Characters / The Gamers

Characters introduced in The Gamers.

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Game Master

The GM

Tries to balance telling a good story with the antics of the players.

• Game Master: Duh.
• The GM Is a Cheating Bastard: Sometimes he lets the characters (especially Nimble) get away with insane rules abuses; other times he'll keep them (especially Newmoon) from using their basic abilities or acting before the current exposition dump is finished.
• Only Sane Man: Especially when compared with his group of four Manchild players and their crazy antics.

The Players

Players

The group of college students that are playing the game in their dorm:

• The Cavalry: Mark shows up when the big battle goes awry for the group and turns the tide by taking control of his character.
• Chromosome Casting: Five guys, not a single girl. Their GM is also male.
• Friend Versus Lover: They accuse Mark of putting his girlfriend, Molly, ahead of their gaming sessions, which is true - Mark comes very late and then soon drops out to go back to his girlfriend. This does, however, save his life in the end.
• Geek Physiques: They are all out of shape (either lanky or pouchy) and most of them wear glasses. Ironically, it's their characters that spot acne.
• Manchild: They act maybe quarter their age.
• No Indoor Voice: All of them get easily excited and start singing and even dancing on various occasions, and the resulting noise annoys the girl from down the hall. Not even threatening them with campus security seems to keep them quiet.
• No Name Given: Except for Mark, none of them is given a name, not even in the credits.

The Party

As a whole

• Cosplay: Well, they are taken for cosplayers in the end, and the girl from down the hall even comments on the quality of it.
• Dark and Troubled Past: All of them have a personal grudge against the Shadow for ruining their lives and/or killing their beloved. All of this is Played for Laughs.
• Five-Man Band: At least when Mark isn't absent, which seems to be their recurring problem. But other than his inconsistent presence, there are exactly five characters that constantly interact with each other, along with playing on their strengths and weaknesses (and even mocking each other when they do something of the other party member's expertise). In fact, their bickering is part of the fun their players have. Furthermore, the game rules and the scenario they are in enforce from them to act in such a way, creating nearly stereotypical party dynamics. And finally, once Ambrose is accidentally killed, Magellan, his Suspiciously Similar Substitute, fits right back into the same party dynamics.
• Trapped in Another World: They end up in the real world.

Rogar

A barbarian who can't hold his liquor or lift an iron grate, but can walk into a trapped room without getting killed.

• Barbarian Hero: He's a tough barbarian warrior on a noble quest, leading his group.
• Dumb Muscle: Mostly an Informed Attribute, but in the end, he reads his own character sheet.
  "My intelligence is four?! OUTRAGEOUS!! Gimme that pen."
  • The series reveals he only increased it to five.
• The Leader: He calls shots and dictates the course of action, with the rest of the team falling in line without hesitation.

Nimble

A master thief who loves to do things just to see if he can.

• Amoral Attorney: His job in the real world
  (Explaining three-strikes rule) Not "not steal the third apple". I shall employ my every skill to be sure to be not caught the third time.
• Deadly Dodging: Nimble pulls this on two of the bandits.
• Impossible Thief: Nimble steals a guy's pants without him noticing... while the victim is sitting on a barstool.
• The Lancer: A cynical, scheming thief to Rogar's Barbarian Hero, but still helping him and the party in a variety of ways.
• Like a Fish Takes to Water: In his interquel episode he became a successful lawyer. He's quite enthusiastic about the possibilities of white-collar crime, although after years of it he's getting bored.
• Refuge in Audacity: Nimble's typical modus operandi, from stealing a guy's pants in a bar just to see if he can, to hauling a freaking ballista into the same bar to backstab someone.

Newmoon

An elf with unnaturally lucky dice.

• Ambadassador: His official job is being an ambassador of the elven realm. For the most part, he's a badass adventurer and an excellent archer.
• Combat Pragmatist: At one point the party is ambushed by bandits and introduced to the bandit king, who begins to make a grandiose speech. Newmoon's immediate reaction is to shoot him in the neck.
• Friendly Sniper: Is generally a nice guy with a deadly aim.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: During the fight with the bandits, he runs away from overwhelming odds... but in reality he's just leading his pursuers into an ambush.
• The Smart Guy: Prefers to use underhand tactics and the laws of physics to get things done, rather than Rogar's direct and rash methods. At one point, he even playfully mocks the buff barbarian that he would achieve far more if he just used simple lift mechanics. He also doesn't wait for the ambush to play out, but instantly tries to snipe the Bandit King during his monologue - repeatedly so.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Candy canes, to the point of an addiction.

