I’m about to be DM-ing a Dungeons & Dragons campaign for the first time ever, specifically this one, and I’m a little anxious about it due to this being an entirely strange new world — though, to be fair, I’m always a little anxious about everything…
No, seriously, my General Anxiety is 96th Percentile.
Ahem.
We’ve previously established that Coat of Plates is Realmgard’s equivalent of Dungeons & Dragons and now it’s Kat’s turn to be the Dungeonarrator.
And, yes, that is a reference to Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Also, the fact that I want to play Dungeons & Dragons as a character who’s actually three Goblins in a trenchcoat…
Copyright
J.B. Norman
Dunstana, Annie, Sally, and Amara stare expectantly across the table at Kat.
“Why am I the one in charge?” she asks. “I’ve played this game twice!”
“Well,” Dunstana notes. “None of us can be the Dungeonarrator, because we all want to play!”
“But I have to learn all this new rules!” Kat protests.
“Katherine, my dear, there’s no time like to the present,” Amara notes.
Kat sighs.
“Fine. Let’s get this over with.”
She glances down at the table, where several little figurines are laid out on a map.
“Okay,” she says. “Dunstana, you’re Jonathan Livingston Humanman, the three Goblins in a trenchcoat. Annie, you’re Acro Bat, the Bat Wildering Acrobat. Sally, you’re Sarcastica Sharp-Tongue the Amazon Bard. And Amara is Krimson Katja. Again.”
Dunstana, Annie, Sally, and Amara stare expectantly across the table at Kat.
“And,” Kat continues, consulting her notes, “you’re all gathered at the Leaky Onion tavern waiting for your good personal friend the local mine owner Dusseldorf Rockwrecker.”
She looks up across the table.
“There’s a knock on the door,” Kat tells her players.
“I bet it’s bears!” Dunstana says.
“Why would bears be knocking on the door?” Amara asks.
“The door opens,” Kat continues.
“It’s gonna be bears,” Dunstana notes.
“It’s not bears, Dunstana,” Kat says. “It’s a group of bandits.”
“I want to roll for Awareness,” Dunstana says, “to see if they’re not actually bears.”
She rolls.
“They’re not bears,” Kat says.
“You didn’t even see what I rolled!” Dunstana protests.
“I don’t need to,” Kat says. “Because they’re not bears, Dunstana.”
She points to the others.
“What do you do?”
Dunstana, Annie, Sally, and Amara quickly huddle to confer their strategy. They separate and turn back to Kat.
“Krimson Katja overturns one of the tables to provide us with cover,” Amara says.
“Okay,” Kat notes.
“And,” Sally says, “Sarcastica Sharp-Tongue is going to use her Scathing Remarks ability to say mean things to the bandits.”
“Okay, what mean things specifically?”
“Hmm,” Sally says, thoughtfully touching her chin. “What would I say if Tancred were here?”
Across town, Tancred von Ivanhoe-Hauteburg suddenly sneezes.
“Um,” Sally continues, “I look at the bandits and tell them, um ‘I knew you were coming, because I could smell you through the doors. Because you smell. Bad.’”
Kat rolls her dice.
“You successfully hurt the bandits’ feelings,” she notes.
“I throw a chair!” Dunstana declares.
She rolls.
“Awesome! That was a Critical Hit!”
“You throw a chair,” Kat narrates. “The bandit you hit takes 8 damage. The chair takes 12 damage.”
“I use my supersonic bat noises,” Annie says.
“The bandits all take 5 noise damage,” Kat says.
“I grab the nearest bandit —” Amara says.
“Okay,” Kat notes.
“— and I use him to hit the next bandit —”
“They both take 6 damage.”
“— then I grab him and hit the next bandit. And so on, until I’ve hit all of the bandits with another bandit.”
“Hey!” Dunstana exclaims. “You’re doing that thing that Beasley does!”
The bandits in the Leaky Onion are promptly dispatched.
“There’s another knock on the door,” Kat says. “It’s bears.”
“Called it!” Dunstana exclaims.
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