of them were reactions.

I think there are.

You know, I don't know if there's any official material with.

legendary reactions, but it's mostly actions.

And the idea is, is if you have this big boss, they're going to act throughout initiative.

They're not just going to wait for their one turn.

They move like faster.

So, technically, the language for legendary actions is that it happens after someone's turn.

So, from what I'm hearing here, it sounds like it would be the equivalent.

In the middle of someone's turn.

It sounds like you're like, as Emily saying, I'm going to attack the guy.

And I say, you murph the person.

Oh, I forgot that I, Murph the person, have legendary actions.

He's actually going to attack you.

Oh,

okay.

Okay.

So I think it's weird to say, do you feel good trying to kill my guy?

But I will say, sometimes as a DM, an important lesson to learn, it's like,

despite whatever the book says, once expectations are set, I think you do have to kind of stick with what the expectations are.

Like the rules that you've established.

Because I don't know.

Imagine if we had a battle like that in like a campaign, and it was like we go a few rounds, and then all of a sudden it's like, oh my God, this dude's got a tail attack and he can bite as well.

I put the extra attack.

I will be okay with you being.

Wouldn't weird, though, when you just be like, oh, then we're fucked.

No, I also,

I feel like

it has happened.

Like, I have also done that as a player.

Yeah.

You just give each other grace.

But the plot.

I'm sorry, guys.

I fucking forgot that I have.

Yeah, because you're a good one.

Players are the good guys.

I'm the bad guy.

No, but I don't know.

Personally, maybe this doesn't apply to everyone, but I kind of like that challenge and that friction.

And like, if I'm being short-changed a little bit because the monster isn't going all out.

You know me.

I love anime.

I need characters to go all out.

And if you're not going all out on me, then it's not as fun.

I really think that the coolest thing that can happen to you is going down.

Going to one hit point.

That's why I was really shocked by that.

And also, like, it's like I could see a table that there's a playful dynamic with the DM being like, oh, do you feel good trying to kill my guy?

But this doesn't feel like that had that.

And I feel like, though, when you say that it felt like the mood was weird after that, I think it could have been everyone else being like, whoa, what's going on with that guy?

Yeah, I think it was more.

I think it was weird because of that.

I don't think it was because of you.

If anything, that should have been the most exciting moment of being like, oh my God, like, right.

They're going to go down and then down to one hit point.

Yes.

I'm saying I think that had this person not been rude and say a completely out-of-pocket thing to make like all of their friends at the table upset, I could see a reverse where someone writes the court and we're like, this person didn't use legendary actions for a few rounds and then used it as a reaction to what I was doing and it just felt kind of forced and like I didn't because you're you are sitting there as a player like waiting for your turn getting excited for the the thing you're about to do yeah and then for someone to be like oh actually uh this other thing happens and it's like well we didn't establish that this person could do that and i know there's surprises and stuff yeah i don't know there is this one is a little bit more murky without the snippy retort i think it's maybe on the dm which it could have been a funny retort if if the table was fun.

I think if I said that and then everyone at the table was super tense, I would be like, I'm joking.

I'm sorry.

Yeah.

We need to know if the player had a slight quaver to their voice, if they were like on the verge of tears when they said it.

Feel good.

Okay, I looked up just the definition of legendary action to see if it's ever spelled out.

A legendary creature can take a certain number of special actions called legendary actions outside its turn.

Only one legendary action option can be used at a time and only at the end of another creature's turn.

So it is specified, so there shouldn't be reactions.

A creature regains its spent legendary actions at the start of its turn.

It can forego using them and it can't use them while incapacitated or okay.

So yeah, yeah, so it's not a reaction.

It's an action that you do on at the end of somebody's turn.

So doing it during someone's turn.

And it's the, I think the problem here lies with the fact that it sounds like the encounter was really well balanced and everyone was already at very low HP.

So the players players were,

you know, there was this like fun kind of back and forth.

And then to kind of be like, oh, actually, the book says I can do this thing.

And then also, you know, you're getting it kind of wrong because you're doing it as a reaction is a little bit of a deflating moment, I think.

Yeah, I think you made a boo-boo.

You made a boo-boo.

But okay.

It doesn't excuse the person being right.

I think that, yeah, but I mean, we have to look at the first action, right?

Like, so we might have to rule against this DM because it's not about whether whether or not their reaction was right.

