dungeons and douchebags v0.1

Dungeons and Douchebags

v0.1

Alexander Williams

April 10, 2008

Contents

1 Introducing the Douches 5

1.1 What? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51.2 Why?! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2 Setting Basics 7

2.1 The Vast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72.2 Douchebags on Patrol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72.3 Life in the Vast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

2.3.1 The Average Joe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82.3.2 The Nobility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92.3.3 Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92.3.4 Dungeons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

2.4 Magicks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

3 Mechanical Domination 11

3.1 Character Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113.2 Dungeon Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123.3 Working It Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

3.3.1 Setting the Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143.3.2 Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

3.3.2.1 Winning a Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153.3.2.2 Losing a Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

3.3.3 Action! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163.3.3.1 Introduce a Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163.3.3.2 Increase your Bid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163.3.3.3 Bring an Unbound Character Into Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173.3.3.4 Buy an Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173.3.3.5 Pass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

3.4 Giving It Away . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183.5 Running Out of Coins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183.6 The Crypt is Empty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

4 Authorial Afterward 19

3

4 CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Introducing the Douches

Pickles the Drummer: Hey douchebag![car is lowered down] Happy birthday!

Metalocalypse (2006) {Birthdayface(#1.3)}

1.1 What?

What's a douchebag? Let's ask the sources. Accord-ing to Dictionary.com[1], a douchebag is:... well, it doesn't have a de�nition. That's just

how douchebaggy that douchebags are, the standarddictionaries just won't carry them.Reference.com[2], on the other hand, contains

this:

Douche bag, or simply douche, is consideredto be a pejorative term in Australia, theUnited States, Canada and New Zealand.The slang usage of the term dates back tothe 1960s. The metaphor of identifying aperson as a douche is intended to associatea variety of negative qualities, speci�callyarrogance and malice.

Well, that's certainly clear! But there's other sources.What about the Urban Dictionary[3]?

1. douchebag

(a) n. fr. "douche", fr. French, fr. Italian"doccia" 1. An object used for vaginal hy-giene. 2. A student or instructor at the

Carlson School of Management at the Uni-versity of Minnesota Twin Cities.

(b) 1. A vaginal cleansing is simply incom-plete without a proper douchebag. 2. Onlya douchebag would consider accounting atough class.

2. douchebag

Someone who has surpassed the levels of jerk andasshole, however not yet reached fucker or moth-erfucker. Not to be confused with douche.

Rob: He kept hitting on my girlfriendat the party, he just wouldn't leave heralone!! Sam: God, what a douchebag.

3. douchebag

A person with a shitty personality that needs to"take themselves the fuck down" or "go homeand get their fucking shine box." A douchebagusually assumes the form of a hair-gelling pretty-boy but can also be described as an overzealous,pompous, or vexatious asshole that most peoplewish were killed with a Mortal Kombat fatality.

Damn, i thought "Beverly Hills90210" won the permaneHot ChicksWith Douchebagsnt award for mostdouchebags casted in one weekly tele-vision show, but then someone had togo make that show, "Friends."

5

6 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCING THE DOUCHES

They have a lot to say on the subject of douchebags!For a more visual take on the essence of being adouchebag, please go examine Hot Chicks With

Douchebags[4] which carries out a much needed ef-fort to categorize and denigrate the douchebag whichrises above it's station.Having now de�ned the speci�cs of the issue, we

move on to equally unsavory topics.

1.2 Why?!

Mainly because of a guy who refers to himself as Un-cle Ghastly. On his LiveJournal[6], Uncle Ghastlyreferred to the Penny Arcade comic �Hot Dog�[5]with the following words:

I so want to make an RPG called Dun-

geons and Douchebags.

I �nd quite often with Penny Arcade it'sthe little throw-aways in the strips like thisthat get a bigger laugh out of me than theactual punchlines. But it's probably be-cause I'm old and not a hardcore gamer.

The author, however, is a hardcore gamer and fool-ishly made the following reply:

The sad thing is I could probably assemblea reasonably playable �rst version in undera week. That's a scary concept.

He was subsequently called on it and the rest, fortu-nately or not, is history.Douches, it seems, are destined to go into the dun-

geon.

Chapter 2

Setting Basics

Singer: Jasper the Douchebag Ghost, thedouchiest ghost posessed. He'll call younames and be real mean until you feel de-pressed. He'll always say...

Jasper The Douchebag Ghost: FUCKYOU! And lick my sack, ya fairy!

Singer: He's so damned rude and so damedcrude. Jasper the Douchebag Ghost!

Robot Chicken (2005) {Book of Corrine(#2.20)}

Every game has a context, some structure withinwhich the virtualized actions of the protagonists ex-ist. Once that context is established, the rest of theexperience is largely self-creating. A good under-standing of that context allows the Players to createa rewarding Shared Imaginative Space and proceedthrough a synthesis of System and Con�ict to a sat-isfying Experience of Play.

Or at least that's what the Forgies[7] would haveus believe.Truth is, we just need excuses to beat things with

other things. We'd do it anyway and there's nothingmore we need than a thin veneer of reason to pro-ceed with great relish bashing bits of random idea-stu� with other bits of random idea-stu�. It's just inthis case, the idea-stu� involved are tagged with thenames �Douchebags� and �Dungeons.�

Really, do we need anything else?

