More D&D Info Cartoons

April 8, 2024 2:36 PM

Six years ago (really? wow) I posted about Zee Bashew's terrific D&D explainer videos. Well he's still making them, and is trying to do one a week for the next few months! Here are some he's made since I last told you all about them: What is a grognard? - Ceremony - Encumbrance in 5E - The Awful Way I Ran 5E Survival - Magic Mouth - Oops! All Wizards - 5E Players Try 1E (AD&D) - Healer Feat - The Problem With The Awaken Spell (sad/funny) - Dangers of Metagaming - Option: Quantum Inventory - Grappling in 1E. If you enjoy D&D, or just learning or watching videos about it, Zee Bashew's Channel is great.
posted by JHarris (8 comments total)

I played a D&D one-shot at a game night last night and it was my first D&D game in a couple years. I probably won’t return to it except for the occasional drop-in for the foreseeable future; WotC has just accrued too much ill will.

I will, however, continue to watch Zoe’s videos because they are uniformly delightful. I’d love if he’d do more campaign story animations but his system analysis shorts are also a lot of fun.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 2:45 PM on April 8 [1 favorite]

Zee's videos are the closest thing I can imagine to a YouTube version of self-published D&D zines. I think they're great.
posted by Rudy_Wiser at 3:15 PM on April 8 [3 favorites]

Oh, have some more! Unlimited Spell Slots (hombrew) - Irresistable Dance - Fabricate - Frightened Condition - Lies About Starting A Group - Proficiency Dice - Telegraphed Legendary Attacks (homebrew) - Grease - Jump - Critical Fails - Holding Stuff - Getting an 18 with Standard Array - The Hoser (homebrew monster) - Applications of VLookup - Mislead - Awaken - Augury - Miscellaneous Clips (which includes Spell Sluts) - Blink - The Coffeelock - Why No Large Characters? - Gift of Gab - Befriending Mimics - Dice Training - Flaming Sphere - Everyone's Lying About Dice - Rope Trick - RAPTORS - Arcane Gravity - there's more! I just got tired of linking them all! Please enjoy!

Oh and a highlight, Dark Sun and Spelljammer Adventure Occurance
posted by JHarris at 3:58 PM on April 8 [2 favorites]

“Applications of VLookup” and D&D videos.

I’ve never felt more SEEN.
posted by m@f at 4:18 PM on April 8 [1 favorite]

The "Destroy The C@" gag on the computer hits differently these days, though.

(For context - the gag was originally a reference to Zee's crossover with JoCat in the latter's Crap Guide To D&D, where he (and his spellbooks) got immolated via Fireball, resulting in him having a "vendetta" which was solved via judicious application of whale (trust me, It Makes Sense In Context.) But after JoCat was pretty viciously bullied off YouTube a few months back...it doesn't feel so funny anymore.)
posted by NoxAeternum at 4:28 PM on April 8 [5 favorites]

Oh so it's not an attack on Objective C. That's too bad.
posted by fleacircus at 4:52 PM on April 8 [1 favorite]

Wizards of the Coast has been terrible, but luckily we live in a golden age of indie games. Mothership, Wildsea, Candela Obscura, Worlds/Stars/Cities Without Number, Pendragon, Mork Borg, there are thousands of other games out there if you want to be in the hobby but don't want to pay Hasbro corporation to replace all artists with AI. Some of them, like Worlds Without Number, are even pretty similar rules-wise.
posted by fomhar at 8:52 AM on April 9 [1 favorite]

The rules lawyer in me can't help but point out that while the Grapple video is brilliant and hilarious, strictly speaking, an 'armed' opponent would get to make a (non damaging) attack first - and on a successful hit (against an easy AC 10 target!), the grapple attempt would be cancelled. It seems unlikely the tactic would work well against any armed enemy - and most D&D interpretations of monster claw attacks would consider them 'armed' as well.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 6:36 PM on April 9 [2 favorites]