D&D Court: Fine Burgers, Friendship Faction and The Tome of Puberty

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This is a Head Gum gum podcast.

Welcome to Dungeon Court, everybody.

We are your Supreme Court Justices Murphy, Axford, Tanner, and of course, the Loli Loli Loli Loli Loli Lowy.

What's happening? Bailiff Jeeker Witz. I don't know.
It's a bit. We're just going with it.
Just some casual lowlies this time. It sounded like moaning.
Yeah,

there's nothing casual about the way I moan sang that intro.

It was a casual bit. We're going to gloss right over it.
Hear ye, hear ye. Crit is now in session.
The honorable Supreme Crit Justices, Oxford, Moanfee, and Tanner.

Hey, yes, Moan Fee.

Hate it. Hate it.
You really did. You hit the O.
You hit the O in the lowly, man.

Yeah, dude.

Okay, our first case comes from Connor.

Connor writes, to the esteemed esteemed justices, firstly, there was a man outside the courtroom asserting he was a bailiff, but I could tell from his stature and general attitude that he held no authority.

Oh, please ignore him. We'll look into that.
Don't worry. Definitely ignore him.
We've had complaints before.

All right, thank you.

Okay, Connor writes, I've started using music when DMing to help set the atmosphere and to add to the mood certain scenes. You're doing it right.

They are mostly unintrusive, ambient tunes, but during combat, I have a thumping synth heavy song to bring some more oomph.

Recently, in a fight, one of my players was downed. The moment was tense, and after failing his first death-saving throw, my player got upset and angrily asked me to, quote, turn off this shit.

That's so funny. I love you.
You do have to, if you're going to DJ, you do kind of have to active DJ. You kind of can't just leave it on.

The other players agreed, saying an 80s synth soundtrack didn't always fit the fantasy aesthetic.

The player managed to get back up after a few rounds, and the session continued as normal.

After the fight, the players were laughing at how mismatched the vibe was of the player going down to, quote, an annoying and arrogant song. Annoying and arrogant? An arrogant?

What is an arrogant song?

Be like a van Halen song talking about how awesome you are. I kind of want to know about this encounter because something tells me that there were emotions about how this guy died down to be awesome.

Maybe the DM commissioned an an 80s song that's like my dm is awesome well actually that's that's where this question goes yeah oh okay okay judges it is my own music that i'm playing on

oh

i don't know how to proceed from here do i tell them in hopes for some honest feedback on my music or do i keep quiet and avoid an awkward conversation

okay okay i think you definitely don't tell them you don't need to tell them yeah wait but if they called it arrogant then that isn't that why they called the song arrogant I don't know why this I think you should be confident in your music, but I guess like they're it's their choice that it's arrogant.

I'm a little I understand why everyone's a little emotionally charged in this situation

because you have a million things on your mind right now, right? Like you might be filtering out you as the DM might be filtering out the music in a way that they're not.

So it's okay for them to notice it more than you and for you to be like, whoops, okay, yeah, I'll change it.

And also, it's okay for like if you weren't noticing it and everyone else has a laugh about how it mismatched. That's not saying that your music is bad.

That's just everyone having a laugh at that situation. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I do think you should pepper in other songs. Sure.
Unless they find out that it's all your music and retroactively feel bad.

Unfortunately, if you are going to play music during combat and stuff, much like our show is scored, right?

And if there's a moment that's like kind of a silly chase or something, you might put in like a kind of wacky theme or something like that.

But then if during that chase, someone gets gets hit by a boulder and fails like two death saves. We cut that music.
We cut that music. We change that.
We have choir music.

It becomes something, you know, kind of like spooky or something like that. Or sad, or there's like piano kind of music.
Right, right.

So there's that mixed with the fact that I do understand why you think that like a thumping kind of like techno song would work for a battle and it does to a certain extent.

But there also is an argument that maybe you should just put on a playlist that's more like orchestral or something like that that might feel more, you know, epic or like in vibe with what you guys are doing.

I mean, even like silence can get you further. Like, if you just kind of like fade out the track, it's like

hit pause when somebody goes down. Yeah, I think it's easy as hitting pause.
And also, I don't think you need to overthink it.

Like, if your players are like, hey, can you turn off, obviously, they said turn off that shit.

So it was already, but then, you know, the generous read is that they're in like this really intense moment. Yeah.
And so they're acting emotionally.

I don't think that your music has actually been shitted on. I don't know.
It has nothing to do with your music.

I write music for our podcast and there are times when I write a cue and I hear it in and I'm like, this sounds terrible. And then we cut it.

So it's like, it's not necessarily that, oh, the song's terrible. Sometimes it just mismatches.
Yeah, if you're honestly, I could laugh at it. We all know that Skrillex rocks, right?

But if you were just blasting Skrillex during a death scene, you'd be like, turn the shit off. What's everyone's favorite Skrillex song? The one from the Tron sequel, for sure.

I like when he shows up in Tron. Also, he's got a great song, I believe, on the Wreck-It Ralph soundtrack.
Okay. So that one.
I think it's called Bug Hunt. Don't ask me why I know this song.

I know Bangerang.

How does Bang-Arang go? Bang-a-rang.

How does it go? Yeah, that's how it goes. They say bang-erang.
A very quiet, gentle, baby kind of thing. They do.
They do a little bangerang, and then the bass drops, as the kids say, 15 years ago.

Yeah.

Okay.

So, yeah,

I think it's like you don't have to take it personal. It's like a heightened moment.

You don't have to tell them, hey, it's my music, and then have them grapple with the fact that maybe did they accidentally insult you? Because I also don't even think that they're insulting you.

Yeah, when we played Eldermorn, it was over the pandemic. And so we were all at our own computers.

And I would play music to kind of get us in the mood for each scene since we weren't all in the room together. And I literally had playlists that were like sad moment, scary moment, battle music.

And then there was that eight-minute track of you freestyling.

And then there would be, every once in a while, I would just hit him with the freestyle, but I would know to cut it as soon as he would go down. It was so confusing.
The freestyling was for the good.

It was really difficult to like improvise while in your ear Murphy's freestyle. Right.

Roll the dice, pay the price, can't believe I'm cool as ice. Yeah.
It's just that as we were like, yeah, it was the way sort of Vanilla Ice did the Teenage Mutant and Introductions 2 soundtrack.

I did one for Elder Moment. Ended up having taught.
Ended up having taught.

For time. This has nothing to do with your music.
Make playlists based on different situations.

And I would argue if you got into like a more orchestral thing, even an epic-sounding orchestral song, you could honestly probably just put the Lord of the Rings track on shuffle.

And besides concerning Hobbits, you're probably fine with someone dying to that song.

I also think if you've been playing like the same battle music for every single battle, I don't know that that's what you're doing, but if you're doing that, it's fun to, you know, if you're trying to only play your music, then you're gonna run out quick.

Sure. If you like, introduce other songs, and then there will just be more variety, and then maybe it will be other people's music that your friends die to.
Yeah.

Is Concerning Hobbits the one that goes like,

at the beginning? Yeah. Yeah.

That's like when Gandalf was like, talking about it. I thought it was like,

no, wait, I forgot it. I don't know.

It's definitely not that.

It's not what I'm doing. It's not that.

I don't. Here, I'll play it real quick.

We're going to turn into hobbits. Can we play just enough?