Oh, well, �ne.

2.1 The Vast

Worlds come and go. Universes evanesce and evap-orate. The backdrop against which their Platonicshadows are cast is called the Vast, and within onecorner of it lingers a few scratches, scant marksagainst the ephemeral wonder of the rest of time andspace. While the universe at large washed in andout like a lazy tide, this one place, this one time islocked into an eternal bubble, preserved and stabi-lized against the ages and against entropy.Because the inhabitants aren't all that creative and

it loops back on itself at the edges, this little cornerof Heaven is also called the Vast.The Vast exists for a purpose. While an idyllic,

pastoral landscape unsullied by the industrializationthat has scarred the surface of all other worlds isworth having in and of itself, a compelling, nay, over-whelming reason for it's continued existence tints thevery underpinnings of the world. Such a mighty, over-arching reason brings by it's very existence weightand profundity to the gentle green rolling hills andgolden-touched wheat-lands.To wit, the Vast exists as the �nal repository for

the Transcendent Douchebag.

2.2 Douchebags on Patrol

Very few people know that the Archetypes withinsentient life aren't mere constructs of whimsy, butanchored in the very bedrock of the universe. TheSage, the Hero, the Messiah and the Mother are all

7

8 CHAPTER 2. SETTING BASICS

inherent aspects of the realm of existence. Even theVillain and the Crony are cogs on the mighty gear-works that drive the nature of experience. Amongthe Archetypes, only one has the inherent power toderail the engine of the onrushing train of sapience,to unscrew the lugs on the Wheel of Time.1

That is the Douchebag.

In the beginning, there was no Douchebag.Archetype struggled against Archetype within thecon�nes of worlds and by the friction of their nar-rative con�ict was the heat to move forward the uni-verse made. Somewhere in this course, there was aninclusion. Like a diamond's �aw, unseen until thelight caught it just so, the Douchebag came into be-ing.

The �rst were hardly worth noticing, monkey-wrenches that only diverted energies better spentelsewhere, but soon their replication had spread to allworlds, to all times, and the very multiverse itself wasendangered. Douchebags, compelled by their verynature to mate incessantly with Hot Chicks, were out-breeding more productive folk. Despite the lack ofguiding, overarching intelligence, the multiverse wasdriven to strike back.

The Vast was born. It was made to be the leastchallenging world in the panoply of stars, idyllic. Thenative population was hard-working, soft of speech,timid of nature, and kind. The native wildlife weremild and unassuming. Predators had blunted teeth.In short, the Vast was forged in the heart of sunsto soften the hardest hearts with idyll and provide awonderland for those with even the mildest spark ofambition for good.

Unfortunately for the natives of the Vast, the uni-verse dumps those saponts who truly represent theDouchebag aesthetic into the Vast as a means of keep-ing them from making more havoc amongst peopleswho might actually contribute to the promotion ofpeople to higher states of evolution. Once they are

1Not all Douchebags are male, despite the vast numbers

of them which are. As Hot Chicks With Douchebags[4]shows, the Greico Virus, primary vector of the Douchebag na-

ture, can infect otherwise quite beautiful women, turning them

into painfully tormented Bleeths with all the Douchebag traits

save the testosterone. While this is a terrible, horrid situation

to be drawn into, it is not rare. Sadly.

safely locked into the torroidal space, the multiversesimply writes them o�, dusts o� it's hands and goesabout it's business, whistling a jaunty little locked-away-those-annoying-Douchebags song.

2.3 Life in the Vast

Really, it'd be all rather nice if it weren't for all theDouchebags.

Seriously, there is plenty of airable land, the nativecreatures and peoples are all really nice and there'seven a sprinkling of that most rare of environmentaladvantages, good weather. It's pretty fucking won-derful. Except for the Douchebags.

One of the problems with the in�ux of Douchebagsis that over the tens of thousands of abstract yearsthey've been getting unceremoniously booted to theVast, they have interbred with the locals, causing anumber of children of every generation to be inher-ently Douchy. While nowhere near as vile and rep-rehensible as the true Douchebags that get droppedin on a regular basis, their presence bodes poorly forthe viability of the natives. Douchebags are proneto poor child-rearing practices and as such there areentire tribes who've died despite Douchebaggery's re-cessive manifestation. With the original purity of thepeople fading, so too has the primordial tranquilityof the world itself.

2.3.1 The Average Joe

The average Joe in the Vast lives in an agrarian soci-ety with an extremely peaceful history. Villages aregenerally small, only a few hundred people seperatedby large farming tracts. Most of the land proper isowned by the nobles who, truth be told, are the pri-mary accumulators of native-born Douchbag-nature.Farms and farmers are simple, with the former keptin shape by oxen, plows, and the other ten-thousandlittle things that low-technology demands and the lat-ter just as simple in mind and beliefs. Farming vil-lages, mining villages, �shing villages and forrestingvillages are all easy to �nd and fairly low on the levelof Douche spread throughout.

