We probably shouldn’t have spent the whole of yesterday playing Dungeons & Dragons with Les & Ed and their boys, especially considering that we still had family visiting from out of town, not to mention a ton of other stuff we should have been doing, like putting up storm windows and so forth. But it had been ages since the last time we’d played and the invitation was just too good to resist. We showed up at their house Saturday at 10:30 a.m. and got back home a bit after 8 in the evening, tired but oh so happy. It was the best gaming I’ve had in several years, actually.

Note: what follows is a long, self-indulgent description of yesterday’s campaign, written mainly for the benefit of those who were there. If you aren’t a fan of the multi-sided dice ;) you should probably just skip this one.

1. Doing my homework: the transition to 3.5

In general, I like change and variety in my life. I get bored quickly and I always want to try new things. However, I’ve been a crotchety old fart in the D&D setting, constantly muttering under my breath things like “Attack of opportunity? Fortitude save? Difficulty class? What the hell is that about? In my day we just played.”

In our gaming heyday (i.e. over a decade ago; pre-kids) we played the first edition in all its messy splendor. Occasionally, depending on the DM, we ventured into the second-edition territory of using non-weapon proficiencies, but that was as far as we went. We rolled initiative at the beginning of each round. One roll for the party, one roll for the bad guys. If you were casting a spell, you rolled your own on a four-sided and announced which segment your spell would go off. You announced in advance which spell it would be. You could not go “through” a square occupied by a party member. You didn’t bother with who was “flanked.” Etc. etc. etc.

Then we more or less took a break from gaming for several years while we had small children and so forth. When we returned to the table it was with different friends and the new 3.5 edition. Joey took to it right away: it really is simpler and easier for kids to learn, and the books are so much easier to use. I mean, whoever had the brilliant idea of organizing the spells in purely alphabetical order instead of by class and level should get a medal. Even so, we never played quite often enough for me to really get the hang of the new rules. Or maybe the problem was that I never had time to sit down and study the handbook in advance of the gaming, so I just tried to pick it up on the fly. Anyway, at the end of the game I was always a tad grumpy.

I’m not sure what was different yesterday. I think a couple of things helped. One, earlier in the week — the day the big kids had no school but Daniel did so we were free from that distraction and could concentrate — Les and the boys came over to our house for a character-rolling party. By the time we arrived on Saturday our character sheets were completely filled, our questions had been answered, and we were ready to go. I had for once taken the time to study up on my character’s abilities (more about that to come) and refresh my memory about those stupid attacks of opportunity, “feats” and “skills,” and the whole d20 system.

Another thing that hugely helped me to learn 3.5 — I created a new character sheet! Yes, I fired up InDesign and together Joey and I came up with a logical, beautiful, typographically-correct character sheet. Oh, the joy! I did a second one tailored just for rogues, and Joey and I have plans to create sheets for the other classes as well. Let me know if you’re interested and I’ll send you a pdf. :)

2. Creating my character

I know you are dying to hear about my new character. Heh heh! At first I thought I would roll up a swashbuckler (Joey’s suggestion). However, at the character-rolling party I learned that Leslie’s sons were both going to play fighters, one an elven swashbuckler and the other a half-orc barbarian, Steve rolled up a hexblade, and Joey a fighter with the “monkeygrip” feat. As I was weighing my options Lena made the offhand suggestion that I should name my character Dido Twite. Oh my sweet little bookworm daughter!

I have attempted to translate “real” fictional characters into D&D terms before. Very fun! My best was a ranger named Ayla whose non-weapon proficiencies of course included leatherworking, fishing, swimming, fire starting, gadget invention, healing, etc. etc. Anyway. Do you know Dido Twite? She is the heroine of several books by the fabulous Joan Aiken. I recently had the pleasure of re-reading Black Hearts in Battersea, the first book in which Dido appears, and Nightbirds on Nantucket, the sequel. Dido is a little cockney urchin: brave, clever, resourceful, annoying… in D&D terms, a thoroughgoing rogue.

It was easy to choose Dido’s skills. We know from Nightbirds that she can swim and has quite a constitution (can’t say how we know because it’s a huge Battersea spoiler ;) ). We know that she is great at jumping, tumbling, climbing and balancing from the way she plays in the captain’s cabin. We also know from the way she speaks her mind that she’s not exactly gifted in charisma/diplomacy/negotiation. Which of her abilities should get the 7 was a no-brainer. One of the details I always loved in Battersea was that Dido’s father played the “hoboy” (oboe), so at the last minute, on a whim, I equipped her with a German flute but no skill in performing it. A fateful decision, as it turned out.

