Funny / Puffin Forest

Ben is recounting RPG stories. Sure, most of them come from Dungeons & Dragons, but there are also stories from Pathfinder, Traveller, Deadlands, and Call of Cthulhu. As such, expect things to go Off the Rails incredibly quickly.

RPG Tales

• The Malikar Campaign:
  • In "D&D Stories: funny moments from my campaign", two of the players had tried to hide in the kitchen, but kept getting jumped by guards, and had to kill them, and hide their corpses in a closet. Eventually, they ran out of space, and had to get... Creative. They cut up the guards, and put them wherever. They escaped later, and the two other players that hadn't been there tried to hide in the kitchen.
    Player: Oh my god... These cultists were EATING THEIR OWN PEOPLE!
  • Every time the Tortle wizard shows up in the Malikar campaign, the players insist on calling him Oogway, much to his increasing frustration, to the point that when they desperately needed his help, he refuses to render aid.
  • The defective Sword of Warning that shows up in "My players LOSE the final fight", which vaguely warns the players about anything bad about to happen, even if it's something as trivial as stubbing their toe.
    Sword of Warning: I warned you!
  • The name of the party was the Turtle... "Friends"
  • The Unwanted Assistance from Barrathorn, Glaive of Champions and its attitude towards stealth.
  • Pretty much everything about "Captain Morgan || Cocaine solves all problems". The party ends up sailing with a captain so coked out of his brain he knows no fear and can solve any problem by applying cocaine.
    Captain Morgan: Always trust in the cocaine!
    • Cokebeard, captain of the Cocaine Pirates. He and Captain Morgan get into an epic duel but are so high they don't even realize they're standing on separate ships and nowhere near each other.
    • Jess takes a baggy of cocaine and casts Sacred Weapon on it to create a sword that makes anyone it cuts high.
      Jess's God: [disgusted sigh] I don't know what's going on down there, but you better have a good explanation for why you need this later.
    • Ben doesn't seem to have a clear concept of what cocaine actually does, so everyone affected by it just generically acts like they're "on drugs". This stands out the most when they use it to get some angry villagers to mellow out.
• Any Call-Back to Whimsy the friendly aboleth from "Terror Of The Deep", such as the one in the stone from the end of "The Xanathar Guild".
• "Too Many Pets". A party member waits until night and infiltrates a fortress guarded by dogs in an attempt to be a dog whisperer. She finds out that the dogs turn into hellhounds at night, not that it stops her from attempting to tame a hellhound ..and succeeding.
• "An Abserd-ly Difficult Mission". Lennithon, a fully-grown adult blue dragon that serves the role of the cult's muscle shows up... but after tanking several sword attacks, gets hit by a single arrow and flies off in frustration. And, of course, the return of Abserd, who somehow became mayor of the town.
• "My Failed Game Attempt", the story of Ben trying to run Traveller and having the game's method of handling character origins go horribly wrong for all but one of the players.
• D&D Youtube channel Taking20 uploaded a video on the "Dumbest D&D 5e Character of All Time", which amounted to a character that multiclassed into every class at a low level. Since Ben published his version of this idea seven months beforehand, almost every comment on Taking20's video mentions Abserd in some way.
• In "The WORST Detective In The World!", the GM for a Dresden Files campaign tells Ben that he'll sign off on whatever idea Ben comes up with without checking the build first.
  GM: What... was that?
  Ben: What was what?
  GM: I thought I heard ominous music playing, followed by a slow zoom-in and color change.
• In the Star Wars video, Ben played as a smuggler. Except that he never actually did anything illegal beyond doing drugs, to the point where it became a running gag in his party that, if the Empire caught them, they'd arrest everyone except him, because he had a clean record.
