"Casted", Speed Runners, Unfamiliar Familiars, and Wizards Casting FAFO [RPG Horror Stories]

0:20 Hello, Adventure the podcast for role players and game master's up. Level up your game. We are your dungeon masters. I'm Jason Portizo, I'm Joe McAll, and I'm Jim Crocker. And today we are going to do a special extended edition because we're doing this once a week now and we're not gonna do a little quick episodes, which means we got to drag out content we're normally we used to do what we used to do, one horror story, be like, oh cool, that's a nice little story, then talk about it for a while and that was it. We're gonna do a few horror stories today and we're gonna talk about it and we're gonna about all of them and that should fill the time that we need to fit. Yeah, so deal with it, listener. Yeah has podcast stuff, all right. So I got a few stories picked out here. These are all from Reddit's r slash RPG horror stories and there's some there's some fun ones in here. There's a I got two that are that are not only labeled as such, but I agree they are lighthearted. And I got to here that are a little more Let's get into these type of type of things so let's start off with Philip. Let's start with with one of the one of the light ones.

1:26 So this is from user ar Canis Ultra and under our PG horror stories, and the story is titled player can't slash refuses to stop saying quote cast it, and they say that's that's literally the whole story. I played this with this guy for years and every time he used the past form of cast he would say cast it. We corrected him, Oh, I don't know, dozens of times, but he had a really hard time learning things, mixed with a stubborn heart. Don't get me wrong. Love the guy, and it wasn't really that big a deal. It was more amusing than anything else. Side note. When he started playing, his math skills were complete crap. We also had to do the math forum where I whether became keeping track of hit points, adding an attack AC or damage breath. For a few years. He can math faster than most of us. It really taught me that if you want to be better at math and increase your mental computational speed, play D and D or any TETHRPG. Even though he became an expert at math, he never did master the whole casted thing. Yeah, I kind of twinge a little bit when some when people say things that are just like egregiously mispronounced. As much as I my personal character flaw is I forget names the second I hear them, But when people like mispronounce somebody's name, it just drives me nuts and the limit. Yeah, let's talk about this.

2:47 So I don't want to I don't want to sound like an early nineties hack comedian because my mother in law actually is awesome. But you know, let's let's listen. I was about to say, but your mother in law is an early ninety sec median that was that would have been a much better uh uh. My mother in law is Jerry's Ardwell, what's the deal with high schoolers? So when it comes to names, she learns it the first time and that's just how she's gonna say it forever, and hopefully she got it right the first time, because that's all you're gonna get. There's a this little luncheon uh near her where the name is definitely Sonia, and she goes there often and like loves telling us how she how she wanted to go see Sonja and uh, and I just have to kind of just deal with it, because I've got another several years of listening to her say it lined up in front of me. So uh yeah, it's uh, I feel your pain. I don't know. Yeah, that's that's a let it go thing. I think is is where we're at with that? And it's it sounds like that's pretty much what they're where. They're leaving it too. Yeah, you get to correct them three times times, and if after the third time it doesn't take, then you got to decide whether you're going to live with it or not, because it's not going to take. After after three tries, if they're still not doing it, then I've got it. I have a D and D example actually, because I actually have a D and D. Is it the same example? Joe? Is it? Is it

4:18 my son? No? Oh okay, well live one. That's my son? And then I think I may have heard repeated. I would love to hear yours, okay, and I think exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, and actually so so I know I said we're splitting hairs, but this drove me insane. It's because it's my son. Joe almost had one, most kid. Yeah, it's thinking about it right now. And if you're listening. I'm I'm sorry. I love you. He doesn't. His dad doesn't show. He does not listen to this does some lame show with his dad on it. So yeah, so there is a spell. I think it's a cleric spell, Druid cantrip and Drewid cantrip, but I think I think one of our players may have whatever. So it's Chile, which is a I think you mean, is a blunt weapon, the real thing that Irish Scottish in origin. Yeah, but yeah, it's spelled funny as many is. Anybody named Chavn can tell you. They spell things funny over there.

5:28 The rules just don't count. It's pronounced, they don't, yeah or c ronan right, So anyway, right, sortia And also what's the new there's a movie and it's it's not anyway anyway, oh Salwen, Salwen, So anyway, but I digress, I digress. It's Chile, Okay, it's Chilely And he kept calling it Chile Yep. He'd be like, I'm gonna cast Chile, and I'm like, chile Lely, You're almost there, but almost, like I was, like, it's Schilely, it's shalle Lee, like like it was like nails on a chalkboard. Also, he was a level to Druid at the time, which meant he cast it fourteenth time.

