Dungeons And Douchebags v0.1

Slide 1: Dungeons and Douchebags v0.1 Alexander Williams April 10, 2008

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Slide 3: Contents 1 Introducing the Douches 5 1.1 What? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 1.2 Why?! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2 Setting Basics 7 2.1 The Vast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.2 Douchebags on Patrol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.3 Life in the Vast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 2.3.1 The Average Joe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 2.3.2 The Nobility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 2.3.3 Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 2.3.4 Dungeons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 2.4 Magicks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 3 Mechanical Domination 11 3.1 Character Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 3.2 Dungeon Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 3.3 Working It Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 3.3.1 Setting the Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 3.3.2 Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 3.3.2.1 Winning a Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 3.3.2.2 Losing a Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 3.3.3 Action! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 3.3.3.1 Introduce a Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 3.3.3.2 Increase your Bid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 3.3.3.3 Bring an Unbound Character Into Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 3.3.3.4 Buy an Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 3.3.3.5 Pass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 3.4 Giving It Away . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 3.5 Running Out of Coins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 3.6 The Crypt is Empty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 4 Authorial Afterward 19 3

Slide 4: 4 CONTENTS

Slide 5: Chapter 1 Introducing the Douches Pickles the Drummer: Hey douchebag! Carlson School of Management at the Uni- [car is lowered down] Happy birthday! versity of Minnesota Twin Cities. Metalocalypse (2006) {Birthdayface (b) 1. A vaginal cleansing is simply incom- plete without a proper douchebag. 2. Only (#1.3)} a douchebag would consider accounting a tough class. 1.1 What? 2. douchebag What's a douchebag? Let's ask the sources. Accord- Dictionary.com Someone who has surpassed the levels of jerk and ing to [1], a douchebag is: asshole, however not yet reached fucker or moth- ... well, it doesn't have a denition. That's just erfucker. Not to be confused with douche. how douchebaggy that douchebags are, the standard dictionaries just won't carry them. Reference.com [2], on the other hand, contains Rob: He kept hitting on my girlfriend at the party, he just wouldn't leave her this: alone!! Sam: God, what a douchebag. Douche bag, or simply douche, is considered 3. douchebag to be a pejorative term in Australia, the United States, Canada and New Zealand. A person with a shitty personality that needs to The slang usage of the term dates back to "take themselves the fuck down" or "go home the 1960s. The metaphor of identifying a and get their fucking shine box." A douchebag person as a douche is intended to associate usually assumes the form of a hair-gelling pretty- a variety of negative qualities, specically boy but can also be described as an overzealous, arrogance and malice. pompous, or vexatious asshole that most people wish were killed with a Mortal Kombat fatality. Well, that's certainly clear! But there's other sources. What about the Urban Dictionary [3]? Damn, i thought "Beverly Hills 90210" won the permane Hot Chicks 1. douchebag With Douchebags nt award for most (a) n. fr. "douche", fr. French, fr. Italian douchebags casted in one weekly tele- "doccia" 1. An object used for vaginal hy- vision show, but then someone had to giene. 2. A student or instructor at the go make that show, "Friends." 5

Slide 6: 6 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCING THE DOUCHES They have a lot to say on the subject of douchebags! For a more visual take on the essence of being a douchebag, please go examine Hot Chicks With Douchebags [4] which carries out a much needed ef- fort to categorize and denigrate the douchebag which rises above it's station. Having now dened the specics of the issue, we move on to equally unsavory topics. 1.2 Why?! Mainly because of a guy who refers to himself as Un- cle Ghastly. On his LiveJournal[6], Uncle Ghastly referred to the Penny Arcade comic Hot Dog [5] with the following words: Dun- I so want to make an RPG called geons and Douchebags . Penny Arcade I nd quite often with it's the little throw-aways in the strips like this that get a bigger laugh out of me than the actual punchlines. But it's probably be- cause I'm old and not a hardcore gamer. The author, however, is a hardcore gamer and fool- ishly made the following reply: The sad thing is I could probably assemble a reasonably playable rst version in under a week. That's a scary concept. He was subsequently called on it and the rest, fortu- nately or not, is history. Douches, it seems, are destined to go into the dun- geon.

