“They’re sending you to Texas against your will!” She shouted. “To play Dungeons & Dragons!”
“You do know they pay me to be here, right? There are a few things I have to do in return, like W.O.R.K. That hardly constitutes abuse!”
Besides, I thought. Who said it was against my will. I admit, I was curious. A little bit about D&D but mostly about how an expense account worked.
Much to her dismay, none of the ten steps promising to make me less of a nice girl could save—I mean—stop me. Oh, I went to College Station, all right. I even waited an hour after we landed to call her.
“Where have you been?” she shouted. “According to American Airlines your plane landed one hour and twelve minutes ago!”
“What’s that, Judy? It’s hard to hear with my new elf ears.”
My tour duty was managing logistics—making sure the game designer and celebrity author woke up in time for the event. Put tablecloths on the tables. Take pictures. It was eye-opening, to say the least. At Hastings, a bookstore in College Station, Texas, D&D and I had our first real encounter. Dare I say I found the little bugger to be rather charming? I mean, here were all these people standing in line before the store opened just to wish D&D a Happy Anniversary. The real shocker? They were adults. And not adults with children. They were (mostly) men who were here for their own purposes. I tried to imagine what could get me up at 8:30 on a Saturday morning to stand in line with a bunch of strangers. Anniversary Sale at Nordstrom Rack? Nothing I can’t get online. Ben & Jerry’s Free Ice Cream Cone Day? Small servings prove to be not worth the wait in line. The chance to win a makeover by Stacy and Clinton from What Not to Wear? Heck, no. Well, maybe.
When the store opened and the festivities began, it was less “silver anniversary party” and more “brother’s birthday party.” Tables were filled with dice and miniatures and eraser shavings. The authors and designers held court. There was lots of laughter—the kind of eruptive, collective laughter that succeeds a story that’s going to be told for years to come. Most of these guys didn’t know each other when they showed up that morning, but within the hour it was like a regular old family reunion. Except this was a reunion everyone wanted to be at and not one your mother blackmailed you into attending. These people had clearly connected over a common love: my strange, reclusive co-worker, Dungeons & Dragons.
That was the first time I saw a sampling of the people outside of work play D&D. They were disappointingly normal in jeans and T-shirts. Not a speck of armor or chain mail in the whole joint. No weird accents (unless they had one naturally; this was Texas, after all). Just a bunch of happy people, spending the afternoon at a bookstore, celebrating the anniversary of a game they obviously loved. What would Judy say about this little scene?
Although I wasn’t exactly ready to join them at the table, I developed a protective feeling for D&D, mostly because the people I met were so passionate and thoughtful and grateful. And their stories. Some of them had been playing for all of twenty-five years. They regaled each other with tales of their first characters. Every story started with “And then there was this one time …” and ended with “It was awesome.…”
Suddenly D&D had a face, a personality, and I found myself telling my friends to “shut up!” when they asked me how much it cost to dry-clean all of my black capes.
“Is that frankincense you’re wearing?” my friend Dan asked one day.
Those were fighting words. It was Coco Mademoiselle, thank you very much.
Unlike most of my co-workers, I was no expert on D&D, but I was instantly drawn to the way it was played. The inside jokes, the character backstories, the moments of greatness. The lack of competition. If you’ve read Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress you know what happens next. If you haven’t read it, go on and do that now.
It’s okay.
I’ll wait.
Weird, right? A nice girl like me started playing D&D! And the kicker? We fell in love. It hit me as soon as my Dungeon Master, Teddy, handed me my freshly penciled-in character sheet and a beautiful miniature elf with flowing blonde hair and bubble gum-pink robes. I named her Astrid.
“The other elves are going to call her Ass,” Judy warned.
“No, they’re not. Elves are very refined creatures. Only someone with barbaric tendencies and the couth of an eight-year-old boy would be so cruel.”
“Well, her Grandma’s going to call her Ass.”