  • Ben' character in that video had an addiction to deathsticks, which the GM didn't like. To solve the "problem", he sent the players to a planet inhabited by a Sith and had the players, including Ben, knocked unconscious with the Force. When Ben woke up, his addiction was gone, along with any deathsticks on his person or his ship. Meaning that the Sith cured him of his addiction, robbed him, snuck aboard his ship, and took all his deathsticks.
• Any time disaster strikes as a result of Ben misreading something:
  • "Whoops! Guess EVERYONE has to die now." has the party bribe their way into the Fane of the Night Serpent and right into a losing battle. All because Ben had glanced over the intended way into the temple, which was to have the party offer their services as slaves.
  • Ben's Waterdeep Dragon Heist campaign takes a turn for the bizarre when half the party splits off and blunders their way into the final fight of a hideout by blowing a hole in the wall, and confronting Nihiloor the mindflayer... who has a rapier, a swashbuckling hat and acrobatic skills. Turns out Ben was reading the stat block of a Nimblewright, the swashbuckling robot right next to Nihiloor in the book.
• When statting out Sauron, whom Ben realized he actually knew little about, he gave him ranks in Deceive, Craft, Notice (perception), and basically made him an evil blacksmith. Which pretty much describes Sauron's character perfectly.
• 12 Cartoon D&D sketches:
  • Someone asks Ben if he plays chess. He proceeds to use the chess pieces as dolls for a game of make-believe.
    Guy: Hmmm... This guy's good.
    • Turned into a Brick Joke later, when Lenny moves his pawn to the knight's teaparty, making it awkward for the king who has to stay the night over at his castle, while his bishops are caught up smelling flowers.
  • After springing a trap, Ben decides to test if it's "Magical healing fire". Turns out it is.
• "DM.exe has crashed." The party's investigations take them to a perfectly ordinary boarding school filled with perfectly normal teachers and kids. The Paladin goes off to apply for a warrant to let them legally search the property, and tells the rest of the party to wait for her to get back. Instead, they decide to go on to the school. What follows is a series of spectacularly poor decisions:
  • Two party members disguise themselves as teachers, while Asiago the Druid can pass for a student without having to make a roll. Michele the Monk, who is permanently invisible at this point, decides the best way to infiltrate the school is to pull out a massive collapsible boat and knock out any nearby faculty members before smashing through the school's outer wall.
  • Meanwhile, the Paladin is writing out the details of her warrant.
  • The party Thief, also disguised as a student, starts scamming the real students out of their lunch money, which ends with him getting beat up. To protect him, the Druid sets one of the kids on fire with her magic.
  • Meanwhile, the Paladin has filed the paperwork and is waiting for an officer to read it all.
  • The party Samurai decides the best way to calm everything down is to pull a gun and shoot the ceiling, shouting for everyone to "do what I say and no one has to get hurt." Pandemonium ensues, and police rush in with their own guns drawn.
  • Meanwhile, the Paladin has her warrant in hand as she makes her way back to the school.
  • Back at the school, the Monk is still knocking out teachers with his boat, one of the kids is still running around on fire, the thief is stealing from anyone within reach, and the police are in a standoff with the Samurai. During all this, the player of the party's nobleman asks for a blank character sheet, because his current character is the patron of the Samurai (who is prominently displaying their house insignia), and at this point knows his reputation is ruined and it's time to cut his losses and run.
  • The Paladin reaches the school, sees the chaos (including a child who is still on fire), and rushes in just in time to watch the Samurai pull a makeshift bomb and threaten to set it off unless everyone else drops their weapons. Cue the "dm.exe has crashed" notification. The Samurai tosses the grenade, which the Paladin jumps on, then tackles the Samurai before he can start using his other explosives, becoming the hero of the hour. And the flaming kid eventually goes out.