Slide 7: Chapter 2 Setting Basics Singer: Jasper the Douchebag Ghost, the 2.1 The Vast douchiest ghost posessed. He'll call you names and be real mean until you feel de- Worlds come and go. Universes evanesce and evap- pressed. He'll always say... orate. The backdrop against which their Platonic shadows are cast is called the Vast, and within one Jasper The Douchebag Ghost: FUCK corner of it lingers a few scratches, scant marks YOU! And lick my sack, ya fairy! against the ephemeral wonder of the rest of time and Singer: He's so damned rude and so damed space. While the universe at large washed in and crude. Jasper the Douchebag Ghost! out like a lazy tide, this one place, this one time is locked into an eternal bubble, preserved and stabi- Robot Chicken (2005) {Book of Corrine lized against the ages and against entropy. Because the inhabitants aren't all that creative and (#2.20)} it loops back on itself at the edges, this little corner of Heaven is also called the Vast. Every game has a context, some structure within The Vast exists for a purpose. While an idyllic, which the virtualized actions of the protagonists ex- pastoral landscape unsullied by the industrialization ist. Once that context is established, the rest of the that has scarred the surface of all other worlds is experience is largely self-creating. A good under- worth having in and of itself, a compelling, nay, over- standing of that context allows the Players to create whelming reason for it's continued existence tints the a rewarding Shared Imaginative Space and proceed very underpinnings of the world. Such a mighty, over- through a synthesis of System and Conict to a sat- arching reason brings by it's very existence weight isfying Experience of Play. and profundity to the gentle green rolling hills and Or at least that's what the Forgies[7] would have golden-touched wheat-lands. us believe. To wit, the Vast exists as the nal repository for Truth is, we just need excuses to beat things with the Transcendent Douchebag. other things. We'd do it anyway and there's nothing more we need than a thin veneer of reason to pro- ceed with great relish bashing bits of random idea- 2.2 Douchebags on Patrol stu with other bits of random idea-stu. It's just in this case, the idea-stu involved are tagged with the Very few people know that the Archetypes within names Douchebags and Dungeons. sentient life aren't mere constructs of whimsy, but Really, do we need anything else? anchored in the very bedrock of the universe. The Oh, well, ne. Sage, the Hero, the Messiah and the Mother are all 7

Slide 8: 8 CHAPTER 2. SETTING BASICS inherent aspects of the realm of existence. Even the safely locked into the torroidal space, the multiverse Villain and the Crony are cogs on the mighty gear- simply writes them o, dusts o it's hands and goes works that drive the nature of experience. Among about it's business, whistling a jaunty little locked- the Archetypes, only one has the inherent power to away-those-annoying-Douchebags song. derail the engine of the onrushing train of sapience, to unscrew the lugs on the Wheel of Time. 1 That is the Douchebag. 2.3 Life in the Vast In the beginning, there was no Douchebag. Archetype struggled against Archetype within the Really, it'd be all rather nice if it weren't for all the connes of worlds and by the friction of their nar- Douchebags. rative conict was the heat to move forward the uni- Seriously, there is plenty of airable land, the native verse made. Somewhere in this course, there was an creatures and peoples are all really nice and there's inclusion. Like a diamond's aw, unseen until the even a sprinkling of that most rare of environmental light caught it just so, the Douchebag came into be- advantages, good weather. It's pretty fucking won- ing. derful. Except for the Douchebags. The rst were hardly worth noticing, monkey- One of the problems with the inux of Douchebags wrenches that only diverted energies better spent is that over the tens of thousands of abstract years elsewhere, but soon their replication had spread to all they've been getting unceremoniously booted to the worlds, to all times, and the very multiverse itself was Vast, they have interbred with the locals, causing a endangered. Douchebags, compelled by their very number of children of every generation to be inher- nature to mate incessantly with Hot Chicks, were out- ently Douchy. While nowhere near as vile and rep- breeding more productive folk. Despite the lack of rehensible as the true Douchebags that get dropped guiding, overarching intelligence, the multiverse was in on a regular basis, their presence bodes poorly for driven to strike back. the viability of the natives. Douchebags are prone The Vast was born. It was made to be the least to poor child-rearing practices and as such there are challenging world in the panoply of stars, idyllic. The entire tribes who've died despite Douchebaggery's re- native population was hard-working, soft of speech, cessive manifestation. With the original purity of the timid of nature, and kind. The native wildlife were people fading, so too has the primordial tranquility mild and unassuming. Predators had blunted teeth. of the world itself. In short, the Vast was forged in the heart of suns to soften the hardest hearts with idyll and provide a wonderland for those with even the mildest spark of 2.3.1 The Average Joe ambition for good. The average Joe in the Vast lives in an agrarian soci- Unfortunately for the natives of the Vast, the uni- ety with an extremely peaceful history. Villages are verse dumps those saponts who truly represent the generally small, only a few hundred people seperated Douchebag aesthetic into the Vast as a means of keep- by large farming tracts. Most of the land proper is ing them from making more havoc amongst peoples owned by the nobles who, truth be told, are the pri- who might actually contribute to the promotion of mary accumulators of native-born Douchbag-nature. people to higher states of evolution. Once they are Farms and farmers are simple, with the former kept 1 Notall Douchebags are male, despite the vast numbers in shape by oxen, plows, and the other ten-thousand of them which are. As Hot Chicks With Douchebags[4] little things that low-technology demands and the lat- shows, the Greico Virus, primary vector of the Douchebag na- ter just as simple in mind and beliefs. Farming vil- ture, can infect otherwise quite beautiful women, turning them lages, mining villages, shing villages and forresting into painfully tormented Bleeths with all the Douchebag traits save the testosterone. While this is a terrible, horrid situation villages are all easy to nd and fairly low on the level to be drawn into, it is not rare. Sadly. of Douche spread throughout.

