I recently finished up my Fallout campaign and during the last session, when the party got attacked by the two factions they didn't ally with over the course of the campaign, one of them actually said "Dammit, we could've had some allies for this part".
And here I am Druid 15 with an army of 10 trents, 100 giant eagles patroling sky and 100 dudes each of whom can create 2 animated trees in a forest around our citadel. Damn, that high level pathfinder campaign was clutch as idea and a real clusterfuck as a game
Honestly though, that's some information at least. The extremely old elf who knows things from his even older dad says that this forest is very old. Even if you know nothing else, this forest has been there a looooooooong time.
Gandalf is that guy who has evening shifts but still shows up to the game halfway through every session, finding some contrived reason why -he's late- he arrives precisely when he means to.
For those who don't know, the actor who played Aragorn actually did break his toe by kicking the prop helmet, which was made of real metal. Then finished the rest of the movie with it broken.
@@heavenlysteel8337 and he had half of his face bruised after surfing... so they were filming him from one side only at the goblin battle in Moria... yay more random LotR facts!
I have to say, I wasn't a big fan of fantasy growing up (more into Sci-Fi), but once I got into my 20s is started to grow on me. I only recently watched the LoTR movies in full, and it really really added to the experience to imagine it all as a DnD campaign.
@@Kyoptic I don't know if you've read it already, but you might really like "DM of the Rings" webcomic which did it's take on the "LOTR as a bad roleplaying campaign" thing 15 years ago.
@@sebastianzuzi311 there are some aspects of Tolkien's writing that feel so DnD in really bizarre ways. My favorite example is "You encounter *rolls on RE table* a group of cave trolls" (One troll encounter later) "You search the trolls' stache and find *rolls on loot table*... Three +1 elven swords?
Do you want to hug me? Then I have to shatter your dreams: I am in a relationship with TWO females! They are also huge fans of me, YT Megastar AxxL! Please don't be too disappointed, dear ken
A bit of a slip-up. Wizards don't have access to greater restoration except by use of the wish spell wishing to replicate the effect of another spell. What he should have said is "Gandalf burns a 9th level sot and casts dispel magic, auto-dispelling whatever control spell the king is under if it is a level 8 or lower spell." "I forgot you have 9th level slots already" Otherwise known as how to fuck with the DM. Burn a 9th level slot to probably instantly end whatever magic is going on with the target. Why? Because that is what the spell does and many people forget they can do that. Sure you could use that 9th level slot to blast something but in an RP moment like that where you know you are going to get a long rest before the next encounter where you will need those slots? Fuck it all in. I don't see this get discussed a lot... admittedly the census seems to be that most games of 5e never get much past level 9 so obviously 9th level slots rarely factor into things, but upcasting dispel is powerful at all levels. In fact upcasting is something many players write-off as "why would I do that when I have higher level spells" forgetting that upcasting is a new feature of 5e casting not present in older editions to the same ridiculous degree and it is balanced around that so unlike previous editions higher level spells are not, by default, better to use than lower level spells. Case in point: dispel magic can auto-counter literally any spell effect of level 8 or lower if you have a 9th level slot to upcast it with. As long as there isn't a caster crazy enough to try to counterspell your 9th level dispel with a 9th level counterspell (you can't possibly tell a dispel magic is being upcast even if you identify that it is being cast) you are going to really fuck with your DM using this forbidden knowledge. I got off on a tangent there, apologies.
@@ShiningDarknes we all know that Gandalf has been using his charisma and deception skill to convince everyone he was a wizard when all this time he has been a divine soul sorcerer with a dip in cleric as a servant of one of the Valar..
@@ShiningDarknes Bit late but realistically the wizards in LOTR are actually druids, they speak to animals, call lightning, heat metal, use sunbeam etc.
Reminds me of one of the first sessions I played with my wife's friends. We started at level 6 and I'd sent my entire character sheet (wizard) to the dm the week before and he gave me the okay for everything. Very first encounter we were being hunted in the forest and the druid cast pass without a trace while I cast tiny hut and the ranger covered it with brush. We completely passed up the awesome bounty hunter encounter he'd planned within five minutes and he was absolutely taken back haha he gave us all the xp we would've gotten from the original encounter he'd planned!
@@GH-un9uz Literally my favorite part of the book. It's so perfect. I would have completely forgiven the movies if they had the balls to skip the whole battle.
Gandalf feels like the DM's Roommate who pays all the rent, and keep leveraging that for favors when he shows up to game late, which pisses off the DM to no end... *UNTIL...* At helm's deep, the DM is pulling out his hair because even with the extra elf units and the strategic terrain and Legolas' loaded D20, the party is going to get TPK'd, because he forced Legolas to use a different D20 to stop the orc torch guy from blowing up the wall and he got like three 2's in a row, and he didn't plan for the entire encounter to turn into a brawl with no defensive terrain, which is why he had only one orc with a torch running (How hard can it be to land ONE good hit on ONE orc?!). And then Gandalf walks into the room and is like "Yo, sorry, I'm late, can I blind the whole Orc army?" and the DM is like * **Clap** Just the man I needed to see, yeah, you can blind everything and also you show up with an ENTIRE reinforcing army" and they manage to actually survive. XD
"Gollum decides to become a problem player again." Wait til' next session where he continues to roll all successes on his death saves while harassing the poor hobbits.
