13 Beers at the Local Cheese | Ep. 1 | Round 1
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Welcome to Legends of Avantris. Imagine an upbeat jingle in your heart as a commercial starts. Looking for the ultimate place to play? The local cheese has it all! Arcade games, delicious pizza, and the most animatronic band you'll ever see! Everybody high five. High fives all around! Yeah! Bring your family, your friends, and your A-game at the local cheese. It's always a... Never forget! Everybody, uh, uh, cheersing their beers. Yeah!

Don't miss out! Come and see the gang today! Beautiful! Well done! Okay! So immersive. So, if you've never played a Borg-like, we've got a little bit of housekeeping that we have to do.

I want you, I want to make just kind of level set what everybody's thinking about. This is a rules light system. It's a lot very similar to D&D. Think of streamlined D&D. The very first thing you have to understand that we're going to be making tests. We're going to be rolling D20s. The idea is that you make tests against a difficulty rating, a DR. You're going to succeed. You have to roll a D20 plus or minus your ability modifier. And with a result greater than or equal to the DR, something will happen.

If you do not match greater than or equal to the DR, something else will happen. For your information, enemies actually don't use ability mods. They just roll against the DR. So there's a little bit of behind the, you know, you don't have to worry about enemies having stat blocks. There are difficulty ratings.

Wow.

When it comes to combat, we're gonna roll for initiative. We're gonna roll, it'll be our agility plus a D6 to determine what order we go in. During rounds of combat, they're about, again, six seconds long, just like in D&D. But you'll be able to move, attack,

attack and potentially use an item or a special ability. It's a little loosey-goosey there, so don't be afraid to ask if you have questions. - My die move. - You can critical hit on a natural 20 with a D20 roll, or you can fumble with a natural one. Both of those things can happen while you're attacking or defending.

If you roll a natural 20 during an attack, you'll roll twice as many dice and you'll reduce your opponent's armor by one tier. You break their armor. Oh shit. If you are on defense and you roll a natural 20, you get to immediately make a counterattack. Oh, cool. Very cool. If you fumble when you're on the attack, your weapon will break or be lost. Dropped. Oh fuck.

If you fumble while you are on the defense, the opposing enemy gets to roll twice as many dice. Oh no. So you'll notice right off the bat that our GM will not be rolling dice during combat. It's all us. Oh, so they don't roll to hit, we just roll to defend. I'm going to get to that in one second, but there are difficulty ratings that we will have to hit to hit our opponents and they will have to hit to hit us.

Okay. But we're rolling their dice. That's correct. We are rolling to get out of the way. Oh shit. Okay. We are rolling to hit, we are rolling to dodge. Right, okay, okay. So, and if at any point, so basically, part of the character creation process is that we will roll for armor. Depending on your tier of armor, you will reduce the damage you take if you are hit by a certain dice amount. It might be a d2, a d4, a d6.

Depending on your tier of armor, if you take damage, you will roll to reduce the total damage before you mark off your HP. That's cool. If your armor ever is broken to a point where it reaches tier 0, it breaks and it's gone forever. You can't repair it. Gotta find new armor. All player movement is at 6 squares or 30 feet. Very easy. Standard movement.

There are-- if you ever reach 0 HP, you become broken. That means that you are-- there are a series of things that you'll have to do to see if you die, if you stay alive, if you keep going. If you ever reach negative HP, you are dead. There are no death saving throws. There are no-- there's nothing that can be done. Just dead? You are just dead. Oh my god. When it comes to gaining XP, you're not really-- Do you always-- do you hit 0 first? Yes. Well, unless it goes over.

Like if you have 8 HP and somebody does 9, 10, 11 points of damage you just die. Oh wow, okay. You better hope you're wearing armor. You better hope you have a way to reduce the damage. You better hope that you can get out of the way. Okay. Oh fuck. Yeah. So hitting zero is like not...

Weren't danger. You're dead. Oh, man. It's the danger zone. Uh-oh. Okay. Just for a little bit of context, when you're making an attack roll, if you're using a melee weapon, you're going to roll a d20 and add your strength, and as a baseline, you're looking to get 12 or better. That's it. 12 or better. Date your opponent. That's all you got to do. If you're a ranged user, you're rolling a d20 and you're using your presence, which I'll explain a little bit more in a minute, and then when you're dodging, you're rolling a d20 and you are using your agility.

to get out of the way. Strength does what it says on the tin. The stronger you are, the more you can grapple, the more you can intimidate people with your strength. You can move heavy objects. You can do athletic feats. Your presence is kind of your wisdom, your intelligence, your charisma, your awareness. It's the ability of the mind. Your agility is how dexterous you are. How do you sneak? How do you hide? How quick are you? Things like that. Let's see.

gaining experience and leveling up. When, if that happens, we're going to consult the book. There's a whole bunch of things that can happen. You may not like leveling up. There's a chance that not all of your stats increase, but they decrease. Love that. It's kind of interesting.

When it comes to the main mechanic of 13 beers of the local cheese, consuming alcohol of any kind has its pros and cons. For each drink consumed, you will gain +1 damage dealt and you will receive the ability to reduce 1 damage taken. Your strength, your hardiness goes up. Once you have consumed more than your toughness modifier in drinks, you become drunk!

You must roll once on the table below, which Derek has, for each drink that you continue to consume. So the effects can stack. These things can get out of control very quickly. Got it. Also, in addition to that, while you're drunk, you unlock the ability to have your damage dice explode. What are exploding dice, you may ask? When you are rolling for damage, if any of your damage dice hit the max result, you may die.

add that result to the total and continue to roll. So in theory, when you are drunk, you have the ability to do infinite damage if you're lucky enough.

Just like real life. That's right. PSA. Drink responsibly. Make smart choices. That's the only kind of drinking we endorse. If you drink, drink responsibly. If you take a critical hit while you are drunk or at any time, you will remove one drink from your total. It sobers you up. Oh, no.

That's really funny. That's right. I mean, if you get your bell wrong, it's going to sober you up. If the adrenaline kicks in, it might remove one drink, it might remove two, it might remove three. That's up to the GM's discretion. The goal of the game is the more you drink, the stronger you get, within reason. Um,

If you are broken, if you reach 0 HP, you will lose all of your drinks. You become completely sober. If you die and you manage to come back to life, or if that's even a thing, you will lose all of your drinks. So, with all of that being known, we are going to start. That's just a brief overview of the rules. There's some things that we're going to touch on that will become more clear as we roll our characters. Let us start by...

doing the character creation process. So, what I would like to do is go around the table, starting with whomever. I'd like to go in the same order every time if possible. Let's do P1, P2, P3, P4. We can do that. I think we can do that. Unless you want to do something different. Only for one of the tables, I think I should roll last. That's fine.

I'm gonna start by saying the name of my character and that's it. We're not gonna describe too much of what our characters look like until we finish the character creation process because we're going to be gaining things that might alter how we look a little bit. Nothing physically, but you know, gear, things like that. So, the character, my name is Andy, the player. I'm also, my character today, I am playing Andy. I am a 13 year old.

36 year old male who lives with his good friend Gary Goodberry. We share a flat together and I have several friends in addition to Gary that I meet with on a regular basis to drink and have fun with. And that's who I am playing today. I'm playing Gary Big Bundle McDennis G. Goodberry. And after a very messy divorce and custody battle of our Princess Diana collectible beanie baby.

I'm Andy's roommate. I'm Richie. Oh, yeah, he's Mikey. And I am playing Knuckles. I'm going to leave. He's a large rhino man. But given the nature of this game and the changing features that I may roll, I'm going to leave it a little loosey-goosey and he may change. But

But I think in general, he wears a tank top and army pants and probably has a brightly colored mohawk maybe. Yeah. Just as like late 80s, early 90s as you could possibly imagine a rhinoceros could be. Yeah. I am Mace and I am playing Galileo, the one who never was. I...

And he is still in fact a Ninja Turtles reference. And I also meet up at the local cheese with all my friends to enjoy the three drink limit. Oh yeah, Knuckles is also a loser. That's important to say. He's a fellow loser. This is a common occurrence, it's something that we do on a regular basis. Now what I want to say as well, just for those of you who are not familiar with Borderlights,

is that this is a rules-like system, it's very loosey-goosey. The idea is to have fun and kind of make things up on the fly. Derek has a litany of tables that he can use to roll on to determine various outcomes of things that happen. But before that begins, the way this is gonna work is I'm gonna tell you what we're rolling for, and then Derek is gonna tell us on the...

Table itself what we got so the very first thing that you do It's very important that when you go to the local local cheese that you bring something along with you be able to carry all the things that you find Yeah, so the first thing that we're gonna do is we're gonna roll for our storage and the way that you do that is we're gonna roll a 1d6 Oh, so actually for this I am gonna go last. I think we start with mace we go Let's do it. Yeah, that's fine. Roll us a d6. Tell us what you got. Six. You have a backpack Oh, you can carry 12 normal sized items. Oh

So under your equipment, you'll just note down backpack, and then you can jot down a 12 next to it to note it. Turtle shell backpack. Should I re-roll if I got a six? It does look like a turtle shell. You don't actually have a turtle shell. I don't think you have to re-roll, but you can if you want. I think for the sake of this, I think for the gear, let's get unique things. When we get to the feats portion, we'll have a different conversation. Five. You have a selection of Tupperware. What am I going to do with them?

They rush and nest all into each other in a very convenient manner. I have a four. It is ten. Ten slots. You are wearing JNCO jeans. That's incredible! You can carry up to eight normal sized items. And I got a two. You have a fanny pack. Yeah! That's perfect. And that holds four normal sized items. So that's step one to creating our characters.

Okay. Oh, that's under equipment. Yeah, under equipment. Hey guys, I can fit an entire Xbox in my pocket. Oh, and for the sake of verisimilitude, um...

You also have lots of pockets and other things like that for small loose items. We're gonna say that you... And we'll get there. But... And we haven't talked about twists yet, but twists will eventually convert to tokens, which you can use. And you can just say that those are in your pocket. I think that that's a fair way... Yeah, they don't take up space. Got it. Got it. Icebound stuff. Yeah.

Okay, the next few things we're gonna roll for cheap gear and fancy gear. Now, there are some gear that will, and this is important to kind of what I was saying about the rules light system, is that some of these things that you get will have rules associated with them. Some of them don't. Be creative. Think about what you can do with it. So Mason, I need you to roll a d12. It's for your cheap gear. Three. You have a scrunchie. I don't know why, but that's what you have. What you choose to do with that scrunchie, it might become relevant as time goes on. But I'm bald.

Eight. In eight, you have a small plastic dinosaur. All right. What's the D? D12. Oh, shit. I just looked up JNCO jeans to remind myself. They're exactly what I remember. They're giant. They're giant. They're huge. They're like straight away. You have sunglasses. Oh, shut up. JNCO jeans and sunglasses. I was just going to say. I'm getting three kinds of laid to that. I got a five.

And you receive a Lisa Frank notebook. Oh, what? Yep. Well, maybe we can trade, Gary. We'll see how it goes. No, no, no. Touch my sunglasses. Okay. Next is fancy gear. What do I roll? D12. D12. Three. Axe body spray. And it just says, the beach.

Eight again? Weird. Uh, Nokia 3310 cell phone. That's funny. Wow! It is fully charged and it does have service. 3312, is that what you said? Yep. The 3310. 10. Not the 12. Why does that deodorant smell like a used condom? Not made of money. Seven. Oh, Gary's becoming the coolest character in the world. Holy shit, you're the coolest character in the world. Rollerblades. AHHHHHHHHH!

No way! I swear to God! I swear to God! Janko eats rollerblades in sunglasses? Oh shucks! I defy the patrons of the local cheese. Gary's bouncing back from the divorce very well. Oh my god! Oh, and I got a 12! You get a Tamagotchi. Oh! Holy... Okay. Next, we are gonna roll for our starting weapon. It's a 1d10. Oh fuck, this is a big deal. I'll find it, I'll find it.

Just look for the little UFO. Five. Five! I'll just give it to you. Oh shit! Props? No way, you brought props? I didn't even know about this. No fucking way. I can't believe you had that! I wrote this without knowing that he had this. Oh my god! It's a Nerf gun! Nice trigger discipline. I'm three tricks ahead of the local Gs. We have to explain what it is so you can write it down. It's a Nerf gun! Right.

With? With presence plus 10 darts. So once you roll your presence stat, you'll know the total number of darts that you have, and it's worth noting that it's a D6 damage ranged weapon. D6. And it's a D6. So you're gonna wanna write down under weapon, under weapon, write down Nerf gun with presence plus 10 darts, and you'll be able to know what presence is. Does P plus 10 work, or are there other Ps? Yeah, absolutely. No, no, that works. And then just know that it's a ranged D6 weapon. All right. All right. Knuckles is up.

A three. Brass knuckles! Let's fuck it. Oh shit, he's got brass knuckles!

That's all I wanted! So it's a d4 melee weapon. And you'll use your strength instead of presence. I don't have brass knuckles. And the brass knuckles! Can you imagine if you whipped out brass knuckles? That's so funny. D4 plus strength? Well, yeah, you don't need to write down plus strength. Just know that melee uses strength to test. You haven't gotten a 2 yet. No? 2. A set of plastic cutlery. LAUGHTER

Oh yeah! It's still in a little transparent plastic bag. Yeah, you have to open it. There's a wet wipe in there with a full napkin. That is also a D4 melee weapon. And you know what? Salt and pepper too. Yeah, salt and pepper, of course.

I got a 10. You got a 10? Oh, shit. I'm rolling really well. The Maul Katana. What? Oh, my God! It's probably made of cheap metal. Yeah. It doesn't look very fancy. It's not sharpened. No, it's hard to tell how sharp it is. It might be blunt. It's hard to say. But it is a melee weapon D10 damage. Oh, my God. Andy has been studying the bleep.

That's right. While we were partying at the local cage. Maybe he's been studying the blade. Now you have to roll for your armor, and what I will say is that you will have the ability to flavor this kind of how you want. There are four tiers of armor. No armor, light armor, medium armor, and heavy armor. Is this also under weapons or equipment? I would just put everything under equipment for now. Oh, okay. I think that's the easiest way to do it. However you want. Really, it's best how you're going to remember to look at it, right? So we're starting with...

Galileo, I want to call you Da Vinci now. Starting with Galileo, roll a 1d4 to determine what your armor is. And then you need to, once you find out what tier it is, you'll have to describe what it is. My armor? Yeah. Two. Two. You have light armor. So anytime that you take damage, you're going to flip a coin, a d2, and remove either one or two, you'll reduce the damage taken by one or two damage. Describe to us what your armor kind of looks like. Should we all roll so we can think about it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead, and I'll explain real quick what you got.

- Four. - Oh yeah. - You got heavy armor. - Heavy tier. - Tier three armor. - It's minus a D6. - Brass knuckles and heavy armor. - Four. - That is heavy armor minus a D6. - Oh shucks. - It doesn't have to be justified. It could be something along the lines of, you know, whatever you are wearing. Your JNCO jeans are extra thick. - Your JNCO jeans could be those anti-chainsaw jeans. - Yeah, exactly. - Right. - Oh, and then I have to roll. - Minus D6. - Can I say for right now,

Is it fair to say... I also got four.

Like, while sitting, I wouldn't have armor, but the first thing I would do if stuff pops off is grab two, like, food trays. Absolutely. And strap them to my front and back. I think that's reasonable. All right. In fact, you might even keep the food trays in your backpack, which is the biggest container that you have. I want to keep the food trays on me. And you just equip your heavy armor as soon as that shit goes down. I have, like, red food trays with the marbling across the bottom. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And you took those from previous months. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You know what's up.

Okay, so just remember yours is a -2. We all roll... Oh, a -2? It's... You will reduce damage taken by a D2. Oh, got it, got it. That's your tier of armor. The three of us, we all got Force. So we got very lucky that we have the heaviest armor. So Derek's got his work cut out for him. Okay, next is we're gonna roll for our idiosyncrasy or the thing that makes us unique. Maybe it's a character flaw. So I'm gonna need you to roll a 1d8.

Three. I'm treating this as three. You procrastinate as much as possible. So you can write that under your idiosyncrasy. It's a little bit of a reminder just to give your character a little extra flavor. Don't treat this like it's a curse that you have to constantly be thinking of, but it's a pervasive kind of character trait that is a through line of who you are as a person. Go ahead, Knuckles. Roll a d1d8. 1d8. For your idiosyncrasy or your character flaw. Three. Oh, roll a different one. It's the same. Oh.

You are a bit paranoid. All right, all right. What can I say? My armor, by the way, is a jean jacket. I love that. So it's a denim jacket and JNCO jeans. But they don't match. And they don't match at all. Yeah. Different wash, different wash. D8, you say? Yes, D8. I'm using the Crooked Moon Precious Gemstone dice. Oh, shit. Six. Six. Nothing is ever your fault. Well, shit.

Let's change! Let's-- nothing's really changed! Idiot secrecy! My wife left! No accountability! But it was her bad taste! I gotta re-roll that one. I gotta re-roll that one. Two. You are an Andy. Oh! So I'm... a drunk, I'm insecure, I have anger issues, I'm quick to get into fights-- You were a-- you were a-- Okay, got it. And most of all, you're insecure! And I'm-- uh, yeah. Uh, so I will write that down: I am Andy.

Next, we have to roll for our abilities. So we're gonna roll these in order of strength, agility, presence, and toughness. Oh, shit. And then your toughness will determine how your HP is rolled. So we're just gonna go right in order. There is a modifier scale. Mace, I need you to roll three D6s to determine what your strength is. Oh, shit. And tell us what the result is. I gotta get some D6s out of here. Where's my D6s? Nine. So you have plus zero to your strength. So write nine, and then in parentheses next to it, put zero. Knuckles, you're up.

