Hello From The Magic Tavern - Shadow City Ep 1: The Crime Time Forgot (w/Anthony Burch)
Episode Date: January 9, 2023In the upcoming stretch-goal miniseries on Patreon, the boys play a superhero-themed RPG where they are the lowest low-level criminals.You can support the show directly and receive bonus epis...odes and rewards by joining our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/magictavern for only $5 per month. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and now Patreon!UPDATE: Thanks to all of our patrons, the Patreon goal has been met and the full Shadow City series is now releasing on our Patreon!CreditsCrusher: Arnie NiekampMatlida “Ma” O’Brien: Matt YoungTommy “Punches” DePlume: Adal RifaiGame Master: Anthony BurchProducers: Arnie Niekamp, Matt Young, and Adal RifaiPost-Production Coordination: Garrett SchultzEditor: Sage G.C.Magic Tavern Logo: Allard LabanTheme Music: Sage G.C.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Hey there, this is Barney, the Arnie on Earth, and no, I am not a robot.
You're a robot.
I'm just checking in to let you know there's no new hello from the Magic Tavern episode
this week, but we'll be back next Monday with an all new episode.
And this week we wanted to share something extra special with you.
On the Magic Tavern Patreon, which you can go to at patreon.com slash magic tavern, we have a stretch goal to record a role-playing game with
our friend Anthony Birch, the great dungeon master from the podcast Dungeons and Datties,
which I'm a huge fan of. We have not hit the stretch goal yet, we're still a couple
hundred subscribers away, but we have recorded it. It was incredibly fun and funny, in fact so much fun that it ended up stretching out to,
I think, four episodes.
So as a special preview and enticement, here is the first episode of Shadow City, DMed
by Anthony Birch.
And if you want to help us release the rest of the episodes on the Patreon, all you have
to do is join the Hello from the Magic Tavern Patreon at patreon.com slash magic tavern. There's so many perks.
Bonus episodes. But I'll hold off on the hard sell until after the episode. Give it a
listen, it goes off the rails very fast. And I'll see you on the other side. Enjoy! Hey everybody, we have gathered together to play a game for realsies and everything.
We're actually going to play a game.
Jesus Christ.
For realsies.
For realsies.
For realsies.
And every year, are you a 13 year old student in 1990s grade school?
Are you through too many numbers at me?
I'm just trying to add a childlike sense of wonder
to this experience, which of course, of course,
but I don't need to because it's gonna be,
it's gonna be great.
I feel like the more I say it's gonna be great,
the more it seems like I have uncertainty about it,
which I don't.
Your honor gag me with a spoon.
That was, yeah.
Roll for smooth,
X-lacks.
No.
No. No. No. I'm Arnie Neacamp and I'm excited to play a game.
Yeah, and I'm that young and you're hearing the real me for right now because we've got
an exciting guest who's going to be our game master for a really awesome tabletop role-playing
game that of his own division,
devising, what am I saying?
Well, I didn't invite invent dungeons and dragons,
which is just a little bit of a system.
Well, the system, yes.
Well, who's that person?
Let's get them.
Is Mr. Coast available?
I'm on Rify.
And I'm very excited to play.
His name is John Dragons.
Thank you.
Oh, that's a good name.
And he has a twin brother who also has a pendant.
Yeah, and I'm Anthony Birch. I'm going to walk you through some hopefully a fun little
tabletop role-playing adventure. So the system that we're using is basically Dungeons
Dragons 5th edition. If you're familiar with that, I'm going to have to buy John Dragons. And it's
going to be in a very non-Dunge into the Dragon's E kind of setting.
And unless anybody has anything they'd like to say, I can just take us right into the story if you want.
I will preface this with I have played D&D, but probably less than anyone else here.
So I will ask dumb questions, one, because I'm dumb.
And two, I'm serving as the Robin who's like the entry point for the, for the reason.
Sure, sure, sure.
So I'm Robin to all your badmands, right?
And how does Wade for Matt to ask the dumb question?
So I won't seem like the dumb one.
I'll be like, oh, but I'll be taking copious notes
whenever he asks something.
Well, thankfully, the way that I tend to,
to game master Dungeons and Dragons
is very Lucy Goosey and kind of rules lie a lot of the time.
So you don't have to worry about honestly,
anything that you feel like doing,
you can just say you wanna do it.
And you know, if it's something that you have to roll for,
you can roll for it if it's something I don't want.
I don't feel like it should be able to do.
Like feel free to, you know, be creative first.
Don't worry about the dice and the number so much.
I'll help out with that stuff,
even though I'm also terrible at that.
But it'll be fine.
We'll be fine.
Everything's gonna be good probably.
Where were you when I was a teenager?
I just not having sex.
Just just.
Me too.
Me too.
Full time job.
Oh, man, we should have hung out.
We all should have had not had sex together.
Oh, man.
I guess we're technically doing that right now.
Yeah, straight that just the way
Okay, shall we begin? Yeah, let's do it. Okay
Black clouds pregnant with rain hang in the starless black sky over Shadow City
Home of devious supervillains corrupt officials and low-level criminal scum like you
Only one man stands between Shadow City and utter, a caped writer of rungs who fights
evil with tooth and claw.
A hero so unbeatable, so beloved that the toy store you pull up to in your car has an
entire window display devoted to his new, posable talking action figures.
But right now, he's not your biggest worry.
You're thinking about the million dollars you owe to Don Trebiani, one of Shadow City's
most powerful mob bosses.
Your driver Wimpers is Palm's coating with steering wheel and sweat.
His eyes are fixed on the other side of the street.
At the Shadow City First National Bank, the bank you're about to rob.
He asks for what seems like the hundredth time.
So what's the plan, fellas?
Who answers first amongst you?
And what does that person look like?
Anybody at all?
There is a stat woman around 60 who answers first.
Her name is Matilda O'Brien.
Everyone just calls her mom.
In the world of Dungeons and Dragons should be a cleric,
but here she's just like a grizzled old Catholic mom
who's like very serious and devout,
but it's devoted to her family,
but her family is crime and the people who do it.
Hey, we're gonna take care of it.
We're gonna get into this bang-wanging, there's money in ways that are gonna be fine.
All right, does anybody want to also chime in?
This would be a good time for all of you to introduce yourselves to the audience.
Well, I will say that I'm Crusher,
that's my last name, Crusher, but I go by that.
A lot of you will assume it's a nickname,
but it's really just my last name.
I'm sort of a small guy, not too intimidating,
but I'm a ranger.
And I don't really say anything at this moment.
I'm actually kind of quiet.
Yeah, and right after Ma speaks,
a sort of giant, almost Jack reached her sized paw or mitt,
clasp on her shoulder very gently,
and you hear the voice belonging to that mitt,
to that turkey, that giant roast turkey of a hand.
Say, that's right, Mark, it's all gonna be okay.
And if we pull back, we see that the hand belongs
to a six foot nine, 420 pound giant of a man
named Tommy Punches Deplume.
He's in a white dress shirt that's unbuttoned at the top.
He has almost like tuxedo slacks.
And then his sleeves are almost like reverse chippendale,
kind of where his muscles are so big that he has to have a sleeve
from the wrist to the elbow.
And then there's just nothing bare skin.
And then from the shoulder to his neck, the shirt continues.
Because his biceps are too big for any shirt.
And on his biceps, if big for any shirt and on his biceps if the camera
lingers long enough you see there are tattoos of fists on his biceps just because he's
really proud of the name that he's accrued over his time in the gang which is punches.
Perfect.
Oh, I forgot to mention his head kind of looks like grimace.
So, Tommy, I gotta make you a nicer shirt than that.
We gotta get you a shirt that fits.
No, ma, this fits fine.
And not to interrupt, but Adel, you said that Tommy is
almost Jack reach or size.
So he's like Jack reach.
He's like Jack reach, yes.
