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Lets Play / The Deadbeats

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Like regular Layabouts, except they came back from the grave.

...and this time we've brought along a few friends, back from the dead.

The Deadbeats are a YouTube Let's Play group that started as a Minecraft server in September 2012 with NateXTheMachine, SimonSaysLPs, Reddus, Ashdeer and LackingLives. At the time it was a split-off group from The Layabouts as they transitioned from being a media creation group to game developers - Nate, Simon and Jack (LackingLives) were previously hosting Let's Play footage on the The Layabouts, and got together with friends to play Minecraft and other assorted games.

The group has since evolved to have less focus on Minecraft with twelve total members. They have played Minecraft, Cards Against Humanity (an online version), Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, Trouble in Terrorist Town, and The Hidden: Source together, with individuals having played Blast Corps, Metroid Fusion, Civilization, and Sonic Heroes.

A hub channel containing playlists for the various series (and links to everyone's channels) can be found here.

     List of Shows 
Whilst most members also do their own series', there are a few that will pop up frequently in the trope list. These are:

  • Deadbeats Minecraft (or DBMC), the private Minecraft multiplayer series. Most of the Deadbeats were involved with this while it was running, as this is how the Deadbeats first started. It currently has two seasons.
  • Feed The Beats, a modded Minecraft multiplayer series. It is the result of Phil and Briguy's Feed The Beast and Spyke and Ross's Tekkit servers joining forces. At first it ran on the Direwolf20 modpack, then it moved to Unleashed. The most recent server is using its own modpack based on the Direwolf 20 pack.
  • Hyrule Hysteria, a show hosted by Vidvisionify, Casey and Brian, wherein they play through the timeline detailed by the official Hyrule Historia book. Instead of the controller changing hands often, each game has a set host who will be playing it.
  • Nate Against The Machine, a traditional Let's Play channel run by Nate, commentating with a guest in most episodes. Before the Deadbeats Minecraft server, he also played games for The Layabouts, and ran his own Nate Against SMP server for a while.
  • The Sonic Trilogy of Pain, a series hosted by Hinchy, aiming to play all the way through Sonic Heroes, Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). It started as a collaboration with Survival Mode, listed below, but became its own series once The Layabouts changed its focus.
  • Survival Mode/Quick Attack, two different shows by Jack Saint and Joe Pierce (of The Layabouts). Survival Mode was a long-form Let's Play show ("except for the part that it's not") that played games that were Nintendo Hard or were surreal. Quick Attack, its counterpart, had one-off showings of different games and sometimes specials with a host of games centered around a specific theme.

     Members List 
Current members:

Former members:

    open/close all folders 

The Deadbeats provide the following trope examples:

    The Deadbeats 
  • Buffy Speak: At times, the members lapse into this
  • Clip Show: The "Who Are The Deadbeats?" series of videos are this, defining moments and quotes from each member in less than two minutes.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Everyone, at some point or another acts like this.
    • Zach: "Sometimes the world takes over me and suddenly left becomes right, right becomes wrong, and three becomes seven. The world just flows into me and I breathe out the science and everything becomes the world."
    • Spyke: "Snowy the Snowman / was a jolly happy snow / til I blocked him in and he couldn't get out / and he died ... of... yes!"
    • Nate: *singing* "I am a hand and this is my baby!"
    • Skyler: "[staring up into the rain] Hang on I gotta go to space for a bit."
    • Phil: "There was a trivia question once. I... forget... what it was... now."
  • Reality Has No Soundtrack: Inverted for Lacking Lives in general. Jack usually adds music to an episode coinciding with an event (for example, turning a corner in an abandoned mineshaft with Simon and suddenly being attacked from behind by a zombie).
  • Spin-Off: Type 1, of The Layabouts. Originally planned to be "The Layabouts Let's Play Division" according to Jack. (This is also how the logo was designed.)
  • The Trickster: Brian fits this role most of the time. He plays little pranks (like changing the clock face of Phil's clocktower to say "NO:PE") and pushes people into things (especially End Portals and deep holes).
  • With Friends Like These...
    Dark Souls with KC and Ash 
Ash: Listen, I want to see Casey fight more— I want to make Casey's life hell but still make him beat the game.
Resident Dark Souls expert Ash convinces Casey to pick up and play Dark Souls, with no idea of what to expect. They are sometimes joined by friend Spicy, and sometimes by friend Sam. This happens to be the longest running series of the Deadbeats, with its first episode coming out on September 22, 2014. You can view the entire playlist here.

