Multiplying dice and 4 hilarious hours.

An event this weekend taught me a bunch about how rolling dice for no particular reason can still be fun. In many of my quests - especially one shots,  I find myself having to run sessions of gambling with my players. So then it's either darts with dex saves, or actual games of poker or just "throw five dice and we will see" it entertains and can sometimes create tension enough for players to gain a bunch of gold or start a fight before the quest even begins. In this weekends case I also thought, instead of me rolling for copper pieces, I would get the players to roll two random dice and multiply them. A D12 X a D20 creates a much better number than just a D20 and again, creates excitement when a chest opens.

But, I skipped bits.

This weekend, after 5 months of only playing games (as two games were cancelled at two separate events and all my players had "better things to do"), I returned to Gming for a really cozy event run by our local RPG Guild. 6 games two shifts. I decided to only run one game and as the day came closer I got super nervous. I was a little jet lagged, and had prepared my usual amount. And my internal monologue swung from:

"You have done this so many times before you could legit go in that room with four words on a piece of paper, and everything would go fine" to frantically writing down NPCs and side quests and maps to dungeons we didn't use thinking "I am never ready… I need to get ready"

And then that weird thought that all my players would be just straight up shitty people. Who would tease me for not running the right ruleset or not rolling the right dice. - WHICH IS INSANE. I have DM'd at least 7 long campaigns and possibly 25-35 one shots with 100s of players. I could name three players of those 100s that I would never play with again. This hobby and its surrounding community is peopled by wonderful nerds.

But my internal monologue is a weird idiot So… I turn up in my orange hat with my 6 sets of dice (forgetting that all of us nerds each will bring that many) and a box of 30 minis (we used maybe 4 of them) and my notes held on three pieces of paper, my phone, my Ipad and the 15 page rule set I was using.

In walks 3 ladies. Very quickly I realise that two of them have played together many times and are here to have a lot of fun. And one of them had not played so much but wanted to play way more. We rolled up characters and laughed a lot as we did. We started the quest and very quickly we all gelled around the idea that the next 4 hours, we were going to role play a hilariously good story. It was one of the high points of my TTRPG experience. I ate nuts, I drank water, I had apple slices. I used things they would mention for plot hooks, and of course the ending scene of burning down a business could have been more theatrical and tense filled. And there were only two moments where the characters were in any danger BUT… it did what it was meant to do.

I love this hobby. And I love that it keeps teaching me more and more about my internal process and goodness of others.