Are there any other D&D lessons I missed from this episode of “Community?” Thanks so much to WorldAnvil for sponsoring this video! Visit www.worldanvil.com/supergeekmike and use the promo code SUPERGEEK to get 51% off any annual membership! www.worldanvil.com/supergeekmike
Will you look into the other Community ep of D&D? It shows the dm's narrative ability & better character interaction among the players. it's in season 5, ep. 10.
@SupergeekMike this one might have slipped by because it may seem just common sense: be adaptable. Some DM's in Abed's position might have tried to steer the party back on the path to Draconis and his layer, but Abed saw the table, saw they declared their new goal, and let them pursue a Pegasus to chase Pierce. And on that, just the simple "I can't give you that information" when asked about a Pegasus, and Jeff immediately making asking about one part of the quest
Here's one thing you missed: The terrible feeling I got when you said that episode was 12 years old. I felt myself begin to turn to ash and disintegrate, but then I rolled a Dex save to get the hell out of the way of that terrible spell. Be more careful with that kind of power, man. It's dangerous!
One thing I like about this episode is that it's a bad dnd game, but unlike a lot of dnd episodes, it's not because dnd is bad. It's because community is about a dysfunctional group that cannot set boundaries with each other. It makes sense that Abed as a character doesn't understand the level of knowledge the other players have a sticks so close to the rules as written he allows Pierce to get away with all of this, and the fact the players allow Pierce in the game speaks to how they still allow him in their friendship group despite outright hating him. This would be a dnd group from hell but that's accurate to community
I didn’t feel that way at all in anyway. As much as he let pierce monopolize the game with bad behavior, he let it go on as long as it needed to. As a dm it’s completely ok to let the players antagonize each other so long as they are engaging each other and interacting with the world. Yes abed let the game go off the rails, but if you noticed he was slanting his game sorta towards the main group. Even giving the pcs a chase to kill pierce which I’m not sure they would have technically had. He obviously understood the concept of pacing even if it he didn’t care how it ultimately turned out. If abed wanted, he could have told the pcs they could have shot bows at pierce when he killed chang. I believe he knew their was a more interesting game with pierce. When you play with new players sometimes it’s easier to let the pcs work out how the game works by letting them drive, hopping in only when they slow the game down
That episode is literally the only episode of Community I've seen, and the thing that always stuck out to me is that it never felt like the episode was ashamed of being about D&D. I especially appreciated the moment when everyone started getting into it, and one moment I remember is the pantomiming of handing off the sword. That made it feel genuine, which most tv depictions of D&D didn't.
You touched on it at the beginning when talking about how Neal was a bit OP for this session and may not have had fun but there was kind of an overarching theme that....and this may NOT be the best lesson: without Pierce the study group's plan was going to fail, Neal was clearly going through the motions, and could easily tell nobody there actually wanted to play DnD, but when they got the goal to find Pierce, suddenly Neal can see these people actually caring about him, and it helped him overcome his own insecurities and become confortable with himself. This isn't excusing Pierce's actions, he didn't plan for any of it, but it just happened that Pierce was the necessary piece. As the ending narration says: And so it was that Pierce Hawthorne saved the life of [Neil] while learning very, very little.
I’ve always liked how Abed is super expressive with his hands and body posture. I think most DMs limit it to voices and occasionally facial expressions, but body language can do so much to sell a character.
Watsonian explanation for why Abed made language a meaningful part of his game: he's multilingual! He speaks Arabic with his dad in season 1, and apparently speaks Polish at points as well according to the internet. He's probably got life experience where being able to speak a language that others around him couldn't mattered in some way. Which is a great D&D tip in its own right, look at things you have experience in and try and draw on that for inspiration in your games, it's a good way to make your game your own.
I never thought of it that way, but I actually see it makes a lot of sense. When I DM, language does matter, and I'm bilingual. When the other DM of our group DMs, there has been maybe ONE time where language came up and that was only because it was an "ancient dead language known only by the elves of the time" for the sake of a puzzle rather than a cultural thing
I just ran a game a couple days ago where the group was trying to negotiate with some orc scavengers and a nearly identical situation came up; the person who wanted to do the negotiating didn't speak orc, so the other player who did ended up being an interpretor. There was a twist though in that the orcs spoke common (this was foreshadowed, the players were told that fortune seekers were going to the same place they were), then party just assumed they didn't speak common because the orc spoke to each other in orcish. That said, they players weren't wrong to try and speak to them in their native language; I usually make negotiating easier if you use the other person's favored language, and the scavengers obviously favored orcish
@@kinsan89 That's really interesting! I was just talking from a character writing perspective, but it's really cool to hear that you have some experience with that in your own real life.
While I haven't watched Community, "this man is depressed, so we're going to run a D&D game for him" is actually not bad advice psychologically in terms of handling with someone with depression. My mom is a psychologist and something she's told people many times is that a lot of suicidal ideation can diffuse in time and be remedied by feeling interpersonal connections. The D&D game allows enough time to pass for the worst of it to diffuse, meaning he can then be gently guided towards therapy and other resources. It's not a substitute for therapy, but it's a waiting room that can lower someone's stress levels enough that they don't want to die. That's very important.
i don't think Abed was trying to get Jeff to roleplay flirting. i think making Jeff feel uncomfortable was the point, because this is a rare case where the social dynamic gives Abed power over Jeff. and so he's pushing Jeff's boundaries in ways that usually only Jeff (or Pierce) can get away with
Also, Abed is autistic and most likely created this situation for Jeff because he knows Jeff flirts, and flirts well and expected Jeff to seamlessly flirt in the situation. This is similar to the situation where he knew that Brita would be interested in fixing an immoral social stratification.
First time I've ever been disappointed to see that something was JUST posted. I was looking forward to searching for the 2nd Community D&D episode! Please do it!
18:05 I personally think that people that were born, grew up and lived in the world would know stuff about the more “common” monsters of the world they live in. I’ve never seen a tiger in the wild, but I know they can jump over and elephant if they wanted. So a party would know what ogres are, and their strength, general habits etc. they wouldn’t necessarily know about, say, undead or extraplanar creatures, but they’d know things about creatures from the natural world. So if a player says “do I know what beast A is?” Yes you do. “What do I know about them.” Roll a check. IMO
I do the same for my setting, and I always give space for players to come up with reasons on the fly of why they'd know something about a given creature, location, person, religion, etc if they've clearly considered the connection before or it's an obvious "fill in the blank" (a druid pc knowing the basics of ale making because their clan made moonshine was a personal favourite reason I've been given) then why not throw the player a bone for being narratively engaged? sometimes you really don't even need a roll, but that's dm discretion
In modern day with access to the internet you’d be able to get pretty accurate information, sure. But look at medieval drawings of animals the artist clearly had never seen before. I don’t think it’s fair to say the players have no idea about any common creatures, but, for anything they haven’t seen in person, I think their knowledge should be greatly exaggerated. Ogres aren’t just strong, they can pluck the tops off of mountains to use as arrowheads. Dragons can’t just breathe fire, they can spew magma that will reduce an entire city to ashes with just half a breath.
I also allow knowing specific common weaknesses e.g. vampires and sunlight, lycanthropes and silver etc. Just not X specific monster is resistant to fire and cold, and immune to electricity, but vulnerable to a bludgeoning weapon made from virgin growth holly wood, which some players feel should be common knowledge.