Slide 9: 2.3. LIFE IN THE VAST 9 At least once a fortnight there is a celebration in over without involving the good and pleasant people the villages. Religion has never been a huge concern of the pastoral countryside, there are now at least in the Vast, being mainly useful to explain away the six hundred dierent cults, churches, denominations, presence of horrible, unexplainable things that simply archives, cloisters, gatherings, and every other kind of don't happen there, but the turning of the seasons, group devoted to telling other people how good they births, harvests, and it just being a sunny day are all are and how much other people, especially rival cults, reasons to get together and party. churches, denominations, archives, cloisters, gather- ings, and every other kind of group, suck. 2.3.2 The Nobility The nobility in most feudal cultures gets it's man- dated power by being the warrior-class. Not so in 2.3.4 Dungeons the Vast because there the nobility are sequestered in large stone buildings and busied with elaborate Give a Douchebag enough time, enough power, and intrigues and politics because they are Douchebags, enough boredom and what will he do? The answer either by birth or by translation across the universal is pointedly not create a world-spanning community barriers. Kept safely away from the mundane pop- devoted to peace, love and understanding built on ulace and given access to plenty of resources (at no the brotherhood of all Mankind. Instead, he's far real burden to the people unless taxes become ex- more likely to put all his eort into building a mo- tremely excessive, beyond even the general disposi- mument to his massive power or a deadly trap for tion of the 'Bags), the nobles plot their petty ven- the unwary or a puzzle which no one, presumably, gences and dance their sultry dances. but he can solve. As a result, others of like-mind will Sometimes they go to war against one another ock from all over the Vast to prove, once and for which gives the farmers and shers and forresters all, that they are more massively powerful, more de- a ne reason to send o their sick and deformed viously cunning, and more brilliantly insightful than and borderline-Douchebags to die in a gloriously big the 'Bag that built the obscene edice in the rst game. No one is really terribly upset by this state of place. aairs, including those sent o to ght. This is how dungeons get built. This is also how they managed to keep the 2.3.3 Cities Douchebag population under control for so long. Thanks to the increasing rate of births which are in- Even with the increase in Greicotized members of fected with the Greico Virus to various degrees, some the society, dungeons are still being built and still be- means of isolating that population had to be found. ing explored. If anything, they are being built at an City building turned out to be a quick and dirty an- ever increasing rate, but because of the need for ex- swer. Having been tasked with building huge conur- tensive grounds for most of their designs, insucient banizations within which they could smoke, ght, numbers of 'Bags are able to travel from the cities fuck, and dance in small rooms full of ashing lights out to the location of the dungeons in the surround- to their heart's content, the Douchebag-tending peo- ing countryside at some signicant distance. ples moved into three major cities which are kept Moving the necessary numbers of Douches from supplied with food and materials by the surround- cities to dungeons has already led to the develop- ing farmers and other mundanes and supplied with ment of a fairly sturdy road network in the Vast, not decadence and debauchery by the nobility. unlike the eorts of ancient Rome in our world. In- Within these cities, a strange memetic fungus has creased pressure for development of higher capacity found a niche at last: religion. Originally con- and mechanized travel methods may push their devel- ceived as another thing the Douchebags could ght opment of transportation technology past our own.

Slide 10: 10 CHAPTER 2. SETTING BASICS 2.4 Magicks One of the things the increasingly frequent breakage of the dimensional barriers has done is weaken the fabric of the Vast as a whole, allowing bizarre ener- gies to slip in unannounced, curl up cozy-like beside someone's soul and react to their whims and urges like a symbiotic metaphysical gland. Some have sug- gested that this metaphysical infection is merely an unmoored energy which responds to the strongest willed and most worthy. The people saying that are all Douchebags. The common people generally agree that whatever it is slipping through the door left very slightly ajar is most denitely a sentient thing or many of them, and while the 'Bags may think the power that lets them set buildings on re with a lit fart or command oth- ers touched by the power to unlace their breeches and bend over is generally impersonal and drawn only to their luminary nature, the truth is that it's probably extremely parasitical and undoubtedly lives on the pure satisfaction it gains from helping the Douches embarass, imperil, torment, bind, and hump one an- other. In that sense, whatever powers magick in the Vast and the mundanes have much in common.

