Beware the DM
October 22, 2001
7:11 a.m.
Back in the good old days, I used to do quite a lot of Dungeons and Dragons role playing. We had a steady group of folks with a steady cast of characters and a world that, like any really good campaign, seemed to breathe a life of its own. A few weeks ago, Brigid asked about the game. Lisa and I talked to her for quite a while, and of course she wanted to play. So Lisa walked her though the process of building a character, and I (being ever the DM) worked diligently to develop a situation. I cannot begin to tell you hom much junk I had forgotten I ever knew. [grin] Yesterday, we were finally ready. I got Brigid's character started in the world, then got Lisa's going. The two came together, and of course decided to try to chase down the evilness that might be hinted at in the old relic castle to the north. They stopped for lunch. They met a group of littleguy monsters that I put into the world just to get Brigid a little sense of what a melee was all about. And ... Well... I swear to God I've never seen a party of adventurers roll worse numbers. I mean ... Geeze. So Brigid and Lisa's characters croaked in their first encounter. I can't believe it. So we sat around for a little. Brigid was trying not to be mad but failing pretty miserably, and I was trying frantically to come up with a way to save them, but failing in about the same way, and Lisa was sitting there throwing invisible anti-DM darts from her eyes. Is it my fault they couldn't roll for snot? Grumble. Anyway. I have managed to come up with a plausible way to bring them back and get them started again. And I'm pleased with that. Perhaps we'll play again tonight or tomorrow. With any luck, they'll manage to keep their characters alive for a little longer this time.   Worked on printing out short story manuscripts this morning. Got to get them back into the mail. I did manage to finish the fantasy story Greg challenged us to. And so I set my sites back to the novel. Have a great day.  Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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It is a tremendous amount of work and certainly you couldn't be a writer if you didn't want it desperately enough to do all of this work. On the other hand, I've had jobs that were worse ... Michael Swanwick |
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