The Knights Are Back At The Table...

Jolly Blackburn's Knights of The Dinner Table has been a major part of my gaming psyche 
since I first discovered the magazine 15 years ago.

The publication is, for one thing, the inspiration behind my choice of name for our own gaming group: The Tuesday Knights (that, and we meet on Tuesdays and my family name is Knight, which has obvious Medieval connotations).

Now heading towards its 300th issue, I'm pretty sure I had - in some solid form or another - most of the first 200 issues of KoTDT and many of the latter ones.

But then, as I do, I sold them all to make some scratch and clear shelf space for more stuff.

I still picked up monthly issues on an ad hoc basis, but - shallow as I am - I found my enthusiasm had waned because the central characters - B.A., Sara, Bob, Dave, and Brian - were no longer playing Hackmaster (Jolly's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons parody, that then became its own brilliant game system in reality) and that had been the main draw for me.

The chunky monthly magazine is a blend of the on-going strips, at the front, and then a healthy grab-bag of excellent roleplaying material at the back, reviews, jokes, opinion pieces, gaming suggestions, traps, adventure hooks, monsters, NPCs etc, which means it's not cheap.

With my interest in the main story on the decline, I found I couldn't justify the monthly expense.

And so I dropped it.

Then, the other month, after a total break of a couple of years, I picked up a random issue (#290), and, by sheer serendipity, discovered that our protagonists were just on the verge of starting a brand new Hackmaster campaign.

I couldn't have timed my random purchase better.

So I snagged - via eBay - the three issues that followed (bringing me up to date, I think) and have put in a request to Andy at Paradox Comics to put Knights of The Dinner Table back on my pull-list.

This reinvigoration of my passion for the Knights of The Dinner Table also reminded me of the best-forgotten shitshow that was the 2013 Kickstarter to produce a live-action adaptation of the strip (none of which - it has to be stressed over and over - was any fault of Jolly or his team at publishers Kenzer & Company).

I won't dredge that all up again, but I did find on YouTube the single episode that was produced.

Up until today I hadn't even watched it because I don't think I realised it had actually been finished and never thought to go looking for it.

I was genuinely - and pleasantly - delighted by how good it was, how well the actors captured the characters we all know and love from the comics, and how Jolly's script (based off a classic strip from the book's early days) captured the true anarchy of a good roleplaying session.

I kind of wish someone would take this as a 'proof of concept', overhaul the idea, rehire all the actors, and attempt to revive the Knights as a live-action sitcom, but I doubt Jolly and the others would want to reopen those old wounds. 

While I never got the $62 DVD (!!!) of multiple episodes that I shelled out for, at least it was kind of satisfying to finally see my name listed in the credits.

Fame at last!