Yeah if you want stuff like that check out Tulok the Barbarian, who does all sorts of dnd character builds. His gandalf build actually has contigincy with revivify it's really cool
'The DM tries to give Aragorn a love interest NPC. She rolls a 1 on making soup.' And, apparently, all her Charisma checks regarding seducing Aragorn, because he is painfully not interested. :P :D Also, I missed Legolas rolling natural 20s.
The next "but it's d&d" episode should be Pirates of the Caribbean. It's got 4 movies and plenty of Acrobatics, Persuasion, and nat 20 checks. Not to mention a great cast of NPCs
4? That’s more than I remember. I’m pretty sure if it did exist, it would just be failing to recapture the energy of the original, and ultimately fail because it focused too much on jack being funny.
I like to imagine that the Silmarillion is just this DMs World Anvil tribute to his own inspiration and he’ll literally never share it with anyone but he’s proud of it whenever he’s feeling down he just looks at it for hours.
Boromir actually wrote Gollum as a normal guy wearing black clothes, but the DM commissioned some art of Frodo, Sam, and Gollum and depicted him as a little gremlin with no shirt and it stuck
@@vinsanity_52 One of my players consistently rocks up with 40 pages , he is a novel writer so they are always awesome to read, but once his backstory for a level 13 start was 219 pages of stuff he turned into a actual novel later.
@@vinsanity_52 The most I've inflicted on a DM was 2 full pages with 12 point text. I made more material on the side, but I'm not going to inflict that on them unless they ask for it. :P
You may enjoy the webcomic DM of the Rings, which did this concept several years ago, but takes a decidedly different approach and tries to railroad the characters a lot. Personally, I enjoy the webcomic inspired by that on called Darths and Droids, which does Star Wars, starting with the prequels. That DM's style allows for a lot more freedom. Also, the reason Jar Jar exists is because one player had to take his kid sister with him, and they decided to let her play a character instead of being ignored and watching.
I grew up on the books I love the movies. And I don't know what kind of zen master magical spell you're doing but I keep thinking I'm listening to it actual D&D campaign and remember no you're just going over the movies haha great stuff
Nobody is talking about the fact that Jacob plays the DM with a New Zealand accent, and I think making the frustrated DM literally the director Peter Jackson is Very Good. xD
Ai'll never know how you managed to tell the entire film in just under 13 minutes, whilst ALSO making it fun, engaging and relatable at the same time!!
*Combat, combat, combat, combat...* That and his descriptions for sessions are super on point and actually feel like things a DM would think and feel with how things are going.
@5:18 Little known fact: Aragorn's player actually played out the kicking motion in real life and did break his toe IRL by hitting the table leg at full force.
@@lukebaker5475 Are you sure you didn't miss the joke here? Because OP didn't talk about Vigo, he talked about the player, making a paralel between "movie character did something but actor got hurt IRL" and "DND character did something but player got hurt IRL"
I really like that view of merry and pipin, in the books, I didnt realise, then when wachting the movies, it eventually turned evident they basically coused all problems, and only solved one thing, by beinging at the right place at the right time.
@@ieuanhunt552 no it's so weird. There's a bit of the feel from the battle of pelennor fields. But it's most like they just said. "It's elves, they look good." It makes no sense to me.
@@MakCurrel One weird thing is that they omitted one place where Elves fought alongside humans in the books and it makes much more sense. In the battle for the Black Gate. Elronds twin sons and the Grey Company are just not there. So they added Elves in one fight and removed them from another.
Dayum, that is some beautiful metanarrative you've built there. You made character progression for the fictional players playing the LotR characters in this D&D game, and not only that, you've done it in a way that is believable, rewarding and funny. Fantastic job, I'd love to see your take on The Return of the King.
I'd love to see videos like this for major ensemble movies, like Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, Avengers, Star Wars etc. Such a brilliant concept.
Run deadlier combat encounters then. Your side shouldn't be, "meant to lose." That's just a sad side effect of 5e's lopsided design. If the party is amenable to some risk, and you're feeling bored at the table, don't feel afraid to turn up the heat. Losing can be fun too.
