Dungeons & Dragons With Porn Stars

When Porn Stars Play

by Jon of http://elexismonroe.thumblogger.com/

Zak Smith is a New York born writer and artist. He also used the name Zak Sabbath when he did scenes in a handful of alt porn films. His co-stars Mandy Morbid, Sasha Grey and Satine Phoenix have now joined him for some geeky fun. You can join them in weekly episodes of I Hit It With My Axe. Read on to find out more about the show.

1 How did you get the idea for I Hit It With My Axe and where does the title come from?

I didn’t have the idea–the publisher at Escapist Magazine had it when he read about how some of the girls in my D&D game were in porn. Somebody wants to take something  we were doing anyway and pay us for
it? Deal.
The title is inspired by Kimberly Kane’s default in-game problem-solving strategy.

2 Can you outline the game you’re playing? http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2010/03/how-to-play-game.html

 3 Can you tell us about a typical day’s shoot? It’s remarkably like what you see on the tape except there’s lunch in the middle and five phone calls saying "Hey it’s me, I’m downstairs let me in" at the beginning.

 4 Can you introduce yourself and Mandy Morbid? Mandy’s best movie was Mandy Candy (which Kimberly Kane directed) and she is charming and lovely and intelligent and silicone-free and eminently Google-lable.

I’m a painter. I do porn once in a while. I’ve got three books out in stores if readers have a burning desire to know more.

 5 How did you meet Satine and why did you choose her for the show? Nobody got "chosen" for the show–the show’s just about the people weplay with anyway. I met Satine because we did a threesome in a porn movie a few years ago.

 6 How did Kimberly Kane and Sasha Grey become involved in the show? Again: we’re friends, we all met doing threesomes in porno movies. Kimberly’s in our regular weekly game anyway. Sasha’s too busy to do anything once a week (we were at her place once with one other person and she was like "This is the most people we’ve ever had over". Three people.) She took some time out between shooting in Paris and working on her book to play her first game and we timed the first episode so we could film it.

What’s it like working with porn stars? Well an ordinary human will come in and be like "Hey Zak, where should I put my coat?" whereas a porn star will come in and go "Hey Zak, where should I put my coat?" and then 300 people on the internet will go "Haw haw! What a dubm bitch, she donest even no whare to put her
coat! I want to jizz on herbutt!"

 7 Can you introduce us to Connie and Frankie? They’re people we normally play with–Connie’s a stripper who used to work with Mandy who–in the game–is the one who is always falling into pits and getting attacked by wereblobs and spidermen and stuff–and Frankie does hair and, in the game, is the one who is always trying to hide until everybody’s dead and then save everyone.

I wasn’t gonna kick them out of the game just because we started filming it–and the Escapist was like, "Hey, they’re hot, they’re smart, we got no problem with that".

8 Justine Jolie’s going to be a future guest. Why was she chosen? She’s our friend and she wanted to play. So when she visiting LA I said, hey, you’re up.

Which other guests will there be? It’s like Scooby Doo–different guest stars every session–it all
depends on people’s schedules, but we’re expecting: Stoya, Bobbi Starr, Caroline Pierce, Gia Jordan, and Andy San Dimas so far.

9 Does Sasha’s boyfriend Ian sit through each 8 hour shoot? Doesn’t he  get bored? He sat through one 8-hour shoot–it’s just that the first 7 episodes are all from that one session. Again, this is a documentary about our normal game–I’m not going to tell my friends to leave just because we happen to be filming the game.

In real life, Sasha and Ian are hardly ever apart. He had comic books to read, so he was happy.

10 Do the girls try to cheat? Frankie’s the only overt cheater. Looking at the tape of the last episode I noticed Frankie shooting her crossbow twice in a row without reloading. And she totally knew it.

Most of the others more just try to persuade me to bend the rules. Which is pretty normal Dungeons and Dragons behavior.

11 Who are Escapist Comics and why did the project interest them? The Escapist isn’t a comic company, it’s a website about games. They were interested because the guy who runs it, Alex Macris, reads the blog I have about our games ("D&D With Pornstars") and thought "Hey, this could be a show". So the show really grew out of the fact that we were both playing and reading about D&D.

