Knights of the Dinner Table/Characters

Knights of the Dinner Table
The eponymous gaming group. The Knights were first formed when the players were still young, and the charter has a long storied history. The original Game Master was Brian who at one point was running sessions for different subcharters of the group every night of the week (typically the same adventure but tweaked for each different group) until Brian suffered a nervous breakdown and handed the game over to Weird Pete. Eventually, Pete left and B.A. took over and after a couple of subsequent player rotations, the group ended up where it is today.

The Knights are a respected "name level" gaming group in Muncie and regularly compete in tournaments with the larger Muncie gaming community. Like most of the other groups, they are very passionate about their game and take it seriously, having among them some of the area's best players.
 * Berserk Button: They're all prone to temper but when the players are pissed off with B.A., they tend to tie him up, blindfold him and suspend him upside down above the table. He still generally thinks whatever he did to deserve it was worth the consequences.
 * Slapstick: Obviously the violence at the game table is comically over the top. Although the creator has claimed he's had such fights at his table.
 * Flat Character: In the early installments. Each of the original Knights was whatever the strip called for, but once the series shifted from single episode strips to ongoing story arcs, the Knights each took on their familiar personalities.

B.A. (Boris Alphonzo) Felton
The current Gamemaster and host. B.A. is a timid individual who still lives with his mother and works as an assistant manager at a local Pizza chain. Nearly all his spare time is spent crafting the "perfect" adventure, which proves an act in futility early in the series run but got better when he grew a backbone and adapted to the habits of his players. While readers are quick to pick up on the players' tendency to derail the game with Hack and Slash, they're slow to notice that B.A. often encourages it. In his campaign, sometimes the old man begging for coins really is a 10th level monk able to summon an army of beggars. His most notorious NPCs are Red Gurdy Pickens, a rough and tumble antagonist who just won't die and whom B.A. likes to pull out on occasion to rattle the Knights, and Jonid Coincrawler, a trickster gnome with a track record of bilking the Knights out of their loot.


 * Beware the Nice Ones: BA is typically very timid but still can show a mean streak in game and has occasional moments of brilliance.
 * Honest Rolls Character: A gnome named Tar Markvar, one of B.A.'s last and most fondly remembered (by him) player characters from before he took over the game.
 * Railroading: Has occasionally been guilty of this but gets accused of it far more often than its actually true. In one egregious example, the heroes were forcibly teleported to a castle, given a quest, and then teleported to the start point before they could engage in disruptive behavior in the castle. They then had to follow the only path in an otherwise impenetrable forest to the dungeon.

Bob Herzog
Described in his character bios as the first "dues paying" member of the Knights, Bob is a hardcore dedicated hack and slash gamer known for his quick temper and relentless dedication to the game (and considering that gaming is already Serious Business in Muncie, that's saying something). While his in game Catch Phrase is "I waste 'em with my crossbow," his out-of-game motto is "the game must go on." Throughout the series, Bob has told every lie, shirked every responsibility and pulled every trick he can think of to escape any responsibilities and/or entanglements keeping him away from the game table. This has estranged him more than once from his father and cost him a respectable job as a claims adjuster. He currently works at Weird Pete's game shop, where he gets paid strictly in game product, which he barters with for some basic necessities (read: more game product), but it's his girlfriend Sheila Horowitz who holds down an actual paying job and pays their bills. He tends to prefer playing dwarven thieves wielding crossbows, his best-known being a family line all named Knuckles.


 * Berserk Button: Don't touch his dice.
 * Random Number God: If such a deity existed, Bob would be it's high priest in Muncie. More than the others, he carefully tracks his dice and has names and personalities assigned to them.
 * Stay in the Kitchen: Seemed to be his attitude towards Sara early on, now inverted living with Sheila. Because she brings home the real paycheck, their home scenes usually show her reading a newspaper in a recliner and him in an apron.
 * The Real Man: Somewhat the way Bob plays all his characters. When playing a dwarven thief, he wields a crossbow and tends to keep on hand a collection of specialized magic bolts for different occasions and he brooks no insult to his honor often to his detriment.

Brian VanHoose
Former Gamemaster turned player, Brian is a painfully shy recluse away from the gaming table. He lives partly on an inheritance from his uncle and partly on revenues from miniatures painting, PC repairs, eBay trading, and extreme frugality. At the table, he's a savant. He has near perfect memory of all rules and revisions to the game, and is a master of advanced gaming tactics. Brian is able to pull off brilliant maneuvers at the game table and is the single most likely player to turn B.A.'s adventures to his personal advantage (though the other Knights have gotten wise to it). Brian has shown signs at different times of being slightly unhinged, from having an imaginary girlfriend to doing his adventure prep with dolls. He usually plays Dwarven wizards from the Lotus clan, the most well known being nicknamed "Teflon Billy."


