After this week's episode and with it the conclusion of our party's first battle, I think it's time to admit that a Webtoon might not be the best vehicle for a full D&D campaign.
Longtime fans were under no illusion that the Webtoon would be an exact 1-to-1 translation from the campaign: each installment is at least 2 hours long and full of player in-jokes. It stands to reason that when you're condensing a 90-minute-long combat to two or three webcomic episodes, you won't be able to spotlight every action taken every turn of that combat. We can all understand that.
What I can't understand is why they would cut Fabian's misadventures in trying to jump on a table.
In Dungeons and Dragons, we like to say, "The dice tell the story." That is to say, you can have an insanely stacked character and a really good game plan, but if you roll low, you're going to fail. It doesn't matter how well thought out your move is: the dice say no. And such is what happened in the cafeteria combat during the original campaign. Fabian, built as a fighter with good dexterity and athletics stats, went to vault over a table to deal with the corn cuties, and he rolled a Nat 1. That's a critical failure. In the first turn of the first combat, Fabian tried to heroically show off and immediately ate dirt.
That is critical character development.
Up until now, Fabian has been this arrogant showoff: picking a fight with Gorgug as soon as he walked onto the scene and trying to buy his way onto the Bloodrush team, he definitely wasn't making any friends. Failing to jump on that table was the first humbling moment for Fabian. It's the first time we get a peek behind the curtain—the idea that, oh, maybe this guy is an insecure loser who's desperate to live up to his father's legacy. I can think of nothing more poetic than Fabian's doomed attempt at table hopping.
And the Webtoon just cut it out.
I swear, I scrolled up and down three times, thinking maybe I missed it. I waited for the next week's installment to come out, thinking maybe they'd add it in later.
But the battle has concluded, the Bad Kids were victorious, and Fabian came out of the encounter looking competent and relatively cool.
That sucks!
We need Fabian to be a loser! We need his egotism to be rudely punished by the reality of his mistakes! If Fabian is actually as good as he thinks he is, why are we even cheering for him?
Fabian has worse misfortune to come—including but not limited to Fabian's Terrible Day in Sophomore Year—but the omission of the table jump that wasn't really hurts. Fabian, my darling boy, what are they doing to you?
New episodes continue to drop every Tuesday, and I continue to follow along. Can't wait to see how I'll be disappointed next week.