My First Encounter as a Stoned Dwarf

As I mentioned in a previous entry, I was recently introduced to a little tabletop game named "Dungeons & Dragons." Maybe you've heard of it.

And yes, the headline says "stoned" and it's not a typo. I got to adopt an abandoned character named David the Dream Dwarf Druid (he likes Ds evidently) and one of his vices is a conch shell that he fills with a special herbal substance which causes the other party members to hallucinate. Thankfully dwarven druids are only mellowed out by it, 'cause David was affected for the first hour and a half or so of the campaign.

Well, when most people relay their experiences with D&D they go straight into character and alienate anyone who's never played the game before. Okay, I hate it when people do that, but I have to for one moment because it was so bad ass. If you'd rather not read the literary ejaculant of my nerdgasm skip the italics.

The ashen skinned dwarf had just lived through the worst twelve seconds of his life. He had been shot straight through the jaw, straight through the gut and then was also coated in a ball of acid. He faced off against the accursed snow elf that caused so much of his greif. All he had to show for his vengeful efforts was a sizeable kink in the leather that adorned the snow elf's chest. As he pulled his hammer back again to swing again the elf seemed to dissapear from site and just like that, he felt the elf's short sword peirce through his back and come clean through his chest. The elf pulled the sword up through the dwarf's chest and as the two halves of the dwarf fell, the elf's sword came back down splitting the dwarf's helm in half. As a final exclamation point to the elf's daring feat, he kicked the remaining bits of the dwarf's head off into the distance.

Sorry, I had to get that out of my system.

Aside from the in-character nerdery, the night was certainly an eye opener. I don't know that I've ever played a game before that has a list of rules and characters that are completely dependant on one person's interpretation of them. Also, I completely understand the joy of a natural 20 after rolling one on a spot check. By the way, to the guys that were there Friday, you're welcome for telling you the details about that gate patrol.

The part about the night that blew me away the most was that D&D was nothing like he nerd gatherings that comedians and television shows portray it as. No one was dressed as their characters, and while we were chatting about fighting dwarves and flinging fireballs, it was over a dirty thirty of Icehouse with a lit hookah. Basically, D&D was just an excuse and a vehicle with which to host a party, and it was actually a bitchin' time.

Actually, it being such a good time is the reason it took me until Monday to get this post up. Hangovers are a bitch.

I think I'm going to take David the dwarven druid (and artisan of alliteration) out for another spin this upcomming Friday and hopefully he'll hit third level, who knows, there might be another nerd-splooge moment then too.

-That Guy