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S5 Ep. 2 - Thoughts on Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 1 · Bards and Barrels

• 0:00
  Ross: New achievement And there's the opening crack.
• 0:14
  Ross: It's time for a Dungeon Crawler Carl episode of Bards and Barrels.
• 0:18
  Ross: Here we go.
• 0:19
  Ross: Glurp Glurp.
• 0:20
  Ross: Glurp Glurp Mother Truckers.
• 0:23
  Ross: Yes, indeed.
• 0:24
  Ross: First of all, before we get started tonight, spoiler warning, because we're probably gonna drop some things about Dungeon Crawler Carl book one tonight.
• 0:34
  Ross: Also, big shout out to Phil here because if you didn't notice, he is in costume.
• 0:39
  Ross: That's our first ever.
• 0:40
  Ross: You gotta stand up.
• 0:41
  Ross: You gotta stand down.
• 0:41
  Ross: And for every for everybody that has read the book, Phil, show us show us them little piggies.
• 0:51
  Speaker: Don't get rid of piggies.
• 0:54
  Phil: Yeah, they are.
• 0:55
  Brett: This is not that tough a channel.
• 0:57
  Brett: Meanwhile, the AI.
• 1:02
  Ross: Okay, for all of you that didn't get that, I'm sorry.
• 1:05
  Ross: You will get there eventually.
• 1:06
  Ross: Go read the book.
• 1:08
  Ross: Uh so tonight, gentlemen, we're gonna talk about uh we like to think of this as potentially a companion episode uh as you read through the book.
• 1:16
  Ross: So you read book one, and then you're gonna come here and then you're gonna kind of listen to us debrief a little bit and talk about the book.
• 1:23
  Ross: That's our hope, uh, is what we're gonna get out of this episode.
• 1:26
  Brett: I think we'll see.
• 1:26
  Brett: We'll see if that's a good one.
• 1:27
  Brett: Or if you've read them all, right?
• 1:29
  Brett: Or if you almost read them all or in your middle of it, come back and read the watch this one.
• 1:32
  Brett: Yeah, it's good for everybody.
• 1:34
  Ross: Okay, guys, first impressions.
• 1:35
  Ross: So think back to when you read Dungeon Crawler Carl book one.
• 1:39
  Ross: What what were your thoughts when you like read those first couple chapters of this book?
• 1:44
  Phil: I have a question for you first.
• 1:45
  Phil: Oh, okay.
• 1:46
  Phil: Is this your first lit RPG book you ever read?
• 1:49
  Phil: Yes.
• 1:50
  Phil: Then I want your guys' opinion first because it was not mine.
• 1:53
  Brett: Oh, interesting.
• 1:54
  Brett: Okay.
• 1:55
  Brett: Uh it was kind of surreal.
• 1:59
  Brett: It's like, is this a book?
• 2:02
  Brett: Like, this is like DD.
• 2:03
  Brett: Like, yeah.
• 2:04
  Brett: This feels familiar.
• 2:05
  Brett: It feels like, oh, I know what's happening here.
• 2:08
  Brett: I can keep up with this book.
• 2:10
  Ross: Yeah.
• 2:10
  Ross: Uh I had had it recommended to me by several people constantly for like a year, and finally I gave in and started reading it.
• 2:18
  Ross: It was everything I wanted it to be.
• 2:19
  Ross: I think from playing DD, like there's enough of it, crunchy style, which we'll get to here in shortly, but there was enough of that at the beginning that I got hooked in because of like the DD aspect of it for sure.
• 2:32
  Phil: Yeah.
• 2:32
  Phil: Uh so I I've read a couple other lit RPGs.
• 2:36
  Phil: Shout out to our buddy Matt, because he's the one that like years ago was like, hey, you need to start reading these books.
• 2:40
  Phil: Uh he's been reading Dungeon Carla Carl since they came out.
• 2:43
  Phil: So uh huge shout out to him.
• 2:46
  Phil: Uh I was it's I don't even know how to describe it.
• 2:53
  Phil: It's so relatable in a weird way because it's about something that's super not relatable.
• 2:58
  Phil: Does that make sense?
• 3:00
  Phil: Like it's like it just is, right?
• 3:04
  Phil: Like this is really never probably gonna happen, but the book is super relatable in a lot of ways.
• 3:09
  Phil: So I I think I go ahead.
• 3:11
  Brett: You go straight.
• 3:11
  Brett: I will say one side by side story about I after I got into the book, I'm like, holy cow, I really like this book.
• 3:17
  Brett: And so I sent it to my brother, who is a farmer and spends a lot of time in the tractor, listening to audiobooks.
• 3:25
  Brett: And I'm like, hey, here's this audiobook you should listen to.
• 3:28
  Brett: Uh and he texts me back a little bit later and he's like, Do you know the names of our cats?
• 3:34
  Phil: No way.
• 3:35
  Brett: He has Carl and Donut are his two cats.
• 3:38
  Brett: And he read these already, or is that just completely happens?
• 3:40
  Brett: He's been listening to these for like I had no idea.
• 3:45
  Brett: That's awesome.
• 3:47
  Brett: Yeah, these cats are new, but yeah.
• 3:49
  Ross: After the nice okay, I I will say this book got me pretty quickly.
• 3:55
  Ross: So I've always been a fan of like post-apocalyptic type stories.
• 3:59
  Ross: So like Hunger Games, Dystopian World type books, you know, things like that.
• 4:03
  Ross: I've I've always liked reading them.