I think we can play. I think we can play a few seconds.
Just a few seconds.

We're allowed to play a few seconds, especially if we comment on it.

Okay. Oh, sorry.

Yes,

you're doing it right.

Okay, actually, I should have known this because when I was in high school, I tried to learn the flute,

but I couldn't play with the band at high school, so I played with like an adult.

Emily, what was your childhood? You're not watching the show. Did you say and you just played the flute with adults?

Did you say adults plural or just why? Yeah, it was like an adult community orchestra.

Why, though? Why couldn't you just play with the band? I don't remember.

Why couldn't you just play with the brand? Because the band didn't want to play Concerning Hobbits. Because

I was a junior in high school, I think, or maybe even a senior. So it's too late.
It's too late to join the band. Yeah, it's too late to join.

But you're never too late to join an adult community orchestra. Yeah, okay, and you joined the community orchestra.
And I think we played that song. You played Concerning Hobbits.

I don't think that we ever did a concert.

Because it was more about community. Right, yeah.
Much like, you you know, the Hobbiton Shire. Yeah.
It's more about community.

And I will say that listening to Concerning Hobbits, you actually could die to Concerning Hobbits, so I take it back.

Yeah, it's very funny hearing that title because it's like, I get that it's saying like, oh, concerning the nature of Hobbits, but when I hear it at first, I'm like, concerning Hobbits.

You mean like Smeagel? Yeah. Yeah.
Oh.

Or I thought like causing them consternation. Causing them concern.

All right. What are we going to do about this billboard character? All right.
We've lost the plot, unfortunately.

Actually, you know what? I have one last thing I want to say. I feel like, you know what? I feel like these players being a little rude.
Your DMs juggling a lot.

I know that their music choices weren't perfect for sure. But to say, can you turn that shit off? Yeah, yeah, I think so too.
I don't like that. I think they're being rude, but like, I think.

Sorry that I respect my fucking DM too much. You guys would absolutely say, turn this shit off.
But I think that you, as the DM, don't need to take it personally.

I think they were stressed about their character. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But who do you punish there? Because Caldwell's kind of right. It's an aggressive thing to say.

It's an aggressive thing to say if we read it as it is. If you're with your friends all joking around and you're like, can we turn this shit off? What is this? No, but then they said arrogant.

They said an arrogant song. Well, if they said it really sad,

can you turn the shit off? Like, maybe it was really bad. Okay.

If the tone was joking, then I think we're okay with it. But like, the tone seems more mocking than joking.

Well, I think no matter what, when we were originally talking about this, I forgot we had to punish someone. So I was just like really trying to like put this person at ease.

And I don't want them to walk into their crew with a chip on their shoulder because I I think that it was like, I think it was more just stressed about going down.

But if we have to punish someone, I will punish the players for being a little calling this song arrogant. Yeah, that feels like

I still don't understand the arrogant thing. I'm confused because they don't know that it's your song.
So I don't know.

It makes me want to hear the song. What do you guys think that an arrogant thumping bass sounds like? I guess, are they just using the wrong word?

And does it sound like a proud, powerful song or something? Yeah, I think it's gotta be right. I think that's it.
Like, like a we built this city, that type of thing. Yeah.

Like Katy Perry's roar. You might as well jump.

Hey, that's confidence, not arrogance. Okay.
But when a woman's got

arrogant.

But we built this city on rock and roll. No, no, no, that's fine.

That's definitely arrogant. That city's going to fall apart.
You can't make cities out of music. Yeah, I don't.
Yeah.

I don't know what to make of that comment, but I do think it is a, I don't know about the way they called it out, and I can't really read tone because we

we say fuck you all the time right i think they're fully within their right to like laugh at the mismatch i think that's like a completely yeah but i you know they did get a little snippy understandably so maybe maybe i think i sigh with punishing the players this is not rude court this is not deciding who is rude and who is not rude this is d and d court and i do think having like thumping bass and inappropriate music during serious moments is like not something I particularly would do as a DM so I do understand why this hurt your feelings.

You're right. I do think it was rude.

I do think it sucks. I said it was your song and then people were mean to you, but they don't know that it's your song.
So they're kind of just like, hey, why are we playing this music right now?

But also, it's a little weird that you didn't just tell people up front that it's your music. I would like, if we were playing D ⁇ D and Emily was like, hey, I made...
a song for this moment.

I would love to hear it. I would love to know that before we went into it.

I actually side with them not telling because it almost puts emphasis on like, enjoy what I did. It like puts emphasis on you.

And I feel like when you're DMing it's really not about you yeah if they had said this knowing that it was the DM's music then I blame the players but totally they didn't know I think there was actually not much of an insult to the music itself yeah the DJing is what created the mismatch is what created the friction and you're responsible for the DJing I fault you for the DJ not for the music totally this has this has nothing we can completely just take out the fact that the DM wrote the music here that has nothing to do with anything that happened It doesn't matter how arrogant it was.

Precisely.

The arrogant line, I still don't fucking get it. I still don't know.
You gotta toss it out.

That also is getting tossed. Jake and Murph have convinced me.

I think that if because you have chosen to take on the mantle of DJ in addition to DM, it is kind of your responsibility to be aware of it.

And you can't take it personally if people ask for a change in music.

So I think you need to hire an adult orchestra and one junior in high school to come over to your house and play concerning hobbits during all of your sessions.

I also, when I went to college, I brought my flute thinking I would have time to learn flute. And join a different adult.

But all I did,

but all I did was I learned like music from Final Fantasy

in my dorm room. I was really good at Kefka's theme.

That's sick as hell. Yeah, that's a blessed out.
So yeah, actually, me playing Kefka's theme. Okay, so Emily's going to go to your game and play kefka's theme

god what a blessing

because she hasn't practiced in 20 years yeah right and she doesn't have her group of 40 year olds

exactly she's gonna be the only 40 year old there gonna get the band back together

are they still around hey cherry i know it's been a minute yeah

hey guys

i was the 14 year old in your band do you remember me i was the girl who didn't talk to any of you because there was such an awkward age gap

put on your best jeans and get over here. All right.
Emily's going to play Kevka's theme at your next game. Arguably a punishment.

Keep making your music. It's got nothing to do with it.
Your friends were definitely a little rude, provided,

I guess, depending on the context of how they said it and if you have a razzing relationship or not. You're allowed to be arrogant about your music.
I'll say that.

For sure. Godspeed.
So ordered. And our next case comes from Humanoid Doudon, Humanoid Rights to the esteemed justices and the You Figure It Out Yourself bailiff.

Wait, I want to unpack this. Does this mean that you're like a DIY kind of guy, or does this mean

you guys figure out a bad name? Yeah, I think this was like, I care so little about Jake that I can't even be bothered to describe him. Okay, thank you for unpacking it.
What a delightful name.

These are the kind of submissions that we want.

I bring to you the case of the re-rolled stats.

Okay.

I've been playing D ⁇ D at a local game store for the past year.

When creating characters for the third campaign, my DM gave us the option to roll for stats in place by using a single D20 and one re-roll for our lowest stat.

This led to hilarious results like a 20 constitution and a 5 dex.

However, as we were taking turns, someone rolled three strength, six decks, and four constitutions.

Oh, that's unusable. My DM immediately allowed them to re-roll all of them and even started rolling for them.
So it was Murph. It was Murph.