For strength? Yep. Oh, oh! Oh my god. Uh, 16. You have a +2. So write 16 and then parentheses +2. Why does this all make sense? I know, it's working out very well. Oh, 11, 14! You have +1 for your strength. Okay, sounds good. So write down 14 and then +1. Let's find out how strong Andy is. Uh, I got 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, so +0 for strength.

So 11, and then that's plus 0. Oh, also I'm a Muppet! That's my species. So next is Agility. Same role. And we'll tell you the modifiers. Oh! 15! Nice! Plus 2 for Agility. You're quick. Knuckles? That's exactly how I wanted it.

Roll low. Oh! Oh yeah. Eight. Minus one to agility. That's fucking hell yeah! God, this is perfect. This is perfect so far. 14! Whoa! Plus one. Gary's the ubermensch over here. I'm just the champ! Gary's just rocking gene code, gene code. I'm loitering up and I hit the gene! 14 for agility, so I plus one for agility. Now is presence. This is your mental ability, your charisma, your awareness.

Nine. Same nine. Plus zero. For presents? Knuckles? Oh! 13. Plus one for presents. Nice, dude. Gary? Your battle sense. Dude, we've all been rolling pretty well. There it is. There it is. I got a seven. Minus one for presents. Minus one. Really, what is presents? Oh, I had minus seven. That's not it.

I got a nine, so that's gonna be a plus zero for my presence. I'm shocked we're rolling this well. And arguably, here is the most important roll of the night. What is your toughness going to be? - Oh shucks. - Seven. - You are minus one toughness. - 12. - Wow, nice, plus zero, okay.

That'll be it 12 that's plus 0 plus 0 okay, why I thought for sure somebody would get like a minus 2 or 3 and we'd be lightweight Okay, hold your breath. That's still 9 plus 0 plus 0 okay, so it's important everyone else 0 - 1 0 0 0 Yeah, so okay now the last thing that you need to know is that your HP is gonna be your toughness plus a

D10, I believe. Whoa. Yeah, so we're not as squishy as we were when we played Pirate Board for a reason. So everybody's going to take whatever your toughness is. You're going to roll a D10. So we'll start with Mace, and that's going to be your... Nice. Oh, wow. Okay. I rolled a 9. So that's your HP. So minus 1... HP plus... Yeah, so 8. Is 8.

I might have to borrow a d10 from somebody. Oh, toughness modifier. Eight. No, total toughness. So, right? Toughness modifier. Oh, modifier plus a d10. Toughness modifier. So eight plus zero is eight. Yep, eight HP. Oh shucks. A seven! Okay. Oh wow. I'm so scared. Here we go. I got ten. I got a ten, so I have ten HP. Wow, we rolled exceptionally well. We really did. That is absurd. Okay.

So then lastly, the only other thing that we need to do before we can begin is we are each gonna roll a 1d8 on the feats table. And what I thought about doing was basically, and I'm open to challenge, this is loosey-goosey, if you want to roll for two feats and pick one. Oh, yeah. I think that's the best way to do it. I think that's a wonderful idea. I think that's good. Some of them very much fit our characters, some of them are miscellaneous, I think they're all good.

But you won't know the whole table right well You know obviously you're gonna be at the most disadvantage Because you'll only know the two so I would say start by rolling- I mean but you only get to pick your two You only get- yeah one of the two right but like yeah, so and you know what you'll have to pick on name alone You have to pick on name alone. We won't tell you what the feat does. I love that. I fucking love that. I'll roll a d8. So roll a d8 He'll tell you what the name of the feat is and then you choose whether or not you want to roll again Oh, sorry. Yeah, so first start with a five. Five was the first roll.

So we don't choose from two. We can mulligan the first one? Well, no. If you don't like it, or if you want to roll twice, roll. I don't care. It doesn't matter. Loosey-goosey. You may choose to mulligan, or you may choose to defeat Critical Master. I'll take Critical Master, I think. Okay. That sounds really pretty good. When you rolled, you now crit on 19s and 20s when attacking and defending. That's huge! Three. Three. You may mulligan, or you may choose Sniper.

Demolition Expert.

Oh, that's pretty good. Alright, I'll pick that one. Your exploding dice range is increased by one. X and X minus one. So instead of max just being the way you explode, when you have the ability to explode it would be six or five, or it'd be an eight or a seven. Amazing. God, that's so good. Would you like to roll for your feat? 1d8? Yes, 1d8. I'm just curious what Sniper is.

A three. A three. That's what I, I think that's good. That's the sniper. Oh, that's nice. But you may not be able to take sniper or roll for another feat. I don't have a raid weapon, so I got to roll for another feat.

You don't have one of these? What I want to say before you choose, you can still choose to do it. Don't think that you're gonna be stuck with your weapon for the entirety of the session. Right? Oh, I am. There are, well, I think you'd be surprised. Maybe. I'm gonna be picking up Nerf darts off the ground. I'm gonna reroll. I believe in the heart of you guys. We can keep going, but I gotta collect my Nerf darts. A one. Fists of Fury. Your hands, your hands deal 2d4 and ignore fumbles. Oh, baby.

So you don't have to use a weapon, you can use your fists. One of the things I'll reveal, pull back, is that if you had rolled as low as you possibly could on the weapons table, you would have gotten no weapon, and it would have been your fists. And it would have been a d2. So these are upgraded fists. Finally, I can punch some grandmas today! Or at least put them in critical condition! I'm very relieved. I got a six. You got a six? Well, would you like the medic feat? I'll reroll. Yeah. Oh, god. Seven.

Your toughness increases by one. Done. Iron liver. Damn. It's called iron liver. Iron liver, I love that. 2d4 is my hands? Yes, 2d-- and you ignore fumbles. Whoa, no fumbles! No fumbling! If your toughness increases by one, it's the score that increases from 9 to 10? Yes, so the idea is that my toughness will go from 9 to 10. But that doesn't change your mod, which unfortunately doesn't change my mod. Which unfortunately doesn't change your HP. But that's okay.

There might be other ways to increase my toughness. Got it. Well, shucks. Interesting. Man, I looked up that whole list of comical cutlery for utensils for nothing. You can still use them. Yeah. Okay. Look, if your weapon breaks, you're going to be very happy that you have Fist of Fury. All right. And then lastly... I'm waiting until Gary's lunging across the bar like... You mean skating. Well, gosh. Well, I think you skate up and then lunge. And then the only other thing I can say is we all start with two tokens.

Not roll. We can also distribute the existing tokens that we have. I would save those. Save those? I think we roll, and then we all roll 1d4 to determine what our starting token amount is. 1d4 tokens in the pocket, because rolling's fun. Three. Four. One. Now, I have...

- I'm doing hash marks. - This tankard here, this flagon contains pips that you can use to track how many drinks you've drank. If you care to, you can also just use your character sheet, just have both options available to you. Since you may be going up and down pretty frequently, I just want you to have the option of trackitude.

Don't be afraid to ask questions, especially when it comes to rules things. Just make sure that you're tracking how many tokens, how many tickets, how many drinks you've consumed, what your drink total is at. And because even if you say like, oh, I don't know what I'm supposed to do, but I'm at a drink total of eight. We'll talk about it. We'll figure it out. And for those of you asking, what was the sniper feat? What was the things that we didn't roll on the table? We may pull back the curtain at the end of the stream. That's right. When we do a Vantress and Chill.

I'm glad that I had that prop, and I'm glad you just sniped it right out of the gate. I can't wait to just start firing nerfs. I didn't know what to do if you guys didn't roll a 5. I can't wait to start firing. Did you bring that for this session? Yeah. Oh my god, it's fucking amazing. Do you think I'm just walking around with a nerf gun? Yeah! Yes! Yeah! 100%! Absolutely! Are you kidding? Derek's volume is low. How many shots do you have?

No, no, no, no, in the game. Oh, yeah, so now look at your presence. Oh. What is your presence? Wait, what did I write it down? Your presence modifier. Hang on, hang on, hang on. Zero. Yeah, so you start off with ten darts. Ten darts. You have to keep track of that. Well, this is presence plus ten darts. Yeah, your presence is zero. Oh, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Three more, so that's actually a total of nine that you'll have. Uh, maybe there's only five in there. It's a five shot. Alright, so you'll have to keep track. I'm at eight.

But then you can just start- Oh shit! I got Fist of Fury! Oh, and it's hammered back. Unbelievable! Your pocket knife. Swiss Army knife. Oh.

Sleaze army knife. All right, and that's all I have. And until... I can't believe somebody got demolition expert. That's amazing. I was really hoping that you got Fists of Fury. But it works out all the same anyway. Oh, we need to describe our armor. Yeah, so now describe your armor and now describe your character. Yeah. Talk about who you are as a person. I'm stepping on Derek's DM toes here, but... No, no. This is how it's going to be. We should go around the table. Galileo, tell us a little bit about yourself. I'm going to leave this right here. How do you...

look upon first impression and what is your favorite thing about visiting a local cheese? I am like a frog person. Mm-hmm. I'm green. I have a smooth head, but I have turtle jealousy.

And that's why my backpack is a turtle shell backpack that I brought to the local. You have like an oval head very much like the actual like 90s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Yeah, yeah. Ninja Turtles. And you can see the eyes of somebody inside the open mouth in a nightmare. Not quite as horrific as all that. But they're kind of like, you know, smoothed out.

like facial snout kind of thing the roundish head You have a bandana that somehow goes over the eyes and I do have a yellow bandana, but I noticed that when I put around my eyes I lost all my peripheral vision so I just tied across my forehead that makes the eye holes here I Never could get I never I lost all my accuracy with my nerf gun. I

When I had the bandana on. I gave you Chekov's gun over here. Galileo's Nerf gun. Galileo's Nerf gun. And my armor is going to be just previously acquired red food trays. Borrowed. Borrowed. With no intention of returning. From the local cheese.

What's your favorite thing? Oh! It might be those trays, but what is your favorite thing about the local cheese? My favorite thing about the local cheese is eating... eating slices of pizza one after another and losing hours at the... at the arcade machines. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Chuckles. On first impression. Knuckles. Knuckles. Wow. Who the fuck is Chuckles? You're Chuckles now. He's Chuckles now. Ooh!

Hey, everybody! Knuckles, aside from being Sonic's enemy, I think, something like that, you-- I know, no relation. No relation. Tell us a little bit about how you would appear upon first impression, and what your favorite thing of the local cheeses. I'm a large, muscled rhino man, gray, tough, leathery skin. One or two large horns, I don't care, figure it out.

Probably like neon colored, either Mohawk or like 80s sort of like hair metal hair going on. I don't care either, figure that out, fan artists. And I described that I had a tank top and like army pants.

big boots, big sort of like army boots, military boots. But because I rolled my heavy armor, I now have a leather vest with the sleeves ripped off and a bunch of metal studs and spikes that act as my armor. And then to protect my legs, I have a large wallet chain.

Dude, you have no idea how close I was adding that to like 6,000 different places I just ran out of time. So thank you for reading my fucking mind. Perfect. The wallet chain. Yeah. And your favorite thing about the local cheese? Oh, um...

My favorite thing about the local cheese is that on the jukebox, the staff still hasn't removed Highlander's "The One." Yeah! So, Knuckles always puts it on, and it's like a 20-minute song. That's fucked up. Thank you. Gary. 'Sup, everybody? I'm here.

I've gone through a messy divorce, but I've lawyered up, I've hit the gym, and frankly, I'm here to cruise for some hot chicks at the local cheese. But don't worry, the chicks here are age-appropriate in this universe. Don't worry about that. I've got a jean jacket, I've got rollerblades that are hot pink, I've got sunglasses that are also hot pink, I've got a jean jacket, I've got JNCO jeans.

And I also got jerry curled. - What's your favorite thing about the local cheese? - My hair is very moist all of the time. I'm jerry curled all the time. - Makes our apartment an nightmare. - It's so damp. It's so damp. Oh, my favorite part is when the animatronics speak to me when no one else is around. And they stare into my soul and they urge me to violence.

Especially against folks' grandmas. For some reason. I don't know why.

Andy, what do you look like upon first impression? And what's your favorite thing about visiting the local chief? Yeah, so I am a nearing middle-aged man, blonde hair, backwards baseball cap, a v-neck, wearing jeans and sneakers. I would say that I'm athletic. You guys would say I'm athletic, right? Yeah, I would say you're athletic. I'm athletic. I mean, you try. I try. There's definitely evidence that the beer's due to my body. Yeah.

You showed to the ESPN zone to show off. That's right, that's right. Where they have the football thing, I'm like, I can throw this football, then fall into that Mare Mountains, right? I'm gonna lose it. With the pitch machine, I try to do it the fastest pitch. Exactly right. For sure. My armor is actually my hat. My hat is unique to me. There's only one Andy's hat. That's right. And I'm not seen without it, and it protects me.

My favorite thing about the local cheese is no matter how bad my life gets, and no matter how awful my mundane job is that runs me into the dirt, I know that every Friday and Saturday night my friends will be at the local cheese to greet me with a cold beer. Yeah, and I hope Veronica's on shift so she can up the living, you know? One of these days, Gary, we're gonna get past that three-drink maximum. Oh, yeah, exactly right. Gosh, why is Veronica never working?

You know, I think after that time you gave her your phone number. I never saw her again. You shouldn't write your phone number on the check, Gary. I shouldn't write my phone number underneath a large cartoonish illustration of an eggplant. No, you shouldn't, Gary. Is that not how you do the women, Andy? And we've basically been banned from every other bar on the planet. I don't want to get banned from here, Gary, okay? I need this. I need this. What about the sweat drops?

This is gonna turn into one giant Gary and Andy ad. I'm gonna say that I've done this one myself. That's very much. Gosh! I mean, Veronica's so kicked up! Hey! I can't believe it, Gary! We're all thinking it, you're just saying. Andy, Gary, you're standing in the parking lot outside of the local cheese.

and you are waiting for your two friends to arrive. This is the conversation that's happening as you're... knowing your friends are just five minutes away.

Oh, but the whole time I'm roller skating and rollerblading around. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I really love that you got these new blades, Gary. Yeah, you're a little slow. You're too slow. I can't really understand what you're saying. It's because I left the Heelys at home. If I had known, I would have brought my Heelys, man. Yeah, yeah, you can't compete with my speed. No, I can't. I am made of speed. I gotta go fast. Where are they? They should have been here by now. Oh, shucks. Yeah, why are they late?

We're gonna miss our trivia time slot. Look, you know, I am literally shaking to start drinking. I mean, I can quit any time I want. But the excitement has me shaking to start drinking. Yeah, me too. I mean, I've already been pre-gaming. What? I've been pre-gaming with a few wide cutters. You know the one you were saving?

What? No! Dude, come on, we had this conversation before, man. Be respectful of what's in the fridge. It's not just your stuff. Yeah, but Jeffrey, my emu, remember him at the deep floor? I do, I remember. He was like, hey, yo, Gary, why don't we start pre-gaming early? And he's never gonna know. By the bright headlights of a news van.

As suddenly, Galileo in the driver's seat, carrying knuckles, I'm going to say chuckles, 14,000 times tonight, pull into the neighboring parking spot and your two friends get out.

Hey, guys! What took you so long? Yo, bros! Hey, guys. News right now. What the fuck's that supposed to mean? Oh, we just pulled up in the news. Are there fucking news around here? Fuck. Oh, shucks. Remember that time?

Remember that time Andy was on the local news? And they asked him about that shooting? Gary, Gary, Gary. The investigation's still happening. We can't talk about that. And this is why I can't afford to be on the local news, all right? So if you see any news fellas, are you part of the news? Why are we in a news van? Oh, shucks! How does that make any sense? Knuckles. Whoa! Is that your catchphrase? What's your catchphrase? Ahem. Ahem.

Remember that time we almost got kicked out of the local cheese? Yes, yes. On account of the whole eggplant with Veronica? I can't believe anything would make me do that.

I can't believe Andy almost got us kicked out. Oh, Gary, you card. Come on. I can't believe it. How many tokens do you have? You only have three. I have three tokens. You know, I want to say first drinks on you, but, you know, money's tight these days. Wait, is that the news fan of the famed local weather girl, February O'Houlihan? You know this. Why are you asking that? We've had this conversation dozens of times. Gosh, February O'Houlihan's kind of stacked. You know what I mean?

Where did we get this van? It's Galileo's van. It's his motor transportation. Yeah, this is my classic. He's been here every week. He got it because he's good friends with February O'Houlihan. Just borrow February O'Houlihan's news van. It was that or that ridiculous green van that you have that can shoot whole slices of pizza out the top. Full pies, I should say.

Um, I think, uh, I think my jacket may have, uh, damaged the upholstery. So, you know, when you get home, just, uh, say it was Gary. Well...

Yeah, okay. I don't know what they're talking about. I just can't stop thinking about how that yellow jumpsuit doesn't zip up all the way. You know, we've been coming to this place now for weeks. It's a miracle we haven't been arrested yet. That's a choice she makes. She chooses that. It's an interesting choice. I have proof. I love it when a blizzard's coming. I love it.

with your weather. Gary Meetsu. Oh, I'm saying. It's hard to take your eyes off the news, you know? Oh, it really is. And with a sweeping hand gesture, I motion towards the front door of the loom. Jeez, and I say, shall we, gentlemen? Let's do it. A couple of divorcees. What? I'm not divorced. Prowling for...

Tonight we are. All right, let's go. Okay. Let's go. And I proceed towards the local cheese. You walk up towards the local cheese, and you've all gone through this procedure many times. You know you must present your ID to the gentleman at the front. Adults only entertainment being the venue of choice. This is an 18 plus establishment through and through. The...

Security gentleman, the representative, takes a look at each of your IDs and turns and then verifies your age. Makes me feel young again. Welcome to the local cheese. And he waves you in and you pass through the doors. I don't know why that guy pretends like he doesn't know us. We see him every week. Multiple times a week. As I pass him, as I pass him, I'll say...