    Samurai: See, there you go! They trust you now, because of me! That was my entire plan the whole time! You're welcome.
• In "The W.O.R.S.T. Solution!" the party manages to start a fire in town. It proceeds to jump to increasingly poignant buildings like the puppy shelter and orphanage (with EXTRA orphans!) before hitting the fire department. And rather than dealing with the fire, Cordelia starts chewing out the party for burning children again. Then admits that the "No burning children" policy might have been too high a bar and they could aim lower, for less burning children.
  • In general the party keeps treating Asiago as an innocent little girl who needs positive reinforcement, even though Asiago is a pyromaniac, has set multiple innocent people (including children) on fire, at one point was advocating cannibalism, and has committed fraud.
• The Halloween one shot (a followup to the Christmas one shot last year):
  • "So you guys spend the better part of the night aggressively converting children."
  • Puffin remains completely unconvinced that the zombie is a zombie and not just some guy in a really good costume.
  Puffin: Yeah, sure, we have to get rid of it.
  Zee: IT MUST BE DESTROYED!!
• During VidCon, Ben lost a game and had to go talk to a stranger as a result. He noticed someone shuffling sleeved cards into a box. Assuming it was Magic: The Gathering, he tried to use it as a talking point. It wasn't. It was Yu-Gi-Oh!.
• When Asiago tried the oldest trick in the book on Melkyzzyak the kraken (turning it into something harmless, a cat), Ben laughs it of at first... And then he has an Oh, Crap! moment when he realizes krakens in 5th edition D&D have neither magic resistance, immutable shape nor legendary resistance, meaning that it's basically defenseless against something like that.
• Ben ordering sandwiches, one of which is light and vegetable, and the other cheesy and meaty with a tub of dipping lard on the side. When Ben tries to claim he is having the first one, the employee simply tells him that he doesn't care nearly as much as Ben thinks he does.
• While hyping up the Omega Pun, Ben is talking about how they need a mortal vessel quick-witted and hilarious enough to carry it in their mind. As he's explaining this, the camera zooms out to show his pun-happy player looking absolutely ecstatic... and Ben says "not you" as an aside in the middle of his speech.
• It's a bit sad to watch Ben try to come up with something good to say about D&D 4th Edition, but it's absolutely hilarious that the only non-backhanded compliment he came up with was that the books have nice formatting.
• Early in "Worst Games I've Run" Ben notes that his longtime viewers are probably going to be surprised to learn his videos were about his games that went well.
• In the Obelisk Encounter during an Adventurer's League story, a party would have to push over the Obelisk to summon the high level demon. Naturally it is Ben's group to do so, and when they do, every DM at every other table is ecstatic that someone did so.
• In 'A Few Stories from Non-DND Systems I've played' Ben was not allowed to play a character obsessed with horse rights in a Song of Ice and Fire campaign, as the characters see no reason to allow such a weirdo into their group. So then he ends up playing the Evil Uncle.
• In "The Empire Isn't Nice", the party rescues a very large amount of porgs from Leia, who has become a Crazy Cat Lady in the alternate timeline, and decides to release them on a remote island. The camera then pans over to a very annoyed Luke Skywalker, while Ben explains that this is the reason there are so many porgs on Ahch-To.
• Ben has an entire video about Asiago fighting with the rest of the party. Highlights include:
  • Alabaster, the fey Warlock, has a "magic son" in the silver dragon Fuji, who he transfigured from a rock on the hillside because he's high enough level "to just do that now."
  • Asiago finds a Deck of Chaos, a watered-down Deck of Many Things. She wreaks so much havoc with it that the others give it to Fuji's hoard to keep it away from her. She ends up turning Fuji into a rat and still can't get the deck back from him.
  • Asiago goes to hell, which she calls "fire heaven."

