One Hit Die (web-series)

Sorry, folks…took the weekend off for “family time” as my wife just got back in town after being on the road for a couple weeks. Also had to deal with the tail end of the crazy houseguests (they left today after nearly three weeks), a flat tire (because my twelve year old car doesn’t have enough issues), the Mariners dropping three in a row (at home), and the general excitement of NFL preseason. Hmm…now that I think about it, do I really need to apologize for my slow posting?

Well, a few quick notes:

I’m heading out of town Wednesday myself (well, Thursday, but I’m sure Wednesday will be crazy in preparation) and won’t be back till the following Wednesday. A quick/short vacation, but a necessary one. What this means is that Tuesday (maybe Wednesday) will be the last day I’m able to mail out copies of Five Ancient Kingdoms this week…if you place your order after Tuesday, the books probably won’t go out in the mail until next week sometime.

In addition, people should be aware that there’re only a couple more than a dozen packages left for mail. I’ve got more books, but I’m currently waiting on the new dice order (which I’m expecting by next week if not this week) so I can do another shrink-wrapping session. If you don’t get one of the next fourteen packages, your order might not be mailed for a week-ten days anyway.

Still waiting on Book 3 and the adventure to be approved over at DriveThruRPG. Not sure what the hold-up is. This is a little frustrating, in part because I haven’t seen much said about Book 3 on the blogs…and Book 3 is (I feel) where I’ve made some of the more drastic departures from other “old school” clones and heartbreakers. If you’re interested in what people are saying, here’re are a couple of the reviews I’ve seen (if you’ve written one I haven’t seen, please feel free to email me a link or post in the comments section).

Tenkar's Tavern

Necropraxis

Okay, that the housekeeping stuff (other than I’m hoping to get my fighter stuff written and scheduled for post in the next couple days). Here’s the “fun stuff.”

Spencer Estabrooks writer-director of the “web-series” One Hit Die, emailed me about a week ago suggesting his new show as something my readers might be interested in, and saying they would be interested in having reviews or doing interviews or “whatever” to publicize the project. Much as I like having that kind of blank check to hold over someone’s head, I’ve never been much of an interviewer, and my reviewing ability is notoriously slack unless a moment’s passionate inspiration happens to coincide with a block of free time. I’m actually backlogged on writing reviews of the free shit people have already sent me (which probably doesn’t endear me to said publishers/writers/creators)…but, well, what can I do? I’d love to spend all day reading, watching, and writing reviews but the gig doesn’t pay enough.

Which is probably just as well, as it allows me to be a little more honest when I do write a review.

Fortunately or unfortunately for Mr. Estabrooks, I have a bit of a dramatic background and I tend to watch more TV than I probably should. I’m not much for “web-series” drama, but after seeing the success of shows like Adventure Time (which is all over Mexico now…backpacks, lunch boxes, etc.) making the jump from web to television, and after devouring the straight-to-Netflix House of Cards, I’m not about to underestimate the power of “what’s possible.” Back when I was in college, a group of actor friends were trying to put together something for public access television with the idea of morphing it into something bigger. However, that pipe dream died due to the strict regulation of PA and its prohibition against commercial gain. The internet is the freaking Wild West for people with the right amounts of ambition, audacity, and organizational ability.

So, yeah, maybe One Hit Die is a hard sell, but it’s not altogether a pipe dream.

OHD is a weird little animal. The one sentence description (provided by Mr. Estabrooks) is “like D&D but shot like The Office.” For those familiar with The Office, this means it’s in that pseudo-documentary style that uses hand held cameras and one-on-one cast interviews, to give it a casual, reality show feeling despite being a scripted comedy. The difference is that shows like The Office and Parks and Rec which it apes all take place in the (more or less) “real world” while the setting for One Hit Die is a fantasy environment/setting. The protagonists are not people playing Dungeons & Dragons…instead, they are actual characters (as in player characters): a fighter, a thief, a wizard, and a healer/cleric.

Or are they? The characters constantly make reference to game mechanics…like “gaining experience points” and “leveling up” or attack bonuses and the effects of surprise…which makes it feel like they are LARPers wandering around in the brush. And yet the world is also “real” with actual monsters (nicely done goblins), and killing and bloodspill and magic. This makes for a jarring effect at times. It’s an additional breaking of the 4^th wall (already broken by the style of the production); a break in the (razor-thin) suspension of disbelief that shows like The Office have helped to build with regard to this type of show.

[what I mean by this: regular viewers of the pseudo-doc-comedy are used to the style of this filming and have no problem believing that we are simply watching a documentary of real folks who happen to be buffoons, when the reality is the show is completely scripted and acted by professionals…even the “documentarians” who occasionally appear in later episodes are still actors pretending to be members of the production crew. However, people used to a more traditional television production like, say, How I Met Your Mother or whatever can find the style incredibly distracting. People of my parent’s generation and older, for example, don’t always like or appreciate this type of show and find it “hard to watch,” as I’ve been told on more than one occasion]

I’m used to watching this style of show but…perhaps because I hadn’t known what to expect…it felt disjointed to me. I guess, the way to make sense of the program is to think of the characters living in an alternate dimension called “D&D World” where the people are self-aware of the mechanics that underpin their universe. In our universe, someone “counts calories” because they’re trying to watch their weight; in D&D World, characters count XP to track their sense of self-worth.

Or something like that.

Once you can reconcile that (such that the characters self-awareness doesn’t bug you), it’s not a bad watch. The show currently exists as a four-part “prologue” on YouTube (I’ll posts the links below), each video running around 6-8 minutes. Production values are low as is usual for this kind of grassroots project. Attention is paid to costuming and make-up effects but the armory budget was pretty cheap; none of the characters are wearing the armor one would find in a low level adventuring party, for example. Acting is generally good, but either the script-writing could be improved or (if there’s a lot of improvisation occurring) there needs to be a stronger hand with the editing in order to tighten the soliloquies and dialogue, at least in some instances. Other than that…

It’s pretty amusing. I found myself chuckling at several parts, and laughing out loud (something I rarely do) at least a couple times. If you have thirty minutes to spare for cheap entertainment, I don’t think you’ll be too disappointed.

It also pays to watch all four episodes, as the series gets better with each. I don’t know if it’s because I got used to the “D&D World” setting, or simply that the production became better as the show developed. I only snickered once or twice in the first episode, and if I hadn’t bothered to watch the later episodes (I almost didn’t), I probably wouldn’t recommend the thing. Webisodes #2 through #4 (which are set-up by #1) makes the whole thing worth watching, in my opinion.

I really don’t want to talk too much about what actually happens, because I think the characters (their levels, their abilities, etc.) are (humorously) revealed over the course of the prologue series. I’d just say: watch the show with a B/X eye for what is occurring. Really…put on your Tom Moldvay goggles and ignore the non-D&Disms (like any references to “mana regeneration”).

Oh, yeah…and I really liked the opening credits with its mash-up of table-top gaming and “Game of Thrones” style graphics; that also made me chuckle. I don’t know how long the people doing One Hit Die can sustain (or even want to sustain) this project, but with a little more budget and a little tighter scripting, it could be a pretty entertaining series…though at this point it’s probably more fun for table-top gamers than for the average viewer. Maybe they can get picked up by the G4 network.

You can check it out at:

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4

I'm happy to discuss the web series (including spoilers) in the comments section of this post.