It's about whether or not you're using it out of turn like that was right or using it as a reaction.

I agree.

I don't like it, but I agree.

I think if you wanted this to be totally by the book, you would let that player do their damage to your big bad first, and then you get your legendary actions.

Yeah, I do think that just.

I do think that hurts a little less.

And I do think ultimately, by you rolling in front of the table, that does make it more legit.

You know what I mean?

I do think you handled that.

Yeah, you handled that well.

But I do think that maybe this stings a little less if you realize that you've been forgetting about legendary actions and then you warn people at the top of a round or something yeah rather than being like actually uh now while you're at 10 hp i actually forgot this guy's got a scorpion tail attack and you're like what but you know what you're a baby dm and you're gonna get boo-boos yes that's how we get strongest out of your mouth

right now your fingernails are so long and you do need someone to clip them a lot and it's gonna hurt sometimes is that like the worst thing about parenting?

Is having to click?

Yeah.

They hate it.

You hate it.

Yeah.

So it just looks like, I feel like I need someone.

It's definitely not the worst thing, though.

Yeah.

It's up there.

What's the worst thing, Jake?

Sleep training.

Sleep training.

Oh, okay, fair, fair.

Jake's daughter one time looked at him and just said, disappointed.

Not the way Jake does it.

And that was.

Jake's child learned.

Disappointed before dad.

Jake's kid is so upset.

She's saying dada.

Dada, da-da-da.

dadda, disappointment.

Disappointment.

Please.

Please.

She enunciates all those letters.

Jill, you don't have to come in here.

I think I got this.

I think the baby's talking about you.

She's taking her first step emotionally.

Dad, please, please read me Wumple Stiltsky.

She's reading the dictionary or something.

I don't know.

Beyond just the first page of Rumple Stiltskin, I'm begging you.

I'm so curious, Dada.

But I do, I realize I have, so I've kind of tilted the court in one way.

And now, as the natural contrarian, I'm going to go back the other way, though.

To say that

it is a complete, if you're not joking and other people don't laugh and you don't have that sort of back and forth with each other, to say, do you feel good about killing my guy?

Yeah, that's really weird.

The DM did a baby DM mistake.

Yeah.

And the player was a piece of shit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And your player gave you a big boy retort.

That was a good thing.

Yeah.

And you're just a baby.

And you're just a baby.

We could give a baby punishment to the DM and then a big boy.

Climb out for the DM.

They have to sit

for as many years as they have been a DM, which is zero.

Zero, zero.

Zero.

Yeah.

So zero years, but however many months you'd have to do it.

However many months.

Sure, yes.

And I think probably a lobster again.

And then I guess

the player has to go to therapy.

Yeah, because they were snippy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Player has to go to therapy/slash gets the snippy rubber tooth.

Tell their friends that they're going through a breakup before they go and sit down at the table so that everybody knows that they might be a little snippy today.

You as the DM, once again, can the first player that we made build a subclass around the snippy wizard can send you the PDF of

the wizard.

Or you could hand it out and say, like, while I was doing reading as a baby DM,

I already made a subclass for you.

It's legit.

It was printed at Kinko's.

You could make them a little necklace that's like a snippometer.

And like, whenever they get snippy with you, you like toggle the dial

and put them in the chest to move that tiny jewelry dial a little bit.

I think that's so intimate.

Okay, so ordered.

So ordered.

Beautiful.

We actually have a case with another uncomfortable thing at the table.

So I'll go ahead and read that one.

Do we do any other kind?

Rune.

Rune writes, hello, justices, and whichever poor soul reads this,

I bring to you the kids.

I took pity on you, Jake.

Isn't that nice?

Doesn't that feel good?

Yeah.

I invited God to forgive you.

Hell yeah, man.

Thank you.

I bring to you the case of the possessive paramour.

A while back, I started evangelizing the word of the good book, then 4E, and slowly brought on copious converts.

At the zenith of this, I was running 10-person games just to accommodate all the people that wanted to join.

Whoa.

That seems a lot.

Yeah.

At the time, I invited a newly made friend that had just started interacting with the group.

They asked if they could invite their partner, which was fine by me, as we had a couple of open slots.

The game was set.

We only got eight people.

We only had eight people to do that.

Usually we have 17 or 18, but we're down to 11 because of a couple people on vacation for the holidays.

