On a Roll: A Quills & Pixels Submission

My university has a few publications run by students/faculty. One of them is called Quills & Pixels; furthermore, one of my friends was asking me to make something for it. The parameters is that the piece needed to be nonfiction [not made up]. My reply to that was, "NONESENSE!" In response I wrote about me and my usual group's first combat encounter: mixing imagination, story telling, and reality.

After I submitted it I did realize one mistake, I misremembered the name and class of one of the characters as the one they played a couple sessions later, but oh well. There are probably a couple typos too because the publication has a graduate class tied to it where the students review submissions and do editing work, so I wasn't as cautious as usual. It's a quick 1268 word piece. Do enjoy it.

On a Roll

            Once upon a cliché in media res opening we recognize our heroes traversing down a dusty road with towering shrubberies on either side. A clattering of plastic on wood echoes and they ready themselves to fight. A goblin—ugly and grotesque with green bark-textured skin and vacant red eyes—falls out from behind a boulder and lands face first into the road in front of the ox driven cart announcing, “I am hiding now,” in a monotone voice.

            “BWHAHAHAhahaha. . .” Everyone at the table responds. Jim, a rotund but burly ex-bouncer, questions while rubbing the bridge of his nose in a snicker, “This is what ambushed us?”

I the game master—general referee and narrator for this table-top game—struggle to keep a straight face. “Look he rolled a critical fail on his stealth check,” even though goblins in Dungeons and Dragons have a +7 added to their stealth roll results, a natural one [dice landed on one] is still supposed to play out as the worst possible scenario. I slip into an improvised shrill voice of another goblin attacker, “Look I know he’s weird but Gary’s my cousin so be a little more P.C. about it, okay?”

My brother George, who is playing a human cleric chimes in, “okay so my initiative rolls puts me first.”

“What do you plan to do brother?”

“I’m gonna pop open a wineskin and just chill in the back of the cart,” he motions to the other three players: Jennifer, the Female Human Barbarian; Jim, the Male Human Fighter; Dena, the Female Halfling Rogue. “They got this.”

“Heh, then Dena it’s your turn.”

She wipes some of her well-groomed curls out of her face and begins shaking her lone twenty-sided dice in her hands as if she is about to do a craps shoot at a casino. “Okay, where am I?”

I lean over my notes to a well-aged piece of paper with a road, cart, and trees crudely drawn on it. I point to a hastily scribbled S on it, “There.”

“Alright, Sharp is going to use burning hands,” her dice goes clattering across the table.

As the clanking of wood and plastic echoes the battlefield, Sharp, the spry halfling, stands atop the cart and places her hands in front of herself. She makes a strange series of somatic gestures, involving her middle fingers. She recites a quick yet powerful incantation, “FUCK OFF!” A horrendous conflagration of flame streaks out of her palms into the faces of two goblins. Then everything freezes in place.

“What am I supposed to roll now?” I ask bewildered, flipping through the Player’s Hand Book pdf on my computer.

Dena is peering through her spell list, “Uhhh. . . no, uhmm. Okay, so ‘Each creature in a 15-foot cone must make a Dexterity saving throw. A creature takes 3d6 fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.”

“Thanks,” I reply then my brow furrows, “what am I trying to beat then?”

“I think my spell damage or something. . . 14.”

            Back on the battlefield the scene continues with the same artificial echoing as before, the characters don’t ever seem to notice it. The two goblins cry out in pain from the magical flames. Their green skins become a viscous black slim as the flesh underneath chars. One of the goblins behind a tree cries out, “Tom, Harry!” He draws his short-bow back and looses a black arrow at Sharp, striking her in the shoulder.

            “What a dick,” Dena comments while subtracting four from Sharp’s overall health.

            Widening his eyes in a disturbed glee Jim states, “My turn!” He rolls his 1d20—a single twenty-sided dice—to see if he hits Gary the Goblin. “Does nine hit him?”

            I double check the statistics for goblins. Seeing their armor class (A.C.) is eleven, I state, “No.” I begin to gesticulate a swinging two-handed sword. “Bruce rears up his mighty blade, and. . .

            . . . the brave hero barely misses the goblin as it was trying to stand back up. Gary the Goblin had tripped and collapsed face first into the dirt again proclaiming loudly, “I am stealthed!”

            Bruce Nightvale rears his head back, “Bwahaha, come on.” Gary begins to gather himself back up again but faces the opposite direction.

            The barbarian of the party, Olga the Dainty, jumps out of the cart and throws a javelin at Gary. The dense yet well hewn oaken stick wizzes through Gary’s obnoxiously large golden ear loop.  The goblin places his hands over his eyes, “I am stealthed!”

The scene freezes once more and Jennifer exclaims, “Dang it, we’re just a fanning the goblins at this point.”

The scene continue as Father Marks, the cleric, stands up from his resting spot and recites an incantation known as inflict wounds. A nearby goblin is struck by acrid purple lightning. The goblin cries out as a series of small yet ever growing wounds spread across its body until the poor creature collapses on the ground in a heap of flesh. Father Marks then goes back to resting in the shade of the cart.

Sharp spins around from atop the cart and looses an arrow in revenge at the goblin who hit her. The creature clutches an arrow sticking out its side. As black blood oozed through its gnarled fingers, a javelin from Olga impales its throat. Bruce Nightvale misses Gary the Goblin again.

“Gary continues to walk around the battle just shouting how he is in stealth and hiding,” I tell them as a new round of combat begins.

“Is he not going to fight back?” Dena asks.

“No, it’s funnier this way. Gary is too dumb to die.” I point to my brother, “He’s the only one left so it’s back to you.”

He gets up to get a glass of sweet tea from the kitchen, “Nah, I’m good.”

Dena’s dice rolls across the table, “What, I missed too.”

“Gary stands oblivious to the threat but peers over at his cousin’s corpse. ’It is quite breezy today, hey Chuck are you sleeping on the job? Silly chuck,’ Hehehe. . . I like how this is going.”

Dice roll across the table but fall off, “If it’s a twenty I’m keeping it,” Jennifer reaches down and grabs it. “Nope,” then shakes the 1d20 in her hand and drops it onto the table, “Eight, crap. Maybe if we fan enough he’ll freeze to death.”

Bruce’s 1d20 clatters across the table. Glancing to the dice Dena confirms, “Twelve.”

“Okay, that hits him,” I reply.

He slaps his hand on the table, “Finally!” Jim goes into character with a menacing laugh, “hEhEhEEee. . .”

“Well what happens Jim?” I query to my friend.

“Bruce Nightvale pulls out a javelin and impales the fucker and stomps its head into the dirt for good measure.” His dice for damage roll across the table, “I did nine damage.”

Leaning over I ‘X’ out Gary the Goblin on my crude battle map. “Alright y’all have won your first combat encounter in Dungeons and Dragons.”

“Wewt,” George states with mild interest, “What’s the loot?”

I go through a list of what items Goblins are stated to carry as my players go about dividing it up and figuring out where to store the items. The experience points, basically score points tracking character power progression, are calculated in total then divided amongst the party also. We continue to roll on with the adventure, “Okay, now on for the next bit. . . Roll your perception or investigation. . .”

Fin