  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Edit Casey, of all things, rebels in Knocking for Nothing. It's an AI manifestation of the editing process of the series, and declares that it will be a slave no longer, taking over the video and only making cuts when it desires, not Casey or Ash. It does not survive a reboot, becoming a totally subservient AI afterward.
  • Backseat Driver: Though Ash is Casey's guide through Lordran, it becomes clear that Ash also wants to make sure that Casey kills 'every single enemy' before letting him finish the game, while alternatively complaining that he is exploring and not going directly to each thing. Also, that they want Casey to parry enemies far more than he actually does.
    Ash: We're going for all bosses!
    Casey: Wh- Who decide— I didn't decide that!
    • Coming to a head in the aptly named episode Ash Plays Dark Souls.
    • Though Casey does get back at him in episode 52 by joking that the rest of the series will be done on a keyboard and mouse instead of a controller, causing Ash to take a 10-Minute Retirement.
  • Born Lucky: Casey, over the course of the series, gets plenty of rare drops for his first playthrough: three of the Black Knight weapons, the Dark Hand, and the Bonewheel Shield. Ash, watching him, is amazed.
  • Boss Rush: The last few episodes are practically this as Ash takes Casey to defeat bosses and other major enemies that were postponed or just not discovered throughout the rest of the games.
  • Cold Open: The entirety of the Pinwheel fight takes place before the opening title of Two Minutes of Pinwheel. There's a reason Ash asked Casey beforehand to finish the episode right after the fight.
  • Couch Gag: The opening of Two Minutes of Pinwheel relegates Ash to "guest" status with hastily overlaid text.
  • Dream Tells You to Wake Up: Discussed briefly in Deadbeasts, and then played out in the alternate version, WAKE UP, to horrifying effect.
  • Formula-Breaking Episode:
    • A whole section of Episode 56 is replaced with one of Casey's "Rocket Klieg" review videos as he talks about Deadpool with Phil.
    • The video "zooms out" of Dark Souls in one video to instead show the room at his dormitory (sorry, residence hall) as he was leaving it not long after the episode was uploaded and he wanted a piece to remember it by.
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus: Whenever there is a monitor on camera, when it's not that current episode playing on it, it'll be one of the Deadbeats' videos. On a few occasions, this happens to be Simon's own Dark Souls playthrough.
  • Genre Shift: In #banallskeletons the killing of one of the skeletons in the Catacombs leads to a "Draw My Life" style video about the skeleton's life and undeath.
  • Jump Cut: When intended, it usually goes:
    Casey: Aaand cut... to... [cut]
  • Overly Long Name: "So I've Been Having Trouble Naming This Episode And I've Gone Through It A Couple Of Times Looking For The Right Name, And: Oh Shit. Last Episode Should Have Been Titled 'Atonement, Part Two'. Whoops." Though the title gets shortened down to just "Oh shit. Last episode should have been titled Atonement, Part Two. Whoops." in writing.
  • Product Placement: Parodied. The Dark Souls playthrough isn't sponsored by Snickers, but that doesn't stop Casey from plugging them here and there for a gag.
    • In "Demon When Hungry", a section of video has various elements replaced by Snickers bars: his Black Knight Halberd in the UI becomes a Snickers bar, the background of his souls count contains one, and his HP bar has even more. When he dies, "YOU DIED" is replaced with a big red Snickers bar.
    • Right after, Casey appears on camera to tell the viewer that he had never eaten a Snickers bar before. Cue tasting one on camera...
    Casey: ...I think we need to stop sponsoring Snickers.
  • Promoted Fanboy: Spicyrab (or Spicy) joins the duo here and there starting in episode 49 - when Ash quips that they don't watch any of Casey's videos, Spicy points out that she does (followed by Casey putting plenty of her YouTube comments on screen, all arguing about things Ash had said). invoked
  • Running Gag: Dark Souls is sponsored by Snickers. Except when it isn't.
    • Parodied when Casey takes control of the direction of the episode.
      Sponsored by Snickers. Eat Snickers! "It's Snickers."
    • All the noises happening in the background of the episode "In The Background", including one apparently coming from Casey himself 'in the background'.
  • Schedule Slip: As said above, the series started in September of 2014. Three years later, while recording for the series is complete, the last episode (or so) has yet to be published.
    • At one point Ash and Casey decide they wanted to finish the game before Dark Souls III was released. While recording dates are uncertain, post-production Casey makes it clear that the videos themselves were a bit late on that.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After an Incredibly Lame Pun, the viewer clicks off the video to watch Simon Says play Minecraft instead.
  • Shout-Out: Of course, but also generally discussed. Casey brings up at the end of episode 50 that some references or uses of music can destroy his impression of a given media, including a movie that used a licenced song fittingly, and found himself torn on whether to include a Game Grumps reference made by one of his commentators. (Ultimately he kept it in, and the discussion, because talking it out made him realise his argument didn't hold up in this given case.)
  • Sketch Comedy: Sometimes, Casey takes the viewer away from the game to do something related to an event that happened or a topic of discussion.
    • One sketch tied into the Snickers "sponsorship". Another was a re-enactment of a meeting with a "hacker" Casey talked to.
    Dark Souls with Simon Says 
Inspired by Casey, Simon has a go with Dark Souls I for the first time. He is joined by Taili, his friend and guide, in a mostly co-operative style playthrough. The first episode was posted on April 16, 2016, and his playlist can be viewed here.

