Probably Bad 7: Toaster Jesus, Slap Bracelet Mummy, and Cheese Mansion

(18th March 2020)

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Opening Music

PENCIL

Hello and Welcome to the probably bad podcast, the podcast that is definitely bad. I’m Mod Pencil.

PAPER

Sorry that threw me you’ve never said mod pencil before.

PENCIL

You’re right I haven’t – I’m pencil.

PAPER

I’m paper. Today’s probably bad RPG idea is…

Dice roll

PAPER

Feed a person vampire blood you get a ghoul, feed an animal vampire blood you get a hellhound, feed it to a plant you get a mandrake, fill up your car probably good things let’s try it.

PENCIL

So firstly because there was several years ago a lot of confusion – and it’s the right point to deal with it in a podcast when everyone’s forgotten about it – this was the first edition of Vampire the Requiem, you don’t water things in vampire blood unless you’re not a coward. Secondly I like machines being living beings for the purposes of magic because they are autonomous to some extent.

PAPER

My immediate thought is – i’m sure you’re aware of stabby the roomba.

PENCIL

I am yes.

PAPER

What if Stabby the Roomba vacuumed up some vampire blood and then you’ve got a sentient roomba with a knife to deal with.

PENCIL

I like Sentient Roomba with a knife as an enemy in a World of Darkness game. You’ve just got all these ‘yes we’ve got to discuss the story about being immortal and having to feed on the innocent then the roomba bursts in and feeds on vampire blood.

PAPER

I’m just saying in a modern settin you’re not going to find a basement full of rats that easily.

PENCIL

I love that as a death trap you find yourself in a room full of vampiric roombas.

PAPER

Cause it’s a roomba they can only get to your ankles.

PENCIL

But your ankles will be so stabbed.

PAPER

But when you get stabbed do you get vampire or roomba? Do you get a knife or do you have to earn a knife among the roomba pack?

PENCIL

Roomba the knifing: chronicles of darkness game.

PAPER

Can’t say you wouldn’t play it.

PENCIL

Logically you should probably become a vampire but i like that you become a roomba. Like you die and then a roomba drives out of your corpse and joins the rest of the roombas.

PAPER

Nowhere in the rules does it say stabby the roomba’s knife – because it doesn’t exist – has got anything that would make you become a vampire. It’s got its own roomba essence.

PENCIL

This is a really weird vampire bloodline.

PAPER

Wereroomba.

PENCIL

To be fair if machines can become vampires it follows that they can undergo the first change or awaken as mages or do the other transforming supernatural things. I want to see vampire roomba werewolf roomba and wizard roomba go on an adventure

PAPER

That would be the best party – changeling roomba that occasionally turns into the mars rover. The only other robot i can think of humans have pack bonded with.

PENCIL

Do you know Promethea?

PAPER

Don’t think so.

PENCIL

Basically frankenstein, artificial human, everyone hates you, and i like the idea of the roomba version being more artificial than that.

PAPER

The other roombas grew their knives this one had to have one duct-taped on. Stabby is the outlier, the outcast of roomba society.

PENCIL

That’s why he drinks vampire blood and starts this vampire invasion

PAPER

This is perfectly straightforward pencil

PENCIL

This is the next big release for World of Darkness, Roomba Invasion. They’re releasing the Contagion Chronicles where there’s a big thing everyone has to team up to fight and i hope it’s knife roombas.

PAPER

It does raise a lot of questions about – what is it in vampire blood that gives life? I’m assuming that mandrake in this context is screamy sentient plant rather than a thing with a root.

PENCIL

Yeah it’s a vampirised, sentient plant that drinks blood and what have you.

PAPER

So what is it in vampire blood that can bring them back to that extent while vampires have all this weird shit going on.

PENCIL

I know that in one of the later expansions for first edition gargoyles were inanimate objects anointed with vampire blood so it just gives life to whatever it goes on.

PAPER

So why are vampires like that?

PENCIL

They’re just dicks. I have sort of a setting idea i have been discussing is the undead as things that are more alive than normal living things, because they are movin around, hard to kill, living forever, they tend to operate on more primal motivations than humans do, so i like to think of the undead as people who have more life energy which sort of makes sense if vampire blood just animates whatever you splash it on.

PAPER

Which gives me an interesting idea for a campaign – a vampire’s been killed blood everywhere dracula dead and loving it style so everything’s running around, furniture, pests, oh god vampire microbes – what happenes if vampire blood gets on a mushroom.