It takes just 25 minutes for one person to do a time, but everybody else is playing 12.

All 25 of us are going to go kill it.

They're playing DD at like fucking Dracula's table.

It's like 14 minutes.

What if this table is in real life the NPCs from that other customers game?

Right?

Okay.

The game was set and the players arrived.

All was well.

Shortly into the game, my friend, playing a bodacious bard, decided to facetiously pursue a romance with an NPC, an effusive Aricocra.

Shortly into this interaction, maybe two minutes in, the boyfriend states, quote, that they enter the room and immediately stab the Aricocra,

stating they had, quote, found waving a red flag.

Where are we?

Stating why?

Stating why?

Waving a red flag.

I honestly

would love to be at this table.

I would have died laughing.

I love this move.

This

dropped that piss.

What did they say?

What was their reason?

He's also a red hang.

I love red flag.

None of us ever flutt with you, Mo.

We're really afraid of Emily in real life.

That's right.

Oh, my God.

They said, quote, that they had found the assassin.

There was no assassin.

There was no no talk of assassination.

When my NPC fought back.

This is, okay, even with that response, I love it even more.

This person is just off their rocker.

Not that's the person who planned their move.

They were sitting there ruminating.

When my NPC fought back, the boyfriend stated,

I wasn't playing the game right.

When I asked what they meant, they yelled in front of an active audience of 10 people, quote, DD isn't about stealing girlfriends.

This is Tim Robinson.

This is a Tim Robinson character.

This is very funny to me.

I don't even know

because it's so funny.

I don't

eight to 12 people also sitting on the girl.

I think you should leave a sketch of Tim Robinson watching his girlfriend flirt with

an NPC

being like, I'm throwing a current.

So you understand now.

This is why I love this.

This is why I love this.

It's just funny.

It feels rather harmless.

It's a TV show and not life.

Yes.

CND's not about stealing girls.

It's not about stealing.

Godfrey.

Okay, they continue.

Judges, I knew not what to do.

So I pretended his character had been the source of the shout, and I tried to roll this all into the narrative.

After a number of awkward moments, we moved past the outburst and finished the game.

Wow.

Congrats.

Hey, that's a huge one.

As soon as the dude yelled back, I think I would have just been like, let's take a timeout and then we quietly left.

I would have been like, the DM would have left your own house.

Oh, is it this person's house?

People over to play?

No, it's not a good time.

I would have been like

timeout.

We peaked.

We're not going to get anything funnier happening today.

Everyone.

This is literally so much of

DD.

It's not about

friends.

And that is unfortunately the funniest thing that will ever happen to any of us.

We all need to acknowledge that and then leave.

Bitch, this is the bird.

It's a fucking bird, babe.

Can you imagine the ride?

What are you doing, babe?

Could you ever ride home with your boyfriend after that?

That is also like,

you also have to be like, that boyfriend is there because he heard that you were invited to a DD game and he was like, can I come?

Yeah.

I don't feel comfortable you playing DD without me because I know that game's about stealing girlfriends.

They don't say it.

They don't say it, but I know.

It's supposed to be about not stealing girlfriends, but some people, they think it is about stealing girlfriends.

Do you guys ever just think that your girlfriend's going to like fringe a a bird when you're not looking at something?

Oh, you do.

It's an air.

We have had, we have had, I think, court submissions where it's just like, yeah, this person just flirted with my significant other for like an hour, the whole session, and then in between bathroom breaks, said that they have a crush on my girlfriend.

Like, those are actual, like, red flag, weird situations.

But it's just being like, this person's bard flirted with a bird.

And it's like, fucking relaxed.

I'm picturing like a deeply tense quiet ride home yes that the first thing that the first thing that gets said is just so do you like wish i had wings

what do you literally stops the car and says oh get out salvage that relationship like in what world there's no coming back there's no coming back from there's no like yeah not about that car ride just like it's misting out slightly raining matchbox 20 is playing on the radio

is this why you always bite your lip when you play angry birds Yeah.

But yes,

Sonic tells me

they're having a hard time getting the windows defogged, and it's just like quiet ripping

about the situation, but at the windows.

That will push you out.

They're completely

locust.

This person would.

This person would.

Obviously, this is just like insane jealousy to the point that it's cartoony.

It's calm.

It's ridiculous.

