This may not be the place to say it, but I can't stand Natsuki (Re:Zero). I tried reading the light novel, but he was so stubborn about not learning things he really ought to already know as an otaku. I mean, in the first few pages he copies anime heroes and suffers for it not once, not twice, but three times in quick succession. And then he pulls a move that usually backfires on the heroes who try it.

No this is not spoiler territory stuff, this is likely all in the first episode of the anime stuff. I know the show is supposed to get a lot more interesting later, but I had my fill.

Though, from Player perspective, his actions make more sense ironically. By doing the various tricks, he learns how that GM is going to play, what he can get away with, and all that.

And, with his rebirth ability, that means he retains all that knowledge in game as well.

I believe, that in this universe, there was no rebirth ability.
I would say, that he figured stuff out without dying even once.

Of *course* Cory would have played Kiryu XD And Gordon a Sinbad? I can see it. =)

I recognize what's his name from the yakuza franchise. The white suit and scowley face gave it away.

And I frickin loved Kid Flash from Teen Titans.

Michael Rosenbaum was KILLING it in the booth.

No wonder one of the Trio had to become the GM. With a group like that, only madmen would try and go against them.

or mad woman in the case of dm, she willingly went against them in multiple systems

And they're the one who came out of it scared.
Guess she was'nt going easy on them.

Although references to other shows can be fun. It gets to be annoying when one doesn't recognize the characters.

Can someone explain the references to me.

Top left is Kid Flash from Teen Titans, who has super speed.
Middle is Kiryu from Yakuza, a gangster who's strong enough to basically fight entire groups by himself.
Bottom middle is Subaru from Re:Zero, a teenager transported to another world who can "return from death," resetting to an earlier point in time whenever he's killed.

Not familiar with the other three.

Top right is Isaac (and Miria) from Baccanno, a pair of nutballs who continually manage to succeed despite themselves. (at one point they set out to steal a museum because it's corrupting the youth (or something) but discover it's too heavy to steal. Instead they steal the door (so nobody can get in, you see) and because of this the museum has to close until they can figure out what happened. game, set, match.

Left middle is Saiki K from the titular anime (i think). I don't know much about the anime itself, so someone else may have to give details

Bottom Right (which i believe would be chaotic evil. dang, now i want an alignment chart based on these guys) is Sora from No Game No Life, a shut-in nerd who's really good at games who gets transported to a world where everything is decided by games (along with his not-related-by-blood sister)

Saiki K is a psychic. He, at the age of 6, finished the action adventure part of his life by destroying the evil organization (with no real strain on his part) and is now in highscool trying to blend in and not stand out. He is constantly limiting his own powers because he’s just too damn strong, (the pink nodes on his heads are the limiter.) Probably around the same as Mob Psycho strong. Or higher, for an example of him going all out in using his powers there’s only really one, he was attempting to stop an earthquake that would rip japan asunder. Not just stopping the surface damage, but the entire earthquake itself. He’s failed at stopping it for the past few years, but he’s also turned back time for the entire planet a year each time he failed so that he could grow his power some more. Not time slip time powers, but regressing the state of the world so that it is in the condition it was a year before.

No Game No Life was one of those series that I really should like, but I could never get into. I think it was because the whole games being serious business was a divinely enforced rule of that world. Once it was given an explanation it lost its magic. When you just have to accept that everyone is crazy enough to bet the fate of the world on a card game or tops or whatever the hell bakugan’s are, everything becomes a lot funnier.

I mean, there are reasons for those games in their own universe. Beyblades had the spirits of divine beasts inhabit the “best weapons” of the generation and.... yeah. Yugioh is literally a card game until shadow magic from Egypt gets involved, but I can agree the fact that GX shows it became important enough for a school to exist means the whole population is literally insane. Of course that’s entirely because Kaiba decided to enforce his will on the world, and made duel monsters Uber popular. And he’s involved in the Egypt magic thing, so there’s some leeway for shenanigans.

Most experienced players develop their own play style. Personally I follow the standard munchkin procedure of getting my numbers as big as possible and steamrolling everything. Of course I make sure to give all my murder machines personalities and motivations beyond “kill things, get loot”. And most of the time these goals can’t be resolved by murderhoboing. Like my Uber Wizard who was a straight up psychopath, but who wanted to have genuine interpersonal relationships. It was actually pretty funny when my party realized that my joking about wizards having no sense of right and wrong wasn’t a joke. Got a nice little Workd of Cardboard speech where I explained to a villain that try though I might, I could never see other people as anything other than numbers, but that didn’t matter right now, because he was in my way, and my numbers were bigger than his.