2.3. LIFE IN THE VAST 9

At least once a fortnight there is a celebration inthe villages. Religion has never been a huge concernin the Vast, being mainly useful to explain away thepresence of horrible, unexplainable things that simplydon't happen there, but the turning of the seasons,births, harvests, and it just being a sunny day are allreasons to get together and party.

2.3.2 The Nobility

The nobility in most feudal cultures gets it's man-dated power by being the warrior-class. Not so inthe Vast because there the nobility are sequesteredin large stone buildings and busied with elaborateintrigues and politics because they are Douchebags,either by birth or by translation across the universalbarriers. Kept safely away from the mundane pop-ulace and given access to plenty of resources (at noreal burden to the people unless taxes become ex-tremely excessive, beyond even the general disposi-tion of the 'Bags), the nobles plot their petty ven-gences and dance their sultry dances.Sometimes they go to war against one another

which gives the farmers and �shers and forrestersa �ne reason to send o� their sick and deformedand borderline-Douchebags to die in a gloriously biggame. No one is really terribly upset by this state ofa�airs, including those sent o� to �ght.

2.3.3 Cities

Thanks to the increasing rate of births which are in-fected with the Greico Virus to various degrees, somemeans of isolating that population had to be found.City building turned out to be a quick and dirty an-swer. Having been tasked with building huge conur-banizations within which they could smoke, �ght,fuck, and dance in small rooms full of �ashing lightsto their heart's content, the Douchebag-tending peo-ples moved into three major cities which are keptsupplied with food and materials by the surround-ing farmers and other mundanes and supplied withdecadence and debauchery by the nobility.Within these cities, a strange memetic fungus has

found a niche at last: religion. Originally con-ceived as another thing the Douchebags could �ght

over without involving the good and pleasant peopleof the pastoral countryside, there are now at leastsix hundred di�erent cults, churches, denominations,archives, cloisters, gatherings, and every other kind ofgroup devoted to telling other people how good theyare and how much other people, especially rival cults,churches, denominations, archives, cloisters, gather-ings, and every other kind of group, suck.

2.3.4 Dungeons

Give a Douchebag enough time, enough power, andenough boredom and what will he do? The answeris pointedly not create a world-spanning communitydevoted to peace, love and understanding built onthe brotherhood of all Mankind. Instead, he's farmore likely to put all his e�ort into building a mo-mument to his massive power or a deadly trap forthe unwary or a puzzle which no one, presumably,but he can solve. As a result, others of like-mind will�ock from all over the Vast to prove, once and forall, that they are more massively powerful, more de-viously cunning, and more brilliantly insightful thanthe 'Bag that built the obscene edi�ce in the �rstplace.

This is how dungeons get built.

This is also how they managed to keep theDouchebag population under control for so long.

Even with the increase in Greicotized members ofthe society, dungeons are still being built and still be-ing explored. If anything, they are being built at anever increasing rate, but because of the need for ex-tensive grounds for most of their designs, insu�cientnumbers of 'Bags are able to travel from the citiesout to the location of the dungeons in the surround-ing countryside at some signi�cant distance.

Moving the necessary numbers of Douches fromcities to dungeons has already led to the develop-ment of a fairly sturdy road network in the Vast, notunlike the e�orts of ancient Rome in our world. In-creased pressure for development of higher capacityand mechanized travel methods may push their devel-opment of transportation technology past our own.

10 CHAPTER 2. SETTING BASICS

2.4 Magicks

One of the things the increasingly frequent breakageof the dimensional barriers has done is weaken thefabric of the Vast as a whole, allowing bizarre ener-gies to slip in unannounced, curl up cozy-like besidesomeone's soul and react to their whims and urgeslike a symbiotic metaphysical gland. Some have sug-gested that this metaphysical infection is merely anunmoored energy which responds to the strongestwilled and most worthy.The people saying that are all Douchebags.The common people generally agree that whatever

it is slipping through the door left very slightly ajar ismost de�nitely a sentient thing or many of them, andwhile the 'Bags may think the power that lets themset buildings on �re with a lit fart or command oth-ers touched by the power to unlace their breeches andbend over is generally impersonal and drawn only totheir luminary nature, the truth is that it's probablyextremely parasitical and undoubtedly lives on thepure satisfaction it gains from helping the Douchesembarass, imperil, torment, bind, and hump one an-other.In that sense, whatever powers magick in the Vast

and the mundanes have much in common.

Chapter 3

Mechanical Domination

Chris: Yeah, why the fuck should we trustyou, you douchebag?

Team America: World Police (2004)

There always needs to be a way to resolve con�icts,not the least reason being that without one all thetalk about kicking various peoples' asses really justsounds like posturing. It's Douchy! But since we'reonly playing a game about Douchebags and we aren't'Bags ourselves, it's in our best interests to put insome bits about how to resolve things.Dungeons and Douchebags is not your typical

RPG design. There are no dice. There is no DungeonMaster pulling the strings behind the scenes. Hell,there's not even a uni�ed story arc or pre-plannedset of 10'x10' rooms that you poor Douchebags willhave to navigate one by one until the big baddie atthe end stomps you due to the �endish machinationsof the real Douchebag at the table. No, we've doneaway with all of that to simply get right to the meatof the material.Things that it would be really helpful to possess

before starting the game:

• A stack of 3x5 cardsMainly for putting characters on and keepingtrack of what Challenges are on the table.