• 4:04
  Ross: There's just something about that that it's different enough from the life we live that it's like easy to get drawn into them and what's going on.
• 4:12
  Ross: I I love Matt Dinneman's pace.
• 4:14
  Ross: What kills me so often in books that I like want to love is like it takes forever.
• 4:20
  Ross: Like if you're gonna spend 12 chapters world building, it's gonna be hard for me to get into it.
• 4:25
  Ross: You fin spend a couple chapters world building, I can get by that, but like 12 chapters or like a third of the book world building, that's that's hard for me to get involved.
• 4:35
  Phil: I almost think he set it up, he set himself up for success because there are levels, right?
• 4:40
  Phil: So sure.
• 4:41
  Phil: You don't have to figure the whole thing out day one.
• 4:43
  Phil: It's like, uh, here's the first you know, two floors, and I'll figure the rest out later.
• 4:47
  Phil: Right.
• 4:48
  Brett: And especially we'll get to this in a minute of the actual story that we're going through, but it's so familiar to DD.
• 4:53
  Brett: He can lean on his DD history of playing that anybody jumping into it, if you have a history of any really TT RPG, chances are you haven't encountered a dungeon before.
• 5:05
  Brett: Totally.
• 5:06
  Ross: Yeah.
• 5:06
  Ross: I I think he does a really good job of like, but before we even know anything about the dungeon, the stairwell, before the collapse, he does a good job of like hooking us into Carl because Carl has has an ex-girlfriend, and the ex-girlfriend left his damn cat at the apartment, and he hates the cat, but he loves the cat at the same time.
• 5:27
  Ross: And average Joe.
• 5:28
  Ross: Yes, the cat hopped out the window and, like, oh crap, now I gotta throw some clothes on in the middle of a freezing night and go out and get the damn cat.
• 5:35
  Ross: And it's like there's just something about that almost monologue at the beginning of like Carl walking through his thoughts and how life's kind of shitty at the moment.
• 5:44
  Ross: Like he doesn't really know where he's going, and then complete happenstance goes outside at the right time for the Borent Corporation to take a shit on the earth effectively.
• 5:56
  Ross: Right?
• 5:58
  Ross: Yes.
• 6:01
  Brett: Rough, but also if he didn't do it, he wouldn't be there.
• 6:05
  Ross: That's true.
• 6:05
  Ross: I I so I think this all happened in chapter one, right?
• 6:08
  Ross: He goes downstairs in chapter two or somewhere right in there.
• 6:11
  Ross: But but like when the collapse happens and like he's like gathering his sentence and he looks over, and then the neighbor who like turned on her light to see what the hell he was doing, and her head is like laying there.
• 6:22
  Ross: So it's like it almost set a tone in a way there of like the the gruesomeness that's coming without it being like slap you in the face.
• 6:30
  Brett: Yeah, kind of.
• 6:31
  Brett: So that caught me a little bit just because I didn't really know where this was going in this book.
• 6:36
  Brett: Like I knew Dungeon is it was gonna do stuff and whatever, but it was kind of like Game of Thrones-esque, where it's like, oh, oh, this is what we're doing.
• 6:43
  Brett: Okay, totally that's true.
• 6:45
  Phil: It's like one of the couple people you actually meet in the first chapter, which is like gone, right?
• 6:49
  Brett: And then it's just back to this dude and his cat, and then there's no one else here.
• 6:54
  Ross: So, like so, what did you guys think about like uh to to not just go like plot point to plot point here?
• 7:03
  Ross: Uh, let's talk a little bit about going down the steps because eventually, you know, like he's outside, there's the announcement that's made.
• 7:10
  Ross: It's like go find a set of steps.
• 7:11
  Ross: Luckily, there was one close by him.
• 7:13
  Ross: So then he had to make the decision to go down.
• 7:15
  Ross: Put yourself in his shoes because I think this is what Matt Dimmon really wants you to do.
• 7:21
  Brett: Oh, all the time.
• 7:22
  Ross: Do do you go down the steps?
• 7:24
  Ross: You as an individual, do you go down the steps?
• 7:26
  Ross: Phil and Phil, you and I talked about this at RPG Con.
• 7:32
  Phil: We've talked about this before.
• 7:33
  Brett: So this could be an episode in itself.
• 7:36
  Phil: Yes, yes, eventually.
• 7:37
  Phil: The question is, I i it depends, right?
• 7:41
  Phil: Like, was it just kind of me, like in the situation where it's really just Carl?
• 7:44
  Phil: Yeah, but if I was by myself initially, yeah, probably.
• 7:48
  Phil: There would be less questioning around that.
• 7:49
  Phil: If I wasn't by myself, it would very much depend on getting other people in first, potentially people, yeah.
• 7:56
  Phil: Yeah, because that seems like it's the best chance of survival, even though we don't really know how that's gonna pan out.
• 8:03
  Phil: Right.
• 8:04
  Ross: It's like they don't they didn't give a whole lot of options.
• 8:07
  Phil: And it might be different if I was in, right, like Washington State versus you know Mexico.
• 8:12
  Phil: I might just live out my days in Mexico and call it good.
• 8:16
  Phil: You know, I don't know.
• 8:17
  Brett: Oh yeah, because it was in the dead of winter, too, right?
• 8:19
  Phil: Exactly.
• 8:20
  Ross: Yeah, so yeah, a part of his decision making was he he was cold because he didn't have pants on.
