RPG Classic Story: A Most Abserd Character

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Welcome to the podcast where we talking
about RPG topics near and dear to players,

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parts or something. I forget exactly
how I brought this thing in,

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but it doesn't matter because we're all
here now and it's all gonna be cool

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and we're talking and it's gonna be
great. I'm Jason Portiso, I'm Joe

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McCall, and I am Jim Crocker. Right, So, what we did

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a couple weeks ago, we did
the RPG horror story. This is like

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a staple, It's like a lynchpin
of how I like to do dn D

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podcasts. Today is a little bit
different. This is the RPG classic story.

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Stories that are not necessarily horror stories
and not necessarily wholesome stories, or

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just stories that have made their way
around on the Internet and they become like

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the face of why people play this
game. These are the stories that you

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tell in the bar at the convention, like after you've like gotten through a

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day of gaming and you're just kind
of hanging around shooting the shit, and

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like, these are the kind of
stories at one guy, yeah, oh

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yeah, yeah. These are the
stories you tell for conventions years after they

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happen. All right, So these
are the ones that are that stand head

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and shoulders above the rest of them. So the story is from YouTuber puffin

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Forest, who does like animations for
all his stories and the last I checked,

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this was his most popular video on
the channel. But I saw this

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story a bunch of years ago,
and I thought it was hysterical, and

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I thought it was great, and
like I was just starting to get into

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the game at the time. Uh, this is right about when you called

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me for our game, Joe,
and I thought it was just hysterical.

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And I've made references to it on
like places like you know, they reddit

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forms or whatever, and they told
me that it was stupid. They're like

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like, oh, don't don't even
remind me of that dumb story. I'm

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like, you're wrong. So I
want you guys tell me what you think

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and you listening. If you know, if you love the story, hate

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the story, if you already knew
this story, let us know. Hello

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Adventures podcast at gmail dot com.
We'd love your comments on this. So

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I don't want to waste any more
time. I want to get right into

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a most absurd character and I'm going
to try not to like completely emulate the

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original story. But he does do
the character in a Tommy Wiseou voice,

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and I'm probably just going to keep
that going just because I can't think of

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a better voice for this character.
So if you'll all indulge me, I'm

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excited. Oh yeah, no,
your childlike glee at this is the thing

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that is really selling it. Oh, there is so much childlike in this

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story. This is it's called a
most absurd character. It's not every day

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that you get to play a high
tier fifth Edition D and D character.

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So when one of our friends offered
to run a one shot game for a

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birthday and ask all of us to
make fourteenth level characters, we were all

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pretty excited. I wanted to make
a high level spell slinger who'd get those

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powerful magics that let you warp reality. But then I had another character concept

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pomp into my head, one that
I knew that if I didn't play now,

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I probably wouldn't get a chance.
So we contacted the GM and asked

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them, Hey, so I have
a little bit of a weird character concept

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I'd like to run past you.
GM says, yeah, sure, what

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is it. As long as it's
from the book, it's probably fine.

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Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's it's from the book just I thought

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I might double check with you to
see if it's okay, And everything's fine,

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And I told them my concept and
he's like, is that even a

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legal character? I think so,
I'm pretty sure it is. If you

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can make it legally, I'll allow
it. Yep, I'll see what I

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can do. The day came and
we all pulled out our characters. While

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the GM and I were keeping mine
a secret. They went around the table

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introduced their PCs, and then finally
it came time to introduce my guy,

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Absurd, gratiest warrior of all time. His backstory was that a long long

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time ago, when Absurd was a
young lad, he was admitted to Swiss

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Swagwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and
they're like, you're a wizard, Absurd,

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And then a year later they're like, no, you're not, and

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they kicked them out. And then
after a year of being on the road,

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he got caught up in a fearsome
tribe of Barredburians. Yes, who

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doesn't know the tales of the Barred
Burians, the fearsome group of roving,

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marauding minstrels who tell tales of their
epic conquests, and then after them,

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I encountered some religious clerics that were
like, hey, come join our church.

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Our Holy Mother welcomes everyone with open
arms. And then after a while

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they were like, maybe not you. And I got kicked out of air

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too, And after I left them, I joined up with the Wilderness Guards.

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They, yes, yes, the
Wilderness Guards a group of soldiers who

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would go around like rangers, watching
the forest and were trained in the art

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of kung fu and had paladin magic
and shape shift in the giant ferrets.

