The Costner
The Dungeon: #11
<PREV | NEXT>
Based On a True Story
One of my favorite things about this comic is how it’s become a lens through which our gaming personalities can be glimpsed. In most instances, it’s an idealized likeness; our real-life Wizard (Shawn) has yet to accidentally kill the entire party.1 The comic is ‘based on a true story’ in the Hollywood sense. Embellishing truth to amplify narrative payload.
The events in this week’s strip have yet to happen in-game, but that’s only because the Warrior (Chad) has never encountered a roomful of horny elven maidens.
D&D is a game in which the joy of discovery is the reason for playing. How will your players respond to this trap or enemy? It’s less interesting when you already know what they’ll do. For whatever reason, elven maidens—and only elven maidens—are Chad’s weakness. The kryptonite against which he has no natural antibodies.
Naturally, we have only used this knowledge for good.2
This strip came out of jokes made around the table about how Chad would respond to this exact situation. We even used the Costner gif from Superman in describing his response.3 This strip, then, is a completing-the-circle moment.
<PREV | NEXT>
In fact, the truth is far stranger: Shawn has managed to get himself killed, on two separate occasions and with two different characters, through foolhardy and hilarious actions entirely his own. The rest of the party was fine. It was the inverse of the situation portrayed in the Kobe! comic strip.
The king in my city-based campaign recently deported all non-humans from the capital. I took great relish describing the long procession of wagons full of elven maidens crying out as Chad’s character stood helplessly by.
He got himself arrested a few sessions later. I’m still not convinced it’s not a ploy to stage a prison break.
There’s actually another movie reference in this strip, other than Superman. See if you can spot it. Leave your guess in the comments!
I assume panel 2 was down one of those hallways we ignored on Saturday.