Web Video / Best Pal Brigade

The Best Pal Brigade is a group of roleplayers who stream both tabletop and video games. They’re mostly known for playing Savage Worlds and Dungeons & Dragons and can be found on Twitchand Youtube.

Cast

• Kyle (he/they)
• Kat (she/her)
• Lauren (she/her)
• Dwyt (she/they)
• Josh (he/him)
• Christine (she/her)
• Tony (he/him)

Campaigns

• Musica: A Musical themed campaign using the Genesys system. (unfortunately canceled partway through)
• Kasvar: The North Ocean: A 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign set in an underwater setting.
• StarStreamers: The groups current campaign, it is a Science Fantasy Savage Worlds campaign, with Players as the titular StarStreamers, filming their misadventures across the galaxy.
• Savage Tokusatsu: Fire Team on Scene: A campaign based on Power Rangers 3 teenagers must stop Fire Team Omega from extinguishing the sun! Episodes stream Tuesday’s at 8pm EST on Twitch.
• Savage Tokusatsu: Dark Star Rising: The second part of the first Savage Tokusatsu where the heroes must team up with Fire Team Omega to defeat the Dark Star Conclave.
• Valterra: A fantasy campaign in the savage world system where the deceased's voice can be heard from the earth.

Oneshots

• Savage Tokustatsu: Several Tokusatsu settings that are played in Savage Worlds.
• Crystal Hearts: A Savage Worlds game base on the webcomic Up to four players.
• First Responders: A Savage Worlds game where the players are rescue workers in a superhero world.
• Amber Reef: A Quiet Year game set in the titular Amber Reef an Underwater City/Research base.
• Contract Summoners: A Savage worlds game set in a world were invisible monsters exist and make contracts with those that can see them.

Tropes

General Tropes

• Adventure-Friendly World: Almost all campaign settings.
• Bird People: In Musica, the Avius fit this role, In Kasvar, the Accipros do. The difference being that Accipros are specifically seahawk people.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Par for the course in Tabletop Games, custom mechanics tend to be refined over the course of campaigns.
  • Kyle pronounced Ato’s name as AH-Toh rather than AY-Toh in the first session of Kasvar.
  • Kasvar also had crafting and hunting mechanics that were later dropped.
• Fish People: Most races on Kasvar are some variation of this along with Champat's species in Savage Tokusatsu.
• Funny Background Event: Kat gets farther and farther away from the camera during the Resident Evil 2 stream.
• GMPC: Kyle rarely runs a game without these.
• Hidden Depths: Chisel has an anxiety problem. Vala was apparently a solider and has a love of Genepals.
• Humanoid Abomination: Farbe appears as a normal person in all the worlds they're in but their hurt by holy magic and turns into ink when killed. They also appear somewhat independent from each version but are connected via the original Farbe.
• Intimate Artistry: Played-with, Randal Farbe appears he makes the PCs look deep within themselves when he creates art of them rather then showing the relationship between him and the subject.
• Lizard Folk: The Corda in Musica and the Poroal of Kasvar are Crocodile and Alligator people respectively.
• Living Weapon: Artifact weapons can speak to their users and apparently affect them mentally. The Distortion Knives in StarStreamers also appear sentient.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Vanta is named after Vantablack, a material that absorbs 99.96% of visible light.
  • The planet of ConGen is named after the RPG convention GenCon.
  • Sugimori station is named after Ken Sugimori, the art director of Pokémon.
• Mon: The spirit creatures of Contract Summoners and the Genepals of StarStreamers are both meant to invoke this trope.
• Mood Whiplash: Happens so often they put“well that got dark” on their bingo card.
• Nature Spirit: They exist in both Musica and Kasvar albeit they appear more in Musica due to the nature of magic. The spirits in Contract Summoners also appear to be nature spirits of some sort.
• Non-Human Humanoid Hybrid: The group seems to be a big fan of this trope, it appears in both Musica and Kasvar. Albeit, in Kasvar this can be caused by proximity to Behemoths.
• One-Hit Kill: Render and Tikaku have both managed to kill bosses in one hit.
• Overarcing Villain: Most likely Farbe
• Portal Crossroad World: Possibly the Betwixt.
• Running Gag:
  • The group tends to hum, Duel of Fates, when someone rolls a critical failure in Musica.
  • Kyle telling one of the mods to ban themselves.
  • [Blank] Facts!
  • Lauren’s “interest” in Alfred from Bloodborne and Alucard from Castlevania.
  • Chatter Smeagol using the spider command
  • JERRY! JERRY! JERRY!
• The 'Verse: All the games seem to have some running threads between them. Most notably Farbe and a place called the Betwixt.