@@elle.mack.wednesday Yeah, this. Recency bias (or worse, chronological snobbery) can really twist how people view the past... or fictional worlds like those of D&D. You can find out basically ANYthing about a tiger by using the internet, but what would English peasants know about tigers?
@elle.mack.wednesday now to counter your example, magic. You have conjuration spells, druids who can wildshape, illusion spells that can copy an object or creature's likeness so closely the only giveaways are things like it not moving or objects passing through it, and ways to transmit telepathic images.
I wasn't expecting to enjoy the recap of this Community episode nearly as much as I did, so that's a wonderful surprise. I'm *almost* tempted to go and watch that second DnD Community episode right now, but I'm definitely looking forward to the next Community Does A DnD recap.
On metagaming: Our DM is dealing with a table where almost all of us normally GM + the host’s partner who is very new to the game. Our solution has been to ask to roll for a relevant skill whenever we know a thing that can’t be considered general knowledge. If we roll high enough we can act on the info (we are a very bookish group of PCs so we just keep saying “oh yeah I read about that”) and if we roll low, then we know our character doesn’t even if we as players do.
I’ll do something similar for puzzles sometimes, letting a character roll to get a hint. Their character may be smarter or more observant than the player. Although, that’s almost the opposite effect- letting a character’s knowledge affect the player’s decisions. Is there a term for reverse metagaming?
Idk if that's necessary, I just take the "I don't know anything" approach unless it touches on my expertise in-character. So what if my character doesn't know trolls are weak to fire? I just blast the thing with random types until the fire does its thing, like any other monster. 🤷♀️ I'm here to tell a story, not S rank a combat on a timer. Rather than its regeneration ability never coming up, isn't it more interesting to have your character getting increasingly panicked as the troll keeps getting back up from your spells even angrier and hungrier than before. You gulp, start charging up your fire spell, saying "here goes nothing" before sending it blazing into the monster's face. It crashes down for the final time and relief washes over you, though you sensibly grab a nearby stick and poke it to make sure it's really down for the count and not just tired?
You bring up a point that many modern TTRPG players and creators forget: These games are made for the purpose of escapism. Fighting literal monsters is the equivalent to relieving real life stress, or have a manageable amount of stress to train your resiliency. Of course we want to make our worlds both realistic and fair, probably two things that are mutually exclusive. But it's good practice to address actual evil in the real world and rectify it in our fantasy worlds, it's what being a hero is about.
Jeff Winger is the self-insert character of Community. Dan Harmon sees himself as Jeff Winger. Looking for a different lens to jazz up your rewatching of Community? Try Jeff Winger = Dan Harmon. Makes Jeff's rivalry with Pierce even funnier. My dream plot for the Community movie is Dan Harmon waking up from a coma and Joel McHale plays his friend he's jealous of or whatever.
2 дня назад+6
Re: pre-gen names 2:53 - I like a compromise solution, I add a "suggested" name to my pre-gens when I have them but I always tell the players that they can change that name if they'd like. Because players (especially first-timers) themselves are often just as bad at creating names as Abed (or worse), and even those who are good with it could definitely use an example for what names look like in this world.
@@jorgechacarteguiborras2576 honestly she does great, she sets a tone and makes it clear sticking to it, makes things challenging but also rewarding, and their quest reward is legit useful.
"I am the dungeon master, you are my pawns! I control your fate!!" Even as a kid who knew absolutely nothing about D&D, I could tell Dexter wasn't playing to the spirit of the game. The biggest mystery is how he recruited his group of players to begin with, because those kids were really cool and into their characters, and very serious about the game, but also not so serious that they weren't able to enjoy a total newbie's(Deedee) take on DMing.
16:00 As someone who’s read a bunch of the books and has learned a lot about DnD’s monsters and magic system, and I also know it’s hard to keep myself from utilizing that knowledge even if my character doesn’t also possess it. So in a recent campaign I decided to play a huge nerd who learns everything they can about monsters and magic so that I can put my knowledge to good use without it being meta-gamey
The one time (so far) I've seperated my players and done one on one scenes with them was when they were all being interrogated separately and sequentially. I asked them if they'd prefer to do it that way, or just not metagame, and they chose that.
Hey there! Newcomer to the channel and I already like what I see. Good analysis, and I like the way you succinctly provide context about Community for people who haven't watched the show. So, I agree with all of your points pretty much 100%, but there are some things I think need to be taken into consideration. The first thing is that Abed is a first time Dungeon Master (I think... it's never explicitly stated in the show, but I think we can infer it from context clues). All newbie DMs make mistakes, and many of them are the mistakes that Abed makes here. Allowing one player to get away with cheating/metagaming, not being willing to bend or break the impartiality of the system, taking things too far, not providing thorough enough descriptions or setting the scene, these are all mistakes I made when I was running AD&D games back in the 80s and 90s. That leads me to the second thing: Old school vs new school. Abed is running AD&D (or maybe even BECME D&D, it's hard to say), presumably because that's what Dan Harmon played back when he was young, and the play style at the table is very reminiscent of that old school style of gaming. Story and NPC interaction often took a back seat to goals, objectives, and tactical situations. That isn't to say that things couldn't get deeply personal and immersive, just that because D&D grew out of a tactical simulation game in the 1970s, it was much more of a "roll-playing" game than a "role-playing game" in its early heyday for most folks (though individual experiences may differ from mine). The third thing I think we need to consider is Abed's neurodivergence. Though it's never explicitly stated in the show (and as a neurodivergent man myself, I think it's good that they didn't make Abed's specific diagnosis the central theme of the entire show), Abed codes as autistic. While Abed and I aren't identical, I see so much of my younger self in him that I can chuckle at how he fumbles through the same social situations I did at his age, making the same mistakes, and yet somehow succeeding and having an amazing time doing it. That's the magic of this episode for me. The D&D as presented may not be strictly accurate. Abed may have made a lot of mistakes. But even with all of that being true, the *feel* of the episode gave me a huge dose of nostalgia for a time before I made grand sweeping campaigns with deeply personal story moments and pitched battles where the fate of the region, the continent, or even the world was at stake. Just five to eight friends, sitting around a table, working through our personal crap, drinking way too much Mountain Dew, rolling dice, and having the time of our lives.
I'd love if you did the second one when you get the time! I love your media analysis as much as your dnd tips and knowledge, so anything like this is a guaranteed banger!
While Abed had a great way to introduce a guest player, what I feel should be critized is allowing a player at the table that no one wants to play with and is known to be problematic. Granted it's part of the plot, but it's about a real dm doing this in a real game where I would say it's would be bad on the dm.
i really liked this video, and i have a lot of fun memories watching Community with my sister. it would be really cool to watch your analysis of the other one too!
The first dnd episode was what introduced me to the game. I had a primal reaction when I saw this thumbnail, I was so ready to be upset at someone being negative about something so integral to my identity haha Great video
As the official Britta Perry defender, I must note that her immediate concern about the treatment of gnomes proves she's genuine. Also please make a vid on the other episode. That one had stuff that gave me great ideas how to make my games better but again, Abed did some stuff that should be avoided.
The fact that I, just before Mike brought it up, told my DM that I'd rather learn what a piece of lore is in-game rather than being told about it out of game (because two of the other players know what it is because they're in another of the DM's games). Finding lore and stuff out organically is part of the fun.