 * Aspergers Syndrome: Shows the symptoms of this. At the very least, he's extremely introverted.
 * Berserk Button: Don't mention his imaginary girlfriend. In this and other instances he has been prone to flipping the table though more recently the Knights have called him out on it and apparently he's had to go to anger management counseling offscreen.
 * Rules Lawyer: One of the clearest examples in fiction.
 * The Chessmaster: Oh, so much.
 * The Scrooge
 * Too Clever by Half: Usually when Brian's plans fail, its because of this. He tries to squeeze every advantage out of a situation and will eventually forget an obscure rule or variable (or leave his friends out.)
 * Xanatos Gambit: Has one for every situation imaginable. He also seems to live by the creed that if the party cannot win, Lotus WILL at least gain some benfits from it.

Sara Felton
Accomplished roleplayer even before joining the Knights, Sara was invited to the table as shes B.A.'s cousin. This, and the fact that shes, well, a woman made her a hard sell at the Knights table. It didn't help that when they wanted to slaughter Orcs, she wanted to parley with them. After a lot of conflict in the early strips, Sara has grown to accept the group and they in turn accepted her.
 * Berserk Button: Sexist remarks and unwanted flirting will quickly earn you a threatening shirt grab and, if you don't learn your lesson, a black eye.
 * Closer to Earth: At least until other characters were introduced. She was the straight woman to the idiocy of the male players.
 * Cross Playing: She forced this on the Knights early in the series leading to the creation of a monster in the form of Boberella.
 * The Roleplayer: To the point of occasionally being Ms. "Stop Having Fun!" Guys in the earlier strips, but these days she tends to just create characters who's natural inclinations fit better with her adventuring party, as most members of this trope do.

Dave Bozwell
The naive newcomer of the group though only the second newest member of the group behind Sara. Dave was brought in by Bob back in their college days and immediately took to playing fighters with the biggest swords he can get his hands on. Typically the Ditz, Dave has his moments of brilliance and the writers have explained that he's actually not that dumb, he's just really laid back. Dave's iconic character is a fighter named El Ravager with a Hackmaster +12 sword.
 * BFS: His Hackmaster +12, of course. When introduced to the game in ages past, Dave's very first comment was "I want a big-ass sword!".
 * The Real Man: Dave is frequently Bob's partner-in-crime in this department.
 * Speaks Fluent Animal: Dave can understand Squirrely. Of course, Squirrely is unusually intelligent but he doesn't speak english.

Black Hands
Once the Knights stopped being simple gamer stereotypes and started being actual characters, the KODT writers began to introduce other gamer groups to be able to explore funny gamer situations that just wouldn't happen at the Knights table. The first was the Black Hands.

Another group to gain a lot of focus within the KODT strips to the point where each issue now usually features an ongoing strip with them and they've had their own miniseries. The group consists mostly of preestablished characters with everyone aside from Stevil getting at least a mention prior to the introduction of the Black Hands group. Their main distinctive feature is that they play together because nobody else will have them, so five difficult personalities get together each week and try to tolerate each other long enough to get through a game.


 * Humiliation Conga: Pulled on each other whenever possible. Institutionalized with the "Hubcap of Shame."
 * We ARE Struggling Together!: The main challenge of the group is hold back their irritation with each other long enough to do anything useful in the game.

Nitro Ferguson
An unorthodox GM known for his edgy and weird gaming experiments. Nitro is a former drill sergeant and brings that mentality to the table. He's twice run a live action dungeon crawl in the steam tunnels beneath the local university and once trapped and imprisoned a group of gamers to run a wargame scenario, getting him banned from sanctioned play. He and Bob still have a bit of bad blood over the oft referenced incident where Bob threw salt in his eyes and hit him with a dinner tray (the man touched his dice.)


 * Drill Sergeant Nasty: At least early on. He's still tough on his group but has softened a bit.

Weird Pete
A partner with Gary Jackson during the transition of Hackmaster from wargame to rpg, Gary bought him out shortly before Hackmaster went to press and he used the money to open Weird Pete's Game Pit. The Black Hand's game takes place in his back room. Naturally, being a merchant in a struggling industry that is also his primary way of making friends, all his relationships are complicated by the financial matters surrounding the hobby. When behind the screen, he's a grouchy old school Killer GM.
 * Everything Is Trying to Kill You: His campaign setting (no doubt inspired by early Gygax material) is so difficult to survive in that nobody has ever made it past third level.
 * Killer GM: Moreso than the others. And he's always eager to get behind the screen again when the trauma of the previous campaign has healed.