And again, I can't stress enough.
His face is exactly like grimaces,
but instead
of purple, it is, you know, flesh colored. So he has very genial eyes. His mouth is always
in an upturned surprise smile. Does he have mitten hands? No, he has regular hands.
His face, Arnie, his face. He's a perfect man. He has the face of grimace in the body
of that creature. Everyone's reading. Sure.
Thank you.
All right.
Adela, you just satisfied exactly one person's sexual fantasy.
This is a very normal and typical D&D character archetype.
So the fact that this is a surprise to the two,
you haven't played a lot of it, it is not surprising to me.
The most characters in D&D look like this.
I should have just said I'm an FG.
Or any, that stands for fuckable Grimiss.
Oh. No. It's sort I'm an FG, Ernie, that stands for fuckable grimace. Oh, no.
Oh.
It's sort of a dark web thing anyway.
Okay, so the driver says,
all right, well you know the deal.
All of us owe 250K to Don TriBiani.
This is pretty much our last night to pay him back.
So whatever you're ready, you head in there,
you come out with as much money as you can,
and if we're lucky, we'll live to see the next sunrise.
But, uh, I'll wait here for as long as it takes. I got nowhere to be.
Hehehe, and he unlocks the doors.
You keep this car running.
Alright, uh, punches, you gotta remember.
You, you get in there and you tell the telly what we need, and I'm gonna cover the front door, okay?
You got it, and hey, driver?
Yeah?
You said you got nowhere to be.
Next week, you want to play pickleball?
Pickleball, yeah.
Hell, that sounds great.
All right.
You're such sweet boys.
You're such sweet boys.
All right.
Everybody get your Britney Spears masks on.
And we put those on.
And as Tommy gets out of the car,
you see the hydrox on the car lift about three feet
as he was weighing it down.
Great.
So to sort of fill in the audience on some details,
I basically gave our three intrepid players some very basic
details about the bank that they might have gotten
from casing the joint, but I don't actually
know what their plan to rob the bank is.
So what do you all do next?
Are you going to step inside the lobby?
Are you gonna do other stuff?
Let you, you're sort of driving this at this point.
So let me know what you'd like to do
and I'll tell you what you see and what can happen next.
Adel, I think we just walk in with the masks
and you go up to the counter
and I'm kind of like covering the door
and we see where it goes from there.
Great. Okay.
So the moment the two of you,
just the two of you walk in with the masks?
Yep. That's right.
The moment the two of you walk in with your masks,
immediately you notice, I mean,
you already knew that they were here
because of the casing of the joint that you did off screen.
But there are two guards holding pistols in here.
One's near the door, one's at the other end of the room.
Both of them see two people walk in initially, they have a very like, Antoine's kind of
like reaction like they're psyched.
But once they see the gear that you're carrying with you, they freak out a little bit and
one of the one nearest the door, the one nearest to you sort of fumbles for his service revolver
on his hip?
Are any of you going to do anything about that?
Tommy punches steps very,
tries to step very closely to the gentleman
to where he can't even outreach his arm fully,
fully extend his arm to raise the gun.
Almost like a just like a football lineman,
just gets up in his personal space
very quickly without touching him.
Okay, let's, why don't you give me an acrobatics or athletics role, whichever you like.
So let me roll, uh, looks like a 21.
Wow.
Okay, so you succeed, you succeed very well. You get right up in this dude's craw,
and he tries to, to wrench the gun out. He gets his, his hand around the gun, but as he tries to wrench the gun out. He gets his hand around the gun,
but as he tries to wrench that out of its holster,
you're so close to him that he can't even move his hand forward
enough to get the leverage to any of these.
And he's so scared by the size of you,
he's too shocked to even step back.
So you've got him handled.
But in this moment, he else,
get down on the ground, I guess, I guess.
And the other guard in the back is like,
it sort of starts walking towards you,
and he's also fiddling with his gun.
And he actually manages to get it out
unless one of you would like to do something
to stop him at this distance.
How far away is he again, sorry?
He's about, well, I never said,
so you don't have to apologize.
He's about 15 feet away.
15 feet.
He's close enough that if you wanted to do something cool,
you could do it very easily.
Could I...
Come on, do something cool.
Can I run up to him and hit him with my bag of oranges?
Sure, sure.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So go ahead and give me an attack roll.
Only one go.
That is a...
17.
17 is going to beat his AC, which means you thwack him over the head. And he, because you
surprise them so much, and because these guys are pretty cheap as far as guards go, you hit him
with a sack of oranges, and he falls the ground like a sack of potatoes. He's gone from fruit to
vegetable. And it is. All right. So now what? The people around you, the other, they're about three customers here,
basically standing in line and they're unsure of what to do.
They all are pretty tired.
It's almost closing time, it's like 4.30.
And the tellers, see you take out,
we'll not take out, but they see you take out one of the guards
and you can see the tellers behind a two inch thick
pane of bulletproof glass. One of them reaches for a button. guards and you can see the tellers behind a you know two inch thick pain of
bulletproof glass. One of them reaches for a button. I will say quickly while I
am physically standing in front of the one guard who I've intimidated I do want
to try and lean down into his ear and whisper you just remembered you have
somewhere to be and see if he if I can intimidate him out the door great
You know we don't have to worry about yeah giving intimidation role, please. Okay. That is going to be
16 alright. I'm gonna go ahead and roll opposed for his elimination. He only got a 13
So he says yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. I gotta go practice for my pickup pickleball game with my buddies
I got I got some brine. I got
to put the ball in. You know how it is. It's got to be nice and juicy for the big game.
Oh yeah. I love pickleball. What are you doing next week?
Oh, hey, hey, hey. I mean, get out of here. Oh man. I was one man down on my team too.
And he walks away like kicking the dirt. But he's out of here now and the other guard is down. So you see on the other
side of the the boatproof glass, in addition to the one teller that is working today, leaning over
to press a button, you can see behind this teller that there is a door that you know leads to the
manager's office and possibly some other rooms. But yeah, so she leans down, presses a button,
if anybody would like to roll perception or insight,
I can tell you what that button does.
If not, I assume you can figure it out
based on your knowledge of watching literally
any movie about Banks Ever Made.
17.
She's hit the silent alarm, the constantly here in 15 minutes.
This might be a good time for me to talk about
what's going on with
Crusher great, so I got to take you back 20 some years
Crusher grew up in a neighborhood where everyone either became a criminal or a guard
He spent a lot of time around guards sort of observed them
Learned a lot about them knew their ways. Never was one, never wanted to become one, but using some of my stats to be that like,
guard is a race that I kind of can read and track
and sort of just naturally know a lot about.
So what I'm proposing is, you told us we had six months
to prepare for this.
I did.
I'm proposing, and this is a big gamble,
that Crusher was able in the last six months
to get a job as a guard and is in that security room right now.
What do I got to roll?
I think you roll deception.
Okay.
To see if you could get the job.
Okay.
And I feel like you roll with advantage
because that's a really good idea.
Okay, so I already have plus four.
Great.
So advantage means that you roll twice
and you take the higher of the two rolls.
Okay.
So first roll, oh, a four.
Good thing you had advantage.
So good thing.
Thank you, ingenuity.
You roll the four and you have a plus four.
So you roll the zero.
How is, I don't know how that's possible. I also now also rolled a four and you have a plus four. So you rolled a zero? How is, I don't know how that's possible.
I also now also rolled a two.
So I just, I add the four myself.
So, yeah, so four plus four is eight.
So the best roll you had was an eight.
So, let's say, I'm gonna say though,
it was a really good idea.
It was a good idea.
You came in, you applied for the guard position.
What do you think you said that fucked it up so bad
for you that they wouldn't even let you apply the guard?
Here's part of the problem.
I look like the body of Jason Statham
with the face of the hamburger.
So...