"Oh yeah, it's just us again. Just four bachelors on the prowl. Like a pride alliance." "You might call us predators at the local cheaters." No! No, man! I immediately push Gary back, and I step in front of the bouncer and I say, "Sir, sir, I apologize for my friend's behavior. He hasn't been drinking, he's just being... No, I've been drinking!

No, he certainly hasn't because we don't want to be anywhere near the limit. Sir, we're not here to cause trouble. I promise. Why does he say this every week? Because he thinks it's funny. He thinks it's funny. Just laugh along. You have fun in there.

I look to see if we can find a table somewhere, potentially near the bar, because we have a primary objective. You push in, and you are immediately hit with the neon lights that cascade from the ceiling. There are staircases going up, walls covered, some in

Wild, colorful graffiti. Others in objects that have been cut in half so they look like they're emerging out of the wall. There are booths and tables, circles. You can see there's staircases down to a massive arcade floor and staircases up. Elevators, massive tubes that hang from the ceiling where people can literally crawl about getting from floor to floor of this multi-stage venue. You have entered the local cheese.

But you're able to find the food area just in front of you where you could sit down and perhaps order a meal or a drink. Already exasperated with Gary, I stick my hands in my pockets, I feel that there's tokens in there and I say, "I'm gonna go get a beer." And I walk to the bar. "Oh, wait for me, wait for me!" As he skates around. "Oh, too slow, eat my dust!"

You follow your friend Andy to the barcade area and one of the waiters wants to flag them down. Yeah, what'll it be? I slap two tokens down on the bar and I say, "Well, I'll just have a beer. The local cheese local, if you will." No problem, yeah. He goes and he... Here you are. I hold it and I wait for my friends to order their beverages. Excuse me, good sir.

What'll it be? Excuse me, my good man! He ignores. What'll it be? Can I get you anything? What do you have? Pretty much anything you want. We have beer. We have a variety of beers. Yeah, I'll take that one.

Good choice. A local. Here you go. How many tokens is it? Two. Two? Good choice, Galileo. Do you have, like, half price? Half price today's? I immediately sigh and I recognize what's happening and I use my last token to cover half of his beer price. Oh, Andy.

That's awesome! What are friends for? Totally brought one fucking token with you? I only had one token from last time. What the fuck are you thinking? I wasn't really thinking about it. You expecting people to cover your drinks all night? Oh my god! I didn't- I didn't- God! What would your mother think? What would she think? May she rest in peace. God, may she rest in peace. May she rest in peace, although she did make a great She-Turtle suit. But gosh.

We have to remember he's a frog guy now. So we gotta keep that in mind. It's just a name and thing. I just don't know about reptiles. So Giuseppe, what's on tap tonight? The local? I'm just kidding. I'll have a beer. And I could fancy a slice if you want to throw one in. Sure.

Let me test, uh, not test, figure out how much there is. I'm feeling a slice. What do you think, fellas? A slice? Oh! Do you guys want to split a za? Oh, should we upgrade? Let's split a pie. I would love a slice. I don't know, guys. Food's pretty expensive here. I'm not sure we can afford it. Oh. Why can't we afford it? Because you spent all our money on MLMs, emus, ice cream, uh, cosmic brownies, uh, business ventures that have been bust. How much do I have to mention? What?

And also my Bart Simpson Piss-It-Obs dumb tattoo. First of all, that's supposed to be Calvin and Hobbes. And second of all, I don't know where you went to get the tattoo. Oh, that's right. It's a little early. It's not the Gulf War yet.

I got a second. Are you trying to tell me we have cosmic brownies? Not here. We have so many at the apartment. They've all gone stale. Oh, man. It'll be a pride of lions, a couple of predators, and a hand of carrots. Can you stop saying that? Why? Please.

Why? It's every time. Why? That word's not appropriate anymore, all right? We're gonna get fucking kicked out. It's a different time now. Oh, I guess it is a different time. Anyway, we're not gonna explore that. You want a slice or you want a full pie? Well, I'm feeling a slice. How much is the pie, my good man, Giuseppe? Five tokens. Five tokens? This is a highway robbery.

I mean, this isn't- Andy, how could you spend all of our tokens? This isn't news to you. I had to give one of my only tokens to our friend, uh, Galileo over here. He couldn't afford a drink. Can we just get drinks and get the night started, please? Galileo will have the regular. How much for just one slice? Alright? Between friends, you know? Between ivory Italians, you know what I mean? Two tokens. Two tokens, yeah.

For one slice?! So with three more tokens I get the whole pie? Knuckles! Knuckles! All these glasses are a pie, man! You guys are acting like this is news to you. You know, from-- Guys, guys, guys. Bring it in, bring it in, bring it in. Hold on. Before we get into any trouble, can we just get our first drink in us for the evening?

Oh yeah. I mean, one drink. I'm kind of hungry, but that's fine. You know what? I got a secret technique that the elites don't want you to know. Okay, well tell us the technique. We'll get our drink. I'll make the toast and we move on with our lives. So you see how all those people, they got a whole pie and they're leaving and just leave a couple slices? They're going to throw those away. There's no laws against taking people's leftover slices. He's right, you know. Wait.

I heard that they actually do that and whenever you order a pie, that's what you get! No! No, I swear to God! They would never do that here at the local cheese! No, no, no, I heard it. Are you kidding me? I read it online. Have you been online yet? I've read it online. Online? What is that? I haven't really been online. What the heck is online? You've never been to the World Wide Web, Gary? It would blow your mind!

worldwide web? Yeah, there's some crazy... I have arachnophobia. Please stop talking about this. There's some freaky shit on there, Gary. Whoa, like what? Let's just get off that. Think of the freakiest shit that's in your magazines. What? And triple it at least. What? Wait a minute, wait a minute. You mean that I can enjoy all that freakiness without having to go to my local crusty, dusty shop? Yeah, no crust at all. And have all reddled

Even at Huffington, in the back room. I don't know what to do with that. I mean, there'll probably be crust, but it'll at least be your own crust. I don't-- ew. All of a sudden, I don't want pizza anymore.

I might have to invest in this worldwide whale. Look, let's grab a drink, we'll find a table, and then if we need to, we can, uh, you know, vulture some pizza slices off another table. We'll just keep an eye out and see if anybody leaves any pizza. Sounds good to me. Everybody good? Yeah. Come on, there's a table over here. Beers in hand, you make your way to a filthy booth that hasn't been wiped down in perhaps two or three visits. Guys, I just want to say that, uh,

I'm glad we're doing this again. I know we do this every week, multiple times a week, but every time it feels like the first time and, you know, there's just something so intoxicating about drinking 13 beers in a row. Yeah, there really is. Cheers to the 13 Slammers. - Cheers. - Cheers. - Cheers. - I'm drinking, I'm drinking, I'm drinking.

Now, I don't know about anybody else, but I've just consumed a number of beers that is larger than my toughness. Me too! Hey, me too! Man, good thing it's on an empty stomach.

The toughness total is just the modifier. Yeah, that's correct. So the minus one. That's correct. So almost- So should I make a beer counter here somewhere? Yeah, that's the drink total. So in some ways you were already drunk when you came in. Oh, sweet. Um, yeah, so, you know, whether it be that we were free gaming, whether it be whatever it was, um, yeah, so the idea is that, uh, your number, your stat number will almost never come into a- a- a new account unless for some reason something were to permanently increase one of your stats. Got it. And then bump it over the threshold of increasing your modifier, right?

Galileo! You drink, and you feel the intoxication hit as you finish the beer. You look down, and things start to get a little wavy. Things start to get a little woozy. Things start to get a little hazy. You're getting excited about playing games, but first, I need everyone to roll a d20. Gary, what's up, dude? Galileo, I always appreciated how you drive drunk so well. You know, it's a different time right now.

So driving drunk is kind of part of life. Some people think it's a problem, but I think it's a skill. Yeah, it's like, remember when they added seatbelt laws and it was flux? Remember that? Yeah, regulation. How old is Gary? No, Gary's like hundreds of years old. Remember when they added seatbelt laws? Oh, I couldn't forget it. And they try and limit the amount you can drink in your car. I mean, stay out of a man's car, you know what I mean? Yeah. Are you telling me you drove me drunk?

Based on the stats. Andy, what did you roll? I got a nine. You got a nine. Everyone around you appears to be blank. Oh, you can call it out as you want. Oh.

Everyone around you, you start to feel those tokens burning a hole in your pocket. Everyone around you starts to feel like they're made of pixels. Even Gary, he becomes a floating sprite almost. You look around and you can't see anything more than 16 bits at a time. Man, I knew there was a reason that we came here. That first one really gets you going, you know what I'm saying? Oh, yeah. Oh, it really does. Gary. I got a two. You got a two. You feel the need to seek out and consume dots and fruit.

Hold on, let me reapply. Is that your Axe body spray? That's my jerry curl. Oh. I forgot about that. How do I look? You look different. Wet. Neon. Soaking. Two dimensional. Yeah.

I'm gonna go... I can't talk after you. Hold on! It's fucking me up. Hold on! I don't know why. Do they let kids in here with candy? No, no, no. Absolutely not. I go look for someone with candy. I'll need you to make a presence check, but while you make your way, Knuckles... I got a seven. You got a seven. You turn into a monkey that is used to living on an island. You cannot speak common. Oh my god!

Wait, sorry, can you finish the rest of that? You cannot speak common. You turn into a monkey that is used to living on an island. You jump up onto the table, and just as this is happening, the alcohol hits your bloodstream as well. What did you roll? A four?

- You go big head mode. All of a sudden your head just, full golden eye. The shock of what you are seeing, all of a sudden your head is four, six times the size as Knuckles, now Monkey, jumps up onto the table and throws the remaining glasses of empty beer glasses onto the floor, shattering them. - What are you doing? He's going, ah! - You're gonna get us tossed out, man. You gotta settle down. - How did that happen?

- Do I have, am I still Knuckles or am I now this new monkey? - You are still yourself. - Yeah, you have some level of awareness. - I look at Giuseppe and I look to the bar and I try to get behind the bar and eat pizza, eat as much pizza as I possibly can. - You jump, I need you to make a agility check to see how well you do jumping behind the bar. - No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

I do not believe so, no. Okay. For the purpose of the flavor. 16. I'm going to adjust the DR in my mind. What did you get? 16. 16, you succeed. You jump behind the bar and you immediately grab it, open a box of hot, fresh pizza for someone in this barcade front entrance restaurant here. And you...

start to consume it, and all of a sudden you can feel Giuseppe grab you and attempt to throw you off. I need you to make a agility defense test. Well...

- He's, you're trying to, Giuseppe's trying to throw him away. - Yeah, he's trying to eject him. - He's just trying to dodge. I would say that he has to just roll agility and depending on what the DR is, whether or not the Giuseppe's able to grab him. - I got a six. - You got a six. You are unable to dodge out of the way. You're too focused on the pizza and you're tossed out onto the floor. You all hear a voice. Hey!

"That was my pizza, bro, that you just ate. "We were about to enjoy that." And you all look up and you can see these meatheads, all of them, beers in hand, themselves a little woozy, staring at your monkey knuckles friends.

What are you gonna do? You're gonna pay for that? That cost me five tokens, bro. I run over to where Knuckles is and I attempt to pick up the Knuckles monkey and bring him back to our table and say, hey, no, we don't want any trouble here. What the fuck did you just say to me, nerd? Get my bitch in the face! You owe me five tokens. Get your bitch in the face!

I punch him in the face with my fists appearing! How dare he speaks to me like that! Roll a d20. How is this not our fault at all? Make an attack and then I need everyone to roll for initiative. This is your fucking fault, you fucking loser! Oh god. You dweeb! Alright, so roll a d6 and add your agility modifier. Oh, d6? Yeah. 6. 3. 7. Nice. So 7, 6, 4, 3.

I'm last. So, seven. Seven is Taishen. Thank you. Six is Barnabas. Yep. Four is Scrim. Three is Yorneir. And then whatever these individuals roll, we should probably... Oh! You don't want to mess with us! We're the predators! We're like a pack of lions!

Look, a patch of lions! For the sake of combat, you still have all of your stats, you have your brass knuckles, they're not gone. Got it. Oh my god. Now in this combat system, you all will get to take a turn first, and then the monsters or meatheads will get to go themselves. Only if that's how you choose to do it. If we want to do individual-- there's two different ways you can do it. You can either roll

You roll one through three, we go first, you roll four through six, they go first, or if you do individual, just roll individually for each of the enemies. I'm going to say that because they were being threatening, they were being intimidating, but they didn't expect the fists to fly that quickly. Do the surprise. Out of pure surprise, I would say that you are up, Galileo.

Do we need enemy tokens? And where's your-- Do you want to just draw a quick little, like, I don't know, like a bar or something? Yeah, I would love to. You hit this guy. I want you to roll to hit very quickly before we enter combat. Is that strength? Yes, you're using melee. You're gonna roll a d20 and add your strength modifier. You endeavor to hit them. Oh, god, this guy's fucked! I got a 20! You got a 20. Dirty 20? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You do hit him. Square on the jaw.

And just in general, you're looking for a 12. The baseline is a 12, but you never know. Okay. Because I'm drunk, do I get exploding dice or no? You do. Oh boy. Everybody does. Roll for damage. Roll for damage. Oh, shucks, only two. Minimum damage. Minimum damage. You smack him in the face. That was a mistake, brah. He does not look damaged by the attack, even though you gave it your best furious fist. Well, what else can I do on my turn? I did it.

That is it, just because I'm giving you the surprise. It is actually at the top of the round. Now Galileo's turn. Guys, I'll be right there. There's a slice of pizza on this table over here. I can't get away. It's looking a little scrumptious, you know what I mean? It looks like it's escalating. Bro do the scrumptious. Bit of snack.

- Oh, fine. - I grab my Nerf gun and I fire at the meathead that Gary punched. - I presume you also slap on your armor trays as you pull out the same Nerf gun and you take aim. I need you to roll a d20 and add your agility. - Oh, sorry.

Oh my god, he has a good! Oh, get down, get down! It's just a nerf gun! Everybody get down! D20 plus presence. Exactly right. Again, generally you're looking for a 12. We don't know what these guys' armor is. That's why they call it the presence, because it's such a gift. There's a four hit. No. No.

No, these guys are slow. But yeah, you put on your blindfold and you fire a dart. I should have pulled it down. And it launches into this, just flies far off. You hear someone go, oh, my drink! Make sure you're noting your ammo. My baggage! Yeah, track your ammo. You can also move on your turn up to six squares.

I move closer to the slice of pizza. You start to make your way towards the pizza. Uh, which is on the right. By the way! Is this the bar? Yeah, you're already there. You're already at the bar, so you just look for pizza. Oh, I thought we were at a table. Well, yeah, okay. Yeah, whatever. I'll stay there.

I did three damage last time, by the way. I forgot my drunken stupor. That's right, and because these guys seem tough, they're wearing varsity jackets, they've got short haircuts, they've got meaty jaws, they've got these huge feet. Whatever, Biff. I subtracted the damage, their armor from the damage, which is why I articulated it as, oh, it seemed to do very little. Damage special.

So, that being said, it's now back to your turn, Gary. I see the K- Oh, oh, oh, it's Gary's turn. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I thought this was the local cheese! I was just... I do that. You go in and start arms flapping. Fists of fury. Fists of fury. Roll a d20 and add your strength.

That'll be a five. A five. You take a step forward and you've forgotten that you're on rollerblades. Your fists go wide. You hear a chuckle as he laughs at your clumsiness. Would you like to move while you slide? I would get up on the middle of all

Yeah, there's no penalties for disengaging. You don't have to worry about any of that stuff. Oh, these are the bad guys here? Yeah, these are the bad guys. Yeah, I want to-- I skate right past this guy! Okay, Biff, you loser. You're the real predator. Andy. Now, uh, now that it's my turn. I apologize for stepping on your toes. Uh, I see the action that is unfolding, and like Scott Pilgrim at the end of, uh, I draw my Maul Katana, like a power of love. It comes out of seemingly nowhere, but as soon as it hits the neon light, you can tell that this thing is cheap.

And I move in, and I say, "Don't worry, Gary, I got your back!" And I go to attack the same one that he, uh, he punched earlier. And I will make an attack, uh, oh boy. Uh, that's gonna be a four plus zero is a, is four. Uh, as I swing the katana, uh, in, in, I see this pixel-formed individual, and I can't seem to zero in as I, as I make an attack. Whoa, this guy's got a, got a, like, a big knife. I'm also, like, still on you, so like, "Aah! AAH!" Goddammit, stay still! And that's my turn.

Chuck, uh...

Knuckles. I am going to, seeing that Andy is trying to slash with his katana, I will look at the guy. So whichever guy accosted me in the first place, that guy. Yeah, sure, that's the one. I am going to Diddy Kong side B and leap at him and latch onto his face and just start smacking him. And looking down at your monkey paws, you can see that your brass knuckles are still a part of you.

Most of your form has changed. You start to pummel in roll a strength test. 13? 13 hits. Let's go! So now we know the 13 hits. One damage and again. Oh two damage. Two damage. Plus the drinks. Oh fantastic. Is it always a d4 for the damage? No yours is a d6. Oh.

So just jot that down. Oh, I wrote that. I wrote that. Sorry. I missed that guy because the monkey was all... He was monkeying around. That's why I missed. Dang it! Ah! Ah!

You smack him with your open palms and then you remember that you have the knuckles and you give him one right in the eye. He goes, oh, my orbital lobe. Oh, what a nerd. Yeah, I thought this guy was a fucking nerd. How does he know what an orbital lobe is? He's at the local cheese. And you seem to have done...

- You do some damage as you see a trickle of blood start to come down and then he looks up at you and you realize that he's coming back with both fists just to clobber you down like this. I need you to make a defense test which is to roll your agility. - Yeah, do 20 plus agility. - Oh no. - Nine. - Nine, I get to do some damage to you.

