Aragorn: “you have my sword.” Gimli: “and my axe.” Legolas: “and my d20.”

Sam: "I didn't eat the bread!" DM: "Roll intelligence" Sam: "4" DM: "You can't say for sure you didn't eat the bread in your sleep."

Missed opportunity to have Éowyn be played by one of the players' girlfriend who's only there for one session and was given a minor character to play out of courtesy, and then proceeds to get special treatment from the DM during a boss fight she's severely underleveled for because she's the only one who legitimately cares about and pays attention to his DMPCs.

This is such an authentic D&D experience, everyone at the table forgot that Halflings can reroll natural 1's

Legolas's dice: *rolls a 1* Legolas: don't worry, it's just recharging Legolas's dice immediately after: *rolls a 20* Legolas: I told you

Im glad we all agree that Legolas isnt optimized but instead has mastered the art of "Rolling Better".

"Freaking Witch King comes down to 1v1 Gandalf!" "Bro, I'm outta spell slots!" "Oh. He leaves." Its so real!

I love how this became a story about one party that refused to do anything but roleplay and the other that refuses to do anything but fight

The DM does a cool epilogue where Aragorn is crowned king and sings a song, and the entire table cry. Gandalf's player goes "Man, that was a great campagin." Then, the DM does another four epilogues.

*_" Oh my god why is your Gollum so irrational? "_* *_" It's what my character would duuuuuuuuu! "_*

"Legolas: Here, use my d20." had me dying.

My headcanon is that Legolas has two identical D20s that he alternates between to potentially make people doubt he's using a weighted die. And he accidentally handed Frodo the normal one.

"Gandalf considers murdering the hobbit" is the pure essence of their relationship.

Frodo rolls natural 1 and everyone forgets he's a halfling and can reroll it.

I sincerely love how, at this stage, it's implied Sam now knows how to play 5th Edition, but is so committed to his hardcore bro sesh RP with Frodo, who hasn't, that he doesn't do much with it until Frodo's poisoned and KO'd

the players are like “YEAH, DIE!!” and he’s like “YEAH, KILL ME!!!” perfect

“Theoden ain’t having it and does the equivalent of “fight me, I just had a long rest”, they roll Initiative, Saruman tries to fireball Gandalf, but Gandalf casts counter spell and Shatters his staff, Grima gets in a sneak attack, Legolas rolls a Natural 20 on Grima, the DM suspects Legolas of using weighted dice, and the encounter is over cuz Saruman didn’t prepare Feather Fall” This is art

Frodo's player after the campaign: "btw, what is this "Lucky" trait I have on my character sheet? It just came with playing a hobbit, but I guess it isn't that important, right?"

The scourging of the Shire is a one-shot that the DM set up later to finally teach Frodo and Sam combat.

“The DM awkwardly calls the session and wonders if they are all still friends”. So good

DM: "Are you using loaded dice?" Legolas: "...No" DM" "Can I check?" Legolas: "...No"

Gollum's player is definitely a forever DM, and this is the first game hes actually a player in.

Sam going "I KNEW I DIDN'T EAT IT!" absolutely slayed me. Well done.

The most unrealistic thing about this is 1. Everybody keeps showing up to all of the sessions and 2. A big epic campaign is completed in like 12 total sessions (in my game we spend three sessions deciding to go right or left at a fork)

"Legolas hits a Natural 20/The DM suspects Legolas of using weighted dices" PERFECT segway.

13:41"sam carries him, and the whole table cheers!" fuck yeah they do

The “NOOOO what is it with you people and army’s” literally brought me to tears😂

New favorite quote: “Fight me, I just had a long rest.” - 3:50

I laughed so hard at “I knew I didn’t eat it!” Brilliant delivery

DM - "The Witch King casts Shatter on your staff." Gandalf - "Oh shit, that was my spellcasting focus, now I can't cast anymore!" DM - "You uh...can't? You don't have like, a ruby of the war mage in your sword or something?" Gandalf - "Nope." DM - "...Oh. Um...the Witch King...leeeeeaves...Yup, he decides that you are no longer a threat and decides to fight the rest of the party."