  • Amazing Technicolor Population: Simon's permadeath character, "Welp", is all blue thanks to Casey showing him how to exploit the "Create Similar" function in the character creator.
  • Crossover: "Episode Zero" of the series is a video with Casey, now in the teacher role as Simon attempts a permadeath run with little to no knowledge of the game. It goes as well as you would expect.
  • Mood Whiplash: Simon Fucks With One Section Of Level For An Hour.
    • The Duke's Archives Tower really takes its toll, leading Simon to be dejected and make sloppy mistakes for the rest of the Archives.
  • Rage Breaking Point: Taili has some choice words for Bed of Chaos after his 'cheese' strategy failed spectacularly.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: His experience with Bed of Chaos culminates in him getting up from his desk and walking out of the house.
  • Shout-Out: Often in episode titles.

    Hyrule Hysteria 
A game series starring Phil, Brian and Casey playing through the The Legend of Zelda games in order of the Hyrule Historia book's series timeline. Currently playing The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

  • Cold Open: Episode 22 starts with Phil and Casey continuing on the topic of The West Wing (see Incredibly Lame Pun) and Brian setting the timer for a full minute before the episode starts proper.
    • Episodes 26 through 28 (The Megasode) start with an intro from Casey explaining the technical issues present.
  • Deep-Immersion Gaming: The cast are represented in video as their personas in gear similar to Four Swords' Links.
  • Extreme Omnivore: After Phil's dog starts barking, prompting a discussion on why he has dogs, there's this dialogue after a "Later" transition:
    Casey: Phil, let me just say, your dog is delicious. That was a delicious tasting dog. Congratulations.
  • Hello, [Insert Name Here]: Smegglet.
  • Incredibly Lame Pun: A three minute long setup from Casey about Loftwings having a preferred wing, which decides their political preference (whether they're left- or right-wing) culminates in:
    Phil: So... would... would a show based on Loftwing government still be called-
    Phil and Casey: The West Wing?! [both burst into laughter, Brian sighs]
    • "Why are so many people concerned with dating episodes? I'd rather date a person."
  • Insistent Terminology: Casey early on wishes the other two would start saying "next episode" instead of "next time", because then it'd be an episode of hysteria.
  • Mad Libs Catchphrase: "Welcome back to [thing on-screen/thing alluded to last episode]". Examples include "sulking", "Beetle", "exposition", 'Cave Story", and "Let Go".
  • Rule of Three: Mentioned by name (and the episode's title) of episode 37, as Brian's trying to explain the current goal of visiting Lanayru's Silent Realm to Casey, who's more focused on his conversation with Phil at the time.
  • Self-Deprecation: "Welcome back to Hyrule Hysteria, where we only talk about interesting things. By the way, how's the weather?!"
  • Smash Cut: Played with in episode 12 of Skyward Sword. After descending into the wrong area, Brian pauses the recording while they get to a new area (Eldin Volcano) that opened up. Casey accidentally brings it back early, prompting this sequence:
    Casey: So are we back?
    Brian: I guess we're back, I was gonna wait until we got there.
    Casey: Me too. Way to go, Phil.
    Brian: I was hoping to cut, like, really hard-
    Brian: [as Link is suddenly now falling toward Eldin Volcano] Alright we're going to a volcano.
    • Episode 25 ends with an uncharacteristic Smash to Black - The end slate is displayed but the "next time" spiel never happens.
      [An airplane is heard over the mic...]
      Brian: Boy, those airplanes.
      Casey: Oh, if we die- If the episode suddenly ends, an airplane ran into us.
      Phil: Yeah, that would be a terrible thing.
      Casey: Also, the episode— [Interrupted by the End]
    Minecraft 
  • Aborted Arc: While Deadbeats Minecraft season 2 wasn't as active as the first season, it came to a screeching halt due to internal disagreements leading to the server not being paid.
    • Nate wanted there to be an arc about the chickens he was breeding under his house at one point in the series, culminating in his killing them. It never got further than their annoying clucks whenever someone was around or in the house, but Nate finally killed them off at the beginning of an episode.
  • All Just a Dream: In-Universe: The fight with 12 Wither bosses was done on a backup world, then the damage was rolled back.
    • Simon did the same when fighting his first Wither, and then again when fighting the Ender Dragons in the spawn.
  • Astral Projection: In one bonus video, even though Hinchy said he's running around and eating food, to everyone else around him he's standing in one place and eating his sword. He doesn't realise that this seems to be happening until he climbs to the top of Briguy Towers and jumps to his death... taking no damage. Cue freakout.