Part of the problem is that I probably...
So Jason Statham.
So unfortunately, unfortunately, I still have a kind of like,
I have a natural, my face gives me a natural burglar mask
a little bit.
I just, I just have a flash of horror.
My nightmares are going to be filled with the hamburger
in a crank like situation where he's like,
fucking people at the Kentucky Derby and like,
constantly has to have his crank
It's just running very quickly now. Thank you so much for that art. Do not Google image search and burglar and it's crank
Uh, yeah, so I come in like that and I probably say like
Uh, how fast can I get a position?
In the highest the security part of this place possible.
So the manager who is a very sour balding looking man looks
up at you pretty much immediately because he lives in a,
and as you said, everyone in this city is either guards or
crooks.
Can pretty much immediately tell what you are in a cox's head
and he goes, I got Janet
Aduides, how do you feel about a high security bathroom for customers?
I'll take it. Anthony, can I roll for the gentleman you're playing?
Or can you roll to see if he has any sneaking suspicion that the person he's
talking to is Joe Pesci undercover for a movie role?
Sure. Trying to study for a movie role.
I will roll it.
You're trying to keep on 18.
So I, and he goes, are you Joe Pesci?
Legally, if I ask you, Joe Pesci,
you gotta tell me, that's not how that works.
Why are you asking me that?
What makes you think, what about me?
Makes you think, I'm Joe Pesci.
What about me?
Why are you asking me that now?
Now you're asking me?
What do I look like?
A person who answers questions, you pay. Are we related?
Not to make this entirely about this new character.
But you would say, is it fair to say he's a movie fan?
Yeah, you know what?
You look around his office, and it's all posters
for classic Hollywood cinema.
He has a penchant for old Howard Hawks movies,
like The Old Scarface. He seems to like gangster movies. I guess the key lives in a shitty gangster written part of town
So he's kind of if you can't beat him join him mentality
So obviously I did bad badly so far, but one of you had us devised three items one of the items that I devised is a glaive
All right Jerry Lewis
is a glaive. All right, Jerry Lewis.
Glaive?
It's a glaive.
As we all know, is the weapon from the movie crawl.
It's a glaive plugin.
And it's not an actual weapon.
It's just an actual prop from the movie crawl.
Great.
And if anyone recognizes this prop, they are kind of obsessed with it for a short period of time.
Okay.
So, yeah, I'm gonna pull out my glaive and be like,
oh, look, da, da, da, da, da, da.
Look at his thing.
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
I think role persuasion with advantage, because he is a movie fan.
Okay, persuasion.
Okay, well, well, well.
Did the Howard Hawks direct Crowks direct curl like I remember.
So I got a one plus two, I have a three.
So things are not going great.
Wait, wait, wait, with a finish.
You rolled twice and you got a one both times.
No, no, I'm sorry.
Can we check that you're doing this correctly?
Because this is terrifying.
You know, I broken two digits yet.
Oh, wait, hold on, I just keep looking at the page number.
Are you rolling a D20?
I am actually not.
I didn't roll my second, because of the advantage.
And I got a 17.
Okay, great.
So with the 17, he goes,
what is, what is that?
Is that something from a, is that like a Zena?
No, that's not the Zena.
It's got like knives on the, what is that?
Oh, the, the, the, the, the.
This isn't a TV prop.
This is like a movie.
Oh.
Crawl.
Crawl, crawl.
I get that confused with call to conqueror or something.
I think it was a Kevin Sorbo picture.
I've seen every movie I've ever made.
Oh.
I'm so lonely.
But yeah, oh, hey, hey.
You're a Sorbo head, huh?
That's quite, I don't know if I say that.
He's got some problematic opinions on everything else. But yeah, oh hey, hey, you're a Sorbo head, huh? That's quite, I don't know if I say that.
He's got some problematic opinions on everything else.
But like I was a fan of his brief forays
into the filmic world, but no, Crow.
Yeah, I remember Crow.
I watched that when I was a little kid.
Oh, that's a look of a detail on that.
And so he kind of gets in close and starts examining the glaive.
Uh, okay, so if he's distracted,
I'm gonna look through his things
Well, go ahead is happening so go ahead and roll
Guys, don't worry. I'm rolling great
Artie's like can I talk to his kids?
Just to see what they're dealing so let's say if you you want to actually move around him and start going through his desk and stuff,
we'll have you roll for stealth.
If you want to just examine what's around the room
and on his desk it is in plain sight,
you could roll investigation.
Okay, so here's the thing.
I don't want to take too much of time in the past
because we've got an exciting action happening in the present.
So I'm just trying to think,
is there any last thing
I can maybe try to do to get myself,
maybe I don't get all the way to the security guard room,
but I'm a little better than the bathroom.
Okay, let's see.
Based on your voices, the easiest thing is maybe
to take over this man's life.
Yeah, you know what?
Actually, what you see is that this got this manager.
You see, right now, he doesn't look that much like you.
He's balding, he's kind of roton.
But you see on his desk that there's a picture of him
and his wife many years ago,
and they first got married when he had a full head of hair
and he was really, really buffed.
And he basically, he's a dead ringer for you back then.
So what you're saying is, I've got six months to put on a lot of weight.
I get some hair.
Or I guess you could get rid of him and convince everybody that you went on a really, really drastic like diet or something.
I don't know.
All right, you know what? The desperate measures. I'm gonna try to kill him. You're in the air here.
Okay, go ahead and roll any attack
on your character sheet.
If you have a weapon there.
Anthony, I will say, I am so drawn into this
that I don't care if we come back to my character.
I don't care.
I don't care.
I don't care.
This is fine.
This is just Arnie bumbling in the dark with this guy.
I think this is the thing that's good.
Yeah, we just do a full Trish from Shrandy and it's all the flashback before the inciting incident of the fucking story
How exciting would it be if in this first episode all that happens is I die in the past
I am not why you were so quiet in the car
It's a weekend at Bernie scenario. You were just embarrassed to go to a bank robbery with only two people.
Let's see here. I unfortunately did not put any weapons in the shootout.
Okay, just only click on it. Okay, D20.
All right, also to be fair, I can use two weapons at the same time.
So fair at all.
Great. What weapons would you like to use? Did you bring them in?
What do you think you would have on you for this job interview uh... i think i have uh...
mice my a gun
and my glaive the movie is called yes sorry he's holding the layman checking out
you could also improvise by taking something from the room so he's got like a
little fake little academy award on his desk this is world's best bank manager and uh... he's got a a little fake little Academy Award on his desk. This is World's Best Bank Manager and he's got a golden globe that also says World's Best Bank Manager, but it's misspelledly, it doesn't care because it's a fucking golden globe, then matter.
Okay, I'm gonna try to take both the fake Oscar and the fake golden globe and like smash them on both sides of the head.
If there's a Tony and an arrow.
And you gotta hit him and you gotta say, he got him.
He got him, exactly.
There's also a cable Acer word that says,
best teller, it's from a lot.
Time to go.
Yeah.
And we cut to Teller from Pedenteller
and he is just crying at home.
But silently.
Oh.
So go ahead and give me just,
give me a straight D20 roll.
All right, I got a 18.
Wow, okay, so with an 18,
you cave this poor man's head in completely.
All the decades and decades of watching movies
brought him to this moment where he was destroyed
by what was secretly his favorite actor.
He was actually hoping you were Joe Pesci.
But his skull crushes,
his legs buckle underneath,
and he falls over, and he's dead now in his office.
What do you do?
I say, I'd like to thank the Academy.
I also somehow lose my Joe Pesci from home.
This is...
Okay, I hide his body under his desk.
I take his clothes off.
The last place, nothing to look. I take his clothes off. The last place, nothing to look.
I take his clothes off.
And this is six months before that,
the ice has to be.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Before that, I hide his,
by what look?
I hide his body under the desk for right now.