6:12 Yeah, every single, every single, every turn started with castle. Now my break with it is that he didn't say with an over the top accent. I think I think that's the bigger, the bigger full pile here. I just wanted him to finish the word I'm gonna cast Chile. You cast what I cast? There you go. It's oh, now I know that spell. One of my locals that the word silvery barbs kept getting them. But yeah, that's no. What I was gonna say is, Joe, do you think our players listen to ours, to our show? Yes? Okay, cool, so I don't. I don't care if he feels called that or not. I swear to God if I hear him say I'm gonna roll one D ten one more time. The D the D in D six or D ten or D eight. He fully pronounces that die every single time. It's okay, I'm gonna do a hint for for a two die six damage and I lose five minutes off my life span every time he does it. That's flitting hairs. That is not splitting hairs. That is splitting sells off of my brain? How many how many dye six do you take off of here? I take to die for psychic damage every time he says, yeah, there you go. It's fantastic. Maybe it is splitting hairs.

7:29 But but all that to say our canis ultra. I am on your side, so I think, though, but cast it. I think we can just chalk up to a colloquialism. I can't even say that word colloquialism. There it is. Yeah, proud of you, Joe. So if you have trouble saying colloquialism or worcechester, sure sauce, leave cast it alone. And just if everyone else say it too. This is just in your new word. Now it's like ink like eventually, it's just it's gonna become part of our vernacular vernacular. Thank you. That is exactly the word I was, like vernicule, or just substitute a different word, you do.

8:16 Yeah, I throw the spell at him, toss it. I'm going to toss a fireball in his direction, but that has a range of touch. He's not throwing anything. He cast it. Yeah, inflict wounds. I invoke it. Yeah, I agree, this is AA This is properly flared as lighthearted. Should you let it go? Probably? Are you going to have a heart attack over it? Also? Probably you should? You should get down on your knees and thank you that like this is what constitutes a horror story your game. Yeah. If the Restor game is going this, well, thank guy GaX that that this is as bad as it gets for you. Yeah, so congratulations Slash. I'm so sorry. At least it's not let son I should to die for damage. All right, let's get one that's a little more horrifying here. This is from a user Conngoid.

9:11 Also in RPG horror stories, mild spoilers for Cursustrod, and this one of very mild spoilers. So if you care so much about the extra vampire, yes, skip ahead of skip ahead of skip ahead a little while. But I don't think it's too too bad. Uh. Player joins campaign, grabs a wish, and burns it, never to be seen again. The story goes, So this isn't so much a horror story as it is a WTF moment. There are cursal Strata spoilers. My group was playing Curse of Strode and we were level eight or so when a new player joins. In his first session, we find the luck blade in Strad's castle, and the new player just happened to be the one who grabbed it. He was real pushy with the loot, and the rest of the party didn't argue, We're not really a lot focused group, so whatever, what do you focus on?

9:58 Story? I don't know if you're mean, our caster can not, but as a not loot focused player, I get that a lot. We're not really loot focus groups, so whatever. Anyways, we didn't know it was a luck blade until he attunes to it, and then he learns it has a wish on it and immediately wishes to be reunited at home with his dead wife. The DM acquiesces, and the character poofs away. The player, happy as a clam, goes on and on about how he completed his character's backstory he won and how satisfying it was, and so the rest of the party you felt like. The dude shows up, plays for three hours, Ninja loutes an amazing item, then disappears. He didn't even play long enough to tell anyone his character's backstory, so no one could share in his accomplishment.

10:45 And here's the kicker. The player never showed up again. He just played long enough to take the luck blade and dip out of the party. WTF, all right, kids, that's how you win D and D he won. He won. I love that he never shares the backstories of the other players. Don't even know, like he was doing a speed run. Yeah, it's like, wait what dead wife? Yeah, the problem there is not that player that that's a DM problem. That's a DM letting that player do that problem. Shown up to a table that's mid like mid levels without a backstory that that one is then on Oh no, no, no, so right in the middle of that, like like right when you were reading it, we got the moment where the horror story kicked in. He strong armed his way into the item. Nope, nope, okay, the DM let him do it. That is where that horror story starts. You can say, no, you could. You know, like, what a wish is supposed to do is to and this is one of those things where people get it in their head that a wish can do anything. I'm using scare quotes here right, air quotes anything, And that is not what a wish can do if you know, there's a whole text for what wish can do and what it can't do, and text and and essentially what you can do is you can kind of you know, you can simulate a spell effect up to ninth level right use it using a wish, and it may be a spell that already exists, it may be something that's kind of roughly equivalent.