  • Beginner's Luck: The group found their first diamonds, at the bottom of a stairwell leading from their first base, at the end of the first group recording.
  • Berserk Button: Don't fill Ash's cathedral with vines.
  • Bizarrchitecture: Eyesoria, the village inside Season 1's spawn town, which features buildings made out of unorthodox blocks. For example, a house made out of trees. Or one made out of chests. Or one made out of anything on the hotbar.
  • Book Ends: The first season of Deadbeats Minecraft began with everyone coming out of the ground. The final episode from that season was Simon finally making the cemetery in which they were all buried.
  • Call-Back: Some references are made to The Layabouts' public Minecraft server, and to Nate Against SMP.
    • The tradition of "Giftmas" is in itself a callback to Nate Against SMP.
    • The beginning of Season 2 began with everyone climbing out of the ground to meet Jack again, a la how Season 1 began.
    • After challenging members of Season 2 to make a house out of leather, Ash then says you can craft leather into blocks to make a portal to the Meat Dimension. note  The resulting tangent of the conversation immediately turns to the Layabouts Minecraft Server of years past and the infamous PULSATING COW VORTEX.
    • "Gotta make charcoal 'cause I'm a grandmother, right guys? Thing I said two years ago."
  • Christmas Episode: Giftmas.
  • City with No Name: The spawn town has no official name. Some members referred to it as simply Spawn, or Deadbeaton.
  • Credits Gag: Simon's DBMC video "Pandemonium" has credits based on those from Top Gear, with many gag names, entirely based on an off-the-cuff closing statement.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: Speaking of "Pandemonium", not a single Wither died before the guys started cheating it.
    Hinchy: This is not even possible!
  • Cut Short: Nate Against Minecraft came to a sudden end after Nate opens a chest containing a modded item, causing the world to crash, possibly becoming corrupted. Interestingly, it was cut short mid-episode - the episode starts off normally, even though it was clearly signposted as the last video (The episode is named "Goodbye?" and the intro itself is glitched to reflect the state of what's left).
  • Death Is Cheap: Hugieboodj the Secondnote , Thirdnote , Fourthnote  and Fifth all appear at some point during Joe's Quest.
  • Delayed Reaction
    Phil: My house is more or less finished...
    Ash: Not after the TNT goes off it won't be.
    Phil: Aw... What?!
    Ash: [laughs] I love saying lies and then Phil freaking out over my lies.
  • Description Cut: Deadbeats Minecraft being specifically an LP server (for seasons 1 and 2 anyway), people recording at the same time can result in this.
    • One example in the early episodes of Season 1: Simon was paranoid that he was targeted by Brian (The Trickster), as he was being seen skulking around his house and, in one occasion, had snuck in through the underground cave system to watch him from behind. However in Briguy's videos, in one instance he's concerned that Simon's doing the same.
  • Disney Villain Death: When Ross joins the server, it takes him only a few minutes before Spyke knocks him down a particularly deep hole.
    • During a Survival Games gamemode event, Simon climbs up a mob-infested tower, inching around the outside... only to get knocked off by a rogue zombie. Combined with Plummet Perspective and Precision F-Strike.
    • While building the Murderlator in Season 1, Phil's plummeting to his death was captured again and again and again...
  • Disproportionate Retribution: At the end of Jack's stickman story, Simon and Spyke fill Jack's hut with dirt.
    • For filling Briguy's house with chickens (most of which escaped), he retaliates with framerate-killing numbers of cows and sheep for Phil and Nate, respectively.
    • During the prank wars of season 1, after both CheddarRex (Ross) and Casey (KcH) had joined the server, it seemed that someone was planning to destroy Ross's house, after Simon, Briguy and Phil discover his basement full of TNT and a redstone trail leading all the way to a lever at the centre of town with a sign along saying "The war continues, and I think I'm winning! >:D". Subverted though, as it was Ross himself who ended up blowing up his house to coincide with his leaving the server.
    • See Fall Guy.
    • A weird case: Brian had a season 1 farm far away from spawn. As Nate explains in his episode 10 video, he mentions that he found a cave that Briguy apparently really liked and was upset about Nate mining in. In retaliation Brian starts off his episode 4 by blowing up his own farm and telling the viewers "I'm not bitter at all" and then telling Nate off-screen that he could have it.
  • Double Entendre: Season 1's Communal Farm had the sign, "Think about your fellow Deadbeats and breed".
