646: Hard Code & Soft Skills
The employees of the startup RAPPTR (Quinn Pine, Blaze Lightyear, Astra Q, and Eddit Kit) find themselves in quite a pickle as a rogue investor tries to take over the company while CEO Chad is recovering in his napping pod.
Join us on a workplace-themed role playing adventure created by Dave Rupert.
Time Jump Links
Transcript
Alex Riviere: I feel like that is an accurate retelling of what happened at Twitter, though.
[Laughter]
Alex: That's exactly how I remember it.
Dave: Loosely inspired by actual events.
[Banjo music]
MANTRA: Just Build Websites!
Dave: Hey there, Shop-o-maniacs. You're listening to a special episode of the ShopTalk Show, a show within a show. Welcome to Hard Code & Soft Skills, a tabletop roleplaying game created by me, Dave Rupert, based on Lasers & Feelings by John Harper. You can find the game at hardcodesoftskills.daverupert.com.
I'll be the GM for the evening, but with me, as always, is Chris Coyier. Hey, Chris!
Chris: Well, I'm just excited. I'm excited to be here, Dave. This is not a normal episode. We are sitting around a virtual table ready to roll some dice.
Dave: This is going to be an actual play podcast. We're converting the whole show into an actual play podcast. [Laughter]
Then we also have Alex "fimion" Riviere. Alex, how are you?
Alex: I am great. I am super stoked to be here.
Dave: And we have Ben Myers. Hey, Ben.
Ben: Howdy, howdy. Happy to be here.
Dave: And then we have Miriam Suzanne, and I'm most excited about your character. No spoilers though.
Miriam: Okay. Yeah, I'm here. I'm ready to tank my career doing my roleplay.
[Laughter]
Dave: Yeah. What could go wrong? It's just an hour of potential disaster. Or, as Ben pointed out, five hours and over multiple seasons. We'll see how it goes.
Ben: That's the only way that a one-shot goes, Dave.
Dave: I know. I should have planned this out a little bit better and blocked a whole five days' worth of time. But I'm going to set up the story, the game, just for audio listeners so you're not lost throughout the next hour or whatever. Then we'll have y'all introduce yourselves. Then we'll get into the game. Does that sound okay to everybody?
Alex: Sounds great.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah.
Ben: Super.
Dave: With me are the employees of the startup RAPPTR. Your job is to scale the company, interface with customers (both friendly and deadly), and defend fellow employees against workplace dangers. Your CEO Chad has just come back from Burning Man and is overcome by a strange psychedelic energy leaving you to fend for yourselves while he recovers in a napping pod.
How it's going to work is you each have a character. You've created a character, generated a character, but each character has one stat and it's a number between 2 and 5. So, it's either 2, 3, 4, or 5. That determines whether you are hardcode or soft skills.
Hardcode means like science and reason, technology. And soft skills is rapport, passion, diplomacy, love. Those are your skill sets.
What you're going to do is, whenever you take an action, you're going to roll dice against the challenge. And you're either going to try to roll above your number or below your number. If you are using hardcode, you want to roll under your number. If you have a high number, you're better at hardcode and you want to roll under your number. If you're using soft skills, you want to roll over your number. So, if you have a low number, you're better at soft skills. Does that make sense to everybody?
Chris: Mm-hmm.
Ben: Yes, sir.
Dave: Okay.
Chris: But you couldn't have a 2 and be a soft skills person because you're a 2. You're already hard.
Dave: Well, 2, you are soft skills and you want to roll over your number. You want to roll over.
Chris: Low is soft, high is hard.
Dave: Yeah. Under is hard. Yeah. [Laughter] It's confusing, but you want to roll under your number for hard code. So, if you're a 2 and you want to do something technological, you're going to have a tough time because you aren't super-good at technology. You are better at the heart, the passion stuff.
Chris: Mm-hmm.
Dave: Okay? Does this all make sense so far? Let's get on the same page.
And you're going to have a chance to roll dice. There's a way to get more dice. You can basically say, like, "I am an expert at something." That'll get you another dice.
If you say, "I prepared for this," you get another dice. And if you can convince me that you prepared for it or you're an expert in something.
And then there's also this idea of, if you go through and you are helping somebody, you can say, "Oh, I'll help them do that. I'm good at this," and you can roll one dice. And then if you succeed, you give that person a dice as well.
If you roll exactly your number, if you roll exactly your number, you enter 10x mode. That means not only do you succeed but you get to ask me, the GM, any question you want. It could be like, "How do I beat this boss?" or "How do I tie my shoes?" I will help you discern that in the game as best as I can.
Does that make sense to everybody? One dice. If none of your dice succeed, it goes bad. If one dice succeeds, you kind of do it but it's sort of a mixed success. If two dice succeed, great job. Three dice succeed, critical success and you get an extra bonus on that. Does that make sense to everybody?
All right. Let's go around the room. Tell me who you're going to be playing and tell me kind of what your skill number is, what your stat is, and what you're good at. We'll start with Chris.
Chris: Yes, Quinn Pine here, Intrepid Project Manager. I'm tiptoeing around the office at the moment trying not to interrupt Chad. Chad has been very busy lately. I really respect him and I feel like when he needs rest, which is not all the time, we really need to respect that.
My life goal is just to keep being as awesome as I possibly can be. I like to think of myself as a 3.
Dave: Okay. Very good. Thank you. Nice to meet you, Quinn.
Alex, could you introduce your character for me?
Alex: Sure. Hi, my character is Eddie Kit, and I am a savvy QA who wants to change the world by making sure that everything works correctly. So, if you could fix how that input works over on the settings page, that would be really, really great because it's not been--
If you click on it five times, it unsets itself on the next page load, and it needs to work the way that it's supposed to work, right? We can't have users having settings randomly unset.
Dave: Okay. Okay. I get it. That's horrifying. Okay. [Laughter] Next, Ben, can you introduce yourself?
Ben: Well, it's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Blaze Lightyear. I am 25 years old, but I come to the table with 40 years of UX research experience.
[Laughter]
Ben: I'm the best in the biz. I've been at this for 40 years in my 25 years of life. And right now you can find me. I'm strategizing with the designer. I'm encouraging the designer. We need to raise the lightness of our brand purple by 0.017% today because studies show that users respond more favorably to that when Pluto is in retrograde.
Blaze's score is 5, so despite being heavily involved in UX research, a role which I, Ben, would consider to be an empathy-heavy role, Blaze is all technical. Blaze's favorite programming language is Google Analytics.
Dave: Oh... Good. A little bit of R mixed in there probably, too.
Ben: Oh, yes.
Dave: Yeah. Yeah. All right. Miriam, who are you playing this evening?
Miriam: Yeah. Hi, I'm Astra Q or @codeastra is probably how you know me better on the Internet.
[Laughter]
Miriam: I'm an alien content creator. Just always out here being awesome. I'm really excited about what we've got going on here. Excited to show you our new products.
My number is a 3. I just want you to know that those numbers are scientifically backed. They're based on the latest research. And we'll get into all of that throughout exactly how the AI has given us these numbers based on scientific numbers.
Dave: Yeah.
[Laughter]
Ben: That was interesting to me when I joined the company. They asked for my Myers-Briggs, and they asked for my hardcode soft skills number. And I assume that that was all based in excellent statistics work.
Dave: So far, it's flawless, and I think we're going to see how this rubric plays out throughout the game.
One thing we have to do before we get into the game is to help our company, so we have to create the company. the company is called RAPPTR, and we do upward revenue dynamics, of course. Right? But we have to pick two strengths for RAPPTR. We can choose fast practices, agile, well-funded, good security, superior monitoring, we're in stealth mode, or we have engineering excellence. Do you want to pick two? Any two of those stand out to you? I can make a note of that in my notes.
Alex: We should absolutely stealth mode.
Dave: Stealth mode?
Ben: Stealth mode is good. I like stealth mode. I notice that, amongst us, none of us have rolled the role of developer.
Dave: Mm-hmm.