• 8:25
  Ross: Uh Phil does not have pants on either, right now.
• 8:27
  Ross: But we gotta censor that out right there.
• 8:30
  Ross: Uh so he didn't have pants on, he didn't have shoes on, he put a leather vest on.
• 8:36
  Ross: He was not gonna he had a jacket, yeah.
• 8:39
  Ross: He had a jacket on, he had a jacket in his underwear and no shoes.
• 8:43
  Ross: And that's all he had.
• 8:44
  Ross: So he needed warmth.
• 8:45
  Ross: Because I I vaguely remember like it saying like he could feel the warmth coming up from the basement or from the the bottom of the steps, and that's part of what drew him down there, which is it's just crazy to think about some of those details now.
• 8:57
  Brett: I I don't know that I would personally because I have personal connections to other people.
• 9:04
  Brett: Carl leads us into the dungeon because he's the one character who has no connections to anybody else.
• 9:12
  Brett: That's true.
• 9:12
  Brett: He has an ex-girlfriend, a freshly ex-girlfriend and a cat.
• 9:16
  Brett: He has no really other connections.
• 9:18
  Brett: He talks about his friends here and there a little bit, but he has nobody else out there to look for, really.
• 9:25
  Brett: Like he's he has no nothing holding him back from going down the stairs.
• 9:30
  Brett: I do.
• 9:31
  Brett: You guys do too.
• 9:33
  Brett: That would be That's fair.
• 9:36
  Ross: I mean, it's like I think about it.
• 9:38
  Ross: Like, if it happened, obviously all of us would check on our family first.
• 9:43
  Ross: Sure.
• 9:43
  Ross: But then one of my first five calls, if I could call anybody, would probably be to come check on you guys and be like, okay, are we doing this down?
• 9:52
  Ross: Are we going?
• 9:52
  Ross: Are we going?
• 9:53
  Ross: Let's go.
• 9:53
  Ross: Trap up, boys.
• 9:55
  Ross: Grab your dice.
• 9:56
  Ross: Here we go.
• 9:56
  Ross: Grab the cooler.
• 9:57
  Ross: Grab the cooler.
• 9:58
  Ross: Don't forget the don't forget the dungeon beers.
• 10:00
  Speaker: Can't forget the dungeon beers.
• 10:02
  Ross: Uh so then uh we we head down into the dungeon.
• 10:05
  Ross: There's a there's some things that happen with goblins and uh the the bulldozer, the goblin dozer.
• 10:10
  Phil: So we have the goblin dozer.
• 10:12
  Ross: The goblin dozer that happens.
• 10:13
  Ross: Uh it blocks it blocks Carl from getting into the tutorial game.
• 10:17
  Phil: The tutorial gifts.
• 10:18
  Ross: Where we meet uh our next like big character going out going through all of these books.
• 10:24
  Ross: Uh in the Man, the myth legend, the Ratkin.
• 10:26
  Ross: The Ratkin that is Mr.
• 10:28
  Ross: Mordecai.
• 10:29
  Ross: Mordecai.
• 10:30
  Ross: Uh and to be quite frank, he's one of my favorite characters through the entire series.
• 10:36
  Ross: Like he's that he's that fatherly figure that's there to help you along.
• 10:40
  Phil: It's interesting too.
• 10:41
  Phil: So I know we're primarily talking about book one, but you see a lot of Mordecai in book one, and towards the end, I feel like you see a little bit less of him.
• 10:49
  Ross: You do toward the end of first book?
• 10:51
  Ross: No.
• 10:51
  Ross: Or toward the end of the series that we that's out so far.
• 10:53
  Ross: The series that's been released so far.
• 10:55
  Brett: Yes, and and the He's the training guide.
• 10:57
  Brett: Like other than the actual like training guild stuff.
• 11:00
  Ross: Yes, yes, and and he his role changes.
• 11:03
  Ross: Uh, that's a couple books.
• 11:05
  Ross: We won't talk about that here, but his role changes later on.
• 11:07
  Ross: But I it does break my heart, Phil, like later on in the series where like his role does seem to minimize.
• 11:12
  Ross: It does.
• 11:13
  Ross: Uh, which is unfortunate.
• 11:14
  Ross: And some of that is just because he changes.
• 11:17
  Brett: But when he is there, he is steady through group.
• 11:21
  Brett: Sure, he is himself, he is yeah, unabashedly himself throughout the all the books.
• 11:26
  Brett: Yep.
• 11:27
  Brett: Uh, and so he is a a steady force in the whole series, I would say.
• 11:33
  Ross: Yes, yeah.
• 11:33
  Ross: Uh, I I think the the next thing we need to talk about is there's his time in the tutorial guild, and eventually, after a few things happen, he gets a pet biscuit.
• 11:41
  Ross: And Mordecai advises him to give the pet biscuit to uh Donut, who basically at this point is being a cat.
• 11:49
  Ross: Like she's taking a piss in Mordecai's mom's ashes.
• 11:52
  Ross: Uh, she's just been typical cat-like wandering off by herself.
• 11:56
  Ross: I think when they first get in the dungeon, like he's yelling at her because she's just wandering off, like like you know, just a cat flipping off the world, like cats love to do.
• 12:04
  Ross: Uh and then Mordecai's like, yeah, you should give that to your pet.
• 12:07
  Ross: And so this is where Donut becomes Donut.
• 12:13
  Ross: Donut, Princess Princess.
• 12:15
  Phil: Well, donut.
• 12:16
  Phil: I don't know the full title, all the letters.
