Ep. 2 - The Ties that Bind
01:38:01 Share

They say opposites attract. That's why the Sleep Number Smart Bed is the best bed for couples. You like a bed that feels firm, but they want soft?

Sleep Number does that. You want to sleep cooler while they like to feel warm? Sleep Number does that too. J.D. Power ranks Sleep Number number one in customer satisfaction with mattresses purchased in-store. And now, during Sleep Number's biggest sale of the year, save 50% on the Sleep Number limited edition smart bed, plus special financing for a limited time. For J.D. Power 2023 award information, visit jdpower.com slash awards. Only at a Sleep Number store or sleepnumber.com.

See store for details. Dungeons and Daddies is a rowdy, horny, violent podcast for grown-ups. Content warnings can be found in the episode description. ♪♪

Welcome to Dungeons and Daddies, a non-BDSM podcast about daddies roleplay and leather goods. Thanks so much, by the way, to everyone who has left iTunes reviews or tweeted at us at Dungeons and Dads. It helps get the word out and is very encouraging for a brand new podcast like this one to see that kind of response from all you folks. So thank you so much for everyone who's written in in the past couple of weeks. I'm Freddie Wong and I play Glenn Close, a rock and roll cover band dad.

slash bard. And a fun fact about Glenn, Glenn is pretty bummed out that his Wonderwall rendition didn't work out the way that he hoped it would. Because normally it works every time. At least in his life. It works for me. I'm Matt Arnold and I play Daryl Wilson, a stay-at-home sports dad who has come into his own as a barbarian and he's beginning to think he might miss his wife more than she misses him. laughter

I'm Will Campos. I play Henry Oak, Granola Burke, Bernie Bro, Vegan Dad. And fun fact about Henry, boy oh boy did he find a use for them condoms. I knew they were going to come in handy. They're on my fingers to protect me from the weird druid stuff that I don't understand what is happening to me that is happening by flying on my fingers. So I've got condoms on my hands.

Hey, what's up? I'm Beth May. I play Ron Stampler, emotionally restrained stepfather, crying internally all the time, sustaining internal damage from cringing emotionally at every moment. Fun fact about Ron, he does not have any leg hair.

Oh, dear. Like medically or by choice? One of each. See, the left, it's medical. But the right, it's for fun. You gotta even him out. He's not gonna be some sort of pervert. It's like gluten-free on the right and celiac on the left.

I'm Anthony Burch. I'm your daddy master. And I was, I was 100% certain that we were going to get kind of gay. I was not 100% certain it would happen in literally the very first episode. Welcome to Episode 2, The Ties That Bind.

Okay, so we're not going to do traditional XP awards. I'm just going to do milestone-based leveling. So instead of giving you guys XP for doing the dad jokes, I'm going to instead give you inspiration, which if you don't know what it is, it means whenever you want to, you can spend it to get advantage on a roll, which means you roll two dice and take the better rather than the lesser of the two rolls. I feel like you're hurting the star student after he gets the A-plus in the class. It's like, okay, well now we're going to grade the papers this way. Did you not make a dad joke, spend the thing, and then do another dad joke so you could...

Do it again later in the episode. Yeah. I don't even, I still don't know how it works actually after hearing that because I wasn't paying attention. Just do a dad joke and other people will be harmed around you, but you'll get a benefit later on. This is great. Very method.

So you now know where all of your children presumably are. Which one or ones would you like to go for first? My children. I'm just going to put that out there. I have two children, so they're both in the same space. So that's fractionally, we can rescue the most amount of the children first, which seems like the most efficient, just if I'm being completely objective about it. But if you lose one, it matters less. That's true.

That's true. That's a good idea there, Henry. I just like to think that we won't go for my kid first. Because if we find my kid, I will have to eat his skin. I think we could use a little bit more time to maybe suss out what's going on there and maybe a way out of the dumb curse that he got us into. Yeah, I'm okay with Will's. I mean, I feel like

Whose? Sorry. Whose will? Henry. Oh, Henry. I feel like your kids are cool. Cause I want to know more about this will guy. He sounds pretty cool. If you're willing to rescue his kids. I'm just saying that I think my kid's going to be just fine. He usually, you know, figure stuff out. So I'm not too worried about my boy. I know for a fact that Terry jr. Is better off without Terry jr. That was weird. When you called him, he seemed pretty unfazed. Yeah, but I don't want to talk about, I don't want to talk about,

feelings. Okay, so, well, I believe my two beautiful boys, Lark and Sparrow, are in a place called... Let me get the list out here again, and I pull it out of my pocket. Neverwinter. Sounds like we should pack our shorts, boys. Everybody take a D4 of damage. No!

You can't do two in a row. You're killing me. The only thing I would like to say is Daryl Wilson did not take that as a joke. And he instantly opened the back and pulled out some cargo shorts. I have two hit points, please. God. Oh, he took four. So what does this mean? Okay. So basically what happens is that as the pure psychic force of the dad joke enters your brain, you're,

Your brain, in a fit of self-preservation, just shuts itself off and you fall unconscious to the ground for a moment. Okay. Oh!

I don't know if that was the joke or all the drugs he's been taking since we've been here, but I think Glenn's down for the count. Back away, back away. I know what to do. I pull out a Daryl Wilson pulls out first aid kit. Henry, why don't you prop his head up, buddy? I prop his head up. Do we have healing stuff? Yeah, basically because you brought the first aid kit in, we're going to treat that like it's a healing potion and you can just do a medicine check on him. You know what, boys? You know what we should do? We should just sleep for as long as it takes to get all of our HP back.

You can take a long rest at an inn, yeah, if you want to. Yeah, I think maybe we should sleep one off. It sounds like old Glenn here has had one too many. Maybe we can just carry him over to a local inn and we can all tuck in for the night. I'm pretty bushed from all that fighting and kissing. The rooms, are they double rooms or single rooms? How many beds in a room? Do we have gold? Well, we don't have any currency for what this world is. I'm willing to pay whatever it takes. I'm assuming they don't take Discover, which is all I carry. That's my diner's club card. So...

You're a time traveler from 1997. By the way, I love the idea that you guys are like weekend and burning at me across. This seems like a pretty old timey kind of place. Like, you know, back in, you know, the day in earth history, you know, people don't think really would have been phased by someone take carrying an unconscious man through the street. That's very, what's, uh, what's around us. So around you is, uh, there's a weapon shop to your East. There is, uh, what looks to be, uh,

group of people just sort of screaming at something on the ground to the west, and then to the north there is pretty clearly what seems to be either a tavern or an inn or something that has a lot of, like, horses outside of it. I kind of look over at the people screaming, "Hey, what do you think's going on with that screaming over there?"

Hey, Henry, you want to figure that out now, or do you want to bring Glenn and revive our nearly dead friend? I'll catch up with you guys. I'm going to check out this screaming. That sounds like something we should be abreast of. I'll double back and find you, though. Why don't you roll perception? Okay.

I got a three. Okay. So you can't tell what it is from here. If you want to see what they're looking at, you're going to have to get in the crowd. Ron, do you want to go over with our boy Henry? Ron, I bet something really weird and fucked up is going on in this crowd. You want to check it out with me? Actually, I'd like to stay with Glenn, just watching him sleep and thinking that must be nice.

I drop the body and I get away from Ron as quickly as possible and I just start heading over with Henry. I just leave Freddie's body on the floor. I saunter up to Glenn and said, it's just you and me now, buddy. Okay, so when your body hits the flow, as it were...

Something gets rattled loose in your brain, and you come... You come. You regain consciousness. Not enough to get up, but you're kind of groggy. Am I like one health? You're at one health now. Okay. But you feel something different. Something has changed you. You don't know exactly what it is yet, but you can tell that something has changed. Interesting. But you're conscious enough to speak, but not move. Okay. So I head over to the crowd. I follow...

So you see a crowd of primarily humans kicking what seems to be nothing. Like they're just, you hear the sound of like impact of boot against flesh, but it seems like they're just kicking just the air. But you can hear a voice going like, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, please, please, please. Come on, come on. You guys are being dicks. Stop it, stop it, stop it. Daryl Wilson's very excited. He thinks they're playing a sport. So I just jumped into the sand and I go,

What are you boys playing? I want to play. I'm Daryl Wilson. What game is this? So when you jump into the center, do you jump into the center of what they're kicking at or of the people? Right next to them, not where they're kicking because then I'd get kicked. Okay, sure. But I'm talking to the two people kicking. So a guy with a big old wart on his nose says, a fucking neutral evil creature came into our town. We don't do kindly to people on the neutral evil alignment scale.

Hey, Henry, this sounds like one of your type of people. Why don't you come over and talk to them? So you're just beating someone, but who are you beating? We don't see anyone. Oh, you guys must be from Waterdeep. Yes. Yeah, you don't get at all fairy dragons up in Waterdeep, I assume. Fairy dragons? Yeah, no, absolutely not. Those are totally normal. We've seen fairy dragons all the time, but not at Waterdeep, where we're from.

So your confusion is then explained by what? You seem to be very confused about the cloaked creature. I apologize for my friend. He's low on glucose at the moment. We would love to know more about these fairy dragons. So as you say that, the thing that they're kicking...

with a shimmer, decloaks, and you see what is basically a, if it were standing and not crouched in the fetal position, it would be up to your hip in terms of height. It's blue and scaly and very bruised, and it's what is clearly to your eyes a small dragon. It has these brown bracelets around both wrists and one of its ankles, and it looks at you with the closest you can assume to what a dragon could do is sad puppy dog eyes, and it goes like, could you get them to stop, to stop?

The people here are just very rude. Please make them stop. Well, that ain't no football. That's a...

That's so astute, Matt. Yo, Daryl, I think we should intervene here. You know, this seems like a kind of mob justice type of thing. And, you know, I know we're trying to get our sons back, but, you know, who are we to our sons if we don't lead by good example when they're not around? Where have you, buddy? I stand in front of the pimple-nosed guy or whatever and the dragon. Okay. And I go, hey, stop. Roll persuasion.

Unless, are you trying to be intimidating? No. That's how intimidating he is. Yeah. Not even try. Yeah, go ahead and try persuasion.

That's a seven plus minus one is a six. So he goes, no, and then goes back to kicking him. Can I assist his roll? Yeah, you can try again. You might start over. You have to just try a different tack than what he tried. All right, all right, all right. I come and I say, I'll lick any man in this crowd. I'll beat him to the ground.

Are you going to lick us? I mean that in an old-timey sense of licking isn't fighting, but if I beat you, I'm going to lick your face. All right, roll intimidation. 13 plus 1, 14. Can I assist him? Yeah, go ahead. You better watch out because his licks are poisonous.

He doesn't have any relatives anymore because he kept looking at their faces and now they're all dead. I'm like, you'll be. Now you got to roll bluff and if you fail, you're going to hurt his roll. What's bluff? Oh, great. We're off to a great start. Deception, I think. It might be deception. That is a six minus one. Oh, God. Yep. Total poison. So it feels like just off the top of me dome, speaking to you two, it feels like you're good at lying and you're really good at fucking up his lies. So maybe the next time you try to do something like this, you want to...

game it a little bit better, but no, fuck off. And the dragon looks at you and goes, I have kids. I lost my kids. I came in here looking for my kids and no one will... That's it. And then a feeling comes over me and I hear words in my head and my eyes roll back and my hands slam into the ground and

This might be, this is kicking off the episode with a bang, guys. I'm sorry, but I can't think of anything else to do to stop these people. That's good. I cast Thunder Wave. Whoa. A wave of thunderous force sweeps out from you. Each creature in a 15-foot cube, because that's the crowd, because I'm in the middle of the crowd, must...

