Hail and well met, adventurers! A while back I promised (to myself, at least) a series in three parts about my journey through tabletop gaming, and here we are in Part Three! You can go find Part One here and Part Two here if you’d like to catch up. Don’t worry, I can wait, I’m writing this in the past anyway. The idea of these pieces being that there is something special about the unity of the fantasy and comedy genres, and that like whimsy and levity, the genres gently dovetail each other as they travel through the annals of pop culture. Isn't that a lovely sentiment? It's so much better than "sometimes it's funny when goblins fart."

Part One was about me stumbling through grade school with dreams straight out of the Far Realm, and Part Two was about my trying to connect with fellow "humans" in high school, and thus we must acknowledge that someone who has looked up how old I am on IMDB (how dare you… my skin looks great though, right?) knows it should take me quite a bit longer to cover the deep stretch of adulthood and get us to the present. My previous chapters covered a couple years each, but there are decades ahead! Nobody can burn through a decade unless they (checks a list of what nerdy adults do to make time feel accelerated), oh... sure... maybe I was in a World of Warcraft guild.

All years vaporized while consuming MMO's aside, becoming an adult often means setting aside the folly of games, even ones that bring friendships and community together. Oh, I tried, my fair adventurers, I really did. But truth be told, I was not the best player, nor that great at finding free time.

Pointy Teeth, Dull Wits

In college I dove into the theater department of my liberal arts school, a boon for tabletop roleplaying nerds! I found actor friends who would pretend to be elves with me, and a theater director friend who was a great dungeon master. In hindsight however, I kinda sucked as a player. And not just because I played some Vampire: The Masquerade.

Don't get me wrong, I was nice and non-disruptive and everything was fine (and nothing against Vampire, my sucking was just under the harsh light of day). But you see, this was in an era before you could really see anyone playing tabletop games as a viewer. And really, I am an empathetic fool who does better after watching others work on a shared craft. There were lots of Dungeons and Dragons playing styles, and I was starting to really let my adult insecurities talk me into feeling clumsy about my style. 

Plus, awkward though I was, I had begun taking improv comedy classes at the age of 18, so I was okay with making a fool of myself in the name of taking an entertaining risk. When it came to being clumsy, I leaned into it. In other words, I was bashful and loud at once. Maybe a cute way to describe a newcomer to a kindergarten class, but maybe also a disturbing way to describe a 6'5" fella playing Dungeons and Dragons. Sure I was playing with theater friends, but I was still playing a game with rules.

Owning this odd personality in a game had positives and negatives.

On the positive side, I was an entertaining player to have at the table, and not a jerk.

On the negative side, I was loud, uneven, and sloppy. The last campaign I would play for many years was one where my character, Unferth the stout half-elf, was trapped in an underground prison with his companions. There was an elaborate puzzle involving mysterious clockwork mechanisms built into the prison room, and if only we could solve this masterful puzzle, we could escape.

The puzzle was created by my friend Chris Walsh, a playwright and theater director who put a great deal of thought into the room. I was playing a bruiser of a character, though, and Unferth gave up quickly. Because I was dumb, and Unferth was strong. While the other three characters tried to solve the puzzle, I punched and smashed the wall with my bare hands, eventually hand-digging through soil and breaking contraptions in the wall that controlled the puzzle.

And by breaking it, I felt like a jerk! For a second I was proud of myself, but then I was faced with reality. My pretend hands held the smashed little bits of a game I would now never get to pretend-play. Dumb Unferth spoiled his first party.

Even if it was worth a laugh or two to describe Unferth pummeling a prison wall for in-game hours, I still punched a puzzle to death. No goblin fart could cover that failure.

What happened after was not directly related to Unferth's bad day (we had a few more sessions after the prison cell incident). But what happened next was, indeed, tragic inertia.

A Long Rest

Here, a decade passes. Clouds rush across an indifferent sky. Some other fast forward imagery from a Nine Inch Nails video also happens.

For 10 years I did adult things that had little to do with Dungeons and Dragons, which young folks now call "adulting." But back then I called it "setting aside a hobby." I missed those dice, and I tried to find some groups in the comedy world, but there was always a reason someone couldn't make to the central apartment at 3PM on a Sunday. Ah, nothing obliterates a hobby like the cruel mistress known as scheduling.

There is some publicly available evidence that I, Dan Telfer, missed my Dungeons and Dragons hobby during this period. On my 2011 stand-up comedy album I make a reference to my 3 year-old daughter having a high Intelligence and a low Wisdom. But alas, this cheap shot at my feral child aside, I did not play for quite some time.

Nerd Pokery

After some years of improv, theater, and stand-up I eventually I met Brian Posehn, a well-known stand-up comedy nerd and real-life ogre. Perhaps you know him? If not, come on, open a tab and do a quick Google.