• 12:18
  Ross: GW, well, the The Princess comes later, but Queen Angel.
• 12:22
  Ross: Uh and and I love Donut.
• 12:26
  Ross: I I know there are some people out there that get annoyed by that character.
• 12:30
  Ross: I don't, I I I honestly can't get enough of her, and I think she grows so much throughout all the books that it's just it's so fantastic, and I love her.
• 12:39
  Phil: It's it's like some of the interviews where they talk to Matt.
• 12:41
  Phil: He's like, Well, doesn't everyone know that Donut's the main character?
• 12:44
  Phil: Like, it's it's not Carl.
• 12:46
  Phil: Like, oh, okay, well, maybe like it makes sense, but so what is it?
• 12:52
  Ross: What is it about Donut that makes us love her?
• 12:56
  Phil: That she is a cat.
• 12:57
  Phil: Like, so it is just kind of like this F you sometimes mentality that she's she's a cat, but also like a child.
• 13:06
  Brett: Yeah, and I think that's what I was asking innocent, child like child innocent.
• 13:11
  Brett: Yes.
• 13:12
  Phil: I am yelling, girl.
• 13:13
  Phil: Like those types in all caps, yes, like that.
• 13:16
  Phil: That is like that is why.
• 13:18
  Ross: Yeah.
• 13:19
  Ross: Um, let's talk a little bit about we'll come back to the story in a second, but let's just to this point, let's talk a little bit about that crunchiness that's in here.
• 13:27
  Ross: Let's relate this back to DD.
• 13:29
  Ross: So just for those of you out there who who don't necessarily know what the crunchy means, uh, Phil, explain a little bit because there's there's basically I don't want to say subgenres, but there's like levels of lit RPG within the genre.
• 13:41
  Phil: Yeah, there are.
• 13:42
  Phil: So uh on on one end, we're gonna we talk crunchy, right?
• 13:45
  Phil: On the polar opposite end of that is what they call cozy.
• 13:48
  Phil: So it's just different styles of lit RPG.
• 13:51
  Phil: When we talk about a crunchy RPG, those are gonna be your lit RPGs typically that have elect true stats, almost stat blocks per se, right?
• 14:00
  Phil: That is your we're tracking leveling, we're tracking skill upgrades, we're tracking you know inventory items.
• 14:07
  Phil: That's crunchy.
• 14:08
  Phil: And your cozy is much more like oh hey, they did this thing and they got some stuff, and we, you know, we don't really need to keep track of this stuff, and we're not necessarily gonna post all their levels, and uh, we're not gonna post their viewer account, right?
• 14:20
  Phil: Or how many subscriptions they have.
• 14:21
  Phil: So that that's on that cozy side.
• 14:24
  Phil: Um, especially in book one.
• 14:25
  Phil: Bookie one starts out very much on the crunchy side.
• 14:29
  Phil: Uh it's not it's not overwhelming, but like I think there's I read a couple other lit RPGs that are like crunch crunch.
• 14:38
  Phil: Uh like I don't know how else to describe it.
• 14:41
  Phil: Like butterfinger crunch.
• 14:42
  Phil: Well, I guess so you'll read DCC, right?
• 14:44
  Phil: There's like this little like here's a crunchy stat block, and then you read some other books, it's like, hey, here's three pages of stats.
• 14:49
  Phil: The level is Yes, yes.
• 14:53
  Phil: So I feel like it's an appropriate balance.
• 14:55
  Phil: I also future books sometimes get out of the crunchy a little bit more, a little more on the cozy side.
• 15:01
  Phil: I think that's as it went to the mass market that slightly changed.
• 15:04
  Phil: Sure.
• 15:04
  Phil: But the first book, especially, I would consider it crunchy.
• 15:07
  Brett: Especially but very consumable if you're used to DD.
• 15:11
  Brett: Absolutely.
• 15:12
  Brett: Especially that first book, it's it's very DD stylized, heavy.
• 15:16
  Phil: Yeah, I think that's why I'm drawn to that type of book.
• 15:19
  Phil: I think because I I like the stats and I like to see the inventory items, right?
• 15:23
  Phil: And oh, like what does that grant them and what what can the knee pads do?
• 15:26
  Phil: Like all those kinds of things I love about the story.
• 15:29
  Brett: Yeah, I remember when I first started, you guys are already way past this book.
• 15:32
  Brett: Uh, and I'm like, I wish I had like a companion that I could flip through and like view his stats, view his inventory at any time, like per chapter.
• 15:39
  Brett: Like, oh, that'd be so handy.
• 15:41
  Ross: Yeah.
• 15:42
  Ross: Yeah, and I think I think you nailed it is that the the stats are what really connect it back to people who are trying to make a connection between like their playing TTRPG and like reading this book, because there's no dice rolling, like there's not even a lot of fudging.
• 15:56
  Ross: Like, I I think back to the D D movie that came out here a couple years ago, how like on some of the things that happened in the movie, like you could tell, like, oh, that was you could tell they rolled bad or they didn't they didn't roll well enough.
• 16:08
  Ross: You really don't get that feeling in lit art, at least in Dungeon Crawler Carl, as far as lit RPG, you don't see that kind of mechanic in there.
• 16:16
  Ross: It's primarily like the stats because they're talking about decks, intelligence, strength, things that you can relate to because you play that with your characters.
• 16:24
  Phil: I at a certain point I feel like you the AI almost comes off as like the DM, and I feel like the DM fudges some dice rolls at certain times.
