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Tortle Tank: Welcome to Flipper's (Patreon)

Published:
2025-07-04 02:12:55
Edited:
2025-07-04 19:39:44
Imported:
2026-06
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AD-FREE EPISODE FOR $5+ PATRONS!

Welcome to Tortle Tank, the show where the world's richest reptiles review your D&D homebrew and decide whether or not to invest their hard-earned eggs. This week, the Torts discuss drunk mechanics, eggshaustion, and flipping DVDs.

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Comments

hobblelobble

how is it that less than 30 seconds in the episode is already off the rails

Mia

They haven’t been on the rails in years 😂

clerby

i did competitive gymnastics and i cannot even fathom taking a shot and trying to do any event- literal death sentence. thanks for the ep!!

kaylee w

SHELLO HATCHLINGS

JayTDK

Caught this tortle early

Lamp

A turtle made it to the water!

clerby

murph taking about animals fighting like he did try to fight a dinosaur 🦕

Ryan Higgins

I've shot a lot of sober darts. I've only got an 8-dart out in Cricket once, with 4 beers in. The drunk rules should stand as they are lol

hobblelobble

you’re so right, my mistake 😅

Ilana Galpert

high stakes games with serious exhaustion rules sound fun but tbh its pretty miserable to play exhausted, especially for a sustained period. Its not like you have control over your party coming to save you, you're going to be punished for them not healing you. Also, once you go down its so much easier to go down a second time.

George TJ

PLEASE bring a DVD to flip in your future live shows!! Give the people what they want!

Grizzmammoth49

“Snakes cut it out” big Swiper no swiping energy 🤣🤣

Sean Zenitram

At Flippers you flip a DVD to choose your seat. Your options; here or there.

Hornleaf

There is an RPG called Prole where the main mechanic is coin flipping that could be easily adapted for DVDs.

Zanna

I think a DVD rack is genuinely cool, physical media for the win!

Zanna

also, as a blockbuster kid I def have nostalgia for DVDs

Van

When I was a kid my family had finding nemo and shrek 2 on dvd, and I was actually able to guess finding nemo when everyone was guessing the year lol

Don Johnson

I'm from Alabama, and can absolutely verify that turtles do live in lakes.

Kyle

To be honest, I was shocked to listen to the first campaigns without ANY dvd flips..? Why is Murph acting like this is something new or weird? Does anyone actually play without flipping a few disc each game?

Jose Arambula

I feel like Murph is a three year old who just discovered the word crass.

Matt

To drive Murph even more crazy, I pitch that the dvds be double sided. Both sides are unlabelled. The dvd is then placed into a dvd player, and the outcome is determined by the loading menu- either a still image of a Caldwell with a smarmy smile giving a thumbs up, or Murph with a curmudgeonly frown giving a thumbs down.

Gunner P

Based on the DnD 5e (2024) rules you have different mechanics for Exhaustion than the legacy (2014) edition. It was one of the overlooked changes made

Gunner P

[DnD P.H. 5e 2024] Exhaustion While you have the Exhaustion condition, you experience the following effects. Exhaustion Levels. This condition is cumulative. Each time you receive it, you gain 1 Exhaustion level. You die if your Exhaustion level is 6. D20 Tests Affected. When you make a D20 Test, the roll is reduced by 2 times your Exhaustion level. Speed Reduced. Your Speed is reduced by a number of feet equal to 5 times your Exhaustion level. Removing Exhaustion Levels. Finishing a Long Rest removes 1 of your Exhaustion levels. When your Exhaustion level reaches 0, the condition ends.

Courtney F.

Murph is from jersey where they also have lake turtles. Idk wtf he's on about 😂😂😂

Kipher

Benjamen Pranklin?

Courtney F.

Much to our delight! 😄😂

Courtney F.

Murph, for the second and last damn time, your HOME STATE has lake turtles!!!!!!!! Respect the existence of lake turtles! They are real and your lake turtle erasure attempts are blasphemy! JUSTICE FOR NJ LAKE TURTLES AND LAKE TURTLES ALL ACROSS THE WORLD!

AutoReroll

I cant believe we are on a Tortle Tank, discussing actors in full comedic makeup hearing about 911 and nobody brought up THE MASTER OF DISGUISE STORY!