No one said anything. And I understand with stats that low, it would be impossible to succeed in certain checks.

But the whole point of rolling with the D20 was that the highs were higher and the lows were lower.

Also, my DM hates powerful characters to the point of banning subclasses because they were too overpowered.

Example: Divination Wizard and College of Eloquence Bard. Red flags, red flags everywhere.
Which confuses me why he allowed the re-rolls. Yeah.

However, I have been having fun, and my DM's leniency has allowed me to start as a 20 charisma paladin. Wow.

Judges, should I say something the next time we create characters or let him continue being a forgiving DM? This is really tough, right? Because that would be so unfun to play. I don't understand.

Yeah, I think this is an idea that, I mean, it sounds like they're having fun at their table, so far be it from me to

criticize it, but it's kind of my job, so I will criticize it.

Is it it sounds fun in theory, right? To be like, it'll be nuts. Like somebody will have four decks and 20 con, and then two intelligence and 20 decks.

But it's basically, it's fun for character creation and then almost never again. And then you just fail roles? Yeah.

I wonder if you just did, if you did like sort of, so I feel like I've moved away from even rolling for stats just because I feel like there's just some, you play with some people and their stats are just always beefed out.

And you're always like, I straight up don't even trust

you talking about Jake, right? No, I actually know that.

Um, but like, I've so I feel like I've like, even kind of like a little bit moved away from that, yeah, in general. But, like, I think your DM did the right thing to even it out.

However, I wonder if there's like a version where it's like you guys have three given stats, yes, and then you have two fun ones that you roll for, yeah, right?

So, worst-case scenario, you have two bad ones, right? It still feels bad, but one silly stat. I'm curious, I'm really curious, though, about this idea of a silly stat, right? Because

this, it's not actually fun, right? Because the fun of DD is gambling. So, a funny moment is when, like, let's say you have average decks.

Let's say you have 10, and then rolling a one and you fall flat on your face. That's funny.
And then, if you roll a nat 20, then you pass the dex save, and then that's epic, and that's fun.

Yeah, if you have a, you know, a dex of minus four,

then you just fail every single rule. Can I? And it doesn't make a difference if you get a one or a 20.
Can I suggest a counterpoint to why it could be fun?

Again, we are just considering this real time. I don't know that I would have to think about it more.
Yeah. But one reason it could be fun is that you basically have one bad stat.

I always love having one bad stat because all it does is it's the one thing that your character is really bad at. Yeah.
You know, and so there's like one subsect of abilities that you're like, faw.

It's your flaw. It's, it informs your character.
I I definitely agree.

Yeah, I will say as a counterpoint to my previous point, Allie Beardsley in Phantasy High does have four total decks of Chris.

And it is so fucking crazy. It's really.
Yeah, so

I do like the silly step, but then it's like, how do you actually get the feeling of like one that could go high, one that could go low? Maybe the better thing is to just everyone has one shit stat.

Yeah. Yeah.
Right. And doesn't everyone almost already have like a dump stat? That's like what that is.
Yeah, but I mean, like,

I think that should be a super dump. All the stats are average and then you roll one stat with advantage and one stat with disadvantage.

Should we do a super a super dump for next campaign? Yeah, super next campaign. I love it.
I'm going to roll right now. I'm going to see if my advantage to disadvantage things works.

Okay, so advantage. I'm going to be a fighter and this is my strength.
My strength is not 20. Hell yeah.
Really good.

And then my intelligence. Let's see how much of a dumbass I'm going to be.
I'm going to do disadvantage.

A one. That's fun.
That's really good. That was fucking poetic.
That was so poetic. So, actually, Dice Christ have just blessed this.
Yeah, Dice Christ loves this.

So you could even, though, just do like, okay, I'm a fighter. I'm leaving Constitution decks and con alone.
But my intelligence and wisdom, I roll them one with advantage, one with disadvantage.

So it's like, okay, I'm going to be a really smart fighter because I've been like fighting a long time. So I'm just rolling advantage.
15. Okay, that's

more normal. Yeah.
And then disadvantage for my wisdom. Oh, I got a nat 20 and a 19.
Whoa, shit. Whoa, okay, so that's fun.
Wow, never mind. I'm actually like a really wise.

I think we're converted together. Yeah, we actually are.
One silly stat, one super stat. Like, that's really

disadvantage and disadvantage does help the averages a lot, and it stops the rolling stuff. This all makes me feel like we can't rule against this DM because

they've started this notion that we but we figured out a better system in like two minutes, right? So are we? You know what?

I think we have to punish them to finesse their system because they've got a good kernel of an idea, but it's leading to awkward moments at the table.

Yeah, I think having to re-roll and stuff, it's like clearly you want some kind of average, right? Which goes against the idea of just rolling a d20 if you're doing all these re-rolls.

Like, that's kind of silly. So, you should just be like, what's up? If we're going to roll all six, do three of them with advantage, three of them with disadvantage.

That way, you have like probably have somewhat of an even spread. And if you have a bad one, then you rolled so terribly, then it's just funny kind of that your character sucks.

Kind of funny. Okay, so actually, we can punish the DM to use our perfected system.
Right.

Which we don't know. It hasn't been playtested enough.
We've already playtested this. Yeah, we need to do another five minutes on this to make sure it's perfect.

Actually, I have to go to the next step. Hold on.
Hold on, real quick.

Here's my silly stat. Okay, that's a natural 19.
That's

this with advantage. That was with advantage.
Okay, here's with this. I rolled two 12s, actually.
Okay,

that's pretty much it. I'm going to re-roll Saul's stats right now.
Here we go. This is going to be for his strength.
Great. Disadvantage.
Shout out to the two crude with disadvantage. Great.

Oh, very weak.

Yeah, do decks. And then are you doing advantage for that? Yeah, advantage for decks.
Yeah. Okay,

15. Okay.
But I still think, though, I think it's best if you just take two.

If you have a more mechanized system for the stats that matter the most and then the two that matter the least,

then you do one with advantage, one with disadvantage. What you're planning on being your dump stats become your gambling stats yes yeah

so i think ultimately this kind of turned into a turtle tank thing where we just tried to use this idea to come up with a new idea the ultimate question was should i question the fact that my dm lets somebody re-roll their stats and i think that this this is already a kind of faulty wacky system yeah and i don't think it's gonna i don't think it's gonna be worth it to go to your dm and be like i don't think ryan should have gotten a try again i think it it should have sucked.

You know, I think like

if your DM and the player both don't want them to have all terrible stats, just let them fix it.

I would suggest, though, maybe, you know, having some kind of median option in there and maybe have some kind of, you know, advantage, disadvantage system.

Okay, I'm doing like a row wiener of a wizard. Okay.

And so I'm going to roll their con with advantage because I know that's a little more important. Damn, a 19 and an 18.
I'm going to get a 19 con for my wizard. Wow, you wizard.

Okay, so we're already broken.

Disadvantage. Yeah.

Five. Okay.

That's satisfying. That's satisfying.
I think that's really fun. And that also just, like, that gamble just created a really, like, you can picture a wizard with a great constitution.

It, like, helps with your, your roleplay almost. It's like, all right, now I'm going to fill out this backstory.
Like, why this wizard? Okay. Yeah.
This is a wizard who's made entirely of spellbook.