• 16:32
  Phil: That's in that story.
• 16:33
  Phil: Yes.
• 16:34
  Brett: Okay.
• 16:35
  Brett: It's kind of like the the stat blocks are cranked to the max for every attempt.
• 16:41
  Brett: If you can use it, it's going to the max.
• 16:43
  Brett: Yeah.
• 16:43
  Phil: Yeah, that's fair.
• 16:44
  Brett: Like it's it's gonna hit every time if you're able to cast it.
• 16:47
  Brett: If you can use it.
• 16:48
  Ross: Uh I think you brought up an excellent point just now because we missed a character that shows up right off the bat, and that is the system AI, which is a a cornerstone of nearly every lit RPG is there's a system AI in there.
• 17:01
  Ross: And this one, I I a hundred percent agree with it being a that DM figure.
• 17:07
  Ross: And it's certainly not necessarily in this book yet, but in later books, it really is like that.
• 17:12
  Ross: I am the god of this realm and I can do what I want.
• 17:15
  Ross: And I'm going to damn I can insert my influence.
• 17:18
  Ross: Yes.
• 17:18
  Ross: But then, but then also the fact there are things like um, I don't want to give we're not there yet, but like when it's talking about like the the gods, like it's still constrained by certain things too, like a DM would be too.
• 17:31
  Ross: So there's still rules that it has to abide by uh that that make it feel very DS too.
• 17:37
  Ross: So let's talk about um some other car characters.
• 17:40
  Ross: Sorry, Carl's let's talk about some other characters that we come through in the book.
• 17:45
  Ross: Uh so we've talked about Carl Donut, the other member of this team that comes in book one is Mongo.
• 17:53
  Ross: Mongo, yes.
• 17:53
  Ross: Very end of the book.
• 17:55
  Ross: Yeah.
• 17:55
  Ross: Uh where Carl and Donut, we're kind of gonna jump around here a little bit, but uh Carl and Donut face the the Krack Heron or the the version of the Krack Heron that's in the dungeon that's the neighborhood boss.
• 18:06
  Ross: They beat it, then they get to choose something.
• 18:07
  Ross: At that point, they also had an option to get um the Chopper.
• 18:13
  Ross: Not not the chopper, but the the character that Rend is later.
• 18:17
  Speaker: Oh, yes, Tummy Acre.
• 18:18
  Ross: A tummy acre.
• 18:19
  Ross: They had an option to get a tummy acre at that point too, and they chose, well, not they.
• 18:22
  Ross: Donut chose Mongo.
• 18:24
  Ross: Uh, which which was a good choice because Mongo becomes key key to to every I mean he's like you said, Brett, he's just he's like another primary member of the party as you move through the books.
• 18:36
  Brett: It's those those three are the core.
• 18:38
  Ross: Yeah, for sure.
• 18:39
  Ross: Uh other people that we come across that have long-term effects, uh, people from the metal art group, they're gonna show up all throughout the books.
• 18:47
  Ross: Um, Ellie and Amani being the primary two of that group.
• 18:51
  Ross: Chris, Brandon, Yolanda, Jack, just I mean, Jack was just screw this world, you know.
• 18:58
  Ross: I'm gonna take a piss on the side.
• 19:01
  Brett: Okay.
• 19:01
  Brett: You gotta go.
• 19:02
  Brett: You gotta go.
• 19:03
  Brett: Can you really hold to the kids too?
• 19:05
  Brett: I mean, I saw a four-year-old doing that earlier today.
• 19:07
  Brett: Rabbit on the street.
• 19:10
  Brett: Hello.
• 19:10
  Brett: Your own kids don't count.
• 19:11
  Brett: It was not my kid.
• 19:15
  Ross: Okay, side note for all you bluey fans out there.
• 19:17
  Ross: My son asked me the other day if he could go have a bushwee.
• 19:20
  Phil: I'm like, we know we need to land.
• 19:23
  Phil: Yes, you do.
• 19:24
  Phil: As long as it's in your own yard.
• 19:26
  Ross: Okay, so remind me not to have our kids around Phil for a while.
• 19:29
  Phil: No, it's not in our own.
• 19:32
  Ross: It was at the zoo.
• 19:33
  Ross: It was at the zoo.
• 19:36
  Phil: Animals do it.
• 19:37
  Ross: He didn't know where there was a bathroom.
• 19:38
  Ross: He was just like, Can I have a bushwee?
• 19:39
  Ross: I was like, Oh.
• 19:40
  Ross: Hey, he's being resourceful.
• 19:45
  Ross: He knows to look for a tree.
• 19:46
  Ross: Did you find a dunny?
• 19:47
  Ross: Yeah, we did find a dunny.
• 19:49
  Ross: Yes, yes, we did.
• 19:49
  Ross: Thankfully, there's lots of those around.
• 19:51
  Ross: Uh sorry, uh, sorry for the sidebar there.
• 19:54
  Ross: Um, other characters we came across in this book, Zev, who is is uh effectively their manager from the Borant Corporation.
• 20:03
  Ross: Hi, Zev! Uh uh Odette.
• 20:07
  Ross: What do they call it?
• 20:08
  Ross: Uh Mudskippers.
• 20:09
  Ross: That's what the answer refers to them as the Mudskippers, yes.
• 20:12
  Ross: Odette, yes, because they end up going on her show uh in this book, which I remember the first time I read that chapter, and it's like the description of her before they realize that she's something inside that thing with like the the massive breasts and the insect head.