12:11 Like Raven Loft is really specific about the fact that there are no magical effects that let you leave that demi plane right without you solve the adventure. And it's very easy for the DM to just say Nope, no, you can't, Like I know it's a wish, but you know, Strad's will is the thing that you know holds over everything here and you can't just you can't just blow out of there and do that. To my mind, that feels like it's just an incredibly easy thing to just say no to sure, And there's such a stigma, so like, I don't want to Realroad, anybody, I don't want to, you know, it's like, no, you can keep people from breaking your game. You can just say no, you're not going to break my game. And that's not Railroad. Anybody railroading anybody that that's protecting the autonomy and the choices of all the other players at the table. Is what's going on there when you do that. At the same time, if I may, this player told on themselves, you know, and and good riddance in some ways, because like all I can think is like, well, that's what my character would have done, and you know, and at the very least what the DM can do is say, poof, they're gone, the sword remains behind, right, so that you know, because also like like I hate that there's a wish attached to that thing, because the real use is that you know, that's a great weapon

13:43 to use against the vampire, right, because it's not all the sunbeam effect and all that kind of stuff and everything, and the wish is almost incidental to what's going on with it. Although you know, great Smith, if you're put it like absolutely should there should be some table consensus about how you use that and what goes on with it and stuff like that. But at the very least, when they you know, when they were gone, the DM could have given the sword to the rest of the party, right, and I hope that they did. When it became clear that that guy was just a was just there to troll. I'm really curious whether, man, now, I really want to know whether that was like pure serendipity or whether this guy was like, oh, you guys are playing STRAWD whereabout in the castle? Are you just curious? You know, like that kind of thing, whether he had some sense of what was going on and knew that they were somewhere around there and like was kind of trolling them and doing it on purpose and you know strange. Yeah, it feels like the player knew because this is a published book everything. Oh yeah, yeah you can. We talked about this last time where where the players were trying to speed run straw and this might be just another speed run thing. I'll look at the comments here. A lot of people are saying, like, yeah, strat speed run. The guy ringers doing my favorite ones that he wanted, he wanted d and d H he is him. That's one of my favorite ones, and of course the inevitable. I also choose this guy's dead wife, which

15:13 is a there's a couple other good ones here, but be Reunited with My dead wife. A lightning hit bolt hits you, It disintegrates, you missed an opportunity to be a genie. You know. Actually, yeah, that is one of the comments here reunite with dead wife. The first finger on the monkey's Paul furls he is now sitting in his home with the corpse of his wife. Yes, yeah, or neither, he said, I think he should be staying in the coffin skeleton permanently. Yeah, there is a couple of people bringing up let's see the says the DM messed up the description for that particular item says that wishing to leave Borrovia is one of the few things that that particular item cannot do. Chang, there we go. I hadn't remembered whether that was specific to it, Like, I don't think it was in the original edition, but in five e if it specifically says that.

16:07 But but absolutely there. You know. The module is like, here's all of the ways players may try to, you know, shortcut getting to the end to leave Borrovia. None of these will work. And I'm glad that they called that out specifically for sure. Yes, yeah, so another chilly one. Some of these troll stories are kind of funny, and that's only our is funny. And if a player, if a player shows up, doesn't troll st poofs themselves out of the game and then disappears. You just be like, hey, that was weird, right, and then just and then just move on without them. And that's also a thing where there is nothing wrong with stopping kind of stepping out of character for a moment and going Okay, that kind of sucked. I don't like that for you guys. We're going to rewind the game back to the beginning of that session and we're going to pretend that never happened and replay with everybody that's being serious about it, because that guy didn't work out now that it's just as adults.

