Dungeons & Dragons has been the epitome of super nerdom since 1974, and I mean that in the best way possible. I'm all for something that is all about exploiting very constrictive rules for amusing loopholes, and pretending you are a Necromancer. I'll admit, my dalliances in D&D are sparse, but what I have experienced, I've immediately loved. And since in this day and age, nerdy stuff is creeping up out of the shadows and becoming more socially acceptable thanks to shows like Community or Stranger Things and celebrities like Vin Diesel﷽, the internet can now openly start sharing jokes about some of the most ridiculous things they've encountered in the world of tabletop gaming. And you know what the internet's favorite way of sharing jokes and stories are? Memes.
So in my travels across the weird wide web, I noticed more and more threads where people were sharing some seriously funny memes about a subject that I thought only a niche section of the world enjoyed. But then I remember that the world has almost eight billion people on it, so even a niche of that is going to be a massive amount of people. So there was a whole untapped genre of meme for me to get behind because I forgot how huge the nerd community is. And once I started falling down that rabbit hole, I couldn't just keep these images to myself, no I had to pass on this craziness to you, my readers. So whether you are a long-time D&D fanatic, a dabbler 🔥like myself or just have a passing familiarity, I'm sure some of these will tickle your fancy.
43 ♒ What's In A Name?
For a game titled Dungeons & Dragons, you spend very little time in dungeons. Fields? Sure. Caves? All the time. Towns? You get lost in those for days, buying and trading useless baubles. But dungeons? Incredibly rarely. And dragons? I will be honest, I have never been a part of an adventure that had a dragon in it, and I’ve never witnessed one either. Dragonborn sometimes, which is a weirdly specific overlap between Skyrim and D&D but never a dragon🌄. And now that I’ve looked back and realized I’ve never fought a titular dragon, I feel incredibly cheated. There should be a minimum of one dragon and one dungeon in every adventure.
Skyrim on the other hand is awash with both dungeons and dragons. Almost too many, if you ask me. It felt like you couldn’t take a simple trip to melt down some Dwemer metal without tripping over a dragon. And every third door you open seems to lead you into a dungeon, even if you are certain that the map said it would lead you to Whiterun. So I guess for people who love the namesake of Dungeons & Dragons but don’t have the patience to hang out with a group of people, Skyrim is a pretty acceptable substitute.
42 Hurry Up, You N♓erds!
Many people love Dungeons & Dragons because of the huge level of immersion. It is a game that mostly runs on the unending power of imagination, so people visualize themselves in the world the DM has created. They interact with the townsfolk, find out any local gossip, maybe seduce some locals, pickpocket some guards simply because they can. Maybe the Bard puts on a concert in the local tavern simply that’s because what their character woꦫuld do. They offer to help get a cat out of a tree, fix a roof,𝓡 and enter a jousting contest, whatever. There’s so much to do in this world!
Some people are only here for the conflict.
Obviously the kind of player who creates a Dwarven Barbarian is intending on having an adventure full of violence. They are basically only suited for swinging an axe, so when they see their teammates enjoying all that geek stuff like role-play and immersion, it can get🙈 pretty frustratꦇing. Which is actually the most immersive thing in the world, if you ask me, as every adventure party has that one person who is super bored with everyone else having fun and is just hanging around until the fighting starts.
41 ꦡ That Hardly See🍌ms Fair
Wizards tend to rely on t🍎heir ability to cast spells versus the use of brute strength. They can throw fireballs, use healing magic, and summon stuff, whatever. They 🃏rely on their wisdom and intelligence to aid their party, while the the more physically adept run headfirst into battle, relying on the physical prowess to finally down the foe. Of course, all of that strategy goes out the window when the Wizard can give up on casting spells and simply turns into an enormous dragon. Suddenly the old, grandfatherly man in the corner is the most powerful person in the fight.
Shapechange is kind of a bunk power, if you ask me. Changing into the shape of an animal is one thing, because humans regularly hunt ever🌳y animal there is, so obviously they have weaknesses. And you are trading in the abilities of one for the abilities of another. But for some hunchbacked, arthritis ridden old fogey to suddenly transform into any creature that flickers across thei🦹r mind is clearly unfair to the rest of the party. Why wouldn’t everyone just become a Wizard? And yes, I understand that you can only transform into a creature equal to your characters level, but that simply means you let your party protect you up until the point where you could transform into a dragon.
40 ♏ Absolute Power Corrupts, Absolutely
I remember when I watched this scene in Adventure Time I needed to recover from laughing so hard. There's such a bait and switch in this moment, because Jake is such a pure and decent soul, but the moment he's given too much power over a bunch of wimps, he just transitions straight into a jerk. It's a pretty decent commentary on the fact that nobody knows how decent of a person they are going to be up until the point where they actually have the power to behave indecently. It's was true for Jake, who is an adorable rubber dog, and it is true of anyone who plays D&D. The moment you come acro👍ss a scenario filled with weak losers who couldn't possible harm you i𒈔n any way, you test the limits of morality.
You start pulling the stuff you wouldn't pull in a kingdom or with characters necessary to your quest. You'll either be hunted down by guards for being rascals, or you'll miss out on crucial information on how to find the secret waterfall or whatever. 🥂But a small village, where the people have no formal combat training and definitely don't know how to defend against Necromancy, well those people are ripe for the ruling.
39 No 🍌Take Backs! ♊
I guess there’s an unspoken rule that anything that leaves your mouth in D&D can’t be taken back. I guess it makes sense for the sake of immersion, since if you decided to execute a sneak attack on a Gargoyle you can’t exactly take it back. If you could take back every stupid thing you announce, it would derail the whole rhythm of the game. So when the same rule that applies to the players applies to the DM, they need to be very careful about🍌 which words they let escape their mouth. So whenever they misspeak and give you more gold, or platinum, than they intended, the players would glob onto that opportunity.
