-
Archives
-
Categories
- Anime (72)
- D&D Campaign (84)
- DM of the Rings (156)
- Escapist (319)
- Game Design (69)
- Game Reviews (314)
- Lets Play (78)
- Links (210)
- Movies (208)
- Nerd Culture (135)
- Notices (82)
- Personal (114)
- Pictures (114)
- Programming (21)
- Projects (88)
- Random Thoughts (123)
- Rants (149)
- Tabletop Games (62)
- Video Games (135)
-
RSS Links
-
Links
DM of the Rings LIX:
Disorder of the Stick
Previous in DM of the Rings: DM of the Rings LVIII: It is a Silly Place | Next in DM of the Rings: DM of the Rings LX: The Madness of King Whatsizname |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
I don’t blame them for wanting to hold onto their walking sticks. Edoras has about the worst wheelchair / handicapped access I’ve ever seen. If you take a bad step at the entrance to the Golden Hall, you won’t stop rolling until you’re outside of the city.
 |
Laying that aside, this is a great case of, “a small change to the script throws the whole conversation into the blender and hits liquify.” If you have a conversation which requires information to be revealed in a certain order, you can bet the players will – without even trying – turn the whole thing sideways and backwards. They will trick you into revealing the catch to doing a job before they’ve agreed to do it, or goad you into revealing a loophole in the local rules while they still have the opportunity to exploit it.
They are devious little buggers, for sure.
|
|
|
|
|
Previous in DM of the Rings: DM of the Rings LVIII: It is a Silly Place | Next in DM of the Rings: DM of the Rings LX: The Madness of King Whatsizname |
77 comments. (Seventy-seven is the smallest positive integer requiring five syllables in English!)
Ha! First in! And me a member of the iniquitous Guild of Linearity!
Steve.
Priceless look of “?!” on Gandalf’s face. I can imagine him and Celeborn both suffering for a temporary loss of words as the DM is agog at the players escaping his railroading.
Once again……Priceless.
Oh, and the expressions in panels 4 and 9 are priceless. Well done Shamus!
Who doesn’t carry a quiver of little walking sticks wherever they go? Confiscating those is just asking for a lawsuit.
Hit me on the funny bone -again- and hard. Sheesh.
I love this website. Thanks for all the laughs, interesting reading, and general joy.
“And a quiver of little walking sticks.”
Got a good laugh from that one!
First post. I have to say good job on the screen captures of Gandalf’s face. To deliver a visual punchline with what you have to work with is very impressive.
“aye we like them heavy and, uh sharp”
“a quiver of little walking sticks”
I think future DM’s will have to make rules disallowing quotes from
DM of the Rings
I love the title of this comic! (The comic was excellent, as well.)
Looking at Steve’s comment, I’m pleased to see that I wasn’t the only one who got it.
“I think future DM’s will have to make rules disallowing quotes from
DM of the Rings.”
High praise, indeed. And not underservedly so.
Legolas’ walking stick has a string on it so he doesn’t forget to use it when he’s walking.
A quiver of little walking sticks, just in case someone casts reduce person.
You have to hand it to the players for being clever and resourceful, though. I always appreciate that.
One of my favorite comics in the series so far, Shamus!
Shamus, You owe me one keyboard…. I was drinking a nice hot cup of coffee as I read “uh, and sharp.” This resulted in the aforementioned coffee exiting my nose (well, not all of it – some went into my lungs instead) and depositing itslef all over my keyboard… which now refuses to behave. Luckily, being an IT puke, I have a spare (well, more like 10 or 15 spares).
Best DMotR episode yet!
If you have a conversation which requires information to be revealed in a certain order, you can bet the players will – without even trying – turn the whole thing sideways and backwards. They will trick you into revealing the catch to doing a job before they’ve agreed to do it, or goad you into revealing a loophole in the local rules while they still have the opportunity to exploit it.
Adventures are so much more orderly and organized without players.
Or, “No plan survives intact, first contact with the enemy.”
Telas
ow! ow! ow! Visualizing the wheelchair ride to Rohan really hurt. Gandalf’s face is probably the best or at least the most apt screen capture yet. I don’t quite understand why the guard didn’t just say “well you’re not getting in anyway.” But it was still really funny. And it is definitely true that people will be quoting D. M. of the rings in future games for years.
I honestly don’t know whether to feel sorrier for the DM or his players. :P
Apple (former Apple Computer) closed their sauna because it could not be made sufficiently accessible, about a month ago.
Stark – C’mon! You haven’t learned not to read DMotR while drinking hot beverages, operating heavy machinery, or performing certain surgeries? I can’t drink anything for at least 20 minutes after reading, because I never know when my mind will suddenly remind me of a line (that players will be quoting in D&D campaigns for generations to come):
“Being invisible isn’t as useful as you’d think when fighting a blind creature underwater with your bare hands.”
“Welcome Noble Champions. Here are some pointy sticks. Feel free to sleep on our dirt.”
“Which is more work: making new boats or killing us and finishing the quest yourselves?”
“Let us rescue our dear friends, whose names escape me at the moment.”
Yesterday’s and today’s each had several it would be odious to list here. At least until another 10 episodes have gone by and I want to do more reminising…
I love this strip.