His entire, all of his skin is like thick, leathery tone. Okay.
So we're going to. I don't think this is really a case anymore.
Yeah. I think so.
Well, no, no, no. We're still

going to punish the DM. The DM has to buy everyone some new commander decks from the game store that they play out.
Great. Oh my god.
Hell yeah. Okay, sure.

And this is going to work for our eggs, the advantage, disadvantage. Yeah, maybe they buy me a dumpster.
Maybe they buy me a commander deck. Right.
Yeah. So

we'll give you a ton of eggs and you can use them to

use our eggs. Okay.

All right. The next case comes from JS.
JS writes: Dear, most cool and refreshing justices and your room temperature bailiffs.

Yeah, you are. Tepid.
So tepid. I come to you today with the case of the Tome of Puberty.
Okay.

Okay. All right.
I am

fearful. Yes, I'm scared.
Is this like a what's happening to my body book, but in DD?

I debated whether or not I should leave the tome of puberty up top or how do you guys find out later, but I like it up here. Sure.

I DM a campaign where one of my players is a very naive turtle cleric. In an early session, the party went up against an assassin who had seduced a noble so she could get him alone and murder him.

The turtle was the one to intercede on the attempt. When he found them, the noble was canoodling with the assassin.

The player stopped the assassination, but was shocked and confused by the brief and very PG physical intimacy he witnessed and insisted that he did not understand what was happening.

Another player asked him how he had never heard of sex, and he replied that back home, female turtles simply laid eggs to later be fertilized by the males. Okay.

I let this slide as I had no desire to verify the accuracy of his assertion. Yeah.
That proved to be a mistake. Oh, no.

For the next several sessions, the turtle continued to be befuddled by what he'd witnessed and brought it up to every NPC he spoke to.

I quickly grew tired of having every NPC get cornered into giving his character the talk.

As a workaround, had one give him a book called The Tome of Puberty that could explain everything. Uh-huh.

Unfortunately, my solution became the bane of my campaign. Just reads from the Tome of Puberty all the time, yeah.

As both the turtle and the rest of the party became obsessed with the book, they would find any excuse to read it or use it, frequently asking me to describe the contents of specific pages.

Oh, that's so funny, though.

That's just funny.

Unfortunately, they got your ass. Yeah, they really did get your ass.
This got old-fast, so I had the errant fireball of an evil wizard burn the book into an unrecoverable hash.

Hey, congratulations, dumbass dudes. Just get him a new quest.
SDM is very funny, and the players are not very funny.

Really interesting.

Well, I do think it's funny for them to make DM read it. Yeah, I just, yeah.
I don't like the turtles game. I don't like this.
Yeah, I mean, the turtle looks sex.

Yeah, I agree.

Because also, I mean, we all know that turtles have very large penises that they, you know, fertilize the female with.

Don't bring it up, dude. I'm so jealous.
I've seen that video, the turtle humping the shoe. Yeah.
Right? It comes out. It's weird looking.
Yeah. Oh, my God.
Yeah. Okay.

Okay. Well, this continues.
Since destroying the book, the party has become despondent and they are constantly looking for another copy.

Was I wrong to have the book destroyed or wasn't the party wrong for turning my campaign into a high school health class? Humbly accept your decision.

Luke, I think you're right.

I think they weren't entirely wrong for

the running running bit because I bet

I guarantee you already sound funny. I guarantee that you were reacting in a funny way whenever they were like, I read the book.
And so they were having fun laughing at your reactions.

You're just on Wikipedia just being like, all right. Yeah.
I think

Portal isn't necessarily funny with like the, you know, bringing sex up to every NPC.

But as soon as that book gets introduced, I feel like, how can you not expect all of the players to be like, I want to read this book, too? That's a toma puberty.

And that's the nice thing is that's that's a funny bit that you brought up.

And then it's also as funny that you're, I do understand getting frustrated that your players then turned your funny joke against you and had you use and then began using it all the time.

It is like a pretty easy like Google or whatever. If you can't think of, you know, what, what the next thing in the book would be.
I would take that as a compliment.

That was your players being like, you're very funny.

I think the only person I would punish in this situation is the turtle for leaning into into something that, like, maybe it sounds like not anyone was really that into. Yeah.

It's also, I can see, like, a million ways for that turtle's arc to go. Like, you learn enough about puberty to eventually teach a health class.
You become like a phys ed teacher. I don't know.

Like, you can. Yeah.
I also. What a weird arc.
Yes. Yes.
If that's what you want from D ⁇ D. Yeah.
Yeah, sure.

But I also. Circle of physical education.

I think the problem is always like, this is like funny for a session. Yeah.

If every single week they show up like wanting more chapters of the book of puberty, then you just, yeah, you will become.

Well, before the book of puberty, because the book of puberty could be really funny at first, then not be that funny when they keep talking about it, but then become funny again when they keep talking about it.

Yeah, I think there's no flaw. So I think the flaw is just the funny thing.
Agree.

I don't blame the players that much, but I do think the turtle, I can't imagine that bit being funny outside of the first round. Then after that, just going up to NPCs and just being like, what sex?

Yes, that's what I was going to say. Like, I don't understand how after it's explained to you once, you feel like you need to ask someone again.
Yeah. Yeah.
Book of Puberty, fine to take away.

If you want to put another one out there, I think you can literally, you should just buy a book of puberty and literally when they ask

what's on page 200. Literally just whip it out and be like, is this funny to you guys? I'll just read from it.
You could also have them like roll a D100 for what page you read. Yeah.

So you don't even have to choose. Here you go.
Your armpits are going to start to smell. Is that

funny?

Enjoying this still. But they got rid of.
Their question was, was it okay to get rid of the Tome of Puberty? Absolutely. Absolutely.

And you did it in a very funny way.

And you have permission to introduce Shredder to the campaign.

Shredder has the next book of puberty, kills the tortle, and in the ultimate twist of irony, they get the book of puberty as the tortle does. That's kind of cool.

So it's like a prepubescent Shredder between which

that gets origin. Incredible, yeah.

All right, so ordered. Brendan R.
writes, may it please the court, this is my first time writing a case, but the situation is so bizarre, I feel like I have to share.

Excited, great.

I play in a campaign with some grad school friends. It has been going great since 2022, but recently, things took a strange turn when one of the PCs chastised the party for forgetting his birthday.

What? We thought it was just a strange joke until his PC said the following in character. If you guys aren't going to treat me with the respect I treat you with, I'm leaving the party.

We were floored and implored him not to leave the party, to which he explained that over months of play, he had intentionally had his PC remember our PC's birthdays in hopes that one of us would initiate a birthday scene with him so that he could advance the plot of his character with a curse that takes effect at the age of 25.

Judges, what the hell? Should other party members be expected to pick up on hints like this?

I totally understand the value of improv and collaboration, but this birthday thing came out of flesh fields for all of us. Are we guilty of being bad party members?

Am I the only one who feels like this person's just too online? Yeah, no, I think it's just too online.

I think this person like played too much like Baldur's Gate, is expecting things to be like, you can just unlock certain things by doing quests. And if you like, remember certain details.

This is fucking like, this is fucking Stardew Valley brain. Yeah.
This is just like kind of a level of entitlement. Yes.

Thinking that, first off, as a DM, there's plenty of times where where I have to be like, this character from your past, and you remember them from this context, because I know

you're all busy. And it's like, maybe you don't remember this character from 40 sessions ago or whatever.
Sometimes it's hard to remember your actual friend's birthday. Yes,

remembering your friend's PC's birthday is really bad. Do you know?