As someone who has seen the show at least 8 times I would interpret Abed’s DMing as canonically bad, here’s my evidence: Abed says that he hasn’t had many friends growing up prior to meeting Jeff and the Study Group It is shown that Abed did not get along with other nerds prior to the Events of the Show (kicked out of Blockbuster at the Mall in the Frozen Yoghurt Flashback) He is also shown to Solo Roleplay a lot with dolls and toys Therefore Abed’s DMing would make a lot of sense if he only SOLO DMed prior to the game. This would explain why he rolls for everyone and railroads the campaign. It’s the DnD he knows and is comfortable with so he runs it towards his vision of the game.
One time I made a post on the Community subreddit saying that Abed was a bad DM and I could tell that like had the commenters had never played. Like, the fact that they were saying Abed handled the Pierce situation well and I’m like, “Are you joking?” A DM shouldn’t be a neutral force. They should maintain a healthy environment over all else, not the story of the game. Still a top 5 episode for me. I don’t care about the subpar DMing as long as you don’t use it as an example.
This and the CRD videos are real great. I use them as a reference to learn what pitfalls to try and avoid if I ever do get to DMing my own game. Despite playing D&D for less than a year, I do find these very helpful still to keep in mind.
Great video as always! Community is my favorite show so I'd love to see you cover the second D&D episode I actually got a chance to meet Joel McHale a couple months ago. I'm happy to report that he is as nice, friendly and charming as you would hope
Thanks for making this video, and I really appreciate the way you are able to talk about the multiple layers of narrative. Like it's cool to have the insights you bring on the game the characters play in the show, then the characters dynamics, then info about Harmon's history with D&D and the place the episode has in the overall narrative of the show. Must have been a lot of work presenting those layers so well, and I would certainly be interested in seeing your take on the second D&D episode.
I’d love to see you cover other D&D centric tv episodes. Especially the few D&D episodes of iZombie, I think it’s a really good depiction of a character who thinks D&D is for nerds learning to absolutely love the experience of roleplaying. I don’t think it was an accident that in the second D&D episode of that show Clive (the character who thought D&D was for nerds) goes on to be the dungeon master.
I just got done watching iZombie all the way for the first time, and I love that DnD became a recurring background element for a lot of the characters (and giving my favourite minor character of the sketch artist a reason to show up again.)
Community's been one of my favourite shows since I first started watching it around 2011. It and Harmontown were basically my first introduction to DnD and it's funny looking back and realising how atypical their versions of DnD are. Been awhile since I rewatched but I believe the S5 episode resembles DnD a bit more. Pretty sure Spencer Crittenden was Dan's assistant at that point and actually helped with that episode somewhat. You should definitely do a vid on that one.
Ooo is it Christmas again? Love Community and I love this episode in particular. Thank you so much - very insightful. Have a lovely NYE and happy New Year 🎉
When we were kids I used to roll everyone's actions because I had the only set of dice and it was a lot faster than passing the dice around. Once people bought their own dice then they rolled them. It seems weird to think about it years later but it was what led to "bring your own dice, paper and pencils."
i really like this video, good job. What would you say if I told you that Abed KNEW that the real game wasn't D&D. Abed has a "keen mind" and it felt like, to me at least, that Abed was playing D&D with the players, not their characters. Rewatch it while asking yourself, "What if Abed staged it so that Pierce would play the bad guy.". I wouldn't put it past Abed to take DMing to another level. Maybe that explains why he never cared to explain the game, he knew that they were already playing(TTRPGception). This would probably mean that Abed used D&D for therapy, but he didn't expect it to go so well.
I’d say abed was a good dm. I feel he knew pierce was a bigger villain then he could create. No dm would allow you to read ahead and just usurp the main villain. He was a master of pacing, making sure to never let the pcs attentions drift, every time they may had lost interest he brought them back by bringing in interesting npcs, or encouraging them to engage with each other. He saw what the pc cared about and instantly focused on it. He let the pcs get out their actual annoyance with pierce by having them fight him, even giving them a chance to beat him when they may technically not had had a chance to. It may had seemed like abed was rules as written and he may had been, but the one thing people don’t realize when you do rules as written. As the dm you can still choose what you are going to focus on. You can skip over things you dont care about or things that people really want to do. With new players having the dm roll and tell you the stakes is cool and moves the game along. Something it’s easier to do with players that dont care what happens and don’t know the rules. It’s a bit harder to do with veterans
I was really pleased with myself a few weeks ago, when I hadn't come up with a name for the werewolf being held captive that the party was deciding whether to free, slay, or turn him over to the city guard, and while they were discussing, I googled a name generator and snagged a vaguely French-sounding name like I had it the whole time, right when they asked for it. (it was a fantasy version of New Orleans) they freed him, and got a nice magic reward and possible future ally.
We're assuming Abed is an experienced DM. It might be that Abed had spent a lot of time developing this campaign but never had a group to run it for until now.
New to your channel...great video! Unfortunately, some streaming services stripped out the episode because Chang "wore blackface" when he in fact was cosplaying a Drow.
16:55 - "If you've played a lot of D&D you might already know the best way to beat a troll" That's definitely the example I see crop up most often, but I really appreciate that you still don't actually say what the best way *is* to beat a troll. Keeping it as vague as possible just in case someone doesn't know, for the sakes of those that are newer to the hobby.
Yeah, it was also during a low-point in my D&D enthusiasm after 4e fell so short, and wasn't until a re-watch a few years later that we started actually looking at 5e
This is probably not the first time I've seen DnD (and roleplaying in media), but it was the first that made me actually consider such things. Actually had me thinking about a character and a game scenario they'd be in, building them up over the years as I got into the hobby watching an online game.
3:20 that is what happened to me with my intro to dnd. They had me go first without even giving me a quest like the dragon. It was just, you wake up, you look outside and see people going about their day. What do you do?" No matter how much I asked what there was TO do they just told me anything and everything without specifying. But they refused to move onto another turn until I completed SOMETHING. I tried sleeping in to stall for time, nope. I grabbed my stuff and went down to the street. Still not good enough to pass the turn over. Eventually, I ended up engaging in pvp because the DM said I "saw player 2 and player 3 fighting." I asked why they were fighting [each other, in what I was told was a team game]. The DM just tells me "you wouldn't know that." So, since player 2 was my brother who invited me here, I just sided with him and attacked the other PC. Only after flipping out at me and having my point of view explained, did they finally FINALLY fill in the full scene for me. During the opening narration when they described the people walking about, they offhandedly mentioned there was "a dog." Somehow... I was supposed to infer from that it was a HELLHOUND and when he said that the two PCs "are fighting" I was supposed to grasp that he meant they were fighting the hellhound. So, now having that info, I ask if we can just rewind real quick and play things out how they logically would. The players and DM scowl at me and say "there are no do overs in dnd." They proceeded to spend the next few rounds attacking me while the hellhound attacked them. Then a portal opens up with more hellhounds and a cloaked mage. The whole party gets wiped that turn. I was kicked from the group after that. 😅
Rolling for the players when its all new players is actually really helpful alot of people don't know what a D8 is let alone what one looks like. I've done it before and would let them roll for really important moments so they can still get that fun intensity that can come from an important roll.
If you're going to start a scenario. The best options are, in combat, with a combat having just finished, in prison during a break out, or in a tavern.
