# Community - "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" - 2/3/2011



## Aniketos (Mar 6, 2006)

Ok, I had some issues with Pierce being the villain this week (and last week) he's always been my least favorite character, but this episode was hilarious. I think it was the best one of the season for me. Annie and the elf maiden might have been the funniest sequence on television ever.

"I attack them, using my... additional notes."
"You're the AT&T of people."
"And as they described themselves walking, so did Abed confirm that they walked."
"Huzzah! Is that right?"
"You are a human warrior which is five species classes greater than I."


----------



## Hunter Green (Feb 22, 2002)

Often episodes of Community are so full of allusions that you get the feeling it's hilarious to someone else, but not you, because you don't know the allusions that well, or they don't mean that much to you. This is definitely an episode where I was in the inside crowd; I've been playing roleplaying games for thirty years now, and it's been my #1 hobby the whole time. I was falling off my sofa laughing the whole time.

But I'm wondering, did people who haven't been playing these games find it flat, or at least a little funny? It's hard to step far enough out of my own experience to be able to tell if the references also worked on their own. And almost nothing was really an "inside joke" -- they steered clear of alluding to specific things, just stuck to the general sense.


----------



## mmilton80 (Jul 28, 2005)

I've never played D&D. My cousin used to and it looked cool (he was older so he always seemed to do cool things). After watching this episode, I want to see if he'll play with me!


----------



## Aniketos (Mar 6, 2006)

MODS! Thread merge!


----------



## verdugan (Sep 9, 2003)

Aniketos said:


> Annie and the elf maiden might have been the funniest sequence on television ever.


I like how she mouthed "3, no, 4 fingers" and then had a surprised look on her face. And how she mimicked grabbing the maiden's ... assets. And Troy taking notes through it all.


----------



## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

I was lost. I have never done any kind of role playing games. I've never even seen D&D, LOTR or played any 3rd person games. Most of this went over my head. I now know how people who have never seen Goodfellas felt during the chicken episode. 

There were still some funny moments but overall I was not enjoying it.


----------



## Aniketos (Mar 6, 2006)

verdugan said:


> I like how she mouthed "3, no, 4 fingers" and then had a surprised look on her face. And how she mimicked grabbing the maiden's ... assets. And Troy taking notes through it all.


Also, "I gently cup her right breast, then her left", "I pull out my huge member" and "I flip her over and give her a spanking." God help me I rewatched it just to read her lips.


----------



## spikedavis (Nov 23, 2003)

Great episode....or GREATEST episode?


----------



## Maui (Apr 22, 2000)

I loved it! I have never done live D&D roleplaying and only played the computer games. It was hilarious, I especially loved the voiceovers!


----------



## Jeeters (Feb 25, 2003)

I played D&D in high school. Not a ton, but enough. Also a small bit in college too. That's approaching 25 years ago.

I loved this episode. I watched it twice. There was so much going on that I didn't catch a few jokes until the second viewing. I also actually found myself becoming engrossed in the story Abed was telling.

I rank this one right up there with the paint ball episode.


----------



## Hunter Green (Feb 22, 2002)

I waited for a thread and triple-checked before I started one, and then someone else managed to get one in two minutes before me anyway. 

I am going to have to rewatch because I couldn't even see the screen too much of the time from laughing. I think it may take a lot of watchings before I can get through Annie and the elf maiden, though.


----------



## DreadPirateRob (Nov 12, 2002)

Never played D&D (but kind of always wanted to), and I thought it was awesome. Clearly, the highlight was Annie satisfying the Elf Maiden, with Troy halfway through realizing that he better take notes.


----------



## Mr Flippant (Jan 2, 2009)

One of the best episodes ever. I played D&D once over a weekend but that was it. now I know what we lacked ws a DM like Abed, he was the best after all he came up with the Elf Maiden. I was laughing long after the show ended.


----------



## rahnbo (Sep 12, 2010)

I tried to play in HS (circa 1988) and got bored real fast. Either way this episode was freaking hilarious and I like how they do something different with it almost every week. I almost can't stand to watch a "normal" episode any longer.


----------



## verdugan (Sep 9, 2003)

Aniketos said:


> Also, "I gently cup her right breast, then her left", "I pull out my huge member" and "I flip her over and give her a spanking." God help me I rewatched it just to read her lips.


I did too *blush*


----------



## dilorc (Feb 13, 2002)

What, are we just going to ignore the hate crime over there?

That was the darkest makeup I've ever seen. And he was only in the episode for 5 min.

I thought this was a hilarious episode.


----------



## busyba (Feb 5, 2003)

The business with Britta and the Gnome waiter had me in tears.

And yeah, I also totally replayed Annie's "sex" scene to read her lips.


----------



## busyba (Feb 5, 2003)

dilorc said:


> That was the darkest makeup I've ever seen.


Yeah, I was flashing back to This Is Spinal Tap: "it's like, how much more black can it be? And the answer is none. None more black."


----------



## DreadPirateRob (Nov 12, 2002)

busyba said:


> The business with Britta and the Gnome waiter had me in tears.
> 
> And yeah, I also totally replayed Annie's "sex" scene to read her lips.


Me too x2. I love the reaction that everyone else gives Britta: "Ugh". And of course, Abed giving the dying Gnome waiter the name "Kyle" is another shout-out to the earlier joke that he's terrible with making up names.

And the Annie scene is a nice payoff to the fact that she would just found out that she lives over a Dildopolis.


----------



## robojerk (Jun 13, 2006)

dilorc said:


> That was the darkest makeup I've ever seen. And he was only in the episode for 5 min.


I own a plasma TV and anything near the hue black, is really black on my TV.

A lot of time black people in dark scenes (night time for instance) have no facial features on my TV. The black guy from the show numb3rs, up until now has had it worst on the screen, but now Chang has topped him. Just a black shape with two white eyeballs glaring out. I can't really describe it, there's no facial features at all, except when they in profile or something.

Anyone else with a plasma TV experience the same thing?


----------



## windracer (Jan 3, 2003)

Hunter Green said:


> But I'm wondering, did people who haven't been playing these games find it flat, or at least a little funny?


