d20monkey
is a comic written by Brian Patterson, centered on a group of Tabletop RPG players and their wacky antics. Technically, they're also friends.
Updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
This comic includes examples of the following tropes:
- Armoured Closet Gay: Mel's first boyfriend, Grey, winds up being one. Mel stays with him to try and "fix" him. It ends with her calling the police on him after he starts to get particularly violent.
- Badass Santa: All the Kringles are, including Brett and Klaus.
- Bittersweet Ending: the diceless game run by Charlie ends with the Heroic Sacrifice of Jeannie's character so she can die with the man she just remembered was her husband due to a Mind Wipe.
- Camp Gay: Trevor wavers between this and Straight Gay, depending on his mood and how much he wants to screw with people.
- He offhandedly mentions that one of the reasons for this behavior is that he's the only child of a Tony-award winning playwright, and he has severe feelings of inadequacy over his own lack of success.
- Cats Are Mean: Emma, Sam's cat, loves nothing more than eating your dice. If she likes you, she'll spit them back out. If not, you'll need to retrieve them another way.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Amy tends to waver between this and the most rational person in Sam's group.
- Cool Old Lady: She's not that old, but Brett's mother definitely qualifies as "cool."
- Carlos' grandmother also counts. Her introduction to the comic is a Jump Scare against Sam and Charlie.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: On one side is Sam, a skinny GM whose primary workout is going to the kitchen to get snacks. On the other is Mel's boyfriend, Grey, a weight-lifting jock who doesn't like people hitting on his girlfriend. You can guess how it goes.
- Deal with the Devil: Well, not a devil, but Dallas made a deal with Larry the Dungeon Master to grant her success in the RPG industry. It's an odd example, though, because she was already more than smart enough to make the necessary product... it's just that she believed no one would take her seriously as a girl gamer.
- Disability Superpower: To compensate for his blindness, Charlie has worked on his other senses, particularly his sense of smell, which is so acute that he could tell that Brett and Jeanie weren't sleeping together.
- Disappeared Dad: Brett was raised entirely by his mother, with his father absent through most of his life. They know where he is, though; it's just that Kris Kringle can't be Santa Claus and also raise a family, and both of them understand that.
- Evil Twin: Klaus Kringle, to his brother Kris.
- Geek Physiques: Of both the skinny and fat varieties.
- Handicapped Badass: Okay, so it's a somewhat limited definition of "badass," but Charlie manages to game with few problems despite being completely blind. He still needs people to position his figures for him, though.
- He-Man Woman Hater: Brett, at the beginning, justified (somewhat) by a particularly bad experience with a female player. He gets better, though.
- Jerkass: Phillip Dove, the "professional" gamer who manages to beat out Brett for sheer misogyny and haughtiness.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Brett, although a few years of Character Development make him less Jerk and more Heart of Gold.
- Killer GM: More than a few GMs in the comic mention the joys of slaughtering their PCs, but the worst example is probably right after Sam was beaten to a pulp by Mel's boyfriend.
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Method Acting: Carlos can get really into character when he wants to. - Most Gamers Are Male:
- Initially, there were no female characters at all, but several have been added, including Mel, Jeanie, Dallas and Mrs. Tucker.
- Inverted with the "Innsmouth Garden Society," a gaming group made of Mel, Dallas, Jeanie and another girl named Amy, that was originally formed as an all-girl group, with Sam becoming the sole exception.
- Noodle Incident: Many, primarily from previous games.
- Put on a Bus:
- Brett, after being forced to take on the Mantle of Santa Claus full time, although he does come back after his year of probation is over.
- Mel, after getting a job in New York.
- Random Number God: Brett seemingly does not have his favor- he almost never wins roll-offs.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: If his apparent associations with Nazis, his penchant for violence and his abject hatred of Christmas weren't enough to make you hate him, it's fairly clear that Klaus Kringle likes having kids sit on his lap for entirely unwholesome reasons.
- Reality Warper: As Sam completes Larry's trials, he gains more and more access to The Narrative, which is the power of Game Masters to alter reality in accordance with the needs of the story. He's not supposed to use it except under emergency conditions, however, and it has its limits.
- Relationship Upgrade: Sam and Mel, as well as Brett and Jeanie, who start dating after various points.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: One year, Brett is sentenced to remain at the North Pole until the next Christmas. But when Sam breaks his leg and is hospitalized, Brett goes to see him anyway and gives him his present early.
- Secret Test of Character: Sam's father butts in to one of Sam's games, under the pretense of "teaching him how to play old school." In reality, though, he was trying to see if Sam had the courage to stand up to him and maintain the happiness of his other players, as is the responsibility of all Game Masters.
- Serious Business: Tabletop gaming, of course, in particular for Brett.
- Talking Animal: Emma, Sam's cat, talks up a storm. Usually saying horrible things, mind you...
- Teen Genius: Dallas, whose mastery of game design allowed her to be wildly successful in the tabletop RPG industry... but only after overcoming the biases of a male-dominated industry.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Combos seem to be a favorite of many characters, likely as a form of Author Appeal.
- Troll: Charlie definitely has his moments, as does Trevor.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: The standard relationship between players in a gaming group- just because they're your friends doesn't mean you're not going to empty their pockets when they die, after all.