Chris: Mm-hmm.
Ben: That's an excellent sign that we need to take engineering excellence to CYA or it's a sign that we absolutely shouldn't because it'll be funnier that way.
Dave: Oh, good. That's a good question. I can't tell any... I can't do any spoilers here, but do you want to put engineering excellence on the list?
Chris: Uh... I don't know. What's the whole list again? We're already... What RAPPTR does is revenue dynamics, whatever that is, which is amazing.
Dave: Upward revenue dynamics, of course.
Chris: Upward?
Dave: Yeah. You can be fast. You can be agile. You have SCRUM masters and things like that. You can be well-funded. You can have good security, good monitoring, or engineering excellence.
Chris: I don't feel particularly opinionated.
Dave: All right.
Chris: I like stealth mode, too, though. We've got that. That's on the list.
Dave: Yeah, stealth mode is on.
Ben: Steal mode is good.
Dave: I'll put engineering excellence then, and you'll--
Chris: Okay.
Dave: That'll either... That'll fill the gap or that person will just not be with you [laughter] because no one chose an engineer.
Chris: We're outsourcing.
Dave: Okay, but you also have to pick a problem. Every company has problems, so you have to pick one. It can either be your burn rate (you always need an investment). It can be you only have one napping pod (and CEO Chad is in it). It can be horrible cloud servers, which means the servers always break when you need them most. Or you could be cancelled like CEO Chad did some bad stuff in the past. Do you have a preference there? I feel Alex is chewing on it here. Burn rate, napping pod, cloud servers, or canceled?
Miriam: I feel like I'm learning more towards burn rate or only one napping pod is how I'm feeling.
Alex: Aren't those the same thing?
[Laughter]
Miriam: No.
Alex: Works for me.
Dave: They could be.
Alex: You're spending all of our money on this one napping pod.
Dave: All right. We're going to do one napping pod. There's just one napping pod, so that's all you get. Okay? And CEO Chad is in it because he had a tough time at Burning Man.
All right. With all that, the company created and that out of the way, we can begin the adventure.
It's a beautiful sunny morning. Light is filling the first floor of RAPPTR, and we find our cast of characters just finishing their standup. Anyone want to share what they're working on? Quinn, you're the product manager. What are you working on?
Chris: Well, I look at all the projects.
Dave: Oh...
Chris: My project is your project. You know? So, I think we're... I mean we're... I mean we'd be on track if we could nap more often. [Laughter]
Dave: Okay. That's great. And does the squad here have the name, a name, like a team name, like some teams have names? Blaze, does the team have a name at all?
Ben: I think, in this company (right) every team is corresponding to a dessert theme. I feel like we're team éclair - or something like that.
Dave: Team Éclair. Okay.
Ben: No one has thought of this kind of dessert theming before, and so this is how we're going to get top of market is by these kind of innovative strategies.
Dave: That's beautiful. I couldn't have said it better myself. Team Éclair, as you finish your morning standup routine, suddenly the mood in the room changes as a squadron of besuited lawyers rush into the building. And they just go straight up the staircase towards CEO Chad's office.
Behind the legal team is a group of six or so janitors with bright red hair, but they're wearing ballcaps and overalls, and they have the words "Cleaners" written on the back of their uniform, their jumpsuits, their overalls.
As you watch them go up your stairs, your manager Manny, of course, walks up in his customary red polo shirt and starts to chat you up.
[Speaking as Manny] Hi. Hey, guys. How's it going? Everyone doing okay? Yeah. Um--
Miriam: Awesome.
Alex: Chad's in the napping pod and we only have one napping pod, and it's a big problem.
Dave: [Speaking as Manny] Yeah, that's the tenth time you brought that up, Eddie. That's a really good point. Yeah. We'll file an issue, put it in the queue, but--
Alex: A really good napping pod. The design is so intuitive.
Dave: [Speaking as Manny] It's one of the best. Chad regrettably spent a lot of money on it. Yeah. That was a big deal for everybody, and it sort of ties into what--
Chris: I budgeted that money and I feel like that was highly appropriate and well spent. When Chad needs rest, Chad needs rest.
Dave: [Speaking as Manny] No, no. Yeah, um... That's good. Yeah, but it sort of ties into what I had to talk to you guys about. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it looks like a rogue investor is trying to do a corporate takeover while CEO Chad is recovering. I don't... I apologize. I don't know what's going on, but there are probably going to be layoffs. Don't worry, though. You should get paid. Don't worry about that. But I'll make sure that happens, but I'm afraid--
Miriam: Oh, no!
Dave: [Speaking as Manny] --there's not much we could do about it beyond, you know, sneaking up to the tenth floor and breaking into CEO Chad's office and stealing all the investor documents. But anyways, anyone have any questions?
Ben: How are we supposed to do a layoff if there's only one napping chamber? You can't compete two nappers there.
Dave: [Speaking as Manny] No, that's a really good question--
Dave: And, just as he starts to explain that, an enormous red laser beam rips through Manny's chest and his body just crumples to the floor.
[Laughter]
Dave: From the stairs--
Chris: Wow!
Dave: You look over to the stairs and you see the cleaners for who they really are. They are sentient AI clown robots with laser cannon arms. What do you do? [Laughter]
Alex: I look at them, and I will shout (as a knowledgeable QA person), "Ah! Robots! Can you calculate the square root of a negative number for me, please?"
Dave: Ooh, good! Okay, so this is going to be our first--
Miriam: I'm pulling a camera.
[Laughter]
Dave: This will be our first action. Okay, cool. So, you're going to... This sounds like a technical role, sort of, like you're asking them to do something technical.
Alex: Yes.
Dave: Okay.
Alex: And I don't think I said it before but my number is a 4, so I am--
Dave: You're a 4? Okay.
Alex: I'm more on the technical side but yeah.
Dave: Okay, so this is going to be a hard code roll, and you're going to want to roll under your number. I'll give you... Because you appear to be an expert, right? You clocked them as robots, right?
Alex: Yeah.
Dave: And so, I'll give you an expert dice that you can roll as well, so you got two dice, two D6.
Alex: Okay.
Dave: Our first role of the game.
[Rolling of dice]
Alex: Oh, no.
Dave: Uh-oh.
Ben: [Laughter]
Alex: Oh, no.
Dave: How many succeeded under 4? You're looking for under 4.
Alex: I got a 5 and a 6.
Dave: Oh, dear!
[Laughter]
Dave: That is the worst it could be. AI, the clown AI, they just look at you. What did you say, a negative number?
Alex: Square root of a negative number, yeah.
Dave: And they said, like, stuff... math you don't even understand. They're like, "Negative I," and you're like, "There is no negative I! Ah!" And you are emotionally damaged by the fact that they are super good at math.
Alex: Yeah. Yeah. No, and I feel it in my soul, and I am disheartened and maybe the world can't actually be changed.
Dave: [Laughter] That was a really good attempt.
Chris: I'm over in the corner kind of busy because I've started a Kanban for this where I had a to-do and a doing column, and I had Eddie interfaces with robots.
Dave: Oh, good! [Laughter]
Chris: And I made the card in the to-do section but I have already dragged it into the doing.
Dave: Okay, good. All right, so you prepped. Okay. Is there any action you want to do? Do you want to try to motivate somebody to do something?
Chris: Well, somebody needs to mop up the blood and all that. Is that--? Are we doing that? Are we still a little worried about maybe being killed ourselves?
Dave: Uh... These guys do not look happy. They look like they are pointing their laser cannon arms at y'all.
Chris: Right. Something needs to be done, I would say, team. You know? I don't know what that is, but I will write it down when you decide.
Dave: [Laughter]
Alex: I feel like this is--
Ben: Yeah--
Alex: --a really bad user experience. I'm just saying.
Ben: It really truly is, but the thing you've got to know about every user is they are eminently profileable. You can understand based on just a few behaviors. You can extrapolate a whole theory of mind, a whole sense of their self, and you can understand what they're going to do and even perhaps incentivize them to raise your own revenue just a little bit as well. So, I would like to carefully study the robots in these milliseconds of time. I'd like to build up a persona around these robots and see if I can get ahead of what it is they're going to do, which of us they plan to execute next.