You take three damage. So then you roll a d6, which is your armor, to see if you can negate the damage. Oh, that's cool. What does that mean? That means you subtract four from the total damage. Right, so I would do three damage, but your armor absorbs the hit. Oh, I see. So I absorb it. And if I had one left, the drink would prevent it.

As well? No. Uh, the dri- Oh, yes! That's actually correct. You would still- Yes, that's absolutely correct. Got it. Yep, you're 100% correct. I apologize. So if it was 5 damage, you rolled a 4, it would still be completely negated? Yeah, because as you drink, you reduce damage. Oh, man. And the armor is only damaged if you were to roll the 1 on your defense, as I recollect. Or you roll a crit again, or he were to be...

- How do I, right? - So in this case it's him getting a fumble. - Right, okay. That's his attack. The two next to Gary immediately-- - What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do, nerd? - They start kicking. And so I need to make two defense tests. - So make a defense roll, which is gonna be a D20 plus your agility. - Yeah, really? Agility, seven obviously. - That misses. - Yeah, that's what I thought!

You wish you had a full blade of scythe. The first is going to do two damage, but you have to roll armor and some-- Nice. Oh, you're gonna kick my jean jacket? That thing's impervious. Yes, instead the foot does hit your leg, but it's that massive front of the Jinko jean. It doesn't actually make contact with your leg. Roll another defense as the other one swings in.

Oh, that'll be a six. A six. I'm going to roll for damage. Wow, one damage. I think that you negate it no matter what. One damage negative. Absolutely. And then the two in the back here, one's going to jump up onto the bar. So real quick, rolling a one there, that doesn't break your armor. No, it's just that is the amount that you reduce your damage taken by. Got it. Just the armor value. Got it.

So he jumps up onto the bar! He jumps up onto the bar and he reaches down and he tries to hug his arms around you and squeeze you and need you to make another test, roll defense, adding your agility to see if you can get out of the way. He's so graceful! D20 plus agility. Yep, yep, yep. And he's got a style! Seven. Seven, that's going to be... You have a lot of armor, though! I do.

- I do. - This is gonna be five incoming if you can't reduce it. - Uh oh.

- Ooh, so minus three. - Minus three, I take two damage. - You take two damage. This time you're not able to get away. You're pulled free from the gentleman that you've been smacking in the face. Let go of my friend, bro! And he starts to crush you. You can feel the stinging pain in your muscles as he comes down. This final guy is going to run around and come into range of Gary. He's gonna actually do the same thing. He's gonna attempt to wrap his arms around you and crush you. - Yeah, nice try.

A natural 20, I don't know what that means. A natural 20 means... Oh my god, you're 20! You get to counter. You attack back? So you... Yes, so what happens is... Oh! Because you're defending! You defend, you're safe, you immediately get to make a counterattack on this guy. Oh my gosh! I do a spit move with my roller blade, and I go... So now you make an attack.

It's not enough. You use your roller blades to slide dexterously out of the way. But your sweeping kick does not make contact. You always said that your hands were rated E for everyone. Frog diff, frog diff! My teammates are really just throwing.

teammates are throwing team diff, team diff. Galileo, you have watched all of your friends get into this brawl. Things are heating up. You have, it's easy enough to reload your gun and fire again, but you can do whatever you like on your turn. Watching the other nerf sail out of direction. Oh. That's okay. It's just because my head looks like after you eat one of those air hods. Oh yeah, big head. I'm big head, man. Wow.

I reload and I take a shot at this guy on the counter now. Get off my bro! Roll a d20 and add your presence. Nice. 13! Nice. 13 hits. 13 hits! So d6. So I roll 1d6. Yep. 2. 2. You do some amount of damage. Plus the drink that you had. Oh, 3. Oh, fantastic. This nerf gun hits the... It's not the same person that...

Knuckles did damage to. You fired at the guy on the bar. On the bar. Yeah, this guy hasn't taken damage yet. But you are able to make contact. The nerf dart flies forward and hits him in the other eye. Oh, that's nuts, bro. Oh, what the fuck? And you seem to have done some damage. You're on the bar, bitch. You may move or end your turn. I think I'll stay where I am.

And then my turn. Okay. I'm going back. I can't believe all my teammates are distracting me. Okay, I'm really gonna give you what for now. Hi-ya! Oh, shucks, that's an 18. 18. Huge. That's huge, yeah. And I'll roll my armor. Oh my god! That'll be seven points of damage. Oh! I thought you were gonna double explode. It looked like you got... And my role model, Miss Piggy, would say, hi-ya! Which one did you pick?

The one that's already been damaged by knuckles or the... Yeah, yeah. Probably this guy, right? I missed this guy. This guy just walked off. This is your counterattack guy. Yeah. You just counterattack him. You attack the counterattack guy and you do a significant amount of damage. You can feel your knuckles make contact and you can feel bone and cartilage crust underneath your attack. I can leave permanent injury!

injuries on you he got me in the kidney bro yeah you well you better get that checked out after i kick the out of you if you survive then andy you're up i continue to engage the one that was in front of me the one that uh gary was originally mouthing off to so i'll make an attack

No, I rolled another four. I whiff again. I can't focus on all these pixels. I can't see what's going on. It's very challenging. Where the outline of the pixel starts is not actually the form of what you're attacking. The hallucination is so dramatic that you think you're making contact, but it just feels like going through air. I really got to stop drinking. Don't ever say that again, Andy.

- Yes, Suckerlich! - Oh, you're right! - Knuckles! - Only quitters quit! - Can I move even though he grabbed me? - Yeah, there's no, there's, yeah, there's no, you're good to go. - Okay, and I'm trying to remember, you took damage? - I did. - That affected his drunkenness. - Only if you take a crit. - Thank you. - You're good.

Given that he's like grabbing me in the reality of the world, I'm gonna try to scamper around him. Yep. And just like go out this way while still kind of being on top of him and just basically trying to punch him in the orbital socket or whatever. Keep going. Yeah, that orbital socket. The orbital lobe, I believe I said incorrectly earlier. Ten? Ten does hit. It just hits. Oh, nice. These guys are big. They're beefy, but they're slow. Damn.

Uh, two. Two? I can still roll a one. Three damage. Three total. Three total, and I rolled a one, so you do two damage. Let's fucking go. Is that the one that Galileo hit? Yeah, I hit this guy. Nice. Okay. Oh, okay. He's gotta be close. Thank you. Well, I don't know. I think I did three damage to him. I don't know what his defenses are. No, we'll find out. Um, you do that, and they're all yelling, spitting, screaming. It is a full-on bar brawl at this point, and they all start going in. I found you alive! Ha ha ha!

I need you to make another defense roll as the person that you just smacked comes back at you with a left hook. Oh! 12. Wait, wait. D20 plus agility. 12. 12. You're able to narrowly dodge. You monkey away.

And the, there are three going to come after you, Gary. I'm sorry that they're all ganging up on you. Oh, nice try. But you started the fight and they are now punching and pummeling in and you're doing your best on roller skates to dodge out of the way. Make your first defense roll. Classic blunder, you guys. Defense, that's a six. That's a six. That's going to be five incoming damage reduced by your armor. Oh, no.

- Oh, Andy, why would you distract me like that? - Oh, six! - Oh, minus seven. - Minus seven. - He blocks all the damage. - My cheat jacket is impervious. - Make another defense roll. - Another defense roll. - Oh, that's a four. - He's taking another hit. - Four incoming. - Oh, my seven is blocked. - He's only nasty folks. - He's just taking everything. - Make another defense roll. - I thought this was the local cheese. I thought I came here for a proper fucking fight, please. - This one goes in for the power move. He goes in for a bear hug. He seems to really care for this move.

- Yeah, got him. - Get this guy. Why can't we get him fast? - He's invisible. - I've had wine coolers!

You fucking dweeb! Andy, you see a pixelized fist start to get bigger and growing in your direction, make a defense roll. Also, I want candy and dots and stuff! I got an 18 to dodge. 18. You could either block it or dodge. You don't take any damage. I use my Maul Katana to deflect his fist attack out of the way. Top of the round, Galileo. You see it bend a little bit.

I would like to know, so they were drinking right here at the bar? Yeah. Are any of their drinks in this area unattended? The bar is covered with, these bartenders don't seem particularly attentive. It's glasses, it's bottles, there's food plates and cutlery and utensils in all directions. Pretty much anything you could imagine picking up off of a bar has been assembled here as other patrons are backing up and watching this fight unfold.

In the kerfuffle, if I see one of their free drinks, I'd like to move up and just slam it back. I love where your head's at. I love where your head's at. That would be your action. You can absolutely do that. Oh, okay. I'd still like to do it. You look, and I need you to make a quick presence check. It's going to be a low DR, but I need you to spot the beer, because these are bottles that are dark glass, and you need to find one that's full. Oh.

I crit. I crit find it. I crit on 19s. I find two of them. Just so you know, your crit master is just for attacks and defense. I crit found it. But you basically hit it. I see that 20, and you don't even think anyone's taking a drink from this beer. It had just gotten sat down. It's cool. It's frosty. You drink the entire thing, and you...

I need to find the rules for drunkenness. If you'll allow it, I'll smash the glass on that guy's head. If you won't, that's fine. You have a beer bottle that is now empty in your hand for your next turn. However, you are increasing your drunk to two drinks, and I need you to roll a d20. Looks like the fud's just getting started. 16. 16. You occasionally do the Colossus Roar while talking.

Wait, what the like from X-Men? Yeah, Colossus roar. You guys know what the Colossus roar is? Yeah. As you grapple with that. Gary, your turn. Okay, I'm a Kung Fu master. And I'm just doing this. I fly, I rollerblades. Does this guy look damaged to me?

One guy you yeah, yeah, you nailed one with a negative seven right there. Yeah, this guy camera It's the guy closest to the camera. I'm trying to think you know what I'm gonna just go I'm not gonna go for a style kill No, oh no That's using your fist oh Why would you distract me in such a way you can't lose your why would you say I can't lose my fist? I'm clearly distracted now

Gosh, I can't do-- when there's a TV out in the background, I can't really-- I can't really pull. You look down at your hand. Gary, there's TVs everywhere! There are. There's a TV and there's music. It's-- I just kind of get distracted. But a single stitch has come free from your puppet hand, and you can see a little cotton poking out. Oh! Oh no.

My mortality. Andy, you're up. I can bleed, I can die. I continue to attack the guy that's right in front of me, and hopefully that I roll higher than a four. I got a 13, finally. Beers. Yeah, exactly, for the number of beers. At the chute.

13 13 that hits my apologies I'll roll 1d10 as I strike with my katana for a total of six points of damage the the cheap Chinese steel flashes through the air as I slash this guy with my katana my maul katana is this the one that got hit in the eye?

No, that's him. The guy that I'm attacking, I don't think he's been damaged yet. But six total points of damage. Six points of damage. This time, finally, Andy's blade strikes true. And you are all not perhaps surprised, horrified. This isn't your first time at a local cheese. But the blade cuts clean through him. Oh, my God.

- I'm just shaking off the rust, baby! - His arms come free as his torso is sliced in half. - All I see is pixels flying everywhere. - Brendan just killed a guy. - For Andy, there's a white flash like in a video game and the pixelized icon in front of him just divides in two. But for you, the violence of his gut spilling out and all of his internal organs smashing against the tile floor is very real. - Oh!

That's my turn. No, I use my movement to stand shoulder to shoulder with Gary and say, I never let you down, roomie! And that's my turn. Wow! God, you literally killed that guy. That's so cool! What are you talking about? It's just pixels and dots, buddy. Come on. Focus up. Lock it up. It's more like guts and guts. That's my turn. Knuckles trouble. I'm covered in blood. I see what you just did. Ah!

I wanna go for his eyes using my brass knuckles, but I'm flavoring it as I want to rip his eyeballs out. Okay. Of his skull. Come on. Uh, 20. Oh, that's huge. Hell yeah! 20 hits. Hell yeah, it does. This guy's toes are gonna tear his head off. Come on. Four. Exploding. Yes! Five. Plus beers. Six. Six total points of damage. Six total points of damage to the gentleman who already took one. On the bar, yeah. He's taken at least two hits. Uh, let me just... I shot him, for sure. And I hit him.

Yeah, he goes down. You basically go... Yeah, you call him on his skull and come away with two eyes that are actually very connected to the sock, because you hear the snap as the retinas disconnect. He falls down to the ground, screaming in terror and pain. You still have your movement. Oh. If you'd like. I'm going to...

"This is just like that episode of Family Ties!" - I'm looking to the edge of the bar, ready to leap on these guys, but hold my jump. - I love that. - It's their turn. - Oh, bro! Bro! Bro! Bro! - And you hear four bros out of everyone's mouths.

Two are going to go after Gary. Yeah, nice try. They're both going to try to grab you. You've been sliding around and they can't seem to connect with you. I got three. Three. Premium Jinko. You've got eight incoming damage. Watch your roll, Gary.

I take 5 damage. That's devastating! You are finally distracted by the violence of what's happening around you, and you feel an arm cut. I mean, that bunch of disreputable guys I've bowled down! Swing around your neck, and you suddenly feel your airway close as he starts to choke you. You are choking to death, and you feel another fist hit you in the stomach. I need you to make another defense roll. Ha ha ha ha!

Oh, an H-O! You take that hit, but you are hurting. And this other gentleman, you killed my friend. Prepare to go down. And he races after you to jump on top of you, essentially. I need you to make a defense roll. I got a dirty 20. Okay, you, he grabs... I dodged out of the way. I'm in the flow now. You have studied the blade, and you dodge out of the way, readying for your next attack. Galileo, top of the round. Hey, leave my bros alone!

I come over and I will smash the glass over this guy's head. Okay. Make an attack roll. Add your strength. Yeah, use strength for melee. Oof. There's this big head, bro! I can't see anything! You go in with the colossus roar, but you-- That's my death reception! It's all fucked up! You underestimate how much strength it takes to break a bottle, and so it just clanks against him. It doesn't shatter. There's no damage dealt.

Gary, you're out. I didn't believe them when they said I didn't have radioactive powers and I was just a frog. Andy, I know you just killed that guy, so you're a little preoccupied. Yeah, what's up? But I think Galileo might have a brain tumor. No, it's fine. We gotta get through this and then we'll reconvene, alright? I also really want candy. Just focus! Focus! I want candy! I think I'm gonna kill this guy. I think I have to kill this guy. I'm going to draw something from my pack of plastic cutlery. And go in for the kill.

I got a 19. That's it? I got a 3. A 3? You actually do stab in. You push in with a plastic fork and-- No, no, no, no, no, that's not what I said it was. Oh. It's a plastic fondue skewer. Why is that even in there, Gary? My name is Gary Big Bundle McDennis G. Goodberry.

You hurt me a lot. Prepare to be killed by this fondue skewer. You push the skewer in, and when you come back, there's only one prong on the end of the fork. It's been left wedged inside of his muscle.

I should then kill him? No. Fuck. Give me back my damn ding-dong skewer! Andy, you're up. I need a fondue! I follow up on this guy to try to finish off the guy who has a fondue skewer in his fucking arm. That's a 16 to hit. That hits. Andy distracts me! I missed his jugular!

That is ten total points of damage with my katana, one from exploding. I'm in the flow, I immediately redouble with the katana and strike upwards, basically trying to reverse monk cut him from like side to shoulder. Exactly what you needed, it's almost like unzipping a backpack as he splits in two.

I softened him up with that body juice. No, you did a great job. I got you, buddy. I got your back. And then I'm going to move forward to help try to finish this off. That really hurt my arm.

Again, it's just rainbow neon pixels is all I'm seeing. Yeah, for you it's just beautiful, like, particle effects, right? They call it that because stabbing guys is fun to do! Knuckles. You are covered in blood. There's more blood than sweat. You have your knuckles on you. What do you do? I hold the eyeballs in front of my face as I leap on top of this guy and bite him in the neck. Okay. It's easy enough to bite. The question is, will you be able to pierce the skin?

13. 13 hits. Come on, roll big, baby. Two. Two. You are still able to come away with some speed. Oh, three. Plus one. Three. So three total. You bite down. You don't do a significant amount of damage, but you do pull away and spit out some gristle that you were able to free from his neck. And it's their turn again. With the three of their party destroyed...

they are starting to get a little nervous. And you watch the two remaining meatheads look at each other like, bro, bro. And they endeavor to run. I need both of them to move six squares in this direction. Which direction? That, yeah, I'm thinking of north, which is towards the TV as...

towards the exit, which is not far from here. Can I use an action to double their movement? Do we know if that's part of the system? I think it's just a max six, right? Yeah, there's no rule for that, but you're the GM. I know I'm the GM and that's very cool, but I'm going to respect the system. I have to be at least a little impartial. Let's get out of here! They're gone!

I don't know, we don't have a one up. And they start to sprint away. That's the end of their turn. They're clearly running for their lives. Galileo. - You shouldn't have tried to take my front's pizza. - I will try and shoot the guy in front. - Yep. - And hopefully if he dies, he creates a dead body blockade for the guy behind him. - Something to trip over. - Oh no!

Derek. Yeah. I failed it. Yeah, I know. Oh wow, okay. I'm going to go back to the weapon rules real quick. Not my Nerf gun! Derek, please! No, no, no, no, no, I can't hear this right now. No, Derek. Not my Nerf gun. Um, I'm gonna roll for it. Roll for it. One is broken.

You fire, but you realize that the chamber that rotates, as it engages, the foam sticks in the end of the barrel. Oh shit, huh? Make sure that that's not cocked. It's definitely cocked. It's as dangerous as it can possibly be. It looks like you might be able to repair it, but it's not gonna be, it's gonna take more than an action. It'll take a minute. Oh, I can fix this. See, your gun is no good for the remainder of this combat with that fumble. But you can still move.

