A Social Aware Tale Of Tabletop Adventure — Reviewing ‘Dungeons & Dragons: The Fallbacks’ #3

Welcome to the table,

If you spend any time on social media, you may see the sentiment that gaming and personal ideals should not overlap. This can come out in reference to political views in tabletop role-playing games, religious views at the collectible card game table, or views on whether pineapple should be on pizza while blasting the heck out of your friends’ Death Guard with your Ultramarines.

While there are a lot of thoughts and big feelings,  it’s as hard to distance your own beliefs from social gameplay as it is to separate your own ideas or ideals from the stories you tell.

With that in mind, I think Greg Pak may be kinda cool to hang out with based purely on the way he writes Dark Horse Comics Dungeons & Dragons: The Fallbacks.

Let’s get into it.

Issue #3 of The Fallbacks, written by Pak, with pencils by Miguel Ángel Ruiz and Edvan Alves, colors by Raúl Angulo, and letters by Richard Starkings and Comicraft‘s Tyler Smith, picks up after The Fallbacks are made into the “Second Guard of Loudwater” and are given new cloaks and paraded through the streets as agents of the city.

Almost immediately, we get into some cool social commentary where the city guard is attacking some Kobold, and Anso Iro of the Fallbacks jumps to their rescue. They ironically clash with the very forces of the city they are now wearing the uniform of.

It’s a solid commentary on the state of the city where the ruling merchant class has subjugated a species of sentient entities because they think they are inferior, and the totalitarian arm of the policing force is blindly beating and doing harm to these Kobold without any due process or just cause.

-Spoilers Follow-

The Fallbacks soon learn that the rules the Kobold are being blamed for breaking are rules as simple as “wearing purple,” “wearing red,” and “avoiding eye contact,” things anyone else in the city would also be guilty of on any given day.

It’s not hard to see the injustices in the system. The Fallbacks are faced with the realization that, now that they have the fame and coin in their pockets, they are part of a system that is actively doing harm.

There are all sorts of spellcasting moments in a library. Bardic brilliance oozes out of some of these pages in a way that befits most tabletop play. But the social commentary is so strong and anchored in a very specific and well-honed point of view . Much like the hobby, it’s difficult to extract one thing from another, and it makes the story all the stronger for it.

Dungeons & Dragons: The Fallbacks perfectly blends social commentary with the sword and sorcery of a TTRPG setting in the most magical of ways. If you have ever confronted the moral quandaries of meaningful role-playing, you stand the chance of really enjoying this series.

The comic comes to a close with The Fallbacks clashing with their rivals, the “First Guard of Loudwater,” resulting in some cool combat moments in the midst of a large party happening in one of Loudwater’s grand halls.

While this is going on, the larger mystery surrounding the White Dragon who has been harrowing the city of Loudwater seems to be linked to a mystical medallion that the party wizard, Cazrin Varith, has been investigating. The Kobolds are asking that Cazrin give them the amulet so they can turn the dragon’s wrath on the city of Loudwater and keep them from grinding them under their heel again and again and again.

It’s an interesting spot to leave the story in. I am fairly certain the lady of Loudwater is actually the white dragon, and she is just being a jerk to the Kobold to cover for the fact she is a cruel white dragon polymorphing into a person when no one is looking.

The Kobold wanting the amulet, though, and seeming to be massing a small force to take it from the Fallbacks’ wizard gives me some pause because I can’t tell if they are a danger to her or not. The cliffhanger and question speak to the storyteller’s ability to craft a good tale because I for sure want more as soon as I can get it.

Until next time, may your successes and failures tell the story you want them to tell!