In 2007 I found myself very lucky to be able to do an opening set for Brian at a comedy venue in Chicago (where I lived at the time) called the Lakeshore Theater. I had known him from HBO's Mr. Show and The Comedians of Comedy, a documentary from ye olde DVD era of Netflix. Oh, how lucky we are that D&D books skipped straight to websites, and I never had to replace a scratched DVD loaded with lore books and a goblin fart soundboard. Note to self: email Syrinscape and ask them to make a goblin fart soundboard.

Before long Brian and I struck up a friendship (I am also a sensitive ogre) and I was able to open for him on a variety of tour dates.

One day, around 2011, Brian explained to me an idea he had for a podcast. A bunch of his nerdy Los Angeles friends had played around the same time I had played post-college, and he also missed it. They'd call this new recorded version of their games "Nerd Poker," because D&D night is like poker night for nerds. He'd even get his old LA gang back together. I told him the truth, that it sounded like the best idea ever, while quietly losing my mind. 

A couple more years went by. Brian started the podcast, and I finally moved to Los Angeles, where they will sometimes actually pay you to write and perform. It's crazy! I started working on a TV show with Blaine Capatch, one of the funniest writers and comedians alive, and also one of the players on Nerd Poker. At this point I was listening to every episode. I would run up to Blaine at work and tell him where I thought the adventure was going, and he would smile and nod (and then make an instantaneous, complex joke, because he is Blaine Capatch). 

Then one day, though it now seems fated (or like I was a deranged fan boy), I was stunned to be asked to fill in. Nerd Poker's cast was all having babies, and my own babies were no longer babies. After a few sessions of filling in for cast member Sarah Guzzardo, one of Brian's long-time writer friends, I would start steering her character on the show. I got to play with Brian, Blaine, and Ken Daly along with new cast member Steve Agee. 

I wanted to do Sarah's character, Lyra, justice. Decade-old insecurity had crept back in! Sarah was hilarious on the show, so I was sure I was going to "play wrong." We theater nerds are so high maintenance.

But Sarah reminded me that it was my character to steer now, and I could do whatever I wanted. I was very grateful for that, and then I was almost immediately humbled when I accidentally got Lyra crushed to death by apologizing to a hostile giant. Don't apologize to giants. They're dumb and don't understand what humility is. And also they don't like theater nerds.

Kill the Orcs, Slay the Orcs, Destroy the Orcs

I am now a full-time cast member of Nerd Poker, which has now been around longer than Mr. Show. Sarah is even back, playing at the same time as I am! The show is one of my favorite projects I have ever worked on, and now I am dungeon-mastering it no less. Steve sometimes comes back, as does much of the old crew from before my time, and the genius actor and improviser Chris Tallman has joined us to play a Warforged in a velveteen suit. Ken is now a bird (an aarakocra, kooka-looo).

I could say so much about where the show is at, and how it got me to you here, on this website, and how much I love writing the lore for Nerd Poker. It's the kind of thing I could gush about without ever stopping. Brian, Sarah, Blaine, Ken, Chris, and our engineer Sam are all so much fun to work with, and it's a huge reason why I get to write on this website about my brother Rick, my old college friends, and weird alignments I'm making up for D&D Beyond readers.

But I will just say one more thing so as not to make this all into one big Nerd Poker commercial (look us up on your app of choice!).

At one point in 2015, the podcast took a break. We were unsure of when we'd come back, but scheduling had become too hard for even a core of four people to keep playing.

Then, suddenly at the beginning of 2016, I had cancer. Yeah. It was gross, as cancer is.

I had to go through weeks and weeks of chemotherapy. I was going to be okay, it was a very treatable kind of cancer, but I was going to have to go through a lot of surgeries and have my ass utterly kicked. Physically and financially.

Brian immediately went into action. He dragged the show out of retirement early. He asked politely if I minded if he could put together a fundraiser where Nerd Poker reunited so I could pay off the various medical bills piling up.

I couldn't believe this guy whose comedy I loved and who let me do silly dumb jokes next to him sometimes was going to produce a live show around my obnoxious burden. Nerd Poker Live happened at Largo, one of the most amazing live venues in Los Angeles, and all the ticket proceeds  helped pay for my treatment.

I was there onstage, too. Grey-skinned, hairless, heavy from steroids, and sweating like I had barely left the house in months (I hadn't). Many members of the cast were there too, some from before the podcast days, back when they all ate cupcakes around a table with no recording devices. I sat onstage, mostly sweating, in awe of my good fortune despite the crappy hand I'd drawn.

Nerd Poker now operates as a normal, functional show. It's once again all fart jokes and beholder fights with hilarious people I admire. That benefit was just a footnote for us. I can't tell you how much it meant to have something so silly, dumb, fun, and ridiculous pay for the nightmare that of serious medical treatments. But fantasy and comedy totally bailed me out. And it was the first sense I had that there was a community much larger than I could ever understand supporting me as a human being. I will always be grateful for that community, and this platform, and for fantasy and comedy marrying each other. They did, and now Dungeons and Dragons has to be silly sometimes.

Thanks for reading! I'll have something less sincere and more ridiculous next week. See you there, adventurers!

 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 podcast, a 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.