I loved this episode! This now rounds out my top three with Paintball and Zombies. My wife's comment was "I guess it would be funnier if I understood Dungeons & Dragons."



dilorc said:


> What, are we just going to ignore the hate crime over there?


"Shouldn't you be wearing armor or something?"
"I'm an elf, not a nerd!"



I had a few minor nits: I would think Shirley, with her religious beliefs, would have objected to playing AD&D which had all the satanic backlash in the 80s. Also, the players _usually_ get to roll their own dice, while the DM is counter-rolling for the NPCs (or other results).

I could sympathize with Abed when Pierce found a copy of the game and used it against the group. I had players do that to me once in a Shadowrun campaign and it's no fun for anyone.


----------



## Jeeters (Feb 25, 2003)

dilorc said:


> That was the darkest makeup I've ever seen. And he was only in the episode for 5 min.


There was a documentary I watched last year about people that go to gaming conventions to play D&D together, etc. A girl in the documentary dressed exactly like this... platinum wig, pointed ears, and black makeup that she makes herself.

http://movies.netflix.com/Movie/The_Dungeon_Masters/70108785


----------



## busyba (Feb 5, 2003)

When Pierce cast the change shape spell and said to make him "faaaaat", I couldn't help but flashback to Deep Space 9 and the Romulan Senator declaring of a forged data crystal that "it's a faaaaake!"


----------



## busyba (Feb 5, 2003)




----------



## DreadPirateRob (Nov 12, 2002)

Annie and the Elf Maiden:


----------



## Jesda (Feb 12, 2005)

Chevy Chase as an antagonist = Brilliant


----------



## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

I know nothing about D&D, never played it, don't even know how it works (is this how it works?). Didn't make any difference, it was a fantastic episode.

I think sometimes people make too much about the references in this show, and how this came from that show, and this referred to that movie, and on and on. And if you haven't seen it, you can't really enjoy it. Hogwash, I say. I love this show, and haven't seen half of what is supposedly (according to these TCF threads) referred to in each episode. It's just a fun show.

One neg: I found Chevy Chase to be unfunnily mean. He was so cruel this episode that you wonder why the group keeps him.


----------



## betts4 (Dec 27, 2005)

windracer said:


> Also, the players _usually_ get to roll their own dice, while the DM is counter-rolling for the NPCs (or other results).


I wondered about this too. I played a little in HS and college (my community college  ) and I didn't have my own personal dice, and it has been so long ago I don't remember if I borrowed the DM's dice to roll or if he just did it for me.

And, thanks to TCF and the threads that talk about this show, this was my first episode and it is now on a season pass. Thank you!


----------



## Tangent (Feb 25, 2005)

I loved the "character" introductions in the beginning. "Abed the undiagnosable" :up:

Troy taking notes during Annies sex scene description was great.



robojerk said:


> I own a plasma TV and anything near the hue black, is really black on my TV.
> 
> A lot of time black people in dark scenes (night time for instance) have no facial features on my TV. The black guy from the show numb3rs, up until now has had it worst on the screen, but now Chang has topped him. Just a black shape with two white eyeballs glaring out. I can't really describe it, there's no facial features at all, except when they in profile or something.
> 
> Anyone else with a plasma TV experience the same thing?


I don't get that on my plasma. Have you ever tweaked the settings? Go here and look up your model TV. Their recommended settings on mine made a big difference in how good it looked.


----------



## vman41 (Jun 18, 2002)

astrohip said:


> One neg: I found Chevy Chase to be unfunnily mean. He was so cruel this episode that you wonder why the group keeps him.


They pity him.


----------



## vman41 (Jun 18, 2002)

windracer said:


> I had a few minor nits: I would think Shirley, with her religious beliefs, would have objected to playing AD&D which had all the satanic backlash in the 80s. Also, the players _usually_ get to roll their own dice, while the DM is counter-rolling for the NPCs (or other results).


When I played AD&D in college, my grandmother was sure I was doing something satanic. We rolled our own too. I still use the d10s when I have to make a numeric password from some web sites.


----------



## busyba (Feb 5, 2003)

::rolls dice:: "you have successfully rubbed your balls with the Sword of Duchane"


----------



## MikeCC (Jun 19, 2004)

astrohip said:


> One neg: I found Chevy Chase to be unfunnily mean. He was so cruel this episode that you wonder why the group keeps him.


This.

Pierce was so vicious and nasty that it ruined the show for me. I now detest that character. The pathetic atempt to redeem him at the end did not work for me--the "ironic twist" that it was Pierce's cruel intensity that made Neil want to live so he could play AD&D with Pierce again.

Um, nope. Didn't work.

Sorry, that a**wipe is outta the group. He's clingy, needy, and cruel. No reason to go through life dealing with a jackass like that unless you have to. And they don't have to. Buh bye!


----------



## Fool Me Twice (Jul 6, 2004)

Pierce was a hilarious villain. But, that need not carry over to next week. They can simply ignore it. Just like Jeff learns the same lesson every week. The show is far enough from reality that it doesn't really matter.


----------



## USAFSSO (Aug 24, 2005)

My only problem this week was Pierce, and only because he was an over the top jerk last week. The back-to-back eps was what got me.

Over all a great ep. In the end tag were all the cleaning ladies playing D&D?


----------



## Test (Dec 8, 2004)

Fat Neil was the pizza delivery guy from this weeks episode of perfect couples.


----------



## busyba (Feb 5, 2003)

USAFSSO said:


> In the end tag were all the cleaning ladies playing D&D?


I don't think those were cleaning ladies. I think that was just a different study group that was all asian ladies.


----------



## Bryanmc (Sep 5, 2000)

robojerk said:


> I own a plasma TV and anything near the hue black, is really black on my TV.
> 
> A lot of time black people in dark scenes (night time for instance) have no facial features on my TV. The black guy from the show numb3rs, up until now has had it worst on the screen, but now Chang has topped him. Just a black shape with two white eyeballs glaring out. I can't really describe it, there's no facial features at all, except when they in profile or something.
> 
> Anyone else with a plasma TV experience the same thing?


Your television is calibrated incorrectly.


----------



## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

Had to watch this twice...it was fantastic...the sex scene was awesome and I noticed on the second viewing that Abed had his hands tied to the ceiling by the time it was over  :up:

and I have never played any role playing game or even knew what they were about (I've heard of D&D but never really knew what it was)...the show was still very funny...


