This is the kind of entertainment that the internet had in the late 90’s/early 2000’s. Not political, full of vitriol, not overrun by bot comments, not divisions and raging against the latest -ism of the week. Just fun, intelligent slices of gold.

One of the first would be this sketch called Dungeons and Dragons (also known as Summoner Geeks or Attacking the Darkness). It was a simple audio comedy sketch parodying the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game experience, produced in 1996 by the Dead Alewives. It originally comes from an album of sketches titled Take Down the Grand Master.

This animated version came about in 2000, when Volition released a 3D animation test turned promotional video for the Summoner video game. They cast characters from both Summoner and Red Faction to play the different roles from the sketch. The video was included in the game, and can be found by viewing the credits. It was one of the earliest forms of Machinima – even before that was even a thing.

Then came The Gamers. In their skit they play four college DnD players that must guide their characters to defeat the evil of The Shadow. They navigate dangerous forests, ancient ruins, a missing player who’s at his girlfriend’s, and not get killed by the girl down the hall. They later went on to make JourneyQuest, Dorkness Rising, and a host of other videos – but I think this original is still the best.

Journey back to a time when the internet was still amazing.