Yeah. My brother's in a DnD group that goes through the game quickly, but apparently they don't really RP that much, which makes me glad I'm in the DnD group that I'm with. Because we do a lot of silly stuff with our characters. Like, when you have three PC's who have some variation on "steals random stuff" and they all get distracted looting the deserted city while the dm is trying to guide the party toward the giant evil tower. (one's a kleptomaniac, one's a kobold who likes shiny stuff, and one is a finder's-keepers-oriented person who will take abandoned items he thinks may come in handy later) Of course, it doesn't hurt that like, 85% of my player group has been involved in community theatre for years, and so we all really enjoy improvisation/acting stuff, and thinking through our characters reactions and stuff. :P There was one downside to this one time though, LOL. The first campaign I was in, we played it for several months, got quite a ways in, and it was fun... but then the party leader got captured. All three of us other players were thinking about our characters, and how they would have acted in this scenario, based on how we'd been playing them so far.... And we all realized something: two of our characters were loner, neutral types who didn't really care about the party leader-- or the assignment they'd been given-- enough to want to bother with rescuing him, and the third wouldn't be confident or strong enough to go after him on her own. On top of this, all three of our characters had their own agenda that extended well beyond what the party had been hired to accomplish, and they were starting to get impatient because the assignment was distracting them from their individual goals. And since they all originated from outside the city they were investigating in, they didn't exactly... feel the need to clean up other peoples' politics. So there we were at a standstill like "soooo...uhhhhhhhh.... now what??" :P We started a new campaign LOL
@@drewb1979 I run two separate groups and they play completely differently yet both know how to have fun with RP and with combat. Both groups have a DM playing and they seem to have fun creating their own RP (both are playing bards too) and both groups also have a good mix of characters, making designing obstacles a challenge for me. Generally I just find a cool monster or situation and scale it up or down to suit. Sometimes we get bogged down and directionless, but controlling pacing is one of the things a good DM needs to understand. Controlling pacing, balancing combat (not all fights should be winnable, most fights should have a purpose), weaving obstacles together into a story arc and knowing how to let each character (and player) shine are the four pillars of a good DM.
"sam and frodo's players eye the dm like bro, you good" literally had to become that dm for a session when going up against my one player's mandalorian killing machine
I’m starting to realize dnd is just everyone including the DM is just fighting to be the main character. And now I’m rethinking my entire character and if I should even play.
More like everyone trying to fulfill their dream of being a hero. Always remember that you aren't the main character and let other players shine. When someone actually tries to be the main character, that's how you end up on r/rpghorrorstories. I am playing a Paladin in a Pathfinder game, and we once ended a session at a dramatic moment before the last stage of a battle. All week I spent trying to figure out how to use my powers to heal the party and smite the baddy (Pathfinder pallys are decent healers, and I was the main healer). I settled on a set of actions that should give me the right opportunity to save everyone, BUT, when the time came, the druid healed the most critical player, the wizard dealt a mighty spell, and I just barely made it to the baddy to deal the last few points of damage. Then I realized, EVERYONE is trying to be the hero, and I can expect my team to use their abilities to their best and we all win together.
Unironically, taking a big group and splitting it up between the players who want hack and slash adventure and the players who want soft talky RP is a fantastic idea if you have the spoons to run two games. I'm going to keep that one in my pocket.
wow, i really thought legolas shieldsurfing was gonna be mentioned like "and then logolas wants to surf a shield, down some stairs, in the middle of the encounter, while shooting arrows ..... and rolls 2 nat 20 in a row."
“Damn it, we could have had a tree army instead” is so something a player would say, and I mean any player
I recently finished up my Fallout campaign and during the last session, when the party got attacked by the two factions they didn't ally with over the course of the campaign, one of them actually said "Dammit, we could've had some allies for this part".
that's something id say for real life
Best line in the entire video.
And here I am Druid 15 with an army of 10 trents, 100 giant eagles patroling sky and 100 dudes each of whom can create 2 animated trees in a forest around our citadel. Damn, that high level pathfinder campaign was clutch as idea and a real clusterfuck as a game
@@romanabanin2216 I’m planning on doing a tree army for ma players, can you tell me how you achieved that? It would be very helpful
Legolas rolls a 1 on his history check in Fanghorn and just says "This forest is old."
"Old as balls."
"How ooold is it?"
Legolas: "Very old"
Honestly though, that's some information at least. The extremely old elf who knows things from his even older dad says that this forest is very old. Even if you know nothing else, this forest has been there a looooooooong time.
@@acrefray It's because he has a +12 to survival checks involving the history of the land. So... technically his 1 was still a 13?
@@blargety critical fail baby
Sam: "Should I do a persuasion check to have Faramir let us go?"
DM, in tears after his speech: "You don't have to roll for that."
"you roll, to no one."
@@Heidinn217 Oh, boy, I really appreciate that comment.
honestly, everytime i rewatch the two towers i get chills and tear up from Sam's speech.
@@mikenrad Imo the "I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you." is a better speech, chills either way though
@@Heidinn217 Under-appreciated comment of the year
Gandalf is that guy who has evening shifts but still shows up to the game halfway through every session, finding some contrived reason why -he's late- he arrives precisely when he means to.