----------



## MikeCC (Jun 19, 2004)

Bryanmc said:


> Your television is calibrated incorrectly.


True.

The benefit of a plasma is that it can show true black, as well as hundreds and hundreds of lighter shades of black to grey to white. If your TV shows dark areas as inky black, with no details in shadows, then you need to reset it.

A professional calibration would be ideal, but may not be necessary. Try backing off the settings. Use a calibration DVD. The detail available on programs is awesome, and you are missing probably half of it.

You may be _receiving _high definition, but with your TV settings, you aren't _seeing _high definition.


----------



## dtle (Dec 12, 2001)

"I won Dungeons & Dragons, and it was Advanced!" - Pierce

AD&D was the 2nd edition of D&D, which had a lot of the rules revised and game play expanded. (Not to be confused with AD&D 2nd edition, which would probably be called D&D 2.5.)


----------



## IndyJones1023 (Apr 1, 2002)

I figured Abed was rolling because everyone (excepting Neil) was new to the game so he did that to hurry things along.

And I thought Pierce was too evil. They should have made Chang the bad guy so they have more reason to keep him out of the group.


----------



## jami (Dec 18, 2003)

Hunter Green said:


> But I'm wondering, did people who haven't been playing these games find it flat, or at least a little funny?


Big fan of the show, but I've never played D&D. It was not funny for me.


----------



## logic88 (Jun 7, 2001)

Jesda said:


> Chevy Chase as an antagonist = Brilliant


Pierce is kinda like the Sheldon of Community. In real life, they would have booted him out a long time ago.

Great episode though. Easily the best of this season so far.


----------



## getreal (Sep 29, 2003)

logic88 said:


> Pierce is kinda like the Sheldon of Community.


Sheldon?


----------



## Hunter Green (Feb 22, 2002)

Big Bang Theory's Sheldon.


----------



## busyba (Feb 5, 2003)

getreal said:


> Sheldon?


Yeah, he's good for doing your taxes, but humping and bumping is not his strong suit.


----------



## gossamer88 (Jul 27, 2005)

I loved the credits and the musical score.


----------



## DreadPirateRob (Nov 12, 2002)

busyba said:


> Yeah, he's good for doing your taxes, but humping and bumping is not his strong suit.


Well-played. :up: But the actual quote is:



Harry Burns said:


> A Sheldon can do your income taxes. If you need a root canal, Sheldon's your man. But humping and pumping are not Sheldon's strong suits. It's the name. Do it to me, Sheldon. You're an animal, Sheldon. Ride me, big Sheldon. It doesn't work.


----------



## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

Maybe I'm not watching the same episode as you all, but I actually thought this was one of the weakest episodes of the series. I felt lost in the whole D&D thing as I never played it. The whole premise of the game was alien to me and it seemed like Abed was making up the story as he went along (is that how it works?) As always in Community there's some stuff that's funny, even in a bad episode. I liked how they ganged up on Chang to get him booted (and his costume was funny) and Annie being "the well endowed" was funny in itself. Otherwise I felt I was sitting in on another inside joke I didn't get.


----------



## spikedavis (Nov 23, 2003)

Steveknj said:


> Otherwise I felt I was sitting in on another inside joke I didn't get.


You were.


----------



## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

And that's the problem with Community. If you get the jokes, it's the funniest show on TV, but if you are outside the inside joke, you just stare at the screen and go huh?

In the Big Bang Theory thread a lot of the...ummmm...more geeky posters have been complaining about how they've went away from how the show was in the first season where they more emphasized the geeky aspects of the characters and went a bit more mainstream. My reasoning is, that they had to "expand" the characters in order to bring in a more mainstream audience and thus keep ratings high enough to justify the show. I think Community suffers from a similar problem. Sometimes they write for a small segment of the audience that "gets it" and screw the rest of you who don't. But if most of your audience doesn't get the jokes, they will turn the show off. It's doomed for failure. Luckily Community is on NBC where the ratings standards are lower right now. On NBC, I think 30 Rock does a great balance of writing the show for TV insiders yet there's enough humor that the average viewer would get that they can get away with it. Community doesn't do this enough.


----------



## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

Hunter Green said:


> Often episodes of Community are so full of allusions that you get the feeling it's hilarious to someone else, but not you, because you don't know the allusions that well, or they don't mean that much to you. This is definitely an episode where I was in the inside crowd; I've been playing roleplaying games for thirty years now, and it's been my #1 hobby the whole time. I was falling off my sofa laughing the whole time.
> 
> But I'm wondering, did people who haven't been playing these games find it flat, or at least a little funny? It's hard to step far enough out of my own experience to be able to tell if the references also worked on their own. And almost nothing was really an "inside joke" -- they steered clear of alluding to specific things, just stuck to the general sense.


See my post in the other thread for the episode. I felt lost in an inside joke I didn't get, thus for me, this was not one of the better episodes.


----------



## doom1701 (May 15, 2001)

I've never played D&D, but I did feel that they explained it well enough for me to understand what was going on.


----------



## spikedavis (Nov 23, 2003)

When you write your material to play to the widest market possible, you eliminate the chance to have gems like this. I for one am glad that the creative team isn't worried about playing to the widest market possible and is concerned with turning out a quality, memorable product. So you feel that because the majority of people wouldn't get all the jokes in this episode, they should have scrapped the idea? That's how we ended up with drivel like Everybody Loves Raymond, The King of Queens and Two and a Half Men.


----------



## Alfer (Aug 7, 2003)

doom1701 said:


> I've never played D&D, but I did feel that they explained it well enough for me to understand what was going on.


This.....it was an amusing episode but the Pierce thing was way too over the top IMO.


----------



## mmilton80 (Jul 28, 2005)

Steveknj said:


> See my post in the other thread for the episode. I felt lost in an inside joke I didn't get, thus for me, this was not one of the better episodes.


For someone with a signature declaring himself to be "Naturally Curious," you kinda seem anything but.


----------



## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

mmilton80 said:


> For someone with a signature declaring himself to be "Naturally Curious," you kinda seem anything but.