Kasvar

• Agent Peacock: Anastia's teacher, Master Fin, at least the effeminate part anyway.
• An Arm and a Leg: Ato ended up losing a leg defending a group of people, sometime before the start of the Kasvar campaign and later Sibling loses an arm in the season 1 finale of Kasvar.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Claypot who even has a mechanic for it.
• Awesome Underwater World: Kasvar’s entire concept.
• The Beastmaster: While it is not Anastia's main gimmick, she does manage to get two animal companions.
• Big Beautiful Woman: Meshia, one of the remnant masters, is described as this by Kyle.
• Body Horror: Anything involving the Cutters.
• Bond Creatures: Anastia bonds her soul to a Dire hermit crab that the Pod names Gamgams and a Cutterfish she names Anastia Jr..
• Creepy Monotone: Kyle speaks this way for Falawyn and Vanta.
• Dark Is Evil: Vanta appears to have an aura of darkness around him and is vulnerable to magical light.
• Eldritch Location: The Abyss in Kasvar.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Anastia is often called Nasti by her parents, Falawyn finds it hilarious.
• Emotion Tropes: Each Remnant has a soul based on an emotion this forms their weapon and gives them their abilities.
  • Envy and Jealousy Tropes
  • Fear Tropes
  • Surprise Tropes
  • Confusion Fu
• Formulaic Magic: The aptly named formulist use this type of magic, their spell books are often described as math text books
• Gender Bender: The Anago of Kasvar can do this naturally along with having an in-between form.
• Giant Enemy Crab: Gamgams is a friendly example of this trope.
• Kill It with Fire: Falawyn somehow learned to cast fire spells UNDERWATER!
• Ki Manipulation: Pressure/Origin in Kasvar seems to be at least based on this. Coating yourself with it allows you to damage cutters and protects from the crushing depths of the ocean. It can eventually be honed into a unique ability that can be branched out into different ones. The Pod learns the basics from Sibling and hones it through Master Brynn’s training.
• Kraken and Leviathan: The Behemoths are giant fish large enough to found cities on them.
• Love Confession: Chisel manages to confess to Millota in episode 11 of Kasvar.
• The Paladin: Oathtakers are the Kasvar equivalent to paladins.
• Pet Monstrosity: Anastia Jr. became this due to hatching in the Abyss.
• Schmuck Bait: There's a cave full of poisonous sea urchins with a shiny thing, that Anastia almost goes into, in episode 12.
• Shown Their Work: The oceanic research for Kasvar is impressive.
• Uncatty Resemblance: Inverted, Anastia could not look anymore different from Anastia Jr..
• Wham Shot: The four Cutter bosses ambushing the pod.

Musica

• Adventure Guild: The Adventurer’s Guild.
• Amazonian Beauty: Jara, a half-orc woman the band meets in Musica, It makes it a lot more shocking when she betrays them.
• The Alcatraz: Calamin is a prison in Musica which contains the most dangerous criminals in the world. Prior to the campaign, there was a massive breakout releasing The Hierophant, Jara, Ann Dante and possibly more.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: The Gullyshriek is a monstrous combination of this and a bird.
• Blow You Away: The Stormcallers M.O.
• The Chooser of the One: Tomak’s sword attached itself to him so he could find someone worthy enough to wield it.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: The Band eventually becomes this.
• Giant Flyer: The Gullyshriek
• Giant Spider: The Gargantuan Lyre Spider.
• The Horde: The Metalis of Musica are known as the scourge of the Kairock empire.
• Left the Background Music On: People and places produce ambient music in Musica.
• Leitmotif: Everyone is stated to have their own music that intermingles with the area.
• Magic Music: It's called Musica for a reason.
  • Primal magic is using music to appeal to the spirits.
  • Divine magic is using music to gain power from the gods.
  • Arcane magic is the study of the Song of creation, using sheet music and whatnot to use magic.
  • Verse Magic is the singing of the Song of creation to preform magic.
• Making a Splash: The Rainmakers specialize in water primal magic.
• Mary Sue: Kyle calls Raglan this and she even has an aura that makes people like.
• Our Orcs Are Different: Invoked by Kyle in Musica, he excplicitly didn't want the orcs to be horrific warmongers.
• Regional Riff: In-Universe for Musica, locations tend to have their own music associated with them.
• Shock and Awe: The Stormcallers second M.O.
• Spider People: The Lord of Strings is revealed to be this.
• Theme Naming: In Musica, all countries and cultures are named after music genres Ex. The Kairock empire is named after Rock, The Metalis are named after Metal, The Populus Empire is named after Pop etc.
• Vestigial Empire: Kairock Kingdom in Musica is stated to be this.
• Weather Manipulation: Appropriately, The Rainmakers of Musica.

