Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and The People Who (27 page)

Anxious D&D players got their first taste of the new edition two weeks later, when Wizards staff appeared to run play tests at the D&D Experience, a convention in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I was twitching at the prospect of another chance to play the game, so I booked a ticket—and then spent the intervening weeks complaining to friends about being forced to visit the frigid Great Lakes region in January. Fortunately, Fort Wayne International Airport provided a gentle welcome: There’s a vintage Ms. Pac-Man machine right in the terminal, and when you walk outside security, a peppy gray-haired volunteer greets you with a smile and a free cookie from the bakery across the street.

The Grand Wayne Convention Center was less warm but nice enough. When I arrived, I bought one $8 ticket allowing me access to the “D&D Secret Special,” Wizards of the Coast’s public debut of the fifth-edition rules. Over the course of the convention, Wizards’ staff and a small cadre of volunteer Dungeon Masters would lead ten four-hour play-test sessions; during each, multiple tables of gamers would run first-level pregenerated characters through the same short adventure. By Sunday afternoon, over five hundred fans would have gotten their first taste of the new D&D.

Fittingly, Wizards of the Coast set their debut game in the Caves of Chaos—the monster-filled caverns from
The Keep on the Borderlands,
a classic 1979 adventure module. It’s reassuring to know future genera
tions of gamers may first experience D&D the same way I did: killing kobolds (or getting killed by kobolds) in the twisty passages of a Gygax adventure.

By the time I found my table it was nearly full, and most of the pregenerated characters were taken. Dallas and Angela, a cute young couple, both wore identical blue T-shirts depicting Doctor Who’s time machine, the TARDIS. Dallas had chosen to play a halfling rogue, Angela a half-orc fighter. John, a pale middle-aged midwestern dad, was playing an elf wizard. Mike, another fiftysomething dad, was one of the few black people at the convention. He’d chosen a dwarf cleric.

That left me with either a human female paladin or a tiefling warlord. Tieflings made their D&D debut in 1994 as a monster race in the AD&D
Planescape Campaign Setting
. They’re half-demons, descendants of a human empire that made a pact with devils to gain power and territory. Tieflings became a playable character race in the fourth edition—the same time the warlord became a character class. Warlords are tactical experts, designed to increase the effectiveness of allies: Their powers include such exciting options as Commander’s Strike (“With a shout, you command an ally to attack”), Viper’s Strike (“You trick your adversary into making a tactical error that gives your comrade a chance to strike”), and Surprise Attack (“Despite the chaos of battle, you see a golden opportunity for an ally to make a surprising attack”).

I took the paladin. Dame Eilora Arroway, a human noble, strong of heart and low on hit points. My character sheet told me she wore chain mail and carried a very big sword; I’d have to dream up any further characterization on the fly.

Our final player, Daniel, arrived shortly after I’d settled in and got stuck with the warlord. Ex-military, he wore his hair typically short,
but the large earring dangling from his left lobe would have gone better with a ball gown than combat camouflage.

Our Dungeon Master, Willi, told us we’d have four hours to run a simple mission, hopefully comprising several fights and a bit of role-playing. He started our adventure in the obvious place.

A paladin swears to live by a code—to uphold the law, protect the innocent, and destroy evil. We must be paragons of virtue and, by example, inspire righteousness in those around us.

But that is not to say we cannot enjoy a few drinks with friends. I was tippling with a chosen few when a stranger approached us. He told us he had just been elected mayor and wished to serve a rare dwarven ale at his inauguration. When none could be found, he hired a merchant to ship the cask to town—but the merchant was due two days ago and had presumably been waylaid by monsters.

At this, I stood and addressed him. “Never fear, sir. I swear to you: If your man still lives, I will find him and bring him to safety. If he has been killed, I will hunt the beasts that committed the evil act and smite them.”

The man waved his hand in the air between us. “If you bring back the merchant, that’s all well and good,” he said. “Just go and recover that cask of dwarven ale before some kobold drinks it.”

John had a pile of equipment with him at the table—a respectable hoard of gaming accessories including a hand-carved wooden curio box full of dice, a pile of miniature figurines, and a bag I suspect contained a battle mat and dry-erase pens. He stopped the action to ask if they’d be needed.