Curse Of Strahd Replay

• Garo is forced into being the party's face despite his low Charisma and does not acquit himself well. Boshack entirely approves of his habit of blundering into fights since he likes killing.
  • On a meta level, Ben reveals he was less than thrilled to see all the comments from viewers saying he should have sacrificed Garo's "silver tongue" to the hags as he obviously wasn't getting any use out of it. The DM admits he wanted the same thing just to see how bad things would go.
• Krusk is constantly being drained at night by the hags the party encounter, losing Constitution and thus health. When they finally defeat the hags he finds his lost health stored in a "fleshy sack". When he asks how to get it back, he's told he needs to suck on his fleshy sack.
  • Krusk reluctantly agrees to go through with the sucking but refuses to do any sound effects. The DM steps in at that point and says sound effects are required to regain his Constitution.
  • When Krusk first got drained, he was told that a hag had sucked him off while he was sleeping. He was not well-pleased.
• After seeing Garo and Gouda get new gifts from their patrons, Boshack prays to his goddess in hopes of getting something new himself. His relationship with Dendar, the eldritch serpent who devours nightmares in hopes of ending the world, is that of a single mother tending to millions of needy children/warlocks. He begs like a petulant child and she eventually relents since he's been very evil recently.
  You have Eldritch Blast at home.
  • With everyone else in the party now have a special gift, the GM asks if Krusk's player wants to try praying to a dark power for something. He declines at which point Garo and Boshack start applying peer pressure like they're peddling drugs. They also discuss killing Krusk so he'll get powered up by a spirit saving him, but eventually decide that they needn't bother; Barovia will kill him sooner or later.
• In Episode 5, Ben comments that Gouda is the same player as Asiago, and describes them as a Pyromaniac Wildfire Druid, after their Wild Magic burst nearly blows him up in a similar manner.
• Reading Strahd's tome in Episode 6, when he becomes emotional and dramatic the vampire's accent starts to sound like Tommy Wiseau, entirely appropriate for a man obsessed with a woman who doesn't return the feelings.
• Krusk ends up doing a Call-Back to one of the fan favorites:

  I waarned you!

• When the Shenani-guys arrives in Krezk, they meet an old man who Gouda assumes is the rumoured spellcaster they're looking for. He's actually just an old guy, but Gouda assumes all old people are wizards.

  Gouda: What kind of gifts have you gotten from your old age?
  Old man: Arthritis.

• While Episode 7 is mainly yet another failed Hope Spot, much of the Priest trying to explain his plan with the Golem is rather amusing. Especially that Strahd himself actually commissioned the darn thing.
• Episode 8 starts with Garo dreaming about beating up Strahd alone. Someone animated it.

  Garo: Strahd von Zarovich? More like Strahd von little bitch!

• After having figured out the deception in the previous episode the team reflects on their experiences with Vasili and how they'd been tricked. One of the more humorous is the realization that after the rebellion in Vallaki he had delivered a sizable bribe to himself.
• The party has an hour of downtime and Gouda decides to spend the time regaling an NPC with the party's exploits in Barovia, minus the fights they lost and all the times they screwed things up. The DM agrees, but asks what Gouda plans to do with the other 59 minutes.
• Episode 9 opens with Ben putting on a Mr. Rogers impression to say everything is fine in Barovia and Strahd is a great host who definitely did not slaughter an entire church. Meanwhile the toy train is on fire and the door outside has been boarded shut with monsters reaching through holes as Ben sit and stares with a haunted smile.
• The party is given a Sadistic Choice by Stahd on who to take with them and who to leave in his clutches. The rest of the party leaves it all up to Ben who, true to character, completely misinterprets Strahd's promise to not kill the rest. Specifically Strahd promises to "let them go", which Ben considers suspiciously ripe for Exact Words twists like "... off this cliff". The DM enjoys making this worse for Ben, like describing an adorable werewolf cub being menaced by a thrall.
• Meanwhile, during the tense situation, Gouda goes up to Strahd... and asks the name of his horse, because she still doesn't know it and feels bad about calling the Nightmare a nickname in her head. He ends up having to spell Beuceaphalus out for her. It is possibly the only non-Black Comedy moment Strahd has had thus far.
• In Episode 10 the party reaches the Amber Temple and for some reason decide to split up. Krusk and Boshack are teamed together and fighting an arcanolith only for Krusk to decide that, since he's out of spell slots, he'll just... leave and keep exploring.