Slide 11: Chapter 3 Mechanical Domination Chris: Yeah, why the fuck should we trust • Some pens. you, you douchebag? What, you didn't think we'd be writing with our Team America: World Police tongues, did you? (2004) • A bad attitude. There always needs to be a way to resolve conicts, Douchebags! Duh! not the least reason being that without one all the talk about kicking various peoples' asses really just Put the massive pile of Coins o to the side of the sounds like posturing. It's Douchy! But since we're table. This is the Pit. Coins there are done, gone, only playing a game about Douchebags and we aren't kaput, out of the world, inactive. It's also where they 'Bags ourselves, it's in our best interests to put in all start play, making them simple to keep track of. some bits about how to resolve things. Dungeons and Douchebags is not your typical Give a 3x5 to every Player for their Character. Put one in the middle for the Dungeon. Give everyone a RPG design. There are no dice. There is no Dungeon pen. Master pulling the strings behind the scenes. Hell, That's it. The rest is up to you. there's not even a unied story arc or pre-planned Well, alright, the rest is process. set of 10'x10' rooms that you poor Douchebags will have to navigate one by one until the big baddie at the end stomps you due to the endish machinations 3.1 Character Creation of the real Douchebag at the table. No, we've done away with all of that to simply get right to the meat Creating your own 'Bag in Dungeons and of the material. Things that it would be really helpful to possess Douchebags is easy as pie. And thankfully so, else the interest level would drop far too suddenly and no before starting the game: one'd end up playing, prefering instead to watch old • A stack of 3x5 cards episodes of Battlestar Galactica on the TiVo or Mainly for putting characters on and keeping something. track of what Challenges are on the table. 1. Grab a 3x5 card and the pen, and pick 3 - 5 • 10 Coins per Player Traits you think your character would possess, The very meat of the system here, guys. and write them down on the card. This can be • 6x the number of Players in Coins as simple as Great Hair or as complicated as For the Dungeon and Pit. We can't have the Serpentine Tongue Moves Like Water Through Dungeon running out of Coins too early, right? Your Cleavite Prana. All we ask is that you 11

Slide 12: 12 CHAPTER 3. MECHANICAL DOMINATION leave enough space next to each for a one-digit • Doughlass D'Baggio, Soldier number.  Beat Shit Up With a Sword: 5 If you're having problems with coming up with a concept, go check out Hot Chicks With  Kick 'Em When They're Down: 3 Douchebags [4] and just surf the pictures a  Just Followin' Orders: 2 while. We'll wait. Pick someone that looks ap- propriately 'Baggy and think about what they'd  Weakness: Original Thinking Particularly applies to having to come up be like in a fantasy epic. Yeah, like that. with new ideas and solutions; just hit it As examples: always works! • Built Like a Mac Truck • Randall Hamsterwheel, Mighty Sorcerer! 1  Filthy, Nastly Sex-Magick  The Blackest of Black Metal Magicks: 6  More Bling Than Yo Mama  Smooth Like Goose Shit On Ice: 2  Tits Out to Here  Oily as an Arab Hair Gel  Great Hair: 2  I'm from Jersey, baby!  Weakness: Easily Distracted By Boobies  Can Take An Ass-Smack or Two • Molly Ringworm, Vicious Bleeth  Bitches Everywhere  Roman Hands and Russian Fingers  Rack, Now With Extra Cleavite: 3  Daggers Strapped Everywhere: 3 2. Take 10 points and distribute them over your Traits. The easiest way to do this may be to  She's a Bitch, Yup: 2 just grab 10 Coins and stack them how you want  Kick To the Ding: 2 them. You'll need them later, anyway. Once you  Weakness: Flattery get your Traits allocated, write down their value How else would all these Douches get with next to the Trait. her? 3. Write down your Character's Weakness, that thing or group of things they simply cannot 3.2 Dungeon Creation stand, are distracted by, or are vulnerable to. Lust for Bling is a good one, as are Complete Dungeons are created almost exactly like Characters, Dog and Complete Bitch. Challenges that in- which is probably a good thing because otherwise volve your Weakness put two Coins from the Pit we'd have an ugly tangle of rules and cites and things into the opposite side whenever you get involved, and it'd just be annoying. Who needs it! Am I right? but you'll learn more about that later over 3.3 on the facing page. 1. Someone (anyone) grab a 3x5 card and, by con- census (that means together) decide on 4 - 7 You're done. Bing, bang, boom, you're through Traits that the Dungeon should possess. Some Character Creation. Make sure you have a pile of examples: 10 Coins from the Pit next to your Character be- cause you'll need them. The Coins there are called • Brutal Deathtraps your Scrote. Try not to scratch them too much. You • An Open, Airy Floorplan use Coins from your Scrote to bid on Challenges. Example characters: 1 The exclamation mark is important, yo!