Okay. Wait, are you trying to kill everybody? No, I'm trying to knock them away. Although they do take a lot of damage. Okay, maybe this wasn't the... This was like, they're going to take 2d8 damage. I would assume that would kill everybody. Not necessarily. And it pushes everyone away 10 feet away. Okay. Okay. All right, fuck it. I'm doing it. That's fine. I don't understand my powers yet. Okay. That's fair. Yeah. So I cast Thunder Wave. And so basically, everyone in the crowd has to make a saving throw or they take 2d8 thunder damage and they get shoved 10 feet away. Is this mitigated by the condoms on your hands?

I pulled the condoms. I flipped the condoms. That's how you know shit's getting real. No, I think maybe they just blast off when I do it and they weren't going to help in any way, shape, or form. Like a child walking by just gets a condom in the face of the air with a horribly wet slap. Ten condoms. The first thing that hits the crowd is ten condoms. The second thing that hits is pure biological lightning that hits all of them because I'm just rolling for the next grade. In the condoms?

Is that what we're calling it now? What? Biological lightning. That's a good brand name, I gotta say. That's pretty good. Oh, no, it's from the... From his hand. Oh, okay. From his fingers. But if you want to start a brand, the condom's called biological lightning. No, I want to start a brand of semen called biological...

In your local freezer section. So yeah, they get hit with the lightning and it blasts the crowd basically, not apart in terms of them dying, but like the crowd just scatters and sort of trembles backward and hits the ground. And the guy with the wart looks up at you and goes, whoa, what are you? I don't know. Yeah, who's lying now, mister? I'm Daryl Wilson and this is Henry Oak. Like I said, his licks are twice as poisonous as his lightning is. Sorry.

Sparky. So that's distinctly not what you started with. Did Daryl make a saving throw to avoid my lightning blast? Or was I like behind him? I assumed you were behind him. Yeah. When I saw you pull those condoms off, I definitely just got behind you. Okay. So yeah, they run and they scatter. And the fairy dragon looks up at you and goes, oh, thank you so much. Wow. I step in front of Henry and say, you're welcome. And I pick up, I pick up, how big is this dragon? You.

You pick him up? Yeah, how big is he? He's like hip height, so he's like a six-year-old. Okay, I like help him up because I'm assuming he's kind of like beat down on the ground. Yeah, thanks so much. Thanks. Yeah, I guess I'll be on my way then. Thanks for saving me. I don't know what you did that for, but that was nice of you.

Well, wait one second there. You said you're from a little town called Waterdeep. No, they said you were from Waterdeep. Ah, yes, that's what I meant. I'm from Waterdeep. Where are you from there? I'm Darrell Wilson, by the way. And I put my hand out. He looks at your hand, not quite knowing what to... Just put your hand out too, little buddy. He puts the same hand, like the wrong side's hand out. I smile and I switch hands. I don't ask him to do it. He switches with you. And I shake his hand.

I grab his hand with both my hands. Okay. And I shake. I said, this is how we say hello, where we're from. Waterdeep? Waterdeep, exactly. Okay. Yeah. I've never been to Waterdeep. So what's your name? Oh, my name is Gartok. Gartok? Gartok. That's a nice name. Yeah. Gartok. So, uh, Henry, you have any questions for Gartok? Matt's in over his head instantly.

Here's what I'll say. One of you seems to be a very powerful warrior. Do you think you could help me find my children? I stand tall when he says that. He's trying to look around you and make eye contact with Henry. You know, Gartok, I think maybe we can. We're actually looking for our children as well. Oh, wow. Were your kids taken by the Lance?

Oh, no, no. My kids just ran. Oh, well, sure. We could, you know, as fathers ourselves, we're foresworn to protect all children of all alignments, I guess. Oh, man, is that how fatherhood works? I've been doing this wrong. You know, it's sort of like fathers, I think, you know, have an obligation to all the children of whatever plane of existence they may be in. But yeah, perhaps if it aligns with our quest, we could help you on yours as well. Oh, what's your quest? We're trying to get our kids back. Oh, where are you going? Uh,

We are... You know, they said something about you being neutral evil. Yeah, yeah, they did. That's a weird kind of racist thing that people around these parts tend to say. Humans primarily. If they see something they don't understand, they're like, ah, he's evil. And sometimes they get really specific about it. He's neutral or chaotic. It's kind of just your disposition. It's like a bigotry disguised as science. We have a thing called phrenology in our past. It sounds similar. It's very similar. Well, you wouldn't know that it's similar because you don't know what it is. I'm just agreeing with you. That's just how conversations work. Okay.

Well, why don't we go introduce our friend Gartok here to the rest of the boys back at the inn? Or they're not. I mean, they're just standing in the street. What did Ron think? Hey, hey, Ron!

Yeah. Ron, this is Gartok. He's gonna come with us on our journey. I'm Gartok. Okay, hey, Gartok. I'm just coming to him like, what the fuck is that? Hey, Gartok, do you know a good place to sleep around here? Our buddy Glenn there, he's mighty hurt. Is there a place we can recover? Maybe we can all talk, maybe find a way to get all of our kids back? Oh, yeah, yeah. There's the Wispy Woods Inn to the north over there. We could probably, I mean, you could go in. I can't. Why not? The town does not like me. I don't think they'll let me stay. Why were you invisible?

Uh, because that's, that's a defense mechanism. So buddy, just turn it. We'll bring you right in. That's a really good idea. Okay. Yeah. All right, cool. So I pick him up. I don't know how big he is. Even if he doesn't want me to, I pick him up. Cause he just thinks he feels like a dog to me. So I just pick him up and I'm like, Hey guys, let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go

Okay, so you enter the Wispy Woods Inn, and it is pretty sleepy. There's a drunk guy passed out in the corner. There's a couple people playing what seems to be some sort of version of cards, and a woman with a bandana behind the bar just sort of wiping it down with not even a towel, just her hand, just kind of like doing it idly to waste her time. Guard talk. I whispered a guard talk. Yeah, what's up?

Is there perhaps like a review system for the inns in this town? And if so, if that review system had like a way of grading places, like say by a series of stars. Celestial objects, perhaps. Celestial objects. How many stars out of five stars do you think this establishment would get? I mean, if I'm looking at this, there's no one dead.

no one's screaming and it's quiet. So I'd probably say this looks to be a four celestial bodies establishment. Okay. Do you think they take discover? Like the act of learning something? I don't think they trade in like knowledge. Okay. There are some hotels that do. Gartok, this is going to sound like a weird question because we totally know the answer, but just as a refresher, what do you use for money here? Uh,

It's just a little quiz. Okay. Yeah. I'll play along. Yeah, what's money? This is fun. We're having fun. Yeah, what's money? Are we in the end right now? Yeah, we're in the end. We're talking right here in the threshold. The bartender is looking at you.

Very quizzically. I kind of turn my back to the bartender so he can't see him just like whispering. So like money, what is it? So she sort of shakes her head, goes back to wiping the bar with her hand. She licks her hand and goes back to wiping the bar. I mean, there's copper, there's silver, there's gold, precious metals. Some places work on the barter system, depending on, not this place because this is fairly podunk, but some places operate on information or secret exchange or knowledge exchange or experience exchange. Not in terms of like,

Out of character. Not in terms of experience points, but I'll give you a new experience. Like music, maybe? Yeah, some places. Probably not this place. I don't know. I haven't spent very long here. Do we have money? You have whatever American money you have on you. Oh, okay. Hey, Ron, I'm holding this dragon. Yeah. You want to go and see if you can get us a room? This seems like a job for Ron, I got to say. I'm no good when it comes to charming. Wheeling and dealing. They do call me Ron the Room Getter.

Yeah, I'm going to go up to the, is there a front desk here? I mean, there's the girl in the bar. The bar. Actually. There's also a staircase leading up to what seems to be rooms. I want to talk to the girl at the bar. I want to roll and see if I can sense how lonely she is. Okay. Okay. The look in her eyes, I feel as though I've seen it before. Roll investigation?

This is a six. All you see is your own misery reflected back at you. And she begins to go like, are you okay, love? You miss every shot you don't take, baby. I ask her if I can make her a drink. You won't make me a drink? Yeah, I used to make all my dad's drinks.

You've had interesting tact. You've had a few already, haven't you? No, no. It's just that I'm so used to making drinks for other people. Why don't you go ahead and roll persuasion?

I can see you're still on the fence about it. That's not really how this works. Do you want a drink? I'll get you a drink. Daryl Wilson is totally getting what Ron's trying to throw down. And I take my last of the six pack of my pale ale and I slowly slip it to Ron, like from behind, like giving her a drink that she can, that he can pass on.

In front of the bar? Yeah, I'm trying to hand you my pale ale. And then Ron's like, yeah, you have a bar, but do you have this bottle of pale ale? Oh, you want me to buy, oh, you're a brewer. Yeah. Can I roll persuasion again? Yeah, go ahead. It's a new lie, so yeah.

13. Okay. Generally, the way we go about this is you pop the top off, you take a drink, so it's not poison, and then I'll take a drink, and then we'll sort of see. Okay. I wink at Daryl. I'm very excited to see if they like it. As if to say, it's not poison, right? I don't know that it's a twist off. It is.

And I... Oh, you just chunk it? I just... I struggle with, like, keychains and then try to do the thing with, like, my teeth and stuff. I'm in a great deal of pain by the time I finally get this beer open. I think it's a twist off. No, no, no, no, no. I've drank these before, sweetheart. I know. I know.

It's the gentleman's job to open the beer for the woman. Could never possibly twist it off by herself. All right, so I got this bad boy open. Actually, Daryl, could you open this for me? I would ask her, but I don't. Yeah, yeah, of course. I slowly pass the imaginary dragon to Henry.

I try to stretch like it's really nothing going on. I forget that the dragon is there, and I'm like, what are you doing? Oh, the dragon. And then I grabbed it. It's a dragon. What? No, nothing. We've been dragging our feet and getting you these drinks. Here you go. Roll persuasion with advantage because that was a good pun. Two plus 12. Okay, you're fine. Okay.

Yeah, here, let me just twist this off for you. This is actually the best beer in Waterdeep. And I twist it off and I... Oh, it's a twist off. Yeah. Man, you brewski brewers, just like I am, I'm a brewer. I take a sip and then it tastes bad to me because I don't even like Bud Light. Ron can't even handle regular beer. But then I'm like, ooh, that's a...

That's a good brew. Yeah. Okay. So you passed her and she takes a swig. So you're going to roll. This is a big moment because we're going to determine how good your beer is for the people of the D&D realm. Holy shit. So you're going to have to roll. When it says you can like brew stuff on your character sheet, what does it say? Like you got a plus to like, what does that mean? I just have a brewer supply. So I feel like that would be just like assorted yeasts.

Maybe medicine would be closer to mixing. Let's roll medicine. Remember you have inspiration. I am going to use my inspiration. I was inspired. That's a 15 plus 1, so 16. And it will keep that 16. Okay. So she goes, this is pretty bloody good. This is not bad. How much can you sell? Let me... Look, Daryl, I know you don't know that much about brewing, but if you just had to guess how much...

Oh, we could. We got a whole bunch of barrels. Dead huddle, dead huddle, dead huddle. One second. We got to do a little brew huddle here and talk. We'll be right back. Okay.

Brew Bros, here's what I'm thinking. We've got a whole mess of beer coming in tomorrow. We'll give her a good rate on it in exchange if she lets us stay the night. From where? Where are we getting the beer? From Waterdeep, where we're definitely from. That's a good idea. Oh, yeah. Okay. All right. Now I can do this. Close the deal there, Ron. Okay, hands in the middle, everybody. Hands in the middle. Well, no, you're holding the dragon, so you can't put your hands. That's right. Ron, why don't we just shake hands?