  Garo: Oh no, that's fine. While we're fighting you have a little powwow heart to heart talk with your spirit daddy.
  Boshack: Boshack's not warm-blooded, but even for him that was pretty cold.

• Garo's patron warns him that there is a monster in its tomb and he resolves to fight it alone, nobly declining help. Shortly after entering the tomb, he runs back out crying and hides behind the rest of the party while they deal with the monster.
• Garo's patron warns him that Strahd freely scry wherever his name is spoken. That in itself isn't funny, but the party freaks out on realizing that it isn't actually a secret and they'd been warned by multiple different NPC characters only to completely ignore it.
• The party is about to depart the temple when Boshack tells them to wait and goes back in. He then returns with a "snack" for the road - Rahadin's face and leg.
  • Rahadin returns in a later episode, apparently still missing his leg and face.
    Boshack: I'm coming for your other leg!
• In Part 12 Garo's idea of sneaking: He slowly crawls through a village while wearing a bush, humming the Mission Impossible theme.
• Entering Berez, Garo asks their guide if there's anything dark or creepy about the town, to which she assures them there isn't. When the illusion is inevitably dispelled and the guide joins a coven of witches attacking the party, she points out it's not dark or creepy to her, it's just normal.
• While discussing Ezmerelda's vampirism, Garo tries to explain to Gouda how the thirst for blood is uncontrollable and will lead to her turning evil and murdering people to eat them. She points to Boshack who is currently feasting on their enemies and Garo tries to say it's not the same... but has to admit Boshack eats people alive or dead and is evil, but at least exercises portion control. At which point Boshack starts choking while trying to simultaneously eat two organs and a femur. Garo eventually gets the point across by comparing it to never being able to eat snack cakes again.
• Boshack is ecstatic at the thought of replacing Strahd as the Dark Lord of Barovia only to be furious when he learns he was passed over, shouting the whole thing is rigged.
  • They think for a moment that Garo is the candidate, but it turns out to be Gouda. Both Garo and Boshack are horrified and compare it to being passed over for a promotion even though you're more qualified for the role.
• Boshack is banished back to his home village where he encounters the dragon that enslaved his people and ate his arm. Boshack begins a rant about how he will destroy the dragon, only for it to casually step on him and force him under the marshy water. When Boshack is returned to Barovia, he insists he had the dragon right where he wanted it.
• During the post-campaign player conversation, Boshack's player reveals that the biggest regret of both himself and his character was that he never got the chance to eat Gouda's corpse.
• Ben asks the other players what they thought about the campaign's ending. There's a long, painful silence until Boshack's player pipes up that he loved it since everything worked out great for Boshack.
• The players describe a hypothetical epilogue in which Gouda becomes the new Dark Lord and spams her Wild Magic to summon all the unicorns in existence to Barovia, causing them to go extinct in the rest of the multiverse. Gouda's player insists that Barovia wouldn't be a trap or prison, but a safe ranch.

Other

• The picture above is taken from a video where Ben is followed around by a small pink personification of his anxiety. It seems like it is genuinely trying to help Ben, but all it does is stress him out. It even tries to get him to sleep better by playing the drums for him!
• In a video on Magic: The Gathering, Ben explains one of his favorite commanders; Karona, False God, who's primary schtick is that its controller has to pass control of it over to the next player at the beginning of the next player's turn. Ben describes this as "you give another player Karona, then they pass it to another player, and it just kinda goes around the table, makes sure that everyone has it."
• In his next video about Magic, Ben rants about a card he firmly believes should be banned from the game for being overpowered, immune to most counters and nearly impossible to remove from the board; Jwari Scuttler, a 2/3 blue crab costing two generic and one blue mana. If you're unfamiliar with Magic, Jwari Scuttler is so generic that most players won't bother with it, and is on the lower end of that mana cost's power scale. Ben just hates it because Will at some point used it to win a game.