Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Dungeons & Dragons (30 page)

“No!”

I was about to suggest we do what I did at about their age and find a nice little daytime drama on television when I heard Judy's voice.

I would have loved it if you and your brother played D&D.

“Er … how about Dungeons & Dragons?” I asked.

“What's that?” Gabe asked.

“It's a game about make-believe,” I said. “You two are mighty heroes with magical powers and weapons on a quest where you'll encounter all sorts of treasure and adventure and the occasional bad guy.”

“Yeah for treasure!” Ruby cheered.

“Yeah for weapons!” Gabe cheered. “I want to be Wolverine!”

“I'm Cinderella!”

Gabe rolled his eyes. “Cinderella isn't a hero! She's a dumb old princess!”

I saw Ruby's lip begin to quiver so I jumped in.

“She can be Cinderella! Or better yet, she can be a magical princess wizard. Would you like that, Ruby?”

She beamed. “Yes!”

“And you, Gabe, can be a brave human fighter. That sounds fun, right?” He is the same guy who keeps smacking his sister in the face with a shmoo, after all.

“Yeah!”

I had them both cheering at this point.

“Oh, okay, let's bust out the Doritos and Mountain Dew!” I shouted, knowing full well if Des heard this she'd probably smack
me
upside the head with an inflatable punching bag. Offering her kids Doritos and full-sugar soda is like suggesting we walk down to the Kwik Fill and score ourselves some black tar heroin.

We went in search of every board game they owned that uses dice. Good thing I happen to have a d20 in my purse. (Who doesn't?)

I excused myself to find the second computer in the house—the one the kids use to play alphabet bingo and take math quizzes for fun. I download a copy of
Heroes of Hesiod
—a kid-friendly adventure R&D created for the sole purpose of giving babysitters something to do with kids on Dora overload. And teach them the principles of D&D. I printed out a copy of the adventure and all the necessary accoutrements. I worked on my character voices in Gabe and Ruby's Jack-and-Jill bathroom. Chub-byfeet I'm not, but I can do a pretty good Count Chocula.

Next, I somehow managed to convince Gabe and Ruby that celery and peanut butter is just as good as Doritos. The raisins they insisted on dotting the peanut butter with will work for the monster hit points.

After cutting out the tokens that will represent the monsters and the heroes I suggested we look over their character sheets. I was already losing Ruby, who was much more interested in putting the character tokens in her mouth than on the playmat.

“Maybe Ruby should play the monster,” I suggested, while retrieving the slobbery tokens with about forty-nine pounds of paper towels. “Monsters eat the players, too.”

“Ew,” Gabe said. “I don't want to get eaten by a monster!”

“Exactly,” I told him. “That's the whole point of the game. Try not to get eaten by the monsters.”

Ruby stopped chewing on the tokens long enough to look at me with big, watery eyes.

“I don't wanna get eaten,” she whimpered.

“You won't,” I said. “But even if you do, nothing happens. You just live in the monster's belly until someone tickles it and lets you out.”

“Like throw up?” Gabe asked.

“Um, kind of. But not that gross. More like a big sneeze.”

That made them giggle.

“I wanna get in the monster's belly!” Gabe declared, making me think he and Bart would have a great time playing D&D together.

“So guys, here's the deal. You are friends who are in training to be monster hunters. Doesn't that sound exciting?”

“I wanna be a robot!” Gabe exclaimed.

“Me, too!” said Ruby.

“Well, today we're going to be monster hunters, okay?” These kids are too young to bully me. “A princess wizard and a big boy human fighter.”

“Why?” they asked.

Good lord. Why must kids ask so many questions? Here's one: whose dumb idea was this?

“Because I said so.” Hey, look at that! I
do
have some motherly instincts!

Technically we're short two people, but we solved that problem with me playing the DM and a hero and letting one of Ruby's “babies” round out the party. I laid out the playmat and the character tokens and explained a little bit about each one. Ruby immediately put the shaman in her mouth.

“Remind me to tell your mom to get you some fiber supplements or something.”

Gabe practiced his “fighting” by popping his little sister in the bicep.

“Yay!” he exclaimed. “I'm a fighter!”

“You're not that kind of fighter. You're a fighter for good things. And your sister is on your team. You're supposed to work together.”

Ruby got all watery eyed again and I tossed a handful of tissues in her direction as a preemptive strike. I don't do poop
or
snot. “How about you play a barbarian princess,” I suggested. “Then you can be a big, tough girl, too.”

Sold! I played the wizard and Ruby's baby played the rogue. I started the story about the gang being sent to monster-hunting training grounds and left to fend for themselves as various monsters are sprung from their cages.

“Scawee monsters?” Ruby asked. “Or monsters that want to play with us?”

“Umm, no,” I said. “Not really.” What kind of Dungeon Master would I be if I encouraged these kids to beat up monsters who want to play with them? “They're scary to most people, but not to you! You're big, strong adventurers! And this is your test. You have to defeat the monsters with your special powers.”

Ruby chomped away on the barbarian. Gabe asked me where the robots were.

“Let's keep playing and maybe we'll find one, okay?”

They put their tokens on the playmat. Ruby's was covered in spit.

Partial to beholders, I brought one out of his cage onto the playmat. It moved three squares toward my wizard so I could show them what to do on a turn.

“Can you count how many squares away from the wizard this monster is?” I asked Ruby and Gabe. Not being a kid person, I was sincerely asking. I had no idea if kids can count at their ages.

“Three,” Gabe answered, all
duh, what a stupid adult you are.

“Well, unfortunately for the wizard, this monster's evil eyestalk can hit any creature within
six
squares. Looks like that'll hit. Who wants to roll the die to see what the effect will be?”

