Full Frontal Nerdity



Full Frontal Nerdity is a weekly web comic by Aaron Williams (also the creator of Nodwick and PS238). It focuses on the roleplaying sessions of four tabletop gaming friends, all of them typical nerds in bad need of a life. The characters are:


 * Frank, the Game Master. Overweight and socially awkward.
 * Lewis, gamer. Often dog-piled by the other players.
 * Nelson, gamer. Rules Lawyer and power gamer.
 * Shawn, gamer. Participates in the games via webcam from Alaska, often abusing said disconnect.

Apart from tabletop gaming, the comic references various staples of the geek subculture, from collectible card games to SF series.

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"Frank: "Due to rampant thefts, field destruction, zombie cattle, poisoned wells, attempted murder, and a relatively mundane aphid problem, your town can expect to suffer fifty percent population loss.""
 * Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking

"Lewis: It's like... "Hey, they put the wrong address on one of your biggest fantasies and someone else got it instead. Sorry about that.""
 * Badass Santa / An Asskicking Christmas: Check it out.
 * Basement Dweller: According to Nelson, everyone but him (although Shawn hadn't joined by then).
 * Batman Gambit: Frank runs a campaign featuring multiple factions interlocked in a power struggle for the throne, each of whom having their own plot hooks. Nelson and Lewis decide to accept as many plot hooks as they possibly can to maximize their XP and loot, thus ending up playing multiple factions against each other. They end up having to do a lot of political maneuvering, actual role-playing, and careful reading of the campaign notes to accomplish this without being detected and cut off from doing more adventuring... Which turns out to have been Frank's plan all along.
 * Brain Bleach: "Must... dump... Clorox... in... ears!". Then there's «eating ghost rock in the hopes that the voices in my head will drown out his».
 * Crossover: The stranger, the better. Their Blood Bowl expansion? The Ringwraith Who Stole Christmas? Green Lantern × Star Trek here?
 * Curse: Lewis's cursed die that rolled only 1 soon messed up every number in the world. They broke it by turning rolling 1 from a Critical Failure into a Critical Hit.
 * Deadpan Snarker: Nelson.
 * Delicious Fruit Pies: Discussed when talking about how X Men First Class would subscribe to the 1960's style of comics.
 * Despair Event Horizon: Nelson and Lewis' reaction on having heard that Karen Gillan was spotted wandering naked in her hotel in NYC, and they weren't there to see it.

"Frank:Then I guess someone will be saving up to have a map to Milwaukee's "Safe House" bar lasered off his tattooed butt, huh? Lewis: We agreed that topic was off limits! Nelson: For aesthetic reasons alone..."
 * Doomy Dooms of Doom: Meet the "verbal meme trigger".
 * Dream Sequence: Technically flu- and fever-induced hallucinations, but close enough.
 * Embarrassing Tattoo: Lewis, apparently.

"Frank: Okay, having gotten hopelessly lost, you're forced to spend the night in the forest. When your characters awaken, they discover that they'd been ravaged by dire mosquitoes to the tune of 3D6 worth of blood loss. As the vultures circle and the sun climbs, you begin to suffer heat exhaustion... Due to multiple insect bites and the fact that you had to sleep on the rocky ground, all your feat and skill rolls will be at minus five for the next day and a half. Lewis: I vote that our D&D game gets a week off after your parents make you go camping. Nelson: Seconded."
 * Everyone Is Single
 * The Faceless: Shawn is never seen in person.
 * Interestingly, the webcam is sometimes treated as if it were his actual body, and he fulfills most aspects of the Snarky Non-Human Sidekick. This could have interesting implications, or it could just be authorial silliness.
 * It gets to the point where even in situations where he should be seen, he still appears as the webcam, such as at conventions or when everyone creates online avatars that resemble themselves.
 * Fever Dream Episode: See Dream Sequence above.
 * Fridge Logic: All over.
 * Alien computers are easily hacked? Maybe.
 * Armor is bypassed without wasting time whenever needed?
 * Genre Savvy: Nelson, about most of Frank's plot twists.
 * The Ghost: Frank's sister is mentioned occasionally. She is probably quite cute to judge from Lewis and Nelson's reaction to the news that she is going bikini shopping.
 * Halloween Episode: Trick-or-treat-or-weird-crossover. Saw-inspired trick-or-treating. Ultra-nerd trick-or-treating. Clearance candy! Pumpkin-carving misadventure. Spirit of Halloween! Pumpkins avenged (plus some trick-or-treating). Innovative costumes (and fantasy Halloween). [http://ffn.nodwick.com/?p=1658 Taking candy from children. On the history of Halloween.
 * Haunted Technology: The radio in "Stephen King: The RPG".
 * Horrible Camping Trip: Frank's family make him go these and his game inevitably suffers for it.