Sure, okay.
And I put his clothes on,
and then I open the door a little bit,
and I tell my secretary or whatever
to hold my calls and she if she asks for how long I say six months.
Okay, so we're supposed to roll the deception I think with Vanish because the voices were
similar.
Okay, let's see here.
And Anthony, if you want to bottle this up and sell it like almost like honey heist or
something just this
Arnie specific story please I'm sure this would make millions
The first two rules will be won this game requires at least three players and two only one of the players will be playing
Anthony you know I hate to be a stickler but is there a camera in that office?
to be a stickler, but is there a camera in that office? Ah!
What are you trying?
And why, I hate to even bring it up.
I hate to bring it up.
I hate to roll in 11.
Anthony, why do you think about it?
I hate to be a stickler, but where's your mom?
Oh!
Okay, so let's say that with an 11,
your, the manager's secretary who looks like Sharon Stone from Casino in his dress.
Oh, okay.
Goes, okay, whatever you say, I forgot how Sharon Stone sounds.
I see what's actually.
They nailed it, they nailed it.
Yeah.
But you did not notice that there was a camera recording everything that happened.
Okay.
So I didn't notice that.
At first.
You close the door having talked to Sharon Stone.
And then as you close the door, you saw the tell-sale blinking red light
in the corner of your eye, you turned up and you looked,
oh, there's a surveillance camera watching the whole thing
and potentially, because of what you know about the bank,
maybe the security guard whose job you actually wanted
may have seen all that.
And I think, can I boil your mind?
Let's go back six months.
All right, great.
Tommy punches the plume, walks into this office
because he sees a security officer on its side.
Oh no, oh no.
You're gonna hear an honest.
As long as it still ends with Tommy
to plume walking back into his office
into his place of business and intimidating a guard
that I guess knows him.
I'm just gonna say, if I accidentally killed Tommy DePolone.
If you do wanna follow with this six months before that,
we totally can.
We'll forget that.
Let's make already a step in it.
Okay, great.
So yes, you've got, basically you know that
from the way that this place is sort of laid out,
from the bank manager's office,
that door leads to the sort of area
where all the tellers are with all the money,
and then that also leads to an elevator.
And then it, which leads to a locked door
that gets you out to where the customers are.
But before that, there is an elevator
that takes you down to the vault,
and on the way to the vault,
in the big hallway leading from the elevator,
is the security room.
So there's a fair amount of real estate
between you and potentially somebody
who just saw you murder somebody.
But maybe he didn't.
Maybe he was asleep. Maybe he was checking the newspaper.
Let me quickly now investigate the room that I'm in to see, like, I guess I'm going
to be trying to very quickly look for, like, does he have a hat?
Does he look like, are there any magazines around?
Like things that I would now-
magazines?
What the fuck are you talking about?
Arnie, Arnie, we started off with an action-packed bank heist
and now we're stuck with you in a room
trying to figure out if there's magazines or something.
No, no, no, no, no, let him do it.
Anthony, what magazines are in there?
Okay, so the magazines that he's got are,
he's got the last print issue of entertainment weekly. He's got
Variety he doesn't understand any of the industry lingo, but he just it makes him feel important to have it
He's got game pro like a really old issue of game pro because they had a review of the demolition man game on Sega CD
Okay, and the highlights for kids. Well, I love that.
So I was gonna say, the variety I assume
is slightly bigger than Entertainment Weekly, right?
So I'm gonna take the variety magazine
and I'm gonna put the entertainment weekly inside it
because I'm much more interested in reading that.
But I'm also gonna rip a couple pages out of the high
and it's just like,
aren't you slow down, the audience is dying to know,
what page do you turn to?
And what do you see inside this variety?
Well, I can't just make up what's in the variety.
I'm gonna put those things in.
I'm gonna put it over my face.
And I'm gonna hold it up like I'm reading it
and walking through the office.
Okay.
And I'm going to try to walk to the security room
like I'm reading variety on the way because everyone in the office knows that I'm real to try to walk to the security room like I'm reading variety on the way because
everyone in the office knows that I'm real into pop culture because I've got all the stuff
in my office.
Okay, go ahead and roll deception with disadvantage.
So deception with disadvantage means I roll zero times?
Means you roll twice and take the lower of the two.
Oh, okay.
And here at this point, genuinely asking, is it easier for Matt and I to just play characters
in the office six months ago?
All right.
Honestly, if you want to, we totally can do that.
We can, I can delete everything that I had planned
and that's a different, that's a whole other adventure
we can go on instead, that's totally fine.
I, my lower was a 12.
So with a 12, here's what the assistant,
his secretary, Sharon Stone sees.
She sees a man with wrists and hands covered in blood
walking out of her manager's office holding a variety up so she can't see his face but she can tell
that the rest of his body is not rotund like the man she's he's actually covering the one thing
that looked a little bit like the manager which is his face uh so she just sees a strange person covering up all the walking out.
She goes,
a cop, somebody call the cops,
and she looks inside the manager's office,
and go, oh my gosh, she screams,
but like, sexy to the chair.
I put him under the desk.
Oh, you did, okay.
Did you also clean up the blood from
when you bashed his brain open?
No, but there's some chance that we were behind his desk
when that happened.
So you're suggesting that you walked up with the grill at glaive, walked around his desk,
handed to him, and then walked behind him, and then went back around the desk, grabbed the two
awards, then got behind him and smashed his head. Yeah, I mean, look, what kind of guy is he? Is he a
you come to me or I come to you kind of boss? I would posit that he would stay behind his desk,
and I would have to come to him.
And Arnie, you're also insinuating
this man has very thick blood, almost like regu
that does not splatter or spray.
I'm gonna go ahead and say that,
I'm gonna roll D20.
I'm gonna roll D20, and depending on what I roll,
if I roll high, then, okay, so I rolled a 10,
which means that I lost, which means that you already get what you want, if I roll high, then, okay, so I rolled a 10, which means that
I lost, which means that you already get what you want, which is that his body was behind
the desk.
Okay.
But she's like, oh God, what happened?
She sees that you're covered in blood, so she runs into the office and looks around
trying and she, and the tellers hear her scream and they turn around to look at you, and
you're still walking, just now on stopping with the variety covering your face, but they
see her run into the office.
Okay.
Is there anything you'd like to do in this moment?
So at this moment, I'm trying to think if I couldn't possibly, I'm still trying.
Guys, I just gotta say, I'm still trying to get this job.
I just wanna let the listeners know, already fought for this moment over the course of six or seven emails.
Matt and I were on board for it, but Arnie wanted this moment so bad.
To be fair, I thought I was either going to succeed or if I failed,
I would just be like, run into the bank after you guys be like,
oh, did you not get my calls? I didn't get the call.
This way better. But then they just seem to be like, oh, did you not get my calls? I didn't get the job.
No, this way better.
But then there just seemed to be like
the smallest glimmer of hope
that I could still get this job.
And that is what, that's the road
that I've creamed down ever since that moment.
Already maybe you, maybe you line, you say that you cut yourself,
you cut your scalp off to put on a new hair piece
and then you can drop the magazine
and you'll look like the guy in the face, but with full hair.
Yeah.
Is that something? I'm trying to help you out, folks.
That's something?
That's something.
I feel like if the body, I can, I feel like if the body isn't discovered,
then I can still potentially save this.
My favorite John Mayer song.
But did the secretary, did Sharon Stone, see the body?
I'm gonna have a role investigation.
Okay.
Can I just try to distract her?
How would you like to do that?
Oh boy, I'm gonna make a lot of assumptions
about a Joe Pashy looking guy
talking to a Sharon Stone looking woman
and I'm going to offer her some cocaine.
Okay, go ahead and roll persuasion.
I assume that you get, like as she's running in to the office,
do you like kind of step back to try to block the doorway and go,
whoa, whoa, whoa, and then you have this exchange?
