Knights of the Dinner Table

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Knights of the Dinner Table ( KoDT ) is an American comic by Jolly R. Blackburn and is published by Kenzer & Company . It is primarily about role-players and their actions at the gaming table, which often have an unfortunate but humorous effect on the game. The name is a reference to King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table .

Comic

The characters are drawn as simple caricatures. The drawings were scanned into the computer and constantly reused.

The first six issues were published in Germany in two issues with the title Bundle of Trouble by MangasZene magazine.

history

KoDT first appeared in the second issue of Shadis magazine in March 1990, when Jolly R. Blackburn, then an editor, was waiting for comics to appear on the last page. On the spur of the moment, he decided to draw a simple strip himself and put it on the last page. He called it "Knights of the Dinner Table" and introduced the characters BA and Bob with it. When the third issue was approaching, he still had no comics for the last page and went on with his own comic strip in which he incorporated Dave and Brian. For the sixth edition, Blackburn eventually had other comics and replaced KoDT with these, but readers demanded the return of the Knights Strip. From the 7th to the 21st issue in 1996, KoDT was part of Shadis , after which the strip switched to Dragon Magazine (issue 226). From 1996 until today, the strip has been published as the monthly comic book Knights of the Dinner Table Magazine .

Originally produced by Blackburn itself, the series was later taken over by Kenzer, who began to issue the fourth edition of KoDT magazine a second time, as the first edition was practically illegible due to an error. Blackburn moved to Kenzer as Vice President and Producer of KoDT Stories, where some of the game developers and executives employed there began to provide him with ideas and work closely with him on the strips to ultimately become the "KoDT Development Team" (or simply the "D-Team") to become known. Since then, KoDT has become Kenzer's main product, with the magazine evolving into a Kenzer-heavy all-encompassing game advertisement. Some of the games published by Kenzer had their origins in the KoDT strips, for example Fairy Meat and later HackMaster himself, on the other hand, other Kenzer games, such as Kingdoms of Kalamar , appear in KoDT from time to time.

The popularity of the comics manifests itself in a variety of ways. At conventions in which Kenzer takes part, it is a popular attraction to listen to participants or even members of the D-Team reading the comic strips with assigned roles. KoDT also won the Origins Award Best Professional Game Magazine in 1998 and 1999.

Spin-offs

The initially only fictional role-playing game HackMaster from the comics was brought onto the market by Kenzer. The game is based on the original version of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons . Hackmaster is very popular, winning the Origins Game of the Year 2001 award in 2002 .

The four most played HackMaster characters of the Knights themselves (Brian's Teflon Billy , Daves El Ravager , Bobs Knuckles the Sixth, King of the Wallclimbers and Saras Thorina ) were used as templates for playbooks in the Lost Worlds system from the Flying Buffalo publishing house used.

In 2000, an offshoot of KoDT called Knights of the Dinner Table Illustrated , also known as K.ILL. released. The plot in this comic is mostly about the KoDT adventure, but it is about the actions of the player characters and not those of the players.

A German edition was published in 2003 by Erbstößer & Holzer.

Characters

The Knights of the Dinner Table

  • BA (Boris Alphonso) Felton, founder and (mostly) game director of the KoDT. He tends to buy overpriced games from Weird Pete, the local game store owner.
  • Bob Herzog, a power gamer who played the dwarf thief Knuckles the Sixth for a long time.
  • Dave Bozwell, Bob's friend and typical hack and slash player. His long-term character was the fighter El Ravager, armed with a Hackmaster + 12 sword.
  • Sara Felton, BA's cousin who later joined the group. She values ​​character play and tries not to use force to solve all problems in the game.
  • Brian van Hoose, a "rule attorney" with whole rule books in mind. For a long time played the half-dwarf battle mage Black Lotus, nicknamed "Teflon Billy".

Other groups

  • The “Black Hands”, directed by Victor “Nitro” Fergueson. Members are "Weird" Pete Ashton, Newt Forager, Gordo Sheckberry and "Bitter" Stevil from Hostle. If the KoDT stand for the typical, rather nice role-players, the "black hands" are those that other role-players prefer not to have anything to do with.
  • Patty's Perpetrators, the group of the game master Patty Gauzweiller
  • Dorm Troopers, Logan's Heroes, Slacker's Hackers

Hard Eight Enterprises

The fictional game company that publishes the role-playing games Hackmaster, Spacehack, Cattlepunk and many others in the world of KoDT. Founded and headed for a long time by Gary Jackson.

Web links