Go for it. Come on, Ron. Close it. Close the deal, Ron. I'm going to shake. Wow. All right. Wow. I feel like something's changed within me, too. Good. Let's do it. Listen, sweetheart. We got a whole.

load of beer. You ain't never seen beer like this before. Tomorrow, you're gonna drown in beer. So, a number of barrels would be lovely if you could give me... 15 barrels. That is so many barrels! Fantastic! Fantastic! What's your asking price? Where is...

Okay, can we do another dad huddle? Just real quick. Just real quick. One sec, we'll get right to you. We got another shipment to another. Yeah, these shipments are popping off. All right, dad huddle, dad huddle. Gartok, how much is like a barrel of beer around here? A barrel of beer would probably be around five, no, eight silver. Eight silver. Okay, someone else. What is eight times 15? Eight.

Well, let's give it a good deal. I'm going to burn some of the battery time on my cell phone as I pull out this magical device in the corner, this self-aluming device, and I tap into my calculator. 8 times 15, 120. Roll a D20. If you get anything other than a 1, you're good on battery. 4. Okay, so what we're going to do is every time you use your phone, you're going to roll, and the number's going to get higher. Perfect, perfect. Look, I think since...

It is. I think it's pretty damn good beer. We should at least say probably like 10 a barrel. I think it's fair for my beer. Okay, that's fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This beer that doesn't exist that we're ripping this lady off. Yeah, let's say 10. I don't think we should say 10. I think we should probably go on the low end a little bit and try and get a room because I'd like to sleep. Yeah, but she's not going to buy it. She tasted that beer. She knew that beer was amazing. If we give it a low price, she's going to be like...

Well, that's not true because this beer, she probably thinks it's twice as much as a normal. Oh, that sounds like a good business decision, Daryl. She might also think you guys are really bad negotiators because you've had two huddles in a while. You can make her feel like she's getting one over on you or something. Right, this is taking a while. Ron, let's just do eight a barrel. Ron, it's your call. Yeah, eight a barrel. Just say eight a barrel. It's your call, Ron. We're going to give you the Daryl barrel special. That's eight a barrel. Eight a barrel. Very fair. Very fair.

Well, obviously I'm not going to pay you until it's here. Oh, that's a problem. You know, part of the Daryl Barrel special is that you give it to Daryl before he gives you the barrel. I'll give you in advance...

Of two silver, if you want. How about five? How about three? How about... How about... Yes, three and the room. You got yourself a deal. Guys, we did it. She... I mean... Why did you say that? That's an odd thing to say after a business deal. Um...

A little strange story. Ron here is a new member. I never would have felt that. Yeah, a new member. So this was actually his first sales pitch. Oh, congratulations, Ron. It wasn't my first sales pitch. I'm a businessman, lifelong businessman, entrepreneur. Swipe right, sweetheart. So she like with her hands swipes right on the bar, like swipes to the right direction. No, no, don't worry about that. I'm just really glad to be doing business with you. Yeah, no problem. Seriously. Yeah, are you all right?

Where's the room? So she reaches into her apron and pulls out a bronze key, throws it on the table. The key has the number seven on it and also throws out two very dirty, sort of greasy silver coins that she like slides across the bar at you and they slide a little bit too easily and there's like a liquid trail behind them.

We're saying three, though. Oh, three. Sorry. All right. Well, let's go to the room. Okay. Yeah, let's go. Let's go check out this room at the end. Okay. Basically, you go up to your room and it's a normal ass, but not great tavern in room. It's there's there's two beds. Who's sleeping with who? I can be persuaded. Okay.

Someone might have seen that Daryl and I were married, so we should probably share the same bed. I think that Ron will sleep in the bathtub where water will blend in with his tears of loneliness. Assuming that this also has a bathroom in it. It does now. Yeah. Welcome to NBC Suites. All right. Well, this is a hell of a day so far, everybody. Ah.

Yep, I guess we should hit the hay, go to Neverwinter in the morning. Well, I like where your head's at, Henry. Two questions. Gartok, if you want to chime in, that's good, too. Where is Neverwinter? And two, we did promise a lot of beer to this lady downstairs.

So maybe we got to leave a little early and get out of here. Sure, sure. But it would be nice to know what we're up to. Well, vis-a-vis my whole thing with my children being gone, that's actually on the road to Neverwinter, so that's good to know. So it's to the north. It's to the north across the mountains. But yeah, we should probably leave early, I assume. You didn't tell her when the beer would be coming in, though. Is she expecting like a homebrew situation? Unclear. She's expecting professional, incredibly tasting beer.

pale ale with a nice foamy top. What floor are we on? Are we on the second floor? Maybe we can sneak out the old window. I've got some rope. Maybe we just peace out of here. Once we've had a little rest, we just move on down the road. Why can't we just walk out through the front? I guess we could. I feel like you'd be suspicious if all of us left at the same time with all of our stuff. Dining and dashing as it were.

I like the rope idea. I like the let's all take a rest and then let's sneak out of here, crack a dawn, and make our way over to Neverwinter. Sounds like a plan. And, Guard Doc, before we go to bed, you might have noticed that we're not exactly from around here. Yeah, water deep. You said water deep.

Oh, yeah. All right. So none of this is suspicious to you at all. I mean, I've never been to Waterdeep. I've heard people are weird there. We are, and this is weird. The rumors are true. You help us find our way to Neverwinter, and we'll help you find your kids as well, right? That sounds like a great deal. Yeah, absolutely. Let's go to bed, then. Oh, his kids are missing? All right. Good night. Good night, guys.

They say opposites attract. That's why the Sleep Number Smart Bed is the best bed for couples. You like a bed that feels firm, but they want soft?

Sleep Number does that. You want to sleep cooler while they like to feel warm? Sleep Number does that too. J.D. Power ranks Sleep Number number one in customer satisfaction with mattresses purchased in-store. And now, during Sleep Number's biggest sale of the year, save 50% on the Sleep Number limited edition smart bed, plus special financing for a limited time. For J.D. Power 2023 award information, visit jdpower.com slash awards. Only at a Sleep Number store or sleepnumber.com.

See store for details.

That's true. Say goodbye to your overpriced wireless plans, jaw-dropping monthly bills, and unexpected overages. Oh, we could do a Deadpool Wolverine-like theme for this one. Mint Mobile's here to rescue, just like Deadpool rescued Wolverine from the timeline that he was in with premium wireless plans. Who rescued who? Starting at $15 a month. All plans come with high-speed data and unlimited talk and text. You know who talks an unlimited amount is the Merc with the Mouth in Deadpool 3. Delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. Bub.

Use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and bring your phone number along with all of your existing contacts into anywhere in the multiverse you might choose to go. Ditch overpriced wireless plans with Mint Mobile's deal. You can call all your friends to do cameos in your movie with Mint Mobile and get three months of premium wireless service for $15 a month. To get this new customer offer and your new three-month premium wireless plan for just $15 a month, go to mintmobile.com slash dungeons. That's mintmobile.com slash dungeons. Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month at mintmobile.com slash dungeons.

Dungeons and Dragons brought to you this week by Rocket Money. Rocket Money cancels subscriptions for you. And they also negotiate lower bills. Like, this is a thing you pay for, but guess what? It saves you money.

That's how it works. How much do you think you're overpaying in subscriptions every month? Way too much. 74% of people have subscriptions they've straight up forgotten about. Like me. You know what I'm going to do is I'm going to start doing like the guy in Memento and I'm just going to tattoo all my subscriptions on my body and that way I'll remember. Yeah, it's like I got one on my chest that says YouTube TV and it says never trust this guy. There's just a big one on my chest that says John G signed me up for Adobe Cloud. John G didn't have a Roku. Ha ha.

Most Americans think they spend about $62 a month on subscriptions. But guess what? The real number? Closer to $300. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so that you can grow your savings. With Rocket Money, you have full control over all of your subscriptions and a clear view of your expenses. You can see all of your subscriptions in one place. And if you see something you don't want, you just tap it. You cancel it. Tap it a few times. It's gone. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

I love also that the dashboard shows you... That was me tapping all of you guys. I want you out of my life. I'm cutting you out. Aww. I love how the dashboard also shows this month's spending compared to last month so you can track month to month how much you're spending. You can see those habits and they'll help you create a custom budget to help keep your spending on track. Rocket Money will even try to negotiate lower bills for you by up to 20%. All you have to do is submit a picture of your bill and Rocket Money takes care of the rest. It's just like those when you deposit a check in a bank. You know what I mean? You just take a picture. That really feels crazy.

Take a picture of a check and that's how it works? I know, that was wild when that first time I saw it. I felt like I was in the future. I was like, do I take a picture of a $20 bill and now I have $20 more in my account? Yeah, Rocket Money. No. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved the total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when using all the app's features. So stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com. That's rocketmoney.com. rocketmoney.com.

So you all take a long rest, which means you get up to your max health. Everybody's fully healed now. Thank God. Nice. And in the night, all of you share a dream. Ooh. All of you are standing on the lip of a great crater.

And beneath it, you see someone in a bright purple cloak pointing at the sky with one hand and pointing at all of you with the other. And when they speak, it's a booming voice that is horrible and yet somehow familiar. And you all wake up with a start. Fully healed, but you didn't feel great. Did we hear what the voice said? No, it just begins to say something you can't remember what it said. Carol!

That was a weird dream. Oh, did you guys have, do you have a weird dream too? Yeah. I had a dream about this purple robed guy who was like pointing at the sky and then pointing at me. And I think you guys were there. Also, I didn't have any clothes on and all my teeth fell out. I was naked.

I yeah same I was just stark raving naked we were in kind of this place but it was also my childhood like elementary school but then they pointed at the sky and then said something weird and then I woke up so you guys you all had that dream I mean we all have that dream at some point in our life you guys all had that dream last night

Yeah, I saw a man wearing my father's bright purple cloak. His bathrobe. His bright purple bathrobe that he always wore. Wow, so we all saw Ron's dad. Did you dream about Ron's dad?

no, I did not consider yourself lucky. Do dragons dream guard talk? Of course. What's a typical dragon dream? Like, uh, there's a lot of, you know, you're, you're flying, but one of your wings stops flapping properly. And then you're sort of falling like at an angle and it's weird. And it's like, ah, you don't want to hit the ground before you wake up. That's probably a metaphor for your career. That's what is, what do you do? Usually dreams like that are like about like where you want to go in life. Oh, I mean, I'm a private business owner. Uh,

I own a labor company, construction company. Oh, labor. Do you pay your labor? Oh, God, no. Oh, that seems like that is kind of a thing in this world, like the slavery. Hmm. Okay. Garthog, if you ever want to network or anything, hit me up for coffee. Yep.

So we should probably... We should probably sneak out of here. I can see Daybreak. Can we roll, like, Perception before we open the door to, like, get a sense of... The window. Are you going the window or door? Window. I lock the door. I just double check and I lock the door. And then I want to do Perception check out the window. Okay. Go ahead and do that. That's a four. I'll do one, too. Guys, there's outside out there. Perception. Ooh, this is where I'm a trooper.

Uh, 17. Oh, okay. So you can see that there is one person walking around the perimeter of the tavern. So they're a guard. There's a guard. Okay, so we need to slip past this guard. Hey, Bartok, can you fly over there and, like, freak that dude out? His name's not Bartok, it's Kartok. Oh, like the NPR show. Like Click and Clack, the Tapper Brothers. I dig it. Do you know the Brothers Tapperit in this dimension? What?