16:59 And a couple of things worth noticing noting here this this was an online game on Roll twenty. The problem sorry, that's where the horror story the problem players seem to be a friend of a friend. Yeah, okay, we're a friend of one of the other players, and just like you know, you know, vet your friends better. Yep, yep. But I'm just going to add to the the other thing. This is why I like some magic items that you don't get everything up front, that you have to like awaken you know, and get do an awakened status through something or you know, because giving them access so so early on, right, like you haven't access to wish, probably a bad idea. Yep, yeah, obviously it's just following the module, No, I know which you know, these things are play tested, right, everything's perfect, right, and this is just funny. This is where it comes to. Yeah again, like the modules printed, it's already out there, but it is up to you to run the game. So no one's disagreeing that the young here, whether the player was just trying to be a troll in the DM enabled it, No one's disagreement with that. However, a lot of people are agreeing that, like story wise, this is awesome, Like the player just came in there, kicked the door open, we blinked themselves out of existence and won the game.

18:18 So congratulations to that player. Are your trophies in the mail? Hello Adventurers, Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoy the show, the absolute best thing you can do to support us is to subscribe so you'll be notified when new episodes are released. You can also leave us a review five stars. Of course, that will help us get seen by more D and D players and more than anything else, just tell your friends about us. If you like what we're doing here, then there's a good chance that your DM or your players will enjoy it too. And you don't need to loop gold to do any of that. We appreciate your listening. Now back to the show. All right, let's do another bad DM planning story. This is coming from Panda Priests and the story is titled The Familiar we talked about for two hours outside of session is actually just an owl. This was maybe a year ago before Session four or five of Minds of Fendelver. With some randos online, my arcane trickster got the spell find Familiar. I told my DM I wanted to give my familiar personality and lore, and she seemed excited and enthusiastic. We exchanged ideas for about two hours over text about my character summoning the spirit of his old acting coach to come help the party.

19:32 I even told her about the ritual and the flavor I wanted to give it. When it came time in the session, she YadA YadA away my ritual. Then let me describe what the owl looked like. I told the owl to introduce herself to the party, remembering how the DM told me overtext what kind of voice she would use for, only to be told she can't talk because she's just an owl. This DM had made a separate voice channel in that discord server for one on one conversations, so I asked her to talk there. I asked her why she totally changed the character we meet together and agreed on, and she started yelling at me about how she can't put all her focus on just one player. I just left, So it's kind of happy ending. Yeah, that that's just you do. Mismatched expectations. Yeah, very very clearly is what's going on. Have the DM saved her two hours of grief and just just be like, hey, you have the familiar is just going to do normal familiar stuff. I don't. I just don't have the time or bandwidth to voice another you know, familiar character. Sounds like fun, but it's just not gonna happen. Sounds like maybe the DM had gotten in overhead though possibly or over their head, possibly that like they wanted to do all that, and or maybe another player was like, wait, you're doing all that like for them, like that's okay, here's my idea for my familiar. Yeah, yeah, kind of a thing and they're like, well, this is too much. But it just comes down to probably communication and just because you have to be able to say and have those hard convers Hey, listen, I know that we spend a lot of time

21:02 talking about this, you know what, after I thought about it, I'm just not going to be able to do that. You know, I'm not going to have the bandwidth to do it, or you I just can't I can't keep track of that too or whatever it is. Yeah, And I think it's also one of those things where different people have different ideas about what it means to have conversations like outside of the session, and like like some people have it in their heads that what that means is that you're creating you know, fodder and lore and all this kind of stuff that that then is going to get referred back to in the session and it's going to enrich everything and enhance it, you know, and other people, including I think a lot of dms have the attitude towards that, like, well, the separate discord server is for like that player that needs to get out of their system, like the eight pages of backstory they have on their OWL familiar. That's why I let them do that, right, because we don't want to do that in game, right, Like and and and if you're not real clear about the nature of what that between game stuff is, that's one of those places where I think those disagreements can happen. Yeah, because that's like that Druid or whatever wants to spend you know, wants to have a fifteen minute scene where their owl gets you know, has a conversation with every other character and stuff like this, you know, and the characters are like, can

22:34 we just go into this cave please, because there's gold inside there and goblins and balance. Yeah, that that's tough to balance for a you know, for a DM. But but that just sounds like what happened there is that. Yeah, it's you know, they kind to your a bone by having that, you know, that extraneous discussion. But then when it came to be game time, it's like, okay, we're not going to spend twenty minutes doing this. Yeah I thought about it, and like I'm not going to do that. Yeah. Yeah, me and everybody else talked about it, and we're just that's we don't like it. But also minds of fan Delver is a is a beginner. That's what's in the starter set or was in the stars or I guess they re Do they revamp it or do they make a continuation of starter set which then became a starter kit or something like that. I mean it's part of the starter kit. Yeah, but no, but they just released they just did something new with it, with some kind of like the Black Stove or something. I had Black Models. It's the thing you run for new players. YEAHI equivalent of Keep on the Borderlands or whatever. Right, Yeah, so I wonder if the d M was also new and like it was like, yeah, you must you must know a lot more about this stuff than I do. Possibly, you know.

