Day 12, Smocktober 18th, 2010

Today I learned:





I am still drastically unused to this "blog a day" concept, so I apologize to my adoring public for the lack of updates over the weekend. Since the concept started, and is primarily maintained, on lunchbreak at work...when I'm not working, it tends not to occur to me. But, here I am regardless, NOT making up any missed entries. So nyeah.





I feel naked without my watch. One of the few ways I was conditioned growing up was that I always knew what time it was. Whether it was a clock on the wall, the VCR, or a parent nearby I could ask, I always had an idea what time it was. When I was, I think, about nine or ten, I got my first watch and have worn one nearly every day since. There has not been more than a week since that first watch that I've been without one, because it's just become a part of me; and, I always know the time. Of course many people use their cellphone as a watch, but since I'd not bothered to get a cellphone until approximately a year ago, this was not a terribly viable option. Further, it's less convenient to fish a phone out of a pocket than to look at my wrist.

And yet, despite all this verbiage aimed at making you realize just how much I am one with my watch, I managed to leave home without it this morning. I still don't know how that happened, but the horrible realization hit as I was halfway to work without it. I was already borderline late, so I couldn't go back and get it; and so I work away, trying not to freak out about this odd feeling of being exposed, of being powerless, of being...timeless. It's horrifying, and at the same time alarming how much this has thrown off my groove.







This next segment is long and deals heavily withADnD, so if you are of the opinion that Dungeons and Dragons is the spawn of satan sent to decieve us all into destroying each other with swords and wizardry, than I'd advise not reading. If you are curious about ADnD, and the Tomb of Horrors, then read on.

The Tomb of Horrors, for those unaware, is the most legendary dungeon module ever created. It's a pamphlet containing the deadliest adventure ever played by a quivering group of players in their basement/apartment/mom's dining room. It is a dungeon so lethal that it is considered optimistic to go into it with 5 players with 4 characters ready each; a dungeon so mighty, it can break your bones with its pinky!

It has long been an ambition of mine to watch/play/run this module, just because it's a classic, and because I wondered if it could possibly live up to its reputation. I was overjoyed to realize that the Anime Club at the school I recently graduated from was going to run through it, and promptly made plans to attend. Some confusion and driving around later, I was seated at the table with a grim party of adventurers. I didnt' play initially (I had read spoilers, and enthused about them with the DM) but there were six players, each with multiple characters ready to play, each eager to see the horrors of the tomb.

Within about ten minutes, four characters had already perished, new ones risen to replace them. As the game progressed, characters died as if it were going out of style; sometimes in perfectly reasonable ways, sometimes in ways that made one go "But whyyyyyyyyy?!?!?!?!?" The players gleefully pulled out character sheet after character sheet, rejoicing every time they made a save that kept them alive for another few minutes, and high fiving each other when someone died in a flagrant way. Traps went off with frightening regularity, magical portals could lead to death doom despair, or if you were very lucky, the right way. Oddly enough, there was very little real combat. From what the DM said, there was maybe 4 combats, max, in the dungeon none of which the players ran across.

By the time I left, players had changed genders, been killed before getting to take a single action besides running across the room, and 19 had been died in total, in just about 3 hours of gaming. For reference, I only killed half that much in my 90 hours of DMing, and never in a single roll. Overall, I learned one thing: All the hype is absolutely true. For once in...well...ever.

--Flynn (Can you imagine that? No. You can't. I can't. No one can, because if they did their head would explode. And that's just unhealthy.)