D&D is a wild experience when you’re invested, you’re simultaneously playing a game, creating a narrative, and become a fandom??? so you and your friends can talk for hours about your characters and theories while guarding character secrets to not spoil anything and then think ‘i can’t wait for the next episode’, while knowing you’ll actually be collaboratively generating content, but are still like ‘i cant believe my dumbass child did that’
Once upon a time, I was running a DnD game for some friends. The player characters were checking out reports that a local town had been having trouble with monsters. They’re informed that it was true, a few years ago, but a copper dragon set up a lair in the mountains and chased all the awful creatures out. A dragon slayer showed up shortly thereafter and neither dragon nor slayer were heard from again. Players are disappointed at first, but then quickly perk up when some other plot threads become apparent.
A few sessions later, the place they were staying burned down (their fault), forcing them to check out the more expensive tavern in town. There, they meet Allie Cohol, a half-elf woman with red hair that owned and ran the tavern. She was cheerfully greedy, but still helpful and always ready with a cheesey joke… And after only the third joke, one of the players, Bill, froze and locked eyes with me. “You fucker. She’s the copper dragon,” Bill says.
That reveal was supposed to be a big thing later, so I’m kinda on the spot. Fortunately, another player, Fran, pipes up and says, “nah, that’s stupid. The dragon in the mountain is a red herring. We’re here for the cultists.” The cultists were in the sewer and the PCs were actually working for the cleric Big Bad without them knowing.
“No, listen,” Bill continued. “Red hair. Greedy. Bad jokes… Her name is Allie Cohol.”
Everyone around the table gives him a fairly blank look, but I’m sweating bullets. Threads that I had spun oh so carefully were half a heartbeat away from unraveling. Bill is getting this real wild look in his eyes and pounds a fist against the table. “Allie Cohol. HER NAME IS ALCOHOL.”
Fran then slowly pans over and looks me dead in the eyes. “The deadly joke ability. She’s a goddamn dragon.”
My roommate’s boyfriend is playing DnD (online? Facetime? Idk) in the next room and mostly he’s quiet but he just erupted out in a scratchy character voice “Where are my socks? Are they in your mouth? Spit them out right now!”
Why does the pirate aesthetic have to go so hard like? I absolutely want to wear two coats and tall boots and a ton of fucking knives and a sword hello??? maybe not lose an eye but we all have to make sacrifices
Thanks to everyone that poked their head into my stream today! Here’s the final outcome of my Nott the Brave fanart that I finished on stream. I’m still not all the way caught up with Critical Role, but I’m slowly making my way through it all.