Slide 13: 3.3. WORKING IT OUT 13 • Live-In Kobold Tribe, Born in Blood and 3.3 Working It Out Suering Now you probably want to know how to play the • Pit Trap game, right? Probably a good time for it. • Lots of Vines Game-play is broken up into Rounds. One Round • Randomly Misplaced Exo-Ecological is dened as the opportunity for every Player around Wildlife the table to take an Action. Each Round, the rst Player to Act moves over one (you work out the di- • Glittery Gemstones rection, be consistent). • Political Inghting The rst Player to Act in a Round has control of • Discotechque the Dungeon and is the only one who can make Chal- lenges or bid Coins on it's behalf. In the rst Round • Big-Busted Amazon Warrior-Women, Glis- of the game, the person who controls the Dungeon tening With Cleavite, Looking For Men To sets the Scene, describing where the characters are, Sate Their Womanly Needs and Hungers what's going on, and so forth. Once the Dungeon has made a full trip around You get the idea. the table, every Player having controlled it for one 2. Split 15 points up between the Dungeon's Traits. Round, the next Player in order controls the Dun- Yep, Dungeons are slightly more powerful than geon and sets a new Scene. Any Challenges which individual Characters. Who knew? weren't resolved from the last Scene get resolved by concensus and all Coins on them revert back to their 3. Dungeons don't have weaknesses, you silly fuck! owners. Play continues until the Dungeon is out of Coins! Finished! The Dungeon needs a pile of 5x the num- Whoever has the biggest Scrote at that point is ber of Players in Coins (called the Crypt) somewhere named best Douchebag and can narrate how the near it's card within easy reach of everyone, because group leaves the dungeon and what happens to them everyone will be playing the Dungeon at some point. after! The Dungeon has more resources at the beginning of You probably need a quick run-down of the overall the game than the Characters, but this is as it should sequence: be. It's big and made of  stu ! We need a sample dungeon or two: Beginning of the Scene: • The Hideous Island of Doctor Mou Row! 1. Player with the Dungeon sets the Scene.  Twisted Man-Beast Hybrids: 5 2. Starting with the Dungeon, Players do  Network of Subterranean Tunnels: 3 their Actions which can include:  Vagina Dentata: 2 (a) Introduce a Challenge ( 3.3.3.1 on  DRAGON-MAN!: 5 page 16 ) (b) Increase their Bid on a Challenge • Castle of the Red Death ( 3.3.3.2 on page 16 )  Political Intrigue: 4 (c) Toss a Coin into the Pit to bring  Ballroom Dances: 3 an Unbound Character Into Play ( 3.3.3.3 on page 17 )  Sexual Innuendo: 4 (d) Toss a Coin into the Pit to take  Hot Sweaty Butt-Humping: 3 another Action when the current

Slide 14: 14 CHAPTER 3. MECHANICAL DOMINATION Actions are done; for the Player 3.3.1 Setting the Scene with the Dungeon, this is the only way their Character can act this The rst poor bastard with the Dungeon in every Round ( 3.3.3.4 on page 17 ) Scene has to set the Scene. A lot of people aren't used to being responsible for doing so but it can be (e) You can pass ( 3.3.3.5 on page 18 one of the most rewarding parts of the game (aside ) from calling the other players Douchebags, which has 3. Once all the Actions are resolved, the it's own peculiar charm). When it's your turn to set Dungeon shifts over by one Player and the Scene, you want to think about two things: they start the next Round with: Scene Not-Beginning: • What's someplace that'd be in a dungeon? 1. Starting with the Dungeon, Players Claim Challenges • What'd be cool for us to be in conict with? 2. Starting with the Dungeon, Players do If you can get those two things right, up front, the their Actions which can include: rest takes care of itself. (a) Introduce a Challenge A few examples might be in order: (b) Increase their bid on a Challenge (c) Toss a Coin into the Pit to bring an Unbound Character Into Play • Everybody's standing in a 10'x10' room. A door leads out to the north and one to the west. In (d) Toss a Coin into the Pit to take the middle of the room is a pile of bling, hazy another Action when the current and insubstantial in the smoke rising from the Actions are done; for the Player pit of coals which surround it. Above the bling, with the Dungeon, this is the only a scantily-dressed, nubile 18 year old hangs from way their Character can act this her wrists, doe-eyes clearly begging to be licked! Round (e) You can pass • Douchy McDouchebaggins there strolls into a 3. Claimed and Won Challenges resolve vast open area, lled with trees, stalactites of and their Coins get ipped to see where amethyst stretching down from above to almost they go. tree-top level. Swinging through the trees is a 4. Once all Challenges are resolved, the host of silver-backed gorillas with dicks for noses, Dungeon shifts over by one Player and coming to fuck us all! they start the next Round, unless that Player has already had the Dungeon • Imagine the downest club outside of Yonkers, this Scene, in which case: motherfucker. Bright lights, ash bling, and hot- (a) Clean up unresolved Challenges ties everywhere! and return their Coins to the own- ers • It's a swamp. Fuckin' mud and shit, yo. Nasty- (b) Unbound Characters ip the Coin ass. But there be some ne-ass hookers hangin' used to bring them in; heads, it and bangin' with the kobold-brothers up there, goes back to the Player's Scrote and that shit be tight ! (or Crypt), tails it goes to the Pit (c) Dungeon shifts over by one Player Play to your strengths. Keep the Dungeon's Traits in and they start the Beginning of mind, too, since Challenges it bids on will be limited Scene by them.

