After dealing with combative party members, hostile quest givers and that one dungeon boss that could have been beaten if only your bard wasn’t trying to flirt with the enemy sorceress, you just want to go back to the tavern, sit down by the fireplace, drink a nice warm mug of ale and try to relax. Well too bad because your party’s bard has a cousin who happens to work at that same tavern you’re trying relax in. He sees you, recognizes you and walks over to you. He reaches in to his satchel, pulls out a book and says, “So a dragon walks into a bar….”
Silly introductions aside, after looking at two very helpful books that guides you to a better backstory and improved gameplay (The Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide, The Ultimate RPG Gameplay Guide) it’s time to look at a book that will either tearing up in laughter or make you cringe with delight. This is A Dragon Walks into A Bar by Jef Aldrich and Jon Taylor.
So the full title of the book is actually “A Dragon Walks into A Bar 300+ One Liners, Zingers, and Jokes That Will Slay”. As you can tell by the title, this is an RPG themed joke book. In it are 300+ jokes that are themed around RPG tropes, characters, creatures and a few mad libs- style of jokes and one liners that have you roll dice for initiative and fill out the rest of the line base on what you roll.
A few of the jokes in the book are a bit stale and not that funny. However that’s only a few, the rest of the jokes are pretty funny. One of my favorites is the the following:
“How many Paladins does it take to fix a light bulb? Two. One to get the light bulb and one to uphold the light.”
Get it? Cause paladins are warriors of light and its their duty to uphold the light. *crickets noises echoing* Anyway, this is a really fun book to pull out when waiting on sessions to start, waiting for the DM/GM to calculate damage or anytime you want to make the party cringe just a bit. You could even incorporate the book as part of a bard character. Even if you’re not into tabletop RPGs but appreciate silly jokes and one liners, this is a fun book to pick up.
You and the bard are now laughing hard drinking ale together and the thoughts of wanting to toss the bard because he’s related to your party’s bard have vanish. You tell the bard to read another joke. He obliges looks at his book, then at you and starts to mutter out, “D-d-d-dra-drag-…” You get annoyed and say that he already told that joke. He shakes his head and points towards the entrance. You turn around and see….a dragon walking into the bar….
