Musical Monday - Roll a d6 by Broken Record Films

Sometimes a parody song is so much better than the original that it makes you wonder exactly why the original was famous to begin with. This is the case with Roll a d6 and the song it parodies Like a G6 by Far East Movement. The original is a bland and boring song about how great it is to get drunk every night. At one point the lyrics boast that when the singer drinks "they do it right". I suppose that means they don't throw their alcohol into their eye or ear or something. Because what the world needed was another paean to the "fun" of mindlessly wandering from bar to bar and getting sloshed into a stupor. Not only that, the original lyrics don't even flow very well: even with some nonsense words thrown in there to fill in the gaps, the rhymes are frequently clumsy and forced.

Connor Anderson and Broken Record Films took this insipid earworm and transformed it into something that is not only funny, but is also more interesting and better-written than the original. Instead of a night of stumbling around drunk, a group of friends get together and imagine themselves as heroic wizards, dwarves, and rangers facing down hordes of goblins and zombies then tangling with a fire-breathing dragon. I only have a few quibbles with the video. The first is that at the beginning the main character is somewhat hesitant to say that she'll be busy gaming all night. But if geeks are all ashamed to admit the things that they enjoy doing, then we'll never shake this stupid entrenched idea that heading out to a bar and drinking and smoking is an acceptable way to have fun with your friends, but playing games with them somehow isn't. The second quibble is that they appear to be playing 3^rd edition Dungeons & Dragons in the video, and for the most part, one would roll a d20 for things like perception checks and saving throws, not a d6. This is, of course, a very minor nitpick, mostly because the song isn't really about a specific die type, but is about the fun of an all-night gaming session with your friends. My third quibble is what is the DM doing playing a character in game? I figure it is because they wanted to use the actor in the fantasy sequences, but it just seems odd to have him taking the role of DM at the table and then show up as a wizard "in the game".

So, for taking a song about drunk morons, transforming it into something brilliant, capturing the raw fun of tabletop role-playing gaming, and giving me something worth listening to over and over again, Broken Record Films is my Musical Monday selection for today. Also: There seems to be something of a mystery as to what character class the female singer is supposed to be. My guess is that she's a single classed elf wizard or sorcerer using a bow as a racial weapon. But that's just a guess.

Previous Musical Monday: No Easy Way to Say This by The Doubleclicks

Subsequent Musical Monday: Spock Impersonator by The Doubleclicks

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