• 10 Coins per PlayerThe very meat of the system here, guys.

• 6x the number of Players in CoinsFor the Dungeon and Pit. We can't have theDungeon running out of Coins too early, right?

• Some pens.What, you didn't think we'd be writing with ourtongues, did you?

• A bad attitude.Douchebags! Duh!

Put the massive pile of Coins o� to the side of thetable. This is the Pit. Coins there are done, gone,kaput, out of the world, inactive. It's also where theyall start play, making them simple to keep track of.Give a 3x5 to every Player for their Character. Putone in the middle for the Dungeon. Give everyone apen.

That's it. The rest is up to you.

Well, alright, the rest is process.

3.1 Character Creation

Creating your own 'Bag in Dungeons and

Douchebags is easy as pie. And thankfully so, elsethe interest level would drop far too suddenly and noone'd end up playing, prefering instead to watch oldepisodes of Battlestar Galactica on the TiVo orsomething.

1. Grab a 3x5 card and the pen, and pick 3 - 5Traits you think your character would possess,and write them down on the card. This can beas simple as �Great Hair� or as complicated as�Serpentine Tongue Moves Like Water ThroughYour Cleavite Prana.� All we ask is that you

11

12 CHAPTER 3. MECHANICAL DOMINATION

leave enough space next to each for a one-digitnumber.

If you're having problems with coming up witha concept, go check out Hot Chicks With

Douchebags[4] and just surf the pictures awhile. We'll wait. Pick someone that looks ap-propriately 'Baggy and think about what they'dbe like in a fantasy epic. Yeah, like that.

As examples:

• Built Like a Mac Truck

� Filthy, Nastly Sex-Magick

� More Bling Than Yo Mama

� Tits Out to Here

� Oily as an Arab Hair Gel

� �I'm from Jersey, baby!�

� Can Take An Ass-Smack or Two

� Bitches Everywhere

� Roman Hands and Russian Fingers

2. Take 10 points and distribute them over yourTraits. The easiest way to do this may be tojust grab 10 Coins and stack them how you wantthem. You'll need them later, anyway. Once youget your Traits allocated, write down their valuenext to the Trait.

3. Write down your Character's Weakness, thatthing or group of things they simply cannotstand, are distracted by, or are vulnerable to.�Lust for Bling� is a good one, as are �CompleteDog� and �Complete Bitch.� Challenges that in-volve your Weakness put two Coins from the Pitinto the opposite side whenever you get involved,but you'll learn more about that later over 3.3on the facing page.

You're done. Bing, bang, boom, you're throughCharacter Creation. Make sure you have a pile of10 Coins from the Pit next to your Character be-cause you'll need them. The Coins there are calledyour Scrote. Try not to scratch them too much. Youuse Coins from your Scrote to bid on Challenges.Example characters:

• Doughlass D'Baggio, Soldier

� Beat Shit Up With a Sword: 5

� Kick 'Em When They're Down: 3

� �Just Followin' Orders�: 2

� Weakness: Original ThinkingParticularly applies to having to come upwith new ideas and solutions; �just hit it�always works!

• Randall Hamsterwheel, Mighty Sorcerer!1

� The Blackest of Black Metal Magicks: 6

� Smooth Like Goose Shit On Ice: 2

� Great Hair: 2

� Weakness: Easily Distracted By Boobies

• Molly Ringworm, Vicious Bleeth

� Rack, Now With Extra Cleavite: 3

� Daggers Strapped Everywhere: 3

� She's a Bitch, Yup: 2

� Kick To the Ding: 2

� Weakness: FlatteryHow else would all these Douches get withher?

3.2 Dungeon Creation

Dungeons are created almost exactly like Characters,which is probably a good thing because otherwisewe'd have an ugly tangle of rules and cites and thingsand it'd just be annoying. Who needs it! Am I right?

1. Someone (anyone) grab a 3x5 card and, by con-census (that means together) decide on 4 - 7Traits that the Dungeon should possess. Someexamples:

• Brutal Deathtraps

• An Open, Airy Floorplan

1The exclamation mark is important, yo!

3.3. WORKING IT OUT 13

• Live-In Kobold Tribe, Born in Blood andSu�ering

• Pit Trap

• Lots of Vines

• Randomly Misplaced Exo-EcologicalWildlife

• Glittery Gemstones

• Political In�ghting

• Discotechque

• Big-Busted Amazon Warrior-Women, Glis-tening With Cleavite, Looking For Men ToSate Their Womanly Needs and Hungers

You get the idea.

2. Split 15 points up between the Dungeon's Traits.Yep, Dungeons are slightly more powerful thanindividual Characters. Who knew?

