Giant Bomb Unplugged: Dungeons & Dragons: Episode 03

@10thenemy: where's the taco discovery conversation?

I thought this first quest sounded familiar. It's the same as the D&D podcast by the McElroy bros The Adventure Zone. That shit's super good, you should listen.

@cptmorganca: I just started listening to that this morning!

The group I DM for did that, hah.

the way Rorie DM's they might as well be doing a computer RPG.

The accumulated filth of all their painstakingly hand-painted figures and characters sheets will foam up about their waists and all the Giantbomb members and commenters will look up and shout "That's not how you play!"... and I'll look down and whisper "Shut up and don't watch it.”

"Throw Richard in." - Danny O'Dwyer

Wow this feature didn't end and in the picture they are all smiling. Can't wait to watch!

edit: still don't understand why Dan has so many fans considering he basically ruined the last session. Come on model nerds, make some Drewstorm or Detroit stuff!

As soon as Rorie suggested they chase the goblins, I lost interest. Where's the inventiveness?

That ending was great! You show that goblin who's boss Richard!

@rorie is getting better but he needs to not steer them. The second they decided to finish the quest to take the wagon back he should have kept quiet and let them get to town and via NPCs lead them to the cave (Employer didn't show, someone else saw someone who looked like him head down that path etc) You should NEVER as a DM basically tell them not to do something or go somewhere if they want to. At most you tell them if it's not possible to do something they want to try that would be blindingly obvious in a situation (like "I'm gonna climb down this cliff" "You notice the cliff is very slimy and slippery and it may be very hard to get down, do you still proceed?"

The one thing I wish the group would get better at (and they were in the Pathfinder series) is get in character when talking to each other. They discuss what to do as Dan, Brad, Danny and Drew instead of as their characters, It would go a long way to making the campaign not only more entertaining to watch but more entertaining to PLAY... the least interesting part of a D&D campaign is the combat but Rorie seems to be intent on rushing them into combat as quickly as possible and I think he mistakenly is doing it thinking that will make it more entertaining. Kind of how Drew rushes into fight/kill all mode in MGS instead of hiding/sneaking. It SEEMS like talking/going to a tavern instead of fighting is less entertaining but it really isn't.

I think this segment could be really great, I think all the participants could be good at the kind of improv that D&D is known for but they need it explained to them. Reminded by Rorie to talk it out in character and not as the people playing the game. The moments like Dan deciding, against the parties wishes, to throw his sword at the leader who was threatening a hostage and then Danny yelling something like "He doesn't speak for the rest of us" and Dan drowning the leader in the stream afterwards were D&D gold, and had nothing to do with the combat.

@ragegoblin mentioned reaching out to Wizards of the Coast about a DM and I think that could be a very good thing. Rorie would learn by example and the group could have a solid foundation on how to play. This could be an amazing monthly segment but I fear it will likely be tossed away after the campaign is over, which would be a shame.

Brad totally looks like he could be Drew's dad.

A few friends and i are playing through this campaign right now, and our DM had me "find" a map of a goblin outpost after the first combat encounter in order to push us to the cave.

Rorie should never out and out tell them to do something, and shouldn't plan on them making certain moves. If they wanted to continue on with the cart, they should've just done it.

@synthesis_landale: Yeah I love this group and really feel like this should be better. Rorie railroads them pretty heavily, I wish he was more comfortable improvising situations so that it felt less like a module. However, some people are into certain things, this group in general seems kind of into the combat encounters not so much the roleplaying.

That ending was great.

Man some of you D&D guys in here take this a little too for serious...Rorie's doing a fine job.

This is even more nerdy than Hank's rock collection.

Really missing Vinny's enthusiasm at this point.

...maybe Jeff was right about this all along.

@gorozilla: That was the best part!

Yeah pretty much this.

Dan does everything like a crazy person because he is a crazy person.

Wow, this was like the episode of no rules. They'd better just set that book on fire for good measure.

you can tell that Danny is trying to pep it up, but Drew's straight facedness, Dan's craziness, and Brad's... Bradness. kind of slows things down to a crawl.

I am just glad I know nothing about DnD and can just watch these episodes without any judgement, complains or advices. This is pure entertainment.

Dan is essentially Mac from Always Sunny.

"I'm swinging like an uppercut. Also into his penis."

Rorie's goblin delivery is on point. Especially around 1:48:00.