Lmao
Yup
I suspect that he's also the DM's Roommate and pays the entire rent for the apartment, which he constantly leverages for favors.
@@AegixDrakan Always shows up with leftovers from work. Munchies cure all wounds.
@@joshuamarvin7400 yessir
"Dammit, we could've had a tree army instead" cracked me up
same!
loved it
I would be mad too
The best ending
Best part
"I kick a helmet.."
"You take 1 bludgeoning damage as you bReAk A ToE!!" I love that little reference
For those who don't know, the actor who played Aragorn actually did break his toe by kicking the prop helmet, which was made of real metal. Then finished the rest of the movie with it broken.
Respect for him being able to act still
@@Bancheis He also had a bunch of other injuries throughout the franchise, I recall one of them being a chipped tooth.
@@heavenlysteel8337 and he had half of his face bruised after surfing... so they were filming him from one side only at the goblin battle in Moria...
yay more random LotR facts!
@@Bancheis I think Sam's actor also sliced open his foot during the scene with the boat.
Player: "I cast greater restoration." All DM's everywhere: "I forgot you had that spell"
Do you have the material components?
when our rouge used there blessing from a chwinga berry to restore our Netherese wizards memory in icewindale that was fun
He has innate spellcasting
@@Cauthon No but I have a Spellcasting Focus!
Honestly if Gandalf rped that bit with Theoden, I’d give him inspiration
I lost it at "Pippin does the smartest thing he's ever done in his tiny life."
FOOL OF A TOOK
"I kick the helmet"
"You take 1 bludgeoning damage as you break your TOEEEE"
Best part of the whole campaign
I lol'd
id like to think that the player also kicked the table and broke his toe
The zoom made it even better
hahaha was so good XD
The best part about this series is that I feel empathy for the dm having to deal with these characters even though it’s not a game
Yeah its so peculiar. If i didnt know shit about tolkien Id think this totally sounds like a real dnd campaign
I have to say, I wasn't a big fan of fantasy growing up (more into Sci-Fi), but once I got into my 20s is started to grow on me. I only recently watched the LoTR movies in full, and it really really added to the experience to imagine it all as a DnD campaign.
@@Kyoptic I don't know if you've read it already, but you might really like "DM of the Rings" webcomic which did it's take on the "LOTR as a bad roleplaying campaign" thing 15 years ago.
@@sebastianzuzi311 there are some aspects of Tolkien's writing that feel so DnD in really bizarre ways. My favorite example is
"You encounter *rolls on RE table* a group of cave trolls"
(One troll encounter later)
"You search the trolls' stache and find *rolls on loot table*... Three +1 elven swords?
@@stuarthutzler6670 I mean all of the Modern fantasy tropes are based on Tolkien
I was hoping you'd put in the helmet scene here... was not disappointed
Do you want to hug me? Then I have to shatter your dreams: I am in a relationship with TWO females! They are also huge fans of me, YT Megastar AxxL! Please don't be too disappointed, dear ken
@@AxxLAfriku Is this some kind of weird "my three weed smoking girlfriends" bit?
Do they smoke weed @@AxxLAfriku?
Do they?
I was so happy he included it lol
Yes
DM: "So the king is mind controlled..."
Gandalf: "I cast greater restoration."
DM: ".... I forgot you had that spell."
A bit of a slip-up. Wizards don't have access to greater restoration except by use of the wish spell wishing to replicate the effect of another spell. What he should have said is "Gandalf burns a 9th level sot and casts dispel magic, auto-dispelling whatever control spell the king is under if it is a level 8 or lower spell."
"I forgot you have 9th level slots already"
Otherwise known as how to fuck with the DM. Burn a 9th level slot to probably instantly end whatever magic is going on with the target. Why? Because that is what the spell does and many people forget they can do that. Sure you could use that 9th level slot to blast something but in an RP moment like that where you know you are going to get a long rest before the next encounter where you will need those slots? Fuck it all in. I don't see this get discussed a lot... admittedly the census seems to be that most games of 5e never get much past level 9 so obviously 9th level slots rarely factor into things, but upcasting dispel is powerful at all levels. In fact upcasting is something many players write-off as "why would I do that when I have higher level spells" forgetting that upcasting is a new feature of 5e casting not present in older editions to the same ridiculous degree and it is balanced around that so unlike previous editions higher level spells are not, by default, better to use than lower level spells. Case in point: dispel magic can auto-counter literally any spell effect of level 8 or lower if you have a 9th level slot to upcast it with. As long as there isn't a caster crazy enough to try to counterspell your 9th level dispel with a 9th level counterspell (you can't possibly tell a dispel magic is being upcast even if you identify that it is being cast) you are going to really fuck with your DM using this forbidden knowledge.
I got off on a tangent there, apologies.
@@ShiningDarknes we all know that Gandalf has been using his charisma and deception skill to convince everyone he was a wizard when all this time he has been a divine soul sorcerer with a dip in cleric as a servant of one of the Valar..