What are you talking about? No, what? Never mind. Gar talk with a hard G. What do you talk? Car talk. Car talk. Car talk. I lean over to gar talk and I go, they're liberals. Oh,

Okay. Car talk. Can you go over there and like flip your wings and stuff and like freak that guy out, get him out of the way? I mean, I guess I could, but then he'd probably scream dragon and everybody would try to kill me. Hey, Glenn. Yeah. You know what I like to listen to in the morning when I'm a guard is some sick tunes. I thought you were going to say some guard talk. Okay.

God damn it. Everybody take a deep breath of damage. We just healed. We just healed. Well, fucking two damage. Okay, but Glenn Close, as the dad joke enters your brain, it's almost as if your brain has developed some sort of hard resilience to it and it bounces off and you only take half damage from it. And you feel like some part of you has come to terms with the fact that you are a dad and your life will be dad jokes.

I only took one damage, y'all. I kind of, you know what it is? I kind of like, I twitch a little bit and I look over at Henry and I go, that was a pretty good one. Oh my god. I took four damage. So, sorry to interrupt. You were, I interrupted with a stupid joke. I've been trying to do that less lately. What if we like threw a rock and made them like go over where the rock sound was? I thought you were the rocker. Yeah. Oh!

Everybody, you know what to do. You know what to do. It's just an honor to be here. That's four damage. Two damage there for me. Jesus Christ. Daryl is upset and he just opens the window. He goes, good morning there, buddy. And I snap my fingers at Ron to get the silver. Let me check the bathtub. Hey, buddy.

Good morning. Oh, I've got it. I've got it. Here's silver. Oh, thanks. Hey, sir. Good morning. Hey. Hey. Is this a bribe? Oh, no. Just wondering, is there a good place to get some? Because I'm down for being bribed. Oh, cool. Okay. Well, that makes this easy. You mind if we just leave through the window here? Yeah. How much you got? I got two silver. One silver. One silver. Both of you roll persuasion. You with disadvantage. Okay.

I got 13. I got 11. So you just got 13? Yeah. So you probably got a little bit more than two. Yeah, we got, honest to God, sir, we got three. I'll take three. Everybody? That's fine with me. Sure. Easy come, easy go, baby. Okay.

Do you toss it down? We'll give it to you when we get down there. Are you telling the truth? No, we toss them. I say, we'll give you... I toss one down to him. I go, there's one, buddy. We're all going to get down, and once we all get down here, we'll give you the other two. I just want to make sure everything's up to... Are you telling the truth? Oh, absolutely. I'm telling the truth. All right, it seems fine. All right, cool. Let's go, guys. Okay. I'll climb down, and then I look at him, and I say, promise you're not going to say anything? Uh, no. No what? No.

No, I might. Oh.

I think maybe we were kind of on wrong terms about what the terms of this bribe were, because the bribe was to not say anything. What did you think the bribe was for? That I wouldn't attack you. Oh! Well, here's the thing. I am so embarrassed. There are four of us, and we do have a dragon. You have a dragon? Dragon! Knock him out, knock him out, knock him out, knock him out. I try to knock him out. Roll an attack. I guess you have a surprise. Surprise me.

11. All right, so you hit him. What do you hit him with? I hit him with the blunt end, like the dagger, but not the sharp, you know, pointy bit. Okay. The pommel. So roll damage for that? So Mai says 1d4 plus 3 for the... Okay, that'll be fine. That'll be enough. So you hit him, but not quite in time for him to not say dragon. So he hits the ground hard. Yeah. And you see a bunch of sort of bleary-eyed drunks turning to look at you. No.

And who's holding guard talk? I probably would have been holding him since. I guess we don't hold him anymore, do we? Yeah, he's just there. Okay, yeah, I guess he would just be standing there. I don't know why we were holding him to begin with, to be honest. He just reminded me of my dog. I'm glad that we did. Yeah. So they sort of look at you. They see you've knocked the guy out. Guy drank too much, am I right? Yeah. Yeah. And they just kind of shrug and they go about their day. I think it's time to go, yeah. Okay, so...

Does he have one of our coins still? Oh, yeah. We loot the shit out of his coins. In fact, we loot the shit out of him. All right, so you get your three silver back, and then you get four more silver that he just sort of had on him. He's also got a sword and some nice boots. I mean, I don't know if you want to strip this guy naked, but in terms of immediately obvious things to take is just the money. We'll take the money and the weapons. I'm going to take the boots. Ron takes the boots. All right. They are definitely too big for you.

Hey, Ronda's boots look pretty big for you. No, my feet are big. I have big man feet.

My feet are as large and manly as I am. All right. Okay. Okay. So do you guys just head back to the van? Yeah, we're heading straight back to the van. I'm holding, I am still holding Gartok, by the way. Okay. And as we approach the minivan, I say, Gartok, buddy, if you're impressed with my beer, wait till you get a... You were, right? I didn't drink it. But you saw the nice label and the... Anyways, get ready to get a load of...

of what we got over here at Waterdeep, and I brush aside some of the trees and reveal the minivan. What is that? Yeah, it's mine, buddy. You know what? We're going to let you sit in the front. Let's all get in. What the fuck? What? I just... He didn't call a shotgun or anything. It's like a horse?

Yeah, I know. What is this? It's a big metal horse that you climb inside of. Oh. Yeah, and it's mine and I drive it. And there's chairs inside of its stomach. That sounds convenient. Yeah, I put Gartok in the front seat. I go, this is where like the coolest person sits, like usually where my son sits, but you can sit here now. So when you get into the van, Gartok says, we're doing my thing first, right? The kids, my thing. It's on the way. Yeah, it's on the way. Sure. Yeah. Okay. It feels like, I mean, it feels reasonable. Yeah.

Like, yeah, it'd be weird for us to go and then come all the way back. So yeah. Yeah. They're on the road to, to never winter. I'm not sure exactly, but my guess is they're probably going to be like in a spooky cave or like in a, in a weird forest. Like, are any of you good at tracking? Can you find like, are you good at picking up on stuff like that? Uh,

Yes, I think I'm good at that stuff. You know, I'm a geologist by trade, and I know my way around many a rock and brook and creek. That would be like survival, right? Yeah, that would absolutely be survival. Okay, yeah, I can do that stuff. Perfect, perfect. Gartok, what happened to your kids again? They got kidnapped? No, they ran. They ran, that's right. And why? I don't know. Do you... Yeah, go ahead. What is that, investigation? Yes. All right.

I got a four. Seems like he's on the level. Wow, he really doesn't know. You know, maybe that's why your kids ran off, because you're not involved in their life enough. Kind of fucking judgy, but okay. Is anyone else going to try to suss this out? I think he seems fine. Cool as dragon, man. Let's just hit the road, boys. I want to ask Gartok.

What's your favorite thing about each child that you have? Like individually, my favorite thing about each one of them? Yes. Well, I like that Draken listens to what I tell him to do. I like that Sylvan will always make sure that the other two are paying attention when I speak and that Rhys will always fight anyone I ask him to fight if they are trying to hurt me.

Or if I don't like them. Or if they're around. Or if they're not around and I just kind of am bored. Gartok, the way you said that, I felt like we maybe all should have taken notes on the exact thing each of your kids do. But, uh...

Yeah, it's pretty interesting. I think I got it up here. It sounds like, it sounds like Gartok's kids do a lot for him, but what does he do for his kids? Did you try asking Draken who listens to everything you say to, to not run away? Oh yeah. Yeah. I, uh, I, I wanted to, but they, they sort of, they're, they're clever. They're, they, they take after their old dad. They found a way to sort of bugger off where I couldn't, my, uh, uh,

You know what? I'm done talking about this. Why don't we just go find my kid? Whoa, I get a weird energy off of Gartok. Henry, Gartok's helped us out, man. He's a great guy. You know, that's true. That's true. Yeah. It's been a long night and a long couple of days. You know, I'm just going to put blind faith in this strange invisible dragon who everyone said was evil that we just met. I'm going to be real suspicious, but be quiet about it. All right. So, Gartok, where should we head? Let's head north. All right. As everybody's in the minivan...

Really quick, I look at Gartok before I start the engine. I go, hey, buddy, you a little hungry? You want like a little treat? Sure. Yeah, yeah. I look around. I double check to make sure nobody else. I say, hey, buckle your seatbelts. Oh, good point. As they're buckling their seatbelt, I go to my secret stash. Okay. And I grab one of my secret stash and I unwrap a piece of my secret stash and I hand it over to Gartok. I say, take a chew of that. Okay. And he puts it in his maw and it's like,

It's like, when is this done? I put one in my mouth and I smile and watch him chew it. I just go, yeah, it's pretty good, right? And I start the engine. It's kind of different. It's like a challenge. I can hear them talking, right? Yeah. Okay. Oh, can I have some of that Charleston chew? What?

What are you talking about? You guys are eating that Charles Tichoux up there, the one you were eating earlier? I turn on the radio as loud as possible and I start the car. It's just static, right? Yeah, it's just static. No, not at all. That's not... Anyways. Oh, there's snakes inside this beast? Yeah. Oh, right. Let's start the car. It's powered by snakes. There's snakes on a very large bell.

Yep. And we start heading south. Or north. Which way? Hey, Gartog, where are we going? North. All right. All right. Thankfully for you, the old Han-Asi has a built-in compass so you can actually discern which direction is which. Oh, my God. This is just a long commercial for Han-Asi. Thank you.

I glare at Henry the whole time. What? Okay, so you drive north for about an hour, a half hour, 45 minutes. Time kind of passes differently for you because everything's so new because you're seeing the sun kind of... It doesn't just move in a straight line. It kind of like sashays across the sky like back and forth in a curve. Funky. You see the opposite of what you might see on Earth where there's snow on the top of the mountain and then the rest of it's all brown. There's just snow on the bottom of the mountain but not on the top in the distance. And...

Gartok is just sort of bouncing up and down, anxious to get back to his kids. But eventually, Henry notices a rock outcropping that could very well hide something behind it. It could be like a cave. It could be something inside of it. Suspicious rocks, eh? Look yonder, gentlemen. What manner of strange rocks are these? Ooh, ooh, ooh. This is about a half a day's walk from where I lost my kids. That could be where they are.

If you wouldn't mind stopping and going in and leaving me here and leaving you here. I can't go in to get my kids. Okay. Why? Why? Why not? Why not?

I can't do it. Is it that you can't or you can't? I like can't. I like physically cannot. Hey, Car Talk, man, if you want our help, man, you need to level with us fellow dads. Otherwise, I'm not exactly sure what we're walking into, my man. Car Talk, this is a judgment-free safe space. No, I would love to...

Explain? As he says, explain, one of the leather bracelets on his arm seizes up and fire sort of erupts from it and burns him. Whoa, Nelly! Ah, ah, ah, ah. I just can't. Just can't. Oh. So what's up with that bracelet there, Gartok? I bet he's not going to talk about it. Don't know.

Oh. I inspect the bracelet. So on the bracelet you see, you can't decipher it, obviously, but it looks like some sort of runes, some sort of etching that have been etched into it with a blade that go all around it. And if you look at the other bracelets he has, the other one on his other wrist and the one on his ankle, they also have etchings on, but they're different rune etchings. So he's got different runes on the shackles. On the three bracelets, yeah. Okay, and it's a language that I don't know. Correct. Okay.

Hey, Guard Dog, I know you can't explain, but could you answer yes and no questions? Depends on the question. Could you nod or not nod? I guess we'll find out. Is somebody controlling you?

That's just a difficult one to answer regardless of the situation. Yeah, man, because if you think about it, there's so many systems of control, you know? Like society itself offers one layer, but that's just one of many ways that our lives are not free. You know what I mean? That's a really good point, Glenn. I think I would ask Bartok, could we try on your bracelets? Yeah.