Ooh I just ran barrier peaks! My players were completely zonked by my twist though, the ship's AI was personified, the actual consciousness of the Elf architect who built the ship to take "The membership" from Imaskar (forgotten realms) thousands of years ago at the height of their techno-magical prowess, and in the ensuing centuries the generational ship continued to improve technologically, periodically freezing the crew for long voyages, before finally returning home - the original founders of this generational voyage believed Toril was going to be obliterated by the conflict their nation was engaged in so they left, and as they approached the planet again, the ship determined that civilizatoin was flourishing and intended to detach its astral-drive section and collide it with the planet, the ensuing radiation wave would wipe out most animal life - and the people - in Faerun, allowing the ship to land in an untouched eden, several of the active crew realized what was going on and rebelled, leading to the disaster that culminated in the ship crashing. The bulk of the crew were still alive, the AI having jettisoned those sections before crashing (intent on preserving her crew and hoping to lure people in to fix the damage, return to orbit, and resume the plan) This of course led to a massive problem with my campaign, the party neutered the ship's AI by using a very novel method I didn't expect (they found some epic loot in the ship's vault, including a scroll of True Resurrection, which they used on the ship's AI - restoring the elf from 2 millenia ago before she transferred her consciousness. She merged herself with the AI as it was now and stood down) and after a bit of downtime with the crew, the ship was functional again, with a crew of thousands of people with techno-magical technology of incredible advancement, now living in the forgotten realms. They ended up landing the ship in the mountains of Rasheman, agreeing collectively this world wasn't ready for their advancements, the forest witches of that land actually being something like Fallout's brotherhood of steal (and the only actual descendents of the same civilization who built that ship), and the party brought one of the android avatars of the ship's AI with them to be an ambassador for her people to the lords of waterdeep, secretly trading some powerful society changing devices over time that the temple of Gond would introduce I made those changes without considering the impact on my campaign world and I don't regret it, the party has a fuckin star-trek esque shuttlecraft now, although its just as slow as any spelljammer so it's about as fast as an airship, but it has a replicator, entertainment system, and lasers - which is fun. Even if they're not that much more powerful than a Fireball spell, they're lasers
Since I'm unfamiliar with your channel I was afraid this would just be click-bait, but it was a really awesome video. Would definitely love to see your eval of the second DnD episode.
About the "meta knowledge" point, this is a big difference between new D&D and old D&D. Prereading the specific module books would still be a taboo but the old school style was much more focused on player knowledge than character knowledge, so it makes sense that an old school player would write it that way.
Regarding the language bit: I run pseudo-mytho-historical settings and there simply isn't "Common" in migration era great britain. The party can only communicate without translator because they all have Sylvan. None of them speak Anglo-Saxon so they have to communicate with gestures or hope they find an Irish or Pictish person. It's quite fun (although I should definitely have dictated one common language between the players to smooth out translation)
In 2018 I ran a 5e science fiction game (esper genesis) where the governor of the planet the player was on was a thinly veiled reskin of a man whose name rhymes with Roland Thump. Catharsis!
Of course do an analysis of the second dnd game on community. Honestly it will likely be more viewed by your audience given how all the entertainment industry took Chang's drow to be "black face" even though he was literally just trying to, in effect, cosplay his elf.
What I see rarely being mentioned is that older editions of D&D had a completely different philosophy. Anyone who has played older editions can tell you that the role of the DM was more adversarial back then; You can see this design philosophy everywhere, especially in many old Giygax quotes and the design of the game and adventures. It was not uncommon in AD&D for everyone to have multiple backup characters at the ready because the understanding was that the DM was encouraged to run scenarios where characters could die at any moment. I'm not saying this excuses anyone's actions for anything, but the actual philosophy behind the game was completely different to how it is now. Now, there are many groups in 5e that do not even play with permanent character death.
6:54 "It's kind of artificial that the party would just find someone who they want to work with" I mean, they literally just introduced Pierce's character with no notice, why should Chang's second character be any different?
It was removed from Hulu and Netflix because one of the characters was in blackface (it was intentionally a joke to point out the character was bad doing it).
I separate players all the time. I do it about once a session. Players make very interesting decisions when the rest of the party is not watching them, it also makes one on one dialogue scene fill more intimate and isolating. In my most recent game this went so far that the party went to war with its self. Two character picked different sides in a brewing war and then the party split to fallow the ones they liked the most. The party was separated for two full sessions. Well they were separated both sides built small armies. When they party reunited they immediately started a pitched battle using hombrew warfare rules I created for a different campaign. Many characters died, including the leaders of both sides leading to one my favorite moments of role play in any game I have ran, were the sides had one minute to negotiate with each other because one side had the cleric and the other had the diamonds that would allow them to cast revivify.
Are there any other D&D lessons I missed from this episode of “Community?”
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Will you look into the other Community ep of D&D? It shows the dm's narrative ability & better character interaction among the players. it's in season 5, ep. 10.
@SupergeekMike this one might have slipped by because it may seem just common sense: be adaptable. Some DM's in Abed's position might have tried to steer the party back on the path to Draconis and his layer, but Abed saw the table, saw they declared their new goal, and let them pursue a Pegasus to chase Pierce.
And on that, just the simple "I can't give you that information" when asked about a Pegasus, and Jeff immediately making asking about one part of the quest
Here's one thing you missed: The terrible feeling I got when you said that episode was 12 years old. I felt myself begin to turn to ash and disintegrate, but then I rolled a Dex save to get the hell out of the way of that terrible spell. Be more careful with that kind of power, man. It's dangerous!
One thing I like about this episode is that it's a bad dnd game, but unlike a lot of dnd episodes, it's not because dnd is bad. It's because community is about a dysfunctional group that cannot set boundaries with each other. It makes sense that Abed as a character doesn't understand the level of knowledge the other players have a sticks so close to the rules as written he allows Pierce to get away with all of this, and the fact the players allow Pierce in the game speaks to how they still allow him in their friendship group despite outright hating him. This would be a dnd group from hell but that's accurate to community
I didn’t feel that way at all in anyway. As much as he let pierce monopolize the game with bad behavior, he let it go on as long as it needed to. As a dm it’s completely ok to let the players antagonize each other so long as they are engaging each other and interacting with the world.
Yes abed let the game go off the rails, but if you noticed he was slanting his game sorta towards the main group. Even giving the pcs a chase to kill pierce which I’m not sure they would have technically had. He obviously understood the concept of pacing even if it he didn’t care how it ultimately turned out.
If abed wanted, he could have told the pcs they could have shot bows at pierce when he killed chang. I believe he knew their was a more interesting game with pierce.
When you play with new players sometimes it’s easier to let the pcs work out how the game works by letting them drive, hopping in only when they slow the game down
That episode is literally the only episode of Community I've seen, and the thing that always stuck out to me is that it never felt like the episode was ashamed of being about D&D. I especially appreciated the moment when everyone started getting into it, and one moment I remember is the pantomiming of handing off the sword. That made it feel genuine, which most tv depictions of D&D didn't.
@@NigeltheLuckywhat are you on about?
@@sagesaria what about the pantomiming of "hector the well endowed" pleasuring the woman?
"Pierce will die of exposure in 13 turns. What do you do?"
"I wait 14 turns."
