T w e n t y S i d e d
– Shamus, Friday Dec 15, 2006
DM of the Rings Remaster! Even the Star Wars screenshots have the weird over-saturated, high-contrast hue streaming services are adding these days! Oh goody!
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A Lack of Vision and Leadership
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The Best of 2019
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Mass Effect Retrospective
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The Disappointment Engine
No Man's Sky is a game seemingly engineered to create a cycle of anticipation and disappointment.
I was very surprised at first reading that Shamus removed the characters of Frodo and Sam who ostensibly were the A-Plot of the book. But it was a wise decision, just having them bicker would have been so boring. Plus at this point Gollum was dead anyways.
Nothing interesting to say once again, only that I finish every strip with a feeling of “where can I hit the Like button?”
You found it, my friend!
Taking the fake game WAY too seriously for a sec…
How DID the GM plan to handle the split party from the books, if La Revolucion hadn’t intervened here? Splitting a party, even for part of a session, is usually an exercise in frustration. Half the party is by standing/criticizing the other half that’s actually playing, and then later they switch places. Frustrating for everyone. I can’t imagine playing half the campaign that way.
It sounds from the DM’s final comment that was the plan? That’s literally insane.
Would be a lot more sensible if the plan had been to all stay together until they got to Gondor, and then maybe send Frodo and some help to Mordor while the rest defend the city. It’s not like it’s out of the way if they’re going to Minas Morgul anyways. The party split could then be another “rapid rewrite.”
Its easier to understand when you remember that this is a bad DM.
Exactly.
The whole point of the comic is that LotR, while arguably being the basis for most fantasy TTRPG settings like those of D&D, as a story it would make an awful D&D campaign:
– Lots of railroading.
– Splitting the party mid campaign almost all the way to the ending.
– Most of the talking and important decisions are made by the DMPC creator’s pet, or some other NPC.
– Surprisingly little combat (and when it’s present, it’s unfair and stacked towards a pre-defined outcome).
– No gear vendors.
– No tavern wenches.
– No brothels (poor Aragorn).
– No cool loot drops.
– No cool classes — Aragorn and Legolas are Rangers (with no spells) and Boromir and Gimli are Fighters, that’s fine. But the party Wizard, Gandalf, has almost no spells (or refuses to use them) not to mention he’s entirely controlled by the DM. And the Hobbits.. oh boy. Not only are these four guys forced to play as Halflings by the DM (and they struck me as the kind of guys who hate playing “shorty” and/or uncool races) but they all appear to be playing the same class. Which class is that? Bards? Rogues? In any case, they don’t seem to have any spells or combat prowess. Or even the ability to pick locks. They’re good at hiding, though.
– All the important boss fights are handled by NPCs, and even the final boss is only defeated by the players carrying the McGuffin to a specified location instead of through combat or ingenuity.
In short, the DM had an idea for an epic fantasy story, and wants to reenact it through D&D at all costs, even if it makes for a not very interactive (or fun) experiece.
I made the argument recently three of the four hobbits are “nobility,” (also see “bureaucrat”) a real class in several roleplaying games. Not sure if it’s ever been available in D&D; bu I’d bet it was a specialty add-on at some point. Sometimes the “nobility” class will have a personal servant with limited powers…i.e. Sam the Gardner.
As far as I’m aware, there’s no “nobility” class per se in D&D 5E, but there’s the “noble” background, which mostly influences a couple of out-of-combat skills if I recall correctly.
I don’t remember what edition was contemporary with this comic originally, but 3.x D&D had classes for things like nobles or commoners – designed to be used ny NPCs, as they lacked most of the features that a player character class would have, but I could absolutely see this GM forcing half the party into being commoners for “immersion” or something to that effect
3.5 DMG had the meant-for-NPCs “Aristocrat” as a class, and I’m pretty sure it was…the Dragonlance 3e book that had a slightly stronger “Noble” class (that was still pretty bad).
I seem to recall from The Hobbit that Galdalf basically tricks Bilbo into joining Thorin’s party and introduces him as a “burglar.” This despite Bilbo not being a criminal or in any major way extraordinary among hobbits. The thinking seems to be, if you need a rogue, hobbits are such natural ones that you can just pluck one off the street. And yeah, Bilbo proves to be a pretty good one.
Not that LotR treats everything in The Hobbit as canon (hello, invisibility ring that has nothing else interesting about it!). But still.
Hobbits should all be rogues.
“Not only are these four guys forced to play as Halflings by the DM … but they all appear to be playing the same class”
Basic D&D and BECM D&D (ostensibly 2nd ed D&D*) had H?o?b?b?i?t?s Halflings which was it’s own class (better Thief than Thief). As was Elf (Fighter/MU).
There was no Ranger class back then, so Aragorn would have been just a spiffy Fighter.
But Shamus was probably using not using any specific rules and just employing the tropes of gaming, which makes the comic timeless in a ways that specific rules gags cannot.
* It goes Original D&D 1974, Basic and Expert D&D, BECM D&D (Basic, Expert, Champion, Master, and Immortal boxsets – most people skip mentioning or remembering Immortal), 1st ed AD&D†, 2ed AD&D, D&D 3e, D&D 4e, Pathfinder, etc, etc…
† Yeah, I’m probably screwing up the timeline, I think AD&D came before BECM, or maybe at the same time? It’s been 40 years, get off my lawn!
Would Aragorn have been a “Fighting Man”?
I just wanted to say how awesome I think it is that you’re doing a re-release of these.
IMHO, GM of the things was one of the best webcomics of the mid 2000s and is my favorite RPG webcomic ever. Seeing these back up is like getting the original half-life remastered on a modern engine, or Beth Gibbons covering old Simon and Garfunkle songs.
Sean Astin as Jedi. Good/bad, debate: