The Donyon Mayesty ees a Berry Good Game
Feb. 11th, 2005 01:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robotnik2004It’s probably true that everybody who wants to know about this already does know about this, and that anyone reading this who doesn’t already know about this really doesn’t want to know about this. (Could you follow all that? If not, look out for the last sentence of the third paragraph.) Nevertheless, the Dungeon Majesty story has gotten so ridiculously po-mo and self-referential, I can’t help but try and parse out the story for some of my non-gaming and no-longer-gaming friends.
So a few months ago Boing Boing linked to something called Dungeon Majesty, which is a community-access cable TV show in which four young ladies play Dungeons and Dragons. Scenes of them “in character” with costumes and Z-grade special effects are interspersed with footage of them actually sitting around a table playing the game. A trailer and a couple of episodes are available for download online. It is a strange mix of horrible and awesome.
Around that time, a role-playing game called Primetime Adventures came out, which is a game meant to create and play a television show. We had the idea of trying to do a show in the style of the various Hip New Sometimes Surrealist Writers and Directors—Wes “Life Aquatic” Anderson, Paul Thomas “Magnolia” Anderson, Charlie “Being John Malkovich” Kaufman, David “Eternal Sunshine” Russell, etc. For maximum Kaufmanesque self-referentiality, we made our game a TV show about people playing a role-playing game. And we named the show (and the fictional game) “Dungeon Majesty.” So that made it a real game about a fake show about a fake game, named after a real show about a real game.
We’ve played four sessions now of what should be six or seven sessions total. We’ve struggled a little with the PTA system along the way, but everyone seems to be enjoying it, none more than me. We set up a wiki for the game, as we tend to do, and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jeffwik and bryant, both funny and talented writers, started posting synopses of each episode. Jeff’s write-ups are very detailed, sometimes in screenplay format, and often add to or refine jokes or bits that came up in play. Bryant’s tend to be shorter, but take the conceit of being a show even further, by aping the style of the snarky episode recaps on Television Without Pity.
A few folks, mostly friends of ours but also some random people that just turned up somehow, got into reading the recaps and kibitzing about them by email and LJ comment. Some of them joined in on discussion forums on the wiki, and even wrote us some Dungeon Majesty fanfiction (okay, we goaded them into it). It was around this point thatjeregenest told us we were freaks. Quite so.
It all reached a new level of silliness this week, when the guy that runs the original Dungeon Majesty show visited our website and told us, “seriously, this is pretty twisted.” Which you have to take as a compliment when it comes from the guy who visited LaTiza, Mystica, Shakuntala, and Devastina upon the world.
OK. That is all.
So a few months ago Boing Boing linked to something called Dungeon Majesty, which is a community-access cable TV show in which four young ladies play Dungeons and Dragons. Scenes of them “in character” with costumes and Z-grade special effects are interspersed with footage of them actually sitting around a table playing the game. A trailer and a couple of episodes are available for download online. It is a strange mix of horrible and awesome.
Around that time, a role-playing game called Primetime Adventures came out, which is a game meant to create and play a television show. We had the idea of trying to do a show in the style of the various Hip New Sometimes Surrealist Writers and Directors—Wes “Life Aquatic” Anderson, Paul Thomas “Magnolia” Anderson, Charlie “Being John Malkovich” Kaufman, David “Eternal Sunshine” Russell, etc. For maximum Kaufmanesque self-referentiality, we made our game a TV show about people playing a role-playing game. And we named the show (and the fictional game) “Dungeon Majesty.” So that made it a real game about a fake show about a fake game, named after a real show about a real game.
We’ve played four sessions now of what should be six or seven sessions total. We’ve struggled a little with the PTA system along the way, but everyone seems to be enjoying it, none more than me. We set up a wiki for the game, as we tend to do, and
jeffwik and bryant, both funny and talented writers, started posting synopses of each episode. Jeff’s write-ups are very detailed, sometimes in screenplay format, and often add to or refine jokes or bits that came up in play. Bryant’s tend to be shorter, but take the conceit of being a show even further, by aping the style of the snarky episode recaps on Television Without Pity. A few folks, mostly friends of ours but also some random people that just turned up somehow, got into reading the recaps and kibitzing about them by email and LJ comment. Some of them joined in on discussion forums on the wiki, and even wrote us some Dungeon Majesty fanfiction (okay, we goaded them into it). It was around this point that
jeregenest told us we were freaks. Quite so.It all reached a new level of silliness this week, when the guy that runs the original Dungeon Majesty show visited our website and told us, “seriously, this is pretty twisted.” Which you have to take as a compliment when it comes from the guy who visited LaTiza, Mystica, Shakuntala, and Devastina upon the world.
OK. That is all.
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Dude!
Date: 2005-02-11 07:15 pm (UTC)In about five minutes a whole bunch of old guys in armor are going to show up. Just hold up the chalice in your hand and they'll go away. If you're feeling charitable, you might let them have a drink out of it, but don't let 'em take that Grail away from you -- it's worth a fortune.
So...can we play a game called...um...Muffy the Nosferatu Stalker next?
Tom
no subject
Date: 2005-02-12 02:43 pm (UTC)"Ron Howard, you've done it again!"
no subject
Date: 2005-02-11 09:29 pm (UTC)This reminds me of the idea you had a few years ago for that show Hour-Long Teen Drama -- about the show within the show that was, well, hell, you remember the one I mean. You were there.
-- S
Hour Long Teen Drama
Date: 2005-02-12 02:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-12 01:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-12 02:36 pm (UTC)(Just checked out your LJ. Man o man, the cosplay pix and the My Little Goth Pony. Hee!)