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D&D Cartoon

D&D Cartoon – Breaking Down the D&D Adventuring Party

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Roleplaying the Other -- Tieflings are Gay

Another brand new YouTube series about the D&D Cartoon. Every episode of this series we’ll dissect another aspect of the cartoon. The very 1st one we look at the intro and the characters that will make up our Dungeons and Dragons adventuring party.

D&D Cartoon – Breaking Down the D&D Adventuring Party Video

D&D Cartoon – Breaking Down the D&D Adventuring Party Video Transcription

Dave: “Ted do you remember Saturday mornings?”

Ted: “Yeah. Footy pajamas, cartoons.”

Dave: ”Sitting in front of the TV on Saturday mornings with a big bowl of cereal watching the D&D cartoon and those were the good old days.”

Ted: “I got an idea. Let’s break down the D&D cartoon.”

Dave: “Let’s start off by breaking down the D&D adventuring party from the very intro itself. Welcome to Nerdarchy. I’m Nerdarchist Dave and as always I’m hanging out with this nerd.”

Ted: “ Nerdarchist Ted.”

Dave: “Hey, maybe it’s the first time hanging out in Ted’s basement with us. This is a place where we’d like to talk about news, views, and home brews for 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. Sometimes we even talk about other role-playing games.”

Ted: “So if you don’t want to miss a single video, don’t forget to crit hit that subscribe button and attune to that notification bell.”

Dave: “All right. So we want to to intro into the series of for, the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon. And this is kind of where we’re going to look at it from episode to episode if you guys seem to be interested in that and break it down and gamify it and see what they’re doing and how you can actually learn from the D&D cartoon to become a better Dungeon Master.”

Ted: “ So there’s a lot of information, a lot of, a lot of that is jam packed into that Short intro bit, uh, that you know, can be quite telling about D&D and magic items. And I think there’s a lot to lot to take away here.”

Dave: “So maybe you’ve seen the cartoon, maybe you grew up with it like we did, maybe you, you’ve picked up the DVD or downloaded it at somewhere and you’ve already watched it, but maybe you have it. So for your convenience, we’re going to put an affiliate link to Amazon in the description. So if you want it to pick it up, you can and kind of like fall along with us from week to week when we talk about the different episodes.”


Ted: “ Absolutely.”

Dave: “So one of the things that they do in the very beginning of, of the series and even in the intro is they do what’s called in media res. And that’s when they start with the action.”

Ted: “ And that’s when they start with the action. So they, they, they dropped the players. Well, the characters right in the middle of action, you’ve got Tiamat, you’ve got, uh, you know, mister big bad.”

Dave: “Venger.”

Ted: “Venger. Thank you. A total that total mind blank there. Uh, and they’re thrust between the two of them. And it’s like, holy crap, you have got things that you should not be meddling with right there from the get go.”

Dave: “Yeah, just from the, the intro alone, we learn a couple things we learned there from the real world, our world, they’ve been thrust into the world of Dungeons and Dragons when they accidentally go through a magical portal portal.”

Ted: “On a roller coaster.”

Dave: “Yeah. On the Dungeons and Dragons roller coaster. Right. So we, these are just things we’re learning from the intro itself. We also see what size of the party is, how many party members of they have.”

Ted: “Absolutely. Not only does it tell you how many there are, but they say who they are.”

Dave: “Exactly they, they go, they give the rundown of the character classes. So with that let’s discuss the actual party size and kind of like a little bit of who’s in that adventuring party.”

Ted: “All right, so there are six characters in the adventuring party and you know, you, you learn pretty quickly that somehow they acquired a, a baby Unicorn as well. So I don’t have all the recollections and we’re taking this week by week, but you know, Uni is more of a, you know, tag along more of a problem than it is, you know, there to help out.”

Dave: “Maybe, maybe it’s their beats companion. They do have a ranger after all.”

Ted: “They do. I don’t believe that Celeste deal is a viable option for your beast master companion.”

Dave: “Well, not in 5th Edition, Dungeons and dragons, that’s for sure. So, all right, let’s look at it a little bit. You know who the six adventures are. We’ve got a ranger, we’ve got a cavalier, we’ve got a barbarian, we have a thief, we have an acrobat”

Ted: “and we have a magician.”

Dave: “and we have a magician.”

Ted: “So if you’re new to Dungeons and Dragons, some of these character classes might not be familiar with, uh, cause they’re not all in 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. But in the early edition, that’s what you had as options.”