Wookiee

Red ear sliders primarily live in lakes so stick with that

Nathan Wolfe

Murph went from doing vibes-based math to calling out Caldwell for vibes-based math in less than twenty seconds. As a math teacher, I approve

Unloved

For the screaming sword, the description says it screams when wielded. If it's sheathed in its scabbard it's not screaming, so stealth checks would still be available

Glenn D AKA Mcdoogins

Love the Tortles, I'm usually trying to get an idea on but I have no idea how they pick them.

Brian McAree Murphy

I think they are misinterpreting how bad exhaustion levels would be. Especially in this case where if you fail two death saves and then were brought back up then you can never fail a death save again or you just die. Every time you die it becomes immediately critical which would result that, "Well now we just can't do anything for 4 days". The bahumia would have broken down by ep 5 using these rules

Adam!!!!!

the exhaustion death saves are pretty fun and i like the stakes with it, but the party and campaign has to kind of be built around it. like a full life cleric and other character that can cast greater restoration if you can't take the few day break so your character isn't completely useless

YourAnimeDad

It adds stakes to otherwise non-lethal campaigns. It's definitely good training wheels for new and novice DMs looking to spice up combat but still don't have a grasp for CR or encounter building

Shan

Screaming sword is essentially a Borderlands 2 meme weapon

Brian McAree Murphy

It adds insane stakes that slow the game. Oh my character will die if I don't sleep for 4 consecutive days. Guess I'll do that. Disadvantage on every ability check for 4 days minimum, and I'm worse for that entire time making it more likely I'll go down and it gets reset.

YourAnimeDad

Yeah, that or the Family Detectives come rolling back

B0n3D4ddy

gonna submit to the tortle tank just to try and sway them from their pro life mice over egg snake feeding beliefs

Professor Pratt

It was Grog’s sword and it was some of the funniest conversations. Critical Role really started this journey for me.

tautcarabiner

physical media like dvds are still the best format for longevity. plus you actually own them

Robert

Eggs-austion is legitimately such a good idea. Thank you to the tortles for inventing it.

Hammy

I still can’t decide if flipping a DVD is funny or not

Fox

I feel like a campaign all about dealing with cursed artifacts would be fun.

Alex H.

It requires balancing around but I just don't think that your character going down twice in a combat should be a normal, easy to recover from occurrence.

Rebecca N

If it helps you guys feel better about baby turtles, as someone who lives near a beach where Turtles lay their eggs, there are people that'll go to the beaches in the mornings and cordon off the nests so people don't accidentally step in them. I *think* they may also check on them around the time that they should hatch too, to help them get to the ocean ok, but I could be wrong about that

Leomund's Tiny Nut

Just the weirdest show you put on. It’s like shopping for software that you will never use. I’m here for Murphs crash outs

Martian

WOOO finding Nemo I got it right!

22 Hilda Street

I think they are forgetting that increasing ability scores would also increase you AC and HP for that duration if the modifier is improved. also advantage can be canceled by disadvantage but a flat addition to a check or save cannot be canceled out unless its the scrying spell

Kristina LaPointe

I love the 3 black halflings intro shoutout 🤣🤣

Thomas Jager

Finding Nemo makes sense, the Christmas after it came out I got a DVD copy of that movie that included a Memo poster.

Patrick Sullivan

I can forgive the puns -- hell, I even like most of them. But, I draw the line at spreading strength sport misinformation. Powerlifting isn't an olympic sport, that's olympic weightlifting. Although, powerlifting is a Special olympic sport. They're very different sports. In one athletes put on an aggressively tight onsie to display their strength across multiple barbell lifts in hopes of receiving approval from judges wearing ill-fit polos; in the other athletes put on an aggressively tight onsie to display their strength across multiple barbell lifts in hopes of receiving approval from judges wearing okay fitting suits, they're moving the weights faster, and their coaches are playing the cattiest game of 4D chess against the other coaches. These are clearly very different things. Also, alcohol strength boost checks out. I've done the research. Raw pickey-uppy type strength gets the greatest benefit-- deadlift, stones, rows, etc. More technical lifts can go either way. Overhead movements very quickly reach a point of diminishing returns.