Dave: Okay, great. That's perfect. Do you want to--? Do you think that's a hard code rule, like you're kind of using your science skills there?
Ben: I think so, yeah.
Dave: Okay.
Ben: I think I'm crunching the numbers. I'm building a statistical model. All users are statistics.
Dave: Okay, great. Yeah, go ahead and roll, and try to roll under your number. I think you're an expert, so we're going to give you two dice.
Ben: All right. Well, I got a 4 and a 6 and my number is 5, so that 4 should be a success.
Dave: Okay, you got one success there, so that's good. You are able to clock these guys. I mean they're robots. They are not friendly. They appear to be pointing their laser cannon at Quinn.
Chris: Hmm...
Dave: But they are... You see that they're starting to get a little bit more aggravated and starting to, like, look around the room and identifying next targets.
Chris: Yeah. Not looking good.
Ben: Quinn, get down!
Dave: Oh, good. That was--
Chris: Yeah.
Dave: That's good. Nice help. Nice little help there.
Chris: A help, yeah.
Dave: Yep.
Chris: I suppose I will duck. I mean it's a harder writing surface on the floor anyway, which I prefer.
Dave: [Laughter] Good. Good. Do you want to roll to duck? They're about to shoot cannons in your general direction.
Chris: Yeah. I mean it's better than anything I got.
Dave: Actually, I don't know what happens if you get murdered here, but let's see what happens. [Laughter]
[Laughter]
Ben: We all need to add HP to our character sheets.
Chris: I mean I have four limbs. They're all a little optional. I'm a 3, so slightly on the softer skills side, but I'm doing... I don't know if this is a soft skill or a hard skill. [Laughter]
Dave: I think--
Chris: Ducking is a little soft, correct?
Dave: We'll say it's in the rapport section, like a coworker has told you, "Hey, do this!" and you're like, "Yeah, I want to be a team player. I'm going to duck." So, we'll--
Ben: You were an active listener.
Dave: Yeah.
Chris: Mm-hmm.
Dave: Hey. Actually, Blaze, can you roll one D6 to see if you help in this soft skill?
Ben: That is a 2. You said that was a soft skill?
Dave: Yeah. Yeah.
Ben: Well, I needed to hit over a 5 then. [Laughter]
Dave: Whoops. That's probably not going to happen. [Laughter] So... Okay, but--
[Laughter]
Dave: All right. So, Chris, you--
Chris: Now I roll and I get one dice.
Dave: Yeah. You get one dice to duck. But I feel like I was going to give you two dice, but let's roll one. Let's roll one. You want to roll over your number.
Chris: It's coming down from the sky. I'm hitting a 5.
Dave: You succeed. You duck down.
[Laser strike]
Dave: Boom! A laser cannon just blasts through your cubical and just shreds your desk, like, puts a perfect hole in the middle of your desk, and you're morally offended by that.
Chris: Sure. I'm already on the phone with a contractor, though, because--
Dave: [Laughter]
Chris: If Chad sees this, he is going to be pissed.
Dave: Yeah.
Chris: You know? So--
Dave: Yeah.
Miriam: Hey! Hey, that's a cool laser! What are the specs on that?
Dave: [using a robot voice] It's an 85B 9'er. Why do you ask?
[Laughter]
Miriam: Oh, I just think our followers will be fascinated. Can you show me some more of what it can do? Maybe outside. Let's go outside.
Dave: All right. So, you want to try to rapport them to get outside? Yeah? Okay.
Miriam: Yeah, yeah.
Dave: Okay. I think it could work. You're an expert. You're an influencer, so you're trying to influence them. I'd say you're an expert. I don't know how you could have prepared for this, but I think you... maybe... I don't know. You tell me. You tell me.
Alex: You've interviewed people before, I would say, right?
Miriam: Yeah. Yeah, I have done tech interviews. This feels relevant.
Dave: All right. All right. I'll give you three dice.
Miriam: [Laughter]
Dave: Three dice to try to convince them--
Chris: Oh, my gosh!
Dave: --to go outside--
[Rolling of dice]
Dave: --and shoot a promo, I guess. Yeah, or--
Chris: [Laughter]
Miriam: Yeah, show me those lasers. You know what? I got two 3's, and that is my number.
Dave: [laser sounds]
Miriam: So, I feel like I'm 10x'ing on this one.
Dave: 10x!
Ben: Did you just 1000x?
Dave: That's maybe 1000x. Wow! Amazing. So, they... Okay.
Miriam: Keep being awesome.
Dave: Yes.
[Laughter]
Dave: They say, [using a robot voice] "Yeah, I would love to. I have never been on a YouTube channel or a TikTok before."
And they rush out. They're just like, "This sounds like the best deal," so they run out the front doors to, like, be in the shoot in front of the corporate logo.
And because you 10x'd, you can ask any question you want. You're entitled here.
Miriam: Yeah. Oh, you know, just background. What are you all so mad about?
Dave: [using a robot voice] "We were instructed by our boss to take over the company and eliminate waste."
Miriam: Oh, there's no waste here. We're all awesome. But you know, let's get into the details.
Dave: [using a robot voice] "Our boss disagrees!"
And then they just run out. They're gone. They're out of sight at this point.
Miriam: Oh...
Dave: They took the bait and just left entirely. And so, the stairway is clear, and you can begin going up... unless you want to stay down here and not solve the puzzle.
[Laughter]
Dave: But you can--
Chris: Well, there are documents upstairs, right?
Dave: Yeah, there are very important documents upstairs--
Chris: Right.
Dave: --that I feel like you must get, you know.
Alex: Yeah. Eddie will start going upstairs. But as they're going upstairs, they'll be on their phone filing a bug report with the manufacturers of the robots saying, "You need to ensure that the safety guidelines based on the rules of robots are abided by," and hoping for an update to their programming before the end of the.... [Laughter]
Dave: Very good. You instantly get an email back that says, "Inbox full," so [laughter] that was really impressive.
So, as you're going up, you're going up the stairs, you can't get to the tenth floor where CEO Chad's office is. You know that that's not possible, but you can maybe get up to the ninth floor. And as you're walking up the stairs, you kind of all... like... You're like, "Oh, man. This could be the end of RAPPTR. What's going on?"
I think you're all starting to feel a little sentimental and maybe trying to... maybe flashing back to your first week of working there. What was it like? Who did you meet? What projects did you work on your first week at RAPPTR?
Ben: I remember inventing the button.
Dave: Oh, good! Yeah! You invented the button. [Laughter] You've been there for a while.
Ben: It was a very intuitive design. Yes.
Alex: I remember filing a bug about the button that you could click on it.
Dave: That's... Yeah. No, that's good. Then anyone else?
Miriam: You're going to really enjoy my whole course on the button and what it can do. It's expensive but it's worth it.
Dave: Okay, expensive but worth it.
Chris: And I remember being annoyed that we lost a day in our project timeline thinking about something that already exists that we could just use from our existing design library.
Dave: Yeah, nice. Okay. Was it--? [Laughter] That's good.
Alex: [Laughter]
Dave: Mad about design. I'm going to be mad about [laughter] design system, yeah, usage. Okay. I'm writing that down on your performance review here. [Laughter]
Were there any people you had met that really struck out to you? Maybe they've already left the company? Who do you remember from your time?
Alex: I really like Chad's vibe. It was so... He was so chill. Just all the time just napping. Love it.
Dave: Yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Chad had a chill vibe. Yeah. That's good.
Ben: So hands off in his approach. It's really, truly healthy.
Dave: Yeah. All right. Yeah. Well, cool. I won't probe too much. But as you're going up the stairs, you're kind of all remembering all the good times and corporate offsites and just fun that you've had here at the company.
