The problem is that Viola has zero knowledge of tabletop RPG's or any prior interest in them, and she has to try to fit in with an established group who are initially wary of accepting a newcomer. Viola has to take a crash course in subjects like spell slots and ability scores, weigh her new comrades' sometimes-conflicting ideas of the "right" way to play, and try to stop them from finding out that they're all unwittingly being used as research subjects. Will playing the game become more to her than a means to an end?
The Party premiered in March 2023, and ran for seven episodes. The creators have said that the door is open to a second season "if the stars align."
The Party YouTube channel can be found here
. The series also has an official website.
The Party provides examples of:
- Comically Missing the Point: When Jean's girlfriend is angry about discovering he has an "in-game" girlfriend in the D&D campaign he's never told her about, she accuses him of treating women like action figures he just plays with when he feels like it. Jean's response is... to object that he doesn't even collect action figures.
- Control Freak: DM is openly called out for being one, although in her defense, she isn't using the players as pawns for her pre-planned, railroaded plot; she's just insecure about her ability to run the game and desperately wants everyone to have fun.
- Friendship Denial: Ecstasy is usually standoffish and snarky with the rest of the group, and refers to them as "strangers" despite gaming with them for over a year.
- Jerkass:
- DM's ex (and the party's former Fighter). He cheated on DM (and his dice rolls), then stole DM's notebook with all of her plans for the campaign and its world after their breakup and demands her Comic Con pass in exchange for giving it back. Nobody in the party has anything good to say about him once he's gone, although it's unclear whether they always hated him and tolerated him for DM's sake while they were still together or changed their opinion of him after the breakup.
- Within the remaining members of the party, Yorick is the most strident and rude about not wanting to let Viola join the group. He openly disdains styles of play that don't meet his standards (such as Thistle's "cliché" druid character), and tends to see himself as the "main character" of the campaign. Viola's research notes concede that his story-first philosophy does enrich the group's experience, but observe that he's nevertheless "still an asshole."
- Line-of-Sight Name: Viola's inspiration for her research project basically happens like this after her professor shoots down her initial idea. Seeing a dragon plush toy he got as a gift for his nephew reminds her of her annoyance at the noisy D&D group the day before, and this combined with noticing a book on his desk about conflict resolution helps her make up a backup plan on the spot.
- LOL, 69: DM's ex uses "ActionSurge69" as his social media handle, befitting someone who plays a Fighter in D&D and is also a crude manchild.
- The Munchkin: Jean, the party's paladin, is all about "optimizing" his character. He comments that while the popular saying is a D&D character is basically a god at level 20, he's determined to get there by level 17.
- Off the Rails: In episode 3, Viola starts to win true acceptance from the group when she uses her Wizard powers to read the mind of the Big Good and discover that she was actually manipulating the heroes for nefarious ends. DM later tells Viola that having this reveal happen early has forced her to completely alter the entire story of the campaign... and thanks her for making the campaign more interesting.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: The real names of the cast are never mentioned. The party members are only ever referred to by their character names and DM is always just DM, even away from the table.
- Player Archetypes:
- Yorick seems to believe committing fully to role play is the most important part of playing a TTRPG. He's finally won over to letting Viola join the group when she presents a backstory for her character he finds brilliant. He chastises her for doing things which he thinks don't jive with the type of character she's supposed to be even if they're effective from a pure game mechanics perspective, but praises her for trying something during an encounter which is "in character" but has disastrous results.
- In contrast, Jean is all about optimizing his character to be as effective as possible. He puts TTRPG newbie Viola through a boot camp in his philosophy after her first session at the table almost gets the whole party killed. Viola's secret notes on her research subjects comment that Jean is "playing a game to win in which there is no winning."
- Pretentious Pronunciation: Jean insists on saying (and having everyone else say) his name with an exaggerated French accent.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Viola's thesis advisor is harsh, but no tougher on Viola than she deserves. He (correctly) calls out her original thesis idea as being blatantly elitist, (correctly) points out that she doesn't seem to be actually learning anything about conflict resolution from the Dn&D group even though that was the ostensible point of her new proposal, and (correctly) chews her out for her extremely unethical actions in engineering a conflict between Jean, his girlfriend, and Thistle.
- Ship Tease: Between Ecstasy and DM. In episode 5, Ecstasy finally asks DM out for coffee.
- Shout-Out:
- Yorick calls Jean "Barry Bluejeans" in episode 1.
- Viola's character name and backstory are one to Twelfth Night. This helps her convince Yorick, who seems to be an aspiring actor, to let her join the party.
- Yorick's "That's rough, buddy" to Jean at the end of episode 5 (set up by the disagreement over whether Avatar: The Last Airbender counts as an anime earlier in the episode).
- Snipe Hunt: When Yorick gets in the way of DM and Ecstasy being able to spend some time together in episode 5, Ecstasy sends him off to buy more spray paint... specifically the non-existant "Jeffries Tube" brand spray paint. Both DM and Jean recognize a "Jeffries Tube" as being a Star Trek reference, but Yorick is oblivious and apparently wastes the afternoon getting strange looks from art supply store employees.
- Spoiled Brat: Viola comes off as one in episode 5. When Thistle is stressing about having her rent go up, Viola off-handedly reveals that her parents pay all her bills, then rambles defensively about it. In an effort to find some actual conflict to write about for her "conflict resolution" thesis project, she engineers a clash between Jean's in-game "love life" (his character and Thistle's character are in a relationship within the world of the campaign) and his IRL love life that leads to his IRL girlfriend dumping him. It never seems to occur to her that this is both totally unethical from a research standpoint and just a deeply shitty thing to do.
- Starving Artist: Thistle is a freelance storyboard artist who has to subsist mainly on instant ramen, and agrees to let Viola join the D&D group because Viola can cook. Thistle also has a side business on Etsy painting D&D miniatures.
- You All Meet in an Inn: Viola interrupting the D&D group mid-session in the first episode is depicted as her walking into a classic medieval tavern where the rest of the group are already present (in costume and makeup as their characters). In episode 2 when the party talks about what character class Viola could play, the scene changes to the inn with the party members in costume again, and additional costumed extras representing various classes scattered around the room are seen as each class is discussed.
- Teacher's Pet: Viola half-jokingly says that since she likes school, is good at school, and her parents pay for everything as long as she's in school, she should stay in school her entire life. She refers to negotiating for better grades after getting her report cards, and says that she's "a child of Montessori" (an education philosophy usually associated with private schools for children in the preschool and early elementary age range).
- Through Their Stomachs: Viola prepares a spread of snacks for the other players before making her pitch to join the D&D group and says what she brings to the table is that she can cook. This is enough to win over Thistle and by extension Jean.
- Unwitting Test Subject: The rest of the D&D group has no idea that Viola only started playing so she can observe their interactions for her thesis project. This seems fairly harmless at first, but then Viola shows signs of manipulating them purely so she has more to write about.