Slide 15: 3.3. WORKING IT OUT 15 3.3.2 Challenges A great one for the inevitable Dungeon Scene which gets set in a big-ass ballroom or mideval Challenges are the bling and cleavite of getting things done in Dungeons & Douchebags . They act as club. Everyone wants to be the badass she heads out with (except for Ms. Tightass Bleethgirl, the conicts where things get beat down, Charac- who probably put the Challenge on the table in ters get shown up, Players get coin-lovin' and the Pit the rst place), so it's almost guaranteed to get gets fed. They're also really dierent than anything you some Coin. you've probably played with before, so listen up. A Challenge is something that is both in doubt • Douglas Thunderdouche, master of the black and not resolved yet. Ideally, you put a Challenge on arts, raises his hands on high and lets loose a the table that you think other people'll want to get mighty spell! involved with, because the more they get involved, You'd think this is a great Challenge to drop the more likely you are to prot! You didn't think all if you're playing Doughlas Thunderdouche, and these Coins could be oating around and there be no you'd be right, but it can be even better if you're prot motive, did you? As long as a Challenge is on not. Thunderdouche will denitely want to win the table, whatever it's about hasn't happened yet this one, not the least reason being that he wants and you can't just narrate a stateme that assumes it to pull o a mighty spell on his own terms and he until the Challenge is resolved, one way or another. can't until the Challenge is resolved! If he's been Let's talk Challenges with some examples. getting by most of the game by tossing a spell in every narration, this is sure to get his attention. • The horrid bunch of kobolds give the party a Likewise, if you're an evil, evil Dungeon ... beat-down. Pretty much a standard Dungeon opening Chal- • Finally breaking through the anti-magic shield, lenge Action, assuming that there's been a a spell goes o ! kobold bunch that's pretty nasty-looking setup Cruel and twisted, until this gets resolved no in the Scene. Not that there'd have to be, mind spells can go o. Evil! But immensely fun. you, and anyone could inject this glistening jewel into play. The Players will probably not just • Eric Tongue takes a blow! ght the Dungeon over this one but each other Strangely, more useful than you'd think to drop to get to narrate who comes out on the ugly-end if you're Eric Tongue, since until it's resolved and who looks good doing it. you simply can't take a blow! Of course, if one Important to note here is that the beat-down of the other Players Claims and resolves this, you of the party is not a foregone conclusion. The might not be taking the kind of blow you expect! ght with the kobolds can't be narrated as done, however, until this Challenge is resolved one way 3.3.2.1 Winning a Challenge or another. When a Challenge resolves (that is, once it's been • The kobolds ght like Hell. Claimed and that Player has won the bid on it), the winning Player gets to narrate how that hap- Another perfectly good way of phrasing the rst pens. This is part of the big payo for winning. The example but possibly less likely to get people other payo is that everyone ips the Coins they had riled-up enough to want to ght it tooth and bid into the Challenge. Heads go back into the bid- nail. Which you actually reach for depends on ders' Scrotes or Crypt. The winner's tails get split your cunning, Douchebaggy tactics! up and distributed to the other Players in the Chal- • The Princess of Cleaviteburg heads out the lenge (winner's decision on how they get split up but door. a minimum of one Coin to each loser) unless they'd

Slide 16: 16 CHAPTER 3. MECHANICAL DOMINATION be going back to the Crypt; Coins that'd go back their money. Literally. Remember, losing a Chal- to the Crypt go to the Pit instead. Losers' tails go lenge is protable! Winning is what you do when straight to the Pit. 2 you want to take control of the story but losing is Winning a Challenge has a potentially greater ef- what you do when you want to earn Coin so you can fect: If you win the Challenge, rather than taking win! your heads back into your Scrote or into the Crypt, When you Introduce a Challenge, the Coin used you can put those Coins into increasing a current to bring it out also serves as your opening bid on Trait or adding a brand new one to anyone or any- it. If you Claimed it at the beginning of the next thing involved in the Challenge, as long as the Trait Round and no one else bids on it before the end of you're adding is related! The Coins so used get tossed the next Round, you'll win the Challenge and narrate in the Pit. the result, ip your bid and either put it back in your Yes, this means you can add Traits like Nobody Scrote (if it's heads) or toss it in the Pit (if it's tails). Likes Him to Mr. Choad sitting next to you; that Unchallenged Challenges don't cost much, at least. means that he can use that Trait to aect Challenges 3.3.2 on the previous page goes on at length about in the future, but he'll have to do it by playing it up. how to create good Challenges and why you'd want Ha ha! to. 3.3.2.2 Losing a Challenge 3.3.3.2 Increase your Bid You're a loser. Cry me a river. Most of the time, you'll be increasing your bid on There is no up-side to losing, except the winner has Challenges that are already on the table. This is to pay you tribute from his tails. Unless you're the where all those weird little numbers you scrawled in Dungeon, then the winner's tails go straight to the next to your Traits come into play, and why they're Pit and you die in a re, emo kid. even remotely important. Increasing your bid involves taking a Coin or more from your Scrote (or the Crypt if you're playing for 3.3.3 Action! the Dungeon), and putting it on a Challenge while Every Player gets an Action every Turn. That in- explaining how one of your Traits is played out, let- cludes the Player with the Dungeon. It does not ting you aect the outcome. You can only use one mean every Character gets an Action; the Player with Trait on a given Challenge in a Scene and you can't the Dungeon doesn't get an Action for his Character use that Trait on a dierent Challenge in the Scene unless he buys it with a Coin. The quick run-down until the rst one's resolved! Not only that, but the for what you can do with an Action lives up in 3.3 on Trait's value denes what the highest bid you can page 13. We'll break it out a bit here. make on a Challenge is, so if you've got the Trait at 3, the highest bid you can make using that Trait is 3 Coins. A Challenge which already has a bid of 3 3.3.3.1 Introduce a Challenge from someone on it is one you can't win! Still, until The usual and obvious rst Action in every Scene for that Challenge is resolved, your Trait is tied up. the Dungeon's Player and pretty frequently used by This leads to a particularly Douchy strategy of lur- the other Players during almost every Round, par- ing someone into bidding on a Challenge, raising the ticularly for injecting Challenges that they gure the bid up over their engaged Trait, then simply not other Players will jump on and give them a run for Claiming the Challenge and thus never resolving it until the end of the Scene, when the Coins just pop 2 An optional, alternate rule is that the Crypt has no special out and go home. Doing so proves that you are a ne standing and gets paid o for losing just like any other Player. This will mean that the Dungeon keeps Coin in the Crypt 'Bag and will probably result in you getting punched longer. if you do it too much, but it certainly works!

