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The missus and I dig the NBC Thursday-night comedy, Community. I dig Dungeons & Dragons. Next week, apparently, they meet:

“ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS”

02/03/2011 (08:00PM – 08:30PM) (Thursday) : THE STUDY GROUP TAKES A JOURNEY INTO THE DARK WORLD OF DUNGEONS AND DRAGON WITH ABED AT THE HELM – CHARLEY KOONTZ (“Gigantic”) GUEST STARS – When Jeff (Joel McHale) becomes concerned about “Fat Neil,” (Charley Koontz) a fellow Greendale student who is a bit of a loner, Abed (Danny Pudi) proposes that they invite him to play a game of Dungeons and Dragons to boost his spirits and his confidence. But when Pierce (Chevy Chase) discovers that he’s been excluded, he forces his way into the game and takes charge, disrupting their delicate plan. Gillian Jacobs, Alison Brie, Donald Glover, Yvette Nicole Brown and Ken Jeong also star.

[via io9]

My opinion of this episode is almost sure to depend on how current and informed the jokes are. If the show chooses to mock us using outdated references or made-up jargon, I’ll be disappointed. I mean, we’re ripe for mocking, and Community‘s a comedy so that’s its job, but I’m hoping for jokes that reveal a knowledge of the game, whether they’re playing with old-school books or something more current.

In the spirit of Gameplaywright, I’m also hoping that there’s a great story at the heart of the episode and that D&D is an important part of it—something more than a hook to hang jokes on. Though, to be fair, RPGs are a great hook for geek mockery and it’s not like the episode is going to be written for a geeks-only audience.

An obvious gag, to me, seems to be a trajectory for someone that goes from outsider to insider, until maybe he or she is treating dice like a proper gamer: pleading with them, anthropomorphizing them, cursing them, exhibiting behaviors we talk about in The Bones. That story of obsession and change is what they did with Joel McHale’s Jeff Winger in the pool-playing episode, though, so maybe they’ll go somewhere else with it. Whatever. I trust Community to entertain me.

Given the title of the episode, I will award bonus XP for a THAC0 or edition-wars joke.