[Banjo music starts]
Chris: You've got ideas. Now all you need is a website to make them real. Good news. Bluehost makes that super easy. It's the all-in-one platform for building and hosting websites.
You can save time on design and use AI to build a custom WordPress site within minutes, so no coding skills needed, just your ideas. Bluehost also has tools to help you optimize and scale your website's growth all in one place, things like blogging, SEO, social posting, email campaigns, and so much more.
Then when you upgrade to Bluehost Cloud, you can start managing multiple sites and domains. Not only that, you get 100% uptime, enhanced security, and priority 24/7 support to help keep you online no matter what. that means no crashing from heavy traffic.
Start seizing your dreams today. Build your brand. Build your following. Build your website. Build it with Bluehost. Now that is a great idea. Go to bluehost.com/shoptalk to start building your dream website today.
[Banjo music stops]
Dave: And you get to the ninth floor. As you enter the ninth floor, you know that it's just this big kind of ballroom style cafeteria, right? High ceilings. It's usually pretty active. But this time, you go in and it's pitch black. It's completely dark all the way across the room, except you can see the dim amber lights of the elevator that you know goes to CEO Chad's office. But other than that, it's pitch black, so what do you do?
Alex: Chad will attempt to turn the light switch on, turn the light switch off, turn the light switch on twice, turn the light switch off twice, turn it on three times, turn it off four times, turn it on five times.
Miriam: Yeah, okay, but I've got my ring light here.
Alex: He will attempt to turn the switch sideways. [Laughter]
Dave: Uh, so you do that and nothing happens. It's appears that the light switch is broken. You've confirmed that, actually. I'll give you that. [Laughter]
Alex: I'm sending an email to the building rep about bug reports.
Dave: What's that guy's name? Is it Jim?
Alex: Jim-Jim.
Dave: Jim, yeah, in maintenance?
Alex: Yeah.
Dave: Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Alex: Jimmy-Jim-Jim... Jim-Jim-Jim.
Dave: Jimmy-Jim-Jim. Okay, yeah, yeah. Astra, were you--?
Chris: But it's--
Dave: Oh, go ahead.
Chris: --pure darkness where we're at, right?
Dave: Yeah, yeah.
Chris: We can't even... I mean--
Miriam: Yeah.
Chris: We hardly know why we're up here let alone now we're up here and we can't even see anything. Really, a lot of confusion has set in, I think.
Dave: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Miriam: We have plenty of lights for filming this stuff. I mean we just have to, yeah, set them up. You know?
Chris: Yeah.
Miriam: Put the batteries in.
Chris: Fill lights and all that.
Miriam: Yeah, fill light. Yeah. One of them has got that case thing with the--
Dave: With the big soffit, the big, white--
Miriam: Yeah.
Dave: I forget what they're called.
Miriam: And we've got ... too.
Chris: If Astra has got one of those, I'll just shoot my... I'll shoot my phone light at it.
Miriam: Perfect.
Dave: You have your pocket white balancer?
Miriam: Yeah, reflector.
Dave: Or whatever? Yeah.
Miriam: Yeah.
Dave: Oh, the little circle thing? Okay, yeah.
Miriam: Pop-out.
Dave: Yeah, the little pop-out.
Miriam: Yeah.
Dave: Yeah. Okay, great. I'm not going to make you roll for that. That's something you obviously have, right?
Miriam: Sure.
Chris: Sure. Now there's a little bit of light. Yeah?
Dave: A little bit of light. And the light shines across this room. And you notice all of the tables in the cafeteria, they're gone.
Chris: They're gone.
Dave: And what is there is this long train track. And on one end of the train track is a giant trolley. And on the other end of the train track, there's a hill, and it goes down. And there there's a fork in the train track and a cartoon-looking switch.
And one of the tracks goes, and you can clearly see. You're following the tracks with the flashlight and the white balance thing or whatever. I wish we knew what that was called, but we don't. But you're following it, and one track leads to your skip manager, Skip.
[Speaking as Skip] Oh, hey, guys. I'm so glad you're here. Yes, not how I planned for today to go.
And you know this is Skip because Skip signs your checks. Okay?
Alex: Oh...
Dave: Yeah, so consider that. But the other track leads to a group of people all tied up and tied to the train tracks. And in that group of people is Jimmy-Jimmy-John-John, your maintenance guy. That's why he hasn't replied to you.
And in that group of people, all your favorite people, the actual cleaning staff. And then, of course, the manic pixy dream girl cafeteria lady, Zoey Macaroni Shell, that you are all (regardless of gender or planet of origin or sexuality) just completely smitten with.
Alex: [Laughter]
Chris: [Laughter]
Dave: And Zoey Macaroni Shell says, [speaking as Zoey] "Oh, hey, guys. I'm so glad you're there. I was... I left my ukulele over here and--"
Chris: That's the sexiest voice I've ever heard.
Alex: I feel like Dave just wanted to do this so he could talk in this voice more.
Dave: [speaking as Zoey] Yeah.
[Laughter]
Dave: [speaking as Zoey] This bears no resemblance to famous people at all. They can't sue us.
[Laughter]
Dave: So, there's Zoey Macaroni Shell, Jimmy-Jimmy-John-John, and they are all... you know they're there. And it looks pretty precarious.
Dave: And as you're there, the TV screens that usually show charts and graphs and everything (right), they start to glitch and flicker on.
And there on the screen is the investor trying to take over the company. You know him as Elno Moosk.
Chris: [Laughter]
Dave: And Elno Moosk says, [speaking as Elno] "Oh!"
He's definitely not from South Africa. He's more like New Zealand, but he says, [speaking as Elno] "Oh! You think you can stop me, huh?! Well, why do you think you can stop me from taking over this company? Is that what you're here to do?"
Ben: Why doesn't this TV have a power button? It's not intuitive!
Dave: [speaking as Elno] Yes! It's not intuitive. That's why I told Chad to put them in here!
Chris: [Laughter]
Dave: [speaking as Elno] You can't turn them off! You can't turn off charts and graphs. That would be--
[Laughter]
Dave: [speaking as Elno] That would ... really--
[Laughter]
Dave: [speaking as Elno] That would be horrifying.
Chris: When Chad wakes up, he is going to be so pissed.
Dave: [speaking as Elno] Well, if you want to stop me, that's fine. But maybe... maybe you don't have to stop me. Maybe... Why make enemies? You know? Why make enemies when we can kill friends?
Dave: And the trolley dings its trolley bell, and a number three shows up on its little bus stop, next bus stop, thing - screen. It says the number three.
Ben: Hey, that's my number.
Dave: You see over by the elevator another one of the clown cleaners. What do you do?
Ben: Well, I'd like to evaluate this whole trolley issue that we have going on, this trolley conundrum, because in my... It could go one way, right? We'll call that the A test. It could go the other way. That's the B test. So, we've got kind of an A/B testing situation here. But both of these situations are positive changes (i.e., they cause something to change from the norm). Surely, you need a control, right?
This whole experiment is awry. You can't do A/B testing like this. And I would like to let that frustration be known to Elno such that he might change the circumstances of this to be a proper study.
Dave: Okay. Let's see. This sounds like a hard code role because you are--
Ben: I think so. Yeah, we need to construct a better experiment here, right?
Dave: You're--
Ben: The control presumably is no one dies.
Dave: Okay.
Ben: That would be ideal control.
Dave: Ideal. You're requesting to your superior an ideal--
Ben: I did not say--
Dave: --a better test.
Ben: --Elno was my superior.
Dave: [Laughter] You're requesting to the powers that be, I guess. Okay. Let's roll. I feel like you are prepared for this. This is in your A/B testing domain. You get another dice. Then I feel like you are an expert, so this would be a triple roll for you. But you've got to roll a hard roll. A hard code roll is going to be, what, under your number, which is, I believe, a 3, 4, 3. Let me get your number.
Ben: Oh, I was--
Dave: A 5.
Ben: ...success.
Alex: Is it possible to help with better lighting?
Dave: Oh, well--
Ben: Oh...
Dave: Sorry. What did you roll?