PENCIL

There must be some kind of ritual like in the rules as written but I do like the idea of it being some kind of fucked up version of Beauty and the Beast.

PAPER

Beauty and the beast is already pretty fucked up – hey kids let strangers into your house or you might get cursed.

PENCIL

Hey kids let strangers into your house or you might become a vampire who can turn things into mini vampires. It seems like anything touched with vampire blood becomes a vampire so you can have a table with fangs.

PAPER

That’s an aesthetic i can get behind. But it would raise an interestin challenge for hunters though – you have to kill this vampire bloodlessly, but you can’t strangle or poison it. But you can’t go all Dexter with plastic sheeting because it’d come to life. You’d need to invent some sort of meat hole punch.

PENCIL

Welcome to the ancient society of monster hunters here’s your meat hole punch. Yeah. Firstly that’s a very unpleasant word.

PAPER

That’s going in the title

PENCIL

Secondly you could have vampire blood in a jar as a sort of bomb you throw at people and it just animates things around thme.

PAPER

It seemslike a short term solution but i like it.

PENCIL

You have a hose of vampire blood you shoot at thins to animate them.

PAPER

That seems impractical can we go for a blood supersoaker instead?

PENCIL

Yeah how to make your waterpistol fights ten times more exciting.

PAPER

Especially because you have a limited time to make it work because if you leave it too long it becomes a big scab.

PENCIL

Or an animated waterpistol

PAPER

It’s like that riddle of the acid that burns through everything.

PENCIL

You store it in vampire blood so it comes to life and refuses to burn. If machines are kind of alive can you have reincarnation?

PAPER

I don’t see why not

PENCIL

If they could be affected by souls… Your previous incarnation was the last Stabby the Roomba and only you can stop the army of vampire knife roombass.

PAPER

I thought it was Stabby is a Roomba Dalai Lama.

PENCIL

Or you go to toaster hell, which i don’t know what that would be like just sad toasters, demons who have to spend an eternity torturing toasters and ipods. You can go to toaster hell and find all the evil toasters that are being punished for eternity

PAPER

But can you do a harrowing of hell thing where you down and free the good toasters – they didn’t believe in toaster jesus but they were good – and take them to toaster heaven.

PENCIL

My new character concept is toaster jesus. Which implies a toaster god.

PAPER

Which has four slots and a bagel setting.

PENCIL

You are informed that you are toaster jesus and as the roombas bring about the apocalypse you need to rescue all the good toasters from hell.

PAPER

Toaster satan is 100% one of those really slow conveyor belt ones.

PENCIL

I like the idea of this supernatural world that’s just toasters and roombas and stuff and no-one knows about it cause it’s weird but you do have toaster jesus and toaster satan and ipod angels and whatever floating around and you just associate with whatever gadgets.

PAPER

Angels have to be apple products because they’ve got… all the i’s.

PENCIL

I see what you did there, i don’t approve. The podcast is cancelled, but i see what you did there.

PAPER

Is this becoming a thing?

PENCIL

I think so.

PAPER

Shall we go to questions before i embarrass myself again?

transition music

We now have merch. Go to redbubble.com/people/probablybad To see what we have in stock.

PAPER

Our first question comes via email. You can email us at probablybadpodcast@gmail.com, this comes from Justin – who asks how do I stop people from using player knowledge and character knowledge interchangeably?

PENCIL

The legitimate answer is just talk to them, say hey you’re metagaming a bit could you dial that down a bit. The slightly more dickish but still not that dickish one is if you change things a bit – like if you make medusas who aren’t affected by their gaze, or replace vampire weaknesses with the more folkloric, they need to count rice or they need to be charged with the roomba. The least legit answer is to not tell them what rpg they’re playing. They start rolling dice and you refuse to tell them what’s happening. No out of character knowledge.

PAPER

Have you thought of using a new setting and only telling them stuff that’s relevant to their characters. Or make a trap go off – like in the middle a forest they say we should go this way but their character wouldn’t know that so they’re hanging on a tree in one of those hunting trap rope things.

PENCIL

Have a powerful cosmic being that can sense when people act out of character cause it’s multidimensional and this challenge level 21 powerful archangel shows up and just hits them.

PAPER

Just like a slap across the face.

PENCIL

Yeah, ‘nope’. Have an inevitable who the lore they do is distinguishing between in and out of universe – might be a good idea not here cause that’s incredibly vindictive – but an inevitable whose job is to punish people doing metagame shenanigans because they’re refusing to obey the laws of the universe.