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Honestly, the group didn't admit a
whole a lot of people and kind of

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didn't want extra members. And every
year they're adding more requirements trying to kick

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people out, and I think they
were kind of elitist, a bit of

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a douchebag, just saying So.
After I left them, I was on

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the streets for a while and I
met a guy who taught me the secret

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to being a rogue. It's like, hey, you know how you can

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use a knife to stab people?
You ever thought about? President Like really

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really hard when you do that.
And then I discovered I have a bloodline

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going back that gives me magical powers
other than the magical powers already possessed,

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of course. And then after that, Kudula was like, hey, you

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want some more magic and I said
all right, sure, yeah, sounds

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cool, and there we have it. That's my backstory. And I did

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all that because you see, when
I contacted the GM about the character,

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I said, hey, I like
to play a multi class character and m

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said sure, yeah, what classes? And I said all of them?

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And I'll be damned with that strange
backstory. It just gave me just enough

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experienced multi class into every single one. That's really And some people are like,

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I want to play a jack of
all trades, and then they went

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out on like one or two classes. No, when I say I want

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to be a jack of all trades, I want to be a jack of

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all trades, all of them,
not this one or two class thing.

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And I pulled out my character packet, not a character sheet, a character

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packet, because each of those classes
that uses spells requires their own sheet.

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So how does the character play it? Doesn't? I mean, seriously,

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I'm an archer that can't shoot,
a fighter that can't fight, a healer

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that can't heal, a wizard that
can't cast spells. Does this sound like

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a broken character to you. The
hardest part of making Absurd was figuring out

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how I was going to role play
him, because I had to think of

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why he kept getting into these groups
and then promptly getting kicked out. I

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didn't want him to just be like
evil and people kept catching him or something.

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So this is what I came up
with. Absurd was a drifter.

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He looked like the kind of guy
who whenevery thing started to get difficult,

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he was off to the next.
Job. On his neck was a bandolier

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of different gods. He worshiped Absurd. Oh, hello, they're nice to

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be making acquaintance with you. I
am Absurd. You go, Really,

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that's the voice you're going to go
with. Let's go. We have big

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adventure waiting for us. I'll be
singing a song. Yes, I'm great

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the singing. So the party took
off on the next So the party took

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off out to the next part of
the story. We arrived at a forest

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that was cursed in manifesting strange creatures
and musters. We're passing through. And

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as we're passing through it, the
party got jumped by enemies. Oh no,

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watch up behind you, there's great
danger. Absurd out on his own,

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got jumped by these Faye quicklings who
darted off, and he pretended to

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walk away. Oh no, I
don't think we can fight them with I

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guess we'll be going now, okay, goodbye. And then they came out

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to attack me, and I was
like, ah, you'll fall off of

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my deception because Absurd said he was
going away, but he didn't actually go

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away, so you have fallen off
for it. It's very clever, ha

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ha. And then he promptly got
stabbed, and then everyone was like,

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oh no, not Absurd, I
can't help him. He too far away,

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so far are away. And the
thumb comes up and he says,

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don't worry everyone upstaired is okay,
It's okay. Now, this isn't even

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the most annoying character we've played the
table with, Joe. That's true.

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In another fight, we were being
attacked by sentipedes. Bugs started calling on

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me and one of them was like, oh, hey, that's sorry,

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wrong voice. That's not how the
centipedes talked, right, Yeah, you

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don't know that name one centipede you've
talked to? Yeah, all right,

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yeah, I guess that's I guess
that's right. There you go bugs started

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calling on me, and one of
them was like, oh, hey,

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observed those bugs might call into your
mouth. You should close your mouth and

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stop talking. Please. Oh that's
a great idea. So I closed it

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and there's silence there. He goes, Oh, thank god, they've finally

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gotten the shut up. And that's
when they suddenly heard a voice in their

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head. Oh, hello there,
I'm talking to you inside of your head.

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I have the warlocks awake in mind
because I'm also a warlock, and

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that's one of my powers I have. Absurd is very powerful. It's very

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powerful magic that he has. That
way, I could be talking to you

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even when I can't be talking to
you. Isn't it great? And at

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the end, we finally got to
confront the final villain who was holding someone

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hostage. One of the players says, is there any way we can free

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that person? Because we didn't want
to just abandon someone. The villain says,

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why yes, Perhaps if one of
you were willing to sacrifice yourself,

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I might be tempted to do an
exchange my prisoner for one of your own.

