Web Video / Modern Rogue

Cause I'm a modern rooooogue!

— The opening of each episode (at first)

A web series created by magician Brian Brushwood and writer Jason Murphy (the latter also serves as the show's research lead). In it, they explore various ways to make one a "gentleman, warrior, and scoundrel." This involves the construction of homemade weapons and gadgets, discussions on technology and scams, or whatever else seems interesting to try. In essence, the Modern Rogue is a variety show whose hosts aren't afraid to show their failures on camera.

The show can be found here.

Tropes from this show include:

• Bizarre Taste in Food: Brian eats almost everything in "Eating 25-Year-Old Military Rations", disgusting and concerning Jason (who refused to try anything pretty quickly).
  • As pointed out in "Taste Tripping," the miracle berry can allow one to perceive acidic or bitter foods as sweet in comparison.
• Butt-Monkey: Eli the intern, especially during the "Testing Mall Ninja Weapons" episode.
• Cluster Bleep-Bomb: Brian launches into one after Jason shoots a dart past his face without warning in "Making PVC Blowguns". Unlike most examples, this is not Played for Laughs.
• Don't Try This at Home: Whenever the episode's topic involves something dangerous, a warning of some kind appears during the title card. If Brian and Jason feel the need to emphasize it, they'll give a similar statement during the episode itself.
• Dude, Not Funny!: During "Making PVC Blowguns", Jason shoots a dart past Brian's face without warning him first. Considering he had no eye protection on and they saw the darts bounce off mannequins previously, Brian understandably gets upset. The editors even label the moment as "not a joke" right before it happens.
• The Faceless: Episodes involving LockPickingLawyer are shot from an angle that hides everyone's faces, so as to respect his privacy.
• Fun with Acronyms: Two of their mannequins, D.A.V.E.^note Dangerous And Very Evil and The CH.I.L.D.^note CHangeling I'd Like to Destroy.
• Groin Attack: The Austin Historical Weapons Guild has played host to a couple.
  • During the longsword episode, Jason meant to feign kneeing Brian’s stomach. He instead hit his groin and reset the injury counter.
  • Brian accidentally hit Jason in the groin during the quarterstaff episode. Thankfully, they were using flexible plastic staffs instead of the heavy wooden ones.
• Hell Is That Noise: The Honk of Wrongdor. It is very loud. How loud? 115dB loud. Sounds 120dB and above can cause immediate damage to your ears. Luckily, they were wearing earplugs while firing it.
• Hilarious Outtakes: The sister channel Scam Stuff features outtakes and other behind-the-scenes content. Among other things, Brian and Jason swear a lot more than they do in the actual episodes.
• The Hyena: It takes very little to set Brian off.
• Improvised Weapon: Have an entire series of videos on this, appropriately dubbed "Desperate Defense Week". They noticeably discuss the trope in detail, noting that a appropriate self defense weapon should be more powerful than an unarmed strike.
• Interface Spoiler: During "The Zeta Provocation" (the TMZ Cobra-themed test of tradecraft) the message at every major step is coordinates to a different location at Modern Rogue HQ, the location of which wasn't public knowledge at time of recording. Therefore, any time the video blurs out or redacts a piece of text or a clue item, you can tell in advance that you and Brian are looking at those coordinates. ^note For example, the "EABHAEBAHC" paper wasn't blurred (hiding a phone number with a series of numbers being recited on the other end), but the message found from that clue had heavy audio distortion in parts (the coordinates to the shelter from "Crafting a Makeshift Shelter," in plaintext).
• MacGyvering: When they aren't finding ways to make harmless things harmful, they're building their own weapons and gadgets from scratch.
• Mouthing the Profanity: Brian mouths "motherfucker" during "Spied Upon by 4 Devices" when Jason shows him a live camera feed of them.
• Not So Above It All: Cory, the go-to handyman, safety expert, "actual adult" and unofficial third member of the main lineup. That he is on the show going along with the insanity at all is fairly damning, but he's reset the injury counter himself a few times despite being the guy they brought in specifically to build dangerous shit safely.
• Paranormal Investigation: They devote one episode to debunking "ghost hunting"-type shows, first by recreating one themselves and then examining various aspects of it.