Mr Young, you have surpassed yourself. My wife (fernmonkey) and I are grinning like idiots here. The freeze frames of Gandalf in panels 3 and 4 are priceless in themselves, and then the conversation where the players derail the plot had me thinking “Yes, yes, this is exactly what a bunch of PCs would be saying. I’ve played with these guys!” Fernmonkey corrects me that we’ve been these guys.
Browncoat, you forgot the best one of the lot. “Keen Ranger senses”, as in “Your keen Ranger senses tell you your boots are on fire”.
Loved it, pinched it, used it. “Keen Ranger senses” is to me what those MPFC quotes are to others: A razor-sharp role-playing weapon to be kept ever-ready for the perfect “kill” moment.
Steve.
Wait a moment.
Did the DM just let his bunch of bloodthirsty, loose(weapon)handed, loot-mad killing anti-Railroad Players enter the same hall where a foul wormtongue is about to show her presence soon?
Oh Woe.
The Death of Gollum will be a minor disturbance compared to the possible disaster they could wield here o.0
Utterly brilliant! Again! :)
Wormtongue was a he? Huh.
Or were we refering to a certain reversal of flirting?
*S*he. Fuck damnit…
Aaw, i thought for sure Aragorn was gonna make a gay-crack about Legolass´ walking stick… :(
Still fun tho´
The change between 4-5 is so deep that it makes me speechless at it’s power. “Oh shit, what do I say now” moment.
Best one yet! And loved the OOTS reference in the title.
No, really. A quiver of little walking sticks. See, I have these companions who are three foot tall, and . . .
What do you mean, likely story? I’ve just run across half of bleeding Rohan chasing the little buggers!
Browncoat said
“I love this strip.”
Yeah, that about sums it up.
This one was AWESOME!!! You really made my day, keep up the good work.
Quiver of little walking sticks…. ahahahaha
“*S*he. Fuck damnit…”
Wait.. Wormtongue isn’t a he?
well, it appears I have learned something today
Would edit if I could since I just posted a minute ago, but wikipedia says that Wormtongue is a he
>>Gríma, called (the) Wormtongue, is a fictional character in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. *He* appears in blah blah *He* is introduced in The Two Towers as blah blah *he* secretly fell in league with Saruman
etc. etc.
I’ve just run across half of bleeding Rohan chasing the little buggers!
If you just ran across half of bleeding Rohan, you obviously don’t need a stick, do you? Aha, gotcha! Come on, hand it over…
“If you take a bad step at the entrance to the Golden Hall, you won’t stop rolling until you’re outside of the city.”
Keyboard. Monitor. Three speakers. Seven rubber duckies.
Do you have ANY idea how difficult it is to get Sprite(tm) off of rubber ducks???
Ya, kudos the awesome screen-caps.
Amazing how you always find just the right pick.
Well, except for Gandalf on a dragon. :D
Kudos, my brother, Kudos.
Your best one to date, for me.
Superb.
Ravs
>> Wormtongue was a he? Huh.
No, just a little grammar slip / germanism.
When i was referring to a tongue i had in mind the german gender of the Word ZUNGE which is female so i referred to the Schlangenzunge as her ;)
Just wanted to say I’m rally enjoying the comic so far and I’m looking forward to see what happens next.
I’m amused that this entry showed up on my LJ Friends/comics RSS page almost directly next to the next posting of the OOtS.
I love muttering “Wormtongue!” in a menacing Gandalf mimicry when I see the Doctor on “Deadwood”. Silly, but fun.
My current fave character had just been kitted out with his supplies when the first scene of my DM’s scenario had me knocked unconscious, stripped of nearly everything and chucked in a dungeon guarded by hyooge spiders. Yeah, that’s not a nice memory, but you have to trust your DM the way you trust the sun to do it thing, you know. Character’s still alive, so why not roll that way?
Sigh – if there were more sites like this, I’d never leave the computer alone. I’m-a keep readin’.
GANDALF :This isn’t the walking stick you’re looking for…
Outstanding entry!
Well, there would have been an easy way out of this… Gandalf still has Glamdring (that fancy sword), doesn’t he? The animated LotR aside, I don’t think it was destroyed against the Balrog. So, he could hand his elven-forged Sword of Serious Hurt to the guards, hence prompting the players to do the same. AND then hang on to his ‘walking stick’.
Of course, it is much easier to think about these things when the players don’t expect you to respond in 10 seconds or less.
As for the funny, the current version probably works better than having the players gripe about the Uber-NPC putting one over them, again. :)
[Turms] I believe you’ll find “that fancy sword” is in fact “that fancy walking stick“.
ha ha this is the best one in a while. but they are truley a masterpeice
When I got to “metal walking stick” I started laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe!
The only thing missing in this nigh-perfect piece of guard-wrangling is Gandling snickering (in NPC voice of course) in the last panel. As I GM, I usually have my best laughs when the PCs manage to do some serious fast talk.
[...] this comic on abodes while it was fresh, but I didn’t read it at that time. Anyway, the comic pokes at the basics. Ride checks don’t always make sense, sloth always insisted on giving names to places and [...]
Found this comic yesterday, and am reading through the archives. Just wanted to award you one internet cookie for this one. This is wonderful and I can’t stop laughing.
I absolutely love the “quiver of little walking sticks”. This made me laugh so hard.
I love your work, Shamus.