xor
Explanation
This comic is a computer science and tabletop gaming crossover joke. A mother tells her kids: "Kids, I'm afraid this year we can only afford Dungeons XOR Dragons."
The caption reads: "Often forgotten in studies of economic downturn are the terrible consequences for dorkwads."
XOR (exclusive or) is a logical operator that returns true when exactly one of its inputs is true, but not both. In programming and logic, "A XOR B" means you can have A or B, but not both at the same time. So "Dungeons XOR Dragons" means the family can afford either the Dungeons part or the Dragons part of Dungeons & Dragons, but not both together.
The joke works on multiple levels: it's a pun that only lands if you know what XOR means (making it inherently nerdy), it imagines economic hardship affecting the nerdiest possible hobby, and the caption's use of "dorkwads" lovingly acknowledges the specific demographic being satirized. It also plays with the idea that Dungeons & Dragons is somehow a compound product that could be decomposed into its constituent parts — as if dungeons and dragons are sold separately.