Stevil Van Hostle
Also known as "Bitter Stevil." Stevil is a prickly individual that unleashes pent up office frustrations at the game table. He has to commute from Indianapolis to gaming nights, leading to his frequent complaint "I can't believe I drove forty frickin' miles for THIS!" Newt has rubbed him the wrong way from day one, leading to an escalating vengeance war between them.
 * Catch Phrase: "I can't believe I drove forty fricking miles for THIS!"
 * The Chessmaster: The "loan arrangement" he made with Newt (which involved a contract with fine print and a gawd oath) to make Newt his permanent slave. He eventually gets Out-Gambitted though.
 * Kick the Dog: Drew complaints of this early on as he tended to pick on Newt a lot with little provocation, but Newt more than makes up for it by arranging bail for everyone BUT Stevil later on.

Gordo Sheckberry
A former chemist on permanent disability after getting in an accident at work. Gordo is plenty happy as it leaves him with lots of time to game. He's the most sensitive one in the group and typically the nicest, the problem is he loves playing female characters, particularly pixie fairies and roleplays them as enthusiastically as the others do with their characters which can creep the others out a bit.


 * Crossplay: The trope that embodied Gordo till Character Development ensued. His introduction was as an off panel reference to what happens to players that crossplay (as the Knights were about to have to.)

Newt Forager
Probably the youngest of the series regular characters. Newt still lives at home and is in college. He was introduced as a temporary replacement for Bob, where he made his mark by killing the other player's characters in their sleep and looting their bodies to stock up for another campaign he really wanted to play in. Apparently, this type of behavior continued until the first Black Hands strip where he showed up desperate to finally be accepted into a group (the Black Hands being his last chance). Nitro decided to keep him because he liked how Newt rattled Stevil.
 * Angst: He is in love with this trope as applied to his characters. Just one of the many things Stevil hates about him.
 * Darker and Edgier: The other trope he loves to use with his characters.
 * The Munchkin: Moreso than any other player, yet strangely he's also The Roleplayer. He'll take any opportunity to kill and steal from his teammates, though he's settled down some as he knows this table is his last chance at a regular campaign

Hard 8
The makers of most of the games played in the Muncie community, most notably Hackmaster. Hard 8 is loosely based on TSR, and when Hackmaster was first published in real life, all but the first foreword was written as though the Hard 8 characters were the ones writing it. Though regularly featured, the interactions between this set of characters and the Knights are infrequent and almost always indirect.
 * Expy: Hard 8 itself is an expy of TSR, but the games they produce are also typically expies of real life products Hackmaster (Dungeons & Dragons), World of Hackcraft (take a wild guess), and Spelljacked (Magic the Gathering) being some of the most common.

Gary Jackson
The analog for Gary Gygax. Showed to be a gambler with a fly by the seat of his pants approach to running his company and publishing new game products. After his apparent death in a plane crash, he became a sort of larger than life legend, made still larger recently when it was revealed he's not dead. Currently he's using another company to buy out products being held and (he feels) ruined by his wife who has been running the company in trust for his son.
 * The Ace: Filled this role during the time he spent apparently dead as the Hard 8 staff would often fondly recall Gary's fly by the seat of his pants style of management.

Jojo Zeke
Second in command who became the man to run the show on site after Jackson's death. Zeke, like Jackson cares passionately about Hackmaster and the work he puts into it. After Gary's death, he was shown being worn to the core by the demands of Heidi Jackson until he finally quit.

"Waco" Bob Forsey
The old man of the group. During Gary's tenure as head of the company, Bob got along largely by agreeing with everything Gary said. This may have been the reason he was the first to get fired when Heidi took over. Tuley quietly organized a campaign where the other employees took a pay cut to get him re-hired.

Pete "Skip" Skipowski
A college buddy of Gary Jackson's who became a game designer for Hard 8 when the company was formed.

Edmund Finley
A younger game designer for the company, his pet project was a game called "Abe, Babes and Roller Blades," described as a "sexy, zany, time-travelling romp through history and fashion."

Tuley Priswinkle
For a long time, Tuley was the company's unpaid customer service representative, under the impression that he was playtesting a virtual corporation computer game. He eventually became a regular employee and even sat in the boardroom for a while during Heidi's tenure.

Timmy Jackson
The son and heir of Gary Jackson. Gary used to let Timmy create material for the game in an egregious example of nepotism (the kid was eight, and it showed in his work). After Gary's death, Heidi sent him off to military school, where he discovered football and girls and decided roleplaying games were uncool.


