Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Dungeons & Dragons

by Shelly Mazzanoble

  So you know how sometimes you’re talking and there’s silence, which maybe the sound of people actually paying attention, but you mistake it for disinterest, discontent, or worse, sleeping, so you fill the void with more chatter? Sure you do. Well, perhaps there is something to that old “brevity is the soul of wit” cliché. Mr. Perkins gives the players just enough information to make sure you know there’s a whole lot more where that came from. His silences are usually met with dumbfounded faces or pensive head-in-hands moments. He manages to come across as droll and succinct, which of course makes him my hero. I wonder if he’s available for HOA meetings?

  The Monday of the following week arrived and I affectionately refer to this as Eviction Day. It’s bright and sunny and again on the unseasonably warm side.

  “Good,” I told Judy. “I can sleep with the sunroof open when my car, a.k.a. my new studio apartment, is parked under the viaduct tonight.”

  “Oh, it won’t be that bad. I’m sure they’ve had enough time to calm down.”

  “Well, even if they haven’t, I feel confident I can win them over to my side.”

  “Uh-oh,” Judy said and sighed. “Who’d you catch peeing in the elevator this time?”

  I scoffed at the notion. “Gross! I never caught anyone doing that.” Unless she meant my old dog Charlie, but that was only because she was on prednisone and arthritic and I couldn’t get her downstairs in time.

  “Well, then, how do you think you’ll win them—oh my God! You read the book! Dale Carnegie showed you the way!”

  “No, Dale Carnegie showed me nothing but the inside of a recycling bin. I’ve been studying the real masters of manipulation: Dungeon Masters.”

  Judy’s turn to scoff. “How dare you equate a globally accredited, most influential business leader of the twentieth century with your little dragon storyteller friends?”

  “Easy. What do you know about Dungeon Masters?”

  “Umm, you have to be nice to them or they will kill you.”

  I think she may have had Dungeon Masters mixed up with mafia bosses, but I got the spirit of her comment. “If that were true, I’d say that’s pretty influential. But there’s more to it than that.”

  Just as Betty could hear the happy in my smile, I could hear the absurd in Judy’s eyes rolling. “I’m sure it’s a tough, undervalued, disrespected job. Just like being your mother.”

  Just in case she couldn’t hear my eyes rolling, I sighed loudly.

  She ignored me and continues with her diatribe. “I always thought I’d make a wonderful Dungeon Master.”

  “Always?”

  “Well, since you started talking about this stuff,” she said. “I used to make up stories all the time for you and Mike. And I’m good at voices.”

  “That’s not all there is to Dungeon Mastering. They’re experts at winning friends and influencing people, too.”

  “That so?”

  I went on to explain that once Dungeon Masters getbehind that screen, they’re in control. They’re powerful, all-knowing controllers of the universe. It’s really just a matter of bringing it to the front of the screen, so to speak.

  But Judy was not totally buying it. “Maybe they’re all knowing and masterful because they feel safe behind the screen and being in front of it would just turn them into wobbly, panic-stricken blobs. Ever think of that?”

  “No, I haven’t, and there’s no time for that. I have a homeowners association to win and neighbors to influence.”

  I left the pashmina upstairs and opted to wear an old Mariner’s sweatshirt and my Chuck Taylors. I’m a woman of the people. I support the home team. I can run like hell if I need to.

  When I arrived there are five other homeowners in attendance—Skip, Cheryl, Joseph, Aella, and her husband, Alexander. Obviously this is big business because Aella only trots him out for special occasions. If Aella is all fists and fury, she’s practically a baby bunny compared to him. He doesn’t speak English very well but he speaks angry fluently. Even when he was explaining the correct ratios between nitrogen and potassium in packaged fertilizer, it was like he was Mel Gibson telling me why I could give up the dream of alimony. You do not want to be on the business end of Alexander. Good thing I was geared up.

