Fantasy and Comedy: Part Two

Welcome, adventurers! It is I, Dan Telfer, a gangly goof here to guide you through another chapter of my journey through D&D! Along the way I hope to convince every last doubter that the genres of Fantasy and Comedy get tangled in each other like the Demonweb and headphone cords. Oh, and here’s a link to Part One of this story.

Perhaps you needed no convincing, but as I’ve read a few million fantasy proper nouns, some with over one hundred syllables each, you can trust that I’ve seen some fantasy-based ironies that need closure. For instance, did you know Tolkien wrote about an island-sized turtle? Probably not, because its name is Fastitocalon. Folks, please give your giant murder turtles snappier names.

Plus elements of comedy like parody, exaggeration, and satire greatly improve your roleplaying experience. It may feel meaningless to be devoured by a black pudding near the end of a campaign, but if you can convince yourself it was analogous to a beloved Joss Whedon character dying in the third act of a story then perhaps you'll be able to laugh off being swallowed by the abyss.

I’d now like to talk about my 1990’s high school phase, my second wave of D&D. It was all about getting fellow demi-adults to stop dating each other so we could “play wizard quest.” Sigh. It’s called Dungeons and Dragons, Jeremy.

 

Wasting My Slots

My last little piece was about childhood awkwardness, but as we move out of the 1980's I unlock a personality quirk that haunts me to this day: self-deprecation. In 1993 it meant saying things like “I love crazy stuff like vampires and dragons” to large groups of people who then thought, “crazy huh, okay, we will definitely humiliate you with this information.” Self-deprecation exists so we oddballs can call out our flaws before the bullies can, an endearing confession if you will, in order to lord the mysterious arcane power of self-awareness over them. Sometimes it works! But I am also blustery, so I often miss additional important questions, like “will this honesty make me an even wider, weirder target?”

This clumsy 6’5” teen had to make the situation into irony lemonade, however, because I was leaving an eighth grade class of less than 20 kids. The next year I plunged into a high school with thousands of kids. Contemporary internet quizzes tell me I am an “INFJ,” but in the early 90’s I was more murkily defined as a “shy kid who flinches at the sight of gently floating dust.” Rumors about my awkwardness travelled fast, and so though this school had a dozen nerd sub-cliques, we shall have to fast forward through 1.5 years of utter solitude before I find my fellow theatrical bookworms. Imagine high-speed footage of me wearing different Mystery Science Theater 3000 t-shirts to school in an attempt to achieve eye contact with someone, then nervously scuttling away when I got the eye contact I thought I wanted.

The closest I came to playing my freshman year was one lunch break where I sat at a table with bookish outcasts discussing the difference between “elvish” and “elven.” Without benefit of the internet to decide for us, we were locked in a stalemate. At one point, a kid took out a Tolkien biography that he claimed settled the discussion, and he read about 15 pages of irrelevant information. On the bright side, I learned about Fastitocalon, the island turtle, which the young man pronounced with a painful and unecessary French accent. But we did not deliberate over sloppy joes again.

Peaches for Me

My first high school D&D character was Peaches McGillicuddy.

I'm... sorry.

Was it obvious I had some issues committing to a serious name? Perhaps also that I was desperate for attention? Dreamed up while consuming Taco Bell at my mom’s house, with not so much as a single prospect for a game on my schedule, I decided that Peaches worked at a sideshow as a pinhead. I had a line in my back pocket if anyone asked what he was wearing: “Peaches wears only breeches.” No that is not a complete joke. The useless rhyme hangs in the air like a sword of Damocles or, worse yet, a joke written by someone who does not yet know how jokes work.

The true punchline is that I would eventually bring this premise to the houses of relative strangers. That's right, I went into the pre-internet version of Matchmaking Mode. There were kids at school I’d speak to once, then not speak with ever again. Four times I met up with people to bicker about interpreting the rules, and I never got as far as announcing my leather breeches. We’d order pizza, argue over what fictional city to use as a backdrop, and then go home early because we didn’t have driver’s licenses. Our parents thought we were friends, but no, we were young strangers failing to start a book club. 

And oh, the names. I came up with so many terrible, painfully unfunny joke names. Though I remain a very silly person, I now spend time trying to approximate some fantasy etymology. But back then I was obsessed with clunky semi-wordplay that was funny only to me. And known only to me. For years these were my secrets, unfit for the public.

So here it comes. I shall use this climactic moment in Part 2 of my D&D origin story to confess my ultimate shames, all of the horrible character names from this era. The following is the result of several overturned boxes from my storage unit. Unaltered to preserve the shame.

I had a fire wizard named “Tabasco.” I sighed while typing this.