- Okay, I'll try, I'll move here and like, I mean, can I like hold this guy or like? - You just start to follow them essentially. - Okay, you're taking action. - Yeah, you're right. - That's fair. You can actually follow them. - Don't let him get away, Gary. - You were counting on your enemies having roller skates. I mean, roller blades. - You sprint forward. - And I unleash the power of Jerry girl.

- With my fist. - That's a 18.5. - That's huge. - That is? - Okay. - Man, this is a, you guys are really lucky this D4 sucks. - Shucks! That's a five. - That's five?

He starts blinking yellow and red, clearly an indication that he's the equivalent of bloodied in the system, and that's the conclusion of your turn. Andy. I try to follow. One, two, three, four, five, and I can only get to this guy, and I'll make an attack against him to try to prevent him from leaving because Gary told me that he's worried about witnesses. Natural 20. Oh! So I'm going to roll 2d10s, and their armor, if they have any, will be reduced by one. Gotta give it up! Oh, fantastic. Jesus Christ, I rolled...

- 24 damage. - I could roll. - Is he okay? - This exploded, so I'm gonna actually... Oh no, these are 12s. I'm sorry. I need 10s. I'm sorry. I need 10s. - Oh shit. - I'm gonna steal this. I apologize. - Holy smokes. - I'm gonna roll it again. That's an eight.

And then that's a 10. So 18 plus 6 is 24, 25 total points of damage. Oh! 25 points of damage. And I'm just in the flow as I chase after him and I cut him down. And he jumps into midair and does a spin. And where the meathead was running, you see the body continue to run, but the head remains behind as it collapses onto the floor of the barcade area. Wow! More pixels fly everywhere for me. It's beautiful. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

And that's the end of him by a wide margin. Holy shit! Uh, uh, Knuckles, you're up. I'm gonna... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, I can't actually get to him. I'm gonna sprint after him as fast as I can. Still holding the dude's eyeballs, I want to throw both of them at the guy. Absolutely. Okay, that's an improvised weapon, but I think we can work with it. Roll to hit first. You use your presence because it's ranged. 9?

Unfortunately, it's not enough. I would say that one of the eyes hits, but it's an eyeball. It hits. It sticks like one of those hands that you use to slap the wall and sort of like folds down in a disgusting manner on the back of this guy's varsity jacket. That's the conclusion of your turns. He is going to take a swipe at Gary. I need you to make a defense roll, but he's going to also continue to run. Nice try!

Natural 20! You can counterattack. So now you may make an attack. You take no damage. Does he look wounded at all? Oh yeah, he's blinking yellow and red. I think I should must use my hand. End him. You can't fumble. I can't fumble! But... Dang it, Galileo! Dang it, Galileo! You got me thinking about February, O'Goulihan!

I'm thinking I'm gonna break up and I can't fucking survive. Galileo, you're up. It's a stack of pancakes I would enjoy. I'm standing between you and the exit. I'm kind of murdering you. You're closing in on him. Is it not his turn? Oh, did he? That was a counterattack on his turn, and now we're at the top of the round, Galileo. I got a box. This has got nowhere to go. Finish him, finish him, Galileo. My bros. Oh!

You just smack him with the other gun. I pistol whip him! Yeah, make a strength, uh... Take this, you bitch! Strength attack. I'm in. That is the new Colossus role. It's perfect. Hold on. It's perfect. It's perfect. It's like classic Muppets. It's not even genius. It is what it is. That's your big action, Finn, too. I just can't... That's what I yell into your mother's ear!

Fuck you in the court, you know what I mean? What did he roll? Fuck you, dude! What is my plus ten, you know what I mean? Uh, it's gonna be your strength, which is plus zero. I have nine. I got a nine. Oh, it's not an-- You know what? I'm gonna give it to you. I don't give a shit. I'm gonna lower the DR because he's the last one. I'm lowering it by one. He's scared. You were hitting him in the back. He's not even looking to die. Yeah, he's a disavow. Roll for damage.

Oh, D6? Or, I mean, that was to shoot it. It was an improvised weapon, so I'm going to ask you to roll, it should be a D2, but I'm going to say D4. Yeah, you're clubbing him with your pistol. Don't modify it, dude, bro. Yeah. And Gary, stop talking about my mom! Oh! Ah! Four. Plus. But it explodes. Five. I'm exploding! Or is it six? It's six right now. Seven.

- Seven. - No. - Oh, that's three, sorry. - Nine. - Nine. - Nine damage. He subtracts that by two, getting him to seven, but he had four remaining hit points. How do you want to do this in the most epic Scott Pilgrim-esque way possible? - Fatality. - Oh, oh, oh. - It's not your fatality, Gary. - You'll get one later. - I can't believe you made me do this.

Look, we all just can't stop talking about April Hooligan. I will have my gun pointed at him and be pulling the trigger and be like, oh, fuck, it's chomped. And then spin it and...

I'll smash his fucking head in and then he'll fall on the floor and I'll just, "Ugh, fuck! "You shouldn't have taken my bro's pizza!" And it's in hitting him that you realize that the chamber dislodges and you all hear a and brains spray out across the tile. All of this violence that you've just witnessed

It cleans itself as the bodies start to flicker and flash. No, coins, coins, get the stick yourself! And they turn into coins and tokens, floating in the air. This podcast is brought to you by our Patreon. Become a patron today at patreon.com slash legends of Avantris and gain access to tons of exclusive perks, including a monthly movie night and a weekly Patreon exclusive campaign set on the high seas. Shroud over Saltmark.

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Meatheads explode into tokens and tickets. These icons floating just inches above the tile floor as you start to scramble for the...

bounty that has been created from this fight. Oh yeah, let's go! I need each of you to roll a D4 plus two, and that's how many tokens you find. And you find just three. Ooh, six! Six. Uh, D10 tickets. Four! Four. And we each get D10 tickets? Exactly right. Oh shit! I'm- I'm- I'm changing the math. Tickets? No no no, that's great. D10 tickets. Tickets is something we've not encountered yet. That's correct.

So everyone gets 10 tickets. So I got- well no, D10 tickets. Oh, D10 tickets. Oh, sorry, sorry. So I rolled max on my D4, so I got 4+2 for 6 tokens, and I rolled a 6 on my 10, so I got 6 tickets. I got 6 of each. Okay. I got 4 of each. I got 6 tickets also.

Additionally, Galileo, your head shrinks. Your colossal roar recedes. Knuckles, you feel yourself transform into your former self. Gary, what was wrong with you? I don't know what came over me. Did I make great candy or something?

Oh yeah, he was pretty- he was- he was seeking out Dotson for- Your- your hunger for- for Dotson- Are we keeping our same drink level, though? Yes! I don't wanna get in this. Yeah, your- your drink level stays the same, but it's the, uh, uh, prompts, the effects, the status effects that fade, and Andy, you can see normally again, even though you're still a little buzzed. Ah! Whoa! Guys, I took a big- I took a big hit back there. I'm not gonna lie. Did you almost fucking die? I think it was all Gavilan.

Are you usually oozing stuffing? Oh no, Gary! That's what I tell your mom. Look, look, look, look.

I want something to eat because I'm liable to just put a Nerf right in your head. Rumi! You're leaking stuffing! What are we gonna do? You're delicate! Andy. What? Those beat the hips. No! We're some rough customers. Well, we took care of them, Gary. We avenged you. Tell Veronica that I killed them all. Oh, well, Veronica probably doesn't work here anymore. She probably didn't want to work here anymore. She knew you were coming back. And I was stronger than all those people.

- Well, we took care of them for you. Why don't we get you a burger or something, man? Come on, come with me, come on. - Let's take a look at their menu. I'm sure that there's a whole menu prepared. - Yeah. - Hey, we need help! - I think those guys also left a whole pizza. - Oh yeah! - Let's scavenge what they've got. Maybe we can grab some of their beers. - You know what? If they didn't want to die, they should have said, "No, you can't eat the pizza that we paid for with our own tokens." You know what I mean?

You know what I mean? You all vaguely recall that they said exactly those words in that order. And you look up at the bar, and you can see that the half-eaten pizza, the waiter, Giuseppe, is talking to someone. This other gentleman you recognize from former visits that you've experienced at the local cheese. Red suspenders, very high up pants,

thick framed glasses, slicked back hair. This appears to be the manager. A big badge on his chest that reads, Reginald Squeakley, manager. No, we didn't kill nobody. No.

I can't believe it. Who would have done such a thing? Oh, it's gang violence. It's the 80s and gang violence in the early 90s. Gang violence is a big thing at the time. So he was gang violence. Are we familiar with the manager? He was gang. You are familiar with it. He runs the local cheese with an iron fist. A greasy fist, really. What does he look like? What I just described. He's got red suspenders. He's got high up pants. He looks like an elderly Urkel.

How tall is he? He's shorter than you are. So I see Reginald, I guess, walking towards us. He's standing behind the counter at the barcade, and he is talking to Giuseppe about the eaten pizza.

Um, I walk up to the bar and I see that Reginald is there and I ignore him and I slap two tokens on the counter and I look at the bartender and I say, "I'd like another beer, please." This was the guy. This was the guy whose friends jumped behind the table, behind the bar and started eating the pizza.

And I just look at the bartender. I'm ignoring what he's saying. I place two tokens on the counter for another beer. Reginald stops the bartender from serving another drink and turns to you. What seems to be the problem? As soon as he addresses me, I turn to face him, but I don't look at him and I do this. And I go, oh, Reginald, I didn't see you there. Excuse me, sir. You...

You, uh, uh, uh, it seemed to have been causing a disturbance. No disturbance here. We were just taking out the trash. Yeah, we were just witnessing gang violence. Not a count of it being the Thai people. I believe I ordered a beer. Good sir. Does that mean just...

Watch their intake! I've got my eye on you! Yeah, good luck! You're gonna be looking way up to the ceiling! Yeah! All four of them have four eyes! He straightens his glasses, and he turns and he exits the bar. Oh, see you Reggie! But Giuseppe is already pouring a beer. He takes the two tokens and puts another beer down. He says, "May I see your other hand?" Looking cool as never, bro! And I will show both of my hands.

He puts a stamp on one of your hands and you can see that it has a beer, a little steinglass with some decorations on one side. And I say, "Thanks, Giuseppe." As I'm walking away from the bar with Gary on my shoulder, I say, "Goddamn, we got away with one, but he got me with one of the stickers." Dang it! And I begin to sip my beer. We can't really get past Giuseppe. As I join the rest of the gang. Giuseppe's a wily guy. Hey, Giuseppe.

I mean, look, those fellas, they're not gonna eat that pizza anymore. And it wasn't us that did it. I mean, it was that crazy monkey. I don't know where he went to. But he disappeared. Oh, it was a wild monkey. You can't blame us for that pizza. I've been working here for a long time, and I understand how it goes. Do you want anything else? I'll give it to you for half price. You got a good deal. Oh, that's half a pizza. I'll have two beers. LAUGHTER

Make it four, make it four, make it four. I'll have four beans. Make it four. Our maximum is three. And I know you've already had one. Let me see both of your hands. I'll have two. Well, I'll have two then, with the same half price. He stamps both of your hands. He stamps both of your Muppet hands. Mark me, Giuseppe! Whoa, if it's going around, I'll take two. There's one token. One token each. One token each beer. Because there are normally two tokens of beer.

So make sure you keep track of your tokens. I have four left because I paid full price for a beer like a good patron that I am.

I'm sorry. He was referring to the pizza because half of it was eaten, not the beer. My apologies. What?! I didn't make that clear. Well, I have both beers anyway. I guess I'll pay. I'll pay. We did get it off of that horrible, tragic gang violence. You referred to the eating of the pizza, and I thought that that- This is false advertising! I mean, you told me. You told me that it was half price and I tried to order two beers. I thought it was clear I was referring to the pizza. Make a presence check.

Oh, we have one of us should make a presence check. I suppose. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll make it. I'll help. I'll help. 15. I can see how that might have been unclear. I'll take the half price tokens, but just this one time. Next week, when you guys get back here, never again. We're regulars. We understand. We apologize. Thank you for the understanding.

Here are your beers. And he gets you two beers. He gets you two beers. You've already got one beer. So I still have fries? You're good. You're good. Oh, yeah. No, the same. The same as everybody. He's got a ramada. He stands with both of your hands. You look at the top of your hands, and you see that there are two little Stein glasses on there indicating your drink intake. And you make your way back to that same booth sitting in the local cheese. Well.

Well, I'm going to be honest, guys. I feel like I got ripped off here. I didn't get the full deal. Yeah, no. Andy got the chump rate. Yeah. You sure they held off? I mean... Look, my friends are happy. I'm happy. And I got to be honest, I'm feeling pretty good after that little mix-up. Yeah, you...

Yeah, you really, you cut those guys in half several times. Well, you know, it's one of those things that, you know, my mom said that I shouldn't have a mall katana and I sure proved her wrong. You really did. What does she know? I mean, what is she going to say? I have a mall katana. You killed three guys in like 18 seconds. Did you see the way they exploded into coins? Why have we never gotten into fights before? Oh, I saw you cut them in half and all their guts fall out and then you ripped their eyes out. Oh, I don't know. That was wild. I mean, did we rip,

Did we literally kill those guys? Yeah, they're dead. I pull a coin up from my pocket and I lift it up into the air as I'm holding it in my ear and I say, that raises a dark question, Knuckles. A very dark question. It's got the single Dr. Manhattan blood drop. Yes! The comedian blood splash. And I say, I don't want to think about it. I put the token back in my pocket. Does that mean that we just committed capital murder?

You know, I think-- More like lower case. And I think what happens at the local cheese stays at the local cheese. Oh, all right. To the non-chaprais! Cheers! Cheers! Cheers! Do they have security cans for sobriety? Glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, glug. I down my beer. You drink a beer. I drink two beers in a row. You drink both of them. You just pour them back against your face. They splash against you. I cookie box with the beer. And I need all of you to roll a d20 as your drunkenness increases.

Where's my d20? One. Natural one. Here's one. Thank you. Just one d20 or two? One d20. I'm gonna, because it's a single drinking experience, I'm just gonna wrap them all up and not give you two curses at the same time. Knuckles, you rolled a natural one on your curse. I did? You gotta pee real bad. Fellas, I gotta really pee. Anybody know where the bathroom is? Oh no.

Make a presence check and as you do, uh, what did you get? Four. Four! Uh, your head grows large and becomes disproportionate to your body. Oh man! I think Galileo has a brain tumor. I think something's wrong. Why does this keep happening to you, man? Every time I have a drink, my brain swells up, dude. Also, Gary, what do you get? Um, I got a 19, first of all. Second of all, look at Knuckles. I think this might be the writer's thinly veiled finish. Ha ha ha!

Guys, I got a biz. Having to go but not being able to find a bathroom. He's squirming in his seat. Oh, gosh. I piss real big, fellas. He's on the inside. Galileo, you'll need to get out in order to get him in, but he's squirming. Andy, what did you roll? I got a 17. I'm moving, man, but this is a lot of head to move. Why does it always piss? You permanently gain one toughness. Oh!

- Whoa! - What the hell? - That's gonna put me up to a plus one in my toughness. - Your restraint, only drinking one beer, just gives you that edge compared to your companions. That makes you just a little bit stronger in the local chief. - Guys, I don't know what to tell you. It's my iron liver, it's growing stronger. The liver's like any other muscle in the body. The more you work it, the stronger it gets. - Oh, nice. - The cirrhosis is a--

It's a superpower! It's the power of! No, no, Gary, cirrhosis is just a-- Guys, I really gotta go, please. Cirrhosis is a myth. I'm working on it, man. I'm moving right now. I'm sorry. Nussles are pushing out, and that's when it hits you. Both of those beers, Gary, as they-- it fills your puppet body. I drank too fast. You are convinced that you're in a kart racing game.

- Knuckles, why, what are you, gang, settle down, just let him get out of the blue, please! - I got the piss! - What was your present check? You made a present check. - 19. - 19, you do see at the other side of the bar what appears to be a restroom. - I'm out, bro, I'm out. - I'll be right back, I'll be right back. And I will shuffle with really tight steps. - Oh no, you're not gonna beat me there!

- I rushed to get to the bathroom before him. - I just wanna say our viewers at home could not appreciate that when Gary sat down on the table and his legs splayed out exactly like he was in a go-tart 'cause you can't see it on camera. - It was literally perfect. - I know, I know. - It was literally perfect. - I'm gonna zoom you guys out so that we can get some more puppet.

He was like... That's the best song. Are you also zipping to the restroom to beat? Yes. To beat our knuckles? Okay. No, no! I gotta go, please! Both of you make... I make sure I stay in front of him. Both of you make agility tests.

Are there any bananas in your meal? What? With faces? You're convinced that there are. Oh, loser.

Agility. I got an 18. I got an 11. You're moving, but you're making these tight little steps. You know that you're right on the edge. Your eyes are starting to darken and you're going into tunnel vision. Your teeth hurt. Your muscles are tensing and it's in this moment that all of a sudden Gary on his rollerblades...

imagining something squeals in front of you and you see a banana drop down and you slip and fall. I need you to make a toughness check test. - Oh no. - Deer 12. - Oh no! - To see if you pee yourself. - Please don't make him piss himself. - Oh, I'm good. 18. - Oh, thank god. - You manage to hold it in and Gary, you slide into the bathroom. - My back! - Gary!

I see all this unfolding. Eat my dust! Instead of getting up, I look to my dear friend Galileo across and I say, "How's work been?" You know, pretty good. Just interning at the news station. How's that asshole manager been? I mean, I know that you were having problems. Like, what's going on? Still on your ass? Yeah, he insists I don't do any work. And I mean, that's bullshit.

Clock in, don't I? It's not easy to press the button. And I continue to talk to Galileo about his work. Minutes later, your friends, unpissed, return. Yeah, you've actually got a stitch in your side from how bad that was. Gary! You know I have an injury there. I'm going to grab my skull!

