tvtropes.org

D20 Live - TV Tropes

  • ️Wed Dec 02 2015

Originating as a one-off for ConBravo 2012, D20 Live is a live Actual Play of a campaign dungeon mastered by "Big" Mike Chindamo of Canadian improv comedy troupe The 404s.

Live games played at conventions feature minor internet celebrities as the players, while the live streams feature "Big" Mike's friends and comrades, referred to as the "D20 Live Crew".

Adventures:

When live streams happen, they can be viewed here or here.

Tropes:

  • Artifact Title: Big Mike has expressed regret that this was the name that stuck, as the games he features are not exclusively limited to the D20 System.
  • Audience Participation:
    • For the 2014 campaign, Big Mike handed out copies of the module to the audience (and planted his own agents to give the players false information) in order to speed up Tomb of Horrors, a game that's typically played rather slow and methodically.
    • In 2016, the audience got to roll big stuffed dice for the Titans.
    • 2017's game has the audience deciding the difficulty level of skill checks.
    • In the 2018 game, which Pokemon the players got for a random encounter was determined by how long the audience cheered.
    • In the 2020 charity live stream, the audience's donations for both Direct Relief and The NAACP gave the players Genre Points based on how much the audience donated.
  • Bavarian Fire Drill: Pulled off by Nash in the 2017 game, convincing a base of stormtroopers that he was Grand Admiral Thrawn (their boss) by sheer panache.
  • Big "NO!": The crowd at the 2014 game, when they think Fussy Britches is lost forever. Fortunately, the kitten turns out to be fine.
  • Born Lucky:
    • Tandem The Spoony in particular but really... everyone in both the 2012 and 2013 games... which led to Big Mike picking a notoriously deadly dungeon for 2014.
    • Doug's character in the 2017 game is literally a droid called "7-7-7" or "Lucky". Despite being on the Imperial Station as the Rebels attack it, he is somehow able to accidentally find his way into a room, which protects him from the Station attack until he's able to be rescued by the other Rebels.
  • Born Unlucky:
    • The Black Dragon Final Boss from the 2012 adventure. First, he misses with his breath weapon, misses his bite, misses one claw attack, critically fails with the other claw and then collapses face first onto the ground, while the party kills by hacking away at its spinal cord.
    • Big Mike has terrible luck with the dice, to the point that it's referred to as a curse. In 2016 Arkada compares his rolls to Wil Wheaton's notoriously bad dice luck, which Mike takes offense to.
  • Bullying a Dragon: In the 2012 game, the party eavesdrops on a massive, but wounded black dragon. And as it begins to fly away:

    Spoony: Excuse me... Seven hells you're one ugly lizard... Hey, yo, Puff! Why don't ya come down here and see what a real man's made of? If... you've got the guts.