Yes.
Okay, go ahead and roll persuasion.
I have her older six.
So she runs into, she tries to run into the office,
a man who won't put the variety down,
officer cocaine, she goes, and she tries to run into the office, a man who won't put the variety down, offers her cocaine.
She goes, uh, uh, and then immediately ducks around you and gets into the room, rolls
in the desegation and gets a 21. And so-
And I say to myself, I was under the impression that cocaine sold itself.
So she pretty much instantly sees that there are not many places to hide this body checks the behind the desk and
Screams and then hits the silent the not so silent alarm button under his desk alarm start playing all the tellers are looking at you
What do you do?
I think I have failed but I am gonna try
Sorry But I am gonna try one more. Jesus Christ. Sorry.
I really...
I'm not trying to hijack this story.
This is the most wily coyote shit I've ever seen in D&D.
I've never felt more like I'm in...
I've never felt more like I'm in a Cohen Brothers movie.
I do it this moment.
I'm just like one mistake leading to an author.
I also love that Sharon Stone had to roll a 21,
when two men went into the office and one came out.
Well, that's why I gave her a plus five.
Oh yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Another one of my three items is the way
to greet upon an advance is a walkie-talkie
that I can throw my voice
into. Yep. And so it sounds like someone else is talking from my walkie-talkie.
Yes. And that's all it does. And so I'm going to throw my voice into the
walkie-talkie and say, we got it on camera. That woman killed the... We got it on camera.
That woman killed the bank manager.
Okay.
And she tried to kill that other handsome guy.
Okay, go ahead, roll deception.
Okay.
I'm gonna say with disadvantage.
Good spare.
All right.
I think wherever at this exact same moment in time,
Maobryon senses something's wrong in the universe,
and she uses her prayer beads,
which is one of my items.
Oh.
They're almost like Dr. Stranges infinity's done, right?
Yeah, exactly.
Their rosary beads, essentially,
and I can pray on them,
and I get a one in Googleplex chance that Jesus will come into my bidding
I
Feel like I'm I'm feeling generous. I think instead of one at Googleplex
I think we can go full on one and a hundred one and a hundred. Yeah
Okay, I like I like the move of let's alleviate some of this mess. Let's get the strength call Jesus Christ
Don't forget and save Jesus Let's alleviate some of this mess. Let's get the strength call Jesus Christ down from heaven. Save Jesus, give him help.
So go ahead and roll 2D10 and if they both show zero,
that means you rolled perfectly and Jesus will show up.
Okay, I hope she does.
Because I know exactly what I do.
Okay, I got an eight.
Oh, you were pretty close to Jesus showing up.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But yeah, no, Jesus asked he has for the,
since 2000 years ago, continues to not show up.
Yeah.
You are in this moment going to roll with this advantage
deception to see if you can trick people
into thinking that Sharon Stone killed
the manager and I knew.
Okay, well I rolled, I got, I also got an eight.
Okay, so yeah, the tellers all scream, and they fall to the ground, the two guards, the ones,
the same ones that we saw at the beginning of this story, which means that they survive
to the point of getting accosted by the other two players.
They draw their guns on you and they say,
hands on the ground, even though you're on the other side of the bulletproof glass,
they say, hands on the ground and the guard nearest to the door
leading to the Teller's area
Opens the door and comes inside with his gun drawn and trained on you and he says give up put your hands on the ground
Hmm
All right, this is something I probably should have done earlier
I'm gonna look around
Just look around like is there an exit nearby or like how?
Yeah.
Do I appear to have options?
Yes, there is an emergency exit.
Basically, so the guard that has his gun drawn is coming towards you.
To hit your left to the left side of him is that elevator that heads down to the security room in the vault. So the right is a door leading to the lobby
with all the customers and stuff,
and directly behind him is a fire exit.
That will, it would normally sound at alarm,
but there's already an alarm sounding.
So if you can get past him, maybe you can get out.
Hey Anthony, is it allowed for Adela and I
to talk to our client for a moment?
Yeah, please do.
Sure, please, I will take any suggestions.
Do you have, does your character have any like stealth things
that you can justify using in the world here?
I've got a lot of stealth.
I'm like, maybe it's time to employ those.
Yeah, I was also thinking like,
is there do I see any like events or anything like?
Magazines.
Oh, and any man-sized magazines.
So yeah, there are vents. Yeah, how big is this guy? He's not $6.9 4.20. That's yeah, yeah, no, he's more Jason's
state of size so smaller. So on the smaller side, sure. So yes, you can see that above you,
he's one of those sort of deta- like it's one of those buildings, like public buildings,
have really high ceilings so they're then said attached
from the the not you know internal
uh... they're just these big hanging metal fence essentially
i'd you can see that you could potentially be with an acrobatics check
uh... leap up to one of those
and pride the the cover of the okay i'm gonna try
okay doesn't seem particularly stealthy but all right
yeah i'm not selfy you're gonna roll acroats. Well, okay, but everyone's looking at me, right?
Yeah, or at least one person is looking at me.
Yes, like what am I meant to like, add a map?
So my other thought was I could try to like go through a door
somewhere where people don't see me and then get stealthy
and kind of like find a hiding place inside the bank.
If you have the ability to like actually like disappear
or have like a cloak in the D&D terms that you can use
and then we can like figure out some fun justification
in this world, that's what I was kind of asking about
is there like a thing that's like,
like I have healing spells that all just fires like,
I'm just praying and hoping that you get better
and it helps or whatever.
Yeah, do you have any abilities or spells or skills
on your character sheet that would help you in this moment?
What is your character class, I guess?
The other option is you die right here
and then we jump forward six months
and you play your twin brother.
I was strong like a furry nut as well.
That's a pretty good option.
Okay, so you are a ranger.
Yes. Like, if I can get into a vent or something,
I can definitely like navigate that
That's very much in my skill set, but great go ahead and give me an acrobatics role so that'd be the d20 roll plus three
All right
I roll to ten
Okay, so with the ten you you roll you you do a cool Jason state them kick flip to try to get up there
But it's just a little your hands are a little too slippery from the blood
and you fall down onto your back you take a D six of damage you're knocked prone and in that time the guard rushes up to you
puts his gun against your head and says, freeze stop moving stop moving the cops are on their way stop moving
We cut back six months where I applied
to the police academy.
Oh, yeah.
I'm filthy.
Yeah.
Bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump.
Roll for a sweet little war deception.
Me?
Yes.
I want this to happen.
Oh my God, please.
I want to see.
I wouldn't hear Matt scream, don't move, dirt bag.
Okay.
Deception is a 10. Okay, so with a 10, they got you doing traffic duty. I wouldn't hear Matt scream don't move dirt bag
Deception is a 10 okay, so with a 10 yeah, they got you doing traffic duty They hired you. We'll take anybody in this town because there's so many damn crux. You're not gonna be detective
but
If you're you're you're doing the the crosswalk for kids at Shadows, silly city at elementary
And you hear on your radio that they have a bank robbery potentially happening at the Shadows City first national bank
Anybody who's not a crossing guard can come and help out with that You hear on your radio that they have a bank robbery potentially happening at the Shadows City First National Bank.
Anybody who's not a crossing guard can come and help out with that.
Yeah.
But what was Tommy Punches doing six months earlier?
Pickleball. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha A gun is to your head, it feels like the jig is more or less up. Uh, is there any last thing you would like to do?
Well, I've got to, gotta be true to my character.
First of all, can I ask, what does this, does this detective look like anybody?
Uh, what detective? The guard?
The guard? Yeah, the guard that's got a gun pointed at me.
Yeah, the guard looks like Mike from Breaking Bad.
He's a little on the older side, but he looks like he's seen some stuff. Okay
Probably isn't in the crawl literally 50 minutes into this record. I am the inciting incident has not happened
I'm gonna offer him some cocaine
Roll all right, you got one last sir half cocaine I, I feel like his behavior doesn't make any sense
unless he has good.
