So I finally managed to complete one of my 40 things!
It was to play a kind of fantasy adventure board game with my friends. I refer to it as D&D because the most famous version of this type of game is Dungeons and Dragons – the one we played was a little different but the basic premise was much the same. The difference is that my friend Phil came up with this one, and it was a kind of final hurrah before our friend Dave leaves us for a new life in Toronto.
I came to Role-Playing games (shush you, this is clean…) in my 30’s. On the telly and in films it is depicted as socially inept nerdy teenagers pretending to be elves and wizards, immersing themselves in this fantasy world rather then going outside, having a life and meeting girls.
You might be imagining something like this video,
Or maybe something like this clip from the Big Bang Theory
It’s actually quite fun, OK so there are some quite nerdy moments but in general we don’t take it that seriously. We tell and experience a fun story, solve puzzles, make up silly stuff and enjoy the company of our friends. But with dice and stuff.
In the original game, rules are complicated and there is much reference to rule books, rolling of many-sided dice and in-depth calculations before a character can take an action. It can be slow moving and you can see how only the detail-focused dedicated types have the patience to see it through.
Phil has developed a version which is more accessible and focuses on the fun part of playing – that of telling a story that changes as you interact with it, trying to solve clues and do silly things, yes still rolling a dice to see if you are successful or not, but much less min/maxing of stats and more “I want to do this thing, how do I make it happen”.
The story is set in a world where humans live alongside elves, halflings, goblins etc. (bear with me here!) Magic exists, electricity doesn’t. Think kind of medieval. We chose our characters in a very non-scientific way, by imagining any character and their key attributes, then setting up a very basic set of statistics to work with. To be fair there were so few stats to set it didn’t take long and we were able to just crack on with the game.
Our team consisted of:
- Ermintrude (Natalie) – a trained medic with matronly demeanour, not known to suffer fools gladly
- Dave The Elf (Chris) – a thief, who uses charm and stealth to get what he wants
- J̦hn (Will) Рa mage with powers to summon and control animals
- Ragnar Rimeson (Dave) – a warrior like Northman, dressed somewhat like Cohen the Barbarian with a questionable loincloth
- Brian (me) – an angry dwarf with a size complex and no sense of humour.
Phil set up a scenario that had our imaginary characters trekking into the unknown and stumbling across many baddies that needed dispatching. Super organised as he was, he even drew a map as we went so that we could visualise what was going on 🙂
I started typing up the actual story and it occurred to me that it was one step too far into nerddom and so I managed to check myself 🙂
The evening was brilliant and a lovely send-off for Dave who leaves for Canada shortly. Â The game itself was great fun and a lovely way to spend an afternoon with friends. Lucky and unlucky dice rolls led to some interesting times, narrowly escaping a total massacre of our characters one minute and then later annihilating the final boss which was supposed to be a big challenge in just a few moves.
If you’ve never played one of these, why not give it a go? And if you have dabbled, or play loads, here are some of my favourite silly things to check out:
- The Gamers – full film on Youtube, or buy the DVD 🙂
- Goblins Comic
- Order of the Stick – my favourite is this one
40 things... 