Ted Season 2 goes the extra mile with its tribute to the famous role playing game with a new story featuring each member of the family, and it follows the same kind of pattern many other standout episodes like it in the past have. Using the game as a base to work through a character’s personal story that episode, these tributes over the years have definitely stuck in fans’ minds for one reason or another. Read on for some awesome Dungeons & Dragons episodes from great TV shows.
7). Stranger Things – Chapter One: The Hellfire Club
Courtesy of Netflix
Stranger Things has Dungeons & Dragons built into its DNA with the characters naming monsters after famous D&D icons and more, but surprisingly the game itself hasn’t played a key role in many episodes. The best use of the game within Stranger Things comes during its fourth season with not only Eddie Munson’s debut, but the use of the game to outline some of the major events to come.
It’s where we get the establishment of the “Hellfire Club,” (that comes more into play later) and through the use of the game the series outlines Vecna and everything else to come from that point on. You kind of have to include Stranger Things here, but it definitely needed more Dungeons & Dragons overall.
6). Gravity Falls – Dungeons, Dungeons & More Dungeons
Courtesy of Disney
Gravity Falls‘ “Dungeons, Dungeons & More Dungeons” is less of a tribute to the game itself more a tribute to the ideas and world behind it. With Weird Al as a guest villain who uses mathematical magic, Dipper and Ford end up trapped in a version of the game where the villain wants to hold a battle royale between their characters and spells.
It’s more about using imagination and quick thinking compared to the hard math involved in the game than playing through any role in a story. Yet it’s still quite fun and ultimately does the character work it needs to. It’s not as fully involved of a tribute to the game as others on this list, however.
5). Futurama – Bender’s Game
Courtesy of 20th Television Animation
That’s especially when compared to Futurama‘s Bender’s Game movie. Releasing on DVD first before becoming a few episodes of the series during its Comedy Central era, Bender’s Game goes a completely different kind of route. Rather than just have its characters play the game and imagine themselves in this world, everyone is thrown into the fantasy world instead when Bender glitches out. It’s not exactly super faithful to Dungeons & Dragons, but uses its ideas for comedy.
Futurama does make sure of dice rolls, however, as Fry gets notable power ups over the course of the episodes thanks to the dice. It’s more about escaping this world than completing a fantasy adventure, but it does enough of it to really keep you in it. But the rest of the list is far more faithful to the game itself.
4). Dexter’s Laboratory – D & DD
Courtesy of Cartoon Network
Dexter’s Laboratory surprisingly had a very faithful tribute to the game in its offerings, and it comes form the fun perspective of using Dexter as a know-it-all type of Dungeon Master who definitely ruins games. We all know this type of person who ruins the vibes with everyone else by taking his role way too far, and things start to swing in the other director once his sister Dee Dee enters the picture and takes control of the game.
Her version of the story is much more entertaining for Dexter’s friend group, and they all prefer it while Dexter gets the short end of the stick. It’s a satisfying, very short run kind of tribute and you should make sure to look it up. It’s been buried in a vault of classic animated cartoons, but it really is one of the best tributes to the game and those who play it.
3). The Master – The Amazing World of Gumball
Courtesy of Cartoon Network
The Amazing World of Gumball also uses Dungeons & Dragons at the center of the story of “The Master,” but it’s the dad using it to help his family get along. The rest of the family has been fighting one another, so Richard decides to play the game to teach them how to work together again. Placing each member of the family into different roles, they play a rather fun campaign complete with actual monsters from the game.
The fun twists then come from how the family hurts each other for the most part, and uses their unique personalities to bring an end to the campaign. Like Dexter’s Laboratory, this is also a very tight packed tribute that ends in 11 minutes. It packs in a lot of story for its characters as they imagine the extent of the game, and ultimately is a very fun way to show others what makes the original game so special. It even gets a shout out to the “rule of cool” that DMs can use to make the story fun too.
2). Community – Advanced Dungeons & Dragons
Courtesy of Universal Television
Community‘s “Advanced Dungeons & Dragons” is one of the highest profile tributes to the game on TV as not only does it go through a full makeover of its presentation for the occasion (with new credits, a narrator with an English accent and more), but uses the game to have the characters reach out to a very depressed classmate, Neil. It’s charming considering that it uses sound effects and its presentation to draw the characters into their fantasy world, and even uses Chevy Chase’s natural prickliness to make him a villain.
It’s a theatrically presented episode that really highlights the role playing aspect of Dungeons & Dragons, and uses just enough of the game to remain faithful while being flexible enough for the characters to horse around. It’s got a few elements that age poorly compared to the other episodes on this list, however, but it’s this high up because how much it sticks to the actual gameplay for its plot.
1). Ted Season 2 – Dungeons & Dealers
Courtesy of Peacock
Call it recency bias if you want, but Ted Season 2’s “Dungeons & Dealers” really is the best Dungeons & Dragons tribute episode thus far. Not only does it find a hilarious way to actually bring in the game as Ted and the others just need to play it to buy drugs, but the parents also get involved as a way to keep the kids off of drugs. It’s also faithful to the game itself as each character fits perfectly into a new fantasy world.
Taking matters much further, the episode actually places them into this world and showcases quite a bit of it within its half-hour runtime. It clearly put a lot of money into bringing this world and its monsters to life, and while the gameplay isn’t always a complete one-to-one with how characters interact with it, it’s unique in that pretty much all of them die when they keep screwing around. If that’s not Dungeons & Dragons, don’t know what is.
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