Huh? 'splain please...


----------



## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

spikedavis said:


> When you write your msterial to play to the widest market possible, you eliminate the chance to have gems like this. I for one am glad that the creative team isn't worried about playing to the widest market possible and is concerned with turning out a quality, memorable product. So you feel that because the majority of people wouldn't get all the jokes in this episode, they should have scrapped the idea? That's how we ended up with drivel like Everybody Loves Raymond, The King of Queens and Two and a Half Men.


Well I liked Raymond...but I digress. There has to be a happy medium. There's a place for "Smart" shows. As I said, week to week 30 Rock does this as well as any show. I think Big Bang Theory for most of it's run adjusted to where the audience understands the characters and the jokes without having to understand quantum physics. Community just tries to be too "hip". Too "inside". As I said, the shows where I got the jokes, it's the funniest thing on TV. The paint ball episode and the zombie episode I just watched over and over and laughed my head off. But this one, I just felt most of it went over my head.


----------



## mmilton80 (Jul 28, 2005)

Steveknj said:


> Huh? 'splain please...


Sure - and this is partly because you complained in both episode threads about how this episode fell flat on you because you don't understand D&D. If you were naturally curious, you might find yourself doing some light research on D&D. Then to you, possibly, it may become funny.

Or just watch reruns of Everyone Loves Raymond. Or just a traditional catch phrase sitcom.


----------



## photoshopgrl (Nov 22, 2008)

mmilton80 said:


> Sure - and this is partly because you complained in both episode threads about how this episode fell flat on you because you don't understand D&D. If you were naturally curious, you might find yourself doing some light research on D&D. Then to you, possibly, it may become funny.
> 
> Or just watch reruns of Everyone Loves Raymond. Or just a traditional catch phrase sitcom.


I think that's uncalled for. Sorry I didn't find this episode all that great either because I've never played D&D. And why do you think I'd want to do "light research"? If it was a topic of interest, I'd have done that 10+ years ago dontcha think?


----------



## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

mmilton80 said:


> Sure - and this is partly because you complained in both episode threads about how this episode fell flat on you because you don't understand D&D. If you were naturally curious, you might find yourself doing some light research on D&D. Then to you, possibly, it may become funny.
> 
> Or just watch reruns of Everyone Loves Raymond. Or just a traditional catch phrase sitcom.


That's what I come here for. I let you guys explain it to me. I kind of got the drift of the game as they were playing it, it just didn't interest me.

And really, to watch a sitcom, I need to do research? That's ridiculous. Yeah, maybe if, in passing they mentioned it, as they do with a lot of pop culture things, it's ok, but to base a whole show on a premise that maybe .001% of their audience gets is a bit of a reach IMO.


----------



## mmilton80 (Jul 28, 2005)

photoshopgrl said:


> I think that's uncalled for. Sorry I didn't find this episode all that great either because I've never played D&D. And why do you think I'd want to do "light research"? If it was a topic of interest, I'd have done that 10+ years ago dontcha think?


Possibly. And this was more directed at his comments in the other thread about the same episode where is spent 3 posts complaining about how the show tries to be "too hip," and they sometimes write for a small section of the audience and says "screw the rest of you who don't." Then lamenting when he gets the inside joke that he laughs his head off.

So, my comment was not directed at you at all. But hey, whatever.


----------



## IndyJones1023 (Apr 1, 2002)

The only thing you need to know about D&D to get this show is that it's a roll playing game with dice.


----------



## Bob Coxner (Dec 1, 2004)

I'm familiar with the basic D&D concepts but I've never played the game. I loved this episode. How rare is it to actually see a new idea on tv these days? Give some love to the Community writers.


----------



## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

photoshopgrl said:


> I think that's uncalled for. Sorry I didn't find this episode all that great either because I've never played D&D. And why do you think I'd want to do "light research"? If it was a topic of interest, I'd have done that 10+ years ago dontcha think?


Exactly. The problem is two fold. First, the premise of the show was based on something that was popular like 20 years ago. So even the "geeks" of today have moved on to other things. Those who played D&D in the 80s and 90s are even out of the core demo that advertisers are going for in some respects. Second, this isn't a docudrama about WWII, this is a sitcom, where I want to spend my 30 minutes laughing at the jokes, not spend the following hour after trying to figure out what it was all about.

I still love the show, and there were some funny parts, but there was way too much in this episode that were "too" inside. It's not even current pop culture anymore. Even in it's day, D&D was played by an extremely small segment of people.


----------



## Kablemodem (May 26, 2001)

I know absolutely nothing about D&D, but I didn't feel lost at all. Very funny episode. The weird thing is I don't remember Annie's story. I must have fallen asleep, which I do whenever I lay on the couch to watch TV. I have to sit at the computer while watching TV if I don't want to miss anything.


----------



## BradJW (Jun 9, 2008)

Never played D&D. I don't think I was ever the target audience for that game (and I certainly wouldn't guess much of the cast of Community is either).

I didn't feel lost at all. Loved it.


----------



## BK89 (Oct 11, 2005)

Steveknj said:


> Exactly. The problem is two fold. First, the premise of the show was based on something that was popular like 20 years ago. So even the "geeks" of today have moved on to other things. Those who played D&D in the 80s and 90s are even out of the core demo that advertisers are going for in some respects. Second, this isn't a docudrama about WWII, this is a sitcom, where I want to spend my 30 minutes laughing at the jokes, not spend the following hour after trying to figure out what it was all about.
> 
> I still love the show, and there were some funny parts, but there was way too much in this episode that were "too" inside. It's not even current pop culture anymore. Even in it's day, D&D was played by an extremely small segment of people.


I really dont get how this show was "inside" at all. The above poster has it right, all you needed to know is they are playing a game. The funny part was the story.


----------



## DreadPirateRob (Nov 12, 2002)

IndyJones1023 said:


> The only thing you need to know about D&D to get this show is that it's a roll playing game with dice.


This. (Well, to be precise, it is a rol*e*-playing game with dice). I never played D&D, and I had no more than a passing understanding of it (basically whatever I learned from watching _ET_ ), but had no problem following along and laughing at the show.


