CM and the Nerd Brigade!

No, it's not the name of a new band. Captain Midnight, my charming and talented hubby, has donned his Dungeon Master hat and is busy introducing the joys of Dungeons & Dragons to maybe a half-dozen teenage boys from the ward. At the moment they're having long discussions about the differences between intelligence and wisdom, what constitutes constitution, and whether it's better to be a ranger or a paladin. They might actually be ready to start a campaign by the time the pizza is finished baking, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

I didn't get very far into tabletop RPGs when they first became a craze in the late '70s and early '80s. At least part of the problem was the way early D&D games were run -- it was all about battles, and they seemed to be never-ending, as the DM would roll, and roll, and roll again, and then roll some more. You could easily fall asleep in the middle of combat. Streamlined rules have probably improved the experience since I was in eighth grade, but I never really got back into it. And then I married a man with his own First Edition copy of the Fiend Folio.