 * Tear Jerker: What turned out to be a clue to the audience. Bundle of Trouble 17, which reprinted the issue featuring Gary's death, also showed Gary holding his son Timmy's hand with him looking up at his dad smiling as they walk into the sunset.

Heidi Jackson
Gary's ex-wife and the runner of a successful paperback publishing company. Gary left Hard 8 to his son Timmy but the company is being held in trust till he turns 18 leaving Heidi to run the company as the trustee. She clearly has an axe to grind with her deceased ex but also is (presumably) trying to protect her son's legacy and make it profitable. Problem is, Hard 8 had always been a labor of love whereas Heidi expects the company to perform like hers does. This is pretty clearly a nod to Lorraine Williams (though not a direct parody) who was part of a business deal that took DnD from Gary Gygax and played a role in the failure of TSR. She also released a new edition of Hackmaster, the only details for which seemed to match up with 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons from real life.
 * Bad Boss: Not incompetent, she was simply mean to the Hard 8 staff, constantly cutting their budget and involving herself overly in aspects of the process she didn't really understand.
 * Dragon Lady: Referred to as such, though she's not asian and only metaphorically fits the type.
 * Executive Meddling: After finally playing a session of Hackmaster, she decided lots of changes needed to be made, which basically ruined the game. Based on the protests, the game has some superficial resemblance to the initial release of fourth edition Dungeons & Dragons.

Patty's Perps
The third name level gaming group to gain continual focus in the strips. The group is known for its eclectic group of hardcases, people who mostly wouldn't fit in with normal society or even other gamers in many places. Like the other gamemasters, Patti has her quirks which include a swear jar, a time out corner, and the use of M & M's to track experience points, all of which come from Patti's background as a school teacher.
 * Ragtag Bunch of Misfits

Patty Gauzweiler
The Gamemaster. Patty is a school teacher who hosts game in her trailer and tends to take in lost souls or anyone who looks like they need some mothering. This, perhaps, explains why she was shown early somewhat relentlessly pursuing Dave to resume the relationship they once had. Patti is also the Gamemaster for the local but seldom shown Ladies of Hack group consisting of most of the regular female characters. Though she has a basically good heart, Patty is also a master of the evil situation, once manipulating her group's entire party into jumping into a lava pit just so she could win a bet with the other Gamemasters in town.
 * Disco Dan: The makeup and the hairstyle date the character to the eighties. Her life of geeks and gradeschool students apparently isolates her from current fashions.
 * Eighties Hair
 * Team Mom: All up and down the line, she cares for her group very much but also disciplines them like her students.

Chad Aguilar
A long time member of the group. Though Chad fits in socially as a college student, he started gaming in middle school where his munchkin tendencies kept him away from other gaming tables leading Patti to take him in. Today, he's more the team spitfire, easily irritated but a bit more mature as a player. Recently, Chad has been bringing his pacifist fiancee Reese to the table; she's more than a little disturbed by all the violence in these games.
 * Hot-Blooded

Tank
Pretty much the embodiment of the modern gamer geek stereotype, Tank is a large obese hairy man thats also timid, thoughtful, and awkward around women (even by KODT standards.) He introduced one of the Ladies of Hack characters, having hired her from an escort service solely to play tabletop games with him in public.
 * Platonic Prostitution: He hired Trish to game with him. She enjoyed it enough to join the Ladies of Hack and came to like Tank enough to give him gifts that probably offset most of what she was paid.

Crutch
An ex-con gone straight. Crutch met the Black Hands when they decided to game at Hawg Wallers. Crutch and others around thought the Hands were planning a bank heist (in fact they were playing a Western RPG and were plotting to rob a bank in game.) After spending a few nights in jail with the Black Hands over this misunderstanding, Crutch fell in love with gaming and began seeking gaming groups. Unfortunately, his enthusiasm for Hack and Slash extended to killing other player's characters at the table so he couldn't find a group until BA directed him to Patty, who has made him her latest project.
 * Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Has mostly recovered from this but even to this day he charges for the healing his cleric "Friar Swayze" doles out.
 * Embarrassing Middle Name: Leslie
 * Heel Face Turn: When introduced, he's an ex-con who still seems willing to engage in criminal behavior but he makes an earnest effort to go straight for his old lady and eventually becomes an honorable Jerkass With a Heart of Gold.