“We’re gonna have several encounters where we might do some fighting,” Willi told us. “Some of the simpler ones, I’m gonna do the
‘theater of the mind’s eye’ thing. I’ll describe things, and you’ll tell me what you’re doing. We’ll worry about exact distances or things like that if they become real necessary. If we start doing something that’s really complicated, we’ll throw out a battle mat, but for the most part we won’t really worry about the details so much; we’ll just get into the story of what we’re doing.”

We walked north from town for an entire day and saw no tracks or signs of the missing merchant. Finally, as we entered a small valley, we spotted an abandoned, broken wagon in the distance, next to a large brown-colored mound.

Fargrim, the dwarf, hefted his axe and trotted toward the cart. “I’m going to see if I can find a barrel,” he rumbled. I joined him, and Zarlasa the wizard followed a few feet behind.

“As you approach, you see the wagon is tilted to one side because one of the wheels has come off,” Willi said. “The mound in front is actually a dead horse, and there’s no barrels in obvious view. As you’re looking and poking around a little bit, three red bugs about yea long”—at this, he held up his hands about a foot apart—“with lots and lots of little legs, come scurrying out from under and inside the horse, and head toward the three of you.”

Daniel chuckled. His warlord, Graben, had stayed behind with Angela’s fighter, Nordik, and Dallas’s rogue, Petrim. “Sucks for you guys,” he said.

Willi checked the play-test rules and continued. “As they come out from under cover, please make a Wisdom [roll] for me, to see if you’re surprised.”

John picked a d20 from the bottom half of his dice box and rolled it into the empty top—19. Mike rolled a 16.

I picked up a black d20, a nice one with sharp corners and bright red numbers, and let it tumble from my hand to the table. It came up 1. Eilora wasn’t simply surprised, she was stunned.

I’m at a loss to explain it, but I have pathetic luck when I’m not playing Weslocke. In half a dozen recent games across four time zones and two continents, I’ve rolled so poorly it’s like I’m playing with a set of weighted dice. The logical part of my brain knows that I’m only remembering my failures and that if I recorded every roll I made at every game, I’d see a perfectly random distribution. But the superstitious gamer knows Lady Luck is out to get me. Maybe I’m being haunted by a yugoloth, a corruptor of fate—a fiend for hire native to the plane of Gehenna that brings bad luck and enjoys causing suffering.
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In any case, getting surprised by giant centipedes turned out to be no real problem. Mike and I dispatched them in a couple of rounds; as low-level monsters, they only had 2 hit points, and a single blow was enough to squash them dead. Of course, as low-level adventurers, we didn’t have many more hit points ourselves. Eilora began the game with 13, so caution was warranted.

Looking around the valley, we could see trails leading to a dozen different caves. I was ready to charge into the nearest. But Zarlasa’s keen elven eyes spotted a torn scrap of lace near the mouth of a different cavern—a frippery that might have been torn from the sleeve of a wealthy merchant. So we climbed up the hillside and entered.

The cavern was little more than a shallow hole extending twenty feet
into the earth. But at the back of the cave there was a stout oak door, reinforced with rusty iron. Several skulls hung from nails in the door panel, above a message that read,
COME IN—WE’D LIKE TO HAVE YOU FOR SUPPER!

Petrim the rogue checked the door for traps and found nothing. So Nordik did what fighters do best: smash something. Throwing his shoulder into the door, he broke it into pieces. Chunks of oak and iron clattered onto the floor and down the tunnel on the other side. The sound echoed deep into the cavern.

“Outstanding,” Zarlasa muttered. “I bet no one knows we’re coming.”

The fifth edition simplifies and rationalizes D&D in key ways. Breaking down a door is a great example: When Angela wanted to throw her weight around, Willi asked for her strength score—and figured it was high enough to get the job done. “The idea is if you are not rushed, and there’s really no danger, we simply look at it and say anyone with a strength of fifteen or above can open it,” Willi said. “If you are being chased by a horde of goblins and it’s important to get in the door in a rush, then I might make you roll. But generally, it’s the DM’s prerogative.”