Yeah, you're right.
So I'm gonna say all grand.
You're gonna roll persuasion.
No disadvantage, no advantage.
Just roll persuasion.
This is your last roll I'm giving you.
I've never seen, and thank you so much for the same thing.
I've never seen a DM or GM, almost like a bartender
cut someone off.
Oh, hey, buddy, you're getting a little sloppy.
This is your last drink.
You've had enough.
All right, I rolled a nine.
So with a nine, this guard goes, I got my own.
And he pistol whips you and you are not unconscious.
A little while later, you wake up in the back
of a patty wagon which drives past
ma at the crosswalk who briefly can make eye contact with you and seize you in the back of the car.
I am my boy. No. Can I yell out the window? The window is closed because they don't usually
believe the windows open for people to escape at the back of the cop cars. So I can't pull my
hand down and do that like wavy hand thing in the wind.
No, you cannot do the zoom zoom.
Well, I mouth, I mouth tomorrow out the window.
You have six months to break me out of prison.
We have a bank job in six months though.
I know.
Please tell me the prison in this town consolidated with the bank. They're alarmingly close to one another. I feel like if you want to, if we want to,
still stay in this pre-hiced timeline, but follow the two of you now, so that Arne can know what it feels like.
Yeah. We can totally follow you trying to break them out if you so wish or you can let him fucking rot And are you gonna roll a new character?
I've taken up a lot of the oxygen in this game so far, so I'm really fine with whatever you guys already my friend
I've left till I cried. I would not change a thing. This has been this has been a true joy truly
I would say man
I would I would vote we try and break him out because I think all right. Let's do it
I think if we're if we're a band where if we're a gang then we probably would help each other out Okay, sounds good to me realistically. Yeah, all right, let's do it. I think if we're a gang, then we probably
would help each other out.
Okay, sounds good to me.
Realistically, yeah.
All right, Kate, good luck finishing Crossin' the Street.
I gotta get home and finish my ministry.
Thanks, thanks Ma.
Would I be able to have be in any kind of communication
with them while I'm in prison?
Yeah, I feel like there's regular visitation stuff.
You did murder somebody, so it'll be in a maximum security
prison, it'll be through the phones with the plastic
separating you, but you could talk to anybody you liked.
I think it would probably be weird to talk to Moch
as Moch is technically a member of the police force,
and they might notice that,
but certainly you could talk to Tommy Punches.
The Punches.
Yeah, you could probably talk to Punches
while you're in prison.
Okay.
Yeah, you know what, I think,
I'm sorry, did you not get enough screen time
in this adventure?
I was just realizing I was like,
they should, I was gonna offer,
like should I just try to escape myself?
Yeah, yeah, just you wanna push them in?
You wanna push them in?
You escape, the other guys don't even need to know about it.
Arnie, we'll give you 50 minutes,
but if you don't get out,
we're finally gonna come in there.
Yeah, I would not be a good parent. I'm not going to setting bad dreams.
Yeah, you guys, you guys figure out your own plan. I'm going to be doing push-ups or something like
right now. So Matt, I do have some animal handling skills, and I also have one of my three items is a
rat whistle, where if I blow a whistle, any rat within a certain area
will come running or come rushing to the source of the sound.
So I could maybe either try and get one of the rats
to grab a guard's keys and slip that to Erning
where he can make his own way out or slip it the keys
and pass them off to you or try and get in and treat myself.
At like visitation or something or in the yard.
I don't have a better plan, so I say let's do it.
Great, we could also try to send in something through food,
but yeah, let's do the animal handling, let's do it.
Cool, so yeah, I have some animal handling
and I think I have a great deal of experience
to Anthony with rats, like I'm always hanging out
with and training rats and keep them in my pockets or in my
Done my shirt or something and you always teach them to tell the police everything they know if they're ever
They always squeal. Yeah, so yeah, I think I would like to try and get one of my rats
I think at the yard is probably better so I'm not in the prison with him when there's a breakout attempt
Sure, so I'm gonna try and get a few of my rats
to grab the keys from a guard and get them to Arnie
so he can get out.
Okay.
So why don't you give me two animal handling roles?
The first one will be to see if you can train them.
So your whistle brings them to the whistle, right?
Yeah.
Yes, any rats go to the sources out.
I know you're not using the whistle.
So the first animal handling role is gonna be
can you teach a rat to go get an object
and then bring that object to a second location?
Yes, that is a 10.
Okay, so with a 10, let's say it takes you, you know,
two months of your six remaining months
before the heist to do that.
Perfect.
But now you've done it.
And now for your second animal handling role,
that'll be for actually getting it into the prison.
Ooh, we're not gonna like this.
This is a straight up five.
Okay.
And that's a plus three animal handle.
Ooh.
Okay, so with a five, the rat,
I guess you're in the bushes outside of the prison or whatever
and you see the rat at night trying to like,
fucking escape from New York dodged like search lights
and stuff to get into the prison wall.
But they're on top of it here in Chateau City and the second that it goes through
one of the search, it's almost there, it's almost there and you're so psyched.
And then one of the search lights just sees it and then you hear a sniper shot.
And the other rats, the other rats see that.
And they're like, oh no, this is what happens when you follow a punch as a device.
So that takes another two months off of your preparation before you get rats that are
willing to go in.
It's a guy can give me another role.
You've finally got another after two months.
You have another rat that's really excited to do this.
You've gotten back into the world's trust again.
Can I ask something, Anthony, you made a good point, which is I never clarified.
When I said I had a rat whistle, in which any rat within like a mile comes racing towards
the source, like fervently.
Can I still be in the bushes, maybe 10 feet back
from the fence, or maybe 20 feet back from the fence,
blow the whistle, and could that affect people
in prison who are there for snitching?
Oh, no.
Okay, yes.
And maybe they knocked on the fence
while they all frantically race towards the whistle.
Okay, let's see.
So I'm gonna roll,
actually why don't you roll a persuasion with advantage? Okay.
And if you succeed,
then all the snitches and all the rats
and all the stool pigeons will attempt
to do anything they can to get out of their cells
and come to you.
First one is a three,
the second one is an adjusted 20.
Ooh, okay.
So with an adjusted 20,
we'll zoom back to Crusher.
You suddenly hear as you're doing your pushups, you hear shouting from up and down the cell block,
you hear anguish screams.
And if you peek, if you look at through the mirror that you probably used to look at what's
going on in the cell block, you see a bunch of the most beat up, most put upon most, I hate to say, but
betas of the prison ecosystem are all prison betas launching them. They're all launching
themselves that they're cell doors and making a real ruckus. One of the managers to break
through because he was a big rat. He was very scared. He was like, you will from breaking
that. And the guards get called out to try to quell the riot, but there's just so many of these rats.
There's a really, there's a really disloyal prison.
And they start running and there is now a full blown riot happening, and they are rushing out to try to get to the main prison gates. So there's a lot of chaos going on. The cops or the guards rather are amassing in the cell block.
They're all sort of coming down there
for this emergency, which means that other parts of the prison
might be not so well looked after.
If you get out of your cell, maybe you've
been planning some stuff, or maybe Mah has also
put in other parts of the room.
I think I'm nearby with a car waiting.
But is it possible that I'm in a car
where I could see the rats starting to come out?
So the rats aren't coming out just yet.
They're still fighting each, there's like,
there's a bunch of prison guards between them
and actually getting out of the prison.
But there's a full blown fight happening
between all the prison guards
and all the rats in the main cell block of the place.
So that means you can tell from where you are,
that means that the snipers on the sniper tower
are distracted, you can tell they've aimed their guns
in toward the center of the prison, rather than outward.
You can see that a lot of the guards have moved away
from their posts and are trying to deal
with this big amount of chaos.
