Penny Arcade - Comic - Lycan’t Even

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Penny Arcade - Comic - Lycan’t Even

Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.

Read the full story here

Skull2185

Nothing worse than when your Warlock starts blowing saves. I know it's just a fact of life, and part of the game, but Morvak was so good in his prime. Just look at his numbers this season... 8.96 ERA (Erratic Rage Abominations summoned). I can't say I blame The Sirens for trading him, though I'm not sure who would take him. Maybe Boise will step up and do a courtesy trade. Shaxion the (crumbling) Golem for Morvak? I dunno... Morvak for the Hall of Fame though! He definitely earned it.

Lucascraft

Maximar the Great has that Golden Armor of Asgard, but he also has that eldritch curse, so he might be a good trade. It's all about the armor.

RatherDashing89

I love the ways that this comic engages with or references memes (with a ten foot pole).

fallaxdraco

Something like dsports actually used to exist, on a very small scale. I mean beyond the "people streaming their D&D games" thing PA is already a part of. Google "Hackmaster tournaments". Haven't looked into that for many years, and it looks like it isn't active anymore, though.

KoopahTroopah

That first panel is fucking aces. Bravo.

rlrapp

You should really check out the X-Crawl setting http://goodman-games.com/xcrawl/ by Goodman games if this kind of roleplay appeals to you. Teams compete against each other to complete the dungeon created by the DJ (Dungeon Jockey) in the shortest time. I love the setting, and you can run tournaments with it at cons.

RatherDashing89

Outside the context of this joke I have no idea how competitive roleplaying would work.

Enlong

Like Pathfinder Societies in that each character is persistent across a long campaign, perhaps. Each team would meet at their own location for the same module each week, and various stats are tracked for each team, including teammates surviving, gold gained, and profane idols smashed. If a character dies, that's it, unless the team is in a position to resurrect them. The finals would see the top two teams fly out to a single location, and the final module pits them against each other, either in direct combat, or in who can clear the module most effectively.

italianranma

KoopahTroopah wrote: »

That first panel is fucking aces. Bravo.

@KoopahTroopah I'm lost. Who's Drake and which pictures is he in?

RatherDashing89

I am aware of how utterly pretentious this is going to sound, but I'll proceed anyway. I'm the first person to say that everyone has their own way of playing pen and paper RPGs, and I try to accommodate my own players' preferences with the types of stories we do.

But the concept of playing one of these games "to win" is entirely alien to me. It seems antithetical to the core of the game.

I mean, who would DM? Someone on your team? The opposing team? A neutral party? Normally the DM and players are working together to tell a story. But if the goal is for your character to be as successful as possible, suddenly the DM and players are antagonists. And I know DnD has a lot more rules than systems I am used to, but surely still a DM has the power to just screw a party over if they wanted to hinder them? Rocks fall, everybody dies.

I have been assuming the fact that DnD is not a competitive game, in my mind, was just part of the joke. But so many people have said it's a great idea that I'm starting to wonder if I just have a totally different idea of what pen and paper RPGs are to people.

KoopahTroopah

italianranma wrote: »

KoopahTroopah wrote: »

That first panel is fucking aces. Bravo.

@KoopahTroopah I'm lost. Who's Drake and which pictures is he in?

@italianranma here's the meme template. Drake is a rapper most recently known for his album Scorpion. He's the guy who made that Kiki song that everyone is ghost riding to and doing stupid things that would usually get you arrested for disrespecting driving a motor vehicle.

Just to help do my part and kill the meme, it usually goes first picture of Drake next to something you don't want, second picture of Drake next to something related to the first picture that you really want. Now it's evolved into going in reverse order for comedic irony.

Edit - Here's a good one involving cats.

PLA

This is good.

YoungFrey

RatherDashing89 wrote: »

I am aware of how utterly pretentious this is going to sound, but I'll proceed anyway. I'm the first person to say that everyone has their own way of playing pen and paper RPGs, and I try to accommodate my own players' preferences with the types of stories we do.

But the concept of playing one of these games "to win" is entirely alien to me. It seems antithetical to the core of the game.

I mean, who would DM? Someone on your team? The opposing team? A neutral party? Normally the DM and players are working together to tell a story. But if the goal is for your character to be as successful as possible, suddenly the DM and players are antagonists. And I know DnD has a lot more rules than systems I am used to, but surely still a DM has the power to just screw a party over if they wanted to hinder them? Rocks fall, everybody dies.

I have been assuming the fact that DnD is not a competitive game, in my mind, was just part of the joke. But so many people have said it's a great idea that I'm starting to wonder if I just have a totally different idea of what pen and paper RPGs are to people.

Competitive D&D play has been a thing since at least 1977.
I'm sure there are many many variations, but this one consisted of teams all running the same pre-written modules trying to score the most points. Points obtained by reaching certain goals. I saw one tournament module that was a murder mystery (written by one Michael Selinker) and you gained or lost points by figuring out aspects of the mystery (or accusing the wrong people).

KoopahTroopah

Wow, got around to reading the news post for this comic and the ending got brutal. Tycho's stepdad was a complete bad ass.

Skull2185

KoopahTroopah wrote: »

Wow, got around to reading the news post for this comic and the ending got brutal. Tycho's stepdad was a complete bad ass.

My brain omitted the "bad" before the "ass". Then I went and read the news post and became confused and a little angry at you. Fortunately I re-read your post :P

Andy Joe

RatherDashing89 wrote: »

I am aware of how utterly pretentious this is going to sound, but I'll proceed anyway. I'm the first person to say that everyone has their own way of playing pen and paper RPGs, and I try to accommodate my own players' preferences with the types of stories we do.

But the concept of playing one of these games "to win" is entirely alien to me. It seems antithetical to the core of the game.

I mean, who would DM? Someone on your team? The opposing team? A neutral party? Normally the DM and players are working together to tell a story. But if the goal is for your character to be as successful as possible, suddenly the DM and players are antagonists. And I know DnD has a lot more rules than systems I am used to, but surely still a DM has the power to just screw a party over if they wanted to hinder them? Rocks fall, everybody dies.

I have been assuming the fact that DnD is not a competitive game, in my mind, was just part of the joke. But so many people have said it's a great idea that I'm starting to wonder if I just have a totally different idea of what pen and paper RPGs are to people.

Competitive dungeon raiding was actually something that occurred in an earlier era of D&D, right? Different teams would compete to see how far they could get in Tomb of Horrors or shit like that.