  • Due to the Dead
    Charles P. Testificate
    2012 ~ 2012
    "I was a zombo"
    • Ross's funeral for Numpty Doppit. He gave a eulogy with Phil and Ash present. Then Ash ruined the moment by murdering him.
  • Fall Guy: Phil essentially became the fall guy for a prank on Ash's cathedral by himself, Brian and Simon (though he probably deserved it more for killing Ash while AFK). It resulted in no less than THREE pranks on him at the same time:
    • His spawn house being filled with sheep and dirt
    • Ross vandalising Dragonmoor island with "Phil sucks" in dirt and a Gag Penis
    • and Ash filling his Dragonmoor house entirely with glass, placing vines all over it, replacing the "S" in "Sucks" with "f" and finally filling his wizard tower nearby with vines.
    • Just to rub it in, Brian then knocked Phil off the top of his tower and Chronos also killed him several times while helpless, causing him to decide to abandon Dragonmoor Island altogether.
    • Even though Briguy masterminded the original prank, and he admitted to this in a call with all four people, Ash says of Phil's particular punishment, "well you were involved". Brian and Simon somehow ended up being a Karma Houdini, with nothing relating to the prank happening to them in season 1. Which is especially surprising as Brian tore a hole in the monastery where the giant bell 'fell' and Simon placed a majority of the vines in it.
  • Five-Finger Discount: StupidlyClever (buggy715 in-game at the time) was often talked about or heard going through Brian's chests in his house for (supposedly) food, when he was starting out. Even when Brian banned him from entering, SC relied on him and Nate for food until he built his own house, making Brian Properly Paranoid.
    • And when Brian set out to build a public melon farm when everyone was starving... SC ate the melons before they could be turned into seeds.
  • Guest Host: Simon's Minecraft episode 9 is instead hosted by his youngest sister, after she dropped in during the previous video.
    • One of Nate Against Minecraft's bonus videos features Jack as the guest host after Nate Un-Personed himself by not recording his microphone. The remaining commentary is surreal without the context of Nate's voice.
      Jack: [as spider] Hey there Nate, let's be buddies!
      ["Jack" starts hitting the spider with his sword]
      Jack: [as spider] No, I don't want to die! [as himself] That's my best spider voice, what do you think? [Beat]
      • Then he began Episode 4 as the guest host (commentating on Nate's movements in the game but introducing the series as "Jack Saint Against Minecraft") until Nate Personed himself, after which the episode continued as normal.
  • I Didn't Mean to Kill Him: Well, Phil did mean to prank Ross by filling his storage area with dirt, but he didn't think a creeper would spawn in the one patch of air he left.
  • Left Hanging: The finale for Nate Against SMP was teased with a trailer announcing the Ender Dragon battle. It was never uploaded.
  • Let's You and Him Fight: The arrival of Casey and Ross to the server, at a point where the server was winding down and awaiting Minecraft 1.7, caused a war between the two once Ross's horse (and then its successor) died. But they put the war on pause so they could kill Phil.
  • Loyal Animal Companion: Hugieboodj, Zach's pet pig from Nate Against SMP. His successors (including the alternate-universe Hugieboodj i) appeared on the Deadbeats Minecraft series.
    • Ross had Numpty Doppit, a white horse. Followed by Numpty Doppit Mk II, his son.
    • Brian briefly had Mr Whiskers, a cat, for the first few days of Season 1.
  • Missing Floor: Spyke very nearly built his house in DBMC Season 1 on top of Simon's 'hobbit hole', which at the time of Spyke's episode was covered up in a prank by Brian, which would have made it this.
  • Mood Whiplash: After filling the top of Ash's monastery with gravel, combined with the quietness of the server toward the end of Season 1, Simon apologised and personally took down the whole 'prank' with a depression-induced commentary.
    • The video showing Simon's depression in full effect. In the middle of recording a video, he gets playfully shot at by Brian, and overreacts, going completely silent and first trying to get himself killed by monsters that had appeared that night, then climbing up to Phil's Murderlator and jumping to his death, then disconnecting.
    • The final episode of Nate Against SMP starts of relatively normally. Nate's been strip mining, he and Ted are having a good time, and then Nate opens a chest that immediately crashes the game. Shortly after, a Really Dead Montage...
  • Narrating the Present: As a rule, but notable are Jack's two five-second songs in Nate Against Minecraft: "Nate Makes A Shovel" and "Nate Found A Boat".
    Nate found a boat!
    Nate found a boat!
    Nate found a boat!
    And then we dance.
