Penny Arcade's Ryan Hartman on Learning D&D in Front of a Live Audience

Penny Arcade's Ryan Hartman actually learned Dungeons & Dragons on Penny Arcade’s The C Team live on Twitch, in front of everyone. So, I talked to him about what he learned about paladins, dragonborn and how to create a character that you will genuinely like.

Ryan Hartman: I'm getting the most screwed up education on what D&D is, because there's this weird performance element. Everyone else usually does this with their friends, in a basement, where there's not people watching you. So, I'm hyper-cognizant of the fact that I'm being watched sometimes. Like, from a narrative perspective, this is a blast. I'm loving it and being able to create a character and narratives and scenes. And all that stuff's cool, but I'm also always like ... I don't know how to react to things, because I'm like, "Someone's going to be watching this!" There's a performance aspect to it that maybe on this sort of stage, doesn't come into play when you have your own private game, you know? And this is all I know. This is the only time I've ever played. So I'm like, "I assume this is always how it's going to be, forever." I don't know.

When I first picked the Donaar Blit’zen’s class and everything, I kind of had the idea for the character. And then based on what I wanted to do with the character, I sort of went backwards, towards dragonborn. And then dragonborn, just in a min-maxing sort of way, will really work well as paladin. So, it's like I started at one point and worked backwards from that on some of his suggestions. And I did a lot of research on dragonborn. And there's a lot of funny quirks with them, that really help, that are easy to play into. Like the racial superiority thing, where they don't like anyone who aren't- They think dragons are the best. They don't like anyone else and all that sort of stuff. There's fun stuff there. Then there's like, they think dragons are the best. Dragons think they are garbage, like some half human, half dragon garbage and they don't like them. So, that's a funny dynamic too. I'm excited for when we eventually run into a dragon.

That's the thing too. From the research I've done, and I have done a lot of book reading on this, is that paladins ... There weren't a lot of variations in paladin. It was either lawful good, or something really close to that, or nothing else. And now, they've expanded, especially by 5E, where you could basically be any sort of- There's a lot of other variations of paladin. But, there's a lot of combat specking. I'm trying to find more and more of that stuff that's the less combat with them, because we also just play a not combat-heavy game.

Todd Kenreck: What oath are you?

Ryan Hartman: Oath of the Crown.

Todd Kenreck: Why did you choose that?

Ryan Hartman: It plays into the backstory pretty well. And I actually didn't know about the Oath of the Crown, because that wasn't in the main book. That's in an expansion book. And then after the first couple games, I showed Jerry this giant backstory I wrote. What was supposed to be a short story is now sprawling more and more. So, I let him read it and we were like, "Well, the oath really hasn't come up yet. So, we can kind of just scratch that out and put Oath of the Crown, because when any of this does come into play, it works better into his backstory."

I think what's been really fun and what's been really helpful, is having, if you can get it, if you can find it, I highly recommend having a great DM, and a lot of friends that you know and that you can play off really well. Just check those boxes and you'll have a good time. There you go. It's easy. It's like, what if I say, "You have to be rich?" Oh, just find a bunch of money.

All I can do is apply how I did it. I don't know if there is a best way, but I really like reading. I really like writing. And so, looking at this from a narrative, I like to work backwards from the flaws. So, I was looking for someone with a lot of flaws. And then working backwards from that, how I wanted them to act. And then, finding the race and the class. I went backwards from that.

Some people pick the race and the class because they want to do cool stuff. And then they'll just shoehorn the character into that. And I was like, "Alright, here's the character. Now will he be a ranger, or will he be a warlock, or ... ?" And then I found dragonborn and then I found paladin.