My wife and I still make the "My name...was Kyle..." *Eagle screech* joke to this day. It's just SO PERFECT.
You touched on it at the beginning when talking about how Neal was a bit OP for this session and may not have had fun but there was kind of an overarching theme that....and this may NOT be the best lesson: without Pierce the study group's plan was going to fail, Neal was clearly going through the motions, and could easily tell nobody there actually wanted to play DnD, but when they got the goal to find Pierce, suddenly Neal can see these people actually caring about him, and it helped him overcome his own insecurities and become confortable with himself. This isn't excusing Pierce's actions, he didn't plan for any of it, but it just happened that Pierce was the necessary piece.
As the ending narration says: And so it was that Pierce Hawthorne saved the life of [Neil] while learning very, very little.
I’ve always liked how Abed is super expressive with his hands and body posture. I think most DMs limit it to voices and occasionally facial expressions, but body language can do so much to sell a character.
It's also really interesting that when he's just himself he's not very expressive, but every time he plays a character he is really expressive.
Troy: "How long is that?"
always the best lines
Watsonian explanation for why Abed made language a meaningful part of his game: he's multilingual! He speaks Arabic with his dad in season 1, and apparently speaks Polish at points as well according to the internet. He's probably got life experience where being able to speak a language that others around him couldn't mattered in some way. Which is a great D&D tip in its own right, look at things you have experience in and try and draw on that for inspiration in your games, it's a good way to make your game your own.
I never thought of it that way, but I actually see it makes a lot of sense. When I DM, language does matter, and I'm bilingual. When the other DM of our group DMs, there has been maybe ONE time where language came up and that was only because it was an "ancient dead language known only by the elves of the time" for the sake of a puzzle rather than a cultural thing
I just ran a game a couple days ago where the group was trying to negotiate with some orc scavengers and a nearly identical situation came up; the person who wanted to do the negotiating didn't speak orc, so the other player who did ended up being an interpretor.
There was a twist though in that the orcs spoke common (this was foreshadowed, the players were told that fortune seekers were going to the same place they were), then party just assumed they didn't speak common because the orc spoke to each other in orcish.
That said, they players weren't wrong to try and speak to them in their native language; I usually make negotiating easier if you use the other person's favored language, and the scavengers obviously favored orcish
@@kinsan89 That's really interesting! I was just talking from a character writing perspective, but it's really cool to hear that you have some experience with that in your own real life.
And ASL!
@PossumMedic my group almost always picks sign language in some oddball language to quietly communicate in relative privacy.
While I haven't watched Community, "this man is depressed, so we're going to run a D&D game for him" is actually not bad advice psychologically in terms of handling with someone with depression. My mom is a psychologist and something she's told people many times is that a lot of suicidal ideation can diffuse in time and be remedied by feeling interpersonal connections. The D&D game allows enough time to pass for the worst of it to diffuse, meaning he can then be gently guided towards therapy and other resources. It's not a substitute for therapy, but it's a waiting room that can lower someone's stress levels enough that they don't want to die. That's very important.
i don't think Abed was trying to get Jeff to roleplay flirting. i think making Jeff feel uncomfortable was the point, because this is a rare case where the social dynamic gives Abed power over Jeff. and so he's pushing Jeff's boundaries in ways that usually only Jeff (or Pierce) can get away with
Maybe. Or Abed just wants Jeff to flirt with him to feel what it's like. Abed's like that.
Still doesn't sound good to use DnD for some karmic revenge.
Also, Abed is autistic and most likely created this situation for Jeff because he knows Jeff flirts, and flirts well and expected Jeff to seamlessly flirt in the situation. This is similar to the situation where he knew that Brita would be interested in fixing an immoral social stratification.
I love community. I love dnd. I love Supergeekmike videos. This is perfect
First time I've ever been disappointed to see that something was JUST posted. I was looking forward to searching for the 2nd Community D&D episode! Please do it!
Definitely would love a Community DnD part 2 episode
+1
There is one
@@psymonanteros191presumably they meant they'd like an analysis of the second ep
Season 5 episode 10
@@Ciara_Turner ah, of course. My mistake
One Argument for Pierce knowing where the amulet is, that he is playing himself, as directed by Abed, so he knows what his character knows
XD I kinda love that loophole
He does act the way his character would!!! XD
18:05 I personally think that people that were born, grew up and lived in the world would know stuff about the more “common” monsters of the world they live in.
I’ve never seen a tiger in the wild, but I know they can jump over and elephant if they wanted.
So a party would know what ogres are, and their strength, general habits etc. they wouldn’t necessarily know about, say, undead or extraplanar creatures, but they’d know things about creatures from the natural world. So if a player says “do I know what beast A is?” Yes you do. “What do I know about them.” Roll a check. IMO
I do the same for my setting, and I always give space for players to come up with reasons on the fly of why they'd know something about a given creature, location, person, religion, etc
if they've clearly considered the connection before or it's an obvious "fill in the blank" (a druid pc knowing the basics of ale making because their clan made moonshine was a personal favourite reason I've been given) then why not throw the player a bone for being narratively engaged?
sometimes you really don't even need a roll, but that's dm discretion
In modern day with access to the internet you’d be able to get pretty accurate information, sure. But look at medieval drawings of animals the artist clearly had never seen before.
I don’t think it’s fair to say the players have no idea about any common creatures, but, for anything they haven’t seen in person, I think their knowledge should be greatly exaggerated. Ogres aren’t just strong, they can pluck the tops off of mountains to use as arrowheads. Dragons can’t just breathe fire, they can spew magma that will reduce an entire city to ashes with just half a breath.
I also allow knowing specific common weaknesses e.g. vampires and sunlight, lycanthropes and silver etc. Just not X specific monster is resistant to fire and cold, and immune to electricity, but vulnerable to a bludgeoning weapon made from virgin growth holly wood, which some players feel should be common knowledge.
@@elle.mack.wednesday Yeah, this. Recency bias (or worse, chronological snobbery) can really twist how people view the past... or fictional worlds like those of D&D. You can find out basically ANYthing about a tiger by using the internet, but what would English peasants know about tigers?
@elle.mack.wednesday now to counter your example, magic. You have conjuration spells, druids who can wildshape, illusion spells that can copy an object or creature's likeness so closely the only giveaways are things like it not moving or objects passing through it, and ways to transmit telepathic images.
I wasn't expecting to enjoy the recap of this Community episode nearly as much as I did, so that's a wonderful surprise. I'm *almost* tempted to go and watch that second DnD Community episode right now, but I'm definitely looking forward to the next Community Does A DnD recap.
On metagaming: Our DM is dealing with a table where almost all of us normally GM + the host’s partner who is very new to the game. Our solution has been to ask to roll for a relevant skill whenever we know a thing that can’t be considered general knowledge. If we roll high enough we can act on the info (we are a very bookish group of PCs so we just keep saying “oh yeah I read about that”) and if we roll low, then we know our character doesn’t even if we as players do.
I’ll do something similar for puzzles sometimes, letting a character roll to get a hint. Their character may be smarter or more observant than the player. Although, that’s almost the opposite effect- letting a character’s knowledge affect the player’s decisions. Is there a term for reverse metagaming?