Ben: I got one success.
Dave: One success? I'll let you help with better lighting. How are you going to do that, Astra?
Miriam: Yeah, well, I just know how to set the angles right for the bounce, you know, bounce from low to the left.
Dave: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay.
Miriam: So that there's no shadows.
Dave: Sure. Roll a dice and see if you are able to help in this technical role.
Miriam: A 6. What does that mean?
Dave: That does not work because you had to roll... Right? Wait. Let me see, actually. [Laughter] Now I'm confused.
Miriam: [Laughter]
Dave: Okay.
Miriam: Under.
Dave: In a hard code role, you want to roll under your number.
Miriam: Ah, I did not.
Dave: And you rolled very over, so yeah. So, you have one dice.
Dave: Elno sees you're formattable. He's considering what you've said. He sees that you have pointed out a flaw in his test, and he's starting to mull it over, you know. However, the trolley dings again and the number turns to a 2.
Chris: The trolley turns to a 2. Okay. We don't even really know what these numbers mean, right? That's the task at hand.
Miriam: Um... This is starting to feel like a countdown.
Alex: Is it a full-size? Is it actually like a full-size trolley?
Dave: Um... I think it's more like one-third scale. [Laughter] It's going to remove some appendices if it goes down. Yeah, for sure.
Chris: Hmm... Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dave: For sure.
Chris: And it's going to go one way or the other. Is there one of those switches we can pull to choose?
Dave: There is, yeah. Right in the middle, yeah. And it looks like it's... You don't maybe know who it's pointed to, but it looks like if you pushed it one way it would go to Skip and the other way it would kill the group of people.
Alex: Uh... What is it? What is it made out of? What is the switch made out of?
Dave: It is metal, like cast iron. You know. Yeah.
Alex: Yeah. Is it like fully welded together?
Dave: Yeah. I think so, yeah.
Alex: It's not like a screw in?
Dave: Yeah. I'm like, do you have one of those heat metal smells? [Laughter] No, I was... No, it's just like a switch. It's mechanical, very mechanical.
Chris: Then we've got Elongated - or whatever - on the TV.
Dave: Yep. [Laughter] Elno.
Chris: And then it went from a three--
Dave: Elno. please.
Chris: Elno.
Dave: We don't want to get sued. [Laughter]
Chris: Hell no! The number on the trolley went from three to two, and a little bit sounds like it's counting down. Am I--? That's a concern I have as project manager who is intrepid.
Dave: [Laughter]
Chris: And it goes to one, zero, then that trolley is going loose. So, I fear that our last thing just didn't work, and so we either need to get that trolley to not go at all or just pick the right -- let somebody die.
Miriam: So, this other cleaner that's here--
Dave: He's starting--
Chris: There's also a robot.
Dave: --to look aggressive and walk towards you.
Miriam: Does he have weapons?
Dave: It looks like another laser arm cannon.
Miriam: All right. I was in the middle of this interview. I'm glad you're back. I would love to pick up where we left off.
Dave: [using a robot voice] Yeah, I thought you ghosted me.
Miriam: Oh, no! I didn't. I was just turning on the camera.
Dave: [using a robot voice] I added you. Did you not get my message?
Miriam: Well, now here we are. We finally connected. I'm glad we were able to connect.
Dave: [using a robot voice] Great. It is good to be here.
I'm giving you this because you got such a smashing success on your last one. Yes, but--
Miriam: I would really like to see a demonstration.
Chris: Yes. There you go.
Miriam: Exactly.
Chris: God. Come on.
Miriam: I would like to see a demonstration of the laser cannon. I'd love for our viewers to see it.
Dave: [using a robot voice] My cool laser?
Miriam: Yes, your rad laser. Everyone thinks it's the coolest.
Dave: [using a robot voice] I bet they would think that's very cool.
All right, let's roll a soft skills role because you're trying to convince him to fire his laser.
Miriam: A single die?
Dave: You're an expert. I don't know if you prepared for this situation. Okay, two.
Miriam: Okay. Double?
Dave: Yeah.
[Rolling of dice]
Dave: You've got to roll over your number.
Miriam: Six and six.
Dave: Ah! That's a double success. Great job. All right, so he goes [using a robot voice] "Yes, where would you like me to shoot it?"
Miriam: Oh, wherever it makes the biggest explode-y.
Dave: [using a robot voice] Hmm...
Miriam: You probably know better than I do.
Dave: And he's looking around. He's looking around, and he sees a giant trolley.
[Laughter]
Miriam: Yeah.
Chris: Uh-huh.
Dave: He's like [using a robot voice], "How about that guy?"
And he goes--
Miriam: Perfect.
Dave: [using a robot voice] "I'm working on a catchphrase, ka-blast-o!"
[Laughter]
Dave: And he says, "Ka-blast-o!" and shoots the ray gun and just explodes the trolley into bits and pieces. And you have solved my trolley problem. Good job.
[Laughter]
Chris: The laser on the mantle-place.
Dave: You have - whatever - control of him right now. But once the cameras are off, he is maybe not going to be friendly.
Dave: Okay. I high-five him and ask for the laser. "Can I see that?"
Dave: Let's do a rapport roll. Let's do a soft skills roll. [Laughter] You can be an expert and one dice, yeah, so two dice.
[Rolling of dice]
Miriam: 4 and 6.
Dave: That beats your number, right?
Miriam: Yeah.
Dave: You were a 3, right?
Miriam: Yeah, 3.
Dave: Okay.
Miriam: Yeah.
Dave: So, that's great. He goes [using a robot voice], "Usually I don't do this, but here you go."
And he hands you a laser. And on the... It's got, like, this is really wild that it has a custom sticker that he made on it that says, "Ka-blast-o!" right on it.
Chris: Hmm...
Dave: And he gives you his laser arm cannon.
Miriam: Whoa!
Dave: He just kind of stands there kind of looking off like unsure of what he's supposed to do now.
Miriam: This is cool. Do you guys want to see it? We should probably do some QA quick.
Alex: Uh, yeah. I will take it and go, "All right. So, it works on a trolley. Does it work on the floor as well?" and I'll shoot the floor with it.
Dave: All right, technical roll.
Alex: Cool. Am I an expert?
Dave: You are... Yeah. Yeah, you're QA'ing. You're QA'ing it.
[Rolling of dice]
Alex: I got a 5 and a 1.
Dave: Um... One under, one success, unless your number is a 5. Your number is not. It's a 4, right?
Alex: No, it's a 4.
Dave: Yeah. Cool. Yeah, so you shoot the floor. You singe your shoes a little bit but nothing... You actually did shoot a hole through the floor. So, if you kept doing that--
Chris: Oh, my gosh.
Dave: --you would maybe collapse the floor. But you successfully shot through the floor. Yeah.
Alex: Okay, cool. And then I'll go, like, "All right. So, it works on a trolley. Works on the floor. Does it--? Is he a reflective robot or it a cylon, human cylon sort of situation?"
Dave: Cylon-y. Yeah, in clown makeup with big, bright red hair. Yeah.
Alex: Mmm... mmm-kay, cool.
Chris: Cool.
Alex: Have we--? Has this been tested to make sure you, as a cleaner, cannot be hurt by this, right? Has that been tested yet? Do you know?
Dave: He scans his databases and says [using a robot voice], "Not to my knowledge."
Alex: Hmm... We should probably do some testing on that, I feel like. Would you be willing to participate in a quick QA session with me and do some... have a nice little case study right here?
Dave: He's scanning his social feeds, and he's like [using a robot voice], "Oh, sweet. I got ten more followers on my Ka-blast-o account!"
And he's like [using a robot voice], "Yeah! I would love to participate more with this because I'm getting more likes and engagement."
So, yeah.
Chris: Hmm...
Alex: Fantastic! I shoot him.
Dave: Okay.
Chris: [Laughter]
Dave: Roll a technical roll.
[Laughter]
Alex: 2.
Dave: 2? Okay. Yeah, 2. Yeah, yeah.