12 Which characters have the girls chosen and why? Sasha’s part-demon, in her own words, "”Cause that’s cool–duh!" and a wizard for reasons unclear to me because what she really seems
to enjoy is hitting things with a crowbar.

Kimberly Kane is a barbarian because then that means she gets to rage once a day and thereby break and smite those who dare oppose her, and a half-elf because when I showed her the half-orc picture she decided it was too ugly. If it was a band, KK’s like the drummer–she likes to hit things and she’s good at it. I seriously want to know which law of probability you have to blow to roll 20s like she does.

Frankie is a dark-elf thief because she’s a goth. She likes to strike unseen like as unto a creature of the night. Which, y’know, is fine by me.

Satine Phoenix is a wood elf because she’s all outdoorsy and Burning Man and shit. She also has played D&D a lot–she tries to play this sort of morally upright elf but when there’s some treasure or the
opportunity to make up a cool plan her D&D instincts just kick in and she starts scheming. Also: Anyone who’s seen her movies will be in no way surprised to find out that she also really likes tying people up.

Connie is a halfling because they’re little and cute but she wants to find a halfling figurine that isn’t fat, which is hard. She’s a doorkicker–she also has a fine eye for the little details everyone else misses, but it’s easy to forget since she’s real quiet.

Mandy’s the leader–half-demon cleric. Mandy is the one who can regularly be expected to know what the fuck is going on at all times and have a plan and she speaks languages and heals people and summons
monsters and has read Sun Tzu and generally keeps everybody alive and in line.

13 Was it hard for the novices to learn the rules? No. It always takes time to learn the subtleties but the early versions of D&D are pretty simple to learn–we use a version of those old rules from the ’80s.

14 What’s the role of the Dungeon Master? The DM describes where they are and what’s happening around them and writes out the details of all the places they go and people their characters run into. The players play their characters, the DM plays everyone and everything else.

In practice, the trick is to stay out of the way and let the players make their own trouble.

15 What’s more important watching the game develop or learning about the different people playing it? I think they’re the same thing.

16 Who’s the show’s intended audience? I didn’t think it up or pay for it so I don’t know, but judging from
my mail: some people like it as a sort of real-life sitcom about some funny people, some people watch because they like seeing what porn girls are like in real life, some people watch it because they play
D&D and like to see how other people do it, some people like following the story in the game–it’s also developed something of a lesbian following. The most enthusiastic mail seems to be from female gamers.

17 What has the public’s reaction been so far? The public’s main reaction has been to watch it a lot. So that’s nice. My personal favorite public reaction has been from hilarious morons–people who’re like "This needs a better script! They need to change that crazy set!" It’s not a set, it’s our apartment, this all
actually occurred, peabrain. I guess these are the same people who watch CNN and wonder why they cast a black guy as president and why this movie about war and taxes and immigrants has been on 24 hours a
day since 1980.

18 Why do you need music when playing D & D and what do you like to listen to when playing?
D&D is a social situation–so, as usual, you play music. And, you know, it’s also a metal situation–what with all the smiting and slaying and beasts, so this music you play, generally it’s metal–Slayer, Roky Erickson, Burzum, Today Is The Day, Hiretsukan, Monster Magnet, Sleep, Maiden, Priest, Neurosis, Wolves in the Throne Room, Isis, Bolt Thrower, Samael, Godflesh, Amebix, Bauhaus during the creepy temple scenes, and, of course, The Sword, who were nice enough to let us use their music on the show.

19 What’s essential food whilst playing D & D? Y’know, for me, it’s like slices of sausage and goat cheese on oatmeal raisin cookies, but the girls are, understandably, on stricter diets. At this point I usually just tell everybody to bring what they want and hope everybody finds something they can eat. And if it’s around the 20th of the month you’re gonna want some dark chocolate handy. Also, on occasion, it is not unknown for alcohol to be consumed.

20 Where can people watch episodes of I Hit It With My Axe? www.escapistmagazine.com –If you’re new, I’d start with episode 5 or 6–by that time the Escapist and us had stopped arguing about what the
show should be like and so the episodes started coming out better. If you want to see Kimberly drunk you’ll have to wait ’til episode 7. New episodes go up on Wednesdays, I believe. They tell me the show’s going
to have its own site soon, with extras and interviews and things, so stay tuned for that if you’re a fan.