These 3 videos are probably some of the best dnd shit I've ever seen. The twist that Boromir and Gollum are played by the same guy is just fucking briliant.

Shout out to the guy playing Gimli. Just showing up every session, playing his character class well, peppering in some cool RP, and making the party laugh with some jokes. May we all play DnD like Gimli.

Something about the lich king being all menacing and majestic ready to get into an epic duel with Gandalf, but then meekly and respectfully leaves when he finds out he's out of spell slots really makes me lost it lmao

"Legolas rolls a Natural 20, the DM suspect legolas to have weighted dice" YES!

Pirates of the Caribbean 1-3 would work really well in this style. I imagine them being a similar module to Ghosts of Saltmarsh

despite being the "bad party member" Gollum's player still accepts his role really well and rolls with it

"they see him as this villainous character and weirdly his player is super into just playing a bad guy. they are all like 'ya die!' and he's like 'ya! kill me!'" I love how everyone just seems to roll with it lol. I sorta see Gollums player being more of a co DM at this point and was more running Frodo and Sams campaign then the normal DM in the final session.

I think the funniest bit is that Frodo's player, not fully understanding the mechanics, either entirely forgot about Halfling Luck on that big wisdom save, or chose not to use it to make the story more dramatic.

“…cries in front of his friends, and Gollum.” That killed me!

I love how in Lord of the Rings, Aragon did not want to become King due to his feelings his family failed in their duty, and somehow become King because mainly others sort of forcing it on him. While Aragon in this became King so he can have his army.

The way Jacob describes Saruman’s death is hilarious. It sounds so realistic for a game.

I can't stop imagining Gollum's player just showing up to the session and quietly eating all the snacks in the corner, and then they just decides to describe themselves attacking Sam and Frodo, and since Sam and Frodo are such new players they just don't understand that that's not how it works and just keep playing along with it, all while talking over the DM whose just trying to get Gollum to stop

6:47 Damn, Aragon’s player is pretty dang genius. Who needs to min-max when you have a freaking ARMY!?!?

I like how you sort of turned Gollum's betrayal at the end into a kind of heroic moment with describing how he sacrificed himself to destroy the ring. Or at least that's how it came across.

This campaign is straight up amazing, like if someone were to turn it into a novel I would totally read it heck I am confident that it could even work as a movie series

When explained like a DnD campaign, The Return of the King sounds like one long struggle of the DM trying to get the advanced players to fight BBEG encounters, but all the players want is mass combat

3:45 "And the DM kind of awkwardly calls the session there, wondering if everybody's still friends or not" cRACKED me up

I love how legolas consistently always rolls 20s the whole campaign

I really hope you keep this series going. There's a TON a movie franchises that would make fun campaigns. You can even drop some character builds to squeeze a few more videos out of the premise.

Boromir being the same player as Gollum is *brilliant*

So in summary: -Frodo's player is new to the game and feels overwhelmed around much more experienced players. Is the most serious about roleplay. -Sam's player is actually the glue holding the table together, but gets absolutely no respect for it. Really competent when given the chance. Surprisingly okay with every session being an RP session. -Gandalf's player is very experienced and knows a lot about the campaign's world, but has trouble showing up. -Aragorn's player is great at the game, but never knows when to tone down his competence. Still cares about Frodo having the best experience, despite wanting more combat out of the game. -Legolas' player only knows combat and has absurd luck. -Gimli's player mostly stays silent until there's something to kill. -The DM can't work out that Merry and Pippin are just not that cool and really has trouble keeping his cool when someone breaks his encounters. -Boromir's player is a magic-item obsessed problem player who finally turns his jerkish behaviour into an actually good trait in the last few sessions.