3. The campaign

The basic scenario: something was eating the pigs in the forest. Yes, you read that right. This campaign which ended with us killing a vampire started because we were supposed to save some pigs. Pigs that were owned by grigs. You think I’m making this up? It’s true. Grigs with pigs. We saved the grigs’ pigs. The chief grig, by the way, was named Mister Big*.

We go down the hole. We encounter half a dozen giant centipedes which we easily slaughter. We explore the underground cavern. In a little chamber we discover… Kenny G!!!! No, not Kenny G. Keniji. Keniji the famous gnome oboist who had been missing for the last three years. (What did I just say about Dido and the hoboy? Ed did not know this when he was creating the campaign.)

At this point I should tell you that one of the things in real life that my dear pal Les and I have in common is we are both great fans. You’ve seen how I go on and on about Patrick O’Brian, for example. Les is the same. And we spur each other on to ever-greater heights of foolish adulation. This, I believe, was the original adolescent basis of our friendship. For the two of us, role-playing Keniji fandom came very naturally. Dido even pulled out her German flute in order to play along. (Performance check? Rolled a 1. Add the -2 Charisma modifier? Oy!)

Anyway, Keniji informed us that there was one centipede we hadn’t yet killed. And it was 60 feet long. Like, the size of a whale.

4. The mega-centipede

Our killing of the mega-centipede will go down forever in the annals of great D&D moments.

Les’s character, the sorcerer Circe, had a very cool magic item: Nolzur’s Marvelous Pigment. Use it to draw an inanimate, non-magical item, and the drawing becomes the real thing. After about an hour of real-time discussion (details to follow) we figured out a way to use the pigment to kill the megapede.

We’re in a huge underground cavern. There is a hole in the ground that is the mouth of the tunnel to the megapede’s lair. I can’t remember who first had the idea, but someone suggested using the pigment to draw on the 50-foot high ceiling a big block of lead that would drop down on the megapede’s head as it emerged from the tunnel. A fabulous idea, yes?

Yes, but there were a few details to be worked out. We had enough pigment to draw a 10 x 10 x 10 foot block. How much would that weigh? Ha ha, we started by looking up the atomic weight of lead! Hmm, how many moles in 10 cubic feet? Much arithmetic. Oh wait, radium is even heavier than lead! Yeah, let’s make it a block of radium! After more arithmetic we figured out that a block drawn with just half the pigment would weigh approximately 350 tons, and that would be cool, because we’d still have some pigment left. But geez, what if the whole cavern comes tumbling down on our heads? How do we lure the megapede to exactly the right spot? What shape should the block be? How does one of us get up to the ceiling to draw it in the first place?

Long story short, we did it. The DM ruled that the falling block of radium would do 100–1,000 hp of damage, i.e. 10d10 x 100, and if the megapede made its saving throw it would only take half damage. We rolled 560, the megapede made its save, but since it only had 72 hp to begin with… woo-hooo! The bug was squashed.

5. Keniji

Well, we high-fived a bit too soon. It turned out the reason Keniji had been missing from the public eye for the last three years was because he’d turned into a vampire. “Which explains why I played so badly in front of him,” said the crestfallen and self-deluded Dido.

Dispatching him was not so easy. Only two characters in the party didn’t lose levels and that was because they were busy grappling with each other. Heh heh, our seven-year-old half-orc barbarian, Boomthud, stayed cool as a cucumber when informed by his father that the vampire had charmed him into turning on the party. And ironically, if he hadn’t attacked our cleric (Lena) she certainly would have lost levels too. Never was a roll of 20 better-timed than when Lena finally broke free and attempted to “turn” Keniji.

Long story short: after being turned the vampire fled to its crypt. We followed. We opened the coffin, found Keniji within, and — oh this is the best of all — used the remaining pigment to draw a wooden stake, which we pounded through its heart. :D

6. The dénouement

Ed, our illustrious DM, is nothing if not a master of humorous detail. When we met up again with the grigs, victorious but much battered, Mister Big told us he knew a cleric of high-enough level to restore all our lost levels. Not only that, said Mister Big, but he hates Kenny G. I mean, Keniji. Bring him Keniji’s head and he’ll be more than happy to oblige all of you.

I wanted to know the name of the cleric’s temple. I like to keep track of these things. Ed didn’t have an answer ready but after the briefest pause he replied with a grin, “The Temple of Good Taste.”

I wish I could remember all the funny and cute exchanges that took place during the course of the day. Playing with kids is a mixed blessing sometimes, but there’s no question that they provide much humor. I think the best was when Les & Ed’s 9yo commented that if he got the second ioun stone — a marble-sized rock that orbits around your head and gives you extra magic powers — he would name his two stones Phobos and Deimos.

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*Grigs are sort of like centaurs only instead of being half horse they are half grasshopper, and they are only 18 inches tall.