- I knew back to the bathroom. - I could have had a TBI. This stands for traumatic brain injury, you know. - Gary, you do this three times and then the third time it's eventually you make your way back to the booth sliding in. - Boo!

I piss. I piss in the toilet. You do. And minutes later, I don't piss in the toilet. You make it, I don't even know if Gary does use the restroom. He's in a race. What was that all about? You do make your way back to the race and everyone's back together at the bar. I defeated Waluigi. What? Waluigi was there. He was standing at the stall, kind of like looking over at me. What? That's some kind of weird burger? Yeah, it sounds like a pest. He's kind of like maintaining eye contact. What?

and took it out of his mouth. Okay, all right, Gary, I'm gonna stop you right there. That is inappropriate. I don't know about that model we've got. We've had these conversations before. Gary, when we're sitting down for a nice meal, we don't talk like that. Am I not supposed to tell you, my dearest friend, my dearest roommate,

Then Waluigi was standing in the stall. He took out his mustache. No, you can tell me anything, Gary. That's what I'm here for. We're best friends. Then why are you telling me that's why you're telling me to bow, Viner? You're right. I'm sorry. Just like knuckles bottom of all that shit. I don't want to...

I don't want to think about Waluigi tugging on his mustache while I'm trying to enjoy a beer. I mean, you don't have to think about it. You can go see it. It's still in there. I don't want to. He's waiting for somebody. I don't know if it's anyone in specific. I don't want to be involved with that, Gary.

I'm saying. Is Knuckles okay? Oh! Hey, Gary, you see that fucking pervert in there? Yeah! Oh, here we go. That's Waluigi. Oh, my God. He was yanking on his fucking mustache. Yeah. I've never seen anybody, like, twist like that. Ah!

I don't even know what you're getting into.

in the doorway. I mean, I'll try. But look, if anybody's going to be able to see what he's doing, it's you with your giant head. Yeah, exactly right. What if he starts talking on both sides? Try to look over the stall and see what he's doing. Yeah, just like, cream ball, but not in a pervert way. Remember, he's the pervert, not you. It's just, this is just, this is just margarita. See if he's actually busy with it. See if he's busy.

And worst case scenario, you stick the manager on him. Oh yeah. Get that Reginald, was his name Reginald? Reginald Squeak. Get him off our asses. Oh, this is a classic Reggie job, man. This is a classic job for Reggie. If we can get Reggie focused on that, we can bypass his beer maximum. I mean, because I'm getting near the limit and I gotta tell you, I need a few more beers. Boys, I'm gonna go see this pervert in the bathroom. Yeah! I'm gonna go see him tug on his stash. Yeah, you should just stare down. He did, I got that.

I go to the bathroom. You walk into the bathroom. I know.

And not at a stall, not at the urinals, but sitting on the sink counter, the water running on all five sinks, you see a man wearing a bright purple suit with a long mustache. The water is splashed everywhere. You can see his pants are very clearly soaked with something. And he's looking.

How's uh how are things I mean, you know

How's work? Are you working, Gary? Are you still looking? Yeah, you know, I'm thinking about getting into mining crypto. No, you're all about the whiz biz. You're all about the whiz biz. Yeah, I mean, the whiz biz isn't really paying, though. Weren't you selling, like, protein bars last week? Oh, don't even get me started. Oh, yeah, I messaged all my high school friends on Facebook.

My mom got that message too, by the way. Then it's energy drinks. Then it's candy bars. Then it's watches. Then it's some timeshare thing. Yeah, well, if you have the hustle to be a boss bitch, then you don't want to take apart this opportunity. That's your loss. Well, let's see what's happening in the piss room. You mean, are we going? Or you just mean like scene change? No, we're scene changing. We're scene changing. You walk in and...

The door opens, and you're standing in essentially a silent restroom. Of all the places in the local cheese, this bathroom is eerily quiet. You can hear the sound of running water and this man sitting on the counter and very intently watching you. No one else seems to be inside of the restroom at this time. Oh.

I pull my mask down. You pull your mask down on your massive head and he continues to stare. I walk past him to the urinals and I station in. I move. I get front facing and I start to go. And then just... You hear the water stop. What have we done? I look over and see if he's moved at all.

You turn behind you and the man is gone. Uh oh. I didn't know this was that kind of establishment. I thought the pervert would like hang out and watch, man. I guess he doesn't like big heads. You turn back and all of a sudden you realize that there's a person in the stall right next to you. It's him and he's looking right at you. What?

Hey, what are you doing, man? I didn't design any of this. This is all Andy's idea. Andy gets all the credit for this. I can do it! I can fucking shoot it. All the mozzarella sticks. While this is happening... You're pressing pretty loud in there.

I'm wearing a public restroom, man. It's just courteous to put it to the side of the wall. How many tickets you got? Tickets? Dude, I got six tickets. No! How many tickets you got? You looking to trade? No, I never measured before. No!

No, man, I'm not looking at trade. I don't want what I don't want to beat you baka sure I don't want to beat you baga I got one of these and his hand comes up and floating in his hand is a small mushroom with green spots floating above his hand

What is that? I mean, I'm interested. It's a 1-up! It's a what? It's a 1-up! It's a what? It's a 1-up! What's it do? Local T's can be a dangerous place. Tickets are important. If something should go wrong... How tough does he look? Uh, he looks agile. Despite his weak frame. His calves are insane. I couldn't look away from the calves, thank gosh. Okay.

Um, alright man, I'll do it. Six tickets for whatever that is. Show me the tickets. Yeah, right here, man. Here they are. Just don't, just don't touch me. He swipes the tickets and all of a sudden it disappears. And in your hand, it appears instantly. Well, cool, man. Thanks. He ducks down below the stall and disappears, his eyes never leaving you until he disappears from view. And then looking back, the stall is empty.

I contemplate the experience, I leave the bathroom, and I attempt to quickly find Reggie. Reggie? Make a presence test.

And as that's happening, you are still all sitting there at the booth. This is taking much longer than you anticipated. I'm going to split the bill evenly. Well, I mean... I just want one. Are you going to Venmo me for one? I paid for all of them. I know you did. Look, Gary, do you really need all those? Do you really need all those mozzarella sticks? It's only a matter of if I need them or not. It's kind of the principle. While Gary and Knuckles argue over...

You make a presence test.

Ooh, 10 on the dot. 10 on the dot. I would say that you are a little frustrated. It's been a while. You realize that even though you are taking the necessary action, you haven't been keeping up with the Tamagotchi. And he's looking a little sickly. Ah, shit. So I begin to, I try to 10 for my Tamagotchi. Oh.

to pass the time. How much for your presence? Uh, 15. If I can roll back just very quickly. Sure, let's roll back. Can I attempt to wash my hands in the bathroom? Can I attempt to wash one of the stamps off? Sure, sure. You put your hands underneath the water and you begin to scrub. Brilliant! This is going to be a high DR test, but I need you to make a... Gotta get in there before the ink sets. The ink almost feels indelible. Yeah.

What kind of test? I'm thinking. Oh, okay. I'm gonna make it... See, I can see it being almost any of these. I'm gonna let you choose your, uh, Stormtron. I'll choose agility. Yeah, okay. So you, you, uh, as quickly as you can, uh, as dexterously as you can. Uh, how much did you get?

Rolled a 13 plus two on my agenda. 15. Doesn't come off. This ink is extremely permanent. You wonder how hot you would have to get the water or what it will take. And thinking back to your other visits to local cheese, sometimes it takes days to fade. Dang, man.

Now I'm an M&M carpet. You make your way out. This sucks. And with a 15, you look over and you can see that Reginald, Reggie, the manager, is at the front door area welcoming some new guests, thanking them for the local cheese. I go up to him super quick in front of the guests and I say, Reggie, bro, there's a pervert in the bathroom. I'm sorry. There's a what? What?

Reggie, bro, there's a pervert in the bathroom. I don't know how else to say this to you. There's a guy in there, purple suit. He stole all my tickets. I'd like my tickets back if possible. Six tickets. He just left me with these weird shrooms, man, and he was talking on himself the whole time. I'm telling you. In the bathroom. He gave you a one-up? Well, yeah, this. This shroom thing. That's very valuable. Well, okay.

Well, I think you're missing the point where he was talking to himself, and he's a perfect good match. Well, I think you should check it out directly, man. He snaps his fingers, and behind him, two massive security guard gentlemen show up. He muscles the size of fucking barrels. Almost seven feet tall each, just towering over you. They are made of brick and muscle and sweat.

the only thing that two small sunglasses on both their bald heads and they, "You boys come with me!" And they start to rock forward going towards the restroom and you feel that you've given them the information to at least buy a few minutes. - I'm worried. - I think something happened to Galileo. - I don't think I'm worried about that. - I'll make my way back. - No, no, I mean, he's right there. - No, no, I think they're giving that guy what he wants.

Wait, what? Give him what, guy? The pervert in the bathroom? The pervert in the bathroom. I think they're giving him what he wants. Hold on, here comes Galileo. What happened, man? Galileo! Because... So I met the pervert. He was staring at me the whole time in the stall. Just like you said. And you talked to him? Yeah, man. He was checking my eyes. What happened? So...

I told him, he asked me how many tickets I had, I told him six. Obviously, that's how many I had. You never tell some bathroom porter how many tickets you have! That's dangerous! He was incredibly convincing, man! He was over the stall, I had a big head! That's a rookie mistake! Was he still doing the mustache thing? Oh, he was tugging on something. He was tugging on it all the time? He was yanking it, man! Yeah, I could talk to him anyway! I mean, usually you twirl, but he was just yanking it. So then what happened? So, he offered me this thing. I got this mushroom thing with the green...

Yeah, dude, it was pretty cool.

Oh, and then I went and I told Reggie that there's a pervert in the bathroom and he was talking on himself the whole time he was talking to me and he got some big muscly looking guys and he, I mean. I don't know if I've seen those guys before. Reggie's got new muscle? What's going on? Tucked into tight pants, man. I don't think I would have made the joke if I had known that those guys were around. Damn. He took three big men into that bathroom to meet that pervert. You're buying shrooms in the bathroom and you didn't tell me? I didn't.

I don't mean to. He's got any more? Yeah, I mean, come on. Now the bouncers are going to get that guy, and we don't even have a chance to get our shrooms. Yeah, Galileo, I think you should give that to me. No, no, you should give it to me. We're best friends. Also, I'm in a car racer, so I believe that mushroom is a power-up for me. All I'm going to say is you spent, what, six tickets on it? Six tickets, man. Galileo thinks it's worth more than that. I mean, I'm sure you could broker a trade. Tickets? I only got five.

Well, he's certainly not going to give you less than he gave up for. That's just bad business. And I had to do some other things aside from the tickets, Mom. What? Why'd you leave that out of the story? Oh, well, I don't know. It just didn't seem like something I wanted to admit to him at the moment. Oh, but now it's pertinent for you to admit to it? Well, if it drives the price up. Yeah, yeah. Know your worth, Alan. Know your worth. Well, what do you recommend between the onion rings and the tape tops?

I'm gonna be honest with you, Gary. I'm a sucker for onion rings. I'm not a big Tinder guy. If I had the choice, I'm taking onion rings every time. Oh, man, I'm the opposite. Can I get the big turbo sloppy Cool Ranch Doritos? Doritos, Locos, Chicken Kicker sandwich with onion rings. They're like, why do you have to say the whole name? Yeah, I know. Can I get an iced tea? Oh.

- Giuseppe. - Do you wanna eat your Coke? Oh, Pepsi. - That'll be three tokens. - Three tokens. - Oh, that's not bad. - Yeah, that's fine, that's fine. - Here, you're not holding your pencil. - Here you go. Yeah, that's fine.

I hate when they don't write it down. I know. It's like, who are you trying to prove to? Who do you think they're impressing? The only person that they have to impress is me. Just bring me my order. Just get it right. Yeah, all I want is for you to get it right. Your Icy and everything else you ordered arrives post-haste. Is it going to get right? He gets it exactly correct. Oh, they brought fries. He ordered onion rings. He also didn't get an Icy, man. It's all there. It's all there. No, it's correct. It's correct. It's definitely well done. And...

When you finish your meal, you'll be able to roll a d4 and heal that much in hit points.

Exploding dice style? No. I'm sorry. Exploding dice are when you attack her. A d4 and a d2 for the ice chain. So both. Oh, shucks. I think I have a d2 right here. Is there a menu that I could look at? Sure. Everything that you could possibly imagine that would be offered at a local cheese is offered here. The standard fodder looks like your classic pizzas, burgers, hot dogs, fries, a slice of pizza, your sodas, and your beers. What do you think?

And then if you imagine something else that might be on the menu, perhaps the DM will, the GM will say that it also exists. Fried pickles, I feel like they can be really good. That's a gamble. If they over batter them, it's going to get old. I got them last week. They were good.

- See, he's my thing. Every time I get him, they come to the table and I feel like the breading is next to the pickle. They've already sloughed off. - Yeah, it's already separate. - Here they do them like, they just switched. They do pickle chips so it's enough surface area. - And they dry them out enough so it's not too wet. - All right, I'm gonna try it. - They just switched, they just switched. - Are you sure? - I'm sure. - All right, we'll split the pickle chips. - Okay, that'll be two tokens.

Two tokens? Wait, wait, you got a sandwich with onion rings for three? You should have looked at the meta dress! And I mechanically made a determination as to where he was. Can you throw in a sandwich for one token? Like a big sloppy daddy burger or something? If you want d4 healing, then you can order that amount of food for two tokens. But for three tokens of food, I want to order three tokens worth of food. then you could get a d6 amount of food. What?! Wait, how do I get a d2 and a d4?

You order a drink on the side in addition to your fries. Do you have Coke? Pepsi's okay. Damn it! We mostly serve beer. Who owns this place? Hey fellas, have you- Oh, it's my Pepsi Coke. How you doing? I swear, last moment these guys had Coke. You think that's a recent development? That's the only way they would serve that. I mean- Nightmare. But you know, hey fellas, have you wondered, or have you ever felt that like the older you get, the more you like ginger ale? Oh!

Oh yeah, I do feel like that. It's really been growing on me. I feel like it's parabolic, where like, you know, when you're young, you love ginger ale, and then you kind of grow out of it, and you never have ginger ale for decades. Sir, I have other people I need to serve. I'll have the ginger ale. Just the pickles and the ginger ale. Okay, that'll be three tokens, and you have a D4 and a D2.

Could you bring back a menu? I think I might get something. There's a menu here at the table next to the small jukebox, Silver Diner. Oh, I'm only missing two health. I probably don't need all that. You can shoot him, Gary. Can I drink? I'm still standing right here. This is too real. Do I need to write this down? Well, we would appreciate it if you did. Yeah. Also, in the confusion of everybody ordering and Knuckles attempting to...

you know, change up his order, I attempt to just say that I need a beer without showing my hands. Okay, make a presence test. And I'm going to say this is a little trickier than normal. Sure. Around, around, around. I'm trying to take advantage of, yeah, I'm trying to take advantage of the confusion. He's getting orders left and right. He's reaching for his pad. I want to just pay for the pickles. That's all I want.

16. Okay, so we got pickles. What's the soup of the day? It's here. It's written in chalk on the big board. Look at the board. It's always baked potato. And it's baked potato every time, Gary. It's Saturday. It's baked potato. It's always baked potato on Saturday. The big sloppy Doritos, locos, burgers, llama, jama. We might be out of the jama sauce. Can you do it in a cool ranch?

Oh, well we only have Cooler Ranch because they changed the name for no reason. The hot stuff. Oh.

Are you still running the... Oh, no, that's a little bit past that time. Are you still... I'll still ask. You think I should ask? Are you still running the Episode 1 promotion? I really want to get a big old cup with water on it. It's very unclear what year this is. It's very unclear. I'm really hoping for a big old cup of water on it. We do have the Batman and Robin mugs, though. I'm sorry, the Batman Forever mugs. Oh.

Are you still reading the Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

Gosh, I love who wants to be a millionaire. What do you want? Just tell me in tokens so I can write this down. Hold on. I got a 16 for my presence check. And he just writes, okay, one round, the pickle chips. He's just writing this down. I just need you to mechanically in a non-play manner. I'm paying two tokens for the pickle chips. Thank you. And everybody... I'm not going to get the ginger ale. And I got two tokens for my beer. If you're trying to get in that on that round, it's an extra two tokens. Two tokens. Okay.

You know, it's like, I want half of an entree. That isn't how that works, Terry. I'm not hungry enough for a full meal. Stop being a pain in the ass. I can get you a slice of pizza. I offered to share, but I already ordered my own food. There's a reason to be. You can get a hot dog. It's too late.

I need a few more minutes. I need a few more minutes, I'm sorry. Just bring the drinks, bring the apps. I'll be back, I'll be back with your app. Thank you. Okay, fucking fine. Guys, I don't think she, I think I gotta wait a minute. She didn't check our stamps. Oh, I didn't even fucking realize. I didn't even think about it. Tell her, she already stamped us. We're on the same page, right? Oh, exactly right. I think we're good, I think we gotta go out. Oh my gosh.

Are you okay, Gary? I'm just trying to be louder. Oh, are you quiet? I think I'm a little quiet. I'm the star of the show, so. You're the star of the show? You better cheer me up. We live together, Gary. I feel like, you know, it's a little villainy. I mean, I think the apartment is really filled with all of the fun things from my will. It looks like you're just fine. I can bring you up even more. You're sifting my money. You're living off of my paycheck. Moments later, the beer and the pickle chips arrive.

Oh! Oh, you got it. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it. You got that quicker than I thought. Uh, hold on. Do I have a choice of salad? It's gonna be eight hours of Mikey just ordering shit off the menu. Such a classic. Do I have a choice of salad?