• 20:27
  Ross: I'm like, what was he what was Matt Denneman smoking when he wrote this chapter?
• 20:32
  Brett: Like, bro, like this is this is interesting.
• 20:34
  Brett: Everything else before that point is like a goblin, a human, a cat.
• 20:38
  Brett: Like, and then you go there.
• 20:40
  Brett: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 20:43
  Brett: Uh the next big pair though is Frank and Frank Hugh and Maggie, which is uh quite the kind of dark turn of this book.
• 20:53
  Brett: That is true.
• 20:54
  Phil: That was like I feel like the first time that it was they get put in some situations that are semi-dangerous, but this is the first time it felt like oh a real danger.
• 21:04
  Ross: I was it was the first human-to-human in the world.
• 21:06
  Ross: That's fair, crawler.
• 21:07
  Ross: Oh, true crawler on crawl.
• 21:09
  Ross: Yeah, that's why.
• 21:10
  unknown: Yeah.
• 21:11
  Ross: So that should certainly at that point in the book changed the game because, like you said before, it was it was goblins or llamas or whatever you come across, you know.
• 21:19
  Ross: The meth wars, the meth the meth war between the two, yes.
• 21:22
  Ross: Uh and then so all of a sudden you had somebody here where they found a dead crawler in the dungeon, uh, if you all remember that.
• 21:31
  Ross: And then I think her stat box said she was killed by Frank Q.
• 21:36
  Ross: Yep.
• 21:36
  Ross: And then and then they go back to the uh the safe room later, and then it was Donut that found him because she was like, Oh, he's right here, he's in here with us.
• 21:45
  Ross: Uh, and it was actually um Carl that figured out like how to get out of the room because like you can't attack another crawler in a safe room, and then they froze and then they were able to get away.
• 21:54
  Phil: And Carl realized he wasn't his story didn't line up because he told some story about it, like Partner being killed, but then he went to take the mana toast and he didn't get all of the points back.
• 22:04
  Phil: He only got like oh, that's right.
• 22:06
  Phil: It like split points somehow, so he knew someone else was in the party, and that's how they're gonna be somewhere.
• 22:12
  Brett: And in all of this, like saga with Frank and Maggie, you really start to see Carl come into his own of like what is okay and what is not okay.
• 22:21
  Brett: Yeah, yeah, that's true.
• 22:23
  Brett: Yep.
• 22:23
  Brett: And that's gonna carry on through all the books.
• 22:25
  Brett: Like Carl is Carl has his red lines that he does not cross, and he does not cross those lines.
• 22:32
  Brett: Yeah.
• 22:33
  Ross: Uh and we'll talk about that here here very quickly.
• 22:35
  Ross: We'll talk about some ethics and some themes in this book.
• 22:37
  Ross: But one more group that I wanted to talk about were two goblins that Donut named.
• 22:42
  Ross: Uh, and that's Rory and Lorelei.
• 22:43
  Ross: Two more girls story-wise, don't have play a very big part in this book, but the fact that Donut names them has a big implication later on.
• 22:53
  Ross: So if you've read this and you're like, why does this matter?
• 22:56
  Ross: Or is it just a funny little reference?
• 22:57
  Ross: I'll clue you in.
• 22:59
  Ross: It has some impact later, and you'll understand why when you get there.
• 23:02
  Ross: But Rory and Lorelei do come back uh later on in the story, particularly at the end of this book in the uh the first part of the pineapple cabaret.
• 23:10
  Ross: Next age of the pineapple cabaret.
• 23:12
  Ross: Yeah.
• 23:12
  Ross: Uh, but let's talk a little bit about themes as we kind of get toward the end here a little bit, guys.
• 23:17
  Ross: So so Dungeon Crawler Carl sets up uh, like you were mentioning, Brett, it's a it's a differentiating of uh ethics in a lot of ways.
• 23:27
  Ross: So it's like we we see Carl very specifically draw lines very early on that he holds pretty true to throughout the way, but we also see like the darker side of humanity in some ways throughout this book.
• 23:38
  Brett: Yeah.
• 23:39
  Brett: Unfortunately so.
• 23:40
  Brett: Like this is uh it can kind of catch you off guard in this book.
• 23:46
  Brett: It can go from slapstick, like calling a goblin Lorelai and Rory, to having to deal with a fellow crawler killing another crawler.
• 23:57
  Brett: Like, woo.
• 23:59
  Phil: And even the different implications of like accidentally doing things he doesn't necessarily mean to, right?
• 24:04
  Phil: So he they meet Rory and Lorelai and they like get the goblins to go away to defeat the boss or whatever, and they blow up a room full of babies, right?
• 24:14
  Phil: Like Carl didn't mean to do that.
• 24:17
  Phil: And then there is this moral thing of like, you know, like oh I didn't like I didn't mean to do that, but what is what is an NPC or a mop, right?
• 24:27
  Phil: In essence, in this case, what what are those people that aren't crawlers and what does that look like?
• 24:31
  Phil: And I it just I don't know, but it it really does like do a good job of getting you to like question things and understand where he's drawing lines, right?
• 24:40
  Phil: And you know, when he says you will not break me, like what does that mean, right?
• 24:44
  Phil: Like, where is that line?
• 24:45
  Phil: Like, what is that talking about?
• 24:47
  Ross: Um, I think I think in this book the the seeds are really laid well for this to happen later on, but it but this does become in some ways uh a political thriller.
