DM of the Rings XXII:
Are We There Yet?

By Shamus Posted Friday Oct 27, 2006

Filed under: DM of the Rings 57 comments

Wasting Time, Rulebooks, Giving the Finger, Legolas, Gay Jokes, Pizza

In defense of the players, I will say that when this sort of thing happens it is usually the result of the players getting restless or bored. If the players are distracted, it means it’s time to change something and recapture their interest. I’m still working on this particular skill myself.

 


From The Archives:
 

57 thoughts on “DM of the Rings XXII:
Are We There Yet?

  1. Bogan the Mighty says:

    Shamus you need to be given credit. The fact that you could hold the attention of 2 people with ADD for more than five minutes at a time is a talent unmatched especially since we know who those two are.

  2. Batmanintraining says:

    Like everyone else, I have greatly enjoyed these comics. They are very funny, and at times make me think you’ve been spying in on our regular games.

    Keep up the good work, it is appreciated.

  3. Squashua says:

    Wow, I just found this tale, and it’s classic. I see so much of my own group in it.

  4. Deoxy says:

    You know, if you keep this up (making theese so amazingly good), you’re going to get so popular that the owners of the “stolen images: various” are going to notice, and probably get annoyed. (“Annoyed” in this case, as in most others with such people, meaning “sic the lawyers on you”.)

  5. Nonsense. They’re frame grabs from the movie; anyone other than the original movie copyright holder has no more rights to them than Shamus does.

    And as to the original movie copyright holder, using a handful of individual frame grabs for comedic purposes is unquestionably covered under the “fair use” provision of copyright law.

    No one is going to be siccing lawyers on Shamus.

    1. StarSword says:

      As Zz’dtri noted in ”Order of the Stick”, “Parody is protected speech.”

  6. MOM says:

    best one yet:0

  7. Quentin Hudspeth says:

    More. Please, more!

    These are really great comics. Thank you for all your time and effort.

  8. John Fiala says:

    You’ve so got gamers pegged here. And I love how you’re first pointing out a problem or tendancy of gamers, and then point out after the strip ways of dealing with it. :)

  9. Marmot says:

    Another great one! Only, I’m worried, if too many people start checking your comic daily will you run out of bandwith? :)

  10. Byrn says:

    Excellent. So true its scary… keep up the good work!

  11. Tom Gunn says:

    I was just pointed to this yesterday. This is great! Keep it up!

  12. Richard says:

    Another guy just pointed to this site… really great!

    Please, keep it up :D

  13. Arthur says:

    Great stuff! I just found my way over here from ENWorld. I love how you make a funny scene that represents a problem in a game, and provide a solution for it.

    Keep up the good work!

  14. Heather says:

    I think all of these are just a show of Shamus’ excellent memory. I remember most of thhose conversations at least twice each. :)

  15. Two double-zeroes: priceless says:

    This series is most excellent! I wish it weren’t so familiar :-) .

  16. Computer Teacher says:

    Can you (would you please?) link the first page to the last so those of us who have read your previous chapters can skip right to the newest ones? These are hysterically funny and I wish I had thought of it!

  17. Lucius Alexander says:

    I haven’t even played D&D for over 10 years, but I still think this is great!

    Lucius Alexander

    Palindromedary Enterprises

  18. Skeeve the Impossible says:

    HEY I don’t have ADD….. I have ADHD. The H stands for hyper :)

  19. Computer Teacher, why not keep a link to the front page of Shamus’s blog? That’s where the new entries show up each time he posts.

  20. Patrick says:

    Dan you’re our brother and I love you, but you totally have ADHD…. ( and the H stands for HOMO) Which is the reason we spent so much time making gay jokes, cause…you know… you’re so damn gay. And we only spent like…20 minutes if I remeber about the flipping off the town mayor! It wasn’t an hour!

  21. Nestor says:

    What amuses me is reading all the “I played with those guys” comments.

    Let’s face it. We WERE those guys. There, but for the grace of a d20 roll, are we. :-)

  22. Half-Elven Gnomic Dwarf says:

    What, no more webcomic? I wanna get more! Gotta get more gonna get more!!! Yeah ,its great!!!

  23. Shamus says:

    I post them Mon-Wed-Fri, noon-ish.

  24. telesilla says:

    Another brilliant strip and the last line really is the best part.

  25. Keith says:

    So does flippen the bird provoke an attack of opportunity? OMG! I will be laughing over that one for days…

  26. This is the funniest, most engaging DM’s guide ever. Thank you!

  27. Soni says:

    This is pure gold. Keep it up. :D

  28. nigel little says:

    dude, this is seriosly funny, make more! ps was this a real campain?

  29. nigel little says:

    oh ya, and one more thing, ma i steel your campain and run one my self?
    #[8^)]>

  30. Cypher says:

    OMG… this is totally us! (And my dice _are_ cursed, I tell you!)