It was a New Year's resolution of mine once to go big for birthdays because I was like, this is going to be a great bonding experience for me and the people in my life.

People were more more indifferent about it than I thought. I walked away being like, okay, I think birthdays aren't like,

they don't need to be a big thing. Here's what I will say.

I do agree that birthdays don't need to be a big thing, but I will say that people that are quietly very good at birthdays, I have a respect for them where I think that they totally have their shit together.

Like I have friends that maybe I don't see as often that hit me every single birthday, and I'm like, damn, dude, you just have a Google calendar.

You're in my good sense. That's what I did for that year.
I did it, and I went big, and people were less moved. But I think they're quietly impressed by you.
Yeah, but that wasn't the point.

I was thinking this is a bonding experience. It's going to like deepen and like enrich our friendships and relationships.
And it felt like it was just a little bit more.

No, it just quietly gets you faction points. It quietly gets you faction points off.

I like the skywriting thing you did for me. I thought that was cool.
Yeah. Yeah.
I'm sorry. I didn't hear thank you.
You went a little too big, I think, was a problem. Yeah, it is true, Emily.

You don't know. Maybe in like 30 years, one of those people will like just show up out of the blue and

tackle the burglar that's about to steal your wallet. Whoa, yeah, you're right.
Maybe I didn't know. I guess I just felt like we didn't become more connected.

Like the thing that connects us more was just actually spending time,

yeah.

Or like reaching out not on the day that everyone went to the bottom. That's how you get your faction up with your friends.
You wouldn't have to reach out to you. Right.
Okay, okay.

So make sure you text all your friends to be like, where am I at, Faction one.

Am I getting the good ending?

Are we going to go to heaven together?

Or am I going to go to hell by myself?

Text that to your friends every birthday. Yeah.

Right after you send the happy birthday text, two days later, you say,

What's going to faction at? Are we getting the heaven ending?

Are we getting the heaven ending?

the ultimate good ending i still and maybe the game has evolved beyond this i still kind of feel like d and d my experience of it is very collaborative play but there's some people who go in and it's like this is my precious little character and i am going to craft their story so precisely i want to say to them what i want to say to the you know dms who take up too much space which is like just write a book yeah

if the collaboration isn't i guess this person was seeking out collaboration but it was for kind of a selfish but they were they were seeking out some different version of collaboration where they were waiting for other people to come to them and you kind of just like if you want your birthday to be important i think that's you just gotta say it's my birthday you have to say it yeah and yeah your friends are are collaborating they'll be like oh great it's your birthday let's let's talk about if a curse is coming up on your 25th birthday you don't your character wouldn't be like really good at remembering other people's birthdays they would be afraid of their own birthday right yeah and so that's like not even normal role play like exactly if if my character, if it was a big thing.

Like, why would I initiate a character for your birthday? Like, that would be so out there.

You have main character syndrome and you want the other players to all rush around you and say, oh no, I'm so sad. You know what?

If this was really important to this character, then it really was kind of on the DM. Then they should have, like, all this weird,

all this weird giving because you want to get, right?

Like, I'm going to celebrate your birthday so that you'll mention mine is so, it makes me feel cynical to think about. It's not, that's not what it's about.
It's about faction.

Birthdays are about faction people. Trying to unlock the birthday stage.

But we can say that there is another person in here who could have made this easier, which is the DM. I get it.

Which, like, if, if this is really important for your, for your character story, then I think that it's on the DM to make it, because it's not going to feel satisfying if just one day you're like, guys, it's my birthday.

And I didn't tell you guys, but I'm cursed. And now I initially, you know, it's going to feel really weird, but it's kind of like on the DM to make that moment work.

But it sounds like this person went off before the DM even got to it. And also, it's the person's backstory.
So it's like, yeah, it's just on you to share your backstory stuff.

If you come to the table, and even if it's not this like weird birthday thing that seems really loaded, even if you're like, this person killed my family and I want to get them, it's not on the other players to like the other players will care about that person because you care about them.

Yeah, but it's not on them to bring them up

to be like this assassin is like a big deal. And everything, it's like it's that other character's thing.
It's also

job to bring them up. I'm just picturing someone saying happy birthday to someone with such expectant eyes.
Right.

Just waiting. Don't you want to say you too? Yeah.

Don't you want to ask me? Happy birthday to me.

Happy birthday. Gosh, I love birthdays.
I can't wait for mine, which is on this date. All of that would have been weird, but still slightly more normal because you're being like, it's my birthday.

Like, you're talking about your own birthday a lot. And there are people that are like, it's my birthday month.
And you're like, oh, you don't really have a whole month.

But, like, this person wasn't even doing that. Yeah.
This person was like, it's my birthday campaign. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
All right. So I think obviously we're going to punish this player.
I think so.

So this player, I think, is right now set up for the bad ending.

They have bad, their faction is tanked.

And they need to build it back up by sending happy birthday text and not expecting anything in return.

The only thing you'll get in return is the good ending where you go to heaven with all your friends. Yeah.
The only social link you should be focusing on is the one with Jesus Christ. What? What?

That's right. Oh, dude.

Okay. Is that the punishment? Yeah, the punishment is that their faction is tanked and they have

reaching rival status, honestly. Yeah, they're not going to get the date with Aerith.
Oh, shit. Yeah.
Yeah. You're wow.
Yeah. You're going to gold saucer alone.
I think we have time for one more case.

I'm going to give you guys the option. Okay.
I'm going to give you two case titles and you'll tell me which one we're going to do now and then the other one can be on the short route.

Whoa. Okay.

I feel like you're punking us somehow. No, I'm not.
I just couldn't decide between these two and I need you two for me.

These are the two cases. Okay.
They are the case of the backstory shattering nat 20. Okay.

Or the case of the silly name Scaries. Backstory Shattering Nat 20 or Silly Name Scary.
Silly Name Scaries has such short rest energy. It really does.
I want to say the same exact thing.

Yeah, that feels short rest. That feels short resty.
Okay.

Then here we go. This one is from Professor Bubbles to the beautiful Justices and the mid-tier Jake.

You don't even have a job. You don't even have a job.
It feels bad that mid-tier and the name was right.

I bring the case of the backstory shattering Nat 20. I'm in a game that has been mostly mystery with little bits of combat interspersed.

I play a war-forged butler who is sworn into service to the daughter of my creator in the campaign.

I wrote a chunk of this character's backstory, but left intentional memory holes that I wrote as my creator having erased for my protection. That's really fun.
It's kind of born-esque.

We've been slowly exploring a conspiracy behind my creator's death as I uncover bits of memory, which is super fun.

I'm now picturing a Matt Damon warforged picturing bicycle man but it's matt damon's face i am recently we stumbled into a group of tinkerers who we asked for help in restoring my memory they agreed and i rolled the dm's special fate dice in order to determine how well they did fate dice i got a nat 20.

My DM was sent into a small panic as he began narrating all of the information he had prepared.

Conspiracy within conspiracy within conspiracy. It was truly amazing how many levels deep it was.
Whoa. I'm incredibly grateful to how much work the DM put in

to making even more backstory for my character than I could have ever expected. However, by the end of it, it now feels like there's no more to discover and the mystery feels solved.