14:41 Missed opportunity for "One roll to rule them all"

Aragon makes everybody at the table cry. “You bow to no one” Yep… every time

"Fight me! I just had a long rest!" I'm dead. These are so wonderful

DM: Make a Wisdom save. Pippin: Why? DM: Denethor's about to eat a tomato.

Legolas and Gimli are definitely my types of players. Good mix of RP and Action. Using thier skills and feats to the fullest while mostly trying to make each other laugh : "Let's get into a drinking contest!" "You're on!" "I silently stare at the King. In Elvish." "I hit the pipe." 😆 🤣

D&D Gandalf be like: "Pfff, ring... ACTION ECONOMY IS THE TRUE POWER"

Legolas' player is probably the biggest minmaxer in all of D&D "So I took sharpshooter, elven accuracy and battlemaster manouvres for precision attack..."

16:40 At the end, most players are exhausted from a long session and want to go home. They travel to the west (in reality, a bus stop or car home), seeking to end the campaign, but Aragorn or Sam are super into RP and don't want to finish the campaign just yet, so the DM gives them some epilogue stuff about them. Sam gets to RP to the end a peaceful life without combat encounters and Aragorn being the mighty king of Gondor, and gets to lead armies and do epic stuff

This whole series you did was hilarious, but I actually got nail-bitingly excited hearing you describe how similarly excited the players got in the climax of the campaign. Your passion for D&D and for LotR really shine through, even when you're lampooning both.

Why does Legolas have such good luck? Elven Accuracy, champion fighter, lucky feat.

"The DM, who loves his little DMPC, Has him do it without failure"

Gollum is for sure someone who can see failing friendship IRL and decide's to push it to breaking point. If he does this because he enjoys it or in order to harden these bonds is beyond our understanding, but in the case of Frodo and Sam, we thank you Gollumir.

The fact Legolas’s dice rolled a one implies they aren’t rigged he just has the luck of a god

"Someone summoned a million ghosts!" "A million ghosts?" "A million ghosts."

“ He literally never learned how combat worked.” I have those players we still have fun. My number crunchers tell them what dice to roll and then do their math.

Making Return of the King’s 4 endings into the epilogue is sooooo perfect. It makes so much sense

You’ve rolled a natural 20 on your performance check three times in a row. There ought to be some kind of award for a series like this.

I've seen LOTR so many times and somehow I was still getting hype as hell to see how the "players" would resolve things.

"It's the Nazgul's lair effect" lmao yes

This is the coolest fucking series I've ever seen, the "Aragorn gives a speech and everyone cries" was so on point ("you bow to no one" gets me every time)

My only regret in watching this is that I can only "Like" it once. So good. This could not have been easy to do in less than 20 minutes and kudos on using the extended version for some of it.

Damn. Imagine if Tolkien was born like 50 years later. I wander if he'd play DnD. He'd be the most lore driven DM of all time.

The DM had this surprise epilogue arc with the hobbits he wanted to do, especially since it would give him a chance to give his DMPCs Merry and Pippin some spotlight, where the hobbits returned home to find their homeland taken over by these ruffians and they have to take back there home with all they learned on their quest, but decides the campaign has gone on long enough and skips it

I burst out laughing so hard when Gollum saved the day even if I dont know a thing about lotr, but this had me wheezing the whole way through

4:06 and 12:07 are my favorite parts because we knew all along that Legolas’ dice were loaded.

I'm just super glad Golem's player became a positive experience for everyone. That's an amazing way to turn everything around. I think a great add on would've been that Frodo, the player Golem harmed the most, was the one that told him about the last meeting because he still wanted him to play.

"yeah, die!" "yeah, kill me!" lol'd so hard

"He never learned how combat works in D&D." I feel that. XD I'm always fucking up combat as a player. As a DM, I get it right...mostly.

Quite literally the best dnd version of lotr I’ve ever had the privilege of watching. No joke me and my family can’t watch the movies without thinking of what rolls each character got and this mini series just highlights all of them for me. Thank you for making this beautiful masterpiece.

