Dungeoning and Dragoning!

Readers!

Now is a tale of adventurers against peril! Monstrosities everywhere! Drunkardness in a village tavern!

It's a record of my first Dungeon Mastery ... probably this means inferiority to girlfriend Claire's many roleplaying posts on her blog, but Akane is bold! I must try this responsibility even with the chance of failing!

The first challenge for Dungeon Master Akane = revealing the story of character generating. It went so:

"Look!" says a boyfriend to several girlfriends. "A Monster Manual. It's new!"

"Ooh!" says girlfriend Ariel.

"Badass!" says girlfriend Sasha.

"Let me guess," says girlfriend Elle. "Now the new D&D books are all owned, so you want us to play. I am suspicious there will be mountains of monsters from that book to slay us."

Girlfriend Claire points out, "His face did have an expression so devious when I saw him read it earlier."

"No, no, no," insists the boyfriend. "So many years have passed since I playered a game of Dungeons and Dragons. Always it's DMing for me. I'd like a change."

"I Dungeon Mastered that Fivee game we played," says girlfriend Elle. Her blue eyes ... so narrow and pointed at the boyfriend! "I guess it was forgettable?"

"Elle, dear," says girlfriend Hettie, "of course this question is a suggest of falseness. You Dungeon Mastered with extreme success, but the game ended so momentarily. Only one session! Of course that doesn't satisfy the hunger for playering of our always-DMing boyfriend."

"Hmm."

(Notice the sound, Readers! It's so short, just three letters. Not even a vowel! How does girlfriend Elle say it so that it can mean so many different things? Sorry to interrupt. It's just braggery of her talent at "Hmm"ing.)

Wait ... where is the playing and Dungeon Mastery? Where is even the character generating? Akane! Your narration of Dungeoning and Dragoning is off to so slow a start. I'm the most apologetic, I promise. From here I will be speedier.

Our rolling method was full of danger! Usually, it's rolling six times and deciding, "This one's good, so I'm Strong! This one ... oof. A roll of poorness, so it goes in Charisma. Charisma = the garbage stat, so a bad one is fine. Two average ones ... Intelligence and Wisdom, because I intend a battler, not a thinker. That leaves a pretty-good and an even better for my Dextrous and Constitutional abilities."

(Why is Charisma a garbage stat? A boyfriend can't explain. It's just reflex from a D&D of historical age, he says.)

But instead of planning on a battler and picking abilities of might, or planning on a wizard and making Intelligence the most ideal roll, our choice was to roll the six stats in order and then pick what character sort might have this hodgepodge of scorings. 

Boyfriend was first. "7, 9, 14, 16, 11, 14. Weak and clumsy! Apparently it's a mage for me. What background would be fun for a mage? Aha, scribe! Now I can improve my Intelligence and Dexterity. Exceptional in smartness and no longer penalized with klutzing. Scribe, huh? He's a scribe who had aspiration to do wizardry, but also obsessed about writing. Cantrips include Light to always be able to see for writing and Message, even though that's speaking, not writing. First level spells ... obvious to have Detect Magic since it's his obsessive interest, Comprehend Languages to enable copying of books from any language, and Illusory Script because it's magical writing. Oh, and a couple of spells for fighting. Human, so I can get extra skills and a feat for extra skills as well. Name: Pilchard Plume."

Dice pass to girlfriend Ariel. "Oh no, 8! I'm an embarrassment of scrawny too! 13 a little better, though for Dexteriting. 11 is boring Con, 16 okay Intelligence, 13 decent Wisdom, Charisma is 10 so I guess that's fine if it's a garbage stat? No point in anything but a wizard, I guess. Wait! Don't think I'm copying you, boyfriend! I'll be a sage instead of scribing. Increases to Con and Int and Wis so they're 1 better each! Sage gets "Magic Initiate" of Wizardy ... I'll be so magical. Oh! And humans can pick any original feat, so human for me! (Still not copying you, boyfriend, don't think it!) What feat? "Magic Initiate" again! this time Bard. Not even starting with my actual wizard spells yet, and already I have 4 cantrips and 2 first levels! What's a cantrip again? Never mind, I'll just pick these ... and these ... and then for Wizard class these 3 more, plus 6 more first levels ... so many spells! Look at me! One of hers is "Feather Fall" from her Initiating, so she's good at falling. Surprise, boyfriend, now I'm copying you! Her name is Penny Plume! She's your sister because such weaklingness must be from being related. She has a nickname about falling, though -- Plummet Plume."

Girlfriend Elle becomes an orc of barbaric warrioring: Grolka Thickskull. Girlfriend Hettie, a wood elf ranger who decided to leave hermitage for rangering. She's Helsa the Homely because of an 8 in the garbage stat! Girlfriend Sasha decides to thieve for her class. She's a tiefling because it's so close to "thieving." Rouge Hornytail the Black! "She's Chaotic Chaotic in alignment," Sasha insists.

This leaves girlfriend Claire and girlfriend Akane. Our plan was ... everyone roll a character, then decide who is Dungeon Master. But Akane volunteers with bravery, so only Claire is left to roll.

"10, 11, 15, 15, 6 (!), 9. Holy smokery, that Wisdom is bad. Also poor in Charisma. There's no class that's mostly about Constitutionry, so you know what that means ... another Wizard!"

"We have so many ..." says girlfriend Ariel.

"This one is different!" says Claire. "Look, he's a merchant instead of a bookly sage or scribe. Instead of spells that are writerly like Pilchard or so many spells of usefulness like Penny, he picks spells he thinks sound cool. Charm Person! Disguise Self! Expeditious Retreat! Find Familiar! Tasha's Hideous Laughter and Tenser's Disk!"

Boyfriend asks, "What's he planning to use those for?"

"Look at his Wisdom! He's no planner, this guy. They're just cool. Except Find Familiar. He'll use that to pick even the coolest familiar. Which ones are allowed? Bat, Cat, Frog, Hawk, Lizard, Octopus -- wait right there! Octopus!"

"An octopus? On land?" asks girlfriend Hettie.

"He'll keep it in a jug of water when he summons it. Look: jug ... only 2 copper pieces! What a bargain!"

"How can it do familiar things inside a jug?" asks Elle.

"Who knows?" says Claire. "But it's an octopus, so it's cool! This wizard's a halfling too. Name of Bingly Bumbledeal."

Everyone becomes jealous of girlfriend Claire's insane octopus-having wizard.

"Actually really creative," says boyfriend.

"I bet the octopus is so cute," says Ariel.

"Yes. In fact, so cute it's required for Rouge to consider stealing it," says Sasha.

Next time, Readers, the adventuresome begins!