How close would I need to be to cast bless
on one of these people trying to help with the breakout?
Yeah, you would have to be within 30 feet
and see as verbal semantic material.
Bless, bless, bless.
Bless, bless your heart.
Arnie, you've taken us about an hour
to get back to minute one.
Of course.
No, this is great.
This is great.
That's like a D&D campaign.
It's like we meet our three heroes and Arnie's like I break my own spine. It's like
Okay, well
Forget the dungeon we were about to go into let's go through five years of rehab
Yeah, I like the way in position where best case scenario
We begin episode two in the same place as we began episode one.
One's ever done that before. So let's say that with 30 feet, it doesn't even say you
have to see them, just have reached three creatures of your choice or whatever.
Okay. So let's say that you know at least where Arnie is in the prison. And you could
hypothetically drive to, you know, the walls of the prison and be, you know,
if you partner next to a random wall, you actually know that, you know, 29 feet on the
other side of this wall, Arnie's cell kind of sits through a bunch of stone and iron
and other things that would prevent you from getting there physically, but your mom
religion powers allow you to sense that he's there. So if you want to bless him, you are more than half to. I cast Bless on Arnie, on, on, on Crusher, on Sweet Crusher. Great.
So that means a Crusher, you get an up to three creatures every choice. So it could be two
other people that you can sense are, you know, riding. Crusher and two other stool pigeons
get a, an additional D4 for any attack rolls or saving throws before the spell ends.
So if you want to do something that I make you roll for, usually it doesn't apply to skill
checks, but I don't care that's fine.
You get to add a D4 to your roll to be successful.
Okay.
Okay, I have a couple quick questions.
One.
In my time here, how long have I been here?
So what kind of magazines do they have?
They have the Prison Variety, they have prison highlights.
Prism game, pro-versa.
Prison highlights is probably pretty good.
It's just goof, it's just a lot of goof is a good one.
So we have been in here for four months,
because it took two months to train the rats,
and then took another two months to convince the rats
to try the thing again, at which point,
punches realized you could just get the stool visions
to come out.
OK, so I've been here for two months.
Four months, four months.
Have I befriended many other people?
I guess I wanna know if there are people,
there's gotta be some prisoners that have actively
have like a tunneling plan to kind of get out, right?
Okay, roll persuasion.
Okay, let's see here.
Or intimidation, I feel like persuasion is,
you went up to them and said,
hey, anybody got any cool escape plans?
Where intimidation is like, did you try the top dog at the prison and make people,
you know,
persuasion, I got a 14.
And so the four though would be in the future
from this point, right?
So the blessing is not happening.
The blessing has not happened yet as far as.
So I got a 14 persuasion.
Okay. So with a 14 persuasion,
it doesn't seem like the people who had these so you found a
Gang that had an escape plan that seemed to involve basically going over the wall one night with a sort of
Jury Ridge catapult you understood their plan
They didn't want you in on it because they didn't trust you enough
But you were aware of this plan and you were at least vaguely aware of where they're keeping the catapult if not exactly how to use it
Okay, I like that.
And now refresh my memory,
am I able to get out of my cell
or do I need to figure out how to get out of my cell?
You would have to figure out how to get out of yourself,
but again, you've had four months,
so perhaps, Ma or punches were giving you stuff
in your food or finding other ways to speaking
and rats to give you things or.
Yeah, punches had bought a, invested in a 3D printer and so over the course of like a hundred visits,
I was giving you enough small pieces of plastic to put together some sort of device.
A hundred visits and four months.
You really like your friend, man.
The guards are actually really impressed by the really positive male relationship you all have.
And some of the other prisoners are like those two are gonna make it work. There's just something. and the guards are actually really impressed by the really positive male relationship you all have.
And some of the other prisoners are like,
those two are gonna make it work.
There's just something there.
They're something there.
Yeah.
At first I thought you were gonna say,
over the four months I broke down the 3D printer
and I sent it to him inside. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha final item that I've burned through pretty fast is a lock pick that can unlock any lock
if I can answer a trivia question.
Okay.
So I assume they would have probably taken the original when you went into prison, but
I feel like it's entirely possible that you could add of these little bits of plastic,
you know, sort of assemble a 3D printed version of this lock pick.
Okay.
So what would you say is your best,
do you have an equal chance of any of these happening?
So, there's no reason to lie.
What would you say is the trivia zone you are best in
if we're thinking about trivia pursuit,
like rules of categories?
You know, like arts and entertainment,
literature for the most part,
everything else is a little dicey here.
Okay.
What would you say is the thing that you're worst at?
I would say the thing I'm worst at is probably sports.
Or to be fair geography as well.
Okay, so go ahead and give me a flat D20 roll,
and the higher you get, the more pop culture related
and easy it will be.
And the lower you get the...
I swear to God, I got a 19.
A 19?
So now it's gonna be all the more sad
when I get this really wrong.
Okay.
How many actors have within Canon,
mainline, MGM, films?
Okay.
Portrayed James Bond.
Okay.
How many actors?
Okay, I also love the idea of me with my lock pick
in this moment trying to like looking
up and be like, I'll see.
Yeah.
I hope it's the pick that asks you, right? Is it like an enchanted pick or something?
Yeah, I feel like when you like, when you finally assemble the pick together and start moving
a toward lock, it goes, wow, wow, wow, wow, I'm not just going to do this for any smucker
bows. Oh, I need to make sure that I'm with somebody cool. And the way that I know the
people are cool? Trivia.
So, movies.
You see, you look like Joe Pescian,
you look like Jason Statham.
This is a man who must enjoy his films.
So, how many James Bond's have there been?
All right.
All right, it's your job.
I don't want to push it, but imagine Anthony
in a new Jackbox game.
It's a magical pick.
Mm-hmm.
It is?
Okay, you just, just do it on it, it's doing it.
All right, so I say, let's see,
a Shang Canary, George Langs and B,
Brad your mother.
Well, he's in Bees the second one.
Yeah.
Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brasian, Daniel Craig.
That's it?
The pic goes, yeah, that's pretty good.
That's all of them.
I mean, technically David Niven was in the Casino Royale movie with Peter Sellers, but I'm I'll let you go
If you roll high on the legend, we're kind of yeah, and I yeah, there's also that I'm thinking the new one
There's a woman who takes over the moniker of 007. Yeah, yeah, but I did say James Bond because I did think that might be
I might you might try to catch you if you're roll lower
I would have caution said said 007, but I
I might try to catch you. If you're roll low, I would have caught you and said 007,
but I look at you.
Back to the bushes.
All right, and so quick, the cell door pops open,
and now you are in the middle of a rowdy riot
between the stools and the guards.
And you can see that even the non stools in their cells
are like getting amped up about this.
They're dead in sight.
And with the months that you've been here,
you probably have seen that there is a room, basically,
at the top of each cell block that has proof-class windows
around it where they can look at the cell the whole time,
and they have a lot of buttons and levers and stuff
that can pull in there to turn off the lights when it lights out
and open the cell doors and all that kind of stuff.
And you also know the path out.
I add a note to self.
Stage of play at Gr Gromio and Juliet,
starring the Stouliets and Gards.
Stouliets, Stouliets, wherefore are they?
Stouliets.
I told you, I'm not gonna talk.
I'm not gonna talk.
The East is a snitch.
When you're a guard, you're a guard all the way.
So I've probably been kind of friendly with the guards
because I know them very well over this time. So I might have kind of friendly with the guards because I know them very well over this time
So I might have been shatty with them and kind of have some inside information about what does what
That's a lot of things to say sure
You can go ahead and roll another charisma check for me. See if you like could befriend the guards.
Okay, let's see here.
If this ends up with you being a fucking guard in that bank,
I know we're furious.
Furious.
Bring it home, Arnie, you can do it.
Oh my god.