Dave: “Yeah, you can really see that the Unearthed Arcana had just come out, which was not the article that we read for a month, a month from Wizards of the Coast now, but an actual book where they introduced a lot of these new character classes.”

Ted: ”So in the, in the game it was actually called magic user. And for TV sake they changed it to magician. But you know, now it’s obviously wizard. A acrobat I don’t even know what the direct correlation, if anything, would, uh, would really apply to that one.”

Dave: “That would be the Unearthed Arcana. Acrobat thief Acrobat was actually a character class of its own magician actually I think refers to the title that all the different character classes would have. So you would have your character class and it might be fighter, cleric, magic user or thief. And then at every level there is a corresponding title that you would get. And you know as for like the the magic user, you didn’t become a wizard until like 10th level. Yeah. So like I said, a lot of these new new classes were introducing the Unearthed Arcana. It would have been really close to at the time that the car, the cartoon itself had aired to begin with.”

Ted: “ The characters, the players there, they’re trapped in this magical world and you know, they meet the dungeon master, which you know, most D&D games.You don’t actually have a physical representation in your world of the dungeon master. But you know, for a entertainment show there, there needs to be something there to give the players the information or give the characters the information, I guess you should say. So they meet the dungeon master and their.”

Dave: “Or maybe it’s giving the viewer the information.”


Ted: “that that angle as well, but the, the characters wanted to get out. They want to get to the real world. They want to not be in the world Dungeons and Dragons, you know. But there could be lots of things that they get to explore and see while they’re there.”

Dave: “And obviously there’s several reasons why they don’t want to be in the world of Dungeons and Dragons . Some people were like, oh, that would be so great if I could live in the ward of Dungeons and Dragons, but let me know. There’s tons of dangerous things. This super evil, powerful sorcerer Venger is trying to get things that they have and he’s okay with killing them to get them, you know, they want to keep these powerful items out of the hands of evil. Uh, also Tiamat shows up pretty often to mess with Venger and they get caught in the middle. So really there’s a lot of incentive for them to want to get back to the real world and to their lives.”

Ted: “Speaking of imaginary worlds. How about you check out the Kickstarter for Humble Wood the sponsor of this particular video.”

Dave: “Yeah, Humble Wood is a great campaign setting put out by The Deck of Many. It’s fantastic. It started off as a pdf and they just kept building this thing and building this thing to the point where they’re like, we have to release it as a book and they’re doing the Kickstarter on it. You’ve got tons of player options including new new races. There’s quite a few anthropomorphic creatures in their bird folk that you can use as player character races as you know, as well as other options for the players.”

Ted: “The original pdf that they were giving away for free over on The Deck of Many .com had all kinds of races, magic items, lot, a lot of fun stuff. You can go over there checking it out. Link will be down in the description. Check out the Kickstarter and help support the channel by supporting our sponsors.”

Dave: “Yeah. I can’t wait to see what they do with this because that free pdf was so fantastic.”

Ted: “Absolutely.”

Dave: “All right, so back into it. We’re going to break it down. We’re going to name the characters are when a name their class and then we’re going to talk about the magic items that they got to start with as well.”

Ted: “All right, first up we have Bobby the barbarian, I swear the kid is, you know, no, no older than like 8 or 10 years old, uh, based on how small he is in comparison to, you know, the other friends and he gets his magic club that gets to do all kinds of awesome things.”

Dave: “Bobby has a direct correlation to a, another character in the party as well. And you know, in real life it is that the tag along younger sibling and Sheila is the big sister Sheila. She is our thief and she ends up with that sweet cloak of invisibility.”

Ted: “and we all know from many different, uh, you know, movies, TV shows, a cloak of invisibility is always leads to trouble and a lot of fun.”

Dave: “Another member of our cast we have is Diana and she is the Acrobat. She gets a quarter staff that can shrink and enlarge and she often doesn’t a lot of like trick shots with it.”

Ted: “So the staff, the staff has a lot of fun, but you know, when it comes to adventuring, staves can get in the way so when they can shrink down and just put it in your pocket. Super Awesome, super helpful.”

Dave: “And of course, you know, the 10 foot pole has always been the staple of D&D . So it can be fighting quarterstaff or it can be a 10 foot pole for testing for those traps.”

Ted: “So next up we have Presto, the magician and you know, he gets the hat and he gets to pull out whatever he wants for the most part, although he doesn’t always get it right.”