----------



## busyba (Feb 5, 2003)

When South Park did their World of Warcraft episode, i hadn't played any WoW yet, but it was still funny and entertaining. Then i started playing it, and I went back and watched the episode again and a lot of the jokes were a lot funnier.


----------



## IndyJones1023 (Apr 1, 2002)

Oops, yes - role. None of what they were talking about during the game play were inside jokes. All those names (the sword of Ducane, the dragon, the spells, etc.) were all just made up. It's not like those of us who play D&D were laughing harder because of some wink and nod others didn't get.


----------



## DLiquid (Sep 17, 2001)

Steveknj said:


> I still love the show, and there were some funny parts, but there was way too much in this episode that were "too" inside. It's not even current pop culture anymore. Even in it's day, D&D was played by an extremely small segment of people.


The writers don't seem to care how many people get it. How many people watched Farscape? Not many at all, yet Abed had a whole discussion about Farscape in the bar episode. I was loving it, but I felt like 99% of the audience was not in on the joke.

I like this show for taking risks like this episode. I like that they make jokes that maybe only a small percentage of the audience gets.


----------



## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

I've also never played D&D but I found the episode very funny.

However, I'm curious whether that's really how D&D works? Players just get to choose whatever they want to do, and the DM just gets to arbitrarily make stuff up? I get that the decisions about success or failure are based on the roll of the die, but is it true that everyone just makes up the situations out of thin air?


----------



## pudding7 (May 13, 2002)

Steveknj said:


> ...the premise of the show was based on something that was popular like 20 years ago. So even the "geeks" of today have moved on to other things. .


False.



DevdogAZ said:


> I've also never played D&D but I found the episode very funny.
> 
> However, I'm curious whether that's really how D&D works? Players just get to choose whatever they want to do, and the DM just gets to arbitrarily make stuff up? I get that the decisions about success or failure are based on the roll of the die, but is it true that everyone just makes up the situations out of thin air?


Eh, kinda. At a very high level, the DM (dungeon master) sets an overall story, and then the players react to it. So every player (the real humans sitting around the table) has his character (the elf wizard or whatever). The DM will set the story, "You're trying to rescue the maiden from the evil dragon."

Then the players, as a group, will say "Ok, we'll march up the mountains to his cave." DM will say, "Ok, there is a troll guarding the cave."

Players: "What color is the troll and is he carrying any weapons?"
DM: "Green, and yes he's got a big club."
Players: "Ok, our warrior will charge the troll while the wizard casts a lightning bolt spell."

The DM stuff is all either written down in his notes, or he makes it up in his head as they go along.

Here, just watch this video...


----------



## Alfer (Aug 7, 2003)

You know you're a nerd when..... you post the above ^^^


----------



## Zevida (Nov 8, 2003)

I thought this episode was great, and I've never played D&D. (Though I do play WW in the Fun House.) The voice over at the beginning had me thinking it was going to be some type of Lord of the Rings story. I also loved how they had all the sound effects of what was happening in the game, while still keeping us grounded in reality with the visuals.

I did think that Pierce being the evil killjoy two weeks in a row was a little much. Jeff might be disinterested and uncaring, but Pierce is actively aggressive and mean. They make it really hard to see why he is still in the group with episodes like the last two. I much preferred the Pierce of the boating-in-the-parking-lot episode, which works on the same themes without making him such an awful person.


----------



## HellFish (Jan 28, 2007)

robojerk said:


> I own a plasma TV and anything near the hue black, is really black on my TV.
> 
> Anyone else with a plasma TV experience the same thing?


Your brightness is probably too low if you can't make out dark scenes/faces.



DLiquid said:


> The writers don't seem to care how many people get it. How many people watched Farscape? Not many at all, yet Abed had a whole discussion about Farscape in the bar episode. I was loving it, but I felt like 99% of the audience was not in on the joke.


I agree that I'm glad they take risks, but you guys are crazy. I've never watched an Ep of Farscape, or played D&D, and I was rewinding because I was missing scenes I was laughing so hard. Sure, someone that watched Farscape might get a couple other jokes, but the main joke was Abed was allowing himself to get hit on, just so he could talk about Farscape. And besides, Stargate was better.

My experience with role playing games before this show was watching an episode of The IT Crowd that the characters playing a game. Both the Community & IT Crowd were great episodes.



Zevida said:


> I did think that Pierce being the evil killjoy two weeks in a row was a little much. Jeff might be disinterested and uncaring, but Pierce is actively aggressive and mean.


I don't think about it that much. He was awesome as a bad guy this week. And getting kids to chant "DRUGS DRUGS DRUGS" on TV was pure gold, even if he won't visit Annie next time he stops in Dildopolis.


----------



## pudding7 (May 13, 2002)

Alfer said:


> You know you're a nerd when..... you post the above ^^^


LOL. Guilty.


----------



## busyba (Feb 5, 2003)

DevdogAZ said:


> I've also never played D&D but I found the episode very funny.
> 
> However, I'm curious whether that's really how D&D works? Players just get to choose whatever they want to do, and the DM just gets to arbitrarily make stuff up? I get that the decisions about success or failure are based on the roll of the die, but is it true that everyone just makes up the situations out of thin air?





pudding7 said:


> Eh, kinda. At a very high level, the DM (dungeon master) sets an overall story, and then the players react to it. So every player (the real humans sitting around the table) has his character (the elf wizard or whatever). The DM will set the story, "You're trying to rescue the maiden from the evil dragon."
> 
> Then the players, as a group, will say "Ok, we'll march up the mountains to his cave." DM will say, "Ok, there is a troll guarding the cave."
> 
> ...


Also, the DM is usually working from a master script of sorts that sets the stage, describes the land the story takes place in, has map layouts for the various dungeons and such, says what creatures and obstacles are hanging around and at what locations, and ultimately what the overall goal of that particular quest is.

The DM knows everything about the world the players are inhabiting. The players are experiencing it as they explore it, with the DM revealing to the players the scenes and characters that they encounter, as they encounter them.

So he's not just making it up as he's going along.

The book that Abed had, a copy of which Pierce got from the other nerd kid, has all that info in it and that's what he was working from.

Pierce basically cheated by reading the book to find out about the world in advance, and he used that information to go get a powerful trinket that would allow him to become really powerful.