Ambrose/Magellan

Two bright young mages who look exactly alike and have similiar powers. Also, one doesn't show up until after the other dies.

• Bilingual Bonus: Magellan recites the phrase "Da mihi fermentum" while casting a spell. Translation (hidden in spoiler text for people who'd rather figure it out): "Give me booze."
• The Heart: Mostly because he isn't as murderous as the rest of the group and, well, being dead for half of the scenario.
• Out of Focus: Once Ambrose is killed, it takes a significant amount of time for his player to create Magellan and get a chance to insert him into the game. As a result, he sees the least amount of action in the whole group, and it's also shared over two "different" characters.
• Squishy Wizard: Ambrose dies after taking about 25 points of damage. When his character sheet is displayed, his physical stats are abysmal.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: So much so that Magellan, trapped on Earth in the series, has the memories and personality quirks of both.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: In his interquel episode he has several spells active that make him supernaturally persuasive... and also a magical amnesia that keeps him from realizing it. The combination means his poorly-thought-out suggestions caused two financial meltdowns, Eternal September, the rise of Donald Trump, Hipster fashion, and got Firefly canceled (among many others).
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Ambrose has a crippling fear of water.

Mark the Red

A berserker who spends most of his time standing to one side staring off into space (because his player is absent) and the rest of the time kicking butt.

• Battle Cry: Doubles as his Catchphrase
  Blood, death and vengeance!
• The Berserker: It's the character's class.
• Big Damn Heroes: Mark turns up just as the rest of the players are failing miserably.
• The Big Guy: Easily the strongest and most deadly member of the group, able to take on an entire bandit group by himself and survive.
• Last of His Kind: "The last of the Blood-Fire Berserkers".
• One-Man Army: But only when he's awake.
• The Magnificent: the Red.
• The Worf Effect: To establish how dangerous a direct confrontation with the Shadow is, an NPC'ed Mark gets slaughtered by him in a single round.

Non-Player Characters

The Shadow

The Shadow? The Shadow! The Shadow. The Big Bad of the first movie, who also appears in an episodic role in the third.

• Big Bad: He's the Generic Doomsday Villain from a half-assed tabletop RPG campaign, responsible for kidnapping the princess and hiring muscles to oppose the party on their rescue mission.
• Continuity Snarl: Try not to overthink too much how he's both alive in the third movie and dead for over a decade after the events of the first, while being explicitly the same character.
• Forced Transformation: Magellan turns him into an ogre. When rest of the party protests, as that will make things even worse, Rogar reminds them he's wielding the Sword of Ogre Decapitation.
• Generic Doomsday Villain: Kidnaps the princess and demands king Orlando's throne in exchange for the life of the girl. He has absolutely zero characterisation beyond that.
• No-Sell: A complete beast in combat. The best the party can do is stalling while Magellan is preparing a spell.
• Trapped in Another World: Supplementary material from the third film establishes that he was originally the Big Bad of Romance of the Nine Empires before being accidentally sent to Fatherall when they beat him.

The Bandit King

A minor villain working for the Shadow.

• The Dragon: For the Shadow, being the leader of the "bandit army".
• Expecting Someone Taller: He's the shortest character in the whole movie and made look even smaller due to his bodyguards towering over him
• Gentleman Thief: Tries to be verbose and behave in a classy way (A Glass of Chianti included), which is quite a challenge given Newmoon constantly tries to shoot him in the middle of his speech.
• Mister Big: While being their leader, he's significantly shorter than any other member of his band of brigands - and particularly his two bodyguards.
• Non-Action Big Bad: His entire band is fighting against the PCs, while he stands nearby, bored.

The Princess/Girl down the hall:

A damsel in distress that looks suspiciously like that girl down the hall.

• Babies Ever After: Subverted. Magellen marries her (the real-world version) and they have a daughter between the movie and the series and clearly expects this outcome, but he's such an absent husband and father that she ultimately takes the girl and leaves him.
• Distressed Damsel: Saving her from her kidnapper is the goal of the quest; they end up finding the girl down the hall instead, who isn't having it.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: She's studying for an incoming exam. As a result, all the noise the guys are making during their play is driving her nuts and she routinely comes to shut them up.
• Lady Swearsalot: The girl drops one Cluster F-Bomb after another.
• No Name Given: We never learn their names - neither the princess nor the girl from the dorm. If the board on the dorm door is any indication, she might be Paula.

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