Brian McAree Murphy

It is how the game is designed. You can't just add on a huge negative that gets both progressively worse and increases its own likelihood of happening again and think that it would be in any way balanced. The game isn't balanced around recovery time. If you actually got stabbed in the gut, you could be out for weeks, none of it makes sense in reality so you have to take it all with a pinch of salt. With this idea, if you ever fail 2 death saving throws you are basically unable to play, because if you ever go down again, one failed save and you are fully dead, hugely worse than the current system, and you only have half hp so going down is probably assured if you continue the adventure for the day. Healing has also never been good in D&D, perhaps it is better in 2024, but in this system, if you dont get them up immediately then they could be debilitated, but if you use small heals they will just go down again, so you are basically forced to possibly waste a full turn and valuable resources

Anna Neuburger

I'm enchanted by Caldwell mentioning "the upstairs fridge" is one a garage fridge or does he have two kitchens where else do you put a fridge

Rafael C

incredible radio. eggs well spent as always, tortles!

catchTwentythree

Thank you for being a beacon of sanity in here. I've never seen so many people gush excitedly over such an obviously terrible idea.

Silky

I LOVE adding two levels of exhaustion for every failed death save. Going down is so trivial otherwise, you just heal and are back up totally fine, but this really increases strategic stakes. And it works out SO WELL with 6 levels of exhaustion also resulting in death, it makes perfect sense! Death saving throws as exhaustion saving throws! Next time I play I'll suggest this to my table. Thank you for releasing this great idea into the public domain!

ImmortalCrow786

So I was... gardening when I wrote this lol. My thought process went into more depth than I wrote out. 😅 the goal was for a mage class that focuses on physical attacks more, like the pact of the blade warlock, that they could raise there whole stats up by 1 point at level 2 which wouldn't do the most but it would help raise up stats at 9 or 11 to get a slightly better modifier and then at lbl 4 the bonus would raise up to 2 points to all stats ending with a plus 4 at lvl 8 spells. Thank you guys for using my prompt even though it was runny love yall

Mortimer Lunch

I’m starting to feel bad for Jack with how much he gets bullied 😢

The Wizard Syndicate

Easy fix for the screaming blade is the breath of the wild mechanic. Have it have a certain number of charges that refill or not your choice. When you use the last charge it shatters and deals max damage of however many charges you used to get there. In BotW losing the weapons enough of a loss, but having it deal that damage to you as well in DnD makes more sense.

Clever Innuendo

We do going down gives a level of exhaustion. That's enough. The game is too built on yo-yo inherently to get 4 levels of it just because the boss hit hard.

Toblerone. jpg

I honestly just like the name brand, that’s why I’m subscribed

Val

Has anyone said Not Another DVD Podcast

DC47

Now does the Two Crew understand why I sent an autographed (by Ron Jeremy) Boondock Saints DVD to them a few years ago? "The ultimate DVD!" (Murph) "Boondock Saints is the most DVDest DVD that you can have!" (Also Murph). LOL

Patrick

Gang, any chance yall are going on tour as NADDPod soon? I love D20, but I’d rather splurge on the Two Crew if the opportunity arises!

Patrick

Especially after the Carnegie Hall show, that was dope as hell

AlbireoRising

Yes my group also does just one level of exhaustion per failure, PLUS an automatic level for being downed in the first place. We always have at least half of our party dealing with exhaustion at any one time.

CommodoreBlue

People keep asking for one single egg because you guys always immediately invest all your eggs and then have nothing left for the rest of the episode. Your fans know you.

Jason Petti

I did this with a group and honestly hated it. It only takes one time of someone getting reduced to 0 speed in a dungeon to go... "wait a minute, this entire session is ruined. we can't proceed and we can't retreat, so now we're stuck in a dungeon". Especially if it's the highest strength character in the party, because most parties won't have two people who are capable of carrying a PC around. And the pitch provided was even more brutal than that. Not to mention with the proposed rule in the episode it means death saves never reset. You get two failures because an enemy chose to attack you on the ground the same turn they downed you? Hope you never get downed again, because you're most likely gonna die! Also these pitches make getting downed more punishing than literally dying and being revived by Raise Dead. I would take a reducing -4 penalty each day over disadvantage on attack rolls for 2 days any day.

gerard

I would KILL for a video episode where we can see the DVD bit or a live show DVD bit

froggy

now you absolutely MUST bring a dvd to your live shows next year :3 see you at flipper's!!!