----------



## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

dtle said:


> "I won Dungeons & Dragons, and it was Advanced!" - Pierce
> 
> AD&D was the 2nd edition of D&D, which had a lot of the rules revised and game play expanded. (Not to be confused with AD&D 2nd edition, which would probably be called D&D 2.5.)


nerd


----------



## Robin (Dec 6, 2001)

I've never played, never seen it played, and basically just know D&D as "that thing nerdy guys play in HS".

I loved the ep. I thought I was going to die laughing during the sex scene.

I'm glad Chang didn't last long he was freaking me out!

Pierce was way too cruel in this ep. :down:


----------



## Hunter Green (Feb 22, 2002)

And no real DM would ever allow information obviously gained by OOC means to change the game. If Pierce had found things out by prying into the book, he would have had to couch it by "just happening to" go to the right places and doing the right things so that _his character_ would have reasons to know the important stuff. But that would have just dragged down the show. I mention it only because, to those who've never played, it might seem like that's a reasonable (if underhanded) tactic, while it would never actually work.


----------



## Hunter Green (Feb 22, 2002)

Two things important to the whole "didn't need to play AD&D to get it" point here:
1) There were essentially no real inside jokes specific to AD&D or even to roleplaying games. They could have made jillions but they chose not to do even a single one, even as an Easter egg for us. (On the other hand they did use the real books, which was nice.)
2) At least half of what was funny here would be familiar to people who've read fantasy novels or seen fantasy movies, since that's what AD&D (and other roleplaying games to a greater extent) aspires to. If you haven't done those things, there's also tons of non-roleplaying games like computer games that plumb the same material. Many of the allusions in the show (like the ominous sound effects) were more allusions to fantasy movies than to AD&D.

(In fact, when Pierce has his big reveal, "I was there when it happened" or whatever he said, and we cut to a flashback, I wonder if they weren't intentionally alluding to Elrond's similar scene when he tells of Isildur's failure to destroy the One Ring, as it was performed in the Peter Jackson movies. But I'm being too specific, probably. Similar flashbacks to key moments as reveals with the same kind of ominous music and lighting effects and delivery have been done plenty of times in plenty of fantasy.)


----------



## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

Add me to the list of people who didn't know any details about D&D, but still greatly enjoyed this episode. Most of the jokes were funny to me because of how everyone was awkwardly trying to fit into the fantasy world. (A nice role-reversal.) Even not knowing exactly what they got wrong while playing, it was clear that the group had no idea what they were doing.

I didn't see the jokes as being about D&D so much as being about the characters. I thought the writers did a great job bringing out the traits of each character as they played the game. I loved Annie doing her sex scene and Britta fighting for equal rights. I thought the way Abed acted as a dungeon master perfectly fit how he would approach the game. Even if what he did was not entirely correct, I think that fit his not having much experience with the game.

I agree that Pierce seemed extra cruel, but I think that was done to make the group not seem cruel for wanting to exclude him.

To me what's great about Community is the character development. I've never seen Goodfellas either, but the chicken fingers episode was still hilarious to me because of how each character's personality came out. I love seeing how they react when put in absurd situations.


----------



## Bryanmc (Sep 5, 2000)

I've never played D&D and I loved this episode. Either it didn't take much intelligence to follow and enjoy the story or I'm smarter than I thought.


----------



## Robin (Dec 6, 2001)

It didn't take much intelligence to follow.


----------



## MikeCC (Jun 19, 2004)

Bazinga!


----------



## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

Robin said:


> It didn't take much intelligence to follow.


which explains why so many had a hard time with it 



MikeCC said:


> Bazinga!


----------



## bigrig (Jul 1, 2004)

Bob Coxner said:


> I'm familiar with the basic D&D concepts but I've never played the game. I loved this episode.


Same here. Loved the voiceover and the music, especially after Elf Chang was killed.


----------



## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

busyba said:


> When South Park did their World of Warcraft episode, i hadn't played any WoW yet, but it was still funny and entertaining. Then i started playing it, and I went back and watched the episode again and a lot of the jokes were a lot funnier.


As an avid SP fan, I found the WoW episodes among the worst of the series.


----------



## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

IndyJones1023 said:


> Oops, yes - role. None of what they were talking about during the game play were inside jokes. *All those names (the sword of Ducane, the dragon, the spells, etc.) were all just made up.* It's not like those of us who play D&D were laughing harder because of some wink and nod others didn't get.


See, this was lost on me. My assumption was that these were parts of the game.


----------



## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

DLiquid said:


> The writers don't seem to care how many people get it. How many people watched Farscape? Not many at all, yet Abed had a whole discussion about Farscape in the bar episode. I was loving it, but I felt like 99% of the audience was not in on the joke.
> 
> I like this show for taking risks like this episode. I like that they make jokes that maybe only a small percentage of the audience gets.


But the problem with all that (and I loved the jokes on the things I DO get), is that there's no way to build a mass audience doing this as much as they do. And if this show was on, say CBS, it would have been canceled a long time ago. If you want a successful show, in most cases, you can't write it for a small segment of the audience who "gets it". I think you can do this for a few peripheral jokes, but not the premise of the whole episode. As I said, 30 Rock does this very well.


----------



## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

pudding7 said:


> False.
> 
> this video...


How is this false? Is it even remotely as popular as it was back in the 80s? I'm sure there are still a bunch of over 40 geeks (I say this not to be disparaging) who still play, but it's definitely not part of recent pop culture the way many video games are.


----------



## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

Hunter Green said:


> Two things important to the whole "didn't need to play AD&D to get it" point here:
> 1) There were essentially no real inside jokes specific to AD&D or even to roleplaying games. They could have made jillions but they chose not to do even a single one, even as an Easter egg for us. (On the other hand they did use the real books, which was nice.)
> 2) At least half of what was funny here would be familiar to people who've read fantasy novels or seen fantasy movies, since that's what AD&D (and other roleplaying games to a greater extent) aspires to. If you haven't done those things, there's also tons of non-roleplaying games like computer games that plumb the same material. Many of the allusions in the show (like the ominous sound effects) were more allusions to fantasy movies than to AD&D.
> 
> (In fact, when Pierce has his big reveal, "I was there when it happened" or whatever he said, and we cut to a flashback, I wonder if they weren't intentionally alluding to Elrond's similar scene when he tells of Isildur's failure to destroy the One Ring, as it was performed in the Peter Jackson movies. But I'm being too specific, probably. Similar flashbacks to key moments as reveals with the same kind of ominous music and lighting effects and delivery have been done plenty of times in plenty of fantasy.)