And Anthony Walton, Arnie's doing that.
Can you let everyone know how much work you put into this early
haven't gotten to you?
I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry.
Several weeks.
Several weeks.
OK, interesting, interesting.
Yeah, yeah.
But it's fine.
It was all, not as good as this.
16.
All right, so your modifier for persuasion
is a plus two.
So you got an 18.
So yes, there is something about your bank manager murdering
self that has a lot of these guards who are actually in debt
to the bank for House loans they took out.
They're pretty psyched.
They think you're one of the good prisoners.
And so yeah, they go like, they took you around
on a little fun tour of the prison on one of the day,
which definitely makes all the other inmates fucking hate you.
But they're like, hey, there's where we got all the levers and bits
for the, you know, there's that big red bum
you should never push, don't ever push that bum. I'm getting a lot of trouble. But there's, yeah, I mean, there's where we got all the levers and bits for the you know, there's that big red bum You should never push don't ever push that button. I'm getting a lot of trouble
But there's yeah, man
There's also the bud that releases the tear gas and the button that calls for the attack helicopter and
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so
You want to play pickleball or?
All right, so after I get out of the cell I hit the red button. Okay, so you run to the guard station essentially.
Oh, and I just want to be clear,
before I take the prison highlights magazine with me.
Okay, good.
We'll say that's an improvised handhand weapon.
Yeah, like an important identity.
Yeah, so you get to the doorway of the guard control room
and that guard who asked you to be on the pickleball team
is in there and he goes, oh, oh, Crusher, Crusher,
thank goodness you're safe.
You gotta get back inside your cells,
something bad's happened.
I'm going to, you know, I don't wanna kill more people.
So I base, first of all, this is a very important question.
What does this guard look like?
Does this guard look like anybody?
This guard looks like Bob Odin Kirk.
Oh, can't, definitely can't kill him then.
Love Bob Odin Kirk.
Yeah, so what you're also saying is like,
he's quick to anger, but in a hilarious way.
Yeah, he's endearing because of his faults,
not despite them.
Right, if there's a pan in there, don't kiss the pan.
Yeah, because it will kiss you.
I am going to say to the guard, ma'am, this place is crazy.
We got it.
We got to get out of here.
Not just for me, for your own safety.
I swear to you, I will turn myself in after we get out.
But we're all going to die in here.
And I hit the red button and I say, please Bob, come with me.
Get out, let's get out of here. It's not worth your life.
Okay, so you hit the red button and all the cell doors for all the prisoners open.
Roll dissection, okay, because you're saying you're gonna turn yourself in, you're almost certainly not going to.
Yeah.
I rolled a 20 or 19 plus 423.
Wow!
So, uh, guard, guard Odin Kirk. Odin, got, got,, so guardoing Kirk says,
guardoing Kirk says,
you're right.
You're right.
Garden Kirk.
Garden Kirk says, oh you're right.
You know what, it's not about guards or stools.
It's just about people that care about each other.
And I think we have a connection.
We gotta get out of here together.
That's about the relationships.
It's about the relationships. Let's get out of here together. That's about the relationships. It's about the relationships.
Let's get out of here, Crusher.
And he grabs you by the hand
and starts running with you through the prison.
This is great.
People are getting shanked around.
You can throw them off of balconies and stuff like that.
And he goes, we could get out through the,
and basically because all the cells are opening every,
but just chaos everywhere.
The guards are almost certainly getting overwhelmed and he runs out to the
sort of the front gate with you and there's snipers are pointing at him and you and he's
like no no it's not five guys it's five we're best friends that like what and he's like
it's five and he hits a button radios for the front door to open and now Ma and punches you can see the front gates open and there's a lot of gunfire inside
There's a lot of chaos, but through it all silhouetted against the muzzle flashes and the smoke and the gunfire
You see garden Kirk and Crusher holding hands running away from it as fast as they can. I'm gonna drive up to the front gate as fast as I can
I hope that everyone who I want to get in there gets in there with me.
Okay.
And I'm still in the bushes.
Beat red still blowing the whistle as much as I can.
Because in a minute I stop, they'll stop trying to get to the source.
Great, great.
Okay, so because I feel like everybody's out of danger,
Ma, Crusher, and Garden Kirk jump into the car.
Actually Ma's driving, right?
So Garden Kirk and Crus Kirk jump into the car. Actually Ma was driving, right? So Garden Kirk and Crusher jump into the car,
and you can all pick up punches easily.
And so yeah, now you're all shoved in this car.
Garden Kirk goes, okay, cool, we're safe.
We're safe, I think I can hear them stop freaking out.
So you're gonna go back in now, right?
We gotta go back in, because I'll lose my job
if you don't go back in the prison.
Who are your friends, your friends seem nice.
Garden Kirk, buddy, look, I know what's in my heart.
You know it's in my heart, but they're not gonna understand.
We had to do what we had to do to survive,
but now we have to, we have to save you a good name
and it's not gonna be enough for me to turn myself in.
What we gotta do is we gotta raise a lot of money
to get your life back together, buddy.
You need to help us get some money for you,
to save you.
You need to join our gang, Garden Kirk.
We could use a guy to drive the getaway car.
We got a gig plan here.
He goes, well, and now that we're out of the prison
I feel like I'd use my normal voice because actually I wasn't so much in debt to a bank
it was more of a certain Don Tribionist certain profiteer of illegal additional funds and I'm thinking
maybe we could come to some sort of arrangement and And he, Garden Kirk, now Robin Kirk,
is currently in the front seat.
In the present day, sitting in the driver's seat,
waiting for all of you to finish with the heist,
that still does not answer the question
of what crusher is doing on the evening of the heist.
Question, we have to go back seven.
That.
An email.
An email from Anthony Birch dated Monday, April 25th.
Guys!
This session will start with a bank heist.
I'll give you the details and you can come up with a plan.
Don't feel pressured to think about this too hard.
It's just going to be the intro for the hero showing up
and the shit really kicking off. I'm not going to be able to do it.
I'm not going to be able to do it.
I'm not going to be able to do it.
I'm not going to be able to do it. Hey, it's Earth Arnie again.
I hope you enjoyed Episode 1 of Shadow City.
Just a minute I'm gonna tell you how you can get more episodes of Shadow City.
But first, the credits.
Crusher was played by Arnie Neekamp, that's me.
Tommy Punches the Plume was played by Adler Fy. Matilda Maobryon was played by Arnie Neekamp, that's me. Tommy Punches Deplume was played by Adler Fy.
Matilda Ma O'Brien was played by Matt Young. Our special guest game master was Anthony
Birch. Anthony is a writer for video games, comics and television. You can also hear Anthony
as the Dungeon Master on the Outstanding Podcast Dungeons and Daddies, which is currently in
its second season. I personally happen to be a proud Patreon supporter of Dungeons and Daddies, which is currently in its second season. I personally happen to be a proud Patreon supporter of Dungeons and Daddies, and encourage you
to do that as well.
Shadow City was produced by Arnie Neekamp, Adil Raffai, and Matt Young, post-production
coordination by Garrett Schultz.
This episode with all of its delightful sound design was edited by Sage GC, and the theme
song was also by Sage.
If you enjoyed the sound design, you should check out Sage's podcast, 20 Sided Stories
and Improvised Comedy and Roll Playing podcast.
A low-von-the-magic tavern is an independent production.
If you want to support the show, head over to patreon.com slash magic tavern.
As I said in the intro, we are creeping closer to having enough patreon supporters to meet
the stretch goal to release the remaining episodes of Shadow City which are already recorded.
And if you join the patreon, you could help us get even closer.
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Okay, that's enough of me talking.
You already heard me in the full episode AND in the framing device?
That's too much.
Thanks for listening, thanks for your support, and we'll be back with a new Hello from
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Thanks for watching, and I'll see you next week.