Slide 17: 3.3. WORKING IT OUT 17 If you bid on a Challenge, everyone else at the ta- the edge. What's that? That's right, UCs don't even ble gets the chance to raise the bid, starting with the have to be people. They can have any Traits you so next person and proceeding back around to you. If desire, so they might be environments, they might be someone raises, everyone at the table has the oppor- weapons, they might be hot slutty chicks with huge tunity to raise that. Continue until no one can or racks and wet DSLs. Don't hesitate to be creative! wants to raise the bid on that Challenge. All the A few sample UCs and their Traits: previous rules about Challenges still apply; if you're bidding or raising a Challenge, you can only do so • Donkey with a single Trait.  Kicks Like A Mule: 4 3.3.3.3 Bring an Unbound Character Into  Carries Heavy Shit: 1 Play • Thunderstorm You know all those random characters running around in every story that seems to just pop in and  Damn, It's Slippery!: 5 out of the plot but aren't the protagonists? They • Jayne Reyerson, Generic Boot-Lackey might be henchmen, or cultists, or weird guys with perverse sneers, or just some doof that stumbled into  Follow Orders: 3 the melee and got confused. Those are Unbound  Grovel: 2 Characters! Why are they Unbound, you ask? Be- cause no Player owns Unbound Characters. • Magic Fuckin' Flaming-Ass Sword, Mother- Unbound Characters (hereafter UCs) are created fucker! the rst time they're summoned up, not at the begin- ning of the game. They follow the rules for creating  Burns Shit Right The Fuck Up!: 5 other Characters (see 3.1 on page 11), but with three • James Eldridge's Big Honkin' Spellbook 3 minor changes: • They're only made with 5 Trait points  Dire Black Magic: 3 • They have no Scrote of their own  Random Knowledge: 2 • Anyone can play them during a Scene 3.3.3.4 Buy an Action Once a UC has been brought into play, they remain This is the one Action you can combine with any so until the end of the Scene at which point they just other Action and even do it more than once every go back into a generic UC pile. While on the table, Round. For the low, low cost of putting one Coin into you can use a UC's Traits just as if you were using the Pit, you can have another Action once the cur- your own, bidding them into Challenges from your rent Round of Actions is done. You'll want to com- Scrote and so on. Players still only get one Action bine buying another Action with something or you're per Round unless they buy another for Coin, even if just wasting resources, but particularly for whoever's they have a UC (or more than one)! The Coin used stuck with the Dungeon, this can keep your hand to bring a UC into play goes onto the UC itself. At in. No, if you've got the Dungeon, you can't spend the end of the Scene, it's ipped. If the Coin comes from the Crypt to let your Character have an Action, up heads, it heads back to your Scrote (or the Crypt that's just silly. if the Dungeon brought the UC in). If it's tails, into 3 Assuming that Eldridge is a Character in the game, not the Pit with that Coin. a UC, this still works quite wonderfully well with the added UCs are great for pulling out a henchman or even bonus that if you pull in the Spellbook rst, you can bid against a piece of equipment during the game to give you Eldridge with his own tome. Quite a Douche you are!