Let me try to, let me just try it on. Let me just try to take it off of you. I mean, you know, if it's not controlling you. Ah, he just sort of makes noises and his eyes are trying to like communicate something, but they're just very big and he's a dragon. So you're having a hard time saying, seeing what that is meant to impart. Maybe we should, uh, should we try to take them off? I'm going to, I'm yeah. I want to try. I think Ron wants to take them off. I want to take them off. All right. Okay. So which one do you want to take out first?

There's one on his left arm, right arm, and then there's one on his leg. Let's do the leg one. Maybe we could put it in my boot or something. Okay. So as you begin to reach down to sort of grab it, he's like, his eyes are getting bigger and he's sort of beginning to shake. And you tug it off and it comes off super easily. Like it was just a piece of clothing. I'm also very struggling. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. I think we just killed one of his kids. Oh. Did we kill one of your kids? Oh. Oh.

Hey, maybe just put it back on. Just put it back on. I put it back on. He starts to cry. Hey, this is awkward. I take it off and then put it on the other foot.

He's just like gesturing at it like, that doesn't make a difference. I'm sorry, buddy. Sorry, buddy. I hold Gartok and I hug him. I put on my sunglasses to hide the tears that are coming out of my eyes as well. So what is it that you wanted us to do again?

Save my children. All right. So what do you want us to do? You want us to just drop you off here? Just leave me in the car and you find them. Both of them. All right. I'm just going to hang on to this. I was like, I'm just going to hang on to this.

Do you put it on? No. That's a big risk of responsibility. No, after you're seeing after all that? No way. Maybe if you put it on, it'll bring his kid back to life. That seems like a pretty weird ass fucking thing to say, Henry. I know, it seems pretty weird that a bracelet will kill his kid. But there's like an internal magical logic to it. Do you know what I mean? Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm a stepfather. It is my job to take other people's children and then have them be a burden on me. I'm going to put on the bracelet. Okay.

So you put on the bracelet. Yeah. And he says, kill yourself. And as he does, you feel like more than anything you've ever wanted in your entire life is to kill yourself. Oh, my God. So what do you like? The dragon says kill yourself? Yeah. He says it to you and you have to try to do it. What weapons do you have on you?

I have my very sharp business cards. Okay, so did you just pull one out? You watch yourself pull one out. Do we hear him say that? Yeah, you hear him say it, and you start to drag it across your neck. I jump at Ron. I try to pin Ron down. Okay, do a dexterity check.

It's a nat 20. Wow. Plus one, so 21. Okay, so you don't just tackle him. You tackle him so well that the bracelet comes off. So you feel like, okay, you're free of whatever the fuck that was. What the hell, Gartok? What the hell? You killed my kid! And he, like, the other bracelet, the first one that started burning, burns really hard again, and he starts screaming. Are you okay, Ron? Yes, thank you, Daryl. Whoa. Gartok, that's not cool. I'm aware! I'm aware!

But he just killed my kid. Ow! That was an accident, though. We didn't know. You saw. I was doing face things. You know, Gartok, you gotta... You don't just come in to do things. You don't know what the consequences will be? Listen, Gartok, man. It's hard to read dragon faces. And I'm not saying that from like a species superiority standpoint, but that there is a chasm of sort of understanding between your kind and what appears to be our... Point is...

Sorry about that. Are you going to be cool? I want you to stay cool because if you don't, we'll take those other two bracelets right off of you. Two, one.

So stay cool. That is intimidation for sure, so roll that. Is that persuasion? No, if you're threatening to kill his other two kids, that's intimidation. Luckily for you, 12 plus 3, 15. So he continues to shake with what seems to be a mixture of grief and anger, but he tries to make himself smaller and make himself less fucking furious at you. Gartok, we're a team, and you joined this team, and sometimes your teammates make mistakes, but you don't fight your own team. How would you feel if I...

went into your weird horse made of metal and took out one of the snakes and then made the snake bite your son. How would that feel? I'd be pretty peed off. And I know that you're peed off, but right now we got to work together. We're going to, you know what? I'm pissed at you. We're going to save your kids, but just because your kids are probably hopefully innocent.

I don't know why I'm the one, why I'm the dick in this scenario. Okay, okay, gentlemen, gentlemen, gentlemen, I think... Maybe we just need to get Ron to apologize. I think we all need to cool off. Actually, I want to say thank you, Gartok, because I didn't know that I wanted to live until I wanted to die. And now I have no fear of death whatsoever. Sure.

Okay. Here's what I'm suggesting. We let Gartok cool off a little bit and process the death of his son or daughter. I don't know what the gender was. Son! Only!

Yeah, Gartok, I think we are all a bit in shock by what we did by accident, so please don't take any of our insensitivity to heart because we're all, in our own way, traumatized by what just happened. Obviously not as much as the trauma is what you're feeling, I'm sure. But it's like a shared mutual trauma. I think at any rate, okay. I don't see it as a trauma, but a freedom. I hope you'll agree. Okay.

All right, we're going to let you cool off. Let's go. All right, let's go. So we all are we getting to the rocks, right? Okay, you're going to the gate. Okay, really quick. This is important to me. As we all get out of the minivan, I stay behind for a second. I grab my box of Charleston shoes and I look at a car dog and say, sorry, buddy. And I give him a few.

And then I say, hey, Henry, you mind? Well, when you give Gartok the Charleston shoes, he takes them and he just crushes them in his hand. And like the caramel just sort of spreads between them. He goes, these don't taste good. I put my glasses back on and I get out and I say, hey, Henry, can I just talk to you really quick? Just on the back of the van. Yeah. What's up? What's up? Hey, so I noticed that you saw.

My little dirty secret. This box of Charleston Chews. Oh, I thought you meant the fact that we just killed someone's son. Oh, yeah, that's pretty tough, too, but... But you're more worried about the fact that I saw your candy bars than the murder we just did. Look, man, I've really been... I told Carol I was going to lose weight and I'm not supposed to be having these, and you saw... In the distance, you're like, just go! And you saw me, but here's the thing, I...

These were my dad's favorite candy. That's complex. And...

I want you to take them because I don't want to disappoint Carol, but I don't want you to throw them away. Will you just give me one whenever, I don't know, whenever I do something you think my dad would be proud of, maybe you could give me one of these Charleston Chews. You know what? I think your dad would be very proud of you right now, so here's a Charleston Chew. You killed my son! Shit, yeah, we did. We got to go. I'm still in shock about the son death. We need to keep moving on. As he leaves, I definitely stay behind and I eat that Charleston Chew. Okay.

Tears in my eyes. Are you looking at the van or are you looking away from the van? I'm looking away from the van. All right. Because if you turn around, you'd see he's just staring daggers at you, watching you eat candy after you killed his candy.

All right. I walk back to everybody enjoying my Charles and Chew. Okay. So in the cave, you see there is basically a big old door and a torch on either side of it. And if you look closer at the door, you can see that almost like a doggy door, like on the bottom of the – there's no other way to say door – of the door, there is a smaller door inlaid within it with its own –

doorknob hmm so it's like a door within the door scenario yes there's a there's a big doorknob that's around you know your hands height and then there's a smaller one around ankle height can we do you think there's a trap on this door should we do like a look at it I'm gonna roll investigation on the door okay

That's, oh my God, I'm burning these dumb natty 20s right now. That's a natty 2021. Jesus. Okay, well, you just straight up see that there is some sort of mechanism connected to the door that is at human height that is not connected to the door that is at knee height. In fact, it doesn't even seem to be connected to any hinges, like the big door. Like with your 20, you can see like the fucking big door is a trap.

Oh. Let's take that little door. Are you sure you want to open any parts of this? Should we maybe check? I have a good feeling about this door. I looked at it really hard, and I seem to get a real amount of knowledge from it, just from them looking. Like, a lot of knowledge. Like, way more knowledge than I get on average when I look at doors. Like, I have a far greater feeling about this door than any other door, arguably probably in my entire life. Well, call him Jim Morrison, because... Oh, my God!

That's not a dad joke. No, no, no, no, no. That's not a dad joke. That's not a dad joke. Let's just call him Jim Morrison. Yeah, because he knows the doors. All right, now. One damage. Three. I've only taken damage from dad jokes. So another one damage for Henry Oak. So now, Beth, you also get an inspiration for telling a dad joke. So whenever you want, you can spend that inspiration. It will give you advantage on any die roll. Wow.

That's great. All right. I'm going to try to open the small door. So you do, and it swings open with no problem, revealing just to you, I guess, another antechamber that is completely bare except for, again, a torch and a very slightly raised platform in the middle of the room that stands in front of another door.

Sounds like another trap situation over here. Sounds like maybe there's a sequence of traps leading to, you know, maybe hopefully these kids. That's fatherhood, though. It's a bunch of traps. With an indeterminate end. Yes. So my guess is either this raised plate, if we step on it, it'll open the door or it'll kill us. One second, everybody. I go ahead and I pull out my emergency kit, which I brought in the minivan, and I pull one of those shake boxes.

Flashlights out and I start shaking it up. I said, let's take a look at what's around here. Do investigation with advantage. Five?

And 14. Okay, so you can basically see that apart from the torches, the door, and the pressure plate, there's seemingly nothing else, at least immediately obvious in the room. Like, you can't see any holes for, like, poison darts to come out of or any stuff like that. There could be something else. There's clearly something else going on because all you can see is, like, the plate you don't know what it's connected to. Why don't we just throw something on the plate? Yeah, we should do that. Ooh, I like that. Maybe we all step outside of the room. I'm a little afraid that if we hit this pressure plate, it's going to...

Kill us. So maybe we just throw something from outside the small door onto the pressure plate.

Yeah, let's do that. What do we have that's heavy? I find like a football-sized rock. All right. It's probably like 20 pounds. And I go, Daryl Wilson. I throw it. You go, I need someone to hike this to me. I can't throw it unless someone hikes it to me. Okay. So it lands on the pressure plate. I could make you roll, but that's boring. So it lands on the pressure plate, and you hear one click.

As the pressure plate goes down a little bit. All right, everybody, find me some more football-sized rocks, and we'll just keep doing this thing. Okay, I go rock scrounging. Okay, if you just keep adding... Every time they toss me one, I go, and I throw it onto the pressure plate. Are you calling plays every single time? Yeah. Beautiful. Once you get three rocks on there, three clicks, the door just opens. Wow, good job, guys. We disarmed the trap. We disarmed it with football. Go doodlers. I put my hands in. Doodlers! Doodlers!

Dude, learn. Woo! Go through the door. As you walk past the pressure plate, I step on it. Really? No. You can feel some heat rising from it. It's a hot plate. Yeah. Basically, I started out with some baby ass puzzles, but yeah, if you put your full adult weight onto it, it would have just gone into the lava. Wait, guys. I think there's a theme here. I think these are all traps that would keep adults out.

It's like the weight, the door. I think there might be a theme here, guys. This might be like a kid hideout. Wow. That was pretty good. I think it's because Anthony said the word adult weight. All right. Well, good to know. Why show when you can tell? You guys think it's creepy that us four full grown large men are going into just a kids only place?

No, just me. Okay. Don't worry about Ron. Let's keep going. I put my arm around Ron. Start walking. Okay. So the door opens to a darkened hallway. At the end of the hallway, you can see a light sort of flickering from another room. And you can hear from that room two female voices, two young female voices. Okay.

One of whom is just... Man, I love female voices. Oh, no. One of whom is just sobbing. Oh, no. And the other of whom is like, you have to focus up. He's coming for us. Apparently, he doesn't care about the restriction, and I guess he's coming for us. You have to get your head in the game. I'm sad, too, but we can't focus on that right now, okay?

