Saturday, September 05, 2009

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.

2 comments:

Gretel said...

I think D&D is a man/boy thing. I wanted so badly to play, but I didn't know anyone, or even have enough friends, then I finally found a starter box in a thrift shop and bought it...could not get my head round it, still didn't have enough friends (or at least not ones willing to play it) and then along came decent PC games anyway.
Keeps them out of mischief though.

Soozcat said...

It does that. Though I'd forgotten how much pizza and munchies a half-dozen teenage boys can make disappear in a few hours.