@@ShiningDarknes What the fuck have I've just read.
@@The666opal111 a tangent, obviously. I mean I said as much.
@@ShiningDarknes Bit late but realistically the wizards in LOTR are actually druids, they speak to animals, call lightning, heat metal, use sunbeam etc.
"I cast greater restoration"
"I forgot you had that spell"
True DM moment
Reminds me of one of the first sessions I played with my wife's friends. We started at level 6 and I'd sent my entire character sheet (wizard) to the dm the week before and he gave me the okay for everything. Very first encounter we were being hunted in the forest and the druid cast pass without a trace while I cast tiny hut and the ranger covered it with brush. We completely passed up the awesome bounty hunter encounter he'd planned within five minutes and he was absolutely taken back haha he gave us all the xp we would've gotten from the original encounter he'd planned!
Glossing over the Battle of Helm's Deep in a breath is the most JRR Tolkien thing
It was faster to read that in the book than to see it in the movie.
The battle of the five armies is literally one sentence in the hobbit (Bilbo sleeps through it) but is the focus of the entire third movie lmao
GH09159 how did the person who pitched that movie get away with it?
@@emblemblade9245 ain't that something any Hobbit fan asks themself?
@@GH-un9uz Literally my favorite part of the book. It's so perfect. I would have completely forgiven the movies if they had the balls to skip the whole battle.
The mad lad only went and did it! Not gonna lie, I'd watch this as a regular segment lets get some random other films too
Could definitely do the Harry Potter franchise, or the Marvel movies in the same way.
The Matrix
💯
Do "The Princess Bride" next. Think of all the RP when trying to get Miracle Max to rez Wesley
@@danielpauley1138 Yoooooo
*You must make "[movie] but it's D&D" a series. Literally everyone would watch this!*
I reccomend the Darths and Droids webcomic. They made Star Wars but DnD
@@The_D0C70R where can i watch?
Shrek
@@Rexx2345 oh yes!
Agree. A lot of movies would fit the category
Gandalf feels like the DM's Roommate who pays all the rent, and keep leveraging that for favors when he shows up to game late, which pisses off the DM to no end...
*UNTIL...*
At helm's deep, the DM is pulling out his hair because even with the extra elf units and the strategic terrain and Legolas' loaded D20, the party is going to get TPK'd, because he forced Legolas to use a different D20 to stop the orc torch guy from blowing up the wall and he got like three 2's in a row, and he didn't plan for the entire encounter to turn into a brawl with no defensive terrain, which is why he had only one orc with a torch running (How hard can it be to land ONE good hit on ONE orc?!).
And then Gandalf walks into the room and is like "Yo, sorry, I'm late, can I blind the whole Orc army?" and the DM is like * **Clap** Just the man I needed to see, yeah, you can blind everything and also you show up with an ENTIRE reinforcing army" and they manage to actually survive. XD
thats golden
nah, Legolas kept hitting him, but they all did minimun damage~
"Gollum decides to become a problem player again." Wait til' next session where he continues to roll all successes on his death saves while harassing the poor hobbits.
"Contingency with Revivify" Genius. Gandalf is the best fighter ever. period.
Yeah if you want stuff like that check out Tulok the Barbarian, who does all sorts of dnd character builds. His gandalf build actually has contigincy with revivify it's really cool
I was so surprised I had to make sure it was possible!
Actually he's not a fighter, he's a theurgy wizard
i'll see myself out with that stupid-ass joke lmao
@@Vooman Gandalf is clearly a sorcerer. Mithrandir doesn't study magic, he's born out of it.
@@pondrthis1 yes im sure gandalf only has 9 spells, gtfo lmao
'The DM tries to give Aragorn a love interest NPC. She rolls a 1 on making soup.' And, apparently, all her Charisma checks regarding seducing Aragorn, because he is painfully not interested. :P :D
Also, I missed Legolas rolling natural 20s.
Legolas has the lucky feet, but it resets after a short rest.
Look... Aragorn is absolutely not the type of man to lead Eowyn on when he's already spoken for by Arwen.
Aragorn has a superhumanly-alluring immortal sorcerer elfmaid eager to leap upon his, ah, kingly blade. Would YOU be distracted by Eowyn?
In my opinion, Eowyn and Faramir are the better love story anyway
Legolas was accused of having weighted dice
"Meanwhile Gollum decides to be a problem player again."
🤣
I laughed a bit too hard on this part.
And Gollum is all "that s what my character would do!!!...."
The next "but it's d&d" episode should be Pirates of the Caribbean. It's got 4 movies and plenty of Acrobatics, Persuasion, and nat 20 checks. Not to mention a great cast of NPCs
*5 movies
@@Pearleace nope, there are 4. We don't speak of *that* one
@@poducha 😂 fair enough.
I'd like to see Die Hard but it's d&d honestly. I feel like there is some role playing gold in there.