Oh yes, this was a much different game than I’d ever known. Much different than those basement billiards games with Judy. There wasn’t a clear winner or loser. You and your party worked together. You shared the victories and the failures. You knew your role and supported one another. Sometimes you even faced the occasional loss. Some hurt more than others. (I still miss you, Freya—the best Dragonborn BFF an elf could have!)
Even Judy came around once I started recapping my weekly games with her.
“You tell stories and make up characters? You’re pretending to be little magical monsters? Oh honey! You found your people! I always knew they’d come for you!”
A few years later, I was staring at my computer screen, willing an idea for my Dragon column to appear on the blank Word doc. It was due in three days. Why wouldn’t Judy send me a book about procrastination? That’s one I’d probably read. Eventually.
While I was waiting for the creative engine to revup, I started unloading my poor, overworked DVR. It was 99% full and much of it was a backlog of The Real Housewives episodes. No sense in keeping my DVR and my creativity blocked, so I gave in to the comfort of the couch. You never know when inspiration can strike. Besides, Judy couldn’t wait forever for me to catch up. Apparently last week’s episode was a doozy.
The housewives were fighting. Surprise! And they were in public. And they were wearing heels and dresses that made their cleavage look like age-spotted sacks of jellyfish. They have an uncanny ability to move their necks and wag a boldly painted acrylic finger in the faces of their “friends” without an ounce of champagne sloshing over the sides of their crystal flutes. I can’t even hold a conversation and a drink without leaving a liquid trail down my pant leg. Don’t stand next to me at cocktail parties. There. You’ve been warned.
Maybe it was the looming deadline, or maybe it was the pressure to free up some space on the DVR before quality programming like Gossip Girl and Fashion Police started up again, but I started imagining The Real Housewives as a D&D party.
Those crazy hens would fail before they even accepted their first mission. For one thing, they wouldn’t go anywhere they could potentially ruin their manicures, and they wouldn’t dream of venturing out without caravans of nannies and house managers. And really, even I wouldn’t wear heels in a dungeon. The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills would probably have the best shot at making it through an encounter. Some of those women actually get along for at least part of an episode, and two of them are related so they’re kind of used to fighting and making up. And another two even have jobs. Well, three if you count Camille, the jilted ex-wife of Kelsey Grammer, better known as “an A-list television star,” like she refers to him. Several times an hour. Her job is managing the two house managers that manage everything else and “keeping Kelsey sober.” The woman who has more nannies than children and still can’t find time to pack for Hawaii. Oh Camille, I feel your pain.
The next morning, I call Judy. We talk every day on my way to work even if it’s been approximately ten hours and sixteen minutes since our last conversation. Chances are a reality show meltdown occurred while we were sleeping or Barefoot Contessa came up with an even better way to roast red peppers, so there’s always something to talk about.
“You’re late,” she said instead of hello. “I’ve been waiting for you to call so I can get my nails done.”
It was 8:12 am. Approximately four minutes later than when I usually call.
“I hear at some point in the distant future, we’ll all have these crazy things called cell phones,” I told her. �
��We’ll be able to roam freely, without being tethered to cords in our kitchen. Imagine that—you can get your nails done anytime, anywhere, while talking to me!”
“Dare to dream,” she sighed. “What could possibly be new?”
Judy loves to act put out by my incessant phone calls, but truthfully, if we should miss a morning call due to unforeseen circumstances like emergency root canals or spontaneous Gin Rummy games with the neighbor, I’ll be plagued with lovelorn e-mails starting at around 2:00 p.m.
“Lots is new!” I told her. “After catching up on my Real Housewives drama, I may have come up with an interesting idea.”
“Does it involve a way to siphon collagen from lips?”
“No, but wow. Great idea. What is with Taylor’s face? She’d be pretty if not for the giant pink football she wears under her nose.”
“It looks like a baboon’s ass, if you ask me.”
“Ugh. Why did I ask? But back to my idea.”
Judy said something but it was muffled.
“Did you just call me Camille?”