• 24:56
  Ross: Uh and it and it gets it gets pretty deep in that.
• 25:00
  Ross: And I think watching Carl realize that he's part of a not political of today.
• 25:06
  Ross: No, no, no, no.
• 25:08
  Brett: I will say no, like if you haven't read all the books, like it's not getting into like current politics.
• 25:13
  Ross: No, this is no, not not like that, but but certainly politics for sure.
• 25:17
  Ross: Uh but Carl realizing that he's part of a but a much bigger universe, yes, and that that and this is what I want to talk about, is like and realizing that that universe is watching this pain and suffering for entertainment.
• 25:31
  Ross: And I I think the this lays the groundwork for all these books, but that rubs him raw, and and rightfully so in a lot of ways.
• 25:40
  Brett: It's it's interesting because uh earlier we were talking about different sort of doomsday doomsday type books.
• 25:48
  Brett: Uh, and we talked about Hunger Games.
• 25:50
  Brett: This kind of reflects a lot of Hunger Games, but in Hunger Games, they know they grew up watching the games, so they all know it existed.
• 25:59
  Brett: Yes, this is completely different.
• 26:01
  Brett: This is a a raw, unknowing group of people that get thrown into the situation for everybody else's entertainment.
• 26:09
  Brett: Yeah.
• 26:09
  Brett: So it's it's two different sides of that same type of genre of that stuff is going bad.
• 26:16
  Ross: Yeah.
• 26:17
  Ross: And the interesting thing about the Hunger Games is like, yes, it was for entertainment, but it was also it was it was repercussions for trying to attempt a revolution, right?
• 26:27
  Brett: So it's these are free in DCC, it's free bystanders.
• 26:32
  Ross: Yeah, it's like they like built and people of the earth didn't know it was a thing, and all of a sudden they're thrown into a game show almost running man-esque.
• 26:39
  Ross: I don't know if you guys ever see the 80s man, the 80s Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, The Running Man.
• 26:43
  Ross: No, it's like uh the people get sentenced for crimes that they did or didn't commit, and they get thrown on a game show to serve out their sentence and they could die on the game show.
• 26:52
  Ross: So it's kind of very similar to that, except they knew what they were getting into.
• 26:56
  Ross: Like nobody on earth knew that they were gonna be on a game show, though.
• 27:00
  Ross: I I I mean, and so that's what differentiates that in a lot of ways, and almost makes it worse that other people use that for entertainment value.
• 27:09
  Phil: Well, yeah, I mean the whole premise, right, of the crawl, because not every season where they do this does it the it doesn't need to be the 18th floor dungeon, right?
• 27:17
  Phil: It can be something different.
• 27:19
  Phil: Yeah, but the whole purpose of this is revenue generation.
• 27:21
  Phil: But truthfully, like that is the purpose from the Boring Corporation is to try to make money or to not go bankrupt.
• 27:27
  Phil: But yeah, we'll get to that later.
• 27:29
  Phil: Different book, different book.
• 27:32
  Ross: Um what what are we missing uh uh from the book before we before we get out of here that we we haven't talked?
• 27:38
  Ross: Like he does go on the show with the maestro.
• 27:40
  Phil: That's where we didn't talk about the maestro.
• 27:42
  Ross: So uh glurp glurp mother truckers uh and and he becomes uh a bigger character later, but the fact that Carl embarrassed him lays the groundwork for some rivalry in later books.
• 27:56
  Phil: There's a snake about the maestro and Carl.
• 28:00
  Ross: Oh yes Oh, oh, oh yes, yes, yes.
• 28:02
  Ross: Um and who who else are we forgetting?
• 28:05
  Phil: Um well when they go on that show, they meet a couple other characters too.
• 28:10
  Ross: That's right, yes.
• 28:10
  Ross: Do they meet Princess Denadia on that show?
• 28:14
  Ross: Or she's on that show eventually, but it may not be a little bit of a little bit of a little that's not that one then.
• 28:19
  Ross: Um I'm trying to think of it.
• 28:21
  Brett: Uh in that one, I believe they meet Li Jun at that book.
• 28:24
  Brett: Yes, um, on that show.
• 28:26
  Brett: And then Zhang.
• 28:28
  Phil: Uh on the Maestro show, they meet them because that's that like Death Watch game or whatever, and they're in that scenario.
• 28:34
  Phil: Oh, yeah.
• 28:34
  Phil: This is after.
• 28:34
  Phil: Like they have to decide who to save.
• 28:41
  Phil: Oh, that's right.
• 28:42
  Phil: And that's how Carl ends up embarrassing him.
• 28:44
  Phil: I forgot about that.
• 28:45
  Phil: He like gives them something that can get them out of the situation, and that's what embarrasses the maestro.
• 28:49
  Phil: That's right, that's right.
• 28:50
  Brett: So they were on two shows Ludets and then the Maestro.
• 28:53
  Brett: Yep, yep.
• 28:54
  Ross: Is there anybody else we're forgetting from this book or any other major things?
• 28:58
  Phil: Because then they go down to the second floor, which leads to a whole other slew of things, but I think this might in the first book might be the first time that Carl smashes something with his foot, which is a trigger for the AI.
• 29:10
  Phil: That happens.
• 29:12
  Brett: Uh, and Carl also develops an affinity for bombs.
• 29:16
  Brett: That's true.
• 29:17
  Brett: Yes.
• 29:18
  Ross: Jugger booms, Carl's jugabooms.