Rolling dice is apparently a highly sought-after kid activity because both Ruby and Gabe practically fell over themselves trying to get to the d20.

“Okay, okay, you can roll to see who gets to roll for the effect.” More rolling of dice equals more fun, right?

Ruby won and rolled a six,
evil eye
, which meant the beholder switches places with the hero. Now he was standing adjacent to Gabe's fighter.

“Uh-oh!” he said. “The monster's next to me!” To illustrate the danger this presented, Gabe tried to strangle his sister.

“And all of his eyeballs are staring right at you!” I made big buggy eyes at him. “You need both hands free to block your face!”

He giggled, which made Ruby giggle, which in turn made me giggle.

Ruby's baby got to go next, but given she doesn't have fingers, Ruby rolled for her.

“Now remember,” I said, “You want to attack the
monster.
” Just in case she had any ideas about retaliating on her brother. “And you can move six squares. I'm sure Gabe will help you count.”

“One, two, three, four, five, and six!” Ruby was overjoyed at her ability to count to six. I'm quite impressed myself, not sure if this is normal for a kid her age or if I've just inadvertently discovered her hidden genius. But she can't read, so maybe “genius-in-training” is more like it. It's pure luck that she moves her rogue to a flanking position with her brother.

“That's really good!” I told her. “Now if you hit, you'll do two points of damage instead of just one.”

I handed her the die, which she promptly whacked against the glass table.

“What was that?” Des yelled from her office. “Everything okay?”

“Mommy, I killed a bad man!” Ruby responded.

“Not really, Des,” I called after. “We're just playing!”

“What number is that?” I asked Ruby, directing her attention back to the battle.

“Eleven?” she asked, not entirely confident with her competence in double digits.

“That's right!” I squealed. Honestly, I have no idea if this normal or if I'm unleashing a beautiful mind. Regardless, I was happy to be in such close proximity to a kid who wasn't punching, crying, or running me over with a Big Wheel. Then again, there's still time.

“You hit the monster!” I announced. “You do two points of damage.” I slid two raisins across the table to her, one of which her brother plopped in his mouth. Ruby was so delighted by hitting the monster, she didn't notice.

Next it should have been Ruby's turn but seeing as though she just rolled for her baby and I could sense Gabe's impatience, I let him go next.

Although Gabe is a much more advanced reader, I still had to help him read what was on his character sheet. I explained that because he's standing right next to the monster he can just reach out and cleave him.

“I cleave him!” Gabe announced. “For four raisins!”

As much as I appreciated his enthusiasm, I went over the rules.

“You need to roll the big, round die to see if you hit. If your number is higher than the monster's number, you can cleave him.”

Gabe chucked the die on the table and again Des called out from her office.

“That noise better not be from something hitting my table.”

“It's not!” the three of us called back.

“I got a twelve,” Gabe said, leaning over the die.

Wow, these kids have some serious dice juju.

“That's great,” I told him. “And you get to add four to that. So what do you get?”

Gabe pondered this for a minute and wiggled his fingers. “Sixteen!”

“You hit him!”

Next, Ruby's barbarian went.

“Make sure you hit him too, Ruby,” Gabe instructed.

She rolled the dice but only got a six. Technically it was a miss, but I couldn't stand to see a three-year-old get booed by her brother.

“You hit him, Ruby!” I handed her two more raisins.

We went a couple more rounds with my wizard and Ruby's baby all taking damage. Gabe delighted in the idea that his fancy footwork shirked the beholder's
chains of ice.
The monster is down to two hit points, thanks mostly to Gabe and Ruby's baby's expert flanking.

“If you manage to hit him two more times,” I explained to Ruby, “you're going to win!” I avoided saying, “kill.” She is three, after all.

“Ruby!” Gabe commanded. “Get over here by me so we can
fank
the monster!”

“Good idea, Gabe,” I said. “
Fanking
is very strategic.”

He was so excited by his tactical thinking I didn't bother correcting his pronunciation or noting the fact that Ruby's barbarian can't flank. Only the rogue has that ability. It's a Dungeon Master's prerogative and by “prerogative” I mean, “desire to not make your best friend's kids cry.”

Ruby carefully counted out five spaces and moved to a
fanking
position. She tossed the d20 on the glass table and rolled an eight.

“Not enough?” she asked, her bottom lip poking out.

“Do you get to add anything special to your eight?” I asked.

Gabe looked over her shoulder.

“You do!” Gabe exclaimed. “You can add five! Ruby, what is eight plus five?”

She thought about this for a minute. Those are some serious double digits for a three-year-old. If she got this, I was going to call the nearest Montessori school and pack her bags for Harvard.

She held her hand in front of her.

“Nine, ten,” she began. “Can Gabe help?”

Gabe was chomping at the bit. And he'd already peeked over my shoulder so he knew exactly what it took to beat the beholder.

“Well, this is supposed to be a cooperative game so I guess it would be okay.”

“Thirteen!” Gabe yelled. “You hit! We win!”

There were cheers all around. Even Des lets out a whoop from the office.

“Whatever you just won sounds very exciting!” she said.

To celebrate we finished off the box of raisins. I cut out the badges proclaiming them Heroes of Hesiod and Scotch-taped them to their collars.

“Your mom can make them stick better,” I said. No way am I going near kids with safety pins. Three minutes later they were on the couch fighting over Gabe's Nintendo DS.

“What did you do to my kids?” Des asked, heading into the living room with a full glass of wine. “It sounded like they were having fun.”

I couldn't tell if she was being polite or if she was just surprised I spent nearly an hour alone with kids and no one (most of all me) was crying.

“Oh, you know,” I said, brushing her off. “Just hanging out.”

Sure beats a punch in the ass.