@Gaming_Amateur there isn't really a term for it because it's just playing the game the way you're supposed to 😅
Idk if that's necessary, I just take the "I don't know anything" approach unless it touches on my expertise in-character. So what if my character doesn't know trolls are weak to fire? I just blast the thing with random types until the fire does its thing, like any other monster. 🤷♀️
I'm here to tell a story, not S rank a combat on a timer. Rather than its regeneration ability never coming up, isn't it more interesting to have your character getting increasingly panicked as the troll keeps getting back up from your spells even angrier and hungrier than before. You gulp, start charging up your fire spell, saying "here goes nothing" before sending it blazing into the monster's face. It crashes down for the final time and relief washes over you, though you sensibly grab a nearby stick and poke it to make sure it's really down for the count and not just tired?
I've always played the same way, it seems like the most elegant (and maybe correct?) way to play.
that's a really great solution!
You bring up a point that many modern TTRPG players and creators forget: These games are made for the purpose of escapism. Fighting literal monsters is the equivalent to relieving real life stress, or have a manageable amount of stress to train your resiliency. Of course we want to make our worlds both realistic and fair, probably two things that are mutually exclusive. But it's good practice to address actual evil in the real world and rectify it in our fantasy worlds, it's what being a hero is about.
Can we all just admit that Britta is kind of a really good role player though?
Jeff Winger is the self-insert character of Community. Dan Harmon sees himself as Jeff Winger. Looking for a different lens to jazz up your rewatching of Community? Try Jeff Winger = Dan Harmon. Makes Jeff's rivalry with Pierce even funnier. My dream plot for the Community movie is Dan Harmon waking up from a coma and Joel McHale plays his friend he's jealous of or whatever.
Re: pre-gen names 2:53 - I like a compromise solution, I add a "suggested" name to my pre-gens when I have them but I always tell the players that they can change that name if they'd like. Because players (especially first-timers) themselves are often just as bad at creating names as Abed (or worse), and even those who are good with it could definitely use an example for what names look like in this world.
I just started plating dnd and i HATE giving a name to my character TTT
Same! A lot of new players are already worried about not knowing what to do and now they *have* to think up a random name? 😅
The first dnd episode I remember watching was the Dexter's Laboratory episode "D & DD" where their dnd session is interrupted by his sister DeeDee.
Oh yeah, and Dexter is an adversarial DM who constantly cheats so his dungeon is more dangerous
But then DeeDee takes over the DM seat and makes a pretty good run.
@@jorgechacarteguiborras2576 honestly she does great, she sets a tone and makes it clear sticking to it, makes things challenging but also rewarding, and their quest reward is legit useful.
"I am the dungeon master, you are my pawns! I control your fate!!"
Even as a kid who knew absolutely nothing about D&D, I could tell Dexter wasn't playing to the spirit of the game. The biggest mystery is how he recruited his group of players to begin with, because those kids were really cool and into their characters, and very serious about the game, but also not so serious that they weren't able to enjoy a total newbie's(Deedee) take on DMing.
@@grammarmaid they didn't have internet, finding any group is hard, even in the internet age I've been in bad groups before.
Awesome awesome episode and video by you. Loved how you just skimmed over Chang’s cosplay-probably the wisest course!
Yes PLEASE do the other episode. Loved the video mike
16:00
As someone who’s read a bunch of the books and has learned a lot about DnD’s monsters and magic system, and I also know it’s hard to keep myself from utilizing that knowledge even if my character doesn’t also possess it. So in a recent campaign I decided to play a huge nerd who learns everything they can about monsters and magic so that I can put my knowledge to good use without it being meta-gamey
Honestly, I think Abed is a way way better DM in the second D&D episode. I'd love having you reviewing that as well.
The one time (so far) I've seperated my players and done one on one scenes with them was when they were all being interrogated separately and sequentially.
I asked them if they'd prefer to do it that way, or just not metagame, and they chose that.
I would play at Abed’s table. “I walk with them.” 😂
Hey there! Newcomer to the channel and I already like what I see. Good analysis, and I like the way you succinctly provide context about Community for people who haven't watched the show.
So, I agree with all of your points pretty much 100%, but there are some things I think need to be taken into consideration. The first thing is that Abed is a first time Dungeon Master (I think... it's never explicitly stated in the show, but I think we can infer it from context clues). All newbie DMs make mistakes, and many of them are the mistakes that Abed makes here. Allowing one player to get away with cheating/metagaming, not being willing to bend or break the impartiality of the system, taking things too far, not providing thorough enough descriptions or setting the scene, these are all mistakes I made when I was running AD&D games back in the 80s and 90s.
That leads me to the second thing: Old school vs new school. Abed is running AD&D (or maybe even BECME D&D, it's hard to say), presumably because that's what Dan Harmon played back when he was young, and the play style at the table is very reminiscent of that old school style of gaming. Story and NPC interaction often took a back seat to goals, objectives, and tactical situations. That isn't to say that things couldn't get deeply personal and immersive, just that because D&D grew out of a tactical simulation game in the 1970s, it was much more of a "roll-playing" game than a "role-playing game" in its early heyday for most folks (though individual experiences may differ from mine).
The third thing I think we need to consider is Abed's neurodivergence. Though it's never explicitly stated in the show (and as a neurodivergent man myself, I think it's good that they didn't make Abed's specific diagnosis the central theme of the entire show), Abed codes as autistic. While Abed and I aren't identical, I see so much of my younger self in him that I can chuckle at how he fumbles through the same social situations I did at his age, making the same mistakes, and yet somehow succeeding and having an amazing time doing it.
That's the magic of this episode for me. The D&D as presented may not be strictly accurate. Abed may have made a lot of mistakes. But even with all of that being true, the *feel* of the episode gave me a huge dose of nostalgia for a time before I made grand sweeping campaigns with deeply personal story moments and pitched battles where the fate of the region, the continent, or even the world was at stake. Just five to eight friends, sitting around a table, working through our personal crap, drinking way too much Mountain Dew, rolling dice, and having the time of our lives.
I'd love if you did the second one when you get the time! I love your media analysis as much as your dnd tips and knowledge, so anything like this is a guaranteed banger!
While Abed had a great way to introduce a guest player, what I feel should be critized is allowing a player at the table that no one wants to play with and is known to be problematic. Granted it's part of the plot, but it's about a real dm doing this in a real game where I would say it's would be bad on the dm.
I love how fast paced your jokes and digresses are, really keeps the overall pacing and engagement high quality
Community, my beloved. I love the friendship drama in season two around Pierce, and Neil was such a fantastic character for this episode.
i really liked this video, and i have a lot of fun memories watching Community with my sister. it would be really cool to watch your analysis of the other one too!
The first dnd episode was what introduced me to the game. I had a primal reaction when I saw this thumbnail, I was so ready to be upset at someone being negative about something so integral to my identity haha
Great video
As the official Britta Perry defender, I must note that her immediate concern about the treatment of gnomes proves she's genuine.
Also please make a vid on the other episode. That one had stuff that gave me great ideas how to make my games better but again, Abed did some stuff that should be avoided.
I’ve been waiting for this video for a long time, just going to say that anyone who let Pierce away with his antics should never DM
The fact that I, just before Mike brought it up, told my DM that I'd rather learn what a piece of lore is in-game rather than being told about it out of game (because two of the other players know what it is because they're in another of the DM's games). Finding lore and stuff out organically is part of the fun.