• 29:21
  Phil: I like Carl's approach.
• 29:22
  Phil: It is much easier to kill a boss by just like throwing, right?
• 29:25
  Phil: Like let's just throw some dynamite in the room and see what happens.
• 29:28
  Phil: So I like that approach.
• 29:31
  Brett: What class, DD class, would you give Carl?
• 29:33
  Brett: I mean, he's got a class in the book, but what would you class him in DD's uh I I think Carl's a fighter.
• 29:44
  Ross: I I think he has too many melee abilities to not be a fighter, in my opinion.
• 29:48
  Ross: And I would say donut because we should also answer that question.
• 29:52
  Ross: I think donut's a mage.
• 29:53
  Ross: Yeah, she's a mage for sure.
• 29:55
  Ross: Uh the fact that she slings magic missile like nobody's business, just a mage.
• 30:01
  Phil: Uh is Carl like, but does he have a touch of like artificer because of all of the expressions?
• 30:07
  Brett: Oh, that's like he probably picks up a class a little bit uh he's he's subclasses.
• 30:13
  Brett: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:13
  Brett: A little bit later on.
• 30:14
  Brett: Multi-classes with art fighter artificer.
• 30:17
  Brett: But I mean he does so much stuff with his feet.
• 30:19
  Brett: Is he like a monk or is he a barbarian or something like that?
• 30:23
  Brett: I mean, he does pretty well with an improvised weapon as well.
• 30:27
  Brett: So barbarian could come in there, but I don't think he probably more farmers.
• 30:30
  Brett: He certainly rages.
• 30:32
  Ross: I don't think he intentionally rages enough to be a barb.
• 30:36
  Ross: Um boy, he he fits a lot of those.
• 30:39
  Ross: Um a little bit of this, a little bit of that.
• 30:44
  Ross: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:44
  Ross: I I think that's that's pretty accurate.
• 30:47
  Ross: I think he's like a level 15 fighter monk barbarian artifacts.
• 30:53
  Ross: With some fun things to go in there.
• 30:58
  Ross: Uh okay, so we we will be back with book two here and I'm not exactly sure when, but we're gonna do it yet this season.
• 31:05
  Ross: Where I think we're gonna try to get through a few of the books, uh, actually yet this season.
• 31:09
  Ross: Um, but guys, uh, before we get out of here, uh on a scale of one to ten, what rating would you personally give Dungeon Crawler Carl, Brett?
• 31:19
  Brett: Oh, easy ten.
• 31:21
  Ross: Okay, Phil?
• 31:22
  Phil: It's a 10 for me, too.
• 31:24
  Ross: I give it a nine.
• 31:25
  Ross: Oh boo.
• 31:26
  Ross: Only because I know what comes later.
• 31:29
  Ross: It's like I I appreciate the crunch.
• 31:32
  Ross: You have to disregard all the other books, though.
• 31:35
  Brett: Oh no, I'm a sucker for a good origin story.
• 31:38
  Brett: I like the beginning of a of a saga.
• 31:40
  Brett: Well, that's very not detailed.
• 31:42
  Phil: Did it get you to read all of the rest of the books?
• 31:45
  Ross: It did.
• 31:46
  Ross: Okay, it's a 10, fine, whatever.
• 31:47
  Ross: Uh as uh well, since we all gave it a 10, I think uh the bars and barrels opinion is that this is a 10 and it's a must-read.
• 31:54
  Ross: So if you have not read this book yet, you need to go pick it up.
• 31:58
  Brett: Because you're probably gonna find a whole bunch of people that also have read this book.
• 32:02
  Ross: Correct.
• 32:02
  Ross: Well, and I think the the the great thing about this is it doesn't lean too heavy in any given direction.
• 32:08
  Ross: Like, I I I'm afraid some people don't pick it up because they're like, I'm not a Dungeons and Dragons player.
• 32:13
  Ross: Like, why would I read a book called Dungeon Crawler Carl?
• 32:15
  Ross: But then when they actually try it, they're like, oh, this is this is a sci-fi, this is just as much a sci-fi book as it's anything.
• 32:21
  Ross: And so I think there's a lot of competing genres in it, like the political thriller piece, like it just so many things that like if you gave it a chance, I think you're gonna like it more often than not.
• 32:31
  Brett: I will say my wife tried this.
• 32:33
  Brett: It wasn't always her speed, um, but she was getting into it, and then she was able to get into it a little bit more in the later books as she continued on, as it gets it gets develops a little bit deeper themes, even.
• 32:44
  Brett: Yeah, my wife's number two.
• 32:46
  Brett: If it's not your first taste, don't give it up the second book.
• 32:49
  Brett: Yeah, for sure.
• 32:50
  Brett: Is your wife reading and Phil?
• 32:52
  Phil: My wife doesn't have time to read.
• 32:53
  Phil: Oh, that's true.
• 32:54
  Brett: Okay.
• 32:54
  Ross: So uh that's gonna do it for this episode of Bards and Barrels.
• 32:58
  Ross: Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel where you can see these lovely faces for all of our podcasts, but you can always catch us wherever you listen to your podcast or Phil's undies.
• 33:06
  Ross: Or if you want to see Phil's undies.
• 33:08
  Ross: Uh, we'd love it if you joined us on our social channels as well: Facebook threads, Instagram, and TikTok.
• 33:12
  Ross: Don't forever forget about that one at Bards and Barrels.
• 33:15
  Ross: Until next time, may your nice be hot and your beer be cold.