3. Dungeons don't have weaknesses, you silly fuck!

Finished! The Dungeon needs a pile of 5x the num-ber of Players in Coins (called the Crypt) somewherenear it's card within easy reach of everyone, becauseeveryone will be playing the Dungeon at some point.The Dungeon has more resources at the beginning ofthe game than the Characters, but this is as it shouldbe. It's big and made of � stu�!We need a sample dungeon or two:

• The Hideous Island of Doctor Mou Row!

� Twisted Man-Beast Hybrids: 5

� Network of Subterranean Tunnels: 3

� Vagina Dentata: 2

� DRAGON-MAN!: 5

• Castle of the Red Death

� Political Intrigue: 4

� Ballroom Dances: 3

� Sexual Innuendo: 4

� Hot Sweaty Butt-Humping: 3

3.3 Working It Out

Now you probably want to know how to play thegame, right? Probably a good time for it.Game-play is broken up into Rounds. One Round

is de�ned as the opportunity for every Player aroundthe table to take an Action. Each Round, the �rstPlayer to Act moves over one (you work out the di-rection, be consistent).The �rst Player to Act in a Round has control of

the Dungeon and is the only one who can make Chal-lenges or bid Coins on it's behalf. In the �rst Roundof the game, the person who controls the Dungeonsets the Scene, describing where the characters are,what's going on, and so forth.Once the Dungeon has made a full trip around

the table, every Player having controlled it for oneRound, the next Player in order controls the Dun-geon and sets a new Scene. Any Challenges whichweren't resolved from the last Scene get resolved byconcensus and all Coins on them revert back to theirowners.Play continues until the Dungeon is out of Coins!

Whoever has the biggest Scrote at that point isnamed best Douchebag and can narrate how thegroup leaves the dungeon and what happens to themafter!You probably need a quick run-down of the overall

sequence:

Beginning of the Scene:

1. Player with the Dungeon sets theScene.

2. Starting with the Dungeon, Players dotheir Actions which can include:

(a) Introduce a Challenge ( 3.3.3.1 onpage 16 )

(b) Increase their Bid on a Challenge( 3.3.3.2 on page 16 )

(c) Toss a Coin into the Pit to bringan Unbound Character Into Play( 3.3.3.3 on page 17 )

(d) Toss a Coin into the Pit to takeanother Action when the current


Actions are done; for the Playerwith the Dungeon, this is the onlyway their Character can act this

Round ( 3.3.3.4 on page 17 )

(e) You can pass ( 3.3.3.5 on page 18)

3. Once all the Actions are resolved, theDungeon shifts over by one Player andthey start the next Round with:

Scene Not-Beginning:

1. Starting with the Dungeon, PlayersClaim Challenges

2. Starting with the Dungeon, Players dotheir Actions which can include:

(a) Introduce a Challenge

(b) Increase their bid on a Challenge

(c) Toss a Coin into the Pit to bringan Unbound Character Into Play

(d) Toss a Coin into the Pit to takeanother Action when the currentActions are done; for the Playerwith the Dungeon, this is the onlyway their Character can act this

Round

(e) You can pass

3. Claimed and Won Challenges resolveand their Coins get �ipped to see wherethey go.

4. Once all Challenges are resolved, theDungeon shifts over by one Player andthey start the next Round, unless thatPlayer has already had the Dungeonthis Scene, in which case:

(a) Clean up unresolved Challengesand return their Coins to the own-ers

(b) Unbound Characters �ip the Coinused to bring them in; heads, itgoes back to the Player's Scrote(or Crypt), tails it goes to the Pit

(c) Dungeon shifts over by one Playerand they start the Beginning ofScene

3.3.1 Setting the Scene

The �rst poor bastard with the Dungeon in everyScene has to set the Scene. A lot of people aren'tused to being responsible for doing so but it can beone of the most rewarding parts of the game (asidefrom calling the other players Douchebags, which hasit's own peculiar charm). When it's your turn to setthe Scene, you want to think about two things:

• What's someplace that'd be in a dungeon?

• What'd be cool for us to be in con�ict with?

If you can get those two things right, up front, therest takes care of itself.

A few examples might be in order:

• �Everybody's standing in a 10'x10' room. A doorleads out to the north and one to the west. Inthe middle of the room is a pile of bling, hazyand insubstantial in the smoke rising from thepit of coals which surround it. Above the bling,a scantily-dressed, nubile 18 year old hangs fromher wrists, doe-eyes clearly begging to be licked!�

• �Douchy McDouchebaggins there strolls into avast open area, �lled with trees, stalactites ofamethyst stretching down from above to almosttree-top level. Swinging through the trees is ahost of silver-backed gorillas with dicks for noses,coming to fuck us all!�

• �Imagine the downest club outside of Yonkers,motherfucker. Bright lights, �ash bling, and hot-ties everywhere!�

• �It's a swamp. Fuckin' mud and shit, yo. Nasty-ass. But there be some �ne-ass hookers hangin'and bangin' with the kobold-brothers up there,and that shit be tight !�

Play to your strengths. Keep the Dungeon's Traits inmind, too, since Challenges it bids on will be limitedby them.


