It’s Good to be an Adventurer
Dungeons & Dragons has lost a lot of its negative stigma during the recent Nerd Renaissance. Vin Diesel is on the record (he doesn’t know it, but his character is actually a Level 2 human actor named Vin Diesel), Tim Duncan rolls twenties, Colbert is out there, and yet some people still seem to have issues.
When I was younger I spent some time playing miniatures games like Warhammer, but it quickly became apparent that skateboarding and guitar had more appeal to the high school girls than an army of miniature painted Dwarves.
A few months ago I got the opportunity to truck out to the Sunset and embark on my first D&D adventure with a few of my dudes. We had the good fortune of playing with a Dungeon Master who’s been in the business for nigh on 20 years and has an amazing and fucked up sense of humor. The experience was somewhere between playing guns in your back yard when you’re nine and telling a dirty joke that goes on for four hours, but it was undeniably awesome and addictive. Usually when you are doing something creative in a group (let’s say draw), at least one person is at a disadvantage. Everyone has an imagination and can tell stories, and its imagination that comes out in surprising ways in a good game of D&D.
Over the course of the next few weeks we summoned the God of Slaughter (who looked like a scorpion with Rodney Dangerfield’s head and spoke only in punch lines), charged at the door at a massive victory party we threw for a village we had not yet saved and I managed to get my own bong smashed in my face twice, causing some permanent damage.
Sunday was probably our tenth adventure and things are getting interesting. Chumbawumba Tubthumper, my fratty and overly confrontational Dwarf Rogue finally struck level seven. We’re rolling in gold from the party (which resulted in the death of everyone in town) and about to open a hotel casino run by a vanishing race of snake men.
I will be posting highlights and photos from our ongoing D&D sessions in hopes that you, dear reader, will be encouraged to find your own goofy adventure.
- Them
January 28th, 2009 at 11:51 pm
this is incredible. i miss my D&D days.
January 29th, 2009 at 12:01 am
That was an awesome. It’s great to read about a D&D game that doesn’t take itself so seriously. Please follow this up.
January 29th, 2009 at 9:05 am
Sounds like the last time I did a Vampire / WW game. My character was Calabaza de Vida (Gourd of Life), who was a drunken lout of a P.I. and Luchador. Now that was a fun game, especially since most of the people I played with were doing straight-laced vamps. D&D – most of the people I gamed with leaned to ultra Chaotic Evil, so the game never went beyond us stabbing each other in the back. That was so much fun!
January 29th, 2009 at 10:25 am
My cousin has been playing the same in depth game of D&D for well over 20 years now. He’s a pretty talented painter and illustrator (well…..classically speaking) as well, and has created vast collections of books and journals of the different characters in the game. He even has these giant maps of all the different worlds they play on that hes drawn up. Its some pretty wild shit! I remember sometime in the early 90′s playing a game with him, my other 2 cousins, and my brother and thinking it to be the coolest thing ever.
sadly, hes also 45 and still lives with his parents.
hey, you win some you lose some.
January 29th, 2009 at 11:16 am
Yo, anyone hit up earthdawn or the planescape d&d setting. that stuff was generally less twee and had the potential for some pretty fugged up scenarios. I think I still have ‘Punkolemu’s’ character sheets back at my parent’s gaff
January 29th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
the only thing ive ever experienced with D&D was when i was in a head shop a couple years ago.. this guy came running out of the back room excited yelling that someone or something has awakened after 3 years…….
January 29th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Does anyone else think that close up ghosted picture of Vin Diesel looks like Danzig? After seeing that picture all I can think of is Glen Driving parachuting out of a Ferrari he just drove off of a bagillion foot bridge with a fleet of helicopters following him, All the while shirtless and wearing black stretch jeans, no shirt and his ginormous Danzig skull buckle….
January 29th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
WH40k till I die.
January 29th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
That Casino is going to be the biggest thing to hit Silverus since the Burlap Sack!