[Rolling of a dice]
Alex: I got a 1 and a 4.
Dave: Oh, that's your number, right? Okay.
Alex: That's my number.
Dave: Success. [Blasting sounds] He just explodes. And he's like [using a robot voice], "Unexpected!"
[Explosion]
Dave: You know?
[Laughter]
Dave: Just melts, and you just destroy, absolutely destroyed him. Instantly, his like count goes down. It's like you feel it in the room. But then--
He's gone, but because you rolled a 10x, you get to ask any question you want.
Alex: Oh... Oh... Uh... Is there--? Do we need a special code for the elevator?
Dave: No. CEO Chad is really not that smart.
Alex: [Laughter] Okay. Cool.
Dave: You know particularly his security skills aren't the best. He's chill, so he likes to keep his--
Alex: We all pass around the text document with all the passwords in them and all the passwords are like 1234 passwords.
Dave: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, if you encounter a password, you actually know it's probably just 1234password. Yeah.
Alex: Cool.
Chris: Okay.
Alex: Great.
Dave: Yeah, yeah.
Alex: Perfect.
Dave: So, what do you do? You've solved the trolley problem and the killer clown problem, so what do you do?
Chris: But we've still got Elno on the TV presumably watching us.
Dave: And I will say, so you guys are observant, and you've probably clocked that Elno appears to be, based on that feed, inside CEO Chad's office.
Chris: Oh! Oh-oh-oh!
Dave: And how do you know that? Because right behind him was a file folder that says "investor documents" really big on it just hanging on the wall. Yeah.
Chris: All right, so we need to find... Get to this office ASAP.
Dave: Yeah.
Chris: Is it up? I thought we were on the top floor already.
Dave: Up the elevator. So, you're on the ninth floor. The tenth floor, there's an elevator at the back--
Chris: We need to get up there.
Dave: --that you know goes to CEO Chad's office. Yeah.
Chris: I think we should bring the laser now that we have it and head on up.
Dave: Okay.
Alex: It's defective, though. It's not... It's not good because you can use it on the thing that made it, so we need to--
Chris: Hmm...
Alex: I'll pass it off to Astra and say, "Here. You do whatever you need to do with this," and I'll go on the--
Miriam: We can sell it as a feature.
Alex: Yeah. I'll go on the forums for the creator for whatever company made the cleaner clowns and start filing messages to be like, "All right, so I've run into an issue."
Dave: [Laughter] Okay. You're filing more issues as you go up the elevator, I assume. Everyone, we're just going up the elevator.
Alex: Yeah.
Chris: Yeah, we're going to go upward. You know what I'm saying?
Dave: You go up to the elevator to the tenth floor. There was a password in the elevator, and you type 12345password, or 1234password, and immediately the doors open. And you walk into CEO Chad's office, which is somehow bigger than the cafeteria. But it's very brutalist: concrete furniture, very sparse sort of settings, but there's also a weird amount of toys. You know what I mean? Like Funko Pops and different sort [laughter] like basketball shoes. Lots of shoes, you know, so you're just very concerned just about him but whatever. It's fine. He's your boss.
You walk in, and you see Elno there behind the desk with the file folder behind him. But off to the side, you see something else.
Chris: Yeah?
Dave: You see a giant metal ring behind him with some - I don't know - hieroglyph-looking text around the edges of the ring.
Chris: A stargate.
Ben: This is my kind of specialty. I understand user interfaces. I want to take a look at it and see if I can intuit the optimal intuitive operation of the weird stargate thing.
Dave: Awesome. Yeah. So, roll. Go ahead and roll. Let's see... Technical because you understand the tech, I feel like.
Ben: Okay. How many dice?
Dave: You're getting two, two dice, I think.
Ben: Two dice. You got it.
Dave: Expert and rolling.
Ben: And they're both successes.
Dave: Nice! Okay, so you clock it. It's a stargate, a portal to another dimension. And there are all these pipes and all these sort of tubes that lead to it and a little platform that goes up. And the stargate is there, and Elno is... And you kind of get an idea of how it works. These little symbols are going to light up, and it'll spin around. And it'll create a portal. You get that.
Ben: I figured it out. It's a portal thing. It's going to spin around. It's going to make a portal. We could optimize, I'm sure, if we tinkered with it here and there. Rounded it just a little more, I'm sure we could make it about, like, say, 0.13% more efficient. But it's crude, but it'll work.
Dave: Once you say that, Elno spins around in the chair and goes [speaking as Elno], "Ah-ha-ha-ha! You figured it out, didn't you?! You're so smart. You figured out that, oh, we're not really building upward revenue dynamics. We're building stargates. [Laughter] You figured out my big plan."
Dave: He's in full clown makeup now and he's jumping around awkwardly, like he's on a ketamine bender. He's just like, you know, acting really weird. But that's Elno Moosk, billionaire investor. He's there, but he's staring at you, and he seems kind of eager to explain his master plan.
Chris: Right. Right, right, right. Well, we see the folder behind him, so I think somebody needs to engage him with some clickbait-y stuff, whatever we think he's into, while somebody kind of does the old sneak around for the folder.
Dave: [speaking as Elno] Oh, were you wondering about my stargate, why I built that?
Miriam: I was. Yeah, can you tell me all about it? You're on all of the socials.
Dave: [speaking as Elno] Oh, perfect because, you see, there's no money, actual money in upward revenue dynamics. There's no point to do that. So, what I plan to do is I plan to use this stargate to send all of my Bitcoins--
Miriam: Wait, wait, wait. Can you come over here? Can you come over here? I just want to get you a better shot. I just want to get a better shot before you finish.
Dave: [speaking as Elno] Yeah, in a minute. I'm finishing. I'm finishing. I'm finishing. Let me finish. I'm going to send all of my Bitcoins to the literal moon. And then once my Bitcoins are on the moon, everyone knows moon law. If you put something on there, you own that piece of the moon, and I will own the entire moon. I will control its gravity and the oceans here on Earth. And I will threaten the Earth to throw rocks down from the moon. And everyone will recognize me as the supreme leader. [Laughter]
Dave: And he pushes a big red button. You know the button, Blaze.
Ben: I invented that!
Dave: He pushes the button.
Chris: [Laughter] Yes.
Dave: And it is a big button that says "start" on it. And the stargate begins kind of powering up. The glyphs are kind of lighting up and it starts spinning. You can hazily see the Apollo 11 lander module kind of like in the background. It's kind of starting to come into focus.
Ben: I have a pitch. We've established that Blaze Lightyear's favorite programming language is Google Analytics, and if there's one thing, one entity--
Dave: This was established in the .... Yes. [Laughter]
Ben: Yes. Yes. If there's one entity that you spill your vulnerabilities and deepest darkest secrets to, it's Google search.
Dave: Ooh... All right.
Alex: And we have layers and layers of user tracking. We know not only how users are navigating our site and what buttons they're pressing. Oh, boy, do we know what buttons they're pressing. We know how they like their blueberry muffins. We know their mother's maiden name and her mother's maiden name. We know all of that.
I submit we know what Elno searched on Google.
Dave: Oh!
Ben: And we know probably... User behavior tells us that people are very vulnerable in search. I'd like to see if at any point (based on our foot printing, our fingerprinting of this man) if he's ever searched stargate vulnerabilities.
[Laughter]
Dave: Okay. Let's roll. Expert role and prepared because you've obviously prepared.
Ben: That is two successes.
Dave: Two successes. Awesome. Yeah. You just pull out your phone, I assume, right, and you're kind of like--
Ben: Yeah, I log into the system. It's poorly encrypted.
Dave: Poorly encrypted. Password 1234password. And you log into the system. And you immediately clock his search history. And it's like stargate how, stargate circle how big, and then stargate vulnerability. And in there you just see it's one [laughter]... There's one result, and it's basically "unplug hose," and that's--
Chris: Oh, my gosh.
Dave: Yeah, so--
Chris: Yeah.
Dave: Yeah.