So do we see that? We hear that. All right. I'm going to call a dad. Oh, real quick guys. Hey, um, just to be clear, let's get our story straight. Like now, before we go in there about why their brother is dead. I'll be honest. Me, Henry Oak. I,

cannot, I'm bad at lying, especially when I have a guilty conscience. So I think we should just give it to him straight between the eyes. We killed their brother. I think we shouldn't let them know until we're in a safe place. Agreed. I think until then we should gaslight them and tell them that their brother is not dead. Oh, they know the brother's dead. No,

Hey, hey, honey, honey. Right, it sure sounds like they're crying. Yeah, and why do women cry? Because they don't know that their brother is probably still alive.

All right. I hear you, Ron. Really quick. You think maybe we could put that bracelet in a safe spot where they don't see it? Yeah, yeah. I'm going to put it in my boot. Okay. I think I'm going to have to go ahead and make some sort of saving throw for every minute we're in here to not break down and confess that I killed their brother. That sounds great. That makes sense. I don't know what that saving throw would be. It'll be wisdom.

Oh, okay. I've got a lot of wisdom. It is wise to keep your mouth shut now, so if you fail that, then you're just going to open your mouth. I try to kind of invigorate Henry. I go, Henry, Henry, you want to save these kids, right? That's the least we could do? Okay. Now, I know you can't lie, son. I know that, but...

The thing you want to do is save these two dragons, right? Yes. You don't want to upset them. That's also true. So we got, I know it's tough, but you got to do it. You got to do the right thing. You got to not lie. I mean, you got to lie and you got to just not, you just got to do this to help save their lives. And then you'll let them know. And I know you're going to be there for them and you're going to help them through this. We'll take as much time as we need to help these dragons grieve. But we really killed their brother. I know. I know. But here's the thing.

If you do the wrong thing, you're going to be responsible for their deaths, too. Are we going to kill them? No, but we're going to have to get out of this dangerous place. Who knows what's going to happen? Okay, I'm just not going to say anything. If they ask me any question, I can't be held responsible for what comes out of my mouth. So I'm just going to try to be quiet. I go over to Glenn. I go, don't worry. I took care of Henry. He'll be all right. Okay. I look at Henry. I'm like, remember. And so Ron does not hear. Ron killed their kids. Not you. You're good, dog.

Listen, there's a little thing we do when we're on tour. It's called what happens by your bandmates, whatever they do, that's on them. You know, if Chico gets picked up with an eight ball of Coke, you had nothing to do with it. That was his problem. That's the way you got to think now. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Ron's over by himself and like, we're all in this together. All right.

But I do want to get our story straight before we go in there. Let's just say we're travelers and we heard some children crying. Okay, I'm with you. Yeah, we heard people in need and we came to check it out. Okay, yeah. So how do you reveal yourselves or do you reveal yourselves? Because they don't... We walk very slowly and I keep doing... Okay, as you walk slowly, you can also see that the door that you just came through was connected to sort of a pulley system that had some little shards of metal on it. Presumably some sort of rudimentary alarm. They don't know you're here.

Hey kids! Hello? Hey, does anybody need help over there? We heard some crying and we're just wondering if everything's okay. We're not armed or anything. We're just passing by and it sounds like someone was in trouble here. It's a pretty scary place. There's traps and stuff. We hope you're okay. So you hear, um... Get the crossbow. Get the crossbow.

Hey, we heard you say get the crossbow, and I'm really trying to... We're being honest here. We're just four friendly travelers that heard some kids crying. You're four friendly travelers who got past our alarm? Yeah. I mean, we're pretty smart. We're smart travelers. We're the whole package. You just broke into our home. We clearly didn't want other people... We heard crying. We sent you. Gartok sent you. Gartok sent you. Who... All right, I do a saving throw for my...

Oh, shit, I got a natural 20. All right. I'm like... So that works for your next saving. You get an advantage on your next saving. Who's Gartok? Roll deception. Hey, who's Gartok? We don't know any Gartok. I got a four. That's the sound of four deception coming out of Matt. He hired you to come find us. Leave. Leave or we'll kill you. It's that simple. Leave or we'll kill you. Gartok. What did he pay you? What did he pay you? We can do better. You know...

Kinda, mm-mm, a little jacked up. He didn't pay us anything. Yeah. We're dads too. You wouldn't have gotten here without knowing some information about us. You wouldn't have been able to get information about us unless it was from Gartok. And the fact that my fucking brother is dead in this corner means that apparently he doesn't care about the bindings we put on him. I know you're here to kill us. If you want to come in and get us, then bring it the fuck on. Do you not like your dad? Yeah! No, is that what you're getting from this?

Because he kind of sucks too, man. Who killed him? Who killed our brother?

Okay, that's a five, but I get an advantage, right? Yeah, roll again. So it's five plus five is ten, and another natural 20. Oh my god, what is with your dice? This is insane. All right, I'm biting my tongue. Oh, I say, Gartok took off the bracelet himself. He killed them. I knew it. I fucking knew it. I knew it, I knew it. And the crying voice is like, we shouldn't have done it. Hey, kids, kids, look, you caught us in a lie, I gotta admit, but we're in over our heads. We're just four dads.

who've lost our kids and Gartok helped us out. He helped us out because he said he would tell us how to get to Neverwinter. Yeah, a bunch of guys were kicking the shit out of him and he was looking for you. And we were asking about the kids but he couldn't even tell us. Of course he can tell you. We fucking made sure of that. But you... The guy said, I'll take you to Neverwinter and in exchange for that you thought, I'll help him take two kids who didn't want to be with him. Wait, wait, you just said... You could have bought a map?

You could have asked anybody. Hey, what kind of new year? Hey, kid, as you just said, you put something on that means he couldn't tell us stuff. We don't know the whole story. We just thought he was a guy looking for his kids like we were. He's a dragon. You're supposed to do the thing that backwater assholes do in this area. You're supposed to try to kill him. Some people were trying to kill him. We actually saved him. Yeah. Because we're good people. How are you? We're helpers. Look, you have all the power here, all right? And if you don't want our help, we'll go ahead and we'll walk away. But if you need help...

We're here for you. You'll help us. We'll help you. The way that you can help us, if you actually do want to, now that you have abetted in the murder of our brother, is you can kill Gartok. Guys, dad huddle, dad huddle, dad huddle. Okay.

All right. If Gartok seems like bad news, I'm just going to, I don't know, not to judge another dad, but I, it seems like these kids got one up on, do we find out why they're mad at him? Oh, let me, let me give it a shot. Cause they didn't answer. I'm actually going to try persuasion on this. And I'm going to say, I thought that nobody could help me before I went on this soccer field trip. You don't know what a soccer field trip is, but I thought I was a lone wolf and a lone dragon. And, uh,

I thought I was all alone, but I'm not. And you're not either because you have your one remaining sibling and then also us. And we are here to help. Ask them what happened with their dad. Did Gartok do something to you to trap you here? All right, go ahead and roll. 11 plus 1. 11 plus 1 is fine. That'll do it. How much did Gartok tell you about what he does for a living?

He said that he was... Something about slave labor, I believe. Ding, ding, ding is the thing that we say. It's a dragon saying. It's dragon tongue for absolutely. Yeah, the wisest dragon who ever lived was named Ding, so we say his name three times. Ah, wow.

So are you his... So much culture here. Are you his slaves or his children? We were until we decided to leave. We are his children, but we're also his... He doesn't think of us as slaves. He thinks he's just being a good father by forcing us to do the things that he wants us to do. He always says the goal of a father is to...

make their child the best version of themselves they can be, and because he's so experienced, he thinks he can make us do that with those fucking bracelets. - What did he want you to do? - He wanted us to, coincidentally, do a lot of things that benefited him. Do a lot of hard labor when we didn't feel like it. Be cruel to people to make our hearts harder.

hurt his enemies, be flirty with cute ladies at the bar so that he could bring them home. It was bad. I was in a similar situation with my father who wanted me to be a good fisherman and I wasn't. And you know what I wanted more than anything was for him to be proud of me, but he wasn't. And maybe your father might not ever be proud of you, but that doesn't mean that

You're not good dragons. We know we're good. He enslaved us. We were never really worried about whether he liked us or not. Oh. Sounds like you've got some stuff. Yeah, yeah, I've got some stuff. I've got some stuff. Wait, so can I ask then, what was your plan here in terms of...

keeping them away from you guys. The plan was we found, by pure happenstance, a creature in a purple cloak allowed us to draw from a deck of many things. Purple cloak? And we were capable of changing one fact from our past. And we took that moment to change it so that when our father put the bracelets on us, we changed it so instead he put them on himself. We couldn't change the inscriptions on the bracelets, but we could at least change who they went on.

So it was like a... And he, because he's an asshole, one bracelet was attached to Drakkon, and that was, if any of these bracelets leave, then I die. He was using our love of each other to keep us in line. So can't you control your dad right now? No. He's the one who etched the...

So he's the only one who has any. He's the arbiter of the thatchings. You kids are in a tough spot. I think we should kill their dad. I'm going to put that out there. I've crossed the line. I think I'm ready to kill this guy. Okay, tell us about your dad. Does he have any big glowing weak spots that he exposes them once every two minutes in a looping pattern? Can I just ask them two more questions before we just kill? Look, we're a team, and if you three want to kill a dragon, we'll kill a dragon.

Okay, what did you want to ask? Hey kids, can I ask two questions? Yeah.

First, for your species, dragons, is what your dad doing pretty normal? Like, is it pretty cool? Like, is this like an abyss? I just want to make sure we're not stepping on some cult. You should know, Henry. I just want to know if he's a pretty normal dad, dragon-wise. Yeah, he is. But if your version of morality is that if enough people do it, it's fine, then maybe we should be rethinking about who's neutral evil in this situation. And my second question is, what is it that you want to do when you grow up?

We want to... Jesus. Sorry. Who's Jesus? Yeah, sorry. You guys have Jesus in this world? Jesus is also the name of another dragon. Oh, okay. Who is constantly stymied by really good questions. Oh, man. So when we can't think of what to say immediately, we invoke his name.

His name was spelled C-H-Y-Y-Z-U-S. I'm just wondering, like, you know, if you had kids of your own, how would you treat them? What would you want to do? I'd never thought... Had you ever thought about that, Reese? And she...

It was just not this. Just would not do what he did to us. I feel like I would make the restrictions on the collars a lot vaguer so he could do more things. And I would not have him do as much physical labor. But you probably still want to own slaves and...

I mean, what else are we supposed to do? Okay. All right. Dad huddle, dad huddle. So what you're getting at is he was just trying to make them do their chores and then they rebelled against him is kind of what you're suggesting here. Look, I have no problem killing the dragon. I'm not pro-slavery, so we can kill this dragon. I'm more looking at Henry here. I'm just wondering...

I mean, if we kill Gartok, it feels like the kids are going to go do the same thing. So, like, maybe we just kill... Yeah, we should have asked if he was a good dragon dad-wise instead of a good dad dragon-wise. LAUGHTER

I guess my real question is, it feels like we should either save all three of them or kill all three of them because they seem pretty...

Equal in terms of what they might end up doing. What if... Because I... You know, this... You know, one of my favorite shows is Star Trek. I don't know if you guys like Star Trek, but they always talk about the prime directive on Star Trek and not interfering with civilizations that are, like, pre-Warp. I mean, you know, if Warp is the minivan for us, maybe we shouldn't... What if we do this? What if we...