“Maybe.”
“Fine. Tell me what you think. Let’s get them all in a room with a Dungeon Master so they can work out their problems.”
“Oh, wouldn’t the housewives love a Dungeon Master,” Judy said. “Especially that dopey housewife who’s desperate to find a husband. You know who she looks like? Ralphie, your Aunt Elly’s old beagle. Remember Ralphie?”
“Seriously, Judy?” I’ve been working at Wizards for more than a decade and still her mind reverts to ball gags and cat-o’-nine tails when I mention Dungeon Master? Kim does kind of look like Ralphie, though. “I’m talking about the very innocent game called Dungeons & Dragons, where a Dungeon Master helps tell you a story.”
“Oh. Well, I think you’d have better luck selling the idea to Bravo if you used my idea.”
I continued with my plan. “Playing D&D would force them to work out their issues. Taking on different roles would foster respect for each other and encourage them to band together to solve a common problem. It’s way better than the old exercise of falling backward into your so-called friend’s waiting arms.”
“Or they could pick up a copy of When Friendship Hurts,” she said. “Did you read that yet?”
“Aw, come on! Why are you sending me that?”
“Remember when your so-called friend Trisha deliberately threw a party on the same day as your birthday? And she didn’t invite you?”
“Yes, in sixth grade!” I argued. “And I’m 99% over it!”
“And I spent all that money renting out Skate Estate for what turned out to be your brother, his weird friend Petey, and you. And none of you skated!”
Oh, I see. The reason she’s still pissed is because she wasted money on the skating party. “Look, Mommy,” I explained. “Trisha was offering to teach kids how to French inhale with the cigarettes she stole from the lunch monitor! Unlimited pitchers of orange juice and couples-skate with my brother can’t compete with that. Even I didn’t want to go to my own party!”
“Well, read the book,” she said. “Now you’ll know what to do next time someone abandons, betrays, or wounds you.”
“I already know what to do,” I told her. “Hang up. Or hit ’em with a magic missile.”
“I think you have some work to do on your pitch.”
“Just arrived at work. Call you on the way home!”
I thought about those batty housewives the next time my group and I got together to play D&D. What’s crazy is that playing D&D at work is work for a lot of my co-workers. And it’s no accident they ended up at Wizards. In fact, it’s their dream job. The company is filled with lifelong gamers. Men and women who have fond memories of discovering D&D in their older cousins’ closets, under Christmas trees, at the game and comic book shops their older siblings brought them to when they were supposed to be baby-sitting. Seems everyone has a how-I-discovered-D&D story around here.
In fact, some of those stories rival those found between the covers of Judy’s favorite self-help tomes. I’m not the only one who finds inspiration with D&D. And that’s when it hit me.
“Are you out of your tree?” Judy asked when I called from my commute home to expand on my new idea. “You think D&D can make you and the Housewives better people than Oprah could?”
“Well, maybe not Oprah,” I said. “But certainly Dr. Phil.”
“Prove it,” she said.
“For starters, D&D players are the nicest people I’ve ever met.”
It is a lame argument but one she has to agree with because she’s met some of them. She still refers to the co-workers she met while visiting the office one day as “Nice Chris,” “Charming Bertrand,” and “Why aren’t you dating that guy, Bart? He’s just as weird as you are.” (Okay, she was right about that one.)
“So?” Judy fired back. “They could have been born that way.”
I can tell this is going to be a tough sell so I rattle off a list of things D&D can do: foster creativity, strengthen relationships, provide creative problem-solving alternatives, make you a better public speaker.
“First grade does that, too,” she said. “What else you got?”
“It lets you tap into different facets of your personality you might not be in touch with otherwise,” I said.
“Take an improv class.”
“It gives you an outlet for all that pent up anger you might be toting around. Anger you might take out on your poor mother’s living conditions when she no longer has the faculties to take care of herself.”
She was silent for a beat. “Go on.”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought of casting spells on drivers who cut you off or cashiers who are rude to you,” I challenged.