It's always good to see Danny involved in Giant Bomb streams.

If they keep up the improve from the end of the episode this series will be just fine.

Man this is a boring-ass series. Which is kinda surprising because I like all the ingridients.

It's odd to watch these after listening to and watching the Penny Arcade DnD content, which has turned into a constant spectacle of hilarity. Of course those shows feature Chris Perkins, a literal pro DM.

I'm definitely enjoying the simpler, more newbie tone this crew has, though. If they keep this up to the point of making up a campaign past the starter set, I'd love to see the evolution of the team mechanics, the role-playing, and Rorie as the man behind the screen.

I'll keep watching if they keep playing, for sure.

Also, I do highly recommend the Penny Arcade stuff. I knew nothing about DnD, but because Mike Krahulik was new to it and Chris Perkins is a Senior Producer for Wizards, they explained everything extremely well right from the start and the character creation. The fun those guys had ignited my desire to play it from out of nowhere.

I think this could turn more interesting if Rorie go with whatever they/Dan wants to try instead of talking people out of silly ideas that might be bad for them. It's okay as it is though, I enjoy watching it.

This was okay, nothing really amazing about it. I don't know dudes. When your audience is way more excited about the session than the actual Player Characters then I think there's a problem. Then again that's kind of the M.O. of most Giant Bomb features so what would I know. The ironic thing is that the actual best roleplayer in GBWest would probably be Jeff but the tedium that comes with actually playing with the DnD mechanics is something he genuinely can't stand. I guess I'll never get to see how he'd play a beat boxing bard.

I will say that because of the comments in the last video I've gotten way into watching Rollplay and let me tell you that DnD group is positively hysterical to watch. I've not laughed that hard at a group of adventurers since Nerd Poker. It's so funny that I've fallen behind on some Giant Bomb content in favor of binge watching Rollplay. Nothing against what you guys got going on but there are quite a few good alternatives out there. Thanks again for the video duders.

@dberg said:

This is the truth since goofy and enthusiastic roleplay is what makes things fun. However they are running into the problem when someone wants to play a chaotic evil character that really has no business in a party since you'd have to be crazy to want to hang out with one. Vinny's silly idea of climbing to a high place then dropping an arm on a goblin was fun but Dan Jack Bauering his way through torturing every NPC is going to get old kinda fast.

I like this series a lot, it's part of what motivated me and my friends to get a D & D campaign of our own going. We bought all the books but ended up pretty much making our own edition of the game which focuses on proficiency-based roleplaying. So far we've put on a christian improv show, gave someone a wedgie so hard they were knocked unconscious, and got a brute named Klarg's phone number. I can't imagine how wrong we're playing it but it's extremely fun. We did like two combat encounters the right way before deciding it was bogging down what's special about D & D to us. Dan's german suplex into the stream was definitely the highlight of this for me. Love just doing crazy stuff in character.

TL;DR keep it up love ya!

The worst part about this series is that its inviting D&D nerds expecting a masterclass in D&D roleplaying and spilling their doritos over the comments when it's not going to plan.

I like how Rorie just starts playing into the D&D fantasy going on in Dan's head lol

There is nothing more damning for a DM than having a member of your party say something like "I somersault over him and try to cut his throat" and he/she responds "Well..." followed by a bunch of excuses why they can't do that. Yes, he can do it - the rules are made to be totally flexible. Let him do it. It's better if he does it and succeeds or fails then if he just walks over and stabs them. Rorie is making this really hard to keep watching and I hate it because I love DnD and GB.

To be fair, all of the McElroy brothers have like, community theatre experience from when they were younger, and their dad is like a radio host or something, so I feel like all of them have some experience with acting and/or quickly ad-libbing a lively reaction to an event. Which helps with the whole roleplaying part.

In this feature, they're all kind of playing it like a tactics video game. Like, they may as well be playing Warhammer, except when somebody accidentally acts like enough of a psychopath that it warrants an Intimidate check or something if Rorie remembers to ask for one. Even if they wanted to have a creative solution to something in the campaign, Rorie's low experience with DMing makes it hard for him to ad-lib how to interpret their weird idea into the game so he's railroading them into doing things in the order he/the campaign expects.

If they're having fun doing it, then whatever, keep doing it. But if they're doing it for the sake of "we need something for premium content this week", maybe they should replace it with something else.