Hey, do you kids think you could take your dad in a fight? No. That's why we ran. Okay, well, what would we need to make it a fair fight between you and your dad? You want to pit us against each other? No, but here's what I'm saying. It's like, look, you know, we don't know, but we could pit them against each other on like a level playing field. So you're letting street justice win out. Here's what I'm thinking. Is there a way we can use those bracelets? Yeah.

Maybe if we can change the runes to say, be a good dad. Oh, and forget about your brother. If we can change the runes, maybe we can make them say, be a good family for each of them and put them together. And maybe we can make them not enslave people anymore and become a happy family. They're a slave to their own happiness. Just like me and Carol and my son were once. And Darnell. And Darnell.

Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you had another son, Darnell. I picked up the name Darnell somewhere. I can't remember what. I put my hand out to Henry requesting a Charleston 2. No, I don't think your dad's proud of you right now. But wait, this is not a bad idea. I like this idea. Hey, I asked the kids, what happens if we take the other two bracelets off your dad? Do you both die? No, the sacrificial lamb was our...

was our brother. Well, but what happens with the other two? Well, you would be releasing him from the constraints of the other two bracelets, which were he couldn't tell anybody about our situation and that he couldn't physically raise a hand against himself. So he'd probably come and find you guys, though, and kill you or something, right? He would come and get us, yeah. Could you, like, change those bracelets to do something else? We couldn't, but he could because he's the one who crafted them. Spoon.

Is there something we could tell him to maybe convince him to change the bracelet? If, say, we were in an awkward situation of killing one of his children. Sorry, what? All right, I got to do save and throw. Where's my dad? Don't they already know? Oh, no. No, you natty 20, so they thought it was just their dad. I did 12 crits in a row. It was. It was just. All right, I'm fine. I got a 17.

Hey, kids, we're going to be right back. We're going to go talk to – we're going to go kill your dad, okay? Sounds great. So we'll be back. Sounds great. We'll be here. Guys, let's go. Don't come back in without throwing his severed head through the hallway toward us. Cool. So, guys, here's the idea. You know kind of like when in those movies where, like, you know, a kid is, like, trying to get, like, his old dad to, like, sign a contract and he, like, switches it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe we can kind of, like, convince Gartok to, like, teach us dragon language for a second and rewrite the bracelets. Oh.

Sounds a little complicated, and I'm hoping our DM will kind of let it happen. Let's check it. Let's do it. Okay. Let's get over there. Let's go back to Gartog. Okay. We go back to Gartog. He's still crying. We open the door. Hey, Gartog. We're less sad that we made you sad by killing your kid, but we're sad that we killed their brother.

What does that mean? We're just not sad for you, but we're still sad about the action, because we've heard some shit from your kids. Because your opinion of me is real important to me right now. Where are my kids? Did you get them or not? Hey, Gartok, we found your kids, and it seems like you guys are all having a little bit of a family fight. A little family spat. They're a little mad at you. I'm aware of that. Okay. Well, that's good to know. We're all on the same page. Two-thirds of them are pretty mad at you. Oh! Oh! Oh!

He takes some damage. Gartok, what do you most want with your kids back? Why do you want your kids back? Because they were a great asset to my business. Yeah.

Let me take some more damage. One of the bracelets on his right wrist flares up. Oh, okay. That's the one that's stopping him from talking. Let's take that one off. All right. We take it off. Why couldn't you have started with that one and not the one on my leg? It just looked cool. You had a one in three chance and you chose the wrong one. I prefer anklets to bracelets. What do you want to know? It's kind of a weird Ron thing. What do you want to know? That'll work.

I don't know. The moral implications of this whole thing are blowing my brain right now. So if we gave the kids like bracelets that said, be good kid, or are we just putting them in slavery again? That's true. That's why I'm saying we should just cut one of his legs off and then let him fight against them.

They're dragons. They're pretty hardcore. I think we should even up the fight and then be like, look, we don't know what's going on. Or we could just walk away right now. Yeah, can we just leave? Maybe the dad lesson that this journey is teaching us is that you should butt out of other people's parenting styles because you don't know who you're going to hurt and you don't want to mess up and get involved in a family thing and cause more trouble than good. I'm not doing their dirty work. If they want to kill their dad, they can kill their dad.

He can't hurt them, right? That's fair. That does seem fair. But now he can talk about it. Okay. And talking can hurt people too. Oh, I know what we're going to do. I know what we're going to do. Okay. All right. I've learned the lesson. I've solved the riddle. The moral puzzle. He's a shitty dad. Yes. Right? And the whole species is a little questionable. The whole species is a little questionable. But here's what we do. We tie him up.

Right. We bring the kids out. We give one of them the knife and we say, you can kill him, but then you'll be just as bad as he is. And then we give them the, it's like, just like I say with my boys, Sparrow and Lark, you know, I try to give them choices, right. You don't, you know, and let them think, right.

So to me, then what that is, is like they're like, OK, they know the dad's never getting out. But then for them, they get the chance to separate, but not, you know, get down to his level, you know, and that can bring them closer. They can walk away and then he still can't hurt. Maybe I'm just maybe I'm just a sap. Let's try to give our pal Gartok who helped us out the best chance possible. You keep saying he helped you out. I want to review just for a second. Hey, DM. Hey, DM.

Daryl Wilson is talking. I do a point of order from Henry Oak. He hasn't done anything for us. We saved him from a mob of street justice, and then we brought him to his kids. But, Will, don't forget that Daryl Wilson disproportionately likes people who like his beer. I will say this, Daryl. I just want to say this, Henry. When we picked up your kids, they were punching a tree and punching you. And, Glenn, your kid was...

I don't want to say what he was doing, but you know, you know, you know what he was doing. And Ron, you can even talk to you. None of us are perfect dads. And I'm not I'm not saying we were as bad as a slave owner or anything. I'm just saying that he's a dad like us and he's just trying to make do. So this is what I'm suggesting. Daryl, I suggest that we do what you say. But let's use the other two bracelets and do a little dad brainstorm and come up with two things that we think are the most important value.

For a dad. And we put those bracelets on him and we give him the best shot possible to convince his kids not to kill him. We still have to make the ultimate choice, but maybe we come up with two values that we think is important as dads and put those bracelets on him and then we see what happens. Okay. Okay. Okay. So we keep the one that says he can't hurt anybody. But the other one says, like, be a good dad. But that's too vague. Like...

Respect your kids' dreams or something. That's why we got to do a brainstorm. Come up with two values that we think are good. Okay, all right. What do you guys? I don't know. For me, honesty is important with my kids, but also respect your kids. All right, I'm pulling out a piece of paper from my pack. I'm like, good, good, good. Keep brainstorming. Honesty. So respect your kids. Don't hurt them. Take good care of them. Love your children. Love your children. But not physically. Okay. Oh, God. Okay.

Show them physical affection, but not whatever is inappropriate physical affection for dragons. Probably not going to fit in one bracelet, but that's a good one. What do you try to do for Terry? What's the most important thing for you as a dad? Just try not to make Terry feel the way I felt.

When I was Terry's age. I like that. I'm trying to think of how we say that in drag. It's just like that could blow sideways on us pretty quick. That's true. Glenn, Glenn, how about you? You know, I think it's important to let your kids make their own decisions. You know what I mean? Like, because that's really the best teacher is school of hard knocks. So that's where kind of I kind of let him kind of do his thing and he'll come around. Oh.

How about let your kids make their own decisions within a certain boundary? Okay, I don't know about what those are. Until they're dragon adults. Until they're adults, okay. I think that's a pretty good one, until they're adults. That's number one. How about number two? Honesty, respect your kids. I feel like love. I think there should be something about love, right? Unconditional love, man. Unconditional love for your kids. Woodstock free love, unconditional love. But we're literally giving them conditions on these bracelets. For your kids.

Oh, treat. Let's go back to the good book. Treat your kids like you would want to be treated. That could go sideways, too, though. But that's but, you know, but I can't hurt them physically. Yeah, I can't judge them. And again, the kids might kill them anyways. I'm just trying to I feel I guess it was a good rule. Right, everybody. Golden rule is a good rule. Treat others as you would like them to treat you. So we got treat your kids like you want to be treated and let your kids make their own decisions within a certain boundary.

Until they're dragging adult age. I feel like we need more practical values here. Like, there are some things that you should not buy store brand for. Toilet paper. Mac and cheese.

That's true, actually. Okay. No, it's not okay, Daryl. What the? Oh, my God. There's two Daryls. I'm Daryl from the future, but don't worry about it. You're Daryl from the future? Oh, we're already dealing with time travel? Hold on. Anthony, are you okay with future time travel shenanigans? We're only two episodes into this podcast. Freddy.

It's fine. All right. Okay. All right. So this Daryl is looking at future Daryl and he's just going to close his eyes and Daryl does not like time travel stuff. So he's just going to close his eyes and pretend this is not happening. Okay. So yes, I'm Daryl from the future, but don't worry about it. Pretend I'm not here, but just listen to my words and you got to change what the bracelet says. Just trust me. It's important for later. A vision from the future. Of course. Exactly. Exactly. You guys did a good job. Braces are pretty good. Just a little clarification. Just say, treat your kids in the same way you'd want to be treated.

but it's always been the loophole and the golden rule here but if you don't like yourself and you would actually treat yourself badly that doesn't mean you can hurt your kids or hurt anybody they love actually that's pretty good right that should have always been that yeah also continue on with and you have to respect your kids decisions remove that within a certain boundary thing do not give oh does that get us in trouble does that become like a bad too many questions henry you can't ask questions in the time is irrelevant to the future and you can leave all the dragon age stuff that's all good it still applies to us dragons become adult when they're like 100 or whatever

Okay. Second bracelet. These bracelets cannot be removed by anybody other than these four dads. And then you can keep all the toilet paper stuff and mac and cheese. Oh, that's great. Okay. Are you cool with that? Yeah. No, we really worked that out hard. So what do we do now? Are you on the adventure with us? I gotta run. Pretend I'm not here. Do everything as you would have done as if this didn't happen. Just pretend this didn't happen. Goodbye. And don't follow me. And then Daryl just runs away into the woods. And then other Daryl is like, oh,

Oh, hey guys, is that cool? We got the bracelets? Okay, I think we're okay. Let's just continue. Pretend this never happened. Okay, pretend this never happened. Gartok, you didn't see anything either, okay? Okay, yeah, I'll do that. Okay, all right. Nothing happened. Let's just do anything we were going to do before this happened, the thing that didn't happen that doesn't exist. All right. Hey, Gartok. Yeah? How do you say... Can you do me a favor?

Could you write down these two sentences in Dragon on these bracelets? Why? Because, look, we're going to give you your kids back. This was a condition. This was a condition for them seeing again. We're just trying to be middlemen. We're trying to be negotiators. We're trying to just ease this process, help your family through this spat. And I pull out the axe and I say, and the other option is we kill you. All right. You roll persuasion. You roll intimidation. Both of you with advantage.

Persuasion gets me 13. 14. All right. Fine. I don't care anymore. I just want this to be over. Here you go. Here's the two bracelets. I just want this feeling to stop. Okay. So if you do kill me, fine. I don't even give a shit anymore. I had to watch you slowly kill one of my kids who now probably... It wasn't that slow. What?

All right, so he flicks open a talon and then sort of scritches out what was there on the bracelets. It's very dense. Yeah. The translation's very, very complicated and dense. Etches the shit on there and goes, cool, so you're going to give these to them? No, we're putting them on you. We're putting them on you, bitch. And then we put them on him. We put them on him. How do you feel, Gartog?

What's mac and cheese? Here, go ahead and get in the back of this. And we start backing the van up towards the entrance with the trunk open. Okay. He's just very shaken. He's just like, what have I done? What do I do? All right, buddy. This is going to be, look, you know, when you make a mistake, it's always tough as a dad to admit to your kids you made a mistake. But we're going to have you meet your kids. And, well, we'll see what happens. So we pull up to the, I feel like we pull up to the cave. And Matt, I feel like you're honking. Hey, kids, come meet your dad.