4? That’s more than I remember. I’m pretty sure if it did exist, it would just be failing to recapture the energy of the original, and ultimately fail because it focused too much on jack being funny.
The DM not reading up on Boromir's backstory and assuming his brother is the same is a great way to explain Faramir being simplified from the books.
A wizard is talking to his boy.
The boy asks "Dad, are we Fire mages?"
The wizard responds "Yes, we arson."
*FIREBALL*
The father embraces his son. And casts fireball.
slow clap.
Is good one!
"Dad, are you Fireball?"
"Yes. Now we are a family again."
I like to imagine that the Silmarillion is just this DMs World Anvil tribute to his own inspiration and he’ll literally never share it with anyone but he’s proud of it whenever he’s feeling down he just looks at it for hours.
11:15
Wow, you're able to take Sam's beautiful speech and make it beautiful in a different way. Bravo.
Boromir actually wrote Gollum as a normal guy wearing black clothes, but the DM commissioned some art of Frodo, Sam, and Gollum and depicted him as a little gremlin with no shirt and it stuck
"Give it to us raw."
-Gollum's player
And wWwRrRigfling
Ooohhhkaaayy!
RAW says the fish scored a crit and now you're below 0 hp. Roll a death save.
The best part is explaining that Gandalf deliberately pulls the party away from saving Merry and Pippen cuz he can’t stand those fools
This dropped so fast in relation to the last one! I love it, and I can't wait for part 3.
"I'm not going to read your 90 pages character backstory"
I'm just curious. What's the longest backstory that everyone has witnessed?
@@vinsanity_52 One of my players consistently rocks up with 40 pages , he is a novel writer so they are always awesome to read, but once his backstory for a level 13 start was 219 pages of stuff he turned into a actual novel later.
@@vinsanity_52 The most I've inflicted on a DM was 2 full pages with 12 point text. I made more material on the side, but I'm not going to inflict that on them unless they ask for it. :P
No more than 2 pages yet
@@finndurning1394 nice how was the reviews?
"We're going in circles!" less than a minute in and I'm already in stitches lmao
She rolls a one on making soup. Accurate.
Also, I can see the Dwarf Women conversation happening around the table at an RPG session easily.
That honestly feels like a table talk conversation and the then the dm said wait are ur characters talking about this and there like sure.
Tree army or horse army?
Why not both?
DM: *internal screaming*
Or what about
A temporary invincible ghost army
@@saeniso9858 painted himself into a corner with that one.
DM: Urhhh... you cant.... because...the trees need to....guard Isenguard...ya know just in case
What about *BAT ARMY* I run in the caves!
I happen to be 69th like on comment
2:05 "Gandalf told Frodo that he was a pretty good friend of his and he didn't really want his character to keep dying" #DontKillSeanBean
I heard that line but missed that aspect of it. Brilliant!
You should do this for all kinds of movies. Make a whole second channel for it
yes that would be fun
I would love to see him do that with the first Avengers movie
hell yes
I mean he does random shit all the time on this channel anyway but please do.
Great Idea!
As soon as I read the title, I knew there would be a "Vigo broke his toe" joke.
It's the "Stormtrooper hits his head" meme of LOTR.
Alright. But, the entertainment value of taking popular works of fiction and turning them into D&D scenario's is GENIUS!
You may enjoy the webcomic DM of the Rings, which did this concept several years ago, but takes a decidedly different approach and tries to railroad the characters a lot.
Personally, I enjoy the webcomic inspired by that on called Darths and Droids, which does Star Wars, starting with the prequels. That DM's style allows for a lot more freedom.
Also, the reason Jar Jar exists is because one player had to take his kid sister with him, and they decided to let her play a character instead of being ignored and watching.
"She rolls a one on making soup" damn good one
LEGOLAS ROLES A NAT 20 AGAIN LES GO
Les go lad*
I think Legolas' player is the one who has finally come into possession of Taliesin's Golden Snitch...
Bro Legolas has legit a d20 with only 20s
Even in the DnD universe, Sam's speech makes me cry, well done man.
I grew up on the books I love the movies. And I don't know what kind of zen master magical spell you're doing but I keep thinking I'm listening to it actual D&D campaign and remember no you're just going over the movies haha great stuff
Honestly I watched the whole first video thinking this was an actual Dnd game that happened like this.
Eowyn rolling a 1 on making soup is now Lord of the Rings Canon, I have decided.
Looking forward to part 3 where Sam gets a taste for combat and goes on a killing spree to get frodo back :3
"You take one bludgeoning damage as you breAK YOUR TOOOOOE."
This is going to be an epic series
It already is😁😁
The Unbearable Lightness of Being, but it's D&D.
Nobody is talking about the fact that Jacob plays the DM with a New Zealand accent, and I think making the frustrated DM literally the director Peter Jackson is Very Good. xD
Been waiting for this one babyyyyy
11/10, this was perfect in ways i didn't even imagine
Well he rushed a bit at the end, I wanted 5 mins more with the battle of helms fucking deep
big true
Ai'll never know how you managed to tell the entire film in just under 13 minutes, whilst ALSO making it fun, engaging and relatable at the same time!!