3.3.2 Challenges

Challenges are the bling and cleavite of getting thingsdone in Dungeons & Douchebags. They act asthe con�icts where things get beat down, Charac-ters get shown up, Players get coin-lovin' and the Pitgets fed. They're also really di�erent than anythingyou've probably played with before, so listen up.A Challenge is something that is both in doubt

and not resolved yet. Ideally, you put a Challenge onthe table that you think other people'll want to getinvolved with, because the more they get involved,the more likely you are to pro�t! You didn't think allthese Coins could be �oating around and there be nopro�t motive, did you? As long as a Challenge is onthe table, whatever it's about hasn't happened yetand you can't just narrate a stateme that assumes ituntil the Challenge is resolved, one way or another.Let's talk Challenges with some examples.

• �The horrid bunch of kobolds give the party abeat-down.�

Pretty much a standard Dungeon opening Chal-lenge Action, assuming that there's been akobold bunch that's pretty nasty-looking setupin the Scene. Not that there'd have to be, mindyou, and anyone could inject this glistening jewelinto play. The Players will probably not just�ght the Dungeon over this one but each otherto get to narrate who comes out on the ugly-endand who looks good doing it.

Important to note here is that the beat-downof the party is not a foregone conclusion. The�ght with the kobolds can't be narrated as done,however, until this Challenge is resolved one wayor another.

• �The kobolds �ght like Hell.�

Another perfectly good way of phrasing the �rstexample but possibly less likely to get peopleriled-up enough to want to �ght it tooth andnail. Which you actually reach for depends onyour cunning, Douchebaggy tactics!

• �The Princess of Cleaviteburg heads out thedoor.�

A great one for the inevitable Dungeon Scenewhich gets set in a big-ass ballroom or midevalclub. Everyone wants to be the badass she headsout with (except for Ms. Tightass Bleethgirl,who probably put the Challenge on the table inthe �rst place), so it's almost guaranteed to getyou some Coin.

• �Douglas Thunderdouche, master of the blackarts, raises his hands on high and lets loose amighty spell!�

You'd think this is a great Challenge to dropif you're playing Doughlas Thunderdouche, andyou'd be right, but it can be even better if you'renot. Thunderdouche will de�nitely want to winthis one, not the least reason being that he wantsto pull o� a mighty spell on his own terms and hecan't until the Challenge is resolved! If he's beengetting by most of the game by tossing a spell inevery narration, this is sure to get his attention.Likewise, if you're an evil, evil Dungeon ...

• �Finally breaking through the anti-magic shield,a spell goes o�!�

Cruel and twisted, until this gets resolved nospells can go o�. Evil! But immensely fun.

• �Eric Tongue takes a blow!�

Strangely, more useful than you'd think to dropif you're Eric Tongue, since until it's resolvedyou simply can't take a blow! Of course, if oneof the other Players Claims and resolves this, youmight not be taking the kind of blow you expect!

3.3.2.1 Winning a Challenge

When a Challenge resolves (that is, once it's beenClaimed and that Player has won the bid on it),the winning Player gets to narrate how that hap-pens. This is part of the big payo� for winning. Theother payo� is that everyone �ips the Coins they hadbid into the Challenge. Heads go back into the bid-ders' Scrotes or Crypt. The winner's tails get splitup and distributed to the other Players in the Chal-lenge (winner's decision on how they get split up buta minimum of one Coin to each loser) unless they'd


be going back to the Crypt; Coins that'd go backto the Crypt go to the Pit instead. Losers' tails gostraight to the Pit.2

Winning a Challenge has a potentially greater ef-fect: If you win the Challenge, rather than takingyour heads back into your Scrote or into the Crypt,you can put those Coins into increasing a currentTrait or adding a brand new one to anyone or any-thing involved in the Challenge, as long as the Traityou're adding is related! The Coins so used get tossedin the Pit.Yes, this means you can add Traits like �Nobody

Likes Him� to Mr. Choad sitting next to you; thatmeans that he can use that Trait to a�ect Challengesin the future, but he'll have to do it by playing it up.Ha ha!

3.3.2.2 Losing a Challenge

You're a loser. Cry me a river.There is no up-side to losing, except the winner has

to pay you tribute from his tails. Unless you're theDungeon, then the winner's tails go straight to thePit and you die in a �re, emo kid.

3.3.3 Action!

Every Player gets an Action every Turn. That in-cludes the Player with the Dungeon. It does not

mean every Character gets an Action; the Player withthe Dungeon doesn't get an Action for his Characterunless he buys it with a Coin. The quick run-downfor what you can do with an Action lives up in 3.3 onpage 13. We'll break it out a bit here.

3.3.3.1 Introduce a Challenge

The usual and obvious �rst Action in every Scene forthe Dungeon's Player and pretty frequently used bythe other Players during almost every Round, par-ticularly for injecting Challenges that they �gure theother Players will jump on and give them a run for

2An optional, alternate rule is that the Crypt has no special

standing and gets paid o� for losing just like any other Player.