Am I wrong for wishing that the Nat 20 should have revealed less? Or am I just a big baby butthead and should work towards fixing the damage from the conspirators?

I humbly ask the court's opinion on this. Trying time as a part of my heart is beginning to even falter in Dice Christ himself.
Oh,

okay, okay,

easy there, thorn centennial man.

Big baby butthead is a good title for Jake for a future email, by the way. Yeah, if you want to, like,

anyone who wants that can take it. I feel like I get this.
I get this feeling because it's like you set up a hurdle for your character, and a lot of your character work is around that hurdle.

And sometimes when it gets satisfied, you're like, oh, I need to discover the new hurdle. Yeah.
I genuinely feel like this is really cool.

I can totally understand, but I think that you're limiting yourself by thinking that way. You had a lot of fun with this.
Now you've got conspiracies.

In solving those conspiracies, new things are going to come up. How do the revelations change your character? How do the revelations like, how do you emotionally respond to that?

How do you even grapple with the fact that you are emotionally responding to this? How do you receive why they made four born movies?

Each one better than the last. Yeah.

Ritter Born was never stopped being good. Yeah.
Right. Yeah.
I feel like you've got an incredible prompt here.

And I think that maybe you were having a lot of fun with the first prompt, but this is definitely a prompt that you could have just as much fun with.

I feel like you're dealing with like just like the whiplash of the moment, but like narratively, it is really cool because you were expecting this to go on for so long.

And now like you've been given this gift, but it's like not a gift you want. And it's just like, yeah, where do you go from here? You've got like the world wide open for you.
It's very fun. Yeah.

It's also nice you can, you know now that you can count on your DM because you're having prepared so much. So, whatever you do next, there's going to be as much thought and care going into it.

And may I suggest like a birthday thing?

You just have your DM when your birthday is.

Yeah. Maybe what you're really feeling is not like disenchanted as much as you're maybe feeling nervous.
It's possible that you're feeling nervous about creating like sort of like a new

chapter two of your story, but it sounds like your DM's so good. You could just be like, hey, like,

I want to know where do you think my character should go after this? I'm sure you could have a conversation with that. I think you got to punish yourself by taking your DM out for dinner.

I think, like, go to whatever your DM's favorite spot is.

Maybe it's, you know, Island's Fine Burgers and Drinks.

Probably take them to Island's Fine Burger Days. That's a solid poll.
That's a

very not well known.

It's a Burbank chicken. If you drive it past the Burbank, yeah.
I just always makes me laugh because it's literally called Islands Fine Burgers and Drinks.

They're not even that proud of their burgers. Drinks are okay too, I guess.
Oh, five has two meanings. Fine dining.
Right. Fine dining.
Yeah, those are fine. It could be sexual.

Yeah, it could be like a fine burger. Ooh,

fuck that burger. Fuck them five.
Fuck that burger. So three.
Wow. Triple three.

Are we allowed to fuck the fine burger?

I heard that the burgers. Yeah, sexy.

Sorry, you're confused. We have fine burgers that are just okay.
We've got fuckable burgers, and then we've got a gourmet burger. Which would you prefer?

It says fuckable on the sign if you can fuck the burgers. It doesn't say fine.

But what I was saying, though, is that I do think that your DM can be trusted. You need to like reward them for all of this cool shit that they provided you with.

Go take them out to dinner and talk about the next chapter. Yeah.

You also, I mean, like Em was saying before, you have,

you can honestly grapple with this stuff in game. Like, you have this, if you have a goal and you complete it and you're like, now what? I still feel like I need to do something else.

I feel empty now, or whatever. And that's something that is even more interesting to play out as a Warforged to be like, yeah, this gave me purpose.
The way, you know, like, that was my purpose.

I was like programmed to find this out or whatever. Now, what do I do? And, like, what does that mean about like this character's humanity? I think that's really interesting.

And then, also, on top of that, you probably got a bunch of people to get revenge on. Yeah.
Right? Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Revenge story is the easiest.

You are going to slide into something very fun.

Yeah, and then you could do a little bit of both where you're like, I'm going to kind of consciously switch into murder bot mode while grappling with your newfound humanity of being like, this isn't what I want.

And it is true that as a Warforge, you'd probably now know when you were created. So you do have a birthday.

So you can't do that. And you can hold it from all your birthdays

and then hold it over their heads when it comes to

snap. Start giving people gifts with the expectation that they'll immediately reward you with one, too.

Exactly.

Do you ever think about how many birthdays you've had? I've had none.

That's what Born is about.

It's Matt Damon trying to uncover when his birthday is. Born is right in the title.
Born day, yeah. Birthday, Born Day.
That's what I call it.

I will say that there is a little bit of an argument to be made that just because you get a Nat 20 doesn't mean that the DM needs to send you like a PDF of their notes. You know what I mean?

Like, there could have been some stuff withheld. But that being said,

that's what I think this sounds like an awesome. I mean, this sounds right.
This sounds right.

I'm saying, just as you know, to other DMs out there, if people are trying to unravel a mystery, if it's character-specific, it's probably fine to just dump it and say, like, okay, you actually learned everything.

That's fine because the character is specific. If you are listening to this and you're like, uh-oh, I made this murder mystery and it's the whole campaign.

You don't have to give away everything on a NAT 20. You just have to give away like a lot within the context of the situation.

Yeah, the only tweak I could provide on this maybe is that like the person who's revealing all this information is like about to get to like the final reveal, and then they're murdered.

Like an arrow just like strikes them from off-screen or something like that. And then you've got like another hook.
What is the max that these tinkerers can provide?

It might not be like restoring your entire hard drive. But that being said, they did, and that leaves lots of room for interesting, you know, maybe character play.

Maybe like the download was like so narratively exciting that you almost had like a plot orgasm, and now you're kind of like afterwards, like, I don't feel like getting out of bed now. Yeah, sure.

It's like eating a burger so good you could fuck it.

You just don't know where to go.

Like, I don't know whether or not to eat or fuck this. This burger.

Wow. It's like, how do I eat normal food after this?

Dude, I just matched with the hottest burger on Hinge.

So I budge to punish this player.

to character development. Yeah.
Yeah. That's really fun.
Yeah, to embracing the unknown, really.

Sentencing you. You do have to text your DM and say, where's my faction at?

Are we getting the good ending? Are we getting a good ending? And say, happy early birthday or belated. Happy early birthday.
Happy early birthday. Get those social links out.

Happy early birthday, belated.

Early slash belated wherever we are on the calendar.

Where's my faction at? Are we getting the good ending? Oh, one huge block of tags and send it at the last one. Four in the morning.

Urge it pass there. Do not disturb.
I wish it worked like that, though, where like if you got your faction points up and up with your friends, like they would get cooler cars or something like that.

Because in persona, if you get the faction levels up enough, like everybody gets like cooler personas they can summon.

And I feel like that should work in like real life. Like you should just get like a better car.
No, I feel like they just become better friends which

sucks

and my car is

yeah i was playing animal crossing with my nieces and we asked one of my islanders out on a date

and they it took them two days to respond and they didn't even reference the proposed date are you not allowed i thought we were gonna get like some more there's no like romance option

animal crust i think the best you're gonna get is like a cool picture frame for your house or something like that playing Stardew Valley.

Wow.

My character necked with Tom Nook.