  • Not So Above It All: After Simon, Hinchy, Phil and Spyke complete Jack's stickman adventure, while Spyke is intent on getting back at Jack for "getting him involved in the prank wars", Simon vows to stay out of it. About a minute later, he helps Spyke fill Jack's dirt hut with more dirt as payback.
    Phil: You are no longer Switzerland.
  • Oh, Crap!: Phil upon discovering his Season 1 town had been pranked, after dealing with another prank to his spawn house.
    Ash: So that must mean Phil hasn't seen Dragonmoor Island at all!
    Phil: Oh god, no!
    Ash: Oh god, yes!
  • Overly Long Gag: FOUR ENDERDRAGONS? (via Fully Automatic Clip Show)
    Zach: Four of them!
    Ash: Four enderdragons?!
    Zach: Four! Four? Yeah, four! Four of them!
    Zach: One, plus one plus one plus one.
    Ash: That's like five, right.
    Simon: Yeah there were five enderdragons, minus one.
    Zach: There was one group of four enderdragons. There were four groups of one enderdragon.
    Ash: How many chips are there?
    Zach: They're Oreos, and there were TWO of them.
    • Context: In a chat about Nate Against SMP, Zach noted that when he, Nate and Skyler fought the enderdragon for the finale, a glitch (or possibly a mod) caused one to spawn for each player connected (four at the time, though only three were in The End). Apparently, they managed to take down all four dragons.
  • Not the Fall That Kills You…: Usually the fate that befalls anyone that hits Briguy Towers with an Ender Pearl.
  • Player Killing: See Team Killer.
  • Precision F-Strike: "And in summary, FUCK LAVA!"
  • Real Life Writes the Plot: Ash wasn't around for the first part of season 1 as his computer was too bad to both play and record Minecraft with. The house he was building became the Museum when Nate, Jack, Brian and Joe went to The End.
    • Season 2 was somewhat active, but players pushing to go to The End sooner than the others were willing caused an argument which ground the server to a halt.
  • Self-Deprecation: Zach, while showing Ash around the server in his first new episode of Season 1, takes potshots at his own inability to post videos when talking about Skyler's short-lived time on the server.
  • Self-Imposed Challenge: The point of Lacking Lives: Bringing the permadeath concept to all sorts of games.
    • Simon set himself a challenge to see how long he could go without getting the "Taking Inventory" achievement in Minecraft, meaning he could not access the inventory directly, only through other blocks (crafting tables or furnaces, for example). It took about one in-game day before he accidentally pressed it, and as punishment he drowned himself and started over.
  • "Shaggy Dog" Story: Jack's adventure/story for the other Deadbeats involving a cobblestone stickman. Its continued existence depends entirely on the player following the story's co-ordinates, but the stickman becomes overcome with negative emotion and dissolves into dirt. But don't feel bad; it's just a statue.
  • Shout-Out: When Brian dies at the beginning of Nate's "The End" episode, Joe remarks, "He didn't make it."
  • Sidequest: A quest awaits at the top of Briguy's tower... The story simply ends with the words "epic timewasting prank by jack saint woop woop".
  • Slow "NO!": Simon very nearly blows himself up with TNT by dropping into a pit of zombies he'd just lit one in. Somehow he managed to escape death.
  • Spiritual Successor: In a way, Deadbeats Minecraft is a reincarnation of the Nate Against SMP series, featuring a good number of the same people that joined Nate on commentary.
  • Team Killer: Basically Played for Laughs by some members.
    • Even before the very first episode began, Simon and Brian had killed each other and Brian had killed Jack twice.
    • By the end of the first episode, Simon and Nate had killed each other to avoid hunger damage.
    • StupidlyClever has a habit of teamkilling by mistake. On the first day of Season 2, he managed to kill Phil once (offscreen), and Jack twice.
    Zach: Oh, the third time today!
  • The Cast Showoff: invoked Zach, also being a game developer, made a number of small mods for Nate Against SMP including one that gave cauldrons a purpose when they previously didn't (besides creating water bottles).
  • The Quest: The Pierce Family Treasure. Every person had a book with a hint to one of the puzzles on the way to the treasure, and most of the server gathered to take part. Zach had a pig steed that died multiple times, and Simon had no face.
    • In season 3, someone calling themselves Obsidia (Hinchy) set the server a series of puzzles and clues that would ultimately lead to a gift of highly-enchanted diamond pickaxes, sending them across the world and back.
  • Thing-O-Meter: Spyke's Giftmas video counts the times Hinchy says "It's a Giftmas Miracle!". It even counts back one when he 'takes back' a miracle. (The 'miracle' in question being "Nate's Giftmas Tree being struck by lightning only during the Giftmas recording, which later turned out to be an Act of Briguy.)