    These are fantastic =D

  31. haashaastaak says:

    No one will think of suing about this as long as no money is involved. Pity that it can’t be, because the strip is worth its weight in artificial-reality gold. I guess I should go back to the earlier strips and read the new comments, but I am afraid I don’t have that much time! Nothing could keep me from reading the new strips though — they are awesome.

  32. Don says:

    Oh god, the bit about the finger and the AoO is classic!

  33. Doctor X says:

    My policy is “If nothing happens in 15 minutes, make something explode.”

  34. septima says:

    Dave’s dice ARE unlucky. He should buy new ones. :D

  35. Simon says:

    In my group we’ve actually had to set up a random table to determine who orders food. It’s a d6 roll resulting in things like ‘last to arrive’, ‘first to mention food’ and because we’ve got a couple of traditional gamers, ‘he who stinks the most’.

  36. JJR says:

    Good times, good times, staying up all night and being goofy with my High School, then later College-age buddies. The inside jokes, movie references, etc…not just Monty Python but also The Princess Bride, MST3K, Amazon Women on The Moon, etc.

    Ah, exhaustion + sleep deprivation, plus sugar rush, plus too much caffeine frequently equals a +50 hilarity modifier.

  37. JD says:

    One of our players got into an argument with the another, and we ended up having to re-roll a PC that night. That was such a stupid battle.

  38. cheesebunny says:

    now for us DM get really into the argys, but we encorage phisical violance soon as our main room (usually my bedroom/attic/garage) has either a punch bag, gladiator stylie batons or an area for paint-ball straight shoots
    and Im the pacifist of the family! ^^

  39. ERROR says:

    “Because you’re a bad DM?”
    “Because I’m a bad babysitter.”

    Ha-ha!

  40. Keybounce says:

    > The fact that you could hold the attention of 2 people with ADD for more than five minutes at a time is a talent unmatched

    Hey, lots of people can hold the attention of Advanced D&D people. That is what you meant by ADD, right?

    Oh, you mean the machine language math instruction?

    No, I see, you mean the new book: Artificial Dumbness for Dummies — a discussion of problems in AI.

    Or perhaps …

    (I can do this for hours :-)

  41. Spit Fyre says:

    “Are We There Yet?” is a movie.

    Best comic so far.

  42. photondancer says:

    oh lord, I laughed myself into tears with this one – just as well everybody else has left the office!

    Moria is one of my favorite parts of LoTR, but they do spend a long time there.

  43. Francisco says:

    Hello there Mr. Shamus!

    I was directed to your site and am enjoying your DM of the Rings tale.

    I should point out that this image is not accessible:
    http://shamusyoung.mu.nu/images/comic_lotr22.jpg

    Thank you!

  44. Pat says:

    I was always the lazy DM. I just let the players speculate until they invented something that sounded like a cool idea.

    My best idea yet: An albino red dragon. Nothing funnier than watching a bunch of characters all buttered up with anti-cold spells shooting fireballs at a red dragon.

    I think that was the last time I had to worry about the Monster Manual being whipped out on me :-)

    Tickled me…. pink :-D

  45. omg i LOVE this one!!!! i laughed super hard. poor dave. his dice never give him a good roll. :) :) in my d&d game, i am half-elf. id like 2 be ALL elf but i picked half elf at the beginng of the game so yeah. RETARD i know. how come I never get to roll the dice??? :) :) all the other players are like a millon years ahead of me and two other players(hermione and dragon breath. yeah i know.) those r there d&d names.

  46. zelda says:

    yes! i totally flipped him off!

    :) i loved that part and the gay jokes part.

  47. Leyomi the Parodier says:

    One great thing about the LotR movies is that there’s so much subtlety of expression, which makes it easier for cunning people like yourself to do things like that.

  48. John says:

    Dude it is almost creepy how accurate this is for my gaming group. I can’t stop laughing cause it is true, but so funny. Very comforting to know we’re not the only ones who act like this. Keep it up.

  49. Kid says:

    A good DM knows that being a DM means that you are babysitting.

  50. Ninja Girl says:

    omg, this is my favorite one!!!!! idk why, it just makes me laugh. XD SO FUNNY

  51. Dani Preston says:

    HAHAHAHAHA i love the third panel on this particular comic its hilarious as is the flippin the bird part

  52. Jules says:

    Introduced to this series by my 15 yo, now I plan a Year 6/7 literacy/numeracy unit using it – imagine rolling to choose heroes, and twenty kids rolling for the orcs … reading the rules to argue whether it hit …

    but that’s just an excuse to read it all. Brilliant work.

  53. Ace LeStrange says:

    So many truths.

  54. Jhea says:

    this is soo true

    thank you for putting these online – it’s just like a big compendium of ‘what can go wrong’ ^^

  55. Alberto says:

    Just awesome, too funny. My group is totally like this.

  56. Unbelievably accurate post is accurate…………

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