This is ridiculous.

And even if you weren't like, this is the most jealous, like red flag thing,

you would still be like, this is so fucking pathetic.

There's no coming back from this.

I feel like we should be able to more often just respond to someone with, like, I don't know how to interact with this.

Yeah.

The best thing this dude could say in the car ride home is, I really fucked up.

And that's

all.

I have nothing else to say.

Especially.

I don't know what happened.

You have to just unravel.

You have to begin unraveling that.

And like that whole conversation is so

bad.

I'm sorry.

My mom divorced my dad for a bird.

My God.

Was there more of this?

I feel like we just

know.

Oh my God.

The man yelled.

Yeah.

DD is not about seeing girlfriends.

The DM rolls it into the narrative.

After a number of awkward moments, we move past the outburst, finish the game.

The boyfriend practically ran out of the house, post-session,

and was never to be seen again.

Okay, they broke up.

Judges, I beseech you, was I fine in my romantic antics, or should I have been more attuned with my group and deferred to the apoplectic partner?

I think you handled everything so perfectly, and you walked away with a great story.

And you have to

wonder at the red flag that was going to come up very slightly.

It's good to get this stuff out of the way early.

Yeah, it does feel like that that was the end of the relationship.

I hope so.

Yeah, sure.

It sounds like they were friends with the partner.

So it would be, yeah.

You kind of got to instigate the flashpoint that like broke them up, which was the right move, which is absolutely.

I want to know if you've talked to this person and been like, hey, that was crazy, right?

Did you guys break up right after that?

Like, what was the conversation?

Can we please have that conversation and then send it in?

Like, maybe do it in a voice note text, I guess, like, so that we can hear all of the juicy details.

You've got the 10 people at the table.

Maybe just have like a group of them acted out, like improv style.

Yes, great.

Yeah.

I don't even.

Yeah.

Wow.

That's it's nice to have 10 people at the table.

You can so quickly just be like, okay, hey, there's 10 people here.

Group poll.

Was that normal?

There's so many people to yell D and D is not about TD.

This is honestly a great mental exercise to check yourself to see if you're wrong.

Be like, imagine 10 people just watching you do anything.

And if you feel embarrassed about saying it, you're probably wrong.

The fact that you salvaged this and finished the game of D and D is a wild.

And I will also say just the fact that you have consistently 10 people at your table

tells me that you're a very good team.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to not punish this person because

this is but he's already been punished.

They're not a character in I think you should know.

And I just think this is really funny.

Can I give him a baby punishment?

No, this dude needs a real fucking punishment.

All right.

Well, I will put this punishment forward, which is that I think that the former girlfriend does get to date the Aro Cocra.

Oh,

the character of the Arocra.

That's right.

Let the bard fuck the Aro Cocra.

Yes.

That's the punishment.

I truly don't know if any punishment could be worse than the, I'm sure, almost constant flashbacks that this person has.

I hope they have enough game.

I hope they have enough shame to flash back to this.

That is what, yeah, or they're just at different game nights.

I was like, who is it about stealing you?

girlfriends?

I just like smash guns at every single thing.

Mrs.

White is my wife, and she's a cook.

Tic-tac-toe is about stealing girlfriends.

Just arms crossed at every game night.

I'm prepared this time.

Trust me.

I attack every NPC

before you can even flirt.

The Bachelor isn't about...

Oh, wait.

No.

Okay, I'm wrong on that one.

This kind of is about stealing girlfriends.

Good God.

Yeah, okay.

So

that dudes.

I mean, you as a DM sound incredible.

We're going to give you a medal.

Yeah.

The first ever D D Corp medal.

Yeah.

You get a lobster dinner.

You get a lobster dinner.

Or you get a medal with a lobster on it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I like that.

Yeah.

Or a piece of lobster.

We're going to just spray paint a lobster.

Gold.

RV dead.

We're going to borrow it from a restaurant.

We're going to borrow it from a restaurant.

You have to even bag.

It's a load.

It's a load of lobster.

We just needed to cast the mold for the golden lobster.

That's true.

Yeah, we're not going to send you the actual lobster.

Okay, so then if we're just eating a mold, the lobster could be a lot of fun.

You're getting the golden lobster because you're pinching off awkward situations

before they can

snip, snip on those red flags.

Great work.

Oh, yeah.

You're snipping red flags left and right.