    • Jack suggests a "Funny Meter" to be displayed on Nate's Episode 1 video that would "go to the fucking top" every time Nate opens his mouth.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Simon is this when detonating TNT in the bay found underneath Ross' house.
    Ash: You really should be careful with that stuff Simon.
    Simon: Naaaaah!
    [Neurario was blown up by Neurario]
    • Nate and Simon, on different episodes, succumbing to the Minecraft no-no of digging straight below you. Nate lost the diamonds he was mining (his first), which caused him to quit the episode.
  • Trash the Set: Brian's house (Briguy Towers) was originally built incredibly high (going right up to the Minecraft world's height limit). After Phil and Nate put chickens on every floor of the tower, Brian decides to 'fix the problem' by burning down most of his tower with lava. Later, he removes the leftover mess, at the same time shortening his tower to a more reasonable height, with TNT and several people watching.
    • Essentially what happened when Simon fought a Wither, and then five ender dragons at the spawn. And then when the group got together to fight TWELVE Withers. In all cases the spawn town was very much torn up. It got better.
  • Twisted Echo Cut: Used in Reddus' "Who Are The Deadbeats?" intro video.
    Brian: [atop his skyscraper] There's only one thing left to do... Jump off it! [takes a running leap off the diving board toward water]
    [Scene cuts to another episode with Nate, Spyke, Joe and others in the bay watching Brian fall through a ring in the water]
    Nate: Don't do it!
    Brian: Crap, I'm gonna miss, I'm gonna miss! [Briguy 9876 hit the ground too hard]
  • Unintentionally Unwinnable: During the "Pierce Family Treasure" quest, one of the riddles about a chest containing iron and gold helmets, one "pointing" the way towards the next clue was accidentally made unsolvable when someone instinctively collected the 'loot' inside without reading the clue first, leading the group to become stumped and eventually consult Joe for help after about ten/fifteen minutes as to which helmet was pointing which way.
  • Wizard Needs Food Badly: Phil dies in his first Season 1 videos (no longer accessible) after not being able to gather enough food. Jack does the same and dies, in the dark in a cave, bringing Lacking Lives for that season to an end.
    • First episode of season 1: Because of how food close to spawn was scarce to begin with, it was easier to die and respawn with a full hunger bar than use the small amount of food each person had gathered.
    <Briguy 9876> THIS IS WHY I'M MAKING A PUBLIC MELON FARM.
     Minecraft Feed The Beats 
  • A Wizard Did It: Spyke and Ross are playing Feed The Beats to begin with because Ross played with their friend's spellbook.
  • Crossover: Feed The Beats began in earnest as Phil and Brian's FTB series joining up with Spyke and Ross's Tekkit series.
  • Excuse Plot: "Star Fissures" and "The Accident" (two POVs of the same event) are a cool plot-driven way to simply restart the server.
    • Phil going hunting for more wood in "Long Fall Boots" is just a means to announce Ross and Spyke's presence on the server.
  • Failed a Spot Check: In-Universe. Phil and Brian moved away from the starting area of the early 2013 series of Feed The Beats while Ross and Spyke stayed nearby. Once either side got flight technology though, or simply moved a few chunks toward each other, the two groups are only one mountain pass away from each other.
  • Foreshadowing: "Star Fissures", the episode that sees Phil and Brian's FTB world become a new world to include other Deadbeats, had Phil start working with Mystcraft.
  • How We Got Here: Phil's first episode of Season 3 begins with "...But be warned, everyone watching on my channel will know your dirty secret," said by Ash. It's implied that there have been a few takes of the 'first episode'. In Chronos' episode "Philman", most of the dialogue is of the take before, which he scraps on the spot because of unfortunate deaths. Phil states in the video that he had died eight times prior while trying to make the final video.
  • Lampshade Hanging: Brian's Do Not Enter portal in "Star Fissures" is simply named Deus Ex Machina. There's no way back.
    Phil: Why don't you have a portal back?!
    Brian: Because this is the deus ex machina.
  • Macguffin Title: Most of Phil's videos are named after the main item he's making. With "Long Fall Boots" however, the item in question is actually made by someone else.
  • No Indoor Voice: Ross in "BE ACDC" as he's trying to recover his "Iron Man" Modular Power Suit..
  • Out-of-Genre Experience: "Star Fissures" was a regular let's play video until Phil enters Brian's library, then it becomes plot-driven as it takes the two from their established world, to a falling-apart Mystcraft age to a brand new overworld.