23:45 Wow, Yeah, this sounds great to our conversation over text by the way, so like we don't know, that could be like with some of my friends, that could be like two texts, right, it sounds like, yeah, yeah, is to thing because some people can just write off the cuff like like it's no big deal, and for other people that's you know, that's a real that it requires real effort to to do writing like that. So but also like how long between each text that you say, there's two hours and two hours of text? Thing? I'm assuming that this was a discord text channel. Okay, okay, because everything else was taking those discords back and forth. Yeah, that's that's my interpretation. Yeah. So, like I run a game that's a not D and D, but it's a fantasy game, and one of the characters, through a confluence of circumstances, is actually writing letters back and forth to the to one of the big bads, right, you know, and and they're like playing this like little cat and mouse like you know game like kind of teasing and taunting each other in these letters back and forth and stuff, and you know, like are they in love? Do they hate each other? And maybe a little bit of both kind of thing. And it's super super fun to like engage with that player that way. But that player completely understands that, like during game time, like they say, you know, oh, I got another letter from the big bat, and everyone else goes, oh, whoa cool, And then we keep playing, right that that then doesn't nice for you from

25:18 of thing that takes ten minutes of game time for us to deal with the fallout the aftermath. Can we just sort of assume it's a thing that's going on because both of us find that a fun thing to do, you know, outside of the context of the actual session. Right, Yeah, so it sounds like we were kind of on this. Could have been the player possibly overstepping you know what her of the pie is. Yeah, it might have been a main character syndrome. Could be could have been the DM over promising in that in that thread, or we're not being clear about what they what they were committing to. Yeah, that's my first probably a little of both my first impression. Now, now let's also lets let's let's step back with podcasters for a second and remember that this story is written from the player's perspective, so it could be could be any number of things. Really, So you know, if this was a story of d M regret and saying and over promising, that could be one thing. If this was the DM kind of you know, running this by either other players or even like other dms in their circle, I bounce ideas off you guys all the time, which all dms should. So DM should be checking with each other and flat out stealing from each other at every possible chance, and say, we'll get unlike stand up comics. Correct, what's the deal with my mother in law?

26:37 Is she made of airplane food. Let just get all the trips in. But I will say that, no matter what the circumstance actually was, I do think the DM was the player and explanation, which sounds like she did not provide. Yeah, it sounds well well, but there's also like, just are you demanding an explanation in the in the private chat, don't in the middle of the game, or is that a little conversation that you have afterwards, because those those are two different things too sure, and she went into the voice chat, it was like, hey, what's going on? Yeah, yeah, so unclear if she left after the session or immediately upon hearing that she wasn't going to get her away. And I'm generalizing based on the user name Princess, but yeah, it can be a few things.

27:25 But what we can learn from this is that if you if you need to backtrack on something from your players, if you over promised, and now you set yourself up for doing this, doing this voice and the character that you didn't plan on and doesn't fit in your world, possibly you know, just have a you know, have a second two hour chat with your player list, and hey, I've done goofed. Here's what I can do for you. Yeah, I actually can't do a Boston accent. Body first, anybody could do a box An accent. But yeah, this is just another in a long line of poor communication stories. But someone here either over asked or over promised and uh and possibly a combination above. Yeah, yeah, it could be most likely could be say it somewhere in the middle. If we heard the story told from the third party, we probably know a lot more. But with with the information we have, we can at least learn that, like you know, the the Familiars, Uh, don't you know?

28:18 If you're if your game is for like you know, some sort of media like a podcast, then you're familiar. It gets to be super interesting and your DM gets to have full control over how interesting that that that familiar is. Currently, I'm listening to a nad pod campaign to which I kind of glossed over when it was when it was current. I'm going back and listening to that now. And all three of them have a little side character that the DM is voicing, and he's got three of them to juggle, And first of all, they're all awesome. The season means an incredible DM. But like you know, then that's that's part of the story. Sure, that sounds like a nightmare to me. Just that's a g It's the thing three weeks from now where there's another horror story that that that's posted by Like, you know, I'm playing a warlock and our game broke up over a fucking owl, classic owl stuff. Yeah, that's all right, I got one left here. It's another lighthearted one, and I feel like we're gonna like the surface level of this one is that it's just a very funny story, and there is layers to this and there's some implications to this that we can really kind of So the one I think it is, I actually think I don't actually think it's all that lighthearted because of some of the implications of it. But well, the implications themselves are not light hearted, but the situation itself is kind of funny. All right, We're not going to harm anybody, Like I said, the situation on surface level is just pretty funny. Yeah. So this is coming from a user dirty USB, and the story is wizard makes a blind character and then gets upset when he's blind.