Uh, no, no, you can have a salad. That's your choice, but there's no, like, entrees. This is a bar. If you want to go to the proper food area with the show, then you can go upstairs. No, he's asking for, like, dressings. Do you have, like, Caesar, a house, or, like, a vinaigrette? Yes, of course. Maybe, like, a ranch? Yes. There you go. You have some options. Thousand Island, maybe? 999 Islands, at least. Ugh.

How is the fish and chips here? I always feel like it's hit or miss. It's tough to eat. Gary, you know that you can't afford that, Gary. You can't afford that. I feel like you've been here before and you said that exact same thing. We've been here every week. Every week. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry for this. Well, I have other people I need to serve. Gary, order quickly. Come on. She's got work to do. Oh, gosh. Oh.

I see that the grilled cheese is only on the kids menu. There's no kids menu, Gary! This is an 18+ establishment! Then why is there a kid menu? There's no kid- you're- you're drunk, Gary! You're drunk! I mean... No, he's not drunk. He's not drunk. No, no, he's fine. I mean, we're all fine. That was a slip-up. I didn't mean to say that. It was a joke. It was a bad joke. Yeah, okay, okay, okay. You fucking heard it. We're all fine. Alright, alright. Fine, fine. Between the pulled pork...

The club. And... Gary, those are chicken tenders. Each of those are like four tokens apiece. What would you recommend? Yeah, which one's your favorite? What would you recommend? The chicken tenders. Kill him. Uh, you know what? Actually, I'm not hungry. No thanks. I'm full. Enjoy your pickle chips.

And the waitress walks away. Guys, she's not gonna come back! You guys are really fucking this up for everybody, okay, Gary? Come on! Are you sure you're tightening up? I just, I was feeling a little bit assassin. I'm here to drink, Gary! Andy, I think it's all your fault why I can't decide.

You blame everything on me, Gary, and I-- you need to do some introspection. I can't believe that you took so long to order whatever it is that you ordered. I didn't! I ordered a round of beer! You know what? I can't believe that. Cheers! Cheers to Gary Beard! Just be an asshole! Oh, hold on! I gotta keep my jerry curls nice and moist.

I keep forgetting about those. You know, I keep saying, there's something about a fourth beer that really is like, I could use a fifth beer. Or a sixth beer. You know, whoever just said four beers is enough. No, I think as soon as you get to four, it's right to ten. Right to ten. Right to ten? Right to ten, I'd say. Well, we gotta see. I mean, I don't know how many more times we can pull that off. I don't know. I'm feeling like I got a pretty good buzz going. Just very quickly. I feel pretty good. Also, tell me how many beers you are at. Four. Four.

5, 4, 4, 5. 4? How are you? Oh, you're at 5 because he's got the piece of the ring. He lifted one during the fight. Like an absolute fucking madman. Okay. Yeah. Man, big guys have it a good old time. On the odds. 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8. Okay. All right, fellas.

I'm gonna throw some Night Ranger on the jukebox and play some Dig Dug. I'll see you around! Okay! Can you get out? Oh, yeah. Oh, we gotta go play some games! I gotta shuffle. It's that time! I got a few tokens left! Oh, let me see, let me see. I got two tokens left. Me too! Let's go! I'm going- I follow Knuckles. Alright, let's go! I follow Knuckles. I'm gonna try to find a game of Golden Axe! Um, you-

Wow. Wow. That's fucking crazy. Are you kidding me? Golden Axe is legendary, Andy. Golden Axe is legendary.

We head towards the arcade area. You head towards the arcade area, and this arcade area is labyrinthine. You can see that there are games of all varieties. Every game that you could possibly imagine. There are cabinets for their arcades. There are redemption games. There are pinball games and sports games like skee-ball and hoops.

There's competitive games like air hockey, whack-a-mole, any game under the sun could attract your attention in this massive space.

You can hear the blips, you can hear the bloops, you can hear the music, and you find the four of you are standing at the top of the stairs looking down at whatever you fancy. Whoa! Careful, careful, careful, guys. This staircase is a little steep, and I'm a little-- Oh, no, you're right. It's just three wide steps down. Oh, wait a minute! Stairs? I've had four beards, and I'm at roller blades. This'll be fun.

"Gary, no!" And I run down the stairs after him. "Are you okay? Are you all right? Get up, get up!" It's okay. It's okay. Hold on. Hold on. You know, also, wearing sunglasses inside of the dark arcade, it's also, I can't really see them. Oh, they have that game where we can stomp on frogs that light up. What? You know, those buttons that you stomp on them? Stomp on them? And they're frogs?

I don't know if I've ever played that before, Gary. Don't tell DaVinci. I mean, what's he doing in Galileo? Don't play Galileo, I mean. Sorry, DaVinci's his cousin. I hang out with DaVinci more. Just don't tell him. I take a look around. After making sure that Gary is okay, I take a look around to see who's, like, down here, and specifically whether or not the manager and the bouncers are down here. And just to get an understanding of the area. Make a presence test for me. I'll look for golden ass. Make a presence chest.

Ooh, a natural one. So I won. There's no fumble there, but I just rolled very badly. Okay, yes, I know there's no fumble, but you, uh, you...

By the time you get to the bottom of these very steep stairs, the size of the cabinets, you can barely see the tops of heads, certainly, poking out from, you're in a crowd. You know, there's a tremendous number of people. Saturday night, this is when the local cheese is at its hottest. No way I'm going to see that short loser around here. But you do see a variety of the immediate games that are in front of you. A lot of the classics are here in this immediate franchise.

There are some dancing games. People are already at the DDR. There's, you know, Shark Turbo Frenzy to one side and Space Super Crisis on the other. Whatever you fancy. I decide to basically peruse the aisles and maybe not stick directly with my friends, but try to find an area that might be...

where there aren't so many other patrons in. Where it's a little quieter. There's, you know, maybe some game cabinets that are not immediately at the bottom of the staircase. As I walk out of the room-- You start to explore and you all watch Andy. This same influence of the arcade hits you as well, where suddenly you just feel like finding something and immersing yourself in one of these entertainment machines. Andy starts to go off in one direction. What are the three of you doing?

I would look for the closest DDR machine. Is that Dance Dance?

Dance Dance Retribution? Revolution. It's actually Dance Dance Rumble. Oh, okay. Oh, Dance Dance Rumble. Yeah, that's right. Similar, but legally distinct. Yeah, I walk towards the dance dance and see if I can check out the crowd. Like all of the machines here, everything takes one token in order to operate. And you'll have to decide whether or not you want to do that. But I'm going to do D.D. or Galileo. Dig Dug. Okay.

Okay, you look for the Dig Dug. Make a presence check. Dance Dance Resolution. And Andy. Oh, wow. I got a safe. The Dig Dug machine's been moved. It's either not here or you're going to have to continue to explore in order to find it. And you start to make it and weave your way. Oh, play something else. Can't believe I got no Dug Dig.

Gary, what do you roll or two? I look around and I realize, thank God I got rid of my loser friends. I'm a bachelor on the prowl. I'm going to go prowl for chicks. I'm going to try to maybe find a nice young lady who's probably busy playing Street Fighter 2 or the equivalent, and I'm going to put on the moves.

You start to make your way into that direction. Oh, and you start to just start to you just start to add the dating sims. I forgot my bad, guys. I'm here to read your relationship goes to three hearts. Andy, you I need you to make another presence check.

Oh, much better. 18. 18. You find what you're looking for in this extremely crowded space. You find a very quiet place. Is there something specific that you're looking for other than quiet? Oh, no, absolutely. I'm for Beers Deep, at least, as far as we know, for the record of this game. The pre-gaming being what it is. Yeah, and, you know...

I'm jazzed up from the fight that we had. Look, I'm a dangerous man with some tickets in my pocket, okay? And I try to see if there's any way that I can jiggle open this machine to get to the tickets inside.

There are, um, uh, we find an open, empty lane. As long as nobody's watching. That's my goal. And with an 18, I would say that you feel like you have a corner of the arcade that nobody's going to tread in. All of these machines are either out of order or are, um, uh, sort of sad. There's a, uh,

This seems to be like mundane house chore to the game, that kind of thing. The more popular games being closer to the center of the arcade, for sure. And looking both ways, you also see at the end of this aisle of out-of-order regular arcade cabinets, one that's like almost...

glowing, vibrating green. There's a thin amount of smoke drifting down and pooling out from the bottom of it. It's very quiet in this lane as you lean in, but you can see at the top... I've never seen this before. You can see at the top, in bold, rounded letters, it says Liminatica at the top.

I'm hoping to like shim open the inside to see if I can maybe even steal some tokens along with some tickets. Okay. But I've never seen this before and I would say I approach it and I would attempt to do what I'm looking to do. You look both ways and you choose the active machine because it almost certainly is the most likely the one to have some tokens in it and I need you to make a strength test. Ooh. Come on. I got a three. A three. Yeah, not very good.

You look and you begin to push against it, but the front of this particular cabinet seems sealed shut beyond even what reality would tell you. It's immovable. As this is happening, you approach one of the DDR machines. Is anybody playing it? You do have to get in line. There does seem to be what appears to be a gentleman wearing a full...

Purple suit? No. He turns around, his pants are soaked. This person's wearing a cloth suit. This person's dressed as a ninja. You can't see their face, but they are very dexterously moving and attempting to beat a high score. And their score is high. Climbing, climbing, climbing, climbing all the way to the top.

When they finish, they bow to the screen and you can see them almost getting to second place. They snap their fingers but then immediately about face and make their way to the back of the line very politely. - Is he right behind me? - Yeah. - Hey, are your feet okay? - My feet are always okay. - Oh, why'd you do so bad?

Yeah, no, I noticed that. Yeah. Well, I assumed your toes were broken, just by how bad that was. Well, I... No, that's true. Wow.

Well, uh... Please! Take your turn! You are holding up the line and I'm ready for another chance to beat you! No, no! The best! Well, what I was gonna suggest is if, uh... I think I could beat you! And, uh... Oh, shit! If you wanna go in a head-to-head DDR battle, man, I think that would be awesome. A competitive game. Yeah! The only problem is... I accept your offer! Well, perfect. That's perfect. The only... The thing about it is...

Uh, I have no tokens, so... You actually have no tokens? I have no tokens. Oh, you have no tokens. I have no tokens. Make a presence test to see if you are able to convince the game-loving ninja. Fifteen. It would be an honor to do battle. He holds up his fingers very quickly and you can see two shining tokens. Uh, he flips his hand and spins it up and you are able to grab the token out of the air. And he heads over to the other side of the... Hey, I can do that too, man.

I'm still working on it, I'm still working on it. That was pretty cool though. You get in front of the machine and you immediately select battle mode. You are in a competitive game with this ninja and he immediately cranks the difficulty all the way up to the hardest difficulty. The only way I play is master level. Wow. Yeah, man, same. Uh...

Yeah, let's dance or whatever. Go! You begin to dance. You watch the arrows fly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The hardest one is actually the slowest one because it requires the most muscle control. I need you to make an agility test and because it's a contest and I'm going to set the DR, I'm going to be making something of an agility test on my side. I'm just getting a sense of how well he's doing. Oh!

Agility test? Yeah. 17. Damn! I, at master level, and with what I rolled just to get a sense of how well this ninja was doing, he is, which is not part of the system, I'm just using it as a divining rod. No, do your thing.

He is extremely dexterous, and he's doing extremely well, but this is not your first DD rodeo, and you start to get into the zone. You are multiplier, multiplier, multiplier, stacking all of the combos. You're hitting some of the bonus extra stuff that the ninja just isn't able to reach out for while making sure that everything is contained, and by the end of this game, you have beaten and bested the ninja. - That was great!

Alright! Um, you, uh, he, uh, his body language says that he's shocked at being bested at this game that he's clearly been playing over and over and over. He turns to you. You are a true warrior. Dude, don't worry about it. It's easier the third time you try, okay? Uh, he bounds to you. I still have much to learn. You're kind of intense, man. Can I give you a secret?

Yes. You're just trying too hard, man. You gotta do less. You gotta let the game just flow through you, bro. I will do more at doing less. No, dude. Okay. Alright. And out of the front of the machine of your side, I need you to roll a d4 for me. Nice! Four?

Four tickets come out of the ticket slot at the front for your high score, and you fold them up and put them into your bill or wherever it is, your backpack, let's say. Knuckles, you are looking for Dig Dug, and you're getting deeper into the arcade. Do you continue? I could have sworn it was here last time. I mean, I guess if I see, like, you know, Cruisin' World or Killer Instinct, I'd stop and play one of those. Oh, shucks! Cruisin' World sounds so much better than what I was going to hear! All I want to do is play Rampage. It's 1999.

49 fair is fair game, maybe even crazy taxing. Oh, sucks! Roll a d6 for me. Oh, please have crazy taxing!

One. One. You shockingly don't see Cruisin' World. You shockingly don't see Killer Instinct. You can't seem to find any of the familiar stuff. Damn it! You confused! You do, however, briefly pause and look, and there is a massive tower that is standing there, and at the top it says, Win 1,000 tickets. It is the Tower of Power. Oh!

Whoa. And for one token, you could earn the opportunity for this possible chance. What?! I got fucking two shots at this! Let's go! Here we go!

I wanna walk up to it. You walk up to it, and the game seems simple enough. It is, you watch someone else play first, because you're a savvy arcade user. I'll study the moves. Very simple. You push the button once and it starts going, and you push the button the second time and it stops, and a second ring starts to go up and down. If you can make them match, then you get a thousand tickets. But you watch person after person, player after player,

fail at this simple task. Mechanically, what you would have to do is roll a number on your d20 and then roll that number again in order to succeed. For a thousand tickets, that's a good deal. That's a great deal! The odds are one in twenty. And that means... Let me do the math here. If I have two shots at it, one in ten... Checks out! I mean, I don't like those odds. Let me think. We're not together, but meta-wise we are. I mean, if I could find a way to...

You get 20 tokens? It seems like a no-brainer. How do I get more tokens? It's like free money. We're like the angels of the shoulder. It's like going to the slot machine. Playing video poker. You know what? I could try once. Right? It can't hurt. Just once. I would still have one token left. Let's do this.

Is the song that I put on on the jukebox still playing? Would that have cost me a token to do? Yeah, it wouldn't have cost you a token. It's one of those, you just enter, get into the queue, and just as you get past, wait for the two, three players, you hear Highlander's The One start to play over the speakers. Yes, you go to put in the token, you hear it. I'm like, I can't hit the notes, I'm trying to hit it.

But I'm singing along. You're living life. I'm living life. I walk up and I put my token in. You push the token in and it's a... And you are getting ready to lock in the ideal spot. All right, Knuckles. Don't let Giuseppe psych you out. Yo, me is the fighting freak, Knuckles. Unlock Sonic, I don't chuckle. A natural 20. Wow. And now you gotta do it again.

That's fucking madness. Oh, that was really good. It looks high, I guess. One in ten. It's right in the center. Rather than having to hit the top, right in the bottom, you nail the median right at the

middle point of this tower, which means that as the next ring comes up, and it seems to be a variable speed, it's not always exactly the same, it's moving up at a pretty good click. You feel like you have the best chance for this possible rhythm to go, and you have all the time in the world

If you hit this, I'm gonna scream. Andy's gonna scream. In game and out of game. We got this. What's he trying to do? Gotta hit the same number. Yeah, he just has to roll another 20. Put my brass knuckles on. And the thing's going. It's moving. You're watching it. I adjust my mohawk and make sure that it's as pointy as possible. And I look around to see if there's any hot chicks watching. There's two hot chicks watching. Alright. Whoa. Whoa. I got this.

Rollin' our 30s. I'll give him the knuckles! And, oh. 18. 18! You give it the knuckles, and you slap just after it passes, and it goes... It turns red, and it collapses in red lights, and clearly is indicating that it needs another token in order to proceed. Alright. I'll try again later. You walk away and continue to search for Dig Dug. Killer's Instinct. Crazy Taxi. Gary.

You start to look for the hottest of the chicks. I roll bloody around looking for a hot chick playing Street Fighter 2. And don't forget, you're wearing JNCO jeans, you have sunglasses, you've got a jean jacket. Sunglasses. Yeah, you're cool as hell. I am a stud. I'm Don Juwan. I would ask that you make a presence test. Okay, we- I'll be blowing all my twists. Fuckin' it, right? So...

That's actually a good point. You don't get to reroll. Oh my god. Natural 20! I hold my tongue. I hold my tongue. I hold my tongue. Doesn't matter. What is the... You are looking for the Street Fighter 2 cabinet when you pass the Dead or Alive volleyball machine. Yeah.

And you see one person playing this game surrounded by a variety of her friends. All of them seem to be the big titty goth girlfriend variety. And hers are the biggest. I want to again say... I'm a little intimidated by groups. You keep rolling? Yeah. No, I could, but my jerry curls are a little dry. I'm...

I'm gonna look for Street Fighter 2. You round the bend and it's as you twist around the side, you realize that you've gotten to almost the edge of the arcade and you slam, not slam into, but you almost roll over your good friend Andy. They don't got no dang dog Street Fighter 2. Hey, hey, no, no, shh, keep it down. Hey, I'm glad you found me. Why? I'm trying to do something illegal.

I figured you'd be interested. I'm very interested. How illegal is it? I found this weird machine and I don't know, I've never seen it here before and we've been here many times. I kind of want to see if we can get the tickets and tokens out of it. I mean, nobody's around, right? We're in the corner of the arcade. Oh my gosh. I have just the thing. I can break into it. Well, I'm going to tell you, to be fair, I tried. It's supernaturally strong. I couldn't pry it open. What are you thinking? Talk to me. Well, I have a whole assortment.

of plastic cutlery. Okay, okay, okay. And utensils. Okay. I think I use a oyster fork and a crab fork, and I pick it. What do you think? I love that. What do you think? Look, you try it. No. I did what I could. That's ridiculous. It didn't seem to work. I did what I could. I'm using an oyster fork and a chopstick. Do it.

