Thursday 26 August 2010

Swap Shop Massacre: D&D WITH A&V


Dungeons & Dragons #0
Written by John Rogers/Alex Irvine
Art by Andrea Di Vito/Peter Bergting

Action Ash
I thought for this months swap shop, knowing Valhallahan's hate for the fantasy genre, it would be funny to nominate issue #0 of the Dungeons & Dragons comic.

Well the joke was on me!

I used to play a bit of D&D in my early teens and I always thought it might be fun to try it again some time. I always had fun fighting orcs by rolling die, completing quests and finding treasure. As I got older I forgot about it and even stopped playing RPG's on consoles and computers. In present day I find I don't have the patience to get into World of Wankcraft, and have only just played Neverwinter Nights, god knows how many years after it's release (Also, I know I wont complete it). So when I heard about a D&D comic I thought it was a great idea, and that maybe it would rekindle my interest in playing RPG's again...

Well now I just don't want to.

The D&D comic was probably the most average thing I've read in my life! The story was meh, the characters were meh and the art was (insert expression of apathy, indifference or boredom).

I can't slag it off totally though, because I thought they did a good job of introducing the different character types in a short space but I didn't really care about them. The best thing about it was that the dialogue and characters reminded me of a Saturday morning cartoon show, but I would much rather watch the actual Dungeons & Dragons Saturday morning cartoon show from the 80's, than read another issue of this.

2d6 wrinkly little goblins with rusty daggers out of a possible 5d20 marauding Orc bandits with +2 flaming swords.

Valhallahan
My name is Liam and I am a geek. Not a just a bit of a geek, a big old geeky geek. I’m writing a comic book blog for Drokk’s sake. See? I said Drokk! Anyway despite my geeky geekdom there's one rung of geekery ladder that I've never ascended/descended to: ROLE PLAY! To me it's all wizard and fairy shit. Now, it's not that I'm against Fantasy per se, but it's not my favourite genre. I grew up reading Conan and I've read the Lord of the Rings trilogy more than once, but, and I know this is a stretch for a superhero fan, I find the whole arena faintly ridiculous. There, I said it. It's my problem, not theirs'. Now with this in mind here's what I thought of Dungeons and Dragons #0, as a complete D&D virgin (not the usual context in which D&D and virgin are used in the same sentence - sorry, couldn't resist).

Like I what I bitched about Avengers Prime for, I read both stories in the space of cigarette (inc. lighting time) which is fine for an #0, but future issues better have more substance. You do get quite a chunk of extras too, which although I wasn't into it enough to read, I'm sure they’re good if you like that sort of thing. In this book, we’re given two tales from the D&D Universe, with very different tones. Of the two stories presented, I preferred the second, probably because had more of a Gladiator/Conan vibe, but preferring it to the other doesn’t mean I was all that keen, it seemed like the set up for a neutered, bloodless version of something we've seen a million times before.

It's a good #0; it's noob-friendly and provides a variety of content to get your teeth into, but it's just not a particularly good comic. The art is ho-hum, I was expecting some Bisley-esque awesomery, but it was a bit limp. As I said before though, I'm biased against all that wizard shit, so what do I know?

Two Wizard's Sleeves out of a possible Gandalf.

2 comments:

René Reiche said...

I read the Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings, played maybe 10 sessions of DSA(Das schwarze Auge, german equivalent of D&D with) watched the movies 2-3 times, really liked the books and would really enjoy the movies, if it weren't for the dislike of all the fanboys. I don't really know why, but I'm looking down on those guys... as if they're worshipping something that has no style and that's why I don't want to be associated with any of their kind.
RPGs on the PC is something different though(again, I don't really know why) but they're fun, I like all that time-wasting micro management(if I HAVE the time).
That's why I'd like to recommend Dragon Age: Origins to Action Ash. It's like Neverwinter Nights, just better in every aspect and there is tons of different paths to go depending on the decisions to make.
Really enjoyed that 50 hours or so... still wouldn't try reading the comic, even if it had gotten good reviews.

What I WILL buy and try though is the Four Eyes Tpb.

Action Ash said...

Thanks dude, I'll try it out.