  Fortunately, Skip and Joseph sat at the heads of the table and the rest of the group was spread out along the same side. I sat on the opposite long side and proceeded to spread out my paperwork two seats to the left and right of me. I almost came to blows with three guys in their twenties for doing roughly this same thing at a bar last weekend. Kids these days.

  “I think we’re expecting more people,” Cheryl said, looking at my plethora of paperwork.

  “That’s fine,” I said, creating neat little piles. “I have enough copies for everyone.”

  Within a few minutes, we had enough homeowners for a quorum. Skip started the meeting off by asking if it was okay to start the meeting. A few unsure “ayes” are mumbled around the table, which totally sets Aella off.

  Four out of five D&D players identify themselves as Dungeon Masters. How do I know this? I conducted an informational Facebook poll. Seven minutes after my post, I got sixty-three responses. And here’s an interesting tidbit about Dungeon Masters and Player Characters: Once you go behind the screen it’s difficult to come out.

  “I’ve been DMing for more than twenty years,” Ben said. “In that time I’ve probably helmed over a hundred games and maybe played a character in three.”

  Megan, a control freak, believes she wouldn’t be nearly as enchanted with D&D in any other role. “I don’t like watching stories or characters get derailed. I need to have more control of the environment and the people who live in it.”

  “I play both roles,” Brian said, “but I like DMing because I like telling stories.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” my brother posted on my wall. “And Mom wants you to call her.”

  “Call-a this meeting-a to order!” she shouted. “All in favor?”

  “Fine, whatever,” Skip said. “All in favor?”

  A stronger chorus of “ayes” echoed around the table. I could feel Aella’s fury from across the table. She had her house keys in her hands and was crouched at the tip of her folding chair. Her body language was screaming, Tell me what I want to hear or I’m leaving and you won’t have your quorum! Alexander looked on like a restrained Doberman who just caught a couple of intruders. Can someone give me a diplomacy check?

  Skip pulled out a legal pad and rumpled notes from the last meeting. It made me wonder if Aella would crumple them up and throw it at poor Skip’s head after I left.

  “Last time we met, we had a discussion about the potential water damage on the south and west sides of the building.”

  “Not so much a discussion,” Aella said, sneering at me.

  “And not so much potential,” I answered as I sneered back.

  She didn’t bat an eye.

  “It was more of an ill-educated suggestion to move forward with repairs, which was shot down. Why are we here again? I thought this was settled.”

  Ill-educated? Great. How could I speak to them in a language they’ll understand when they couldn’t even properly string together an insult? But I was not deterred. I was a calm, cool, collected master of manipulation.

  “I have the notes right here,” I said, passing out copies for everyone. “I also took the liberty of printing out copies of Star Engineering’s references and rating report from Angie’s List, Yelp, and the Better Business Bureau.”

  Some of my neighbors nodded their heads as they sifted through the piles of paper. Others tossed it aside and growled. “We don’t need no stupid-a references. We need to tell these-a scam artists where they can-a stick their report-a. Nothing wrong with the building!”

  Ooh, we’re rolling for initiative.

  “I understand your concern, Aella,” I began. “And I appreciate your dedication to ensuring everyone in this building is protected. I share your concern, so
I took the liberty of looking into some case studies about stucco buildings built around the same time as ours. Turns out nearly one in three buildings thirty years and older experiences similar cases of water intrusion like what Star Engineering found on our building. If you turn to the graph on page six you’ll see what I mean.”

  Does a 19 beat your armor class, Aella? Why, yes, I believe it does.

  Nothing says “I know more than you and therefore you need to trust me” like a graph. If they looked closely they might notice some of my math was off, but they don’t. This graph was purely for visual impact, and impact it had.

  “Very impressive,” Skip said. I can tell he was thankful not to have to run one of these cat-herding contests.

  “Oh, sure,” Aella said as she snorted. “But can your graphs generate a million dollars, huh? This just paper! You need-a money to fix-a the problem. We no have-a money!”

  Aella casts Bless, granting all targets a +1 power bonus to attacks.

  While graphs are aesthetically appealing, you can’t beat the emotional influence of the money card. The same heads that nodded at my graph and references nodded at her. Stupid lemmings!