Ben: I'd like to turn around and whisper this to Team Éclair. Yes.
Dave: Okay, Team Éclair now all knows the vulnerability of the stargate. Then I felt like, Astra, I interrupted. You were trying a rouse to get him to stand.
Miriam: Yeah. I think I was trying to get him out of the way. I think Chris... Quinn, I think Quinn wanted to do something.
Dave: Okay. Let's roll a rapport to see if you can convince him to move his position from behind the desk.
Miriam: All right.
Chris: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Miriam: Is this just one?
Dave: Let's do two because I think you're an influencer, expert. Yeah, yeah.
Miriam: Yeah, yeah. All right.
[Rolling of dice]
Miriam: A 3 and a 5. Ooh... I 10x'd it.
Chris: Ooh...
Dave: 10x'd it! Nice!
Chris: [Laughter]
Dave: Okay. Double success. Great.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah.
Dave: He goes [speaking as Elno], "Yes! I'll move over there. But I think I can make the photo even better. But I have a question for everybody. One or 100? Choose."
Chris: A hundred.
Miriam: One.
Dave: [speaking as Elno] Which is it?
Chris: [Laughter]
Dave: [speaking as Elno] One or 100? How about one?!"
Dave: And he hits a button, another button, that says "1".
Chris: Okay.
Dave: And the desk turns into a giant horse-sized duck.
Chris: [Laughter]
Dave: And he says [speaking as Elno], "I think it'll look much better with my cyberduck. Yeah!"
[Laughter]
Miriam: Oh, my gosh.
Ben: No, no! The sharp angles! No!
Dave: Yeah, it's really user unfriendly.
Alex: Why does the duck look like a five-year-old drew it?
Dave: It's really user unfriendly angles on this giant horse-sized cyberduck that he is now riding kind of like a Dr. Eggman from Sonic. But it is a horse-sized duck that he is now in. But he will move over and take a picture for you. He's moved out of the way of, like, where were you trying to get him to move?
Miriam: Was there a big, like, CEO window?
Dave: Oh, yeah!
Miriam: Like floor to ceiling.
Dave: Yeah. For sure.
Miriam: Yeah, yeah.
Dave: Yeah, Chad doesn't mess around.
Miriam: Yeah, yeah.
Dave: Yeah.
Miriam: All right. Yeah.
Dave: So, he's over by there, yeah.
Miriam: No, a little bit closer to it.
Dave: Yeah, okay. Yeah.
Miriam: A little farther back.
Dave: [speaking as Elno] Oh, it'll look more powerful if I--
[horrible motor noises]
Dave: And he's robo-walking over there. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Yeah. And you can ask any question. You have actually that power.
Miriam: Oh, no. Now I have to think of a question.
[Laughter]
Dave: So, you have the file of investor files. You have a stargate that's powering up. And then he wants to put his Bitcoins on the moon. And then he's now in his cyberduck in front of the window.
Miriam: Yeah. Yeah. What's going to come through that stargate? Or maybe I already know it's the Bitcoin going the other way.
Dave: He wants to throw his Bitcoins through there.
Miriam: Yeah.
Dave: You don't fully understand how that's going to happen.
Miriam: I don't understand a lot here, Dave.
Dave: Yeah.
[Laughter]
Dave: Yeah.
[Laughter]
Dave: You're our alien content creator. I figured you would have known. But there's maybe like a thumb drive with Bitcoins. It's really not clear how he's going to--
Miriam: Oh, yeah. Where are the Bitcoins?
Dave: There's a thumb drive on the desk, and that's really all you can tell. But I don't know. Yeah.
Chris: Well, now that we've gotten him to move, can't we get our hands on this folder, possibly, if we--?
Dave: You can try. You can--
Chris: Yeah, we can try. Sure.
Dave: You can roll and action.
Chris: I'm going to do a cartwheel or something and get it.
Dave: Okay. Let's say... Ooh... Is that technical or soft skill? Uh... I think it's a soft skill, right, cartwheeling?
Chris: Okay. Sure.
Dave: Yeah. I guess it's pretty technical for me, actually. [Laughter]
Chris: [Laughter]
Dave: But we'll see how it plays out. Tell me. Is there a reason you would have more dice, more than just one dice?
Chris: Um... I don't know. I don't think so. Unless the help, somebody can hold my legs up while I do the cartwheel.
Dave: [Laughter]
Alex: Yeah, I will help by, like, as he starts... As Quinn starts to go, to sort of like watching and, like, grabbing a leg and, like, walking along and spotting.
Dave: All right. Throw a helping soft skill roll then and see if you can help him.
[Rolling of dice]
Alex: Nope, that's a two.
Dave: Okay, you attempt to help him and you punch him in the privates.
[Laughter]
Dave: Just a soft punch, but it's very... And he's your product manager, so it's maybe an HR violation, but you're.... Quinn, you can roll one dice to try to--
Chris: Yeah. I need to see what's in this document. My eyeballs have not left the folder since coming in here. I know a lot has happened since then.
Dave: And you're laser focused on files. I'll give you two. I'll give you two because you've been laser focused on documents.
Chris: Okay, I'm going to do two dice.
Dave: Yeah.
Chris: Yeah, and I'm a 3, so whatever we'll do here. I rolled a 1 and a 2. Isn't that good?
Dave: I think that's--
Chris: Or bad maybe.
Dave: Oh, I think that's bad. Let's see.
Chris: Ah, dang it!
Dave: I need to pull out my rules on this one more time. [Laughter]
Chris: Yeah.
Alex: Because it was soft skills, so--
Dave: Soft skill, you want to roll over your number.
Alex: Over.
Chris: Hmm... double fail.
Dave: You attempt a cartwheel and just splat.
Chris: That sounds about right.
Dave: Your arms just crumble like you've never even used your arms before. You just fold into a rough pile of flesh on the ground. But you're not--
Ben: ...agile.
Dave: And Elno sees that, and he's just like [speaking as Elno], "Ah-ha-ha."
He kind of clocks what you're trying to do.
[speaking as Elno] Oh, you're going to take the investor documents, are you?
He starts charging up the laser cannons on the cyberduck.
Alex: Eddie will walk, go and, like, stand up on a chair, a filing cabinet, or something nearby, or one of the displays of toys - or whatever - and because QA is extremely stressful, will pull out his lighter.
Don't smoke, kids.
And hold it up to the sprinkler system--
Dave: Wow!
Alex: --to engage it to cause water to spray everywhere, which you know cyberducks are well known for not being able to handle adverse conditions.
Dave: You're exactly right, so you are--
Alex: [Laughter]
Dave: Let's say you can get to roll dice. I think you maybe... You didn't exactly prepare it, but yes.
Alex: No, I didn't.
Dave: But you were prepared with the lighter. And then - I don't know - you're an expert. You understand the weaknesses of cyberducks just intuitively. Yeah.
Alex: Yeah. Yeah.
Dave: Three dice.
[Rolling of dice]
Alex: two 1's.
Dave: Two 1's, so that's a success because we're doing a technical role. I guess we didn't cover that. Sorry, no. Soft skill role?
Alex: Was it a soft skill role?
Dave: I think it was a technical roll for lightering.
Chris: Lightering? I mean my was soft skilled for a cartwheel.
Alex: It's lightering.
Miriam: I think it's technical.
Chris: Okay, good.
Dave: A technical role?
Miriam: Technical.
Dave: Okay, so you want to roll under your number.
Alex: Yes.
Dave: You succeeded! Hey! Good job!
Alex: Yay!
Dave: Way to go! You light. You immediately set something on fire and it triggers the smoke detectors.
[Water spray from sprinklers starts]
Dave: And the room is just flooding with water. It's actually only his side of the room because maintenance budgets were kind of cut.
Alex: Yeah.
Dave: And so, it's only that side of the room. But you start seeing glitches and different things happening in the cyberduck and in the stargate. Frankly, it is not good at water either. Yeah, what do you do?
Chris: Dang! I mean if it's only starting to... Keep this party going somehow. You know? We're starting to turn the tides.