The thing is, even though what you say is true, there was no way someone who NEVER played the game, like me would have known this. My assumption was that this was normal part of the game. And maybe the fact that I'm not a big fan of most fantasy movies also took away from my enjoyment (for example, I found the LOTR movies complete snooze fests to the point where I can't even bring myself to watch the third one, which was supposed to be the "best".) While there may have been no real inside jokes, I got the feeling that I would have enjoyed the episode a lot better if I understood the game.


----------



## mmilton80 (Jul 28, 2005)

Steveknj said:


> The thing is, even though what you say is true, there was no way someone who NEVER played the game, like me would have known this. My assumption was that this was normal part of the game. And maybe the fact that I'm not a big fan of most fantasy movies also took away from my enjoyment (for example, I found the LOTR movies complete snooze fests to the point where I can't even bring myself to watch the third one, which was supposed to be the "best".) While there may have been no real inside jokes, I got the feeling that I would have enjoyed the episode a lot better if I understood the game.


Steve, so did you enjoy the episode? I've read your posts and am unclear on that.


----------



## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

mmilton80 said:


> Steve, so did you enjoy the episode? I've read your posts and am unclear on that.


There were parts that I enjoyed, as I do with even the worst Community episode. But I wouldn't rank this one with the top episodes as some do here. It was maybe middle of the pack. Even a bad Community episode is streets ahead of the best Two and a Half Men


----------



## Shaunnick (Jul 2, 2005)

I think we have a few points here that need to be made clear. 

Steve obviously was not a fan of this episode. Check

Steve believes that this episode's humor was "targeted" for a specific group. Check

Steve believes this "targeting" by the writers is harmful to the show, because multitudes of Community viewers who don't get the inside joke are left out in the cold. Not check

This last one is where you are wrong. Going over the thread I recall only one other person who said the episode was not funny for them for the reasons you are stating. Everyone else, those who know about D&D and those who don't, found the episode both entertaining and easy to follow. As far as this forum goes your belief that it is harmful is just wrong. 

You can argue it all you like, but no one here believes as you do that the writers are doing a bad job by writing the episodes the way they are writing them. If there is nothing else to add to all of this, can we all drop it and get back to laughing at Chang's insane makeup job?


----------



## mmilton80 (Jul 28, 2005)

Shaunnick said:


> If there is nothing else to add to all of this, can we all drop it and get back to laughing at Chang's insane makeup job?


So, we just gonna ignore that hate crime, huh?

Does he have multiple personalities? Last episode, it seemed alluded to.


----------



## Zevida (Nov 8, 2003)

Steveknj said:


> The thing is, even though what you say is true, there was no way someone who NEVER played the game, like me would have known this. My assumption was that this was normal part of the game.


Really? I've never played D&D and I thought it was pretty clear that what Pierce was doing was really considered cheating.


----------



## pmyers (Jan 4, 2001)

awesome episode!


----------



## BK89 (Oct 11, 2005)

Chang's makeup was very mysterious.


----------



## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

Steveknj said:


> And maybe the fact that I'm not a big fan of most fantasy movies also took away from my enjoyment (for example, I found the LOTR movies complete snooze fests to the point where I can't even bring myself to watch the third one, which was supposed to be the "best".)


I think this was the main reason you didn't like it. It wasn't a lack of understanding; it was a lack of interest. If fantasy is boring to you, then a parody of fantasy isn't going to be that interesting or funny.

The zombie episode mostly fell flat for me because I'm not that interested in zombie flicks. But even in that episode I still enjoyed the character interactions, especially the beginning when everyone was comparing costumes.



Steveknj said:


> There were parts that I enjoyed, as I do with even the worst Community episode. But I wouldn't rank this one with the top episodes as some do here. It was maybe middle of the pack. Even a bad Community episode is streets ahead of the best Two and a Half Men


Not having played D&D myself, I didn't relate enough with this episode to rank it in the top episodes either. I would probably rank it above 60-70% of the other ones. So it was above average for me, but there are plenty that I better connected with.


----------



## Cragmyre (Mar 8, 2004)

BK89 said:


> Chang's makeup was very mysterious.


And to me that was the only inside joke. If you don't know the AD&D series, you wouldn't know about Drows - dark elves. In AD&D there is a famous one in fact


----------



## Kablemodem (May 26, 2001)

Cragmyre said:


> And to me that was the only inside joke. If you don't know the AD&D series, you wouldn't know about Drows - dark elves. In AD&D there is a famous one in fact


Well, I loved this episode, but after having read that, I now hate it.


----------



## pmyers (Jan 4, 2001)

Chang's death walk, with music, was awesome!


----------



## spikedavis (Nov 23, 2003)

pmyers said:


> Chang's death walk, with music, was awesome!


I'm laughing now just remembering this.


----------



## Shaunnick (Jul 2, 2005)

Cragmyre said:


> And to me that was the only inside joke. If you don't know the AD&D series, you wouldn't know about Drows - dark elves. In AD&D there is a famous one in fact


I have read the Forgotten Realm books. Are you talking about that character? Does he actually appear in the AD&D gameverse?


----------



## headroll (Jan 20, 2003)

MikeCC said:


> Bazinga!


Huzzah!


----------



## Cragmyre (Mar 8, 2004)

Shaunnick said:


> I have read the Forgotten Realm books. Are you talking about that character? Does he actually appear in the AD&D gameverse?


My apologies, you are correct, he was from Forgotten Realms, which was not part of AD&D ( had to go look it up  ). I just knew that he was from D&D. I haven't read any of the Forgotten Realm stuff.


----------



## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

Steveknj said:


> But the problem with all that (and I loved the jokes on the things I DO get), is that there's no way to build a mass audience doing this as much as they do. And if this show was on, say CBS, it would have been canceled a long time ago. If you want a successful show, in most cases, you can't write it for a small segment of the audience who "gets it". I think you can do this for a few peripheral jokes, but not the premise of the whole episode. As I said, 30 Rock does this very well.