Colin Maclellan

My first guess was genuinely finding Nemo lol

Carson

DnDVDs

Argonautica

Everytime one of them talks about things they enjoy in gaming I think they'd like Draw Steel mechanics and descriptive combat. Or just the 5e classes by MCDM, and FOR SURE the monsters in Flee Mortals. I know they do some Kobold Press stuff, I hope they take a look at MCDM stuff some time.

Griffin Ziegert

125 S Third St W Missoula, MT 59801 United States Parralel thinking

Bugbear

Goosebumps the musical has a few good songs

Collin White

Jake's little "Stop it!" in the intro made me die!!

Nat

DVD Tapas

Corkboard Podcast Network

The dichotomy of agreeing SO hard with Murph about the DVD bit being stupid, while simultaneously DISAGREEING so vehemently about his general anti-DvD stance is exhausting. 😅 #BuyPhysicalMedia #FilmIsArt #DisplayArt

Erik Boudreault

FYI team if people are interested in stat changing tell them to bc heck put artificer “Mutagen” subclass it does exactly that. +3 to str but DIS ADV in dex

Verdigree

The problems with eating off DVDs are pretty numerous, they are pretty small, they have a big hole in the middle, they don't have a good shape to stop things falling off the edge, they are slippery, they are too flexible and will bend, they can very easily melt, it would be very hard to clean without scratching, and if there's food on top, you wouldn't even see that it was a DVD, I think this idea might be flawed

ThacoIsWacko

I don't know the math of it myself, but I've heard advantage equates to a +2 to a roll, on average. Edit: some investigation reveals it fluctuates. The lower the DC, the better the effective bonus. Looks like it ranges from +5ish to +1ish, from DCs of 15ish to 20ish, respectively.

DMCharbie

This is the best podcast simply because I was so excited when Jake read out the start of my submission which was followed by 10 minutes of dvd talk followed by 2 minutes of my idea followed by 10 more minutes of dvd talk, I love it

ThacoIsWacko

Machinist here. Stainless steel is not magnetic (generally).

HexBaba Yaga

To be fair, physical media is making a comeback with the desire to own instead of rent, again. So id say ppl do have nostalgia for DVDs

Stations & Starships

Would be great for the drunk one if you threw some feat in there like for level 4 if you also had the lucky feat or something.

Stations & Starships

"You go to crack it and it's all bean" sums up this show pretty well

Summer Tribe

Emily evidently believes athletes have weak constitutions. Also these cases all sound like theyre from people inexperienced with the game, it's a little dull hearing such common or just half baked ideas, but the crew can work with anything

Toblerone. jpg

You were a fool to expect anything else

nandrusin

Damn the recessions hitting hard!

Nitzan Harel

I’ve been doing rumors for a while, usually doing six, and each player chooses which rumor to send to who.

Vinny Panzarotti

I tried doing rumours worth my 3 buds who had never played before and all 3 of them insisted that one of their rumours was "I have a huge weiner"

trinacicc

haven’t hit play yet, but plz if you’re in LA (WeHo) or NYC go to flipper’s. the pancakes slap.

Brad Nak

I feel your pain Calldwwelll, my upstairs fridge was also not magnetic until it died and I got a new one that is. Also most stainless steels are not magnetic but a few types with higher iron content are.

Matt L

The Grinch being #1 for that but was so fitting! And I loved how Jake tricked them into playing the game again by saying guess 🤣🤣

Matt L

So what you're saying is it COULD work

Verdigree

It's CERTAINLY possibke, though the challenges make it quite cost-prohibitive, forget knives and forks, even a sandwich could scratch a DVD, then what, you replace it every time? Even a sandwich could make scratches if the bread was toasted, and you've heard about microplastics in food abd water, get ready for macroplastics as little shavings get chipped off

Gafyn John

Was just scrolling and saw someone's post on Reddit about being served dessert on an old VHS copy of "The Bodyguard" and I had to come and comment here and it reminded me of the conversation about serving food on CDs 😂