Miriam: Yeah. If we can get him to slip through the window, right? The cyberduck is heavy enough.
Chris: Don't forget about the hose that we were told directly about on the back of the stargate machine.
Miriam: Oh, yeah.
Chris: This could be the big distraction we were waiting for. I don't need to cartwheel anymore. Now I can just waltz over there and unplug the damn thing. You know?
Dave: Do you want to roll for that? You can.
Chris: I mean I tried cartwheeling, but it was really just for flare. I think I'll just use my legs this time.
Dave: Okay. All right.
Chris: Regular old walk-a-rino.
Ben: Because I was able to Google for the whole hose thing, I'd like to be able to try to help in some way.
Dave: Yeah. For sure.
Chris: Yeah.
Dave: Let's roll. I think unplugging the machine is unfortunately a technical role.
[Laughter]
Dave: Let's get one dice for technical. You're prepared. You knew that's the weakness. You knew, and so--
[Water spray from sprinklers stops]
Dave: So, Blaze rolls for a technical role and see if you succeed. And then you want to roll under your number.
Ben: So, I got one success, so that should be an extra die for you, Chris.
Dave: Okay. One dice for Chris, so you're going to roll three dice, Chris.
Chris: Oh, my gosh.
Dave: Quinn, sorry. Quinn.
Chris: 6, 6, 2. That's one success? I can't remember.
Dave: One success, so one dice succeeds. You barely manage it.
Chris: Barely.
Dave: So, you unplug it.
Chris: I'm holding onto the hose. Arg!
Dave: Yeah, yeah. [Laughter] Yes.
Chris: Urg!
Dave: You unplug it but fart a little bit.
[Squeaky fart]
Dave: And then all the attention--
[Laughter]
Dave: Elno's attention goes straight to you.
Chris: Oh, I bet.
Dave: Yeah.
Chris: Because this is the Bitcoin portal.
Dave: You're ruining his plan. Yeah.
Chris: How are you going to rule the moon?
Dave: So, you've eliminated the stargate threat. There's a folder file. There's maybe a Bitcoin in a thumb drive. And then there's maybe... And then he's still standing by the window in his glitching out cyberduck.
Chris: There's a lot going on. Are we going to try to push him out that window? Are we going to--? I mean isn't there water all over the ground now, too?
Dave: It's pretty slick.
Chris: Maybe there's an electrocution play possible.
Dave: Electrocute-y and slick. Yeah, yeah.
Miriam: Do we still have a laser cannon?
Alex: Yeah, you have it.
Miriam: Oh, I have it?
[Laughter]
Alex: Yeah. I passed it off to you so that you could do your closeup shots of it.
Miriam: Oh, yeah. Yeah, b-roll.
Dave: [Laughter] Yeah.
Chris: Yeah.
Alex: Yeah.
Miriam: I have been getting b-roll, but now I guess I'm just going to shoot the duck.
Dave: Shoot the cyberduck. All right. Great.
[Laughter]
Chris: Shoot the duck!
Dave: So, it's going to be a technical role here. You're going to use a--
[Laughter]
Dave: You're going to shoot the duck. You want to roll under your number.
Miriam: Okay.
Ben: And just know if you miss when shooting the cyberduck, there is a cyberdog in the background that will laugh at you.
Dave: Yeah, yeah. So, that's the big penalty. You're going to get one dice for rolling. I'll give you two because you're prepared. You had the laser, and he is glitching out. So, I'll give you two dice there.
Miriam: All right.
[Rolling of dice]
Miriam: 2 and a 6, so that 2 should work. Wait.
Dave: Success. Yeah, that's under your number, right?
Miriam: Yeah.
Dave: Sorry.
Miriam: Wait.
Dave: Are you--? What's your number?
Miriam: Yeah, yeah.
Dave: 2 or 3?
Miriam: My number is the 3.
Dave: Your number is 3.
Miriam: So, that's under, so that....
Dave: Yeah, so under your number.
Chris: Shot the duck!
Dave: Lucky.
[Laser shots]
Dave: You blast the cyberduck, and it is like... It's just a hole clean through it. And it starts stumbling backwards. And then falls out the window. Just crashes and destroys the window and falls out. Elno is tumbling, and you hear like a Wilhelm scream, you know, "Ahh...!"
But then you hear a thump-thump-thump-thump, and the cyber floats up and says [speaking as Elno], "I'll get you next time!"
Chris: [Laughter]
Dave: And a smokey trail.
Chris: [Laughter]
Dave: [speaking as Elno] You have won, but I'll get you next time!
Chris: Yeah.
Dave: Then flies away.
Chris: Like a Ducktales villain.
Dave: Like a Ducktales villain. Yeah.
Chris: [Laughter]
Dave: In his smokey cyberduck, horse-sized cyberduck. And he is out of there. And you have solved the horse-sized duck problem. Way to go!
Is there anything else you want? You got those files, and you got the--
Chris: Now we can just take them any time I want.
Ben: It seems like we still have a thumb drive of Bitcoin. I think we're rich.
Alex: Oh, yeah!
Dave: What are you going to do with that?
Chris: Yeah.
Dave: Just pocket it?
Ben: Buy a second nap pod.
Alex: Eddie will go and take the thumb drive, stick it into a discarded laptop that's probably somewhere in the room because there are probably like 20 of them.
Dave: Yep.
Alex: And stick it in there and see if it has--
Chris: I'm going to be like, "listen up, everybody! We need to get this place cleaned up before Chad wakes up."
Alex: And see if it has... if it is the actual Bitcoin or not or if it is a security thing or something... airgap it.
Dave: Yeah. You investigate. I won't make you roll. You look in there, and it's not Bitcoin. It's actually Dogecoin (worth a lot less). But there's a billion of them.
Chris: Yeah.
Dave: You're just like, "That's cool," so you are - whatever - tens of millionaires now because you have Elno's secret Dogecoin wallet.
As you're celebrating your money and planning on what you're going to do with it, you hear (in the back of the room) a hiss.
[Air hissing]
Dave: And from out of the napping pod comes CEO Chad.
Chris: [Laughter]
Dave: And he goes, "Whoa! What'd I miss?"
Chris: [Laughter]
Dave: And that is going to end our adventure for today.
Miriam: Yay!
[Applause]
Dave: Thank you so much for playing, everybody. I think that was fun for me, so I really appreciate that. For people who aren't following you and giving you money, how can they do that?
Chris: [Laughter]
Dave: We'll start with Miriam.
Miriam: Oh, I'm on Mastodon, Front-End Social, Mia. And Oddbird has an open collective. We also do client work, so if you want to be a client or you want to fund some open-source work, we're there.
Dave: Do that. Ben, how can people follow you and give you money?
Ben: I don't have any good money reception means right now, unfortunately, but I blog about accessibility at benmyers.dev. You can find me on Bluesky at benmyers.dev. You can find me on Mastodon @ben@a11y.info.
Dave: Awesome. And Alex, how can people follow you and give you money?
Alex: No way to give me money but you can hit me up at alex.party or on Bluesky at dangitalex.wtf or @fimion at notacult.social.
Dave: Alex is our purveyor of terrible things, so we appreciate that so much. [Laughter] Thank you all so much for playing. This was like a dream come true to me. That was very fun, so thank y'all very much.
Thank you, dear listener, for downloading this in your podcatcher of choice. Be sure to star, heart, favorite it up. That's how people find out about the show.
Follow us on Mastodon and then join us over in the D-d-d-d-discord, patreon.com/shoptalkshow. Chris, do you have anything else you'd like to say?
Chris: [Loud inhale and exhale] So glad we lived. All of us lived through it. We forgot to untie all those people on the train tracks, though. They're still sitting there, I think.
Dave: Zoey Macaroni Shell is still tied up next to her ukulele downstairs. [Laughter]
Chris: [Laughter] Oh, my God. ShopTalkShow.com.
Dave: [speaking in a robot voice] ShopTalkShow.com.