In front of his AU.

Did you Google characters from Animal Crossing? No, look at you. I played Animal Crossing for like a second month.
Oh, did you? I don't remember. Yeah, I played Animal Crossing for exciting.
Okay.

Yeah.

Mid-pandemic.

Right.

Early pandemic. Yeah.

Okay. So ordered this.
The players sentenced to character development and texting their DM. Happy early birthday.

And with that, let's step into church. We actually have what can only be described as a very laxadaisical confession.
There's been a lot of those recently.

A lot of people just being like, hey, what's up? Just want to confess that I'm not sorry. I did this thing where I lied and it was awesome and I ruled.
Yeah.

Well, we also just had a question that was like, My faith in Dice Christ is shattered. And we all felt the pull of the dice devil last time, if I remember.
I didn't.

You all of us wanted everyone to lie. I sorely tempted murphy re-listen to the episode

go ahead

okay uh jack m writes to the bodacious bailiff burwitz and the heathenly high hustesses okay okay okay i ask is it okay if i don't do math and guess sometimes

you know what the answer is sort of without hearing any more like i respect where you're i'm like deeply i deeply see where you're coming yeah i do you know what you mean yeah my My character ended up being pretty weak.

So even when I was rolling 15s on middling monsters, I was not hitting. So I just kind of decided that if I rolled a 13 or higher, I would say somewhere from 20 to 22 to ensure my character hit.

Oh, this is

bordering on not math.

I also feel like my DM did something wrong with my character and stat array, IDK. I was so weak and never hitting as a barbarian isn't fun.
Should I go to hell?

This might be a church question I'm seeing now.

Should I go to hell? This is dream of consciousness. No part of you said, I'm going to just read over what I wrote one more time.
This might be a church question I'm seeing now.

Only did it until level three.

Okay. Oh, okay.
I'm not doing it anymore. All right.
Okay. So you should have been rolling with advantage, though, sometimes reckless attacks.
With reckless attacks.

I think that this would have been on your DM if they were putting so many things in front of you that had like 18 AC or whatever when you're level one, two, and three. That's just annoying.

That's not fun. It's not fun to miss all the time.

That being said, it sounds like we don't have really have the context, but it doesn't sound like you tried to talk it out. It sounds like you just lied.

And when you were talking about, is it okay to not do math sometimes? Yeah. I thought you were talking about like estimating or something, like looking and being like, okay, I rolled a 17.

I know I have plus 13 to hit. You know, quick math, that's like 30.
But if you were just like, I think 28, it's like, does that really matter that much? Probably not. Yeah.

But what you're doing is lying.

That's, you know. We, yeah.
We all have numbers that we have trouble adding together. Right.
Seven and six. That one's just no good for us.
Oh, that's tough. Yeah.

See, I did 17 and 13, which I just wanted to say. Oh, my God.

It just took me way too long to get used to that in my head. Honestly, all this, like anything plus six, it really trips me up.
Like eight plus six, I know it's 14, but like sometimes it's not.

I don't know. I don't know, man.
There are definitely times where if it's like, if it's something like 17 plus 16 or something, we'll just be like, yeah, that hits. It just hits.

You don't need to sit there and do math on every single thing. It's like, is number higher than AC? Yes, you're fine.
Just whatever, whatever, whatever.

Keep telling me numbers. If they're high, they hit.
If they're not high, they don't hit. But yeah, what you're talking about is just lying.
Right, right. Yeah.

And it's like... Pretty calculated lying, too.
It's like I just add five to everything that I do. But they said that they stopped doing this.
Apparently, they've seen the light at some point.

At level three. so it's not like they did it for a solid chunk of time.

But I think you knew. I think you knew.
Well, yeah, but

I think in the future you can know that you can bring this stuff up with your DM to be like, hey, does every goblin we fight have to wear a full plate mail? Right.

Figure this out because I have a plus two to strength, and that's my best stat. You did send, though, and you are going to have to get your DM a really good birthday present.
There we go.

You're going to have to take them to the restaurant where you're allowed to fuck with you. Yeah,

your faction is really low. Your DM doesn't know it yet, but your faction is really low, so you gotta get your faction up.

Yeah, if you want to get the burger fucking scene, you're gonna have to do a lot of

events.

The good ending is the burger fucking scene.

If you want to go to Highlands,

fine, fine, burgers and fries. Oh, fine.

Oh, yeah. Yeah,

we do onion rings for the table, and I'll have the coitus burger. Yeah.

Right.

Please like you don't have a waiter.

Oh, I heard, I heard we could fuck the burger.

The burgers and cheese are like warm, but not hot, right?

They're not like scalding hot, just asking.

The waiter in the most disinterested voice says, buddy, it's whatever you want.

Yeah, if you want the warm burger ending,

you need to get your faction up with your DM. So hot,

belated burger. Belated/slash early.
Happy birthday.

So forgiven. Thank you all so much for listening.
We'll be over on our Patreon with some bonus cases. Check that out.
Patreon.com slash nadpod. That's NADD P-O D don't sing yet.

What a fine URL. Does anyone have anything they'd like to plug? Patreon.com.
Patreon.nice. Nice.

Yes. Nadpod.

I'll shout out some P.O. box stuff if that's fun.
Okay.

Number one, right up top, I just want to shout out everyone's beautiful wax seals.

We get a lot of. Yeah.
Yeah. We get get some save the dates and letters and they always have these like really pretty wax seals and I just feel awful cracking them open

I always try to open it in a way that the wax seal is preserved.

Yeah, I think it's it's on me because I don't have a good letter opener I think I do need like a nice little like thin letter opener so I can like you know shimmy it off I love I love cracking them because it seems like people are answering the call banners the banners are coming you guys remember yeah the banner men are uniting yeah we went out to I only remember this because me and Rurf have a picture of it we went out to dinner in one of the UK shows, after one of the UK shows we did, and someone had given us something with a wax seal.

And I delicately peeled it off so that it was intact. And then I applied it to the collar of my dress like it was like a pin.
Whoa, it looked good.

That I feel like that's like a nascent fashion trend waiting to happen. Yeah, we got a free burger to fuck.

The waiter pulled me aside and said, I love

your

seal brooch. You can fuck the fruit.

We don't let just everyone fuck the fruit.

This is also a motel.

Oh, I also wanted to say thanks to everyone who has sent in college graduation announcements. Oh, congrats, everybody.
Good on you.

There's always a lot of people that write in saying that they like listen to the show, made through long nights in the library. So you know what? I'll say it.
Congrats on the grads. Yes.
Wow.

Congrats.

Congrats, as they say. Congurtz.

Also, a couple more things. Ooh, Ooh, Andrew Kay sent us a copy of their homebrew campaign book, Belitas, City of Rot and Revenge.

It's full of malicious mushrooms and devious factions, strangely enough. A lot of faction points.

Really like that. They also sent a little cooking supplement called Yes Chef, which is like about how to cook food in the dungeon.
Kind of very, very delicious and dungeon-esque. So I love that.

Meg, the other. Also, very Rocco Street Chef.

Magic the Gathering Cookie. Oh, yeah.
You're obsessed with magic.

Everything is contextualized. I am obsessed with it right now, and I'll never talk about it again in probably two months.

Meg, the Australian archaeologist, sent us a postcard written on the back of a piece of cardboard taken from the box of dinosaur oatmeal.

I just thought that was kind of cute. I love that.
Yeah, I hope that the dino eggs were delicious. Yeah, top eggs.
One more to shout out.

David, aka Hellish Rebuker, sent us Magic the Gathering commander cards. Oh, yeah.
She's going to talk about it again.

cannot wait they're based on real cards so we can play with them um except for the pinder greens which is an uncard and features a strange jumping mechanic but you know what i think that i'm gonna allow it i'm gonna allow it in my games yeah all right uh thanks so much for uh sending us stuff we always love seeing it really appreciate it y'all thank you uh and you can follow us on social media that remain renette use at sea first meet at call these called all at extra demily and at your girls at jake and you can tweet about the show using hashtag nadpod that's n a d d p o d

we are we are

youth of a nation, we are, we are.

Happy birthday, Mirf. Happy birthday, man.
It's not my birthday. Happy early birthday to you.
Happy early birthday. What do you want?

It's the end of the show, which means it's time to shout out our benevolent Council of Elders. Let's get right to it.
Brad D, Jeffrey S., Lord of the Fjord, happy 10th anniversary, Axe Murph.

Later McSkater, Matt M, Cutter W, Jeff C, Daniel G, Danielle, the dastardly dame, beard man Dan, Danny P, Carpe Liam, Bryant, the worst Sir Bryan Splooge Victor T aka Balnor's Boy Hoyt's friend Justin I Danny Danster TJM Trele The Cray

Christopher B Damiel R. Jordan L Cyborg version of Josh the Cobald Tar Gott Stevie Wags Hellish Rebuker Ph.D.

Princess Yar Jory S. Rachel from Animorphs Jack L Nicholas C star of every film ever made in Bohumia.
Samuel B. Mike H.
Alka Smeltzer Plus. Great Value Jimma.
Tyler F.

Fighting Favorites, The Favorite Things Podcast. Nee Badger.
Panama James. Huradrian.
Carlborough Chapel Hill FPV. Rex Thaniel, The White, Cece Lulu,

Old Cobb's Duncle, Older Byrne. Halcule Poirot, Zerabbatfolk Detective.
Timmy R.

Reiko, Calder Comes Cold, shout out to the cold come

companions, Frosty Facial, Taylor B, the vengeful one-winged angel, Cass, Strong Grinch, Steven, scientifically sees with ease, C,

Mike K, Lady Taco, and Team Incredulity, Nick W, William W, Big Bad Beardo the Mad, Eric McD, Anana Rama, Percival Fredrikson von Musul, Klasowski Derolo III, Jay Dragonborn, Guardian of the Vibe, Honoring The Cock,

Reckless Starling, Ben A, Dave H, Dustin S., Danny F., Hawkeye Pierce, Book Farce Assistant, Izzy F. DPC is awesome!

Hashtag honor the cock

Shone, the Shade Tree Mechanic of Zelbel Dar.

Summer Rose, aka Grantaire, Cat C, Misa of House and Zunza. Ariel, the occasional mermaid.
Selena N, aka Velesiraptor. B, Perky Always.

Pat L, Maxwell J. Lauren H, Serve16.
Annie the Fay Wild Therapist. Skillful Ferret, Insert Fan Art Request here.
Oh wow. We recorded this one a while ago.

So I would love to see your interpretation of all of the mini bailiff variants.

I'm talking about Josh, I'm talking about Jorsch, talking about Jark, talking about all of the multiversal jakes that exist out there.

Connor S., Salil, Weed Goku69, currently in orbit around moon number 16. BioQuirt 7, Amber Dextrus, Bean Rat was innocent.

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

Noah the Bullywog Boy. Hashtag honor the cock, ribbit.
James G, Everything Bago, the Eladron who just wants to hang out with his pet badger, Stripey. Daddy Master Dandy.
Hon.

Eric B. Marcos.
Learns the Balance Druid. Frida M.
Tracy P. The Crick Elf Librarian.
Maggie S. See you in Chicago.
Hope you had a great time. Holly the green laughing hyena.
Ho ho.

Finally caught up to Duck Team. Thank you.
Akash T, Dew, Phineas, Cal, just Cal. Aaron B.
Russell H. A monk named Dilgo.
Yes, the whole thing. Yes, every time.

Cody Kerr, Lorelei the succubi, and Kira the succulent snack. Your friendly neighborhood yaunt and yunkle, Andrew and Sid.
John Adams, the writing candidate for 2024.

Meg, the mail carrier manager of Bohumia. 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.

Oh yeah. Shane C.
Barpo Good Barrel Barbarian. Welshlander.
Garrett G, aka one big curd.

Havey the half-orc, Renee the Monster Captain, Box Clifton, Olivia the Enchanting Bard, and Jared the soap opera cleric who are playing stick it to the man parentheses down with the monarchy.

Winterslade, Fico, Garrett the Artificer, Damon J, Anthony the raddest of dudes, Josh H, the fairy say yeet,

Cantrip Dumbledore, the bare onesie wearing barbarian, Lexi H, Nadrog, the pass-a-fist barbarian, Gino T, John Luca, Tristan, the talentless honk, Leon Kumori, legendary hero of Bahumia from a future campaign, shenanigans O'Connor, Mios the Great, Joshua S.

Alexander, Linz W,

Angela Pamela, the forever vindicated, Pavu Eskenor, the Goliath Paladin, providing service with a smile, Tim M,

a cat napping in a sunbeam, listening to a podcast. Meow.
Mig Cheeto, C. Jam Hampton.
Shel B.

Ken is now first favorite sprite girl, spending September in Malta celebrating cancer-free by going to see the sweet blue hole. Congratulations, that is amazing news.
I'm so happy for you.

Please don't get lost in the abyss that is the blue hole. Please promise me that.
Have a great trip. Jackson R.

Snailus, who's infecting Worcester for within. Official Ned Flanders.
Papa Scades. Mima Mimoscades.
Oh,

it's V, and this isn't the last you've seen of me. Megan N.
Anthony B. Savannah H.
Balnor's best friend, Steve. Stephanie of Hausen Zunza, Benjamin A.
Gimli the Corgi, Papa and Foster's canine friend.

Mikel A. Josh Hole, pilot of the Nightmareverse flight.
We salute you for surviving and not crashing the plane. You're a hero.
The two crew, Blue Through, Jinnery, Ethan B.

Maple, the shy bookworm, Ashosaurus, Seth E, Billy Batson, Brian Murphy's evil twin, Byron Marpy, whoa, Michael L.S. II, Parcel, Dex Riddlewell, Hannah A.
Ra

Ace Dreggs, High Lord of Critzburg, Darius D, Troy's Mom, Vin Diagram, GKC, Tee Hee, Teehee, Cadmilius, the Consumed, Bard of Holding, Clinton P, Cam the Frogman, Dean, Jake W.

Hi, Mom, Tuesday Cross, the choose your own adventure writer, not the porn star, Steve L.

Alex G, Zibitabachary, Nicole, and Katerina C.

Woo, folks, that is all of our elders. Thank you so, so much for your dedicated patronage.
We appreciate you and look to your names as we we do the stars in the sky.

If you would like to join this illustrious council, you can do so by going to patreon.com/slash nadpod. That is naddpod.
We already sang, and that means it's time for the show to end.

See you next week. Bye-bye.

That was a hit gun podcast.