Eamonn Moore

Late to the party, but it makes sense the crew like the exhaustion rules. 😂😂. Wasnt that a dungeon court submission with aabria and she offered tweaks that basically changed it to only failed death saves like what was offered here?? 😂

The Wizard Sound

There are major problems with the death saving throw/exhaustion level. It’s not fatal, but it can’t be implemented as is. 1) characters can go down multiple times in each combat. So if someone goes to 0 HP and fails two death saves, pops up and then is downed again, he would only get 1 death save before he’s dead. That’s a BIG change from RAW and super harsh. 2) how does revivify work? If I have 6 levels of exhaustion and someone casts revivify on me, that doesn’t remove levels of exhaustion, so it would not bring you back to life. I propose that each failed death save is a single level of exhaustion and you cannot stack more than 4 from death saves. That way someone downed can still contribute to the fight and we aren’t fully changing the death save mechanic. Separately, I do like the idea that, no matter how a person died, revivify brings them back, but with 5 levels of exhaustion. That seems like a good nerf. (I paused to write this, if the gang actually recognize this after the 15 minute mark, I hang my head in shame)

Chaos Phoenix

So thrilled to hear about your Eggshaustion mechanics! I look forward to purchasing the Super Premium deluxe package and the impending legal battles I'm sure to lose! Can't tell you how happy it made me to hear my pitch in the episode, and that your esteemed selves approved of it! To anyone reading comments worried about Exhaustion being too punishing: I've also experimented with ways to mitigate levels of Exhaustion besides Long Rests that have worked at our table, but none I felt confident submitting. And largely, this rule has mostly affected the way my players treat low-HP and downed PCs, they aim to prevent rolling Deathsaves at all, even if it means burning an Action to stabilize them (stable creatures don't make deathsaves).

Chaos Phoenix

Hey, I just listened and went to comment and saw you at the top of this list. It was my submission, so I hope you don't mind if I respond. 1) Yes, it is. While it's harsh and punishing, it feels like a near death experience. If a PC goes down and fails 2 death saves, narratively that's a horrific wound; taking another like that would surely mean death. That said, its led to some interesting roleplay moments, and could lead to plenty more, and adds some interesting twists to the narrative. We once had to grapple with taking a rest to relieve exhaustion or failing to rescue hostages in time, or using a big diamond to cast Greater Restoration when it could be saved for a Revivify or Raise Dead. It's not for every campaign and it should be discussed in Session Zero, but it does work well if you want 0HP to be more than an inconvenience 2) It works similar to Raise Dead, which leaves you with 5 levels exhaustion (in 5e, i'm not sure about the 2024e). I left that out for brevity

The Wizard Sound

If it works for your campaign, then great! I just think that’s a pretty stark departure from RAW and should probably be front loaded in any description of it. Were I a player that agreed to this mechanic I would want to consider this precise scenario before agreeing and if I hadn’t, that could lead to hard feelings and bad times. I’m all for making death saves more meaningful and death more impactful, but this is too rich for my eggs. This isn’t just stacking exhaustion this is changing Death Saves from 3 per downing to 3 total. Honestly, that’s the bigger headline for me. A move in the right direction, but too far IMO. But that’s the beauty of the game, we all get to choose our level of spice.

The Wizard Sound

Another version I could more get behind - TKO rule. Every time you go to 0 HP you get 2 levels of exhaustion. Third time - you’re dead, no death saves. This is still impactful and avoids the jack in the box problem.

Chaos Phoenix

I can see your point, I'd never run something that departs this far from RAW without the tables approval. This whole idea came from my newbie table (myself included) years ago joking about the silliness of sleeping off near death. In play, I've found it just encourages the players to avoid 0HP and help anyone who is downed so they never roll a Deathsave at all. Like actually using the Help Action to stabilize, standing over a downed ally to defend them, "pick on someone your own size" sort of moments. But yes, its just a matter of spice levels. For us, this seems to hit just right and it hangs off of existing RAW so its not a whole new set of rules to track.

dryptid

shocked at the birch syrup slander right at the end i love birch syrup

Myckeli

The pysanky egg painting technique uses wax to protect different areas while you dip the egg in dye, gradually building up layers. It's amazing

Lake Rodriguez

My first name is Lake so listening to the first minute of this was very confusing

KingHalt

I'm so nostalgic for DVDs and Blu-Rays