DM of the Rings XLI:
A New Hope

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Dec 13, 2006

Filed under: DM of the Rings 42 comments

Dave as Frodo wants to play Star Wars D&D. Gimli used to play a force adept princess.

It would have been pleasing if this extra-large (double, actually) comic had ended up being number “XL”. Missed it by one. (What kind of a dork obsesses over details like that? Sheesh.)

I’m sure this is an unexpected turn of events. Don’t worry, I know where this is going. You don’t. Ha ha.

 


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42 thoughts on “DM of the Rings XLI:
A New Hope

  1. Gropos says:

    If I had a dime for every time this happened to my group.

  2. Bogan the Mighty says:

    Oh oh…If you already haven’t thought about it seeing as how I know you have the star wars rule book once Lord of the Rings is done you now must move on to the Star Wars movies. I’ll even be kind and let you not have to suffer through the first 3…although they already have good humor built right into them.

  3. Pink Fuzzy Bunny says:

    Oh yeah! Here come the arguments about initiative, readied actions, and attack of opportunity all over again (the DM finds some obscure combination of rules that deny Han’s player an attack of opportunity and goes back to re-edit (replay) the last encounter assuming that Han did *not* fire first…the players are in an uproar, afterall everyone agrees that *Han fired first*)!

  4. TooMad says:

    Please let us ‘suffer’ through the first 3. Maybe Jar-Jar can get scragged in the second…make that the first cell.

  5. ChristianTheDane says:

    “I kinda like my archer…”

    “Yeah, i like her to.”

    Great stuff.

    1. Andy says:

      “Too” it’s right there in the speech bubble, just copy that

  6. Carl the Bold says:

    Did you just call me a dork, Shamus?

  7. SteveDJ says:

    I can see it now… The players get in a fight over whether or not to continue this current campaign and/or in which direction to proceed next. So, the group splits — just as the plot says it should! Oh, what a wonderful and evil way to railroad the players into following the plot line… :-)

    I’m probably wrong — but, keep up the good work!

  8. SteveDJ says:

    …either that, or Jar Jar is going to replace Gollum. :-O

  9. Daefaroth says:

    “Meesa think meesa wanna Precious!”

  10. Me says:

    “I'll even be kind and let you not have to suffer through the first 3…although they already have good humor built right into them.”

    Yeah.

    *scene: Darth Vader is finally born. Vader takes his first stuttering steps and looks to the heavens pumping his fists and yells “NOOooooOOOOOooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
    OOOOOOOOOOOoooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
    OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”

    Funniest scene evar!

    Also possibly worst direction and script ever.

  11. Number 2 says:

    Actually, I’m hoping he digs out his Champions/Villains & Vigilanties/Marvel Superheroes FASERIP/Mutants & Masterminds and does the X-Men movies next.

    I honestly think the formula for the script to X-3 was the screenwriters giving their kids a bunch of X-Men figurines then writing down everything they said as they were playing…

  12. Shamus says:

    Carl: No. Calling myself a dork. Sorry for the collateral damage insult.

  13. DM T. says:

    I can see the DM handing out the Star Wars characters to the group and the whole shabang starts from the top. DM reading a long introduction and the players just want to blast something :)

    Even if that’s not the case, excellent work, Shamus. Cracked me up as soon as I saw the D20 SW Rulebook.

  14. Marlous says:

    Hey there,

    I just wanted to leave a comment and say how much I’m enjoying this comic series. I got the link through a friend, and it’s hilarious to see two of my interests (Tolkien and D&D) combined in such a way. And you know, I believe that I actually know a guy or two who’d fit in there perfectly… :s

  15. drow says:

    you bastard! “i do ha ha” indeed, this whole thing is scripted, isn’t it?! we’re being railroaded!

  16. Telas says:

    Jar-Jar replace Gollum? Really bad idea, at least from a politically correct angle.

    Let’s see… the two scenes where the Gollum/Smeagol split personality shows up. The first one’s when Smeagol chases off Gollum…

    Smeagol: “Massa look affa messa now. Meesa don’t need you.”

    …or the scene when Faramir’s men capture Gollum, and the Gollum/Smeagol split personality shows up?

    Smealgol: “…but Massa our friend!”
    Gollum: “Massa betray us!”

    Yeah, let’s see how well that works out…

  17. Proteus says:

    As long as we’re mixing genres, how about if Frodo gets to Mt. Doom only to be confronted by Elrond in a suit and sunglasses, saying: “Mr. Baggins…! Surprised to see me?”

  18. I think Sauron could be played by David Bowie, as in Labyrinth (OMG, he’s actually an ELF!). No Matrix until the players start requesting timeouts to play Video Games. And when it gets right down to that, isn’t it frakking amazing that _any_ of us want to invent stuff when there are so many ready made systems that require less thought? I say it’s enough to inspire (wait for it) – A New Hope!

    Seamus – My gaming group loved the printed sample of your work. Two of us are named Dave, so I chose the strip where “Frodo” is bored and showing off the dice (something the other Dave actually did recently. Heh!).

    You’re keeping it funny, I’m keeping it bookmarked.

  19. Roxysteve says:

    I’ve always kina wondered…

    In “The Two Towers” (print version, not the magic lantern show) Frodo, Sam and Gollum spend forever trekking up and down the length of the mountains while Frodo whines about The Quest.

    When the scene in the Dead Marshes (Magic Lantern version) came and Frodo says “I wish it were over” (or something similar) Mr Brain ran internal footage of Sam saying “Righty-ho Mr Frodo!” and swatting him in the back of the head with his skillet and Gollum and Sam leaving the miserable sod face-down in a pool of dead people.

    Just so long as our heroes don’t move into GURPS “Fire Walk With Me”.

    Keep up the good work Shamus.