29:52 We're playing in a five player group in college with a guy that wants to make a blind wizard who relied on their bird familiar for sight. Of course you can see three you're familiar. However, he was also constantly telling his bird to give other players the help action, essentially giving the martial characters on demand advantage. DM said that the baddies were probably gonna start shooting at the bird that's pissing them off. Wizard gets pissed and says the DM is unfairly targeting him and that it's not fair for me if I'm just permanently blinded for the rest of the fight. DM says that if the bird stops harassing the batties, they'll stop targeting the bird. Wizard refuses, bird dies, Wizard is blind for the rest of the encounter and sulks like a baby. Maybe don't put your only pair of eyes in horrible, terrible danger. I'm like the top comment here, Wizard stop attacking my bird, but baddies will stop attacking the bird if he stops harassing us. Wizard, no baddies attack bird. Wizard all shocked. Pakach you face. So I'll take care of the surface level stuff real quick and we'll get to the implications here, because I know where you're going to go with this. The surface level stuff is like, you know, you gave your your player, you gave your character a disadvantage that's easily exploited, you made a work around for it. You try to to take advantage of your workaround and to stop working in your favor.

31:03 You know, no one's surprised that this ended up bad for you, and you know it sucks that a lot of your spells rely on a target that you can see. I should have thought about that. We play not only in our games, but you know, because I like a little more learning tunes of my games, and I kind of got this from shows like net Pod where they'll have silly things, you know, from the real world anachronistically in their game. But the second that a player tries to make that a combat advantage, suddenly that thing, that thing stops existing and stops working how it's supposed to. You know. For example, the ukampan listening to a player has a hot plate, and it's just supposed to be a joke that when they make food while they're doing the rest and stuff, they can heat stuff up on the hot plate. But he even says to them, if you try for one second to use the hot plate to heat someone's armor up, you all of a sudden don't have a hot plate anymore. Yeah.

31:51 Yeah, And it seems like that where like, okay, we gave you familiars that you can have eyes so that you can play with this character that that only sees through their familiar and character concept wise, not the worst I've heard. Kind of cool actually, But then you try to take combat advantage of that, and you know, now we get to treat that thing as as it's part of combat. I do that we play are familiar as too. People get attached to their familiars and like, no, I want to have a dog with me. Okay, I don't want to kill the dog. I don't want to kill the dog. But if that dog is now part of combat, kill the dog. That's if that dog is part of combat. Things dying in combat. It's not a dog. It's not a dog. It's not a bird. It's not a lizard, it's not a dragon. It is a spirit that takes that shape. But I named it like a dog's Yeah, okay, so now it's a dog a dog, it's a dog shaped spirit. Jim, I'm gonna I'm just gonna take a very cursory overview of what the implications of this are, and that is role playing as a disability that you do not have. Exactly, yes, get gamifying disability. I have a real problem with that and would just would just say no to that in the game. So that is not to say that you shouldn't play a character who is in some way handicapped or who is you know, dealing with you know, some kind of like like like congenital you know, physical handicaps or something like that. You can absolutely do that, but that should be role playing and it should be about the character.

33:19 You know, I hate to you know, overcoming that that challenge in the world, and it shouldn't have a mechanical impact on what goes on in the game. And just yeah, just really to to to kind of turn that and and man, nine times out of ten when a player comes to me with saying that they want some kind of handicap like that, it's because they're angling to be daredevil or something like that, right, you know, they're like, well, I'm blind, but I see through my familiar and my familiar has dark vision, right, so that's it's like I have dark vision now, and and like just that you just got to say no to that.

34:02 No, no, no, no. Yeah. And the other thing to keep in mind is that when you are looking through the eyes and ears of your familiar, you are blind and death right, Like, that is not a thing you can do in the middle of a fight. That's the thing you do when you are like sitting down cross legged, guarded by your friends. You cast your consciousness into your familiar so they can, you know whatever, explore the next room or something like that. In the middle of a fight, you're going to get hosed. If you're trying to do right, you're exploiting something there. Yeah, I agree with that. And and and just to you know, add to that too, is to what you said, Jim right, if you if it's to make this character have more depth, and it's a part of the role play and everything else, that makes sense. But I hear that too. But but yeah, just to try to like that, that's what it seemed, was like, Oh, I'm going to do that, and then I'm going to be able to scam the the you know, the familiar can give them advantage. But I'm also going to be you know, I'm getting I'm getting my cake and I'm eating it too. The type of things. And that's particularly that's a particularly and like that's even worse than just like playing a handicap like in an insensitive or stereotypical way. That's like actually trying to kind of game. It's like very cynical to try and to yeah, yeah, and and like I understand, like because because my first thought was like, well, you really you missed

35:35 out on something that's interesting to explore if you will. Yeah, that's like, oh I hadn't thought of the implications of that, And so at least you learned something right, right, because you kind of went into it one way and you're like, wow, being blind isn't easy. I'm not daredevil. I learned something today, yeah, after school. But seriously, like you like you really he did, Like that's in my brain. I'm like, man, I hadn't even thought of that, Like, yeah, oh, that's that's going to be interesting. How how am I going to get out of this one? Like within the rules of the game, And yeah, just the DM should have shut that down. Yeah. Now that that's not to say there's no room for playing around characters and disabilities. There's actually there's actually a Hohld mechanics for for prosthetics and stuff like that. So it's not like the games pretending they scenes don't exist. Yeah, So like there's the there's there's two parts of this. There's the insensitivity of thinking that someone else's disability is a cool thing through for you to role play, and taking it into a direction that is that can be problematic. There's no, there's nothing in the story that says that they did that in any other way.

36:44 They just did this is this is just purely combat thing, which is the other set of problems here, where like, not only were you insensitive, but you tried to cheese the rules and now we're gonna yell at you. Well, it seems like the GM may have misunderstood the rules as well. Yeah, well a little bit. Yeah, but then but then trying to correct Yeah, sure, but you know, and let's let's take the load of let's go back to surface level here, where like you know, the DM said, hey, if you keep doing that, you're gonna have consequences, and the player said, okay, I'm going to keep doing that. Oh my god, consequences. Yeah. By the way, if your DM says there's going to be consequences, get ready for consequences. Unless it's me, then I just let you keep poking poking the dragon like an idiot for one dice, six dandles every time piece. I love you. Yeah, I think you know. Like, like I said, there's nothing in the story that that that that implies that the player was taking this to a problematic place outside of cheasing the rules. But that is something absolutely consider if you're going to be playing something that is, you know, not part of your identity. I think that's I think that's fair. And then cheating the rules, you know, maybe just don't do that and don't be surprised when the DM does something that they say they're going to do. I'm gonna take your bird away, and then it took the bird away. All right. So that is some of the time RPG horror stories for this month. I hope we all learned something today, Yeah, something about ourselves and some about our players. You better learned something, Nick, I learned the three dissect new things today. Yeah. I'm gonna send this episode to Nick and be like,

38:16 oh, we're not gonna talk trash better players, and then send it to them. You Nick, you're a muppet. I'm just happy that we podcasted today that was yes too. After a couple of weeks of not making it podcast it, Yeah, I had no regrets. I had a lot of good barbecue in Austin. Sorry, sorry, not sorry, and I got to do my little interview with for DM TONI, which should have definitely released my now So yeah, go check that out or we'll release next No, no, that'll be up. I think by the time we do this one, we're on it. I guess. I suppose those are the options I saw that show. So it's all good, yes, all right, So let's wrap this thing up. If you have a story that you want us to cover, you send it to us at Hello Adventurers Podcast at gmail dot com. We can tell us a brief version of your story Hello Adventurers Podcast dot com slash voice, and we'd love to have you participate. Yeah, that that's gonna do it for today. Jim, Joe, thank you so much and thank you for listening to you. Hello Adventures. We're your host, Jason Portizo, Jim Crocker and Joe McCall producer, editor an engineer Jason Portiso. Music by an experior artwork by christ and Broderick. You can reach out to us with any feedback or suggestions by emailing Hello Adventures podcast at gmail dot com. Hello Adventures is a JCP audio production. Goodbye, Adventurers.

39:27 It's bad bye if your name is Nick,