  • Call-Back:
    • In the 2016 Game, the players were provided with the locations of two bars, the Dead Dragon and The Fruit Barge. Both of these bars are homages to previous years, the 2012 and 2015 games respectively.
    • The 2017 game has Linkara's character ST-3V, named after Chris Sabat's character in the previous year.
    • In the 2018 game, when Proton Jon is trying to come up with a name for his character, Linkara and the audience suggest he call himself "Steve".
  • Chekhov's Gun: In the 2012 game, Spoony's character makes sure to steal a drinking glass from his employer, crush it and put it in a bag, before his party goes on their mission. Later, when they encounter an ogre-like beast, Spoony's character shoves the team's tank out of the way to attack the monster, by throwing the sack of crushed glass in its eyes.
  • Eye Scream: Tandem throwing crushed grass in the mutated human's eyes.
  • Forced Transformation: In 2014, Roo rapidly turns a four-armed gargoyle that should've been a dangerous encounter... into a cute little kitten whom the party tame and name Fussy Britches.
  • Gender Bender:
    • From the 2014 D20 Live, Miss Swan goes through a mist that switches her gender and alignment, going from Chaotic Neutral to Lawful Neutral, and renaming himself Master Swan. After some debate, Conal decides to replace his impression of Alex Borstein's Miss Swan's character with a pretty good impression of George Takei.
    • Fussy Britches went through the mist first, and thus also swapped gender and became Chaotic Good.
  • Guile Hero: Linkara definitely was thinking on his feet during the 2012 game — when they find their employer's daughter flirting with a suspect in the main quest, he convinces the guy they want to reward him for helping to find her, convincing him to come back to the employer's house with them. At the house, after the guy is knocked unconscious when interrogations go poorly, and the employer is furious they had done the same to his daughter, Linkara quickly corrects him by explaining it was the suspect who did that, they saved her from him. Also, he was the only player wary about the drinks the party was offered, though it didn't stop him from being drugged.
  • Humiliation Conga: The Black Dragon in the 2012 game, also a Trauma Conga Line. First he gets shot up by cannons, upon his return he misses with his breath weapon (narrowly averting a botch), he gets zapped in the wings with two Lightning Bolt spells and is sent crashing to the ground, he tries two claw attacks but forgets to put the first one back down, resulting in him faceplanting and losing his armor class, he gets stabbed in the spine with a sword, takes an arrow shot to the same location, and finally dies when the sword still stuck in his spine is struck by lightning.
  • Mythology Gag: The phone number which leads to the Team Genesis base in the Pokemon Game is "28712". The first D 20 Con Bravo Live session was held on the Twenty-Eighth of July 2012; or 28-7-12.
  • Off the Rails:
    • At ConBravo 2012, Big Mike's original plan was to have the party, upon seeing that the Big Bad was a Colossal Black Dragon, to go get an army of reinforcements. Instead, Spoony throws some insults at him and the Party ends up killing the Dragon without getting hit, much to Mike's surprise.
    • The game in 2012 was technically off the rails from the very beginning, when the players flat-out refused to follow the Lawful Neutral alignments Big Mike gave them.
  • Oh, Crap!:
    • The 2012 gave has one from Mike when he realizes just how low the dragon's HP was.
    • Most of the players have this when Mike reveals the game was taking place the very day Wall Maria fell to the Colossal Titan.
    • During the 2018 game, Linkara has this reaction, when he learns that Turnback Cave is in the Team Genesis base.
  • Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Roo cannot keep the accent he gives his character Aevil Gloomshroud straight. At one point in the 2014 game, he goes full-on Jamaican.
  • Papa Wolf: Let's just post that the Party in the 2019 Game do not take kindly to Child Abduction, or Abusive Parents!
  • Pet the Dog:
    • That is, Pet The Gargoyle Polymorphed Into A Cat. More than likely due to becoming Team Pet and an audience favorite, Big Mike decides to spare Fussy Britches from what was otherwise a Total Party Kill in the 2014 campaign, ignoring Linkara's command to have her poop on Acererak's skull and instead having her use her knowledge of the dungeon (from when she was a Gargoyle) to steal a piece of treasure and escape unharmed.
    • And prior to Linkara reminding Big Mike that Fussy Britches wasn't of evil alignment anymore, he had Acererak start petting Fussy Britches with his lich-dust powers.
  • Punny Name: In the 2018 game, the full name of Calluna's character is "Cara Mel".
  • Railroading: In the 2012 campaign, the group's employer's daughter slips the players drugged wine. Linkara only pretends to drink but the GM has his character be knocked out by the fumes of the wine anyway. As Linkara pointed out, a tranquiliser that powerful should have killed the other players rather than knock them out.
  • Running Gag:
  • Shout-Out: Given that all involved are geeks and nerds in their own right... It's bound to happen.
    • 2012:
      • Linkara's character borrowed his mannerisms from the Sniper from Team Fortress 2.
      • Spoony constantly references Daniel Bryan's YES! chants, which carried on in later games.
      • Big Mike plays an alchemist as if he were Doc Brown (with Spoony beating him to the punch on the impression).
      • When they prepare for their first combat instance, Roo (playing a wizard character) exclaims "I put on my robe and wizard hat!"
    • 2014:
      • Doctor Holocaust's character is named Miss Swan... So he plays her like she was Alex Borstein's character from MADtv (1995).
      • After going through the gender-swapping mist of the Tomb of Horrors, he switches to a pretty good impression of George Takei.
      • Doctor Holocaust and Nash both drop references to Ghostbusters.
      • Early in the event, Roo makes references to the classic Dead Alewives Dungeons & Dragons skit by asking for Cheetos and Mountain Dew, prompting Big Mike to tell him to "piss off".
    • 2015:
    • 2016:
    • 2019:
      • The Party give a child called Li (pronounced Lee) the nickname of "Stan".
  • Team Pet: Fussy Britches, a cute little kitten that was formerly a four-armed gargoyle.
  • Villainous Breakdown: In 2012, the DM, Big Mike, starts to lose it as the players beat the dragon. He was initially surprised and cocky when Spoony challenged the Dragon, before being irked that he was missing, before flipping out when he botched the roll, then staring in disbelief as the players hacked away. When Roo landed the final blow, all Big Mike had to say was "FUCK!".
  • Shared Universe:
    • Hinted at during the Maid game and then full on revealed in the Call of Cthulhu game with the reveal of two Infinity Stones.
    • And given that Fussy Britches cameos in the 2015 ConBravo event....
      • And his VEDA series which he's gone on record as saying they are canon.
  • Those Two Guys: There hasn't been a single ConBravo event without Big Mike or Linkara.
  • Wham Line:
    • At the midpoint of the 2016 game, confirming a very familiar and iconic scene.

      Mike: The year is 845. This is the day that Wall Maria fell.

    • During the 2020 charity livestream, but this is a good type of wham because it is followed up with another player, Vangelus.

      Mike: This individual has found its way up to Skybase and has managed to grab the sixth Morpher.