*Combat, combat, combat, combat...*
That and his descriptions for sessions are super on point and actually feel like things a DM would think and feel with how things are going.
@5:18 Little known fact: Aragorn's player actually played out the kicking motion in real life and did break his toe IRL by hitting the table leg at full force.
That was tHe JoKe
@@lukebaker5475 Are you sure you didn't miss the joke here? Because OP didn't talk about Vigo, he talked about the player, making a paralel between "movie character did something but actor got hurt IRL" and "DND character did something but player got hurt IRL"
I really like that view of merry and pipin, in the books, I didnt realise, then when wachting the movies, it eventually turned evident they basically coused all problems, and only solved one thing, by beinging at the right place at the right time.
actually they also have fought saruman in shire after the ring was destroyed.
As a DM, this stressed me out. It felt way too personal.
Also as a DM, I feel actual pain at how this DM handles things, lmao.
"B... ugh... WHY?" -- every DM ever.
That scene with the Helmet: *Exists*
Every LOTR fan including me: "dId YoU knoW Viggo BrOKE hIs toe filMiNG ThAT sCEne!?!?"
Damn, this was good.
Now I actually wanna see Matthew Mercer react to this because he would be able to really feel the DM's pain
"NO ELVES AT HELMS DEEMP!" The GM totally got his notes mixed up from the module.
That was the only change they made that kinda pissed me off. It makes absolutely no sense for Lórien Elves to be there.
@@ieuanhunt552 no it's so weird. There's a bit of the feel from the battle of pelennor fields. But it's most like they just said. "It's elves, they look good."
It makes no sense to me.
@@MakCurrel One weird thing is that they omitted one place where Elves fought alongside humans in the books and it makes much more sense.
In the battle for the Black Gate. Elronds twin sons and the Grey Company are just not there. So they added Elves in one fight and removed them from another.
"Helm's Deep as an excuse to use the DM's cave fortress battle map" is such a hilarious explanation for that lmao
Again, just gonna say, I’d be the Frodo of this campaign. I’ve always loved the RP element of D&D far more than the combat.
No trees were harmed in the taking of Isengard.
[Trees clearly on fire]
When this series is finished can you please do The Princess Bride!
Westley is definitely a Rogue Swashbuckler and Inigo Montoya is a College of Swords Bard.
I totally agree with this suggestion and now wholeheartedly hope that this happens.
Inigo's player: "My name...is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to -"
Everyone else: "We heard you the first time."
Yes!!
Yesss
Dayum, that is some beautiful metanarrative you've built there. You made character progression for the fictional players playing the LotR characters in this D&D game, and not only that, you've done it in a way that is believable, rewarding and funny. Fantastic job, I'd love to see your take on The Return of the King.
I'd love to see videos like this for major ensemble movies, like Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, Avengers, Star Wars etc. Such a brilliant concept.
Check out the webcomic Darths and Droids for a Star Wars version.
8:50 this is the best explanation for Peter Jackson's biggest infraction on the story I've hear yet...
Aw, no reference to Legolas hitting that berserker three times and doing minimum damage everytime causing him to blow up the wall!
This is incredibly well done! It really shows how much time you put into figuring out how this would all work in D&D.
Saruman draws his power from only the most wicked of evil artifacts, like spindown dice
"And the DM's like, 'I'm not gonna read your 90 page document about your backstory'". As someone who's DM'd, I felt that.
I have been waiting for this since the first part!
Sam RPs about POH TAE TOES is easily something that has happened in real life
My groups thing is, " I roll to pet the wolf"
DM: Bro I'm straight up not having a good time.
"Gandalf leveled like 5 times." Damn yeah!
"We've been going in circles!" Had me rolling!
rolling a nat 1 on trying not to laugh? ;)
“I cast Greater Restoration”
"Rolled 8 in everything but Dex." I am not sure, but it sounds like I was playing Gollum in this one.
I was disappointed at the thought that you've abandoned this series, but then realized this came out just 4 days ago. You're doing god's work, my guy
Woo! I cant wait for return of the king! This is great, and I hope there can be one about the hobbit too!
These are just pure catharsis. I love it. I think you've got a good format for more videos, your read on these "sessions" is so good.
As a DM I genuinely prefer players who RP more, combat is pretty dull when your side is meant to lose and it's amusing to watch the party bicker.
Run deadlier combat encounters then. Your side shouldn't be, "meant to lose." That's just a sad side effect of 5e's lopsided design. If the party is amenable to some risk, and you're feeling bored at the table, don't feel afraid to turn up the heat. Losing can be fun too.
Yeah. My brother's in a DnD group that goes through the game quickly, but apparently they don't really RP that much, which makes me glad I'm in the DnD group that I'm with. Because we do a lot of silly stuff with our characters.
