Getting Clubbed
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As you're making your way through the myriad alleys of the Purple Light District, you abruptly bump into a sleazy-looking hobo, clearly in a hurry to get somewhere. You ricochet off of him into a different, equally sleazy and equally hurried hobo, and from that one into a different one, until you're being carried along by a mob of hobos, all heading toward the same place.
That place, as it turns out, is VGBND, the Purple Light District's most popular nightclub. You manage to extricate yourself from the mob and survey the situation. There is a crowd of <amount> hobos lined up outside the front door, all waiting to get in.
| Try to get inside |
- Possible when <amount> is "dozens of"; always when <amount> is "a bunch of" or less
You manage to fight your way through the crowd and get into the club.
| Exclusive! | |
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- Otherwise
Try as you might, you just can't get through the throng to the door of the club. Sullen, you wander back the way you came.
| Try to bamboozle the crowd |
You walk up to a few of the hobos at the front of the line. "I don't reckon you're planning on cutting into the line, if you know what I mean," a sleazy hobo says.
"Yeah, you can't just get in front of me, and that's what she said!" says another.
"Oh, don't worry, my brothers," you say, putting on an overly broad smile. "I assure you that I have no desire to go into that den of sin and iniquity. I don't have that empty hole in my life that needs to be filled!"
"Heh heh heh."
You ignore the sleazy snickering and continue your act. "Yes, brothers, I'm sure you've felt that feeling of unfulfillment, of emptiness, of boredom and depression. But I have come to bring you good news!"
"It's one of those blasted morality-peddlin' do-gooders! He's trying to get us to do somethin' *gulp* wholesome! Let's get out of here!"
The sleazy hobos vacate the line, and you snicker to yourself at the thought that anyone could mistake you for wholesome. You're not even halfsome.
| Try to flimflam the crowd |
You walk up to a group of hobos standing outside the club. They don't seem to be very happy with the wait to get in.
"C'mon, let us inside already! We just want to be inside, if you know what I mean!" a hobo says. "Yeah, I never thought it would be this hard! That's what she said!" another hobo agrees.
"Trust me, guys, you don't want to come in here," you say.
"Heh heh heh."
"Right. See, the ladies in there are too high-and-mighty. They're harder to open than a locked safe, and harder to ride than an express train."
"I'm not sure I follow you, there --"
"They're not going to want to have sexual intercourse with you."
"Oh. Well, why didn't you just say so?"
You sigh deeply and continue. "Listen, the place to go is the Hobo Burial Ground. There are hundreds of hobo goth girls there who are just waiting to be swept off their feet."
"You forgot to say, 'if you know what I mean.'"
"I was pretty sure you knew what I meant. Think about it, though -- black eyeliner, black-and-blue hair, legs deep in the boots, boots all up on the heels, the kind to make a certain kind of fetishist squeal... you're much better off with the goth girls than the girls in the club. Besides," you say, having caught a whiff of the hobo's eau de garbage, "the worse you smell, the more they dig you."
"That does sound pretty good. A little how's-your-great-great-grandfather in the cemetery!" The hobos start to amble in the direction of the hobo burial ground, keeping up a steady stream of innuendo as they go. The last thing you hear is:
"I mean, you know what they say about rigor mortis..."
Thankfully, they're out of earshot before you hear the punchline.
Occurs in The Purple Light District.
Notes
- This adventure can only be obtained by boosting Combat Frequency. More combat frequency increases its chance of appearing.
- Observed amounts are, in decreasing order: "hundreds of", "dozens of", "a bunch of", "several", "a handful of" and "a couple of".
- The flimflam and bamboozle options both make the club less popular.
- According to Jick, the crowd size starts out at 200, and flimflamming reduces that value by five, while bamboozling reduces it by 3.5%. (August 2025 podcast, 0:48:56)
- The flimflam option also adds a noncombat to The Ancient Hobo Burial Ground. Exactly five instances of that noncombat, in fact.
- And once the crowd size is below 100, you can actually get in.
- It was known since 2008 that 21 flim flams were needed if you did only flim flams.
- It was spaded by 2015, but not so widely publicised outside of a few clans, that 1 bamboozle replacing the *first* flim flam allowed you to enter the club in 20 choice adventures, rather than 21.
- Further experimentation revealed that early bamboozles counted for more than flim flams: in fact 6 bamboozles and 12 flim flams would also work if done in that order (with all 6 bamboozles before all 12 flim flams), but not if the flim flams were done first: in other words, although early bamboozles started out better than flim flams, later ones were worse. However, the exact numbers and granularity of the crowd were not determined, until Jick spoiled it in the podcast referenced above.
- This also shows that the 3.5%, if not a whole number, is rounded *up*. The above only works if the number of hobos removed from the queue is 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 6 = 41 removed by 6 bamboozles, leaving 159, so that subtracting 60 with 12 flim flams gives 99.
- Redirecting cold water to the PLD makes the crowd less popular. It is known to be exactly equal to a flim flam in this (and thus, to remove 5 people from the crowd).
- Redirecting steam to the PLD makes the club more popular. It is believed to be the exact opposite of a flimflam or a cold-water redirection, and thus probably adds 5 to the crowd.
- Getting into the club and choosing to "pick your nose" can make the club more popular. If it becomes too popular, you can be locked out of the club again until you reduce the size of the queue once more.
- A previous method of determining if you can get into the club or not was to add together the total number of flimflams, bamboozles, and cold water redirects. Subtract from this the number of hot steam redirects. Finally, if more than 1 nose picking (which appear in the clan log as "<clanmate> danced like a superstar") have been done, subtract one less than the number of nosepickings. If the resulting value is greater than or equal to 21, you will get in. Else, you will fail to get in.
- This likely needs to be re-examined in light of Jick's above explanation of the flimflam & bamboozle mechanics.
- An adventure is not consumed if you attempt to get into the club and fail.
References
- Flimflamming the crowd results in direct lyrical references to the song "Goth Girls" by MC Frontalot.
- VGBND is "vagabond" with the vowels removed. This may be a reference to the famous Manhattan music club CBGB or the Justice song "DVNO".