Mo
A middle aged widow/ex-housewife living off life insurance and inheritance, Mo met Patty volunteering at an after school program and was excited about trying out Hackmaster. At the table, she's very outspoken and blunt but nice, which makes it all the more surprising when she kicks your teeth in and steals your loot.
 * The Munchkin: Mo is the unique case in pretty much all of fiction of a middle aged female that fits this trope. Probably the only difference between her and the other munchkins is its all fun and games for her and she's not going to get overly upset if things don't go her way.
 * Widow Woman

Ladies of Hack
The seldom shown all female game group that meets separately from the male-dominated Muncie gaming community (though nearly all of them have other groups they play with regularly and for tournament purposes.) They're also a part of a larger organization of the same name that lobbies the HMPA to change some of the sexist rules (such as the Strength penalty) and depictions of women. The group is run by Patti Gauzweiler, with Sara Felton as one of the regular players and the following.

Sheila Horowitz
Bob's girlfriend and a somewhat hardcore gamer herself. She started dating Bob in the first place partly out of admiration for Bob's commitment to game and partly because he needs mothering. Tends to play Knight Errants.
 * Tsundere Used to game with the Knights until B.A. accused her of cheating and they got in a fist fight. Sheila was the big reason the Knights were leery about letting Sara join the group.

Bridget Keating
First introduced when the Knights players one by one get caught up in a Vampire LARP. Bridget was a clan leader and tended to use her *ahem* assets and her willingness to Cosplay along with her clan authority to get the guys to do whatever she wanted. Though she's calmed down she's still almost always seen in some kind of sexy cosplay outfit.
 * I Have Boobs - You Must Obey!: Most of the time though recently hilariously subverted when she tried to charm her way past a Knight Templar guarding the door at Gary Con.
 * The Vamp

Trish
An escort introduced to gaming by Tank. Basically nice.
 * High-Class Call Girl
 * Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Technically an escort with a heart of gold. She's nice to Tank and even stands up for him to his friends. Later, she buys him some really nice gaming merchandise which, to judge Weird Pete's reaction, offset a good chunk of what Tank paid for her services.
 * Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Sort of. There was a lot of head-scratching Muncie when Trish started showing up in public with Tank and appeared to be dating him.

Squirrely (aka Squire Lee)
Weird Pete's monkey. He's intelligent to the point of being able to read, understand spoken english somewhat and even game. He's shown to be somewhat surly and loves to smoke. The Knights have learned the hard way not to piss him off.
 * Everything's Better with Monkeys
 * The Unintelligible: While unable to speak english, Squirrely is unusually intelligent.

Croix and Hunter
Bob's Niece and Nephew respectively. Bob occasionally tries to run games for them and lately has been using Croix's laptop to play World of Hackcraft. Croix has an innocent crush on Dave.
 * Awesome McCoolname: Hunter's first Hackmaster character Yoda Squarepants.
 * Precocious Crush: Croix has a crush on Dave. She's probably ten. It makes him a little uncomfortable at first.

Ty Ferfel
Nitro's nephew. A young gamer that hangs out on the periphery of the community and is often involved in under the table dealings.

Earl Slackmozer
A rival gamemaster who gets a lot of buzz when he first comes to town, having had a module published by Hard 8 (something B.A. has long tried and failed). At first seems to be the superstar but eventually loses his shine and after being humbled, he and B.A. become friends. Earl currently works at Weird Pete's shop.
 * The Ace: At first, in relation to B.A.. Earl is a Gamemaster in high demand and the Knights threaten to leave B.A. for him.

Johnny Kizinsky
A former player with the Knights. His time with them is shown in flashback. The Knights are fond of saying "the man could play" but one day his luck ran out and he left the gaming scene. He eventually moves away, gets married has children and runs a Big Juices. He has returned on occasion to visit and recently picked up dice again. A shameless flirt and an opportunist, his overall mentality highlights where the Knights were pre-Sara.
 * Born Lucky: Until the Noodle Incident when his dice turned on him.
 * Casanova Wannabe: And he's married.
 * Fallen Hero: From the Knight's perspective. Minus Sara who never respected him in the first place.

Switch
Crutch's "friend" and former partner in crime before Crutch went straight. Switch is still a criminal and shown to be disloyal, self serving, and a jerk. He'll commit a crime then sell out his friends for reduced sentences. He's the one who gets Bob to help him plan his heists letting Bob believe it was for a roleplaying game.
 * What an Idiot!: Bob's gaming experience and commitment to roleplaying thieves certainly gives him a good mindset for planning heists but Switch was pushing his luck continuing to rely on Bob. Switch must not be saavy about games the way Bob is.

Cody Winkle
Seen at a number of game tables but has never fit in with a group. He's a local actor who likes to use his acting skills at the table and is known for his commitment to story and characterization over game play.
 * The Roleplayer: Where Sara is a good example of this trope, Cody is the dark side. He engages in monologues, and asks questions like "what's my motivation?" when a monster is about to attack him. How about survival Cody? Is that visceral enough for you?