DM of the Rings XIV:
Boring Distractions

By Shamus Posted Friday Oct 6, 2006

Filed under: DM of the Rings 34 comments

PHP 5.0, Upgrade, Cahadras, Peril, Snowstorm

D&D is a sort of simulation. A simulation of living in a fantasy world where fearless heroes and dreadful monsters clash daily in spectacular battles. A world where you are a great champion, and the creator of the universe is frequently disorganized, highly distractable, and alarmingly vague on the rules of the universe he’s trying to run.

 


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34 thoughts on “DM of the Rings XIV:
Boring Distractions

  1. Heather says:

    Sigh. Yup, this one rings very true. :) Mr. DM, plese pay attention to the plot long enough to listen to our incredible solution for how o get out of this cave full of spiders. No, it has nothing to do with the latest Visual Studio release.

  2. SteveZilla says:

    Don’t forget about the players who insist on painting their Warhammer 40K figs during the game. This is made worse if they don’t have a painted fig of their own for *this* game.

  3. Heather says:

    Wow. It’s a good thing none of the guys were that gung-ho. Aren’t you glad I didn’t find a figure that didn’t perfectly fit my character?

  4. Evil Otto says:

    “Don't forget about the players who insist on painting their Warhammer 40K figs during the game. This is made worse if they don't have a painted fig of their own for *this* game.”

    Yeah! You’d never catch *me* doing that!

    (whistling nervously)

  5. ubu roi says:

    Or if they’re an artist, drawing pictures of their character on the character sheet.

  6. SteveZilla says:

    “Or if they're an artist, drawing pictures of their character on the character sheet.”

    At least that is for the game being played. And good artists are often hard to find.

  7. Antiquated Tory says:

    My wife has an unfortunate tendency to knit during games, but our current DM has an unfortunate tendency to quote exposition directly from the Iron Kingdoms campaign book. We’re a bit spoiled by our previous DM having been a fantasy author and game designer.

  8. MH says:

    So in other words, it’s exactly like the real universe.

  9. Nicki-Joe says:

    Enough geek talk! When do we kill?

  10. NeedsToHeal says:

    For the life of me, when this scene comes on, all I can think about is the PHP 5.0 migration and I crack up laughing. And the sad thing is, NO ONE knows why I’m laughing so hard at such a heartfelt scene. I think I may need to use the “hibernation” excuse so that they won’t check me into rehab.

  11. Max says:

    My players always do this, and I know absolutely nothing about computers. It drives me nuts, because I can’t even at least join in the conversation.

  12. ToYa says:

    It has begun………..

  13. Marmot says:

    Reading again through the early comic I have to conclude this one was the favorite one for me and remains the favorite. I don’t know how many readers you had then, but 13 comments are a cute kind of reminiscence :)

  14. fluchardan says:

    We had one DM who would always find ways of quoting weird al lyrics in his games and if you even snickered he’d play the tape for us so we all could “get it”. F*ing annoying that was. had to warn the newcomers a lot.

  15. Randallw says:

    I just found this comic. For a long time I have doubted if I truly was a geek, despite my work, and speaking as an experienced DM and someone who did indeed upgrade PHP on an apache server I have to say it’s proven. I’m a geek. There’s nothing funnier than stuff you have experienced yourself.

  16. Sewicked says:

    I don’t know if it drives the gm’s nuts or not, but I frequently tat during games. Of course, since I’m also taking notes, I _am_ paying attention. But when the conversation goes off-game (ie PHP migration) or it’s a situation that can be summed up by ‘the characters crossed the mountains’, why not?

  17. Just wanted to point out (as an LotR uber-geek) that you mispelled the mountain’s name. It’s Caradhras. That is all. Have a nice day.

    1. Im Sorry says:

      LOL – You misspelled misspelled

      Nice one.

      Pity you’re not a spelling uber-geek too…

  18. Cynder says:

    Okay…I TOTALLY did not understand ANY of that…guess I’m not nerdy enough XD I’m only reading this stuff cuz I was looking for funny LotR pics and whatnot…but, yes, I am a fan of RPG’s, particularly Adventure Quest and Dragon Fable, those are awesome :)Anyways, my point is I didn’t get it. I laughed at Aragorn chucking a pshyce, though XD

  19. Aragorn says:

    i play adventure quest and dragon fable!!!!!! kewl :) anyway awesome i laughing way too hard :)))

  20. Sarah C-B says:

    AQ and DF are ok especially since I don’t like to pay for anything! But D&D is such a classic and one of the best that it blows them out of the water.

    And yes, I always hated it when the other characters would go into their computer mode. I actually did serious injury to my ranger to get the attention of those computer maniacs!

  21. ERROR says:

    “That DOES it! I’m jumping off this cliff.”

    Heh.

  22. Spit Fyre says:

    Reminds me of the day my hamster died.

  23. Leyomi the Parodier says:

    one of the funniest and best-put together ones yet. I was laughing very hard.

  24. ColdFrog says:

    This was the best part about the Discworld based GURPS system: anytime someone got distracted and got off-topic you could always write it off as a parody of the real world, blame it on Rincewind and get on with your fake life.

  25. Leyomi the Parodier says:

    As composition goes, this is quite probably one of your best strips.

  26. gnomebard says:

    “A world where you are a great champion, and the creator of the universe is frequently disorganized, highly distractable, and alarmingly vague on the rules of the universe he's trying to run.”

    quoted for truth!

  27. Ebony says:

    I ALWAYS draw my character, but not on my character sheet, then it looks all fuzzy at the end of the campaign from constant flipping and rubbing on other pages…instead, i draw it on high quality tinted paper with a bit of texture and a scent of lavender..she normally is of high charisma so of course she has to be drawn on the best paper…shes HAWT! with a capital HAW!

  28. Jen says:

    This is amazing!

  29. General Karthos says:

    I always found it a bit out of character for Aragormless to be the one trying to get people to focus on the story/adventure. I’m guessing he’s computer illiterate, because that’s the only reason I can figure for him to actually try to get the other players and the DM back on track.

  30. 4ier says:

    There are a couple of messed up character encodings in the comments.
    Evil Otto has two instances of Don't, which should be Don’t, but only the first needs a capital D if you’re whole-word-replacing.
    SteveZilla has they're, which should be they’re.

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