PAPER

I had an idea, you’ve heard of the term slap on the wrist – first you buy a large collection of slap bracelets, each time your player acts on knowledge they don’t have you slap on a bracelet. If they get five, their character dies.

PENCIL

I think you’ve just started a lie in this character group. Next question?

PAPER

Yeah. I like how there was just silence as a response to that

PENCIL

Not much you can add to that – each time they get five instead of their character dying they get slapped. You just mummify them with slap bracelets over the course of the game. I don’t know why it doesn’t really benefit them in any way.

PAPER

It’ll put them off doing it.

PENCIL

I guess, yeah, and like if they do you can keep the slap bracelet mummy in the corner as a warning to future gaming groups.

PAPER

Are we saying we mummify them in slap bracelets and let them die in their new tomb?

PENCIL

Yeah.

Question music.

PENCIL

Also, i can’t see the name of the person who asked the second question.

PAPER

I think it was anonymous and i just forgot to put that.

PENCIL

Ok the second question is anonymous. I’ve been thinking of doing something like the players are in a victorian mansion and have to kill each other but don’t know whether to have it be live role or tabletop. Thinking of having vampires.

PAPER

I think either way is an issue, because if you did it as a LARP you wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on what’s going on. it sounds quite player driven, more than this sounds. It sounds like Betrayal on the house on the hill.

PENCIL

You could do larp if the players didn’t know the players would be trapped in the mansion and would have to kill each other. I’m thinking a SAW movie.

PAPER

But a much nicer decorated SAW movie.

PENCIL

I’d go with an online way of doing this. Paper suggested different voice channels for different rooms which would stop the tabletop problem of now all the players know i’m in the kitchen even if the characters don’t and it allows you to have much more control of things.

PAPER

It’s a lot easier to hop between different rooms. I’m also curious about the scenario that can have or not have vampires.

PENCIL

Vampires are like the salt of RPGs, any adventure will be improved if you add some vampires.

PAPER

That’s true but the first part of the question makes me think and then there were none or betrayal, but adding the vampires i’m not sure. It’s too many factors.

PENCIL

Yeah. So presumably there’s some kind of jigsaw style murderer who is doing a hah you’re captured and only one of you can escape. I don’t think necessarily adding more threats is a good idea. If there is this big outside the mansion watching through cameras or in the safe room where you can’t just go and stab them villain watching them fight to death it’s not a good idea to add a bunch of new threats. It doesn’t necessarily make a lot of sense in universe and out of universe it just… it takes a lot away from the main role. Suppose you had friendly vampires who were the kind of good friendly vampires who help you out the mansion.

PAPER

Plot twist all the characters are vampires. This is a vampire heavy episode.

PENCIL

Vampires are cool. I guess the other way it could work i suppose is if it’s a kind of- you’re trapped in the mansion and there’s some kind of threat – i don’t know how you’d do the only one parachute thing. Maybe there’s not enough room in the safe room.

PAPER

The safe room thing could work if there’s an outside threat you know is coming then there’s basically one of you can survive have at it.

PENCIL

Yeah. That’s the other way of doing it in which case the vampires are the threat outside. outside of this discussion of how to run a game, we need to suggest-

PAPER

The mansion is made of cheese and they’re all lactose intolerant.

PENCIL

Were you expecting them to eat the mansion otherwise?

PAPER

You never know, this is probablybadrpgideas you never know.

PENCIL

Could be to taunt them i suppose. It sounds like a real low effort black mirror episode. In the future everyone lives in cheese mansions. I would suggest running the game on discord or other online things.

PAPER

Discord would be a good choice because you can have that multiple voice channels thing.

PENCIL

Also make the mansion out of cheese, just to get our brand going.

PAPER

I think that’s everything we have for today. If you have a question you can send it to us on tumblr probablybadrpgideas or email probablybadpodcast@gmail.com, Thanks to nick blake for editing if you want to support us you can go to patreon.com/probablybadrpgideas and I think we have a decent amount of bonus content at the moment. If you donate at the Â£5 level we have bonus episodes in which we play Feast of Legends the Wendys RPG, there will be other bonus episodes once we’re done with that, at Â£10 you get homebrew like Metaghosts, or send us a pound to get on our discord server.

PENCIL

And give us a pound a month.

PAPER

And get the warm fuzzies. You can support us without money by leaving a review or a rating on wherever you’re listening to this or follow us on twitter or tumblr or facebook, we’re on all of those now, and…

BOTH

Remember to have a probably bad day.

Ending music.