Do it! Look, hold on. And I pull out of my fanny pack a Lisa Frank notebook. And I begin to tear off the front cover, the back cover, hoping to make like maybe a shim out of the stiff cardboard and say, if you need more, I got you. Okay? Okay, got it. Okay, okay. Oyster fork? Plastic. Gotcha. Chopstick. All of his stuff is laid out on the floor. Got it. Here you go. Here you go, doctor. Okay. Now, I just need to listen here while I use these plastic utensils. Shh, shh, shh.

At this time, we don't really realize how many microplastics we're putting in our bodies by using this. Right, we can't know. We can't possibly know. As I'm sucking on a spork. A lot of people are still smoking at this point, you must realize. I'm chewing on a spork. The smoke is in the air. What else do you need? Come on. How's this going along? I need the shimmy. Here you go. Here you go. Okay. Stethoscope. I don't know. Oh, here it is. Okay. Here you go. Plastic stethoscope. It's still going to be a strength test, but I'm going to lower the DR because you're being helped by Andy. Okay.

Strength test. Here we go. I blew my last 20. Let's go for two in a row. Oh, is that cocked? No. No. I can't. No, Gary. Oh, it's still a five. Gary, it's still a five. It's a six. How's it coming along? Just need a second.

I think I might need to try to riz up a Street Fighter 2 baddie. Gary, I mean... To get my confidence up. I'm not going to stop you. Do what you got to do. But I'm telling you, this thing is like supernaturally sealed. I've never seen this machine before. Yeah, yeah. I want to go back and look for the Street Fighter 2 baddie. Go ahead. I'll keep working on this. Just make sure you let me know if anybody's coming, okay? It worked. I actually was going to get it, but I just figured I didn't want to let you... I was going to let you take the glory. Okay. I didn't fail or nothing. Fine, fine, Gary. I'll work on it. Galileo.

You've just bested this masked stranger in DD Rumble, and the world is your oyster. You think that from the corner of your eye you spy Knuckles swimming through the people. You can see the spiky hair over the heads and shoulders, but you may choose to go and do whatever it is that you please.

I think having earned my well-fought victory against the Dance Ninja, I would move towards my friends. I would catch sight of Knuckles and move to catch up with him. You catch up with Knuckles, and Knuckles, you find your friend Galileo at your side. Oh! Have any luck yet? Oh, yeah, man. It was awesome. Got onto a little DDR, challenged this one super weird ninja guy. Yeah.

He was like, yeah, he's really intense, man. Oh, did you, you know, show him up again? You know, trick him into challenging you and then take all his tickets? Oh, yeah. Like you usually do. Yeah, you know it. Yeah, I wish I was that good at anything. What are you talking about, man? You're great at stuff. I've got these giant rhino hands. How am I supposed to be good at arcade games? There aren't even any digits. It's just like this. I have giant rhino feet. I'm not good at DDR games.

I just want to play Dig Dug. I can't even find that. I'm absolutely keeping my eye open for both of them since Gary has tried to help me and was unsuccessful. Okay. What is it that was successful? I just chose not to. You peek around the corner and it's easy enough. You guys are in the sort of the center of the arcade and it's right here in the center that a circular booth makes the ticket prize...

What am I looking for? Not exchange. Counter. The counter. Where you'd be able to turn in your tickets for goods. That's essentially where you're all starting to converge as you adventure through the play area. The arcade.

The quiet area that you found, Andy and Gary, begins to crowd, and you find yourself driven back into the center of the arcade area, finding your way to Knuckles and Galileo. I thought we had it. I really thought we were going to crack the... I can't believe... We're being... Is it a flash mob? Yes. Oh, God, I hope not. Oh, God, I hope not. That's so... It hasn't happened yet. I think I'd rather die and fall into coins. We make our way towards the center of the arcade room. I skate my way over. You do.

And it's here that you can see a massive digital banner over the circular prize counter where you can redeem your tickets. There's a massive mountain of...

goods and accessories and all sorts of toys and Redeemables from the very small one to two ticket purchase to all the way at the very very top you can see what is labeled as laser sword floating and redeemable for 9999 tickets. Holy smokes! I only have six! Let me see. I only have five!

There's a game over there where you... Wait, was that 1,000 or 10,000? There was a 1,000 redeemable. The tower of power is 1,000. Look, I have an idea, fellas. All right? Okay, I'm in. There's a game over there where if you win, it's 1,000 tickets. I'm in! Whoa. And we just got to play the arts. All it takes is, on average, 10 tokens to win.

Really? That's all it takes! On average? Yeah, and so if we can get 40...if we can get...wait, what's... 100 tokens? 10 tokens? I don't know! You're confusing me! If we can get 100 tokens, we can get one laser sword! I mean, that's pretty crazy! I can't believe you even give that out, it seems dangerous! And then if we only need four laser swords, that's only 400 tokens!

It's easy! Those ain't bad odds! Alright, well quick, let's pull our tokens together. How many tokens does everybody have? I have two! I got two! I also only had two. Well I did have two, but then I tried the game and I lost. And you're at one? No, I have one. Yeah. Oh. Zero. So we have five tokens, which means we only need 395 tokens. On average. How many weaklings are in this room? Can we kill a couple of them?

I look around to see how many people are in this arcade and do some quick math based on what we got from beating up the meatheads. Make a presence check. I fail. I fumble. I mean, it's difficult to say how many people are in the local cheese. I don't know. There's a ton of people here, Gary. There might be enough. Okay. I think we know what we have to do. Wait, what? Are you going to insinuate that we're going to commit some crimes? Yes, we're going to sabotage some of these machines.

But what if they have security cameras? Well, they do. And that's why-- They could be watched every fucking second. Knuckles, they do. We tried. I was in the back. I found a deep, dark corner of the arcade, and I was trying to pick the lock. I was trying to see if I could get some tokens, some tickets out. Look, I know it's-- I'm not my-- I'm not proud.

Well, I'm a little proud. Oh, did you get into it? I'd be more proud if I succeeded. No, it was like super naturally strong. I needed you. Oh, man. I couldn't find you. I mean, if you need the guy to smash something, I can give it a try. Okay. What arcade machine would have the most tokens? Well, hold on. I have six tickets. How many tickets do you guys have? Oh, tickets? Six. I have five.

I got four tickets. That's 15? I have four tickets. That's 19. Okay, what can we get for 19 tickets? And I look at the rest of the menu to see what there might be at the prize redemption counter. At least some of the offerings to get an idea of what we might be able to purchase. Holy shit, it's Omni Slash! You actually do see a Buster Sword that's up there for a 50 ticket cost. It's only 50 tickets?! Look at that thing! We have to get more tokens and play that game.

If we get a thousand tickets, we can buy whatever we want. What else? What else? There's an aluminum bat for 30. There's a set of five shurikens for 40. There's a round hard candy wrapped in a striped piece of paper for 100. There's what appears to be a ping pong game for 250. Anything you can imagine within that general range. Yeah, but look at that sword. That monster sword. It's like this wide. Whoa, look at that neon clock for Corona.

I kind of want that clock. I don't know what to tell you. It looks so good in our apartment, Andy. You're right, it really would, but it's so many tickets. And there's a sword right there. Why would that be 750 tickets? Look, there's some glowing orbs in the sword itself. It's beautiful. Yeah, and there's only two parents. For 750 tickets, you'd think there'd be at least three parents. I

I'm not the one who made the clock Gary, I don't know what to tell you. I'm feeling, or at least there'd be some like, big titty bar witch. You know what I mean? Wait, you mean like that comes with a sign or is on the sign? Well it's on the side. Oh, okay. To show everyone how much of a cool dude you are. Like she hands it to you or what? Like she hands you the clock? No, no, she's in the clock. Well she's in the clock. She's in the clock. Like tells you the time?

Well, the hands tell the time. For 750 tokens, I hope so. For tickets, I hope so. And you all look up and towards the top of the mountain for 7,777 tickets, you see a clock and you see the woman almost identical to what Gary described. Whoa! All of a sudden, I don't want it anymore. That's dark. It's like the mirror dimension from Superman. I'm not a fan of that. Oh! You think they take trade-ins for tickets?

Like what? You mean like tokens for tickets? Like maybe if I got something that, you know, they would want to use as a prize, they'd give me some tickets in exchange. I mean, it couldn't hurt to ask, right? I mean... All right. Let me do my thing. Okay.

We'll be here. Let us know if he needs us. You walk up to the ticket counter. And there only seems to be one, for lack of a better term, merchant or cashier. It's an elderly gentleman, totally bald, extremely pale skin, deep gray sagging sacks underneath his eyes. He's wearing a long...

black sweater, but it almost appears to drape off of him like a shroud. He hands over a pair of plastic vampire teeth over to one of the other patrons of the local cheese. Enjoy your stay. And he turns and he almost floats over to get in front of you. Yes. Yes.

How may I be of assistance? Hey Billy, how's your ma doing? My name... It's good to see ya. I am the Master of Tokens. I am the Lord of the Vault, the Horde Master, the King of Prizes, the Collector of Tokens.

You can call me Lenny. Oh, Lenny! I'm sorry! Your brother looks exactly like you. How's Billy doing? Billy is fine. He was in the hospital last week. Oh, well. Is he doing all right? Is it stepping?

Is it back? It was a touch and go for a little while, but he's going to be just fine. I told you, it's mega gout. I told you it's mega gout. I heard it was intermission. He's good with that? Everything is going to be okay. All right, well, I hope your ma's doing okay. She's doing okay. That's not my trick. Can I interest you?

Oh, you gotta stop talking about God's mom! Knuckles can hear us like a few feet away, like ripping on his mom. I mean, last time I visited her house. Shhh! Y'all, you guys have a pretty good prize list here, but I wanted to ask. If I had something real worth some tickets, would you do a bit of a trade-in? You know?

I give you something? I must only accept tickets for the prizes. That is the way of the local cheese, as it has been from the very beginning. Oh, come on. God. What a square. I mean, really? We do offer squares for redemption. There are 50 tickets. No, no, no. I'm trying to get tickets from you in case you want to offer this high-quality figurine, and I take out...

A small green dinosaur. It's made out of plastic. Have you seen one of these before? Yes, I gave it to you in exchange for tickets last week. Let me tell you all about it. This is a high quality, worth at least 48,000 tickets. Is that Joshy? Uh... It's a Procompsognathus.

And it's got a removable chunk, see? Look at that! You can see his ribs! Yes, it's very cool. Look at how cool that is! He's not big! But I mean, look at that articulation! I mean, that-that's- That's what I-that's what I said-I said it was- It's got a nice paint job, there's a little bit of blood around his teeth... I mean, that's worth at least...

Oh, look, instead of 48,000 tickets, why don't we, you know, meet in the middle and say 100 tickets. What do you think, Lenny? Perhaps you would be able to convince any of the other customers here to exchange the appraised dinosaur for the amount of tickets that you are offering me. But I can only accept the paper tickets produced by the game. Look, it was a good try. You know, Lenny's a hard ass. You know that. You've changed, Lenny. You've changed.

I'll get him to know that. You giving yourself all these fake titles? Doesn't make you cool. You peaked in high school, buddy. Just because I shaved my head last month. I think he's going through a midlife crisis. Let's be real, it's better than him hanging onto the hair. All right, thanks for nothing. I'll be back.

Master of tickets. I am at your service. It's like he forgets that two months ago he was working at Blockbuster. Well, you can't give people an ounce of power. I know. I know. It's like Discord monitoring. All right. That was great, man. It was a good try. Yeah. Nobody wants my pro compsognathus. Well, maybe somebody else. I thought you had him, man. I thought you had him on the ropes there. You're just doing his job. You got to cut him some slack. That was a good pitch. All I can say is she comps up my insignathus into like a chunk of...

Bravo, Gary. Thanks. Bravo. Thanks. No, look, Nubz is a shambles. His life is over. He ruined it. Unbelievable. Well, anyways, I think with only five tickets, we don't have enough tokens, so I guess I'll get a couple of Tootsie Pops, some scented erasers.

And a rubber band. Yeah, but I mean, like, looking at the thing, that's all I can afford. I don't think that does anything for you. I don't even think it's worth it. I was really saving up for one of those inflatable pink electric guitars. Knuckles, I really think that if we were just to be careful about it, you wouldn't rough up one of these machines. We could get the other one. All right, well, you lead the way, and I can smash a machine. Yeah, let's try. I try to lead him back to the strange, glowing fog machine.

emanating machine. Maybe I can't even find it again. I don't know. You start to make your way back. Keep an eye out for Street Fighter 2. I keep my eye out for Street Fighter 2. And also the Big Titty Goth babes. Make a presence check. Make a presence test. If I've ever needed to see a presence test, it's right now. Wizard, wizard, wizard, wizard. Curse dice.

I got a nine. My presence is not very good. You cursed me. You just gave me the curse of no bitches. You don't see any of the... You don't see Street Fighter. You don't see the Big Titty Goss. You don't see any of that. You see that there are no food available on the arcade floor, certainly, but there are still also stalls for serving alcoholic beverages, should you so be interested. But you make your way, and it takes a little time, but eventually...

You recognize a cabinet and you turn and you find a relatively empty area. There does appear to be one patron, one customer at the end playing one of the lame like office simulator games. But for the most part, you're in an empty space. That guy's not paying attention.

And this isn't the same machine as before and that's fine because that thing seemed like it was on cracker. I think you're strong enough. You can muscle this thing open. I mean, I might be, but look, you better fucking watch my back, all right? The three of us will watch. We're the greatest. Look how see-ever did dogs sit. We're here. We've never failed. If I get caught, my mom's going to kill me. You understand? She's not going to know. Oh my God, she's going to have a heart attack if she does. Think about the limitless tickets and tokens that are in this machine. You can do this, bro. You want that laser sword? We got to do this. We got to do whatever it takes to get that dang dog laser sword.

and we can all share. - Look, every time Galileo and I buy shrooms in the bathroom, I'm rolling the dice here, right? And this is much more serious. - Yeah. But we're the best look-outs-of-the-everyday-dog-slave. That's right. We captured an emu! - That already worked out once today, man. We got great shrooms.

Well, you did. I didn't get one. Well, we could share, maybe. We could grind them up. It's kind of floaty and magical. I didn't, anyway. I guess I'll smash this thing open. And also be a lookout to make sure that you're not getting caught. I put on my brass knuckles.

Attention! Here are you, here are you! Nothing to see! What if you make a presence test? And, uh... I have plus one, not me. And Knuckles, you will have to make a strength test. Zero as well. You roll this time. I've been rolling bad. Mace is gonna be our presence roller. I'm not the watcher. Yeah, I'm not the watcher. You're a muscle. Uh oh. Uh oh. Not good. That's okay. Four. They got my back, Knuckles! Everything's gonna be okay! We're keeping up with Knuckles!

I would like to use a twist. Can't do that. You can't do that. But, remind me which cabinet you're breaking open. Are we still going for the... Glowing green one. It sounded like we didn't find the exact same one. No, no, no. You found that area, and there is that cabinet there. I told him that was basically nigh unbreakable, and we should make a difference.

So you find one of the out of order cabinets. I am gonna smash whatever Andy tells me to smash. Which is not the supernatural weird one that was like too hard to break. It seemed invulnerable. So you point him out to one of the other cabinets. In fact, you take him to the, it's called Tank Atomic Mayhem. And you... That's badass. I was thinking that out of order. You punch. What was your roll? Eight. Eight. Eight.

It rings very, very loudly. But unfortunately, it doesn't break. It seems like you are really going to have to get behind the panel in order to pull this thing free to either get into its token container or find the tickets therein. Come on, Knuckles. Stop messing around. Nobody's coming. Do this thing. All right. Do it. Come on. Do it. Looks like I'm going to have to get knuckles deep in this thing, if you know what I mean. So you better have my fucking back, all right? We got you. Do it. Do it. I mean, people watching. Do you have enough time? Nobody's coming. Nobody's watching. Go. Nobody's coming, dude. Go. I mean, I'm watching. All right. Okay. Go.

I'm getting in there, hold up. I'm watching. Hold up, I'm gonna, I'm gonna... Make a strength test. Maybe, maybe we should all try to break into these machines. Like all at the same time? Another eight.

- Another eight. You pull and pull and pull, and one of the corners bends, and you realize that you can almost look inside. There's a hole, maybe two inches, but you can't reach inside. Inside there, you see a coiled set of tickets. There's gotta be a reel of 500 tickets, fresh and ready to go, just inside. - All right, okay.

magic hands. I'm smaller than you. You got all those big paws of a hippopotamus or whatever it is you use. I'm loosening it up for you. Okay, here I go. Hi-ya! I watched the Fonz do this. And then Knuckles comes and takes over the watch and helps us out. Yeah, and I'm gonna try to, like, body block Gary. Make a strength test and make a presence test. Fonz!

That's pretty good. 12. That's pretty good. 12. And you got four. That's okay. You pull and you pull and you pull. Not rolling well. Yeah. You...

are able to suddenly jiggle it free. Whatever mechanism was holding this free, you were able to break it, and it finally, finally comes apart, and you suddenly pull the ticket wheel out. - Here, let me just try. Oh, that was easy. Wow. You're kinda weak, Knuckles, no offense. - You suddenly hear a voice.

and you don't hear a voice directly around you. You guys have been looking up and down the street, or the lane and row of these cabinets, but what you suddenly, with a four and then another four, you look up and you realize that there's a security camera and a megaphone and you hear, "What? Hey! This is the manager!"

What are you doing in that cabinet security? You stay right where you are. Grab your tickets and let's go. Let's get out of here. Come on. A door swings wide on the far side and all of a sudden, ducking into the arcade space, you can see two security people start to rush towards you. And that is where we will end the first session. Awesome. Great. Thank you.

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