This will mean that the Dungeon keeps Coin in the Crypt

longer.

their money. Literally. Remember, losing a Chal-lenge is pro�table! Winning is what you do whenyou want to take control of the story but losing iswhat you do when you want to earn Coin so you canwin!When you Introduce a Challenge, the Coin used

to bring it out also serves as your opening bid onit. If you Claimed it at the beginning of the nextRound and no one else bids on it before the end ofthe next Round, you'll win the Challenge and narratethe result, �ip your bid and either put it back in yourScrote (if it's heads) or toss it in the Pit (if it's tails).Unchallenged Challenges don't cost much, at least.

3.3.2 on the previous page goes on at length abouthow to create good Challenges and why you'd wantto.

3.3.3.2 Increase your Bid

Most of the time, you'll be increasing your bid onChallenges that are already on the table. This iswhere all those weird little numbers you scrawled innext to your Traits come into play, and why they'reeven remotely important.Increasing your bid involves taking a Coin or more

from your Scrote (or the Crypt if you're playing forthe Dungeon), and putting it on a Challenge whileexplaining how one of your Traits is played out, let-ting you a�ect the outcome. You can only use oneTrait on a given Challenge in a Scene and you can'tuse that Trait on a di�erent Challenge in the Sceneuntil the �rst one's resolved! Not only that, but theTrait's value de�nes what the highest bid you canmake on a Challenge is, so if you've got the Trait at3, the highest bid you can make using that Trait is3 Coins. A Challenge which already has a bid of 3from someone on it is one you can't win! Still, untilthat Challenge is resolved, your Trait is tied up.This leads to a particularly Douchy strategy of lur-

ing someone into bidding on a Challenge, raising thebid up over their engaged Trait, then simply notClaiming the Challenge and thus never resolving ituntil the end of the Scene, when the Coins just popout and go home. Doing so proves that you are a �ne'Bag and will probably result in you getting punchedif you do it too much, but it certainly works!


If you bid on a Challenge, everyone else at the ta-ble gets the chance to raise the bid, starting with thenext person and proceeding back around to you. Ifsomeone raises, everyone at the table has the oppor-tunity to raise that. Continue until no one can orwants to raise the bid on that Challenge. All theprevious rules about Challenges still apply; if you'rebidding or raising a Challenge, you can only do sowith a single Trait.

3.3.3.3 Bring an Unbound Character Into

Play

You know all those random characters runningaround in every story that seems to just pop in andout of the plot but aren't the protagonists? Theymight be henchmen, or cultists, or weird guys withperverse sneers, or just some doof that stumbled intothe melee and got confused. Those are UnboundCharacters! Why are they Unbound, you ask? Be-cause no Player owns Unbound Characters.Unbound Characters (hereafter UCs) are created

the �rst time they're summoned up, not at the begin-ning of the game. They follow the rules for creatingother Characters (see 3.1 on page 11), but with threeminor changes:

• They're only made with 5 Trait points

• They have no Scrote of their own

• Anyone can play them during a Scene

Once a UC has been brought into play, they remainso until the end of the Scene at which point they justgo back into a generic UC pile. While on the table,you can use a UC's Traits just as if you were usingyour own, bidding them into Challenges from yourScrote and so on. Players still only get one Actionper Round unless they buy another for Coin, even ifthey have a UC (or more than one)! The Coin usedto bring a UC into play goes onto the UC itself. Atthe end of the Scene, it's �ipped. If the Coin comesup heads, it heads back to your Scrote (or the Cryptif the Dungeon brought the UC in). If it's tails, intothe Pit with that Coin.UCs are great for pulling out a henchman or even

a piece of equipment during the game to give you

the edge. What's that? That's right, UCs don't evenhave to be people. They can have any Traits you sodesire, so they might be environments, they might beweapons, they might be hot slutty chicks with hugeracks and wet DSLs. Don't hesitate to be creative!A few sample UCs and their Traits:

• Donkey

� Kicks Like A Mule: 4

� Carries Heavy Shit: 1

• Thunderstorm

� Damn, It's Slippery!: 5

• Jayne Reyerson, Generic Boot-Lackey

� Follow Orders: 3

� Grovel: 2

• Magic Fuckin' Flaming-Ass Sword, Mother-fucker!

� Burns Shit Right The Fuck Up!: 5

• James Eldridge's Big Honkin' Spellbook3

� Dire Black Magic: 3

� Random Knowledge: 2

3.3.3.4 Buy an Action

This is the one Action you can combine with anyother Action and even do it more than once everyRound. For the low, low cost of putting one Coin intothe Pit, you can have another Action once the cur-rent Round of Actions is done. You'll want to com-bine buying another Action with something or you'rejust wasting resources, but particularly for whoever'sstuck with the Dungeon, this can keep your handin. No, if you've got the Dungeon, you can't spendfrom the Crypt to let your Character have an Action,that's just silly.

3Assuming that Eldridge is a Character in the game, not

a UC, this still works quite wonderfully well with the added

bonus that if you pull in the Spellbook �rst, you can bid against

Eldridge with his own tome. Quite a Douche you are!


3.3.3.5 Pass

No one can make you do nothin'. If you don't wannado nothin', you can do nothin' !

