Bastard Killed Your Game

Narraptor's theory of Cartoon Dungeons and Dragons seems eerily accurate, once you get past the whole "But my characters never got a magic hat!" arguments. Another point of correspondence to Dungeons and Dragons proper is that the show never had an ending, even though one was planned.

Only about half of the games I've ever run or played in have had a true ending. Sometimes, I've been lucky enough to experience the grand reveal, where everybody reveals their secrets. Other times, I'm left with no clear idea why the Aztec werewolves were attacking our building. (Or its sister question: Why Aztec werewolves?)

Every role-player I've known has a path strewn with dead stories. Their tales of adventure end suddenly with, "And then, we never ran another game. I wonder what would have happened to the Drunken Ratman Yakuza..." The causes always seem to fall in the same three categories:

1- Inconvenience: Too many people move too far away to achieve critical mass. Or else scheduling conflicts prevent the gamers from ever meeting each other again, barring a solar eclipse.
2- Natural Causes: The players begin to seek other things to do, and the game withers and dies in their absence. Invasive species of gaming also fall in this category, like when Magic The Gathering temporarily replaced all forms of role-playing in late 1994.
3- The Bastard killed the game.

Far as I can tell, there's no standardized name for the Bastard, even though he's as endemic as a "Rules Lawyer" or "Min-Maxer." Many groups don't even acknowledge they have a problem with their Bastard, until a decade passes and they can no longer understand why they put up with him in the first place.

Every role-playing game at least pays lip service to the idea that the main objective of gaming is to have fun with your friends. And yet just about every beginning group of role-players starts off with a Bastard, or shortly picks one up. The lucky ones get rid of him in five years or so. The unfortunate ones get new Bastards to replace any they lose. And during this time, the Bastard will do his best to monopolize the game. He will be a main character, but more importantly, the game will only revolve around what he considers fun. And unfortunately, his fun does not include anyone else into the equation. People in the group are annoyed by the Bastard, but they're never annoyed enough to directly confront him. Instead, they make jokes when he's away, and try to finesse him when he's present.

A great deal of rationalization goes along with this. The Bastard might be a pain, but he's not as bad as that other guy the group no longer hangs out with. You know, the guy who reveal his pet theories on race relations in the middle of an Underdark campaign. At least now you know why he always played a human. Also, the Bastard is indispensable to the group. He's the one who picks up Tony, he's willing to host the game when Bill's not around, and Sarah will drop out of the group if the Bastard goes, and she's cool. And even if he went, his character has half of the Artifacts of power and is the only one who knows the true name of God, so the plot would be fucked without him.

I don't know if the cartoon show accurately represents that aspect, however. The cowardly character of Eric exhibits some of the symptoms. He constantly berates his teammates, never wants to do what everyone else is doing , and he has a shield of complete invincibility. But on the other side of the ledger, he seldom gets his own way. A true role-playing Bastard has the ability to warp any campaign just by being in it. Along with annoying other players, the Bastard wants to have fun, and his definition doesn't jibe with everyone else's. He'll constantly exert pressure on all the other players, and especially on the Dungeon Master, to change the course of the game into a path he feels more comfortable with. (And one that makes him a primary character, usually.) The more the group secretly plots to stop the Bastard from getting his own way, the more pressure he exerts. Which means that Eric could be the Bastard... but since it's all from an in-character point of view, it could easily be Hank instead.

If only there was a scene of the Barbarian kid snapping, and finally saying "Fuck you, Eric! I'm quitting the game forever!" we'd have definitive proof. We'd also have another five episodes of the cartoon lurching along, with everyone trying to pretend that nothing had gone seriously wrong, and Eric making jokes about how they didn't need a kid running around in a loincloth anyway.

The next week, it would be mysteriously replaced by Soul Train. And as always, I'd be fooled for a few seconds into thinking that some really cool new cartoon about space trains was about to start.