The seven player characters, rendered in beautiful t-shirt quality. note
"The tailwind didn't work, and— that camel, it's not even running, it's literally flying. You can see icecubes flying through the air."
Pen and Paper is a fantasy Cloudcuckooland tabletop campaign created and played in the homebrew system of the same name.
The podcast follows the adventures of questing veteran Remmie Booker and six new recruits (Grekk'it Cooper, Jazz Chives, Stinkledwork Mcrubbinfuffer, Gnarbo, Armiarma and Umi) under the employ of the Adventurer's Guild through the continent of Dren Hep. Throughout their travels they fight through snowy mountains, barren deserts, and even oceansides infested with deadly crabs. That's not all though- the world is populated with the mind-numbingly melancholy as much as it is with the mind-screwingly silly.
Pen and Paper contains examples of:
- As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Many of the names of locations are various words translated from various languages mashed together arbitrarily.
- Black-and-Gray Morality: While the Adventurer's guild is primarily built on helping people, most player characters are known to have some selfish goals or disputable methods, whereas the villains portrayed vary between well-intentioned but dangerous to downright animalistic, acting only for the benefit of themselves.
- Dramedy: While the setting is made in a balancing act of unadulterated silly and stock fantasy, the story focuses a lot on the moral weight of a given situation, with lots of internal conflict and extrernal tension building between (and sometimes during the direct aftermath of) climaxes. This leads to lighter-hearted moments of Off the Rails humor alternating with heavy-hearted Matters of Life and Death.
- Evil Weapon: Grekk'it finds a cursed dagger while searching Gerald's hideout. Almost immediately, it begins telling Grekk'it to kill people, which he promptly does. For a chair.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Most location names in Dren Hep that aren't made from foreign words are this. Examples include Very Many Trees Forest, Some Boats Town, Linda's Tavern Plus Other Buildings and Nondescript Sand. Naturally, these are taken as Serious Business by the world's residents.
- Fantastic Racism: The gnome city Irfo is very nationalistic, almost never letting anyone who isn't a gnome within.
- This may also be a flaw of Remmie's, as she has made some questionable remarks regarding the PC's races, though this could also be Mistaken for Racist.
- Never Split the Party: Due to the large number of players, every now and then one or two will miss a session. At one point, this happens during the exploration of a major dungeon, and naturally the two players missing were both of the team's healers. Hilarity Ensues.
- Out-of-Character Moment: Remmie, for pretty much the entirety of Season 2's first session.
- From the same session comes a very unusually tired Cash Money Jefferson.
- Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: Gnarbo has one while fighting the giant Sand Wurm.Gnarbo: Here comes the airplane!
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The adventurer's guild will pretty much hire anyone they can find, and so the team ends up to be a hodgepodge of skills, talents, intellect and, occasionally, the lack thereof.
- Running Gag: Pants Fuck is an as-of-yet unnamed non-player character that appears multiple times, spouting Non Sequitur and trying to pawn off something bizzare to the players.
- Word Purée Title: Port Busterbongle.