Love it.

Yeah, dude.

Great work.

Golden lobster works.

That's wild.

Congratulations.

Your award is in the mail.

And with that, shall we step into church and get a Dice Christ confession?

So this confession comes from Bradley H.

Bradley writes, to the lofty justice priests and the cake man himself, I present the flying swords of crit.

During COVID, I started DMing for the first time over

Colwell doesn't believe in it.

Colwell, shut the fuck up.

Anti-vax piece of shit.

I just think we need to have a discussion.

Now in 2025.

Colwell wrote in RFA.

Colwell just logged onto the internet for the first time and got immediately radicalized.

He had never been on the internet before.

I just became a member of something awful and I've got some things to say.

So I'm DMing for the first time over Roll20 with people I met over social media.

We played Frozen Sick, a pre-written adventure set in Wildemount.

The low-level adventurers delved into an ancient frozen laboratory, and one player accidentally activated a teleportation effect that sent him into a room with four flying knives, a variant of flying swords.

Oh my god.

The player decided to stay and fight.

The knives started to crit, and it looked like the player was going to be outright killed.

Justices, never have I lied with such frequency in my life.

The crits kept coming, and I was mortified of a player death so early in the campaign.

So I fudged Nat 20s into dirty 20s and arbitrarily reduced the damage dealt by the damaged die.

Was I in the wrong to save this character, or should I have let the die slay the player?

I am pleased to report near the end of the campaign, about a year later, I did one-shot kill the player.

I was literally gonna make the joke that all will be redeemed if you lie to kill them.

I fucking got there out

in an unrelated explosion for 372 damage.

Well, no, because the balance has been restored.

Feels like this player is Leroy Jenkins in Texas.

This is why

I'm trying to fight traps.

Yeah.

Yeah, they gotta always come into a bunch of people.

Just try trying to fight traps.

I feel like you can, in this situation as a DM, be like, wink, wink, they're flying knives.

You can just leave.

It's not, you know, a

thing.

Oh, were they trying to use it like a training room where they were like battling all the knives and trying to knock them aside?

Yeah.

I think it's just a module.

I think the cosmic scales have been balanced.

Yeah.

You one-shotted this, you one-shotted this person.

Yeah, and way cooler to be killed by 372 explosion damage.

Right, which also feels like he was trying to fight traps, right?

Like this person trying to fight non-V trap.

Yeah.

Just imagining Indiana Jones turning around and trying to punch the boulder is kind of what's happening.

Using a little lasso to try and stat the boulder.

The movie is three minutes long.

Yeah.

I think in the future, you could always use the roll in front of the table trick because if you keep critting, it does start to feel like you're cheating.

But they couldn't.

They're doing it on roll 20.

But you can roll, you can have

rolls be seen, but they didn't want it to be, though, because they were like, I don't want to kill someone.

I do think if you kill someone that early and you get it in front of everyone, though, then maybe it is.

Right, maybe that player learns their lesson of not fighting knives.

Yeah, yeah, fighting knives is nuts.

I don't know.

I could see myself trying to fight knives.

That sounds actually really rad.

I can't do that.

You can't use yourself as an example.

Like, it's every time you do something stupid, it's funny.

Like, the Emily Axford excuse is not like, yeah, that's not

that.

Nobody else can do it the way that you do it.

I think if I were doing that, though, I would also beat the knives, but also I think it would be funny if I died.

If I was doing that.

But you're all is forgiven.

Yeah, I think if you were to fudge a role during like session one or something, it would probably be the time to do it.

Exactly.

And you fudge that role, that hole just goes right into Dice Christ Paul.

You just take that to your grave.

Yes.

You don't want the players to know that you were.

Or the player took it to theirs.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There you go.

Yeah.

So pretend this never happened.

You never submitted this, okay?

You understand?

Everything's going to be all released.

Sleep every detail from this.

In fact, we're just the episode down.

Fuck it.

Let's not release this episode.

Let's not release this episode.

That's great.

That's great.

I'm pouring coffee on the recorder right now.

Thank you for joining us for this lost episode, Sean Thompson.

Just in case,

just in case this leaks, is there anything you'd like to plug?

Yeah, I'm reading House of of Mirth by Edith Wharton at the moment, and it's awesome.

Oh, yeah.

I just every

twists, turns,

intrigue.