• Brad either doesn't seem super interested or is just too low energy to be much of a contributor on a streamed D&D session.
• I feel like Dan doesn't know how to express himself a lot of the time still, so it largely only comes out in opportunities where there is a dude he can do wrestling moves on.
• Danny is at least pretty upbeat and decent at roleplaying, even if his contribution to every combat is "endless magic missile".
• Drew is probably trying the hardest to understand his abilities and try more creative solutions, and actually role play his "motivational speaker" cleric, which I find funny. Despite his best efforts, Drew is naturally quiet and not super flamboyant and outgoing, so even his best efforts are limited in how interesting they can make this.
• And Rorie is still super disorganized, like if you went over to somebody's house for a fancy dinner party but when you get there, they've just arrived from the grocery store with the groceries and haven't made the recipe before so then it's like three hours before the dinner is ready and it's a so-so dinner.

I miss Vinny and Dave, and also Jeff would probably be pretty good at it if he could get over himself and his weird aversion to D&D and "adult board games", aka "most board games that aren't the total shit that is Monopoly and Risk." I dunno, at this point I feel like they'd be better off just playing different board games, because it's probably going to take a really long time for anyone to get comfortable with D&D at the rate they're going. At least most well-designed modern board games have rules that can be explained relatively quickly.

Rorie is doing his best, I just don't know if he's cut out for it. I think you want a DM that revels in putting on dumb voices for characters, someone who is just willing to make an ass of themselves whenever and not feel self-conscious, and Rorie is not that guy based on how reluctantly he put on that goblin voice. He'd probably be better as a player.

Jeff or Vinny would honestly probably make for better DMs, in that they'd be better at improvising a character for random NPCs or enemies.

Also, because none of the participants are really D&D enthusiasts on their own time after work, most of them are still pretty not familiar with how the game works, and what their options are. Others have already summed it up nicely:

Since no one knows the rules and options very well this time around, they keep taking really bland solutions at every turn, occasionally fed to them by Rorie. I think Ian actually worked in the Pathfinder feature because he was like a secondary DM that actually knew about the rules and options available to people better than the actual DM in some cases, so he could help out to facilitate a plan someone wants to carry out.

If the crew is really having fun and wants to do this feature then sure, keep doing it, but as a viewing experience, sometimes it's the D&D equivalent to watching inexperienced comics get up on the stage and bomb at an open-mic night, or an inexperienced magician totally botch a simple card trick over and over.

Given the players don't know how to play. Given Rorie is unfamiliar with the new rules. Given they have added the complication of putting a mic on everyone and filming this. Given Dan is performing a personality during this that is mildly annoying at best or insufferable at worst. Given all of the above I think they are doing fine.

I will reiterate folks that all of your 'criticism' needs to be constructive, polite, and you should present it without being a dick.

One constructive thing Rorie could do is have a "un-filmed" & 'un-roleplaying' session to finish everyone's character sheet. Then have each player look over their character sheet to become familiar with equipment, spells, weapons, and actions. Everyone should know what they can do and can't do, understand attack rolls and damage rolls so that it is more intuitive.

Second during the above session watch a video that explains/shows/demonstrates how play actually works. I think seeing how it works would be super helpful. In fact all the players should watch several videos at home to understand how things works. Even if they are not all that interested in playing (this is a job), the game will just work better and "this job" will be easier to do.

My god Dan.

Great finish.

@bisonhero: Ok yeah, Vinny as the DM would be freakin awesome.

I agree it would be more fun if they all got into it more, I think it's a combination of, like you mentioned, unfamiliar players, and also being on a time constraint. That's probably why Rorie is leading them a bit.

Hopefully as they get more used to it they loosen up a bit, like they were closer to the end. Rorie should let Dan try whatever dumb idea he comes up with and just adjust the rolls accordingly.

Aww, you're not supposed to railroad the party into doing the story mission! If they want to ignore the goblin tracks, have them accidentally end up where the goblins are anyway. Have them come across an obvious set of goblin traps in the road or something! Capture some goblin bandits and force them to take the party to the camp.

Remember, Yes And.

The last 30 minutes were fantastic. Love this series.

The whole "this would be better if vinny were in it" thing is wearing a bit thin.

yeah seriously. he's the gbeast now, people gotta stop asking to go back to the old ways and move on.

honestly i think they should all dress up next time, someone send the costumes!

Loved this! Keep it going!

This was a pretty fun episode!