{"id":72932,"date":"2019-11-18T03:07:51","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T10:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taterboy.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/dungeons-dragons-vs-rick-morty-wizards-of-the-coast-debuts-new-boxed-set-at-live-play-session\/"},"modified":"2019-11-18T03:07:51","modified_gmt":"2019-11-18T10:07:51","slug":"dungeons-dragons-vs-rick-morty-wizards-of-the-coast-debuts-new-boxed-set-at-live-play-session","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taterboy.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/dungeons-dragons-vs-rick-morty-wizards-of-the-coast-debuts-new-boxed-set-at-live-play-session\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Dungeons & Dragons vs. Rick & Morty\u2019: Wizards of the Coast debuts new boxed set at live play session"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Two copies of Wizards of the Coast\u2019s new \u201cRick & Morty\u201d module for Dungeons & Dragons<\/em>, shown backstage at Neumos in Seattle. (Thomas Wilde Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A new boxed set from Renton, Wash.-based Wizards of the Coast, Dungeons & Dragons vs. Rick & Morty<\/a><\/em>, made its public debut at Neumos last week in Seattle. In a live play session, run by Wizards of the Coast\u2019s Kate Welch<\/a>, the players weren\u2019t just playing D&D<\/em>; they were playing as the cast of \u201cRick & Morty,\u201d who were playing D&D, <\/em>with Welch, playing as Rick Sanchez, turning out to be a particularly sadistic sort of old-school Dungeon Master.<\/p>\n

It was already weird. Then one of the characters contracted a bad case of \u201clycanthropickle,\u201d which is more or less exactly what you\u2019re picturing it would be, and it got weirder.<\/p>\n

The D&D vs. R&M <\/em>boxed set takes its inspiration from IDW\u2019s official Rick & Morty vs. Dungeons & Dragons comic book<\/a><\/em>, written by Patrick Rothfuss<\/a> (The Name of the Wind<\/em>) and Jim Zub<\/a> (Skullkickers, Uncanny Avengers,<\/em> and soon Marvel\u2019s Conan the Barbarian <\/em>comic) with art by Troy Little<\/a> and Leonardo Ito<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The series is an extended parody of D&D <\/em>as seen through the lens of the TV show\u2019s characters, as Morty\u2019s attempts to learn how to play the tabletop game are assisted (read: sabotaged) by Rick.<\/p>\n

In the boxed set, Rick has made an original adventure for Morty and his family to play through. The result, \u201cThe Lost Dungeon of Rickedness,\u201d is a surreal blend of \u201870s-era D&D <\/em>modules, particularly those made by D&D <\/em>co-creator Gary Gygax, with the trademark strange humor \u2013 there\u2019s a trap in the dungeon that steals the victim\u2019s butt \u2013 of \u201dRick & Morty.\u201d<\/p>\n

The boxed set also includes a starter guide for D&D <\/em>newcomers, which is extensively <\/em>annotated by Rick himself: a cardboard screen\/quick reference guide for the Dungeon Master; a set of polyhedron dice; and a set of five pre-generated characters. Four of those characters are the ones that Morty, Summer, Beth, and Jerry play in the comic book; the fifth, Meatface, is a barbarian with no equivalent in either the comics or the cartoon (he was a placeholder character<\/a> who took on a life of his own during the writing process).<\/p>\n

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The contents of the boxed set. (Thomas Wilde Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

D&D vs. R&M <\/em>was written and designed by Welch (a.k.a. Rosie Beestinger<\/a>), Ryan Hartman<\/a> (a.k.a. Donaar Blit\u2019zen<\/a>), Adam Lee<\/a>, and Ari Levitch<\/a>, with the comic\u2019s co-writer Zub on hand to contribute character dialogue and a few ideas to the final product.<\/p>\n

Welch described her team\u2019s work to me as an attempt at self-parody, where it initially intended to mock the strange early days of D&D <\/em>\u2013 \u201cWe set out to make fun of all these tropes,\u201d she said, \u201cand it felt wrong.<\/em>\u201d Instead, they ended up leaning into much of the weirdness.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Lost Dungeon of Rickedness\u201d is an adventure made just like Gygax used to do it<\/a>, with constant action, harsh punishments for stupidity, rewards for creative problem-solving, and most crucially, no rhyme or reason to it at all. Later D&D <\/em>writers would go out of their way to make adventure modules that had their own kind of internal logic, but in Gygax\u2019s work, especially early on, no such rules applied. The map for \u201cThe Lost Dungeon of Rickedness\u201d is deliberately laid out as a series of unconnected, dissonant traps and encounters.<\/p>\n

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The crew for Thursday\u2019s live \u201cRick & Morty\u201d session at Neumos. Left to right: Kris Straub, Anna Prosser, Jim Zub, Kate Welch, Hadeel Al-Massari, Ryan Hartman. (Thomas Wilde Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite that, the boxed set is distinctly pitched towards D&D <\/em>beginners, who might pick it up due to their interest in \u201cRick & Morty.\u201d The starter guide is a fairly standard newbie\u2019s manual for D&D<\/em>, albeit one with running, disparaging commentary by Rick, aimed at Morty. (Sample: \u201cPeople need to be rewarded in their hedonistic hamster wheels to keep themselves entertained \u2013 and that\u2019s okay!\u201d)<\/p>\n

Most of Rick\u2019s dialogue in the guide was written by Zub. \u201cI put a lot of jokes in about D&D <\/em>and Wizards of the Coast that I thought would get pulled,\u201d he told me, \u201cbut then they weren\u2019t.\u201d Zub is also the author of IDW\u2019s current Dungeons & Dragons <\/em>comic book, which he describes as a passion project, and ended up writing the \u201cRick & Morty\u201d tie-in due to the \u201crapport\u201d he\u2019d built with both IDW and Wizards.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not much of a \u201cRick & Morty\u201d fan, but I am <\/em>a long-time D&D <\/em>player, and it\u2019s impressive how the D&D vs. R&M <\/em>boxed set manages to thread this needle. If you\u2019re familiar with the old \u201870s modules it\u2019s parodying, there\u2019s a lot here that you\u2019ll get a laugh out of; if you\u2019re also <\/em>familiar with \u201cRick & Morty,\u201d many of the gags will hit at least twice. It\u2019s a fully playable, albeit strange, D&D <\/em>adventure that also works as a sort of lost episode of the TV show.<\/p>\n

If you run it the way that Welch and her crew did, you also get an additional bizarre roleplaying challenge, one that\u2019s been sort of a running gag in the tabletop community for years: you\u2019re running a character who is him- or herself running a character. Welch and company really leaned into that, with Prosser as Summer Smith getting a lot of hands up from Welch as Rick, doting on his favorite granddaughter, while Beth\u2019s husband Jerry (played by Zub) ended up as the table\u2019s punching bag.<\/p>\n

Profits from the live session at Neumos benefited the Dungeons & Dragons <\/em>charity team<\/a> at Extra Life<\/a>, raising money for Children\u2019s Network Miracle Hospitals.<\/p>\n

Dungeons & Dragons vs. Rick & Morty\u00a0<\/em>will be available for sale on Nov. 19 for $29.99.<\/p>\n

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Two copies of Wizards of the Coast\u2019s new \u201cRick & Morty\u201d module for Dungeons & Dragons, shown backstage at Neumos in Seattle. (Thomas Wilde Photo) A new boxed set from Renton, Wash.-based Wizards of the Coast, Dungeons & Dragons vs. Rick & Morty, made its public debut at Neumos last week in Seattle. In a… Read the full article…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":72933,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[174,377],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-games-media","category-gaming"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t