I had a fighter named “Mojica,” a reference to the lead singer of a punk band called The Fighters. “Get it?” I said to a group of teenagers gathered at Fiction House, the local comic book store in Homewood, Illinois. I waited for one kid to say "Oh yeah, The Fighters." Nope. I smirked into a void, flexing a reference for an abyss of indifference.

Tabasco never cast a spell. Mojica never drew a sword. Into a box the character sheets went.

Here are the others, adventurers, their haunted Second Edition sheets translated to a few bleak lines in a much-delayed exercise of self-deprecation.

Deckard K. Dick: A decent idea for a noir ranger wrapped in a Bladerunner reference that makes my retinas ache when I read it. He wore a medieval fantasy trench coat. Which is not a thing.

Salacious B. Gnome: A gnome that was going to laugh like Salacious B. Crumb from Star Wars. Nobody enjoyed my careful recreation of the laugh, and instead the kids stalled until their rides came.

Tuscadero Leatherman: A rogue, and a reference to Leather Tuscadero from Happy Days. Also, Peaches McGillicuddy had that leather pants thing. A recurring leather theme. I may have been working through something at 15 and I’m just now realizing it.

The Ballad of Peaches

Then one glorious Sunday I heard the call. A group of high school seniors was going to play, they played often, and they actually played. Yes, I was referred to these seniors! I would play with condescending young adults, older than me and hardened by the world! What could go wrong, a kid 3 years their junior randomly plunked amongst them to make Star Wars sound effects? Hooray!

How it came to pass that these seniors reached out to I, the strangest of sophomores, is blurred by years of Mountain Dew abuse. I think someone from Fiction House may have seen me as as a charity case and called in a favor. And like a djinn summoned by a basic bard, this was a favor I did not have the swagger to pull off.

I dusted off Peaches, thinking he was the perfect canary to send into this coal mine of 18-year-olds. Not to paint a cliche picture, but some of them may have even known what kissing was. “Everyone will love saying Peaches out loud so much," I practically yelled to myself in my own head, "they won’t notice that I barely know what armor class is!” You can see where this is going.

About 5 minutes into a 5 hour session, the dungeon master winced as he looked at my sheet, paused for dramatic effect, and then said, “PEEEEEACHES?” with such derision, you would think I was Pee-wee Herman in a biker bar. The air was sucked out of the room. A tone was set. The other players decided I needed to be taught a lesson. Peaches had to die. 

I spent the next 295 minutes dodging the angry eye of a party paladin who hated Peaches’ tattoos, ducking the condescending taunts of a priest who wanted to rob me, and several stabbing attempts from two rogues in the party. It was a workout just getting around town doing errands. I think all we did was go potion shopping, but it felt like I was going to Walgreens and getting repeatedly mugged by my own family in the car.

My precious Peaches, no-one understood you. Sure, I told everyone you put actual nails in your face, your name a pastiche of violent syllables, but all that bravado was supposed to be a facade. You were going to be a hero. I didn’t have the stamina to own my abrasive choices!

The game ended. Peaches did not die. 

As everyone packed up there was a sudden shift in tone I did not expect. The seniors dropped the theatrics. They told me they had fun. They invited me back.

But I was exhausted. THEY HAD THREATENED PEACHES. Have you ever felt protective over a foolish creation? It is hard to describe that feeling. Not quite a pet or a child, and certainly not a character in a story the public would ever know, Peaches has occupied a precious place in my subconscious. Both back then and for years to come. Only in D&D can you give birth to Peaches McGillicuddy, an imaginary being that is bad at their job, and then become emotionally bound to the character anyway.

Rather than meet up with these complex older humans, I would spend much of the next year retreating to my Super Nintendo, and yes I gave the name Tabasco to a mage in Final Fantasy. Sure I went on some dates too, nerds do actually go on those contrary to popular myth. But sadly it would be another high-speed montage of me trying on pop culture graphic tees before someone would date me and roll dice with me.

Now I must pause my D&D life until Part Three, wherein I shall detail college and the hubris that lies beyond. 

I do hope you’re enjoying this nonsense, and that you will tell me if you do, as it has turned out to be alarmingly personal to reveal all of this to you! See you soon for not just more of this, but more rules and monsters that I’ve cooked up to keep your games weird.


Dan Telfer is the Dungeons Humorist aka Comedy Archmage for D&D Beyond (a fun way they are letting him say "writer"), dungeon master for the Nerd Poker podcasta stand-up comedian, a TV writer who also helped win some Emmys over at Comedy Central, and a former editor of MAD Magazine and The Onion. He can be found riding his bike around Los Angeles from gig to gig to gaming store, though the best way to find out what he's up to is to follow him on Twitter via @dantelfer.

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