3.4 Giving It Away

At any time, for any reason or no reason at all, youcan give Coins from your Scrote to another Player oreven to the Dungeon. If you really want to. Anytime,I mean it! Don't feel compelled or anything, justknow you can do it if the opportunity presents itself.

3.5 Running Out of Coins

You're out if your Scrote is so empty that no amountof massage will make it spit up another Coin. Unlesssomeone gives you a Coin, you're pretty much out ofthe game.Keep in mind that if you have any Coins still on

the table, bound to bids on Challenges, you're nottechnically out quite yet. When those Challenges re-solve, you'll likely be getting at least one Coin back.That may su�ce to keep you in the game for anotherScene, anyway. If you're clever, you can set thingsup so you introduce at least one Challenge that youcan lose, and thus earn more Coin.If you're out of Coins in your Scrote and you have

no Coin in the Challenges on the table, you're dead.Dead, dead, dead, dead. And out of the game, too.The Player controlling the Dungeon gets to narratehow you die or otherwise leave the game. It will prob-ably be embarassing or insulting but if you grovel longand hard enough, your Character may die a hero'sdeath, loved by all for his or her unrelenting Douch-baggery in the face of overwhelming odds.I wouldn't bet on it, though.

3.6 The Crypt is Empty

The Dungeon is out! You troop of brave war-riors, heirophants and other n'er-do-wells emerge tri-umphantly from the Abyss with a wide grin andstains on your clothes! Whoever's left, anyway.

Whoever has the biggest Scrote gets to narrate theparty's success and the eventual results of the crawl.Everyone who's still alive gets to add one fact or shotnot already decided by the winner for each Coin intheir Scrote, in descending order from most to fewest.If you're dead and out, well, we know what happenedto you.Die in a �re, emo boy.

Chapter 4

Authorial Afterward

Jason Hawkins: [to Rob] You're not goodenough for her. That's it. That's fact.That's science. Beth McIntyre is like froma whole nother planet, man. She's beauti-ful, she's charming. And you, I love you,but let's face it you're kind of a douchebag.And going to Japan is not going to �x that.

Cloverfield (2008)

And there you have it, Dungeons & Douchebags

in all it's perverse and unholy joy.It's been a long, long time since I did any real game

design intended for public consumption. Life, as ev-eryone knows, has an irritating way of getting in theway and kicking you in the ding until you either curlup into a little fetal ball and whimper or you punchit in the face like a Douchebag in a Jersey bar. Actu-ally, there's a perfectly valid Third Way that no oneever mentions which is to soldier on, teeth grit, andhope you come out the other side reasonably intactand with some dignity. Don't tell anyone I said it,but the Third Way? Yeah, it works. Not as �ashyas the other two, but you can get there, uphill, bothways, in the snow.If you've got suggestions, charming anecdotes, or

mechanical revisions you'd like to suggest for an up-date, you can contact me at [email protected] go on at great and disturbing lengths about yourcharacter.No, really, it's OK. I promise.This game is clearly deeply tongue-in-cheek, but I

wanted to thank a few people who may or may not

have known they made a di�erence along the way:

Uncle Ghastly, for madness above and beyond thecall of duty. Honestly, if it hadn't been for mybrush with your comics work long ago and thebrief, shining moment you explored the bordersof perverse comedy on my show, this game mayhave never happened.

DB1, proprietor of Hot Chicks With

Douchebags[4], for inspiring many, many,many mad and psychotic evenings of �ippingthrough your site and laughing our fool headso� while admiring the Cleavite. You've pro-vided much of the terminology and style usedunwittingly in this text. Poor greasy bastard.

Gabe and Tycho of Penny Arcade, forinspiring the �rst of this horri�c nightmarein a completely throw-away line that meantabsolutely nothing except it radiated cool like afurnace. Er, refridgerator. Whatever.

Kay, Eric, and the Rest of my Crew, forputting up with me, helping me, and generallybeing better than I am as a person.

Me, because I did most of the goddamn work on thisthing, yo!

If you've laughed and shifted uncomfortably in yourseat while reading this travesty of the modern word,you might be interested in listening to the live call-intalk show I do on Sunday nights, 9p Eastern, on theTalkShoe network. Operation BSU[8] may be the

19

20 CHAPTER 4. AUTHORIAL AFTERWARD

most twisted mix of weekly news reporting and mediainterviews you've ever heard, but that's no reason notto revel in the madness! Listen to the whole backcatalog of shows and call in to catch us live, maybeeven be on the air, Sunday night.Whoot!

Bibliography

[1] Dictionary.com http://Dictionary.com

[2] Reference.com http://Reference.com

[3] Urban Dictionary, Douchebag http:

//www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?

term=douchebag

[4] Hot Chicks With Douchebags http://www.

hotchickswithdouchebags.com/

[5] Penny Arcade, Hot Dog http://www.

penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/4/7/

[6] Ghastly Comic Livejournal, 2008-04-07, Inspira-tion http://ghastlycomic.livejournal.com/

105802.html

[7] The Forge http://www.indie-rpgs.com/

forum/

[8] Operation BSU http://talkshoe.com/tc/

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