Dave: “I wouldn’t say what he wants necessarily. Sometimes it does work. A next up we have Eric and he’s our cavalier. Uh, he’s got one of the more powerful items in the game and that is a shield that creates barriers that pretty much we’ll stop anything, magic, physical attacks, you name it.”

Ted: “Uh, then we have Hank, the ranger who he gets a magic bow. So he winds up creating the ammunition when he goes to pull it back. So you don’t ever, he doesn’t have to where we’re worry about stringing the bow, he doesn’t have to worry about ammunition. And you know, the, the stuff that he does with his arrows kind of breaks normal physics.”

Dave: “Yeah. I don’t know if they’re consider lightening or force, but it is, it is a pretty sweet item and a Hank also kind of fills the role of party leader as well.”

Ted: “So then last but certainly not least, you know, we see the Unicorn Uni run up and jump into Bobby’s arms in the intro. We don’t know where it came from. We don’t know why it’s there, but it gets inserted into the intro. Just I, there it is.”


Dave: “Well maybe we’ll, maybe you need, we’ll get his own episode as we’d go through the series and we can find out what exactly or where a Uni came from and what his role is.”

Ted: “You know, during the intro we see these, these items used in a variety of ways. And we’ve already talked about how, you know, the big bad is initially delivered right in the intro. They have to deal with Venger, they have to deal with Tiamat. Well Venger uses some kind of magic blast on the party and Eric deflects it with his shield. So not only blocks the magic but then sends it into a new target into Tiamat , super powerful. You know, in 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. I’m not aware of any, uh, shield is going to do that to you?”

Dave: “Not really. And I actually don’t know if that’s helpful or not. The fact that your attacking Tiamat.”

Ted: “Well. For All we know that particular instance could be why Tiamat and Venger are angry at each other.”

Dave: ”We will have to hang out and find out. So next up, let’s talk about the club. The club is a lot of fun.”

Ted: “So what happens with the club during the intro?”

Dave: “All right. So the, the club is a great club for one, although Bobby’s kind of small, so, so club, I don’t know, almost great club, but you know, during the intro when he hits the ground with the actually causes fishers to open up.”

Ted: “that’s pretty impressive. And I mean I’ve seen different things in an our. Games where, you know, a hallucinatory chasm could, it could be pretty impressive, but to actually open one that’s got a lot of uses.”

Dave: “Yeah. A club that creates earth essentially earthquakes is super strong super powerful. Uh, next up, let’s move to Bobby’s sister and look at her, her magic cloak.”

Ted: “The cloak is as, as we already talked about, it’s an invisibility cloak. All she does is pull up her hood and she becomes invisible. And based on what we’ve seen in, in the episodes, she really has like true invisibility as if she’s not even there. You know, we know how powerful dragon senses are and the dragon doesn’t, isn’t, isn’t able to find her. So I think it’s one of these, you know, super powerful mega artifacts if you ask me.”

Dave: “And also it may actually be an Easter egg in 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons, is a cloak of elvinkind. The, the power is activate by raising the cowl. So, you know, it might be a nod back to that or it’s just a kind of an easy, cool idea.”

Ted: “Absolutely. In the Intro, Presto pulls out his, his hat and he reaches in and just throws and hordes of ropes go springing up to the top of a, of a mountain for all of them to wind up climbing up and you know, getting away from, from Tiamat totally, uh, you know, a cool thing, I don’t know if this, you know, what winds up being like a pouch of many things, but to totally helpful, totally useful.”

Dave: “It very much reminds me of a robe of useful items to, yeah, it has that feel to it only, you know, even more so than you. There’s so much more things that you can use it for and draw from it. It’s a super powerful item. It’s just a little weird in the way it works. Or it may even be equivalent to like a wand of wonder and the, and it’s and what almost seems like randomness you, you never really learn if it’s just because he doesn’t really know how to use the item or if the item is just kind of a bit on the Trixie side.”

Ted: “You know, I look at it and it’s one of those things that I love re describing a magic items. So you can take, you know, you’re saying the robe of useful things, what you take away the robe and you’re not pulling off patches but you’re reaching in. So there’s still the action of doing something and you know, if you want to take it more into a 5th Edition mechanic he does talk about the hat of being the source of his power. So it could also be his spell casting focus.”

Dave: ”That’s absolutely true. So finally, I think we only have one more item left and that is the staff.”

