Anywhoo, one of my teenage sons, Wilber, keeps talking about this Dungeons and Dragons game and he’s always trying to get me to play. Now, I’ve played in Rex and Sharon Colicutt’s Dungeons and Dragons festival once but I stood out like a sober Irishman and I never actually learned the rules.
I figure I could let Wilber teach this ‘ole Dog some new tricks. We call him Wilbur but his full name is Wilberforce. I tried to convince Beth to name him DeltaForce while she was all drugged up in the hospital but she beat me to the punch by giving the doctor power of attorney and making him able to veto any name suggestions for my own child. I got a name for that doctor, it’s….really bad doctor. Like I was saying, Wilber won’t shut his trap about this Dungeons and Dragons so I decided to take a break from watching reruns of Sally Jessy Raphael to learn more about the game and his interests and hopefully bringing us closer together bla bla bla.
“My Hat Tells Me To Drink!” Was an awesome episode
When I walked into Wilber’s room I realized I’d never actually been in there before. He had posters on the wall of things I’d never even heard of like some show about snakes called Monty Python. Wilber brought out all of this queer material to play this game, like pencils and books, everything but an actual board. Give me a game of Pictionary or Mouse Trap any day, those were wholesome games. And don’t even get me started on the dice for this mess of a game.
You can’t tell me a game with dice shaped like my last kidney stone could be created in America. I’m pretty sure it must have come out of Russia. And not recent Russian but really old Russia, like when the Moscow Wall was torn down by Ronald Reagan. I expect this kind of nonsense from Russia. If you ask me, you shouldn’t trust any country from the Southern Hemisphere. Any place that has their toilet water flushing backwards should be automatically put on a terrorist watch list. In fact, I’d like to see the entire country of Russia put on the no-fly list so that when they finally figure out how to make planes over there it will be too late.
I’m pretty sure this is what Russians use as currency as well
Wilber told me that the first thing to do in Dungeons and Dragons, or as he calls it, D&D (These kids and their slang) is to make up a character. I didn’t have a clue what he was talkin’ about but I decided to play along. He gave me a sheet to fill out and I gotta tell ya, it was pretty long. I haven’t filled out so much information since my latest divorce. So far this game was about as fun as a root canal. I guess it’s better that he’s into this kind of stuff than if he was drinkin’ and druggin’ his way through life like I was at his age. I swear, if I ever catch one of my kids doin’ drugs…no ice in their whiskey, and that’s just to start. You gotta draw the line somewhere people.
I decided to base the character after Yours Truly as I’m pretty sure if I can hold my own in this world I could surely kick some royal ass in super-gay magical fantasy land. I had no idea what half of the things on the sheet meant but I filled it out as best I could:
Character Name: Dogolith Bloodstarr
Player Name: Dog is my name but my “Playa” name is Steve McDream
Class and Level: Grade 10 Industrial Arts, Level 3 Spice Rack
Size: Like a midget’s forearm baby
Gender: White with a dash of Navaho
Alignment: Needs to be redone in the Corolla, think the SUV is fine
Religion: Whatever G.W Bush believes in
Height: 7’5’’
Weight: 300 lbs
Looks: like this game is gonna really suck
Fortitude: I don’t understand how high I am in the air is related to all of this
Reflex: I’ve been told it’s like lightning
Will: In the likely event of my death I leave all of my possessions to Beth, except for my hair beads, those go to Lou Diamond Phillips
Armor Class: Whatever won’t get me killed, I mean, honestly.
Feats: Size 10 ½
Languages: Everyone should just speak English or shut the hell up
Possessions on Person: Bear mace, sunglasses, watermelon Hubba Bubba, walkman with Winger and Judas Priest tapes, bottle of Brut cologne, some skin mags, paper money for ye olde strip joints and a case of Bud.
I wasn’t really sure if I was supposed to fill out the sheet for me or for this character I was making up so I did a little of both. Wilber kind of laughed when I gave it back to him but he said we could start playing. He said he was the Dungeon Master and I was to explore his dungeon. We didn’t have any proper D&D figures so we used what we had on hand.
It was the best of times it, it was the geekiest of times
Wilber read off what was happening and how my character responded based on how well I had learned this game in the last 15 minutes:
“Dogolith, you have found yourself in a dank, dark cavern filled with an ominous haze. Two pathways extend in front of you, one to the west, and one that carries on north. Somewhere in the distance you can hear the sound of flesh being ripped from the bone, what do you want to do?
Ok, you have opted to try and go the way you came but you find it most impossible as the only exit is blocked by a massive boulder. No, you are not able to move the boulder with your bare hands, I don’t care how wickedly ripped you are, it is unmovable. No, you cannot eat your way through the boulder, just deal with the fact that you have to go north or west ok?
"One time, I talked to a real adult female, I swear her head was this big, it was weird"
Dogolith, you have chosen west. 30 yards into the passageway you step onto a smooth stone which sinks into the ground. Green, noxious gas starts to swirl around your feet. You must now roll a saving throw vs. poison.
I see that when you created your character you opted out of having any resistance to poison in exchange for what you call “Cougar Charm”. Therefore you instantly take 12 points of damage. No, stuffing your porno magazines into your ears and mouth does not halt the gas, you must move away from the area. Ok, you have escaped the gas but have stumbled into a room with three snarling Kobolds, they draw their rusty swords and advance. You have the first move.
As I said before, bear mace and AK-47’s are not acceptable forms of weapons in this game. The only type of firearm allowed by the AD&D Rules is the arquebus, a very unreliable rifle that’s only used for long range attacks so it’s not really…Ok you load your arquebus, this takes a full turn. Meanwhile, one Kobold has taken a swing at you…he hits you for 5 damage. The second Kobold swings and misses. The third Kobold, who is a priest, hits you for 8 damage with his Magic Missile.
Ok, your arquebus is loaded, roll to see how it fires. You have rolled a malfunction, the arquebus explodes in your face. You have suffered 385 points of damage, you have died. No you did not take the little fuckers with you, they retreated while you loaded the weapon because even though the AD&D Bestiary states Kobolds have a brain the size of a cashew, they aren’t that stupid”.
“I’ve never said this before but, I love you Gavin”
Well that didn’t last long. My character could only be recognized by his dental records and this is D&D times were talkin’ about here so he didn’t have teeth. Wilber told me I had to create a whole new character in order to keep playing but I passed on that. I convinced him to come watch Sally Jessy Raphael reruns with me so the day wasn’t a whole bust. We just settled in front of the tube and watched the episode “Aliens are Living Inside My Stool!” and all was right with the world.
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