Election 08 as a Dungeons and Dragons campaign

The 2008 election campaign considered as a conversation around a D&D table. This is pure nerdy political hilarity. The Kucinich bits? Priceless.

OBAMA: "My friends, I am a totally unoriginal grizzled character class stereotype. I should lead the party because I have more testicular damage than that one."
MCCAIN: Yeah, well, you pal around with dark elves.
OBAMA: OH NO YOU DIDN'T.
MCCAIN: Whatever, so's your mom.
OBAMA: So's your FACE.
MCCAIN: So's your Mom's face!
HILARY: WTF you guys. Why am I playing the cleric?
MCCAIN: Hilary, we've been over this.
HILARY: No, dude. I am so sick of being the girlfriend healer. Seriously, I can't even use a sword. Fuck this noise.
KUCINICH: IM A BARD
OBAMA: That's nice.
KUCINICH: MY FAMILIAR IS A PURPLE SNOW LEOPARD
MCCAIN: Oh, Jesus. Here we go.
KUCINICH: DID I MENTION MY WIFE IS A TOTALLY BANGIN DRYAD WITH 20 CHARISMA
HILARY: C'mon you guys, I've been playing this shit since Gygax was in eighth grade. Why can't I be the party leader with the magic sword for once?

Adventuring Party Politics: The Campaign is Getting Ugly (via Making Light)

(Image: My players Saturday morning, an Attribution-only Creative Commons licensed photo from Benimoto's Flickr stream)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Takuan

woman attacked by McCain supporter!!
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/17789356/detail.html
Anonymous

Man, worst D&D game ever though. I’d fire all these people as friends.
mdh

Gah! I think that’s my DM in the pic!
VICTOR JIMENEZ

Nerdtastic!

It remember me of the good years, when I DMÂ´d twelve guys in City of the Spider Queen campaign, when I obliterated the few remains of my sanity.
coldspell

Bards don’t have familiars, purple snow leopard or otherwise.
mgfarrelly

No, I think a D&D campaign would be far more civilized with much less name-calling.
Crawford Tillinghast

I wish to hell they’d actually have this debate so I could DVR it….
Godzilla

Absolutely hilarious, spot on for sure. The mountain Dew is in the fridge, there’s an elf in front of you.
Phikus

What the heck was McCain doing there anyway? I thought he hated the “pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd”.
Phikus

TAKUAN: This is totally off-topic, but actually the article you linked says the woman is a McCain volunteer, and no one identified the political leanings of the alleged assailant, but he is said to have carved a “B” on her face because he saw the McCain sticker on her car.

I call swiftboating bullshit on it ever having occurred. The facts may come out, but it will be after the election. Here’s why I believe this:

1) The attack allegedly happened out of site of security cameras and yet she had a companion, who’s version of the story has either been amalgamated or omitted.

2) Description of the alleged perpetrator. Why is it always a black man, with a very vague description? This seems like a typical story to try to justify or heighten people’s racial fears and at the same time say that coercion and racism are happening on both sides of the fence (much like the ACORN accusations.)

3) The photo shows the amount of damage that a pencil could do, though the media is echoing this as “mutilation” and “maiming.” The woman refused treatment, even. If someone were to hold someone down and carve something with a knife on someone’s face while they struggled, it would have done a lot more damage. How did he have time to do this, after mugging her, after having seen the bumper sticker on her car, in what would have been plain sight of her companion?

4) Why would someone do this, taking the added chance of being caught, just to make a point politically? Obama is leading by a large margin in every poll that has been taken. A mugger is going to have the political awareness to lash out like this? Please! Seeing a McCain sticker on a white person’s car is typical; not enough to elicit uppity-ness. Surely anyone with enough political awareness to have been “incensed” at a McCain sticker would know this sort of thing would only play into the McCain camp’s game.

Rovian swiftboat tactics, pure and simple.
Takuan

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9411R800&show_article=1
djuggler

It is very good but the best part really is the gazebo reference. Icing on the cake!
Takuan

I posted it as such in response to it appearing as it did on Drudge. That guy really is a turd.
Phikus

More follow-up to #12:

CNN: Woman admits making up attack linked to McCain sticker, police say

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/24/mccain.sticker/index.html
Phikus

I see now that TAKUAN is on this too. I’m betting the best is yet to come. (Please read that with irony.)
Phikus

Follow up to #12:

PITTSBURGH â€” Pittsburgh police say a McCain campaign volunteer who reported being held down by a black man who then cut the letter “B” in her face has changed her story.

Police also say bank surveillance footage doesn’t show her at an ATM where she initially said she was attacked.

Police spokeswoman Diane Richard says investigators gave the 20-year-old woman a lie-detector test and are “looking at some inconsistencies” in her story.

The student, Ashley Todd, of College Station, Texas, initially said a black man robbed her at knifepoint near a bank Wednesday night and then cut her cheek after seeing a McCain sticker on her car.

Todd, who is white, now says she was knocked unconscious and doesn’t remember being cut in the face. She now says she only discovered the wound later.

No arrests have been made.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6076307.html

As I said, pure rovian swiftboat tactics.
mwschmeer

Where’s the Mountain Dew? Can I have a Mountain Dew?
Anonymous

Heh. My favorite part was the Head of Vecna reference.

http://www.blindpanic.com/humor/vecna.htm
Pixel

Ha! This is a friend of mine, and I saw it when she first posted it. It’s really amusing to keep seeing it pop up in more and more places.
ncm

Back in the ’70s, my brother called D&D “My Guy Does This”. I have been unable to think of it by any other name since.

My Guy Does This.
z7q2

AS A LONG TIME D&D PLAYER I FEEL THIS SCENARIO IS ENTIRELY ACCURATE
Talia

Hehe, I forwarded this to all my gaming buddies, generating much amusement.