We don't have to bring him in. They can come out and meet him, right? Yeah, I pick up Gartok and I... What is this feeling? I give him a little pet. He just reminds me of my dog and I put him down in front of the door and I go, hey, kids, your dad's here and...

He's not going to hurt you and he wants to talk to you. Whatever you want to do, it's up to you. It's not, you know, we're not your family. It's a family matter. And I stand back and I watch to see what Anthony does. Okay. There's nothing I love more in role playing than when I have to do a conversation where I'm both people. All three people, Anthony. Okay, all three.

Okay. Okay. So you see Reese and, uh, Sylvan coming out. Sylvan has a dagger and, uh, the other one has a crossbow and they come out and they see their dad, Gartok, just sort of sitting there and immediately, uh,

Sylvan is like, you killed our fucking brother and runs at him with a dagger. I get in the way to block Sylvan. So she stops for a second and goes, what are you doing? What is this? So hear me out. Oh, God. Sylvan, you have a lot of reason to be upset with your father.

But you should know, we turned those bracelets around, and now not only can he not hurt you, but the bracelets say that he has to treat you the way he would want to be treated. And also, he has to let you make your own decisions within guidance until you're a dragon adult. And also, try to avoid store brand toilet paper and mac and cheese.

So, knowing all that, we just, we wanted to maybe, you know, we feel like we really goofed this one up. We feel like we kind of came in here with our values and we kind of maybe didn't really understand what was going on Dragon Style. But we wanted to give like a fresh slate, maybe a chance for this relationship to grow again anew. Now, I'm going to step out of your way.

And if you want to kill him, there's nothing that can stop you because he can't hurt you anymore. But I'm hoping you'll be the bigger person, the bigger dragon, and you won't succumb to your old dad's level and you'll maybe hear the new your dad out. Now, hold on. I feel like you're definitely having to roll your roll from lying again. Oh, shit. Yeah. Let me let me rip through like three of these saving throws. Wait, why is he lying, though? He's on the truth. He's he's he's by omission, not mentioning that that we killed. Oh, OK. I rolled a three.

Plus five is an eight. And also, we killed your brother. Ha ha ha!

She immediately tries to take a swipe at you. If you attack me, you're just as bad as him. No, because I didn't kill my brother. Well, let me put it this way. We won't be mad. We'll be disappointed. We're going to get out of the way and let your dad take it away. Okay, take it away, dad. So what are you going to do to make her stop trying to stab you? Because you just said you killed their brother. I say, dad, help! Daryl steps in between Henry and the dragon. It's like a fucking line four people deep of people standing in front of each other. Look,

This was all an accident. If you want to fight us, you'll fight us. But first, let's just let Garth talk. It was Ron. Ron did it. Which one's Ron? That one. That one.

No, I'm Ron. And I did it, and I didn't know I did it, and it was an accident, and we've done everything we can to help, and maybe if we heal this family, it won't be worth it. You'll never get your brother back, but it's something. So if you've got to kill me, you can kill me, but why don't you talk to Gartok first? As you say that, the one with the crossbow fires at you. Yeah. All right, so it does two damage to you, and the bolt sticks in your shoulder, and as it hits you, Gartok goes, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

They didn't kill your brother. I did that. The second I put that bracelet around his arm, I knew that was a possibility. And if I were you, I would want my dad to tell me what he was feeling and what the true, his motivations were. And I didn't think of you as real kids. I just thought of you as extensions of labor, as extensions of my own will. And I was lying to myself and telling myself that by doing what I told you, I was making you stronger people, but that wasn't the case. So I'm going to let you guys...

Make your own decisions within a certain boundary until you're adults. Parentheses. And don't buy store-branded toy brick, brick and cheese.

So whatever you want to do, I'm fine with because I would also want to have that kind of choice in my life. And Sylvan and Rhys kind of exchange glances and they go, you're very, very, very bad person. It's only because Drakken, he's the reason why we put those bracelets on you instead of just slitting your throat. So it's only because he's dead that you get to live. And

If we ever see you again, we are going to kill you. And that goes for all you assholes, too. I get it. And I forgive you for shooting me, by the way. I'm not sorry. You killed our brother. Very quickly, here are the places we're going to be going to get our kids. So just know that that's where we're going. And we do have to go there. So if we see you by accident, we'll just pretend we don't see you. But we might be there. It's kind of like running into an ex at a party or something like that. You don't have to talk to us or kill us. Yeah, we can't all be invisible dragons, Garthawk. Fine. Fine.

Fine. I don't know what we're going to do with our goddamn lives. We can't. I do have one follow-up question. You mentioned something about a person in a purple robe. We all kind of had a shared dream last night about a person. Leave or I'm going to kill you right now. Pushing it. We'll go. We're going to go. Good luck with your life. Sorry about your brother. Guard talk. Seems like you got what you deserved. Let's go. I go up to guard talk and say, hey, thanks again for all the help. I'm done.

And I open up the minivan and, all right, guys, let's get in and I guess head to Neverwinter. Hey, guys, how'd you think that one went? I felt like that went pretty well. I think we should head to Neverwinter and maybe, what did you guys all learn today? I think I learned to maybe look before I leap a little bit more. Next time we see a dragon, let's just kill them all. I wish I had, I think you three would have been better.

Good dad to talk to when I was first raising my boy. I think I learned that sometimes it's okay to let another dad save you. Thank you, Daryl. I turned on the radio and I started... The sound of static drowns out your tears as we drive off.

So you guys continue to drive as you sort of think about the day that you had. And after a couple of hours, you eventually come upon the city of Neverwinter. So you see a drawbridge and on the drawbridge, you can see that there used to be a what seemed to be like a red and gold flag. But it's behind what is currently there, which is a very large, very lovingly rendered illustration of the doodler.

the mascot of West Rock Elementary School. Guys, did you see what I'm seeing? I told you those Montessori art lessons were going to pay off.

Dungeons and Daddies is Anthony Birch, Beth May, Matt Arnold, Will Campos, and myself, Freddie Wong. Theme song by Maxton Waller. Special thanks this week to Chad Ellis, creator of the Station Blue podcast for some editing advice. You can find us on Twitter at Dungeons and Daddies and on

Facebook bit.ly slash dungeon dads. This is the number one spot on Facebook to discuss both this podcast and Honda Odyssey minivan owners like tips and tricks and stuff like that. That's where we gather. We're up now on Spotify and Google Play. So for people who are not using the iTunes podcast app, you can hear us anywhere and everywhere now. So if

Do spread the word. If you like what you heard, let someone else know. Tweet at us or even better, leave a review for us on iTunes. All of those things helps get this podcast out there and supports what we do. Thank you all so much for joining us this week. We'll be back in two weeks. Next episode, February 26th. We'll see you then. There was a time we need to know they never brought you

Dungeons and Dragons is brought to you this week by Bespoke Post. Hey, Summer. Bespoke, my heart. I fucking love Bespoke Post. Bespoke. It's summertime. And they got a new premium lineup of Box of Awesome Collection. Oh, my God. Okay, so, like, you know in Dune they have the Box of Pain? Yeah. That's, like, the opposite.

instead of the box of awesome. I put my hand in and what do I get? You get pleasure. Whether you want to drink or eat more awesome, dress and travel more awesome, or explore more awesome, the box of awesome has it covered. Go to boxofawesome.com. Take that quiz. Your answers help them pick the right box of awesome for you. Free to join. New items every month. Only quiz. You can't fail. Matt!

What's your favorite post, dude? Hey, can I tell you about the one I just got, bro? I just got a whiskey nosing kit. It's like you could burn stuff and get your nose up to date with whiskey, dude. I didn't just get a fucking gift. I got an opportunity. That's what they gave me. That's what they fucking gave me. They gave me the reason, finally a fucking reason to buy two

fucking watches because I got, check this out, I got a little drawer that's got two little poles on it to hold watches and then an acrylic cover to protect those watches. The mahogany. And I got it. I was like, this is the most beautiful fucking thing I've ever seen. I don't have watches, but I need watches. Was it in black or mahogany? It was black.

It was mahogany. You got the mahogany drop. And that fucking decided what sort of watches I bought. And I don't want to say how much I spent on watches, but it was thousands. But it was fucking worth it to make this beautiful case. The display case, dude. You can't have that case and not let it fucking do what it was born to do. You can't let that beautiful fucking piece of boutique furniture just sit there on your fucking counter without watches on it. My God.

It's incredible. I don't think I'll ever wear those watches, but I'm looking at them every day. When you become a member, you have access to stellar discounts across a plethora of products. We're talking about 30% off or more sometimes. Plus, with each Box of Awesome, you're supporting small businesses. 90% of everything that comes in your Box of Awesome is from a small up-and-coming brand. Free to sign up, skip a month, or cancel any time. Get 15% off your first box when you sign up at BoxOfAwesome.com and enter the code DUNGEONS at checkout. That's BoxOfAwesome.com, code DUNGEONS for 15% off your first box. BoxOfAwesome.com, code DUNGEONS.

Dungeons and Dimes is brought to you this week by Blue Nile. Blue Nile. You saw me standing alone. Blue Nile. Dulcet tones over there. The road to getting engaged can be long and full of memories or can be short and thrilling or anything in between. But the road to finding the perfect engagement ring, straightforward path. As the Nazgul flies. Awesome.

All you got to do is head over to BlueNile.com. On BlueNile.com, you can get a bigger, more brilliant piece than you can imagine at a price you won't find at a traditional jeweler. Blue Nile's the original online jeweler since 1999. Dog since Pets.com, dude. The Pets era. Since the Pets.com era. But they survived because they were committed to ensuring. You know why? Because Blue Nile wasn't out there posting up Super Bowl ads, burning through all their liquid capital. They're too busy ensuring that the highest ethical standards are met.

observed when sourcing diamonds and jewelry. Their diamond price guarantee means that in most cases they can meet or beat a competitor's price on a comparable diamond. Every Blue Nile order is insured and arrives in packaging that won't give away what's inside. And in most cases it can be delivered overnight. Blue Nile offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee with guaranteed free shipping and returns so you can make sure your ring is the one ring. Here's how you know they're killers over at Blue Nile.

They started in 1999, one of the greatest years in video game history of all time, and they were able to focus and make a company while games like Heroes of Might and Magic 3, System Shock 2, Final Fantasy 8, Age of Empires Dose, dude. All these games were coming out, and they were still making...

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Beth. It was coming out that year. Okay, now I'm interested. Because you want that love to last forever. Unlike video games, you get guaranteed service. Like my love of EverQuest and Driver. And Repair. Which came out in 1999. For life. The greatest year of my life. Right now, get 30% off select lab-grown diamonds at BlueNile.com. Plus, use code DUNGEONS to get $50 off your engagement ring purchase of $500 or more. That's $50 off with code DUNGEONS at BlueNile.com. BlueNile.com. Planescape Torment.

That game rules. They say opposites attract. That's why the Sleep Number Smart Bed is the best bed for couples. You like a bed that feels firm, but they want soft?

Sleep Number does that. You want to sleep cooler while they like to feel warm? Sleep Number does that too. J.D. Power ranks Sleep Number number one in customer satisfaction with mattresses purchased in-store. And now, during Sleep Number's biggest sale of the year, save 50% on the Sleep Number limited edition smart bed, plus special financing for a limited time. For J.D. Power 2023 award information, visit jdpower.com slash awards. Only at a Sleep Number store or sleepnumber.com.

See store for details.