• People Fall Off Chairs: Bryan comes out his chair during the Nord VPN ad at the end of "Starting Fires with Batteries", either from surprise or because he's laughing so hard at Jason's scream. He spends the rest of the ad on the floor as a result.
• Power Trio: A recurring motif is that to be a proper Modern Rogue, one must embody the "Gentleman, Warrior, and Scoundrel", and occasionally episodes will highlight one aspect in particular:
  • The Gentleman, a classic Man of Wealth and Taste, with episodes typically involving fine alcohol, cigars, mixed drinks, and various bits of traditional lore and trivia, and perhaps a few sleight-of-hand tricks to amuse fellow bar patrons.
  • The Warrior, which might've brought you to the channel in the first place, with episodes typically involving turning "harmless" items harmful, building weapons from scratch, weapons demonstrations, as well as practical self-defense and martial arts training.
  • The Scoundrel, which definitely brought you to the channel, is all about picking locks and breaking security, stealing and hiding valuables, playing crooked games and confidence tricks to scam the hell out of fellow bar patrons, and then finally escaping the consequences and laying low in the wild with various survival techniques.
• Psychic Surgery: Discussed and deconstructed during an episode dedicated to the topic. Brian himself has performed it as part of a trick on Penn & Teller: Fool Us.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: "Improvised Arrows and an ER Visit" was originally just about making arrows out of branches and car keys, to use with the bow they'd made previously. But while cutting a branch Jason seriously injures his thumb, enough to warrant taking him to the emergency room. Rather than edit that part out or hand-wave it or scrap the episode entirely, they just folded it in to highlight just how dangerous what they're doing actually is. When they return to arrow-crafting, Jason is not only wearing a face shield and cut-proof gloves, but full-plate gauntlets going up to his shoulders.
• Running Gag: Several:
  • "Reset the Injury Counter" due to the sheer amount of dangerous shit they try that comes back to bite them, for instance as seen above. Now has an official compilation!
  • Related to the above, deliberately forgoing or even removing safety equipment (typically cut-proof gloves) because they "need the dexterity".
  • TMZCobra, an unholy and nefarious fusion of TMZ and Cobra that seeks to spy on, usurp, and generally bother President Kardashian. Such videos tend to follow the theme of Jason acting as an agent of TMZCobra, setting up spy devices or other such challenges (while wearing ridiculous high-wasted pants) and Secret Service "Agent" Brushwood seeking to thwart whatever schemes menace the Madame President this time.
  • Anytime the boys make something that could be considered an explosive device, they awkwardly dance around the word "bomb".
  • Brian's less-than-intimidating war cry of "Go away bad guys".
• Screams Like a Little Girl:
  • Jason's scream when Bill Durand accidentally knocks open the mold of his head. It must be heard to be believed.
  • Jason's scream during a NordVPN ad, which reached meme status.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Brian swears (and gets censored) a fair amount. Jason tends to save his F-Bombs for the bloopers.
• Sixth Ranger: Cory, as mentioned above. Brian and Jason often have guests on the show demonstrating something or another, but Cory usually handles building something that involved fire or sharp objects, and with how often their builds are typically bad ideas made real, he's brought in a lot. Worth noting is that he's much more present after "Improvised Arrows and an ER Visit" than before.
• Sound-Effect Bleep: Curse words are censored out with static, though the mouth of the offending swearer is not covered in any way. Averted in the bloopers, which contain uncensored swearing.
• Stage Magician: Brian is one, a fact he will bring up with little or no prompting.
• Weapon Specialization: Jason's go-to weapons are strip mall nun-chucks, assuming he can't find a big knife. When Anthony from the Austin Historical Weapon Guild mentions in one episode that real medieval flails bore more of a resemblance to a giant nun-chuck, Jason responds with "now you're speaking my language."
• Writing Around Trademarks:
  • The humorously named "Honk of Wrongdor". Jason nearly calls it the real name at one point, prompting Brian to comment, "It was about to be the Honk of Trademark Infringement."
  • Whenever they hear about something on the internet that seems imitable, they are not testing myths but rather legends, because they are Legend Testers