Like, when you have three PC's who have some variation on "steals random stuff" and they all get distracted looting the deserted city while the dm is trying to guide the party toward the giant evil tower.
(one's a kleptomaniac, one's a kobold who likes shiny stuff, and one is a finder's-keepers-oriented person who will take abandoned items he thinks may come in handy later)
Of course, it doesn't hurt that like, 85% of my player group has been involved in community theatre for years, and so we all really enjoy improvisation/acting stuff, and thinking through our characters reactions and stuff. :P
There was one downside to this one time though, LOL. The first campaign I was in, we played it for several months, got quite a ways in, and it was fun... but then the party leader got captured.
All three of us other players were thinking about our characters, and how they would have acted in this scenario, based on how we'd been playing them so far....
And we all realized something: two of our characters were loner, neutral types who didn't really care about the party leader-- or the assignment they'd been given-- enough to want to bother with rescuing him, and the third wouldn't be confident or strong enough to go after him on her own.
On top of this, all three of our characters had their own agenda that extended well beyond what the party had been hired to accomplish, and they were starting to get impatient because the assignment was distracting them from their individual goals. And since they all originated from outside the city they were investigating in, they didn't exactly... feel the need to clean up other peoples' politics.
So there we were at a standstill like "soooo...uhhhhhhhh.... now what??" :P
We started a new campaign LOL
@@drewb1979 Yep. Sometimes a total party "kill" that just ends in them all being captured for information is the last thing they'll expect.
@@drewb1979 I run two separate groups and they play completely differently yet both know how to have fun with RP and with combat. Both groups have a DM playing and they seem to have fun creating their own RP (both are playing bards too) and both groups also have a good mix of characters, making designing obstacles a challenge for me. Generally I just find a cool monster or situation and scale it up or down to suit. Sometimes we get bogged down and directionless, but controlling pacing is one of the things a good DM needs to understand. Controlling pacing, balancing combat (not all fights should be winnable, most fights should have a purpose), weaving obstacles together into a story arc and knowing how to let each character (and player) shine are the four pillars of a good DM.
These videos are some of the greatest you’ve ever made
"sam and frodo's players eye the dm like bro, you good" literally had to become that dm for a session when going up against my one player's mandalorian killing machine
I read that as "mandolin killing machine" help
That last line priceless
"Damn, we could have had a tree army instead!"
I’m so happy you’re continuing this whole series! This is some of the funniest shit I’ve seen in awhile. I’m absolutely in love with it.
I’m starting to realize dnd is just everyone including the DM is just fighting to be the main character. And now I’m rethinking my entire character and if I should even play.
More like everyone trying to fulfill their dream of being a hero. Always remember that you aren't the main character and let other players shine. When someone actually tries to be the main character, that's how you end up on r/rpghorrorstories.
I am playing a Paladin in a Pathfinder game, and we once ended a session at a dramatic moment before the last stage of a battle. All week I spent trying to figure out how to use my powers to heal the party and smite the baddy (Pathfinder pallys are decent healers, and I was the main healer). I settled on a set of actions that should give me the right opportunity to save everyone, BUT, when the time came, the druid healed the most critical player, the wizard dealt a mighty spell, and I just barely made it to the baddy to deal the last few points of damage. Then I realized, EVERYONE is trying to be the hero, and I can expect my team to use their abilities to their best and we all win together.
Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter.
Ave, true to Ceaser.
Unironically, taking a big group and splitting it up between the players who want hack and slash adventure and the players who want soft talky RP is a fantastic idea if you have the spoons to run two games. I'm going to keep that one in my pocket.
Dude I love this, the first one was perfect too. Cant wait for the return of the king campaign.
My favourite sentence is, “The DM wipes all the SWEAT off of him…”
Man, I rewatched the first one today and was really looking foward for a second one, and here it is. Love this series.
the return of the king, but it's D&D ... When?? Please keep going dude, this is awesomely hilarious xD
Yes! I've been waiting for this all week! Love this series!
wow, i really thought legolas shieldsurfing was gonna be mentioned like "and then logolas wants to surf a shield, down some stairs, in the middle of the encounter, while shooting arrows ..... and rolls 2 nat 20 in a row."
that'll be like all your checks at once, and he rolls super high on all of them
yes, part 2! thank you
1 bludgeoning damage. Because you broke your toe!
Love it, can’t wait for the next one. When you said the party was reuniting I was half expecting Frodo to start playing as Faramir.
This is a really fun format, i'd love to see more of these :D
man, this is great. So much fun, just as like with DM of the Rings, when I was a child :D
You should do star wars next!
"But it's d&d"
AS IF THE LORD OF THE RINGS STORY DIDNT START AS A D&D CAMPAIGN.
Exactly what I’ve been waiting for :)
That deserves to be a film on his own.
Great Job!
Also the Gollum ending is Hilarious!