Work Text
Dorothy carefully set up the cardboard screen on the kitchen table. She sorted through the maps and characters sheets, until everything had been organized into useful piles. Then she flipped through her notes again, a frown appearing as she double checked the stats.“What are you doing? Preparing to invade Poland?” Sofia asked as the kitchen door swung shut behind her.“It’s a game, ma. One of my students challenged me to try it out.” She’d wanted to know why one of her brightest students wasted his time playing Dungeons and Dragons, especially with all the bad press about the game. But Dorothy was never the type to let the mainstream news decide her opinion, and so when Jose offered to lend her his books to try for herself, she accepted.“Did someone say something about a game?” Blanche entered from the backdoor, and it was obvious she’d only just returned from her date last night. “You wouldn’t be interested,” Dorothy said, “It’s a roleplaying game.”Blanche had gone to the refrigerator and stood with the door open. “Roleplaying? I’ve always been fond of roleplaying. Why, one time George and I went down to the woods and I pretended to be snow white and he was the hunter trying to flush me out of the bushes….”“Blanche, not that kind of roleplaying!” Dorothy snapped before the tale got any more lurid. “Good morning!” Rose entered, once again oblivious to the world around her. “What are everyone’s plans for the day?”“Dorothy is going to teach us her new game.”“Ma! I just started reviewing the materials…”Blanche closed the fridge. “How long could that possibly take?”“It’s a lot more complicated than a board game.” Dorothy gestured to the piles of paper on the table. “We all have to create characters, and then I have to run the campaign, and it involves maps and statistics and…”“People do this for fun? Math?” Blanche made a face.“Technically only the Dungeon Master is doing the math. That would be me.” Dorothy wouldn’t let anyone else have that role. She looked at her closest friends in the world and narrowed her eyes. She had an idea. “All right. We’ll play. Starting tonight. We’ll order some pizza and pick up a cheesecake.”
Character Creation
“I don’t understand how I can start out with no class. I have plenty of class.”“Not that kind of class, Blanche.” Dorothy tapped her pencil against the table. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. “Look. They are listed here…” She opened the copy of the player’s manual to the right page.“I suppose I’ll be a bard. I have a delightful singing voice.”Dorothy jotted that down. At least Blanche had made some choices. She was an elf (“because I am the definition of beauty and grace”) and now had her class set. They could start rolling her stats.Rose on the other hand…”Can’t you just choose for me? They all sound so interesting.”That might not be a bad idea, depending on the party’s needs. “All right, how about a magic user?” “My character is done.” Sofia came in through the kitchen door, handing Dorothy a completely filled in sheet complete with stats already rolled.“Ma, you’re a fighter with a two-handed sword?” Dorothy’s eyes widened at the stats.“I have an in-character reason for having it.” Sofia took a slice of cheesecake from the counter and came around to sit at the table with the others. She looked far too smug.Dorothy narrowed her eyes. “Ma, where did you get this?” For a minute Sofia held her gaze. Then she threw up her hands. “Fine. Down by the beach there’s a little comic book store. I like to go in on Tuesdays and pick up the latest issue of Archie.” She chuckled. “That Jughead.”“That still doesn’t explain this!”“What do you think they do in the comic shop? They play this game. The nice young man who rings me up helped me.”Dorothy still thought there was more to the story, but she held her tongue for now. At least one of her players had a complete character sheet. “Fine. Rose, it’s your turn to roll your stats.”“Oh, good. I was always good at rolling dice.”
First Campaign
“I don’t see why we have to introduce ourselves. We already know each other.” Blanche looked slightly offended.“Yes, we do,” Dorothy pointed around the table, “But they don’t.” She gestured to the character sheets.“Why can’t they have been friends for years?” Rose wanted to know. Sofia continued to crochet, her fingers moving fast as she worked the yarn. “Like Balast the Brave would know these chuckleheads.”Dorothy buried her head in her arms and wondered why she was doing this again.
Second Campaign
“All right. There is a single guard standing in front of the door. What do you do next?” Dorothy had her stat sheet for the guard next to her, and a pile of dice laid out in order of sides. Right now the fighter, mage, and bard were approaching the castle where the kidnapped princess had been taken. Or so they thought. But Dorothy was keeping that detail to herself.“I try to seduce him.” Blanche said.“Blanche.”“What? It’s a perfectly viable solution. How could he possibly resist my eloquent grace and charm?” She waved her fork in the air for emphasis. Her plate had been emptied of cheesecake for a good twenty minutes now.Dorothy rolled her eyes. “Fine, roll charisma.”At this point, they’d figured out the dice rolls, although Dorothy had written up a cheat sheet for each of them. Sofia still squinted at the numbers on the dice, but Dorothy was pretty sure her mother could see perfectly well and was just pretending to have poor vision when the roll didn’t go her way.“Oh, I got a 1. Is that good?”“No. No, Blanche, it is not good.” Dorothy couldn’t help but grin. Oh, this was going to be fun.
Third Campaign
“All right, so Ma your weapon’s broken, Blanche is stuck in the tree, and you are surrounded by kobolds. Rose, what do you do?” Dorothy didn’t have much hope for this battle. It looked like next weekend they were going to have to roll new characters.“I cast a spell.” Rose grinned. “This reminds me of the time the witch of St. Olaf got annoyed she wasn’t invited to the Memorial Day Parade.”Dorothy knew she shouldn’t ask. But she couldn’t help herself. “St. Olaf had a designated witch?”“Elected actually.”Blanche looked Dorothy dead in the eye and mouthed ‘no’ but Dorothy persisted. “Elected?”“She was the one who caught the most herring in the herring catching contest.”“Rose, roll your die!” Dorothy snapped. She’d fallen for it again. Why did it always end in herring?Rose picked up the pink twenty-sided die, gave it a little shake and it rolled across the table, landing on a perfect, natural 20.“Is that good?”Dorothy sighed. Turned out, Rose was pretty good at rolling dice.
One Month Later
“Mrs. Zbornak?”Dorothy looked up from grading at the familiar voice. Honestly, she’d been dreading this day. “Yes, Jose?”“I was wondering if I could get my D and D stuff back?”Crap. They still needed to complete the raid on the fortress and get back the artifact to reverse the spell on the princess. Dorothy put her pen down. “Oh, I forgot I had it! Never got around to playing it, I’m afraid,” she chuckled. “I’ll have it for you on Monday.”He grinned. “Thanks!”That would give them time to copy all the relevant papers. And maybe she could get Ma to introduce her to the comic shop guy. Dorothy had a lot of ideas she wanted to pursue. And as long as her friends wanted to play, she’d keep creating stories.