The difference between gold and platinum in D&D is the difference between being paid your paycheque in Bitcoin versus real, human, adult monies. It is worth noting that the platinum piece is worth ten gold pieces, so whatever amount the DM meant to pay you is now times ten. Another weird thing about platinum pieces in the game is that they arouse suspicion whenever you try to complete transactions with them💫, which makes a kind of sense. It would be like if you tried to by a pack of gum with a gold doubloon.
38 The Power Of The Na𓄧t🅘ural Twenty
We are living in a golden age of Internet, because half of all images online are of Jean-Luc Picard making a silly face. Some brilliant individual decided to combine that with pictures of Captain Sisko. And if that wasn’t awesome enough, for some reason Picard is playing D&D with him, and Sisko is the Dungeon Master. Oh yeah, as crazy as that is, Picard is clearly messing𝔉 with his DM by trying to negotiate/convince a guard to strip down and cluck like a chicken. This is a classic move by someone who has had entirely too much nonsense from the DM, and needs to show them that they truly wield the power.
No Dungeon Master wants to see their carefully constructed storyline get dissected by a chance roll of a natural twenty. But no adventurer needs to see a DM who takes themselves so seriously that they suck the life out of every quest. So every now and then, you hope a natural twenty will help you make a mockery of everything that Dungeons & Dragons stands for. Because realis🍒tically, I doubt there’s anything anyone could ever say to a complete stranger in o💙rder to get them to strip and cluck.
37 🌼 Don't Judge A Book By Its Cover
For any of you who have watched Adventure Time you already know what a Lich’s deal ♔is. They tend to be ಞundead creatures who seek to prolong their life through unnatural means. Typically they are seen as enemies, since most people seek to upset the natural order of things for selfish reasons. Usually, when you encounter a Lich you are in for a fight with a powerful spell caster who has an unnatural longevity, because, you know, they don’t have any bodily fluids for you to rob them of through the usual stabbing means. Sometimes they can be psychic, which seems like a pointless addition to an already magic corpse.
But not everything is as it seems in this magical world.
In recent editions of Dungeons & Dragons, there has emerged an anomaly known as a Good Lich. These are spellcasters who sought to cheat their own demise for noble reasons, such as finishing a quest or protecting a loved one. So while the Evil Lich usually hangs out in a graveyard or tomb, doing gross, weird things and generally being a bad person with zero hobbies, the Good Lich would probably k🐎ick it in his favorite chair, rocking out near a cozy fire with some dope kitties.
36 That'll Teach You To Care About Aꦰnything
A reoccurring theme you will see in this article is that the Dungeon Master hates you. Even if they don't, and they give you clues as to how to best not get turned into screaming paste, they hate you. It is in their nature. When they see you ꦇenjoying something that is out of their control, they will do their le🍌vel best to take it away from you. The made a whole world full of Mimics and useless potions, so if you start enjoying the game because you made a sweet Elf Cleric, they will resent you and try to take that away from you.
What sucks is that it can take hours to create a character in D&D, and it involves a lot of chance dice rolling, character back-story and maybe some hyper realistic sketches 𓄧of your characters abs. In the process of creating this being, you have become emotionally attached, because humans are weak and pack bond with anything. And when this new character is suddenly and viciously ripped from their world by the uncaring hand of a merciless DM, it can feel like losing a loved one. It hurts doubly when the DM makes it a silly way for your character to expire, like they fall in a volcano or they a🌌re allergic to nuts.
35 💯 ꦯ Well, That Was Easy
A reoccurring theme you will notice in this article is the barely contained animosity between the Player Characters and the Dungeon Master. On paper, the DM is meant to create a challenging yet fun quest for the PCs, with balanced battles that will take a com𓆉bination of strength, skill, intelligence, teamwork and imagination. In reality, many DMs will try to grind the team into the dust, but will do so in a way where they can feign ignorance, cℱlaiming that they must have overestimated the skill of the group they were playing with. After all, if the group becomes wise to the DM trying to destroy them, they will not invite that person back to be the DM, which would mean they miss out on opportunities to torture their friends.
The best🦋 way to get back and the vile and despicable DM is to render all of their hard work moot. If you can sense that the DM wants you to charge into battle against this giant frog thing, do the opposite and do an intimidation check. Rely on the pure luck of the dice. And if yo🌸u manage to land a twenty, drink in the tears of the DM as they have to watch you walk right past the Frog King’s lair, a battle which they spent all night devising. Maybe take a frog egg for food later down the road, just to rub salt in their wound.
34 🍸 Happens To The Best Of Us
I think we've all been there. You're groggy in the middle of the night and for some reason your little tummy is grumbling. You get up, bleary-eyed, thinking you can navigate your way to the fridge to eat a pickle or something, stumbling through the dark and tripping on a cat, when you take a wrong turn. Whoops, you're in the pain dimension now, you silly goose. In your defense, someone shouldn't have left that porཧtal there, but you knew about that portal beforehand, so really, you have nobody to blame but yourself. At least it seems like you've made a new friend.
Some of you might complain that this isn't necessarily a Dungeons & Dragons meme, firstly because it is more of a comic than a meme, and secondly, because it isn't a direct reference to D&D. To counter the first point, I'll poin🐷t out that I don't care and the comic is funny. To the second point, I'♒d say that it features both a dungeon, or at least some sort of cavern, and a dragon. So I'm going to let this one slide on a technicality. Just pretend the lost dude failed a critical check for intelligence or something, so it doesn't ruin your immersion.