StarStreamers

• Artificial Human: The Blends in StarStreamers
• Audience Participation: The live chat exists in-universe and there are various ways to mess with the game.
• Bad "Bad Acting": The Scraptyrant of StarStreamers does this when they start going off script.
• Beach Episode: On episode 8 the streamers go to the beach planet of Tropicanus.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Chime and Dodger's relationship as described by the chat.
• Bounty Hunter: Vectress became this after her awakening.
• Bizarro Elements: The 8 celestial forces Atmosphere, Energy, Gravity, Moon, Star, Solar, Void, and Water.
• Black-and-White Morality: The villains tend to be vile and greedy. Veers into Blackand Grey Morality when the StarStreamers decide to use Hem OS to free Kyrt's planet.
• Casual Interplanetary Travel: As long as you have a ship planetary travel is relatively simple.
• Cyberspace: The "Gamer Zone" is essentially this.
• Contagious A.I.: Hem OS and Pintar both appear to have this ability.
• Dance-Off: Chime and Render go up against Pirohate in episode 3.
• Deity of Human Origin: It’s actually common for streamers to become so popular they become at least minor gods, due to the faith of their fans.
• Dying Race: The Tonarians and Blends, Chime and Render's species respectively.
• Friendly Rivalry: Chime attempts to have this with Dodger due to both being pilots but due to their mutual social unawareness it comes off rather odd.
• Human Popsicle: Chime and Render were both put in cryosleep about three-thousand years before the start of StarStreamers.
• Immoral Reality Show: In StarStreamers, the show Cryo-Waken involves waking random people out of Cryostasis and making them think they're in a haunted derelict ship.
• Mon: Genepals are blatant riffs on Pokémon.
• Named After Their Planet: Various species in the Maelstrom galaxy.
• Planet Eater: There's apparently a species of demons that eat planets as part of their life cycle along with Core Dragons.
• Planet of Hats: The worlds of the Maelstrom galaxy tend to be themed.
• Pleasure Planet: Several planets, Steppel is a dance planet while Tropicanis is apparently a beach planet.
• RPG Episode: In episode 2 of StarStreamers, Chime and Render go to the LARP planet of ConGen
• Silicon-Based Life: The Tonarians of are a species crystal people who are supposedly this based on silicon.
• Technopath: Blends have the ability to talk to machines.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Anastia and Chisel fit this trope rather well, Anastia has interest in Art, Jewelry, and dancing while Chisel is mostly interested in training.
• Took a Level in Badass: Anastia throughout the Kasvar campaign and later Master Finn/Mork Grotle
• Two Girls and a Guy: Anastia, Chisel, and Ato before they gain more party members.
• Wham Episode: In episode 17 it's revealed that Render is this world's version of Farbe, her real name is Render.Fab and that she is a copy of the original Render.OS. It also reveals that Vala has encountered Farbe before and has knowledge of the Betwixt along with the what happened after Musica ended.
• World Shapes: Due to magic and terraforming technology worlds can be made in any shape.

Savage Tokusatsu: Fire team on the scene

• Absurdly Powerful Student Council: Downplayed, the students can have trials when there's a need to discipline someone but don't seem to have any other power.
• Christmas Episode: While it takes place during Christmas it has little to do with the holiday.
• Cool Mask: Arghus wears a solid gold mask with an eye engraved into it.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Possibly Jerry, his interactions with the PCs in costume seem to imply he has a history with other heroes. As it turns out he worked with another hero known as G.R.E.L.L.
• Deadpan Snarker: Not even Tikaku's teammates are safe from his sass.
• Death by Origin Story: Sumika, Ken and JP's parents all died and put them on the path to become heroes.
• Elemental Embodiment: Flambay and Torchbearer are both beings made of fire. Torchbearer also has the ability to create large insects made of fire. The Dark Star Conclave also appears to be made up of odd beings made of fire.
• Enemy Mine: After the sun temporarily goes dark the heroes (mostly Lita) start working with Fire team Omega on the problem. When the Dark Star Conclave begins their invasion ALL of the heroes stand up against them.
• Friendly Enemy: Fireteam Omega has never been personally hostile to the heroes.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Spooky Shark doesn't really have to do with Fireteam Omega and it's still unknown how she ended up in the reservoir. The Dark Star Conclave also keeps their existence hidden for almost the entire campaign!
• Good Parents: Lita's dad, Jerry, is the most standout example but the other parents seem nice.
• Goth: Lita dresses like this and calls herself Onyxia but it's mostly a front. There also apears to be a clique of goth kids at the academy.
• Halloween Episode: Downplayed, while episode 7 takes place during Halloween it doesn't really have anything to do with ghosts or monsters.
• Henshin Hero: A hallmark of the genre.
• Human Disguise Johnny Norman and Champat have both disguised themselves as humans at certain points in the campaign.
• Hugh Mann: As mentioned above Johnny disguised himself as a human but his name and behavior is a dead giveaway to his true nature.
• Minor with Fake I.D.: Tikaku somehow obtained one to get alcohol.
• Ominous Floating Spaceship: The Fireteam base is constantly floating over Bright Lake.
• Teen Drama: The heroes relationships are...more complicated than most other series.
• The Omniscient: Arghus is said to be able to see everything. The chat appears to be able to interfere with this ability, however.
• Playing with Fire: Flambay and Torchbearer are both able to produce and control fire.
• Sentai: The players are a Green, Pink, and Purple suited hero respectively.
• Rings of Death: Lita fights with a screaming throwing ring when she transforms into Pink Banshee.
• Skipping School: Ken convinces Lita to skip school first period when they first meet.
• Token Rich Student: While all the students go to a private school Melissa B. is noted to be far richer than the rest of the students.
• Toku: It's in the name.
• Transformation Trinket: The Shifters developed by Ken and Sumika's mothers. Unfortunately, they only work effectively on certain people. However it appears that there are multiple ways to transform in the universe to the point of Fire Team Omega having one.
• Weaponized Ball: Tikaku fights with a glowing orb