[Hated Trope] Nerdy characters who don’t understand nerdy things

[u/BlackHandKUR]

There are too many examples of movies and tv fumbling basic nerd knowledge but the one that particularly bugs me is whenever we have nerdy characters not understanding basic DnD lore or mechanics.

Big bang theory is probably one of the worst offenders when it comes to not understanding nerdom but how they do dnd is especially insulting. They don’t understand any of the basic concepts, lore, mechanics or even how races look. Theres a scene where they do a steamy dnd thing and they describe an orc with multiple arms and breasts. Not a single part of that was even remotely close to correct and Sheldon being the atypical rule lawyer type should know that.

Abed from community isn’t much better. Either he doesn’t know the rules or fragrantly allows his players to ruin a session. There is never a mention of initiative, contesting rolls, or scaling. Pierce, a naked hermit of a character, over powers a high level fighter then charms a high level creature to pose this great threat to the party. What?

Stranger things, and possibly the one the gets me the most, off the rip we have a character who misses a fireball attack by rolling low. That’s not how fireball works, that not how fireball has ever worked. Fireball is an AoE spell where everyone in its radius has to have a save to have the damage halved. These are kids that name the monsters after DnD creatures yet they don’t know the difference between fire bolt and fire ball?

[u/Tariovic → u/[deleted]]

He's using the rule of cool cool cool.

[u/IAreWeazul → u/Tariovic]

Nice

[u/Captain__Yesterday → u/Tariovic]

https://giphy.com/gifs/l2QZY3eAdpF7DTwNa

[u/Special_Turnip → u/[deleted]]

Yep, and even outside of that Abed would also be seeking the most narratively interesting game with less of an emphasis on hard following the rules and more what makes the better story.

[u/meneerdaan → u/[deleted]]

A story for an episode in a tv show. Because he's mostly a tv/movie-nerd and not a DnD-nerd.

[u/Shazam1269 → u/[deleted]]

Abed knows they aren't ready for actual nerddom. You gotta ease them into it, and he knows they don't have the mojo yet.

[u/yac75 → u/[deleted]]

"Leonard likes this post"

[u/Laurynaswashere → u/[deleted]]

No he's not. The other characters (mainly Jeff) are the ones trying to do a therapy thing, Abed is trying to DM properly. Jeff even gets mad at Abed for continuing to stick to the rules after Pierce tries to derail the game.