 * Instant Drama, Just Add Tracheotomy: Parodied in one strip as a movie cliche that Aaron Williams hates.
 * Jury Duty: Lewis was called up for one. The trial turned out to involve
 * Limited Wardrobe: Unless they make a point of dressing up, the characters are always depicted wearing the same clothes.
 * Munchkin: Nelson. The Crowning Moment of Munchkinry was when he managed to finagle his way into ruling a fair chunk of the world and even appointed his character a god, complete with prestige class and Alignment Violation Coupons.
 * Shawn may be one as well. When the other players question how they can be certain his die rolls will be fair (they rely on him reporting the results, since he plays by webcam) he offers them each a +5 vorpal sword that he randomly rolled as a show of faith.
 * Really, all three players are Munchkins. Nelson is just the best one at it.
 * Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: D20 Modern + All Flesh Must Be Eaten + Harpoon = Somali Pirates of the Caribbean.
 * That one time when they tried to design a campaign via questionnaire. Which unsurprisingly resulted in going full anime, with Lesbian Stripper Ninja meme as a punchline.
 * No Name Given: The characters are only known by their first names. In fact, at first they didn't even know each other's names and referred to each other by their characters' names.
 * Frank's last name is confirmed to be Stortz.
 * Noodle Incident: Not only has there been plenty, but the players keep an entire BOOK of them, including the incident regarding the "sunproof vampire."
 * "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: At least twice, something has been mentioned to happen in Real Life, and a text box on the panel assures us that it's actually happening.
 * Off the Rails: Sort of the rule of any game we see them playing, rather than the exception.
 * Only Sane Man: The characters usually take turns in doing this... Except for Lewis.
 * Frank does this most often. Nelson is at a close second.
 * Our Demons Are Different: Hello, Emma.
 * Proud to Be a Geek
 * Random Number God
 * Reed Richards Is Useless: Discussed here.
 * Rules Lawyer: Nelson.
 * Ruthless Modern Pirates: "Somali Pirates of the Caribbean"
 * Self-Deprecation: Right here.
 * Social Semi-Circle
 * Shout-Out:
 * Multiple to Phil and Kaja Foglio, Real Life friends of Aaron Williams:
 * "If that's not [[Girl Genius], the MMO, I don't know what is."]
 * What's New with Phil and Dixie Running Gag mentioned; a cameo here.
 * Army of Darkness, probably: "Theocracy? Monarchy? We are units with firearms."
 * The Voice: Shawn
 * What Did I Do Last Night??: The main characters went to a New Years Eve party at the "Goblin Hole" and look through their pockets to figure out what they did while under the influence of "Klingon War Nog". Frank finds a character sheet for the elf ranger from the D&D movie, Lewis finds a receipt for the Everquest sourcebooks, and Nelson (who hates anime) found Yu-Gi-Oh cards.
 * When Frank's nephew entered a pine-box derby, Frank and Nelson drilled a hole "whose geometry looks straight out of the Necronomicon with a drill bit that may have gone through someone's skull" in the car. They blanked out at the pine-box derby; when they came to, they'd been dumped in a basement to scream themselves unconscious after tearing a hole in reality.