My favorite munchkin build I ever came up with was my Monk/Hexblade/Ur-Priest Necro-Warlord Evil Capitalist. Mettle and Evasion together with great overall save bonuses made him almost impossible to harm with magic, plus he had nearly endless Hit Dice of skeletal hydras and giants under his control, and he was ALSO throwing Level 9 divine magic and spamming wish 3/day (for mostly cash to bribe nobles and peasants), all at 14th level! He had to be officially evil to qualify for his prestige class, but he was so obsessed with his reputation and discrediting the royals who scapegoated him that he really did play the hero 99% of the time for all the wrong reasons. Think Momonga from Overlord except human instead of undead, and faking like he's a noble knight in shining armor... until there are no witnesses and he has a grudge against you. His best exploits included bribing an Efreeti into becoming his "king" by using his "Steal Spell-like Ability" class feature to copy its wish granting powers and showing it with conjured gold and jewels, using the remainder the the cash from the scheme to outright buy many of the nobles and their mercenaries, using a Miracle spell to call and outright DO-OVER after the rest of the evil party went 110% murderhobo on a town he was trying to influence, braking his cover, and sending a maid who once gave false testimony against him into a Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion after telling her she she would be free if she could just outrun his spawned zombies only to let them enter at the exit too.

Runners up in just 3.5 DND were "She-Who-Sunders-Castles", "The Shadowy Whale Ninja" and his arch-rival "The Honorable Squid Samurai," the Camel-centaur and his multi-ton 10' x 10' x 10' adamantite block of returning +1, the Paladin with the Gargantuan Sword, "The Pied Piper of Bees", and "Iajutsu Focus-specialized Expert 'Ninja' NPC", and the Gaston Expy.

Forgot to mention the "ninja" by way of Expert levels was also a Were-housecat/Halfling (Tibbit as I recall) who completely derailed his campaign. The traitorous big bad of the campaign, a bard, tried to pull a flashbang and hide, but the DM accidentally chose the wrong wagon... the wagon we'd already established my character was lounging under in cat form. The big bad's dramatic scripted escape failed when he promptly got one-shot'ed by a ninja housecat.

That's how Expert levels got banned from my table!

if only I could have had something so awesome when my character was pretending to be a cat

I once played an Awakened Housecat Wizard who was pretty much just Salem Saberhagen if he got his powers back. I almost managed to take over the world too, until the rest of the party pointed out how much work running a global empire in a pre industrial world would be. So I settled for conquering the upstairs bedroom in the party’s portable house

You have to give info on the Gaston Expy. So we can finally settle what his stats are and how it compares to the song.

Let's assume the baseline stats are 10 in all fields (STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA)
Then let us listen to the lyrics.

>There's no man in town as admired as you, you're everyone's favorite guy
+1 CHA
>No one as slick as Gaston
+1 CHA
>No one's quick as Gaston
+1 DEX
>No one's neck's as incredibly thick as Gaston's
+1 CON
>For there's no man in town half as manly
+1 STR
>As perfect, a pure Paragon
Class: Paladin
>And they'll tell you whose team they prefer to be on
+1 CHA
>No one's been like Gaston
+1 CHA
>No one's got a swell cleft in his chin like Gaston
+1 CHA
>As a specimen, yes, I'm intimidating!
+1 CHA
>My what a guy, that Gaston!
+1 CHA
>Give five "hurrahs!"
+5 CHA
>Give twelve "hip-hips!"
+12 CHA
>Gaston is the best
+1 ALL
>No one fights like Gaston
+1 STR
>Douses lights like Gaston
+1 WIS
>In a wrestling match nobody bites like Gaston!
+1 STR
>For there's no one as burly and brawny
+1 CON
>As you see I've got biceps to spare
+1 STR
>Not a bit of him's scraggly or scrawny
+1 CON
>And ev'ry last inch of me's covered with hair
+1 CON
>No one hits like Gaston
+1 STR
>Matches wits like Gaston
+1 WIS
>In a spitting match nobody spits like Gaston
>I'm especially good at expectorating!
+2 DEX
>So I'm roughly the size of a barge!
+10 CON
>No one shoots like Gaston
+1 DEX
>Makes those beauts like Gaston
+1 CHA
>Then goes tromping around wearing boots like Gaston
+10 Movement speed
>I use antlers in all of my decorating!
+10 interior decorating

Which puts Gaston at
16 STR
15 DEX
25 CON
11 INT
13 WIS
36 CHA

High STR/DEX
Incredibly CON
Average INT/WIS
Legendary CHA
Great stats for a paladin.