  I cleared my throat. “Look, I know some of you have lived here even longer than I have. Cheryl, you were one of the very first homeowners! There are plenty of places you could have lived, but you chose to live here. For decades. And let me tell you—wise investment! But that investment is in jeopardy if we don’t do something about the water damage. At the rate we’re going we face substantial structural damage that will add additional hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs. I assure you, Joseph, we will have to make these repairs eventually and if we wait much longer it will cost double, even triple this initial bid. You could lose all of your equity.”

  I said that last bit looking at Patty, who I know has grandiose ideas about hanging up her nursing scrubs and moving her and her overweight tabby to a cabin in Ocean Shores. I felt bad when she averted her gaze and frowned at my presentation packet. But it was no time to go soft!

  And Patty is dazed. Save ends.

  “If you don’t believe me, look at page eleven and see what happened to the Garden Heights over in Bellingham,” I said. Patty would not like it.

  I gave them time to read the overview. It didn’t take long, seeing as I bulleted, bolded, and highlighted the important stuff.

  “Maybe we could look at just replacing the south wall,” a weakened Amanda/Adrian said to my surprise and delight. Never underestimate the power of a sweatshirt and a bar graph.

  Amanda/Adrian’s next-door neighbor, Joy, bobbed her head in agreement. “And then we could replace the stucco with a nice, more modern material.”

  “I love it!” Amanda/Adrian said. Mind you, these are the same people who wanted to paint underwater murals on our front doors.

  “It will look like a cool art piece,” Patty said. “Like an accent wall. Maybe corrugated metal.”

  Even Joseph got inspired. “Maybe we could paint the stucco a brighter color while we’re at it. Like a nice burnt sienna?”

  Okay, not to be an ingrate and all but that wasn’t what I had in mind at all. I mean, I was excited that they were getting on board but to slap a piece of corrugated metal onto a 1979 stucco building in Seattle’s twelfth-most-popular neighborhood?

  Fortunately, Aella didn’t agree with this strategy, either. “That still be $400,000 dollars! Plus more for your arty materials!”

  Alexander was getting upset. His face burned scarlet and there were veins emerging from parts I didn’t know had veins. “Ohhhhhh puurrffffphhhh ickles gupppppkle …”

  “You are correct, Aella!” I said, smiling at her. “And I think Alexander might need a glass of water. In the meantime, please turn to page nineteen for a detailed cost breakdown. You’ll notice that by repairing the entire building envelope all at once, we save just over 20% in the long run.”

  Is Dungeon Mastering really that hard? Do you really have to have a Mensa membership before you’re allowed to purchase your first Monster Vault? Do you really need to invest in a storage unit just to house all your equipment?

  There are tons of reasons people shy away from taking a turn at DMing, but lots of them are just misconceptions:

  WORK WORK WORK: Really? These are your friends! They love you! They love playing in your game. No one does the voice of the wererat like you do! What if your friends said, “Oh, I’d love to celebrate your birthday but that involves getting you a card and thinking of something sweet to write in it and driving six miles to your favorite restaurant so I can chip in for your $14 dinner and it’s a work night and 30 Rock is on and I really just want to go to bed and get up early but thanks, anyway! Here’s to next year!”

  In case you don’t have much time dedicated to prepping your adventures, fear not! There are tons of resources out there that make DMing easy. Dungeon Delves, prewritten adventures, D&D Encounters. You get out of it what you put into it. And really, this is a small price to pay for the praise and adoration of your friends.

  RULES RULES RULES: Oh, sure, there are rules, but you don’t have to know them all. You just need to start the story, guide the players, and attack them with a few monsters now and again. If you can think, you can be a Dungeon Master.

  “Yukbaukukuk!”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “He say you-a going to-a have to buy us out!” Aella said on behalf of Alexander. “We no pay for repairs. You buy us out and we move to new apartment.”