Yeah.

All right.

Murph and I saw the Count of Monte Cristo last night, and it was

so freaking good.

Don't be scared of the three-hour runtime because I was.

And then once I was in it, I wasn't scared anymore.

We were gripped.

Terrible.

I ran to the bathroom.

I would have done another hour.

I ran back from the bathroom.

It's in French.

I didn't want to miss any of it.

Yeah, he did.

Why else would I run to the bathroom?

I don't know.

He seems like a weird thing to say.

Sprinted while zipping.

Yeah.

I'd love to plug House of Murph, which is a novel I'm writing.

Wow.

Wow.

Great.

It's like a Muppet dramatization where all the characters are mud.

Exactly.

Is it about Brian Murphy or Murph Emily Oxford?

Or about both of them?

Emily see both of them.

It's just about our house.

If the twist is that Murph is actually Murph, Emily, Oxford, or you find out.

Spoilers.

Yeah, I've been dead the whole time.

The house was Murph all along.

I turned into four knives and Emily killed me.

You were both secretly dragons.

So for more ridiculous stuff, over in our Patreon, patreon.com/slash natpot, that's NADDPOD.

This is Dnd D court month.

Yeah, don't sing yet.

Don't sing yet.

This is DD Court Month.

I actually have to explain something, everyone.

Please contain yourselves.

This is DD Court Month over on the main feed, but we're going to be doing fun stuff with all of our guests over on the Patreon.

So this week, we're doing something really fun.

We're doing an adventure book theater with Siobhan, and we're doing the ball of Netherfield, which is a choose your own.

It's a Pride and Prejudice themed one.

Yeah.

This is a choose your own

agency romance.

Yeah.

And I had, because there were like 20 pages up top where there were no choices, I did have to read up top.

Wow.

I have some opinions going into this, and I'm going to do a really bad summary.

And and then the pick choices.

I'll give you guys a hint.

The first choice is to choose which of the four dresses we're going to pick from

when they're a PDF.

Yes.

Okay.

Well, there is a pretty low-cut yellow one.

That might be absolutely that.

Okay.

I feel like Jane's pick of the red one might be where we want to go.

Okay.

Just classic red.

I don't know.

You're a classic Jane.

Yeah.

We choose red duster.

Yeah.

We're just going to go in a duster.

All right, everybody.

You can follow us on social media that we may or may not use.

Siobhan, what are your socials?

At Vonytom on various platforms, do I use it?

Sometimes.

Yeah.

I don't use mine, but I'll use it.

Caldahl's at Calde, Emily's at E-Axford, and Jake is at Jay Kurwitz.

And you could talk about the show using hashtag NadPod.

There's NEDDPOD.

We are Rion.

Youth of the Nation.

We are Rion.

And now it's time to thank our benevolent council of elders.

They are Brad D., Jeffrey S., Lord of the Fjord, later Mick Sgator, Matt M, Cutter W, Jeff C, Daniel G, Danielle the Dastardly Dame, Carpe Liam, Bryant, Victor T.

Balnor's Boy, Hoyd's Friend, Justin I.

Danny Danster, TJM, Trele the Cray, Christopher B., Damiel R., Jordan L., Cyborg Version of Josh the Kobald, Targot, Stevie Waggs, Hellish Rebuker, Ph.D., Princess Yar, Jory S., Rachel from Animorphs, Jack L., Nicholas C., the star of every film ever made in Bohumia, Mike Hightower, Alka Smeltzer Plus, Great Value Gemma, Tyler F, Heradrian, Carborough Chapel Hill, FPV, Rexthaniel the White, Cece Lulu, Ol Cobbs Dunkel, Older Byrne, Hercule Poirot, the Rabbit Folk Detective, Timmy R.

Rayko, Calder, Comes Cold, shout out to the Cold Come Companions, Frosty Facial, Taylor B.

Maybe the Real Treasure was the friends we made along the way.

Cass, Strong, Grinch, Steven, Jag, Tyker, Om, Mork, Ole C, Mike K, Nick W, William W, Big Bad, Beardo the Mad, Eric, Mick D, Anorama, Percival, Frederick, Steinbon, Mussel, Klowowski, Dirolo, the third, J Dragonborn, Guardian of the Vibe, Honoring the Cock, Profane Huckster, Ben A, Dave H, Dustin S, Danny F, Hawkeye Pierce, Book Vars Assistant, Izzy F, Big Bad John, DPC, Is Awesome, Hashtag Honor the Cock, Sean the Shade Tree, Mechanic of Zeldar, Summer RG, Mark the Dark Lords, Taint, Katzi, Misa of House and Zunza, Ariel the Occasional Mermaid, Selena N, aka Velacie Raptor, B.