Compare that to the 3.5 edition rules, which are rather more complicated. First, the player may attempt to smash the door open with a Strength check. They roll a d20 and add their strength bonus. Then the DM checks a table
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that lists different kinds of doors (simple wooden, good wooden, strong wooden, stone, iron, wooden portcullis, iron portcullis) and determines the door’s breaking point. If the player scored higher than that number, they’re through. If not, they’ve got a long way to go. Next, the DM figures out the door’s
armor class (10, plus a modifier based on its size, and minus 2 because it’s an inanimate object). Then the player has to fight the door like it’s an opposing monster. They attack, and if the attack roll is higher than the door’s AC, they do damage—but not before the DM goes back to his tables and figures out the door’s hardness. Hardness reduces damage, so if you hit for 9 points of damage against a stone door with a hardness of 8, you really only do 1 point of damage . . . and at that rate, you’ll have to hit the door another sixty times before you eventually smash the thing to pieces. Or, more likely, you toss the stupid rule book under the couch and go play video games instead.

The inside of the cave was dark but not empty. “You hear something marching down the hall,” Willi said. “It sounds like boots in cadence.” We rolled for initiative, and I got to act first.

“I’m charging in,” I announced, “and as I enter, I’m yelling, ‘Return your stolen goods, brigands!’ ” It may be the worst battle cry ever uttered, but at least it was in character. Paladins are often played as uptight and humorless, and Eilora isn’t that bright.

As I plunged into the darkness, our enemies stepped around the corner, and Willi described them: four tall, muscular creatures that looked like men, but with red-brown skin covered in coarse hair, and massive yellow canine teeth. Hobgoblins.

I was unable to get close enough to strike before one of them raised a crossbow and fired it. Willi rolled the dice. “His heavy crossbow pierces you for ten points of damage,” he said. I groaned so loudly, it attracted the attention of gamers at nearby tables. Five steps into the actual dungeon, and I was already down to my last 3 hit points.

A second hobgoblin took a shot. I held my breath. Willi rolled his
dice and gave me a tiny smile. “That hits armor class twelve.” Not enough. “The bolt shatters on the wall behind you.”

My fearless example inspired a few of my bolder companions to action. Fargrim charged, and with a bone-crunching thud he introduced one of the hobgoblins to his hammer. Graben followed with his axe but couldn’t connect with a hit. The rest of the party dragged their feet at the cave entrance, leaving the three of us to soak up the damage. Cowards.

There were two hobgoblins left, both carrying heavy spiked clubs. Neither of them cared for my war cry, and they expressed their displeasure by attempting to crush my skull. If I took one more hit, I was finished. I held my breath, and Willi rolled two misses.

That put us back at the top of the initiative, so it was my turn again. Perhaps it was time for an honorable withdrawal. “I want to get over to our cleric for healing,” I said. “So I’m gonna fight my way out. Is there a hobgoblin between me and Fargrim?”

“There is, and he just tried to hit you in the face.”

“Then I’ll attack.” I rolled a 16.

“He runs up, attempts to hit you, and you thrust your sword right through his chest, taking him out of the fray.”

That was more like it. Fargrim continued the bloodletting, and we had two hobgoblins down. Then Petrim finally made an attack. “I’m gonna move in and stab one in the gut,” Dallas said. He rolled a 10.

“His gut seems to be well armored, and your blade skitters off it.”

“Crap.”

The foul beasts may have lacked moral fiber, but they didn’t want for courage. The larger of the two dropped his crossbow, hefted a club, and charged—straight into Nordik’s sword.

Only one enemy was still standing. Nordik, Fargrim, and I
surrounded him, and he growled and bared his teeth. I pointed my blade at his chest and fixed him with an icy glare. “Submit, evildoer,” I commanded. “Or face your final justice.”

The hobgoblin dropped his mace.

Our new prisoner saved the party a whole lot of trouble. Once we bound his hands and threatened him, he told us he didn’t know where the ale was, but that four humans were taken captive when it was stolen, and they were locked up not too far into the cave. He led us to their cell, where we easily dispatched a few hobgoblins and rescued the merchant, his wife, and their apparently overpaid guards.

We were hired to recover the booze, not people. But a paladin values human life over material things—and the merchant offered to pay us more than the mayor if we forgot about the ale and escorted him back to town.