Community 5.10 "Advanced Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" 3/20/14

5.01/5.02 “Repilot”/“Introduction to teaching”
5.03 Basic Intergluteal Numismatics
5.04 Cooperative Polygraphy
5.05 Geothermal Escapism
5.06 Analysis of Cork-based marketing
5.07 Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality
5.08 App Development and Condiments
5.09 VCR Maintenance and Educational Publishing

I’m just watching it now. I wasn’t sure at the beginning, because I really liked the first D&D episode, but it’s really growing on me.

I’m not sure how much I like Pierce’s replacement, though. I hope he ends up growing on me, too.

Good, but not great episode. I loved Hickey interrogating the two hobgoblins and Jim Rash going all out to reconcile with his father, Jeff.

Yes, watching Jim Rash try to hug his son was one of the funniest parts. I’m starting to think that he is my favorite character on the show.

I rewatched that scene to study Annie’s reactions. God, she’s hot.

They should kill off Shirley in more episodes.

The ending felt really rushed but I liked it. It was funny plus I appreciated that they really played D&D. Abed’s faced as the Hobgoblins were priceless as was Annie pantomiming Hector the Well Endowed.

Big Dean Pelton fan here. His Payday-bar rap last week was hilarious, and he just kept bringing it here. Loved his little lean into the shot after “Something that rhymes with ‘not there.’” “Times Square?”

I found this episode tremendously funny. Or should I say, "Faaa … bulous"ly funny. (Just doing things in the background).

I almost forgot about that Neil in the background. What a great sight gag!

Something interesting I noticed:

In the first D&D episode, all the books, etc… looked to be AD&D 1st Edition.

In this episode, it all looked to be AD&D 2nd Edition.

On the off-chance there’s a third D&D episode, it’ll be interesting to see if they move to 3rd/3.5 Edition books.

Having never played Dungeons and Dragons myself, I’m curious is this a good representation of how the game is played? Oh the things I could learn from this show…

Yep. The sound effects you hear are entirely in your head. The first D&D episode is a fantastic representation on how a game is played. This one was good, but there were too many quick cuts in it.

But yes. Its basically people sitting around, telling a story that they create themselves, and using dice to determine what happens and what fails.

The only difference is that in most play groups (but not all) the players roll their own dice.

I think the biggest difference is merely in how accommodating Abed is to people going “outside the box” of a typical D&D game, and being able to instantly know how to “resolve” their suggestion. He’ll just instantly roll some dice and look at the result. In a typical D&D game, IME, there’s lots of back and forth between he DM and the player when they want to do something outside the box, what skill to use, how hard it should be, etc…THEN a die roll or two, or five…etc…), if one is determined to be needed at all.

“Lightning Bolt!”
“Lightning Bolt!”
“Lightning Bolt!”

:smiley:

Shirley’s use of *Entangle * was actually pretty smart.
The interrogation was good.

Brian

Wait. You mean your gamers DON’T screw up your planned encounter schedules?

:eek:

:smiley:

(I attack the Gazebo!)

Anyone else wonder what the original character distributions were, before they were scrambled?

We know they started as:
Joseph Gordon Diehard = Hank Hickey
Sir Riggs Diehard = Buzz Hickey
rest = ?

After the shuffle, we got:
Tristram Steelheart the Cleric = Hank
Tiny Nuggins the Thief = Buzz
Fibrosis the Ranger = Britta
Crouton the Druid = Shirley
Hector the Well Endowed = Annie
Dingleberry the Troll = Chang
Joseph Gordon Diehard = Dean Pelton
Sir Riggs Diehard = Jeff

I would guess that Jeff was Hector. Britta was Dingleberry. Shirley was Tristram. Chang was Tiny Nuggins. Dean was Fibrosis. That leaves Annie to be Crouton.

What say you?

I thought this episode felt more like a real D&D game (in my experience), but it definitely felt like a rehash. Sort of like a mash-up between the first D&D episode and the episode where Pierce and his half-brother played a video game to win their father’s acceptance. And I agree it felt kind of rushed.

They made a wise decision not to go “bigger” with this one.

It felt like a rehash, because it was one. But unlike the paintball sequels, which tried to go big and ultimately felt pointless, this one intentionally went smaller than the original. As a result, I think it was a fantastic episode that stands on its own. It was just a very enjoyable, relaxing time with great characters and low stakes. Despite being a rehash, it provided something quite different than the first one (which, let’s face it, was never going to be surpassed anyway).

There’s a long interview with Dan Harmon on Hitfix where it’s made clear this episode didn’t have enough time allocated to it to make it work, and it was a “scripts written on the day before the shoot” situation.

Part 2 of the interview.
Part 3 will be released on Monday.

I laughed out loud when Abed pulled out the giant binder, putting the smug Son of Hickey in his place.