Saturday, June 13, 2009

"He who praises everybody, praises nobody" - Samuel Johnson

***

The DM of the Rings

"Lord of the Rings is more or less the foundation of modern D&D. The latter rose from the former, although the two are now so estranged that to reunite them would be an act of savage madness. Imagine a gaggle of modern hack-n-slash roleplayers who had somehow never been exposed to the original Tolkien mythos, and then imagine taking those players and trying to introduce them to Tolkien via a D&D campaign."

Some of the best parts so far (it's very long, so I'm only halfway through):


(In Bree)

Aragorn: Wait, I want to visit the Blacksmith. See if he has like, weapons or stuff for sale.

DM: You want to go shopping? But your quest has only just begun!

Aragorn: Have you seen my starting equipment? All I have is a broken sword!

DM: None of these humble blacksmiths are capable of re-forging NARSIL, the mighty blade of old...

Aragorn: Fine. What about a brothel? Does this town have a whorehouse or anything?

DM: Certainly not!

Aragorn: This town sucks!

Sam: Let's just leave.

DM: You have only just arrived in Bree, after several long days of travel!



Legolas: Pry it open?

DM: No gaps.

Legolas: Pour water around the door, let it seep into the cracks and freeze, thus cracking the door?

DM: It is well above freezing here.

...

Someone: "So we're agreed... You guys go find a big tree, cut it down, and haul the trunk back here. Dave and I will assemble the scaffolding, and Frank will tie all the ropes together. Now all we need is a pulley."

Gandalf (NPC): Oh for crying out loud! The password is Mellon, you lunatics!



DM: From deep within the tangled heart of Fangorn Forest, the White Wizard approaches!

Aragorn: This makes no sense. What would Saurman (sic) be doing here in the middle of the woods?

DM: As he appears, you are surrounded by a brilliant white light!

Legolas: Ahhh! JERK!

Aragorn: So he hiked all this way so he could cast "Flare" at us? Isn't that a Level 1 Spell?

Gimli: It's a cantrip actually. Level Zero.

Now let me see if I understand this:

The guy who is leading the invasion of these lands - the guy with the huge Orc army and the indestructivle Tower of Black Stone - this guy spends his time wandering around in the woods all by himself, pranking random travelers with low-level spells?

Does that seem right to you?


Also great: the extended hit-on sequence in Part LXIII:Overly Requited Love
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