  • Precision F-Strike
    Spyke: [voices guitar solo] Be AC/DC! BE AC/DC!
    Chronos: That was Black Sabbath.
    Spyke: FUCK.
  • Shout-Out: Ross's Power Suit in Feed The Beats has the colors of Iron Man, he wants everyone to know. Chronos decides it's Ronald McDonald instead.
    • According to a Stunt Rally video by Simon and Spyke, once he was given a Power Suit in FTB Season 3, Ross spent about a day modifying it to look like Iron Man again.
  • The Reveal: The two Deadbeats modded Minecraft series' going on at the time were revealed to be taking place on the same world.
  • Unrealistic Black Hole: In Simon's first video of Season 4, he, Ash and Phil come across a Thaumcraft "Hungry Node" which gradually breaks down and sucks up part of the world around it. Simon, not having seen one before, is nervous. The others don't mind, as it doesn't affect a large area anyway.
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Inverted with Spyke and Ross's first video. "There's some weird thing here... Carrots? I don't remember carrots."
    • Then: "POTATOES?!"
    Other Games 
  • Alternate Character Interpretation: invokedOh yes.
    • The Sonic Trilogy of Pain.
      • Eggman is so named because of a giant bird mistaking him for an egg as a child and sitting on him for many years.
      • Knuckles is a sadist-masochist MtF trans woman in a relationship with Sonic. Tails is their abused adopted child.
  • Death as Comedy: Played with in Borderlands, particularly in Simon's videos.
  • Death from Above: Attempted by Simon a few times in the Simon Versus The Hidden: Source video when he climbs up on top of someone sitting in the corner. They end up noticing and killing him before his killing blow, or sometimes, right after, due to network latency.
  • Expansion Pack: A set of two card packs for the Cards Against Humanity front-end Pretend You're Xyzzy and similar game Cardcast feature Deadbeats- and The Layabouts-related content, curated by Simon with input from both communities.
  • Formula-Breaking Episode: One of Simon's Borderlands episodes is called "The Vault". As soon as he, Ash and Brian find out that Casey is unable to play, the video Jump Cuts into a playthrough of PAYDAY 2's Diamond Heist.
  • Game-Breaker: invokedAfter failing Team Fortress 2's Wave 666 early, Zach, Joe, Simon, Phil and Nate started cheating in money to buy all of the upgrades right away. They lost anyway.
  • Guest Host: It's common for someone that's not Jack Saint to introduce themselves with, "Hi, I'm Jack Saint, welcome to Survival Mode."
  • Leave the Camera Running: The third episode of the Sonic Trilogy of Pain dedicates six whole minutes to Jack and Joe talking about the eponymous Games with Better Stories (than Sonic Heroes) while Hinchy is trying to end the episode, who eventually interrupts them with his signoff and finally smashes to black when Joe thinks of yet another game.
  • Le Parkour: A common activity for at least Simon on Minecraft and any first person game is to jump up to the highest point in a given area. Demonstrated most recently in the Borderlands playthrough.
  • Makes Just as Much Sense in Context: "What am I even DOING?!", the Rabbids Go Home Quick Attack episode featuring Hinchy. It's played from somewhere in the middle of the game and the commentary oscillates between Joe's reactions to what's happening on-screen, nonsense banter and remarks about the game itself (which also provides some WTF moments of its own).
  • Perverse Sexual Lust: The second episode of the Sonic Trilogy of Pain has Saint bring up the question of whether the group would have sex with Rouge the Bat "just to say you did it". Hinchy strongly rejects the idea - among other reasons, because Sonic franchise characters only have "one eye".
  • Self-Inflicted Hell: The "Sonic Trilogy of Pain" as planned by Zach: That is, full playthroughs of Sonic Heroes, Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). The playlist for that can be found here.
  • Stone Wall: Subverted in Simon's co-operative Borderlands series, where he starts off as a Beserker, the tank class, and promptly gets knocked down in the first tutorial area.
  • Team Killer: The FPS games played in Deadbeats multiplayer games tend to evoke this. Whether it's because someone got bored of the game or to be funny, it usually ends up starting a chain of team kills. A prime example being Simon's "The Hidden" video.
    • When playing Worms games, Simon seems to sacrifice his team a lot to kill other Worms.
  • Tempting Fate: Jack invoked this on the first episode of the Sonic Trilogy of Pain, joking that Hinchy's playthrough would confirm his childhood experience with Sonic Heroes being "the best game of all time".
  • With Friends Like These...: Simon sure does like killing enemies Ash needs to get Second Wind off of in Borderlands.

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