Ted: “So finally, I think we only have one more item left and that is the staff. All right, so the, the staff, you know, as you, as you talked about, you know, it, it can shrink down and fit in a pocket. It can be a quarterstaff, it can be a 10 foot pole and she does a number of trick shots with it. Uh, you know, I, I’ve, I’ve seen pole vaulters and that kind of stuff and she does all of that kind of stuff. So it really fills a, you know, a small niche of things. But I have to say of all the items that the party gets, and I think she gets the shaft.”

Dave: ”I have to agree.”

Ted: “Pun intended guys.”

Dave: “You know, she makes the best of it. She does some cool things with it. You know, you see the pole vaulting and, and the pole actually grows as she, as she’s actually pole vaulting. They get over things. But you know, compare it to the club that creates earthquakes, the cloak of invisibility, the super powerful shield that can pretty much block and deflect any kind of attack.”

Ted: “The bow without ammunition that has the ability to, you know, injure, you know, great dragons and evil spell casters or, or have the ability to, you know, hit an ally and forcibly move them, you know, without, without injury that’s pretty potent.”

Dave: “And then you have Presto’s hat, which you know, who knows how much power is it stored in that thing because he pulls all kinds of things out of it. So yeah, uh, you know, a stick that shrinks and grows does seem not quite as good as the other ones. It’s like if you’re playing, if you’re playing D&D and you find a treasure trove and you guys all roll off to see who’s going to pick first. It does seem like she rolled the low number”

Ted: “She got, she got last pick.”

Dave: “For sure.”

Ted: “Looking at, you know, the party. We understand that uh, that’s kind of something missing here that a typical adventuring party kind of likes to have.”

Dave: “Yeah. I mean, interesting enough there’s, it’s a six person party, which to me is like one of the optimal numbers for an adventuring party in D&D , but they still don’t have a healer. They don’t have a cleric.”

Ted: “There is no druid. There’s no cleric. Somebody does something wrong here.”

Dave: “No, they’ve got, they’ve got a ranger, they’ve got a barbarian and I’ve got a cavalier so martial is completely covered. They’ve got to cover it really well. I mean, even though our cavalier, it doesn’t actually have a weapon other than it then his shield, uh, and then we’re like doubling down on acrobat and, and thief, which in, you know, the previous edition, they were kind of, they were almost the same class. They just worked a little bit differently. But if you look at 5th Edition, I would almost take the Diana character and maybe move her to monk instead of actually being considered a rogue or a thief.”

Ted: “That would make a lot of sense considering, you know, some of the stuff that she winds up doing. Uh, and then we have Presto who’s our only spell caster and in the group and he doesn’t even really have full control of his of his powers. He’s still trying to figure it out.”

Dave: “He’s still trying to figure it out. And also if he, if you’re your D&Dizing him, I would say that he’s actually a conjurer and he has a very specific kind of magic he does. Because for the most part he’s always conjuring and creating things from the hat. It’s not like we never see him really use a energy effects or any other cool spells or kind of that are kind of iconic in dragons and dragons.”

Ted: “But you know, he can pull a rabbit out of his hat.”

Dave: “He can absolutely. And other things as well. Yeah. So they, you know, and then obviously they have their companion and our hench there hench creature and that is Uni. It seems to be there more for cuteness and comedy relief than anything.”

Ted: “ So when it, when it boils down to, you know, we have, we have a party, they work well together most of the time. And let’s face it, you know what, what group works together all the time and they have a common goal to try and get out of the world of Dungeons and Dragons.”

Dave: “ So you know, going forward, we’re going to explore this series. We’re going to explore the world of Dungeons and Dragons via the cartoon and we’re going to gamify in D&Dize , different things from it. So if you want to see more of that, let us know in the description. You can find that link in order to go pick up your copy from Amazon.”

Ted: “While you’re there. Don’t forget to check out the link to the Kickstarter for Humble Wood and add some awesome new campaign world to your game of Dungeons and Dragons.”

Dave: “Since you’re already down there and description, keep on going and leave a comment and like share and subscribe while you’re at it.”

Ted: “Until next time.”

Both: “Stay Nerdy!”

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david friant

My name is Dave Friant I've been gaming off and on for over 27 years. But here is the thing it's always been a part of my life I've kept secret and hidden away. I've always been ashamed of the stigma that gaming and my other nerdy and geeky pursuits summon forth. Recently I decided screw it! This is who I am the world be damned. From now on I'm gonna be a geek, nerd, or however folks want to judge me and just enjoy life. Currently one of my greatest joys is introducing my 13 yr old son to table top RPG's.

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