Or lazy shoe salesmen who you just know aren’t looking for a pair of eights in the back room. Or the supertall woman with the bad perm who sits in front of you in an almost empty movie theater. Or first dates who don’t think you’re worthy of a second date. As if you wanted one! Grrrr …! Tyler from Walla Walla, if you’re reading this, I knew it wasn’t going anywhere before the salads even arrived. I was just hungry, okay?
“I do cast spells,” she argued. “My favorite is called flipping the birdie.”
“Yeah, you really need to stop doing that. Drivers have been shot for less.”
Judy and I digressed to all sorts of other things that make us mad, but the more we talked, the more confidence I had in what started as a funny little thought bubble.
Maybe you don’t need all of these self-help books or nagging mothers or guru-like talk show hosts smiling at you from the covers of their eponymous magazines. If you want to be enlightened; popular; fabulously fit; a better lover; a great friend; an influential speaker; a wealthy raiser of happy, healthy, spiritually enlightened children with nice muscle tone and good teeth, then you, my friend, need to do nothing else than play Dungeons & Dragons.
Right?
Possibly?
Worth a shot?
If this little thought nugget were to blossom into, say, oh, I don’t know, a book, then I obviously needed evidence to back up my claim. And I would need to get familiar with my competition. As soon as I got home I went in search of all the books Judy sent me—the ones I used for end tables, the ones under the bed. The ones I recently wrapped up to re-gift for friends with less “thoughtful” mothers. And I got to reading. For real this time. Not just the funny parts out loud to my friends at dinner parties. Okay, maybe “read” is a bit misleading. I read book jackets and cover copy. I read reviews on Amazon. I scanned Wikipedia pages. I read the authors’ blogs and the blogs of people who gave the books glowing reviews. If Dan S. from Macon, Georgia, can break free from emotional eating and Glenda D. from Valencia, California, can finally conquer her emotional clutter and Stephanie T. from Santa Fe, New Mexico, has finally found her soul mate (can your soul mate be an inanimate object like, say, a turquoise ring? Hmm … I may have to read this one), then who’s to say a little qual
ity time in your cousin’s crawl space with some oddly shaped dice and your seventh-grade imagination couldn’t do the same years and years later?
For once, Judy and I agreed on the topic of self-help. You can improve your well-being by reading a book: The Player’s Handbook, The Dungeon Master’s Guide, maybe even Tomb of Horrors. That’s the thing about D&D. It changes lives. And it was about to change mine.
Roll for initiative, Universe.
me: I’m not in a bad mood! I’m just … introspective. I told you, there’s a lot going on.
judy: You were always like that when you were in a bad mood, even as a child.
me: I’m not in a bad mood! At least I wasn’t until you just put me in one.
judy: You’d get upset about something—a girl made fun of your jacket, your brother threw up on your teddy bear, we ran out of liverwurst—you would get real quiet and moody and sulk around for days. You never knew how to just let it go.
me: I don’t remember that at all. I thought I was a happy child.
judy: When you were on the Phenobarbital, yes.
me: Seriously? You really doped me? I thought that was just a funny story you told on holidays.
judy: Nope. Doctor’s orders. You were such a crybaby. Turns out you were just gassy.
me: Well, that and I was a baby.
judy: All you did was cry. And then your dad would come home and you’d shut right up. Ooh, that made me mad. I’m getting mad just thinking about it.
me: But kids get upset about things. Someone puking on your favorite teddy bear is on par with losing your job or finding out your spouse is cheating on you. I wasn’t abnormal. I was just reacting to things.
judy: Overreacting.
me: What?
judy: Nothing. Do you remember what I always used to tell you?
me: Ugh. Yes. Everything happens for a reason. You still say that. All the time.
judy: It’s true. I tried so hard to teach you not to get worked up over little things. Whatever happened happens because it was meant to. Once you accept that, there’s very little to worry about.
Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Dungeons & Dragons Page 2