“Kill him! Take his head off!”
Woah, that got dark pretty fast. When I introduced my kids and their friends to Dungeons and Dragons, I thought there would be a little bit more forethought given to the actions. Now I remember that they are all eleven and randomly fart in each other’s faces.
“Um, are you sure you want to take that action? I mean, the old man on the road doesn’t seem to be a threat. You should probably just talk to him first,” I suggest.
“Ok, talk to him then cut his head off!” one of the boys screams.
“Then dump his body in the middle of the road as a warning,” another one chimes in.
“And take his pants off!”
Jesus Christ. What the hell are they watching on youtube?
“Ok, roll the dice.” They do as I pick some arbitrary number they need to complete the action. Honestly, as the dungeon master, I didn’t foresee this direction in the story I crafted for them. I thought that maybe they would rough him up, but it would still be the catalyst to get this little raiding party to the next part of the story. This was supposed to get them out of Act I and firmly on the road to Act II.
Instead, we are the chopping heads off of pantsless people.
“Ok, well, you cut his head off but then learn that he was going to offer you a quest. So, that’s happened. What do you want to do now?” I ask, playing for time to think of something on the fly.
“Put his head back on!”
My son wanted to try Dungeons and Dragons for Christmas. The inner nerd in me squealed. I had played a lot when I was his age. Eventually, sports and girlfriends got in the way of that. Now, I get to revisit those fun times with my kids and their friends. But I can honestly say that I was a bit more nuanced when I chopped heads off people. I at least took the time to determine if the characters were evil or not.
“A new man shows up! He is the brother of the pantsless guy,” I say. I know, it’s lazy but I’m thinking on the fly. “And he has ten bodyguards with him. What do you do?”
“Chop their heads off!”
“With spells!”
Now we are rolling. I have adjusted my approach. They want action, they want the fight. I need to give it to them. Oh, there will be trickery down the line. Of course, there will. I’m a professional. But I have to feed the masses what they want. And what they want is to chop heads off.
I helped the kids build their characters in the beginning, and I was transported to my own garage twenty-five years ago. I could smell the body odor mixed in with the lawnmower gas. The epic battles that we imagined, the impossible dice roles.
Those are friends that I still talk with to this day. And as my son and his friends roll the dice, basically turning this imaginary battle into a food processor of brains and spells, I’m hoping he is getting the same out of it.
At the core of it, D & D is nothing more than a collaborative story. But as the kids build their characters together, as they roll the dice, they build their own relationships. I’m just the guy on the side occasionally giving them people to cut heads off of.
The game goes on, and the trickery comes. A monster lurks in the shadows once they walk through a door. They learn to be more careful at the next passageway. An improbable battle happens where one of their raiding party is injured. They learn to work together to heal him. And, of course, more heads get lopped off.
I’m careful with my kids to not compare them to my younger self. I grew up in a different time, and with a completely different set of stressors. There was no social media or pictures that would last for a thousand years. So I try to let them find their own paths and guide them the best I can.
They are not me, but at least I can give them the best parts of me. I don’t expect them to be all-star football players or to love going to the ballpark. I just expect them to be them. And sometimes, when I’m lucky, who I was and who they are line up perfectly.
“Cut his head off!” my son yells as he and his friends fight the final boss.
“Ok, but he’s pretty strong. It’s going to take a twenty on the dice roll to get that done. Oh, and if you miss, you’re dead.”
This is an old dungeon master trick. The fabled twenty, the impossible roll. Of course, on a twenty-sided die, all the odds are the same. But a twenty never comes up when you really need it. No one rolls that when the stakes are high. Sometimes the kids need to learn that life doesn’t work out even when you try really hard.
The raiding party gathers. Everyone blows on the dice for luck. I’m pretty sure I see one or two of them praying. And then he rolls.
There are a lot of life lessons that this game can teach my kids. How to cooperate, analyze a situation, to trust in your friends. And sometimes, the kids need to learn that life doesn’t always work out even when you try really hard. Then again, sometimes it does.
The dice rattles around the table. It hits its own edge and threatens to go over. Somehow it doesn’t. Across character sheets it flies, hits the monster manual book that I’ve been using, and then comes to a rest.
Twenty.
My boy rolled a twenty.
Holy shit. He rolled a twenty.
And sometimes this game reminds us that our younger selves are easily reflected in our children, even when we try very hard to not compare the two.
Everyone erupts and the day is won.
<<<<>>>>
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