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Of course, you would have to
sacrifice one of your number, but

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I know you wouldn't be willing to
do that, since the bond which your

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group shares is tighter than anything,
the agony over sacrificing one of your own

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would be a burden that you would
have to carry forward for the rest of

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your days. Now, in the
video, they as he was doing this,

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they were in they were just zooming
in on everyone's staring at us.

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Also absurd or no, absurd.
I haven't met a party yet that wouldn't

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just immediately like take that deal In
the mid mid sentence, yeah, again,

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you can take Brian just like in
a birthday one shot, absolutely,

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you know whatever, long lasting campaign
where people get attached. Maybe not.

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But if it's just like if you're
just messing around having fun in a one

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shot, then in this case though, I think even if it was long

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lasting, so it was about the
entire rest of the party at this point,

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it's all just like slowly pushing him
towards the big Dad. So what

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stories line in the future for absurd? No one can truly say rising against

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the evil when there's great danger,
I am the hero of the story,

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and they call you him. The
name they call me is absurd. Hello,

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adventurers, just stepping in here to
remind you guys that we're actively looking

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for submissions for our Hello DMS episode
that gets reported every month. Send us

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your burning D and D questions to
Helloadventurers podcast at gmail dot com, or

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send us a voicemail by visiting Helloadventurers
podcast dot com slash voice. Don't forget

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to begin your message with Hello DMS. Can't wait to get your questions to

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talk about them on the show.
Send us your questions today. That's Hello

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Adventurers Podcast at gmail dot com or
the voice at Helloa Adventurers podcast dot com

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slash voice. Now let's get back
to the show. And that's a legend

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of Ebsurd which that voice is so
much more fun than I thought it was

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ever gonna be. I've never did
that voice before the time. Tommy Wise

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is a great This was a really
good job. With that being said,

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kids, if you want to not
get invited to play role playing games,

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this is what you do. Yeah, I mean, this is this is

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an obvious don't do this at home
thing that we've got on here. Right,

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I beg the different. I think
there is merit to bringing an annoying

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character to juxtapose a serious character.
This is the classic, like you know,

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the the The idea of the comedy
duo the straight man funny man has

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gone back since Vaudeville and way before
that. But the funny man isn't is

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funny. He's not annoying. I'm
gonna you think I am not here.

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It was like I can almost see
like he's like, you say, drifter.

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I almost think grifter is probably better, Like he's like, no,

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he's just gonna wait around. As
soon as I think it's he goes away.

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Yeah, you know, he can't
commit, you know, yeah,

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I don't know. If that's somebody, I say it was well executed.

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I said it was what he's doing, him being so ridiculous and so bad

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at everything, because he's a level
one and everything, so he'd be so

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bad at everything makes the other heroes
look that good and for for a one

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shot. If he if he gets
captured or sacrificed in this case, that

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quickly, and then they can move
on and do the rest of the campaign.

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Then it's like, well, well
that was weird. Yeah, if

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you're playing with your friends or something
like that, don't do this birthday pay

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money to be in that game.
So yeah, that's yeah, I want

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to just have a story games.
It makes a really good point. Yeah,

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if everybody kind of agrees on that, like, that's great. Man,

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Oh, definitely go with that's great. I love that Tommy Wiseo and

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all that, And I like that
it was a prize and I hope that

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he knew his friends well enough that
he was like, they're gonna love m

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It was a birthday one shot.
If you're ever going to pull this boo,

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that's the time. Yeah, I
agree with that. In fact,

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when's your birthday, Joe coming up? Ain't it? It feels like today,

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Jason, because you gave us that
gift. Every day is Joe's birthday?

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Ye? Any day you want,
so, he says, birthday.

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Yeah. There's there's not like a
lesson to be learned from this. It's

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just like, hey, this is
this is a great story. It is

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absurd and for that I love it. Cool. So if you like the

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story, or if you hated this
story, or if you if you have

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your own absurd, if you have
no version of it, there is a

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character sheet for this that's someone that's
someone made. It might be the original

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character sheet. So we'll have a
link to the D and D beyond in

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the show notes. So you can
check out just how absurd absurd really is.

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But I think it's going to do
it for us today. Did you

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guys, did you guys have a
wonderful time? Did you do the podcasting

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and the recording and let you talk
with your voices. I just want to

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this wonderful podcast. I'm a good
podcaster. We're gonna do this again real

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soon. So I am Jaseportisa.
This is Joe McCall and Jim Crocker.

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This has been Hello Adventurers. Producer, editor Anthoneer, Jason Portiso. Our

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music is buying Nick Spurrier artwork by
Kristen Broderick, and with nothing else to

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say, goodbye Adventures