Slide 18: 18 CHAPTER 3. MECHANICAL DOMINATION 3.3.3.5 Pass Whoever has the biggest Scrote gets to narrate the party's success and the eventual results of the crawl. No one can make you do nothin'. If you don't wanna Everyone who's still alive gets to add one fact or shot do nothin', you can do nothin' ! not already decided by the winner for each Coin in their Scrote, in descending order from most to fewest. If you're dead and out, well, we know what happened 3.4 Giving It Away to you. Die in a re, emo boy. At any time, for any reason or no reason at all, you can give Coins from your Scrote to another Player or even to the Dungeon. If you really want to. Anytime, I mean it! Don't feel compelled or anything, just know you can do it if the opportunity presents itself. 3.5 Running Out of Coins You're out if your Scrote is so empty that no amount of massage will make it spit up another Coin. Unless someone gives you a Coin, you're pretty much out of the game. Keep in mind that if you have any Coins still on the table, bound to bids on Challenges, you're not technically out quite yet. When those Challenges re- solve, you'll likely be getting at least one Coin back. That may suce to keep you in the game for another Scene, anyway. If you're clever, you can set things up so you introduce at least one Challenge that you can lose, and thus earn more Coin. If you're out of Coins in your Scrote and you have no Coin in the Challenges on the table, you're dead. Dead, dead, dead, dead. And out of the game, too. The Player controlling the Dungeon gets to narrate how you die or otherwise leave the game. It will prob- ably be embarassing or insulting but if you grovel long and hard enough, your Character may die a hero's death, loved by all for his or her unrelenting Douch- baggery in the face of overwhelming odds. I wouldn't bet on it, though. 3.6 The Crypt is Empty The Dungeon is out! You troop of brave war- riors, heirophants and other n'er-do-wells emerge tri- umphantly from the Abyss with a wide grin and stains on your clothes! Whoever's left, anyway.

Slide 19: Chapter 4 Authorial Afterward Jason Hawkins: [to Rob] You're not good have known they made a dierence along the way: enough for her. That's it. That's fact. That's science. Beth McIntyre is like from Uncle Ghastly, for madness above and beyond the a whole nother planet, man. She's beauti- call of duty. Honestly, if it hadn't been for my ful, she's charming. And you, I love you, brush with your comics work long ago and the but let's face it you're kind of a douchebag. brief, shining moment you explored the borders And going to Japan is not going to x that. of perverse comedy on my show, this game may have never happened. Cloverfield (2008) DB1, proprietor of Hot Chicks With Douchebags Dungeons & Douchebags [4], for inspiring many, many, And there you have it, many mad and psychotic evenings of ipping in all it's perverse and unholy joy. through your site and laughing our fool heads It's been a long, long time since I did any real game o while admiring the Cleavite. You've pro- design intended for public consumption. Life, as ev- vided much of the terminology and style used eryone knows, has an irritating way of getting in the unwittingly in this text. Poor greasy bastard. Penny Arcade, way and kicking you in the ding until you either curl up into a little fetal ball and whimper or you punch Gabe and Tycho of for it in the face like a Douchebag in a Jersey bar. Actu- inspiring the rst of this horric nightmare ally, there's a perfectly valid Third Way that no one in a completely throw-away line that meant ever mentions which is to soldier on, teeth grit, and absolutely nothing except it radiated cool like a hope you come out the other side reasonably intact furnace. Er, refridgerator. Whatever. and with some dignity. Don't tell anyone I said it, but the Third Way? Yeah, it works. Not as ashy Kay, Eric, and the Rest of my Crew, for putting up with me, helping me, and generally as the other two, but you can get there, uphill, both being better than I am as a person. ways, in the snow. If you've got suggestions, charming anecdotes, or Me, because I did most of the goddamn work on this mechanical revisions you'd like to suggest for an up- thing, yo! date, you can contact me at thantos@gmail.com to go on at great and disturbing lengths about your If you've laughed and shifted uncomfortably in your character. seat while reading this travesty of the modern word, No, really, it's OK. I promise. you might be interested in listening to the live call-in This game is clearly deeply tongue-in-cheek, but I talk show I do on Sunday nights, 9p Eastern, on the wanted to thank a few people who may or may not TalkShoe network. Operation BSU [8] may be the 19

Slide 20: 20 CHAPTER 4. AUTHORIAL AFTERWARD most twisted mix of weekly news reporting and media interviews you've ever heard, but that's no reason not to revel in the madness! Listen to the whole back catalog of shows and call in to catch us live, maybe even be on the air, Sunday night. Whoot!

Slide 21: Bibliography [1] Dictionary.com http://Dictionary.com [2] Reference.com http://Reference.com [3] Urban Dictionary, Douchebag http: //www.urbandictionary.com/define.php? term=douchebag [4] Hot Chicks With Douchebags http://www. hotchickswithdouchebags.com/ [5] Penny Arcade, Hot Dog http://www. penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/4/7/ [6] Ghastly Comic Livejournal, 2008-04-07, Inspira- tion http://ghastlycomic.livejournal.com/ 105802.html [7] The Forge http://www.indie-rpgs.com/ forum/ [8] Operation BSU http://talkshoe.com/tc/ 33899 21