    Steve

  20. Zanfib says:

    “My name is Underhill!

  21. Batmanintraining says:

    Actually it is pretty cool that you brought this up especially since the current rumor is that the SW RPG Saga edition is coming out in Q1 of ’07 and that many of the changes WoTC put into it are supposedly going to be some of the changes to D&D 4.0. Of course 4.0 won’t be out for at least a year +.

  22. Thea says:

    OMG, this is too funny — you know that Elijah Wood is a huge Star Wars fan, right? How clever! (If it’s a coincidence that you’ve got ‘Lij wanting to play Star Wars, don’t tell me — let me keep thinking how clever you are. ;-) I have no idea if he plays RPG’s though.

    You pick such nice screencaps, too.

    Thanks again for these great creations.

  23. Zelest says:

    I don’t see a problem with that, I am currently GMing 5 games. One in a Swedish fantasy game, one in Kult, a GURPS, one in BESM and yet another in ShadowRun. Meanwhile another one of us in the group is GMing 1 game of BESM… a third player is GMing GURPS, GURPS, World of Darkness and another GURPS.

    Might be a D&D thing to just take one campain at a time… or we’re just very good with multitasking in our group =P

  24. Kay Shapero says:

    Sounds like Zelest’s group is acting like most of us did at the very beginning of this hobby. Most or all of us had gaming worlds anyway, so we could trade off whose game to use this session.

  25. Edge of Thornes says:

    I’ve been gaming since 1979 and the current version of my group switch off, when the ST/DM/GM gets tired/burned out his or her game goes into hiatus and someone else runs a game for a bit. We also almost always have two games running (and settlers of catan nights)
    when I was newer to gaming we did more ‘lets walk up to the store and btw my elf would do this…’ type conversations. we’ve had waitresses at TGIFridays and Marie Callendars ask if we were an acting troupe discussing parts.
    currently I know at least one of the players has been in a half dozen games a week, plus settlers, lol. last time someone was forced to change there days off at work the shifting of game days and times was like one of those domino demostrations.
    so obsessive rpging is not just for newcomers, heh…

  26. dmw144 says:

    Hi,

    i have been playing since 1976, and one of the people i was playing with in 1976 is still in a group that has been playing since first yr university back in 1980. We play pretty much every fri night (well maybe 48 of the 52 each yr allowing for mass sickness/holidays/intertate working) we used to play wed nights and fri nights till about 10-12 yrs ago when we became old and just settled for fri nights :) We dont do the 7:30 to dawn-midday games anymore either – finish around midnight lol – we are old…..

    awesome comic – my mate from 1976 pointed it out to the group a month or so ago and i just had time to look at it – i am soooo glad i did – thank you

  27. Sewicked says:

    Thanks Shamus. I really enjoy your work. It tickles me funny bone. Especially since I was quite a ways in & finally noticed all the comments people had made & had to go back to read those, too.

    FYI, current campaigns: Forgotten Realms, D&D, Mutants & Masterminds. On hiatus: Buffy & Ironclaw.

  28. Shi-Hsia says:

    Rather aptly, I found out about this comic via David Morgan-Mar et al.’s “Darths & Droids”. It’s almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy: if someone on the Internet comes up with idea X, someone else will do X.

  29. Lunafysh says:

    Kinda like Quantum Fetish Mechanics…
    The act of thinking up a new kind of fetish causes that fetish to exist.

    http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=715

  30. Oz, Rock Star of says:

    “WHOA” isn’t spelled “WOAH”. Pet peeve. If it was spelled “WOAH” it’d rhyme with “Noah,” and we don’t want that, now do we?

    This thing rocks. I’m learning a lot about RPGs. My dad did a lot of “Fantasy Trip”–which sounds like a narcotic all of a sudden–back in the day, but I’ve never gotten a chance to seriously play any D%D myself…so all I have are stories. I didn’t know the GM was allowed to make up the plot.

    Yes, I realize that it’s supposed to be D&D.

    –Mad Oz

    1. Andy says:

      OK, WOAH is just as valid a WHOA, it’s onomatopoeic, so open to interpretation. By the way, if anyone is reading this in August 2018, the Fantasy Trip just relaunched on Kickstarter, it looks good, and no, I don’t have any shares or interest in any companies involved.

  31. Andrul says:

    Actually, Lucas had planned for Jar Jar to become a Jedi which was obvious in the first movie. He was supposed to die holding back the attackers while the others escaped in Ep 2, but people screamed so loud that Lucas caved in and he ended up being the fall guy, giving bad advice to Amadala then just fading into the background.

  32. ultimate rper says:

    wow i think i might know this dm lol

  33. ERROR says:

    “Y’know, guys, I’ve been thinking-”
    “Congratulations.”

    Right up there with this exchange!

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

    :)

  34. Serenitybane says:

    “I kinda like my archer.”
    “Yeah, I like her too.”

    Awesome. It’s forward and obvious, yet truly funny!

  35. Oskamunda says:

    Everything that just happened in the last 27 comments?…Yeah, that’s what this whole strip is about.

    NEWay,

    SWRPG FTW! WOOT!

  36. Gregg says:

    It was my fault. I was looking up roleplaying games and found Nobilis. It’s a game where every player-character is a god. It was inevitable that we were going to play it.

  37. anndreana says:

    wow, that has never happens to me, i always make my own story so no one ever gets board, they actually get in an uproar when its over.

  38. James Picard says:

    And now we know where the idea for Darths and Droids first took root. Thanks for that. And thanks for a very fun webcomic in it’s own right.

  39. 4ier says:

    There are a couple of messed up character encodings in the comments.
    Me:
    I'll should be I’ll
    3… should be 3…

  40. Mentor397 says:

    I’m just going to say this – WEG’s Star Wars RPG was better. *Sniff*

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