As someone who has seen the show at least 8 times I would interpret Abed’s DMing as canonically bad, here’s my evidence:
Abed says that he hasn’t had many friends growing up prior to meeting Jeff and the Study Group
It is shown that Abed did not get along with other nerds prior to the Events of the Show (kicked out of Blockbuster at the Mall in the Frozen Yoghurt Flashback)
He is also shown to Solo Roleplay a lot with dolls and toys
Therefore Abed’s DMing would make a lot of sense if he only SOLO DMed prior to the game. This would explain why he rolls for everyone and railroads the campaign. It’s the DnD he knows and is comfortable with so he runs it towards his vision of the game.
One time I made a post on the Community subreddit saying that Abed was a bad DM and I could tell that like had the commenters had never played. Like, the fact that they were saying Abed handled the Pierce situation well and I’m like, “Are you joking?” A DM shouldn’t be a neutral force. They should maintain a healthy environment over all else, not the story of the game.
Still a top 5 episode for me. I don’t care about the subpar DMing as long as you don’t use it as an example.
This and the CRD videos are real great. I use them as a reference to learn what pitfalls to try and avoid if I ever do get to DMing my own game. Despite playing D&D for less than a year, I do find these very helpful still to keep in mind.
Ohhhh this must be where my first DM go the inspiration for introducing my character. I showed up mid-combat naked and stuck in a tree
Great video as always! Community is my favorite show so I'd love to see you cover the second D&D episode
I actually got a chance to meet Joel McHale a couple months ago. I'm happy to report that he is as nice, friendly and charming as you would hope
Thanks for making this video, and I really appreciate the way you are able to talk about the multiple layers of narrative. Like it's cool to have the insights you bring on the game the characters play in the show, then the characters dynamics, then info about Harmon's history with D&D and the place the episode has in the overall narrative of the show. Must have been a lot of work presenting those layers so well, and I would certainly be interested in seeing your take on the second D&D episode.
This is a good channel. I like Mike.
I’d love to see you cover other D&D centric tv episodes. Especially the few D&D episodes of iZombie, I think it’s a really good depiction of a character who thinks D&D is for nerds learning to absolutely love the experience of roleplaying. I don’t think it was an accident that in the second D&D episode of that show Clive (the character who thought D&D was for nerds) goes on to be the dungeon master.
I just got done watching iZombie all the way for the first time, and I love that DnD became a recurring background element for a lot of the characters (and giving my favourite minor character of the sketch artist a reason to show up again.)
i watched iZombie over quarantine and completely forgot they had a couple DnD episodes, gotta rewatch
Man, I LOVE Community. Straight up my favorite show. Great vid, Mike!
Community's been one of my favourite shows since I first started watching it around 2011. It and Harmontown were basically my first introduction to DnD and it's funny looking back and realising how atypical their versions of DnD are.
Been awhile since I rewatched but I believe the S5 episode resembles DnD a bit more. Pretty sure Spencer Crittenden was Dan's assistant at that point and actually helped with that episode somewhat. You should definitely do a vid on that one.
Most definitely would love a video on the second episode! Community is one of my favorite shows and this was a fun video
Do the second one, do the second one, do the second one.
Ooo is it Christmas again? Love Community and I love this episode in particular. Thank you so much - very insightful. Have a lovely NYE and happy New Year 🎉
I'm glad this video exists since the episode is not available on any streaming services.
It’s actually on Peacock
Well I didn't know that. I had watched the series on Hulu.
I know, it bums me out that nobody sees this episode anymore because nobody has Peacock 😂
@@SupergeekMikeIt's one of the best Community episodes, IMO.
I really would love to see you handle the other episode! Its so good!
Great analysis! Please do the sequel of this episode!
When we were kids I used to roll everyone's actions because I had the only set of dice and it was a lot faster than passing the dice around. Once people bought their own dice then they rolled them. It seems weird to think about it years later but it was what led to "bring your own dice, paper and pencils."
I think 12:40 inspired Mike to make a new series: How to Flirt with an NPC: TTRPG Skills With Real Life Transferable Outcomes.
i really like this video, good job. What would you say if I told you that Abed KNEW that the real game wasn't D&D. Abed has a "keen mind" and it felt like, to me at least, that Abed was playing D&D with the players, not their characters. Rewatch it while asking yourself, "What if Abed staged it so that Pierce would play the bad guy.". I wouldn't put it past Abed to take DMing to another level. Maybe that explains why he never cared to explain the game, he knew that they were already playing(TTRPGception). This would probably mean that Abed used D&D for therapy, but he didn't expect it to go so well.
I love Abed, I relate to him as an autistic person but I will die on the hill that he is a BAD DM.
I’d say abed was a good dm. I feel he knew pierce was a bigger villain then he could create. No dm would allow you to read ahead and just usurp the main villain.
He was a master of pacing, making sure to never let the pcs attentions drift, every time they may had lost interest he brought them back by bringing in interesting npcs, or encouraging them to engage with each other.
He saw what the pc cared about and instantly focused on it. He let the pcs get out their actual annoyance with pierce by having them fight him, even giving them a chance to beat him when they may technically not had had a chance to.
It may had seemed like abed was rules as written and he may had been, but the one thing people don’t realize when you do rules as written. As the dm you can still choose what you are going to focus on. You can skip over things you dont care about or things that people really want to do.
With new players having the dm roll and tell you the stakes is cool and moves the game along. Something it’s easier to do with players that dont care what happens and don’t know the rules. It’s a bit harder to do with veterans
Wait, is the Barrier Peaks "twist" meant to be a secret? Because that "twist" is literally how I pitched it to my group.
I was really pleased with myself a few weeks ago, when I hadn't come up with a name for the werewolf being held captive that the party was deciding whether to free, slay, or turn him over to the city guard, and while they were discussing, I googled a name generator and snagged a vaguely French-sounding name like I had it the whole time, right when they asked for it. (it was a fantasy version of New Orleans)
they freed him, and got a nice magic reward and possible future ally.
We're assuming Abed is an experienced DM. It might be that Abed had spent a lot of time developing this campaign but never had a group to run it for until now.
Except it wasn't about if Abed's experienced, just whether or not he was bad.
😭 too real!
Great stuff. Can’t wait for part two
New to your channel...great video!
Unfortunately, some streaming services stripped out the episode because Chang "wore blackface" when he in fact was cosplaying a Drow.
I really need to rewatch Community. I absolutely loved it (even some of the gas leak season).
16:55 - "If you've played a lot of D&D you might already know the best way to beat a troll"
That's definitely the example I see crop up most often, but I really appreciate that you still don't actually say what the best way *is* to beat a troll. Keeping it as vague as possible just in case someone doesn't know, for the sakes of those that are newer to the hobby.
Can't wait for the follow up this was great
I would love an analysis of the second Community D&D episode!
Great video! I really hope you make a video on the season 5 episode
That "...Huzzah" kills me
Fun episode! Would love a recap of the second episode in season 5
I’d be up for seeing you cover that second episode, yeah.
I completely forgot Chang cosplayed as a Drow 😅😂
"You remembered to invite Al Jolson here."
Yeah, it was also during a low-point in my D&D enthusiasm after 4e fell so short, and wasn't until a re-watch a few years later that we started actually looking at 5e
This is probably not the first time I've seen DnD (and roleplaying in media), but it was the first that made me actually consider such things. Actually had me thinking about a character and a game scenario they'd be in, building them up over the years as I got into the hobby watching an online game.