  As much as I loved the idea of an Aella-and-Alexander-the-Grump-free zone, their latest idea just proved how out of touch with reality these people are. Buy them out? Who are we, Wal-Mart?

  Thankfully I didn’t have to explain the preposterous nature of this because Skip was all over it.

  “That’s not an option, Aella. The Association does not purchase units just because an owner is disgruntled.”

  Oh, snap! Skip hits with an acid arrow.

  MONEY MONEY MONEY: Well, sure you could buy every book and set of dice out there. Even invest in a few really nice mechanical pencils and fancy DM screens, but I’m going to tell you a secret: You don’t have to. If you want to try your hand at DMing you can make your own playmat with graph paper and pencil and use pennies, bottle caps, and cat toys as monsters. Just like the kids of the 1970s and 1980s did. The rest of the story comes out of your head, so unless you’re charging yourself a consulting fee you’re probably not spending too much there.

  I would, however, be remiss if I didn’t at least suggest you enhance your game by investing in a few accessories. Trust me—there’s nothing like watching your players’ faces when you pull out a giant blue dragon from behind your screen. A pewter napkin ring just doesn’t have the same appeal.

  “Then we sell,” she said. “Wash our hands of you.” She mimed washing her hands for extra emphasis.

  “Well, good luck with that, Aella,” I said. “Really. Just from the few days of research I did, it looks like selling when the building is in such a state of uncertainty is all but impossible. I can’t imagine there’s a mortgage lender in town who would finance a building with a potential assessment upward of half a million dollars.”

  “You-a can’t keep us here!” she shouted.

  “Oh, I’m not keeping you. Your denial about the building’s structural damage is what’s keeping you. When we fix it, you leave.” I washed my hands for extra emphasis.

  “We should start talking to our respective banks,” Joseph said. “We’re probably better off getting individual loans rather than an association loan.”

  I smiled at my prodigy. “I couldn’t agree more.”

  Just like our Tuesday game and lunch time Encounters game, and Mr. Tulach’s speech about in-store play programs and anything our Dungeon Master to the Stars touches, I left them wanting more. I packed up my remaining papers, grabbed my keys, and bid adieu.

  “If anyone has questions, just let me know. I kind of went overboard with the research. I just want to b
e sure we know our rights and are as educated as we can be. I realize it’s a big expense for all of us. Not pashmina big, but up there.”

  They thanked me for my hard work. Told me how much they appreciated the effort I put into this.

  “Your opinion matters,” Patty told me, clutching my wrist.

  “Imagine taking a bath and not living in fear of getting a concussion!” Joseph said wistfully.

  “Yes, imagine that,” I said, vowing to not imagine that at all. I hope someone was taking notes.

  “Arizona, here I come!” said Cheryl.

  “Sorry to cut this short but I have an appointment I can’t miss.”

  For all they knew I was off to meet with an engineering firm and a property management company to stage another coup on an unsuspecting condo association in a subpar neighborhood. But I just went back to my condo and created a new graph. This one showed how many out-to-dinners, eyebrow waxings, and On Demand movies I’d have to forgo in order to pay my share of the upcoming assessment. Tell me again whose dumb idea this was?

  me: I’m sure they’re not, but let’s get back to the situation at hand. I live in a one-bedroom, one-bathroom condo. Zelda is more territorial than I am, and Sadie may or may not have killed a cat when she was a puppy. It’s never going to work.

  judy: Zelda is a bitch. She needs someone to put her in her place.

  me: That’s your grandchild! And her place is sleeping on the couch. Not torn in little pieces around the baseboards.

  judy: You’re projecting your issues on Sadie and Zelda. They’re not the problems here. You and your inability to break out of your comfort zone are.

  me: I break out of my comfort zone all the time! Just yesterday I went to QFC instead of Safeway. I didn’t know my way around. It took me at least fifteen minutes to find peanut butter. But I did get a great deal on frozen spinach.

  judy: Who moved your cheese, honey?

  me: I don’t know. I wasn’t shopping for cheese.

  judy: You’re just like Hem and Haw when you should be like Sniff and Scurry.