30 Rock isn't a good example of mass acceptance as it's ratings aren't that much better than Community.

And so what if they don't write for the "masses".
I for one am glad that the Community writers aren't afraid of taking risks.
Do we really need another According to Jim?


----------



## Robin (Dec 6, 2001)

Zevida said:


> Really? I've never played D&D and I thought it was pretty clear that what Pierce was doing was really considered cheating.


Really? You didn't think one person sneaking off with the same book the leader was using, which none of the other members had, was normal?

(Me neither.)


----------



## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Cragmyre said:


> My apologies, you are correct, he was from Forgotten Realms, which was not part of AD&D ( had to go look it up  ). I just knew that he was from D&D. I haven't read any of the Forgotten Realm stuff.


Had to go read wikipedia to edify myself.... but it says:

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition
Although the Realms were yet to be an official campaign world, the module H1: Bloodstone Pass, released in 1985 by TSR, is now considered to be a part of the Forgotten Realms,[15] although it wasn't until module H3: The Bloodstone Wars was released that Forgotten Realms became the official setting for the module series.

So that seems to me to mean it _is_ now part of AD&D... or at least the campaigns are. (I just barely played AD&D.. I still have one of the original dungeons in the cellophane!)


----------



## Hunter Green (Feb 22, 2002)

For what it's worth, there've been "dark elves" and even ones called "drow" long before AD&D was a glimmer in Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson's eyes.


----------



## Shaunnick (Jul 2, 2005)

Oh sure, they have been around for a while. But the wink wink nod nod earlier in the thread that Cragmyre was referring to came about after the Forgotten Realms.


----------



## Aniketos (Mar 6, 2006)

I watched this with one of my really good friends, he happened to get me started on D&D about 6 months. We watched it with one of his roommates, she happens to be in our group as well.

At the beginning my friend said, "They're not even trying to target normal people anymore" (That was a compliment)

At the end he wondered if people that don't play would find that episode funny, I told him that I hope that in all parallel universe versions of me would still laugh to tears at the Annie/Abed sex scene.

I normally feel like Jeff when playing though, I'm not into the story as much, I kinda look at the game as chess with elves. So it hit close to home when Jeff said he was flirting without going into specifics. I've done something like that many times.


----------



## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Aniketos said:


> I normally feel like Jeff when playing though, I'm not into the story as much, I kinda look at the game as chess with elves.


I guess that's a good description of my opinion of it.. but it leads me to (sometimes) play D&D-type video games.. ok, not too many recently, the PS2 "Bard's Tale" (a spoof/homage/spiritual sequel to the original).. and keep meaning to look for another. Even though they're all the same -- go find X item, kill monsters to gain hit points & treasure, etc.. is more interesting to me than the story aspect or even playing it with other people.


----------



## IndyJones1023 (Apr 1, 2002)

Try D&D online, it's free.


----------



## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

Shaunnick said:


> I think we have a few points here that need to be made clear.
> 
> Steve obviously was not a fan of this episode. Check
> 
> ...


But we, on this forum, are not indicative of the viewership at large are we? Look, I'd love a show written specifically to the interests that I love. The perfect example of this was the 30 for 30 episode about fantasy baseball that got panned in that thread but I loved it. But how successful do you think a show about fantasy baseball (on network TV, not cable) would be from week to week? I never said that it's harmful, only that it's a symptom as to why the show does poorly in the ratings. I said 30 Rock integrates the inside jokes better than Community, but even THAT show's ratings aren't that great. I actually AGREE with you that I love that the writers are taking chances, but by doing so, on any other network, it would have been the death knell for this show. You just wind up alienating too many viewers.

I LIKE quirky shows, and generally all those quirky shows I like, end up getting canceled. Why? Because there just aren't enough viewers who "get it".

And I think that you are misconstruing my feelings of the series as a whole, which I usually LIKE. It is one of my favorites actually. I just didn't like this one for the reasons I stated, just like some folks didn't like the episode that had all the Goodfellas references, and since that is one of my favorite movies, I absolutely LOVED it.


----------



## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

BitbyBlit said:


> I think this was the main reason you didn't like it. It wasn't a lack of understanding; it was a lack of interest. If fantasy is boring to you, then a parody of fantasy isn't going to be that interesting or funny.
> 
> The zombie episode mostly fell flat for me because I'm not that interested in zombie flicks. But even in that episode I still enjoyed the character interactions, especially the beginning when everyone was comparing costumes.
> 
> Not having played D&D myself, I didn't relate enough with this episode to rank it in the top episodes either. I would probably rank it above 60-70% of the other ones. So it was above average for me, but there are plenty that I better connected with.


This is exactly right, although I am not a big Zombie fan, but the Zombie flick genre is generic enough that I got most of the jokes. D&D even in it's hey day had more of a cultish following. The relate to part I think was what I meant to say. There just this feeling I got that if I understood the game more, I might have liked it a lot better. It was hard for me to decipher what might have been real parts of the game and what might have been made up for the show.


----------



## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

JYoung said:


> 30 Rock isn't a good example of mass acceptance as it's ratings aren't that much better than Community.
> 
> And so what if they don't write for the "masses".
> I for one am glad that the Community writers aren't afraid of taking risks.
> Do we really need another According to Jim?


See, you're missing the point I'm trying to make (or maybe I'm not explaining it clearly). I love that they take chances, I love quirky shows like this. I was a big Arrested Development fan, I like 30 Rock and Better Off Ted and other shows where the shows are not the run of the mill sitcom. But, by doing those shows, unless you are in desperate shape like NBC, the show is doomed for cancellation. Name the last "out of the box" sitcom that got good ratings? Maybe Seinfeld? Usually these kinds of shows last a season or 2 and are gone, and we praise them for trying something different.

This episode I felt outside the inside joke. And yet, there was still funny in it. Most other Community episodes I love.


----------



## JammasterC (Aug 9, 2005)

Need more Chang! 

Let him in the group!


----------



## bigrig (Jul 1, 2004)

Yeah, kick out Pierce and keep Chang!!


----------