3:20 that is what happened to me with my intro to dnd. They had me go first without even giving me a quest like the dragon. It was just, you wake up, you look outside and see people going about their day. What do you do?" No matter how much I asked what there was TO do they just told me anything and everything without specifying. But they refused to move onto another turn until I completed SOMETHING. I tried sleeping in to stall for time, nope. I grabbed my stuff and went down to the street. Still not good enough to pass the turn over. Eventually, I ended up engaging in pvp because the DM said I "saw player 2 and player 3 fighting." I asked why they were fighting [each other, in what I was told was a team game]. The DM just tells me "you wouldn't know that." So, since player 2 was my brother who invited me here, I just sided with him and attacked the other PC. Only after flipping out at me and having my point of view explained, did they finally FINALLY fill in the full scene for me. During the opening narration when they described the people walking about, they offhandedly mentioned there was "a dog." Somehow... I was supposed to infer from that it was a HELLHOUND and when he said that the two PCs "are fighting" I was supposed to grasp that he meant they were fighting the hellhound. So, now having that info, I ask if we can just rewind real quick and play things out how they logically would. The players and DM scowl at me and say "there are no do overs in dnd." They proceeded to spend the next few rounds attacking me while the hellhound attacked them. Then a portal opens up with more hellhounds and a cloaked mage. The whole party gets wiped that turn. I was kicked from the group after that. 😅
Rolling for the players when its all new players is actually really helpful alot of people don't know what a D8 is let alone what one looks like. I've done it before and would let them roll for really important moments so they can still get that fun intensity that can come from an important roll.
Im surprised you showed Chang
If you're going to start a scenario. The best options are, in combat, with a combat having just finished, in prison during a break out, or in a tavern.
Ooh I just ran barrier peaks! My players were completely zonked by my twist though, the ship's AI was personified, the actual consciousness of the Elf architect who built the ship to take "The membership" from Imaskar (forgotten realms) thousands of years ago at the height of their techno-magical prowess, and in the ensuing centuries the generational ship continued to improve technologically, periodically freezing the crew for long voyages, before finally returning home - the original founders of this generational voyage believed Toril was going to be obliterated by the conflict their nation was engaged in so they left, and as they approached the planet again, the ship determined that civilizatoin was flourishing and intended to detach its astral-drive section and collide it with the planet, the ensuing radiation wave would wipe out most animal life - and the people - in Faerun, allowing the ship to land in an untouched eden, several of the active crew realized what was going on and rebelled, leading to the disaster that culminated in the ship crashing. The bulk of the crew were still alive, the AI having jettisoned those sections before crashing (intent on preserving her crew and hoping to lure people in to fix the damage, return to orbit, and resume the plan)
This of course led to a massive problem with my campaign, the party neutered the ship's AI by using a very novel method I didn't expect (they found some epic loot in the ship's vault, including a scroll of True Resurrection, which they used on the ship's AI - restoring the elf from 2 millenia ago before she transferred her consciousness. She merged herself with the AI as it was now and stood down) and after a bit of downtime with the crew, the ship was functional again, with a crew of thousands of people with techno-magical technology of incredible advancement, now living in the forgotten realms. They ended up landing the ship in the mountains of Rasheman, agreeing collectively this world wasn't ready for their advancements, the forest witches of that land actually being something like Fallout's brotherhood of steal (and the only actual descendents of the same civilization who built that ship), and the party brought one of the android avatars of the ship's AI with them to be an ambassador for her people to the lords of waterdeep, secretly trading some powerful society changing devices over time that the temple of Gond would introduce
I made those changes without considering the impact on my campaign world and I don't regret it, the party has a fuckin star-trek esque shuttlecraft now, although its just as slow as any spelljammer so it's about as fast as an airship, but it has a replicator, entertainment system, and lasers - which is fun. Even if they're not that much more powerful than a Fireball spell, they're lasers
Since I'm unfamiliar with your channel I was afraid this would just be click-bait, but it was a really awesome video. Would definitely love to see your eval of the second DnD episode.
No, he was ABED DM 8D
GOD DAMN IT, IT WAS RIGHT THERE THE WHOLE TIME 🤦♂️
Please do the other D&D episode! It's so good!!
I always love the Community DnD episodes.
About the "meta knowledge" point, this is a big difference between new D&D and old D&D. Prereading the specific module books would still be a taboo but the old school style was much more focused on player knowledge than character knowledge, so it makes sense that an old school player would write it that way.
Yes please for a part 2.
liked, subscribed and commenting to ask for the second episode Thank you :D
Regarding the language bit:
I run pseudo-mytho-historical settings and there simply isn't "Common" in migration era great britain. The party can only communicate without translator because they all have Sylvan. None of them speak Anglo-Saxon so they have to communicate with gestures or hope they find an Irish or Pictish person. It's quite fun (although I should definitely have dictated one common language between the players to smooth out translation)
Fun fact, Dan Harmon played dnd for years, but didn't know the players rolled the dice.
I really think the Abed gets much better at DM'ing in the second episode. Would definitely enjoy seeing you talk about that one.
In 2018 I ran a 5e science fiction game (esper genesis) where the governor of the planet the player was on was a thinly veiled reskin of a man whose name rhymes with Roland Thump. Catharsis!
I'm really excited to watch this video My first response when I saw the title was kind of
I've never seen Community, but this was still a great video.
Of course do an analysis of the second dnd game on community. Honestly it will likely be more viewed by your audience given how all the entertainment industry took Chang's drow to be "black face" even though he was literally just trying to, in effect, cosplay his elf.
What I see rarely being mentioned is that older editions of D&D had a completely different philosophy. Anyone who has played older editions can tell you that the role of the DM was more adversarial back then; You can see this design philosophy everywhere, especially in many old Giygax quotes and the design of the game and adventures. It was not uncommon in AD&D for everyone to have multiple backup characters at the ready because the understanding was that the DM was encouraged to run scenarios where characters could die at any moment.
I'm not saying this excuses anyone's actions for anything, but the actual philosophy behind the game was completely different to how it is now. Now, there are many groups in 5e that do not even play with permanent character death.
6:54 "It's kind of artificial that the party would just find someone who they want to work with"
I mean, they literally just introduced Pierce's character with no notice, why should Chang's second character be any different?
I just finished community and this episode wasn't on the list? Is it a bonus episode?
It was removed from Hulu and Netflix because one of the characters was in blackface (it was intentionally a joke to point out the character was bad doing it).
@@ArcCaravanyeah you should definitely track it down though (cough torrent cough)
@@jimbowardoable It's legally on Peacock and some other streaming services.
Good stuff Mike! Good stuff!
I separate players all the time. I do it about once a session. Players make very interesting decisions when the rest of the party is not watching them, it also makes one on one dialogue scene fill more intimate and isolating. In my most recent game this went so far that the party went to war with its self. Two character picked different sides in a brewing war and then the party split to fallow the ones they liked the most. The party was separated for two full sessions. Well they were separated both sides built small armies. When they party reunited they immediately started a pitched battle using hombrew warfare rules I created for a different campaign. Many characters died, including the leaders of both sides leading to one my favorite moments of role play in any game I have ran, were the sides had one minute to negotiate with each other because one side had the cleric and the other had the diamonds that would allow them to cast revivify.
Make the second video please!