While this is not a full on blog about our adventures in Team Mayhem, it is about something that is critical to the game. They are small, made out of plastic (or metal) and go clack. I’m talking about dice.

Now, any decent RPGer has at least 3 sets of polyhedrals: your favorite set that you use every single game, the back up to your favorite set, and the third string set that mostly fills out the dice bag and are only pulled out if the other two sets fail critically. Obviously there are others depending on what game you play or if you are a DM, but that’s typically the lot.

However, there are those that I consider to be Dice Dragons, meaning they hoard these colorful little plastic bits with numbers in great, staggering amounts. I happen to be married to one.

This past weekend, we were at Crit Hit 4. It’s a gaming convention- the first one we’ve sold at. There were many Dice Dragons in attendance, as one would expect. They carried their treasure in big plastic tubs and various bags of holding. All throughout the hall, the clacking sounds of dice hitting trays or tabletops echoed.

Though there were only a couple of vendors selling sets of dice, my husband bought no less than 5 sets. He gave one to me- a set of sparkly purple metal dice that he said just screamed my name when he was looking at them. The other 4 sets were plastic and, we later found out, black light reflective (which will be super helpful when he goes to that RPG rave... I digress).

When we got home, my Dice Dragon husband set about counting his hoard, with the new additions, of course. He has 149 dice. That translates roughly to 21 sets of polyhedrals and is not counting the dice in his bag of shame.

Which brings me to another strange ritual RPGers seem to have with their dice- shaming for failed roles. I’m sure you’ve seen pet shaming on social media. Try googling dice shaming. It’s worth it, I promise.

I doubt my husband will stop hoarding dice, but I think that if he keeps going the way he is, I am going to have to start decorating in dice.

This is it. My first ever D&D game. Will and I pile into the truck with our notebooks, mechanical pencils, and dice bags (as well as a couple of bags of snackage) to pick up Tom and Rachel. Together, the four of us venture down to Sidney’s place where the start of our D&D journey will commence.

Once we’ve arrived and had our fill of the pizza feast that awaited us, we all gathered around the table set up in Sidney’s living room. We select our avatars- little cardboard pop outs with illustrations of different characters on them. There’s a final drink/ snack run and we settle in to begin.

On the TV is a large slide that depicts the five realms that split apart. Sidney begins the introduction, explaining the realms and which country/kingdom is at war with who and general history of the world we are going to be playing in. So far so good. I am not 100% on the rules of what needs to be rolled when or what I can or cannot do. The only thing I am aware of from various snippets of conversations with others is that the DM is tantamount to God. Whatever the DM says happens, happens. Beyond that... I haven’t the faintest idea what I am doing.

Our party is made up of a drunk Tiefling fighter (pretty much a devil-looking creature- I can’t remember what his name is), a quiet Rogue Half-Elf named Tess, a Fey Wild named Phairen, and my own characters, Dis and Khaos who I introduced in the first blog.

Based on the first round, pretty much what we are doing is narrating our character’s actions and trying to not get killed by a horrible roll of the dice. Sidney (the DM) is playing the part of everyone else we meet. Now, some of the players (specifically my husband) play the game in character. Meaning he talks like his character would and such. Not everyone does it, so I am not sure if I need to do the same.

Also, I wasn’t sure if we took turns taking actions (like roaming around the town to figure out what we are doing, etc). I wasn’t sure what the protocol is for pickpocketing someone or stealing something (I am a Rogue Street Urchin...), so I just paid for everything I needed. (Okay, so I am a piss poor Rogue Street Urchin).

All of the characters met in the tavern called the Yawning Portal where they were called in to pay a debt to the owner, Durnan. Before speaking with Durnan, we were given the chance to look around the city where a large festival was taking place. Dis and Khaos checked it out and got the gossip about the soldiers being called in and noted all of the extra security. Eventually Dis and Khaos wandered back to the tavern where we received instructions to head to a place called Oak Hurst and help someone up there find his missing mercenaries. We were to leave on the transport up in the morning.

The first battle was against a bunch of ice spiders that crawled out of a pit in the ground. It was horrible. We are level ones with an average of ten hit points before we die. The spiders were SUPER hard to fight off- I think we went into 9 rounds in the fight, or something like that. Dis and Tess were both knocked out cold. We didn’t die straight out of the gate, so we have that going for us. The party made it to the next morning, ready to depart for Oak Hurst.

And all of that was about four hours of playing time (snack breaks included). It’s going to take me a while to get the hang of this game. The good news is that I will have more chances to learn. The next game is scheduled and it should be more in depth than the first session. We’ve named our team Mayhem (because it is better than the Keebler Coalition, which was the other option).

Despite still not being sure what’s going on most of the time, I am beginning to have fun. Thought I still don’t understand why Will wanted me to have multiple sets of dice...

Happy Gaming!

Kira

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