Perky Always, Pat L, Maxwell J, Lauren H., Serve 16, Annie the Fay Wild Therapist, Connor Savage, Salil, BioQuart 7, Amber Dextrous, Jack H.

King of the Mole People under I and Deep, dressed in blue and fighting his way through a bracket-style tournament, Valen Paj, the bitch and bunny bard, Carlin C.

Noah the Bullywog Boy, hashtag Honor the Cock, James G.

Everything Bago, the Eladron who just wants to hang out with his pet badger, Stripey, Reverend Chatterbones, Han, Eric B., Marcos, learns the balance, Druid, Frida M, Maggie, Holly the green laughing hyena, finally caught up to the duck team, Akash, Thakar, Cal, just Cal, Aaron B, Russell H, a monk named Dilgo, yes, the whole thing, yes, every time, Cody C, Lorelei the succubi, and Kira the succulent snack, McKenna Stout, your friendly neighborhood, Yant and Yunkel, Andrew and Sid.

John Adams, the didn't win the vote but won your heart, candidate, Meg, the male carrier of Bahumia, James F.

Austin, S.

Wayfarer now has to do something with the trolls.

Get rid of them, turn to page 42, keep them, turn to page 69.

Shane C.

Barpo, Good Barrel, Bard, Barian, Welsh Lander, Garrett G, one big curd, Renee, the monster captain, Olivia the Enchanting Bard, and Jared the Soap Opera Cleric, who are playing Stick It to the Man, Down with the Monarchy.

Winter S.

Fico, Garrett the Artificer, Damon J, Anthony the rattest of dudes, Jay, the fairies have amended all their ways and are volunteering at their local petting zoo.

Cantrip Dumbledore, the Bear Onesie-Wearing Barbarian, Lexi loves the two crew, Roger L.

Nodrog, the pass-a-fist barbarian, Gino T.

John Luca, Tristan the talentless hunk, Shenanigans O'Connor, Mios the Great, Joshua S.

Alexander, Lins W, Johnny Dude K, Pavu Eskinor, the Goliath Paladin, providing service with a smile, Tim M.

MLG, Cheeto, Shelby, Kenna's first favorite sprite girl, happy hoglidays and a happy blue year, kicking off 2025, CND20 at MSG, Snailis, who is infecting Worcestershire for within.

Captain Morgan, Pirate Wizard, Pawpaw Skydays, Mima Skydays, Megan N.

Anthony B.

Savannah H.

Balnor's best friend, Steve, Stephanie of House and Zunza, Benjamin A.

Gimli the Corgi, Pawpaw and Foster's canine friend, Mickel A.

Josh Hole, Pilot of the Nightmare Verse Flight, Frokey, the Two Crew, Blue Through, Jennery, Ethan the Mailman, Maple, the Shy Bookworm, Ashosaurus, Seth E.

Billy Batson, Tori the Tungsten, Dragoose, Michael L.

Sproud II, Jacob the Purveyor of Shenanigans, Carl B.

Plumber of the Realm, Dex Riddlewell, Hannah A.

Ra, Ace Dregs, High Lord of Critzburg, Darius D, the guy from that one thing, Troy's Mom, Bin Diagram, GKC, Teehee, Teehe, Catameleus, the Consumed, Bard of Holding, Clinton P, Grinchful Cam, the Grinch Frogman, Dean, Jake W., High Mom, Tuesday Cross, the Choose Your Own Adventure Writer, Not the Porn Star, Steve L., Tyler, Mick M, Alex G, Zibby DeBaccery, Nicole, Katerina C, Lady Jacqueline P of Castle Whitestone, Greg W.

Wants the D20 Truck Nuts Jake thought up.

Huh, I don't even remember that.

Sounds Sounds awesome, though.

Baruch Thunderhelm, fifth generation Minotaur, working as an abandoned labyrinth tour guide.

Thank you, everybody.

That was a Hitgum podcast.

Wherever you go,

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