I love all the "Legolas rolls a nat20" and then Frodo's nat1

"Fight me, I just had a long rest!" - this is T-shirt print-worthy. "Oh my god, I am going to be the king of Gondor and take over their army". The DM says "Nooo, what is it with your guys and your armies?!" - this... this had me in literal stitches and grasping my stomach. Such, such good narrating, dude. Thank you. "Roll a wisdom save" ... "19"- in stitches X2.

Do guardians of the galaxy? It feels literally like a D&D campaign where the players have crazy plans and make terrible decisions. Rocket stealing the batteries then Drax stealth checks, a bards performance dance check, a player who knows one language, and a player with a crazy redemption back story

15:03 "i rolled a one...." Dm: "you-" "Halfling ability lets me reroll a nat 1" Dm: "AHHHHHHHHGGGG!!!!!!"

We all have that Frodo friend who still asks what dice to roll every combat session even though they’ve been playing DND for years

Okay, "I knew I didn't eat it" got me so bad. Thanks for this awesome series 😂

Gollum being a total problem player but also contributing to the story in a fun way is my favorite thing

Legolas out-rolling Gimli in the drinking contests makes so much sense now.

Legolas has the weighted dice from the begining of “The Road To El Dorado”

The fact that the PC’s personality behind each character remained so consistent through the 3 videos is simply great writing. Like, I can imagine clearly the people playing each one. Details like Frodo going along with stuff ‘cause he likes to roleplay, Boromir/Gollum being the problem player, the DM making stuff up on the spot, being proud and giving them items when he needs them to go somewhere or stalling them for the other group, and story beats playing out as moments out of the table as well is just awesome!

I think Merry and Pippin were more the two goofballs that are playing for the first time but started out not taking the sessions seriously, but when they were the only two following the DM’s original idea they started getting into more since everything effected just them.

Boromir/Gollum's player has got 400IQ playing 30 moves ahead of the others, even the DM.

Someone should write a book about this campaign. We can even make a Kickstarter or something

At 15:30 I thought this moment would have Jacob narrating something like this instead: "So Sam's player tries to reach for Frodo's hand and the DM says Frodo needs a good Athletics roll to succeed, in order to reach him, initially Frodo rolls a nat 1, and everyone at the table is shocked. However, before the DM rules anything, Frodo's player finally looks at his damn character sheet and realizes he's a Halfling and has the Lucky race feature, so he re-rolls, succeeds, grabs Sam's hand as everyone at the table cheers." But honestly I think it's better to link that moment with Legolas's loaded dice.

I like to imagine Gollum was actually a good player who was too deep in the RP that the players thought he was just being a greedy shit but was actually going to resurrect the BBEG but kept getting thwarted at every step and ultimately saved the campaign at the end.

Gandalf wanting Pippin to die makes total sense. I'd always wondered why he had Pippin climb up a dangerous cliffside to light the beacon when he could have just shot fire up there with his staff.

I was really hoping that the last moment with Frodo and Golom would have been a contested athletics roll where they both have a -1, and they both roll a nat 1. Then the DM rolls percentile to see how good or bad the fail was, 100%. The DM describes as they both weakly struggle to take the ring from each other to then lose their footing and fall. Frodo then succeeds on a strength save to catch himself, but Golom falls to the lava below.

"There's no snarky ending everyone's happy!" This made me so, so happy! The wholsome ending to this is such a wonderfull cherrry on top. I haven't even watched the others yet and I still feel like I've been for a ride!

This was legitimately awesome. Wow. Amazing story, great meta-narrative, and even just great as a learning experience for what a campaign playing out could look like when overlaid over a story I already understand.

I vaguely remember a webcomic titled “Darths & Droids”, which (IIRC) retold the Star Wars films as if it were a DND campaign. Considering how it’s basically a story about magical knights & evil wizards _(andifyouignorethespacetravel)_ it might actually work well in this format! 😅