Gaston was high to paragon level in all his physical stats as well as Charisma with a slightly below average Intelligence and abysmal wisdom. Ranger levels of course. Mostly "being Gaston" is a mindset of rampant machismo, impregnable self confidence, and over the top narcissism. The funny thing is that Gaston would probably have been the protagonist in most other movies, and I played him as a deeply flawed but still heroic small town champion. He even sung his own theme song at one point to make a point!

I will forever be that "I'm just happy to be here" guy.
Yeah, I main rogues, and yeah, I like maxing out my Dex, but one rogue went Shadowdancer with high Charisma, another's gone with high Int, and my latest is a pure Dex/Con.

My next character's gonna be a ranger, but I don't have a head for spells. Melee's nice and simple, and I'm trying out ranged, but I keep forgetting spells exist, which means I don't remember to swap out what spells I've prepared each adventure, and the one time I tried a spell user, that got annoying fast.

Remember to check Complete Champion for the alternative bonus feats to replace them like a Fighter.

Hah, it's rock-paper-scissors

Before I say this, let me clarify that this isn't a complaint and I love this sort of comic.

Does Grandline 3.5, Harry Potter and the Natural 20, Erfworld and all the other DND related media give the wrong impression of the game? I can see fans of these wasting lots of time in their first campaigns trying out of the box solutions.

They promote out of the box thinking sure, but it makes it a lot harder on your DM and can make other players feel like your cheating/getting special treatment.

For example, in one of my first campaigns (4e) I realized that if my bard took Create Magic Item, Mutliclass Wizard and Multiclass Warlock then I could make wands of any Encounter spell of those classes below my level.

Not only that, but the spellbook class feature for Wizards was essentially just "you get a spellbook, only wizards can use spellbooks". But spellbooks are also purchasable items and by the 4e Multiclass rules I was considered a wizard so I had a book with no spells but I could add them when found.

4E doesn't actually have any rules for finding or buying spells so I asked the Wizard if I could copy his. He said no naturally. For the in-game reason of it took him ages to earn that knowledge and the out-of-game reason that the DM ruled that I should have the same number of spell slots as a wizard my level so I would have completely eclipsed him in both power and utility.

Admittedly, DND doesn't do itself any favours in this regard. The 4E manual for example talks about how a wizard could divert a river wipe out a division of troops. It leaves the method blank, but the fact it said "wizard" would imply to most that it's an arcana check which opens the flood gates (pun not intended) for bullshit magics that don't use spellslots.

If a player comes up with an incredibly detailed and creative application of the rules not expressly given in the book and the DM shoots it down because it's out of the box, the DM isn't trying hard enough.

Good roleplaying should be based on improv. Your answer to anything creative should be an encouraging "yes and-". If a player is cheating within the white area around the rules, then they aren't cheating. If a creative player is getting special treatment because they're engaging with the world more in ambitious ways, then the special treatment is deserved.

I had a campaign where I figured out everyone's motivation and character and built upon the rules to further empower them. Everyone got character-relative powers that were out of the box and everyone got special treatment whenever they stepped up to take it. Yes, they became too powerful - but every DM needs to understand the mechanics of the game. You need to know exactly what your group is capable of and know how to fight them so they'll blow away the opposition, barely get by, and die immediately. If your players are influenced by a comic or anything crazy, you should be f***** stoked.

As a general rule, I consider there to be a necessary give and take between a DMand the players. A DM needs to understand what kind of campaign the players want and work to give them that, but it’s also important for the DM to have fun as well, so players should be willing to let them indulge in stuff like hammy villain speeches or description porn without interruption from time to time. Personally I find it very helpful as a DM to have my players all give me a basic description of their character, likes, dislikes, goals, fears, stuff to give me ideas to motivate them beyond “here’s a big sack of xp guarding a big pile of treasure”. As a player I will derail, but only if it is a logical derail for my character to perform, like bombarding a dungeon from orbit when I really had no reasons to go in their aside from wanting to kill everything inside. As a DM you need to be adaptable, because none of your plans will survive first contact with players, and as a player you need to remember that your DM can only have so much planned out, so at least try to work with what they have so you don’t have to end the session 10 minutes in because you just shut down the encounter they spent weeks building.