I met up with Jeff at the library so we could compare answers for our math exam today. Several of the questions were worded strangely, and we had left them blank. Between that and the SPSS assignment, it took us four hours to finish. The fact that we spent an hour and a half on Question 2, then realized we had used a t test instead of a z test and basically done the entire thing incorrectly did not help. We had basically done everything by hand that SPSS does automatically, used the wrong numbers and formulas, and gotten the wrong answer. So, we redid the whole thing. It was not fun.
Jeff offered to let me play D&D with he and Jason as we were getting close to finishing. I was hesitant, because I knew such a thing would be a huge time commitment, and I'd planned to do my career class homework and abnormal psych extra credit essay today (the one where I answer the questions about "Monk"). On the other hand, I've always wanted to give D&D a try, but have never had friends to do so with me. Here was Jeff with a car and a time. I might not get another chance (especially if Jason will be disappointed if things don't go anywhere between us, which I'm fairly certain they won't).
So, I accepted, on the condition that we stop by Blue Square first. Jeff waited in the car while I hurried up to my room. I gave Demetria the address of their place, told her what time I expected to be back, and asked her to call me around 9:00 to check up on me. I put two chocolate chip waffles in the toaster while I grabbed a few items, like a bag of Little Bites mini muffins and an instant macaroni and cheese cup, just in case I wanted them for dinner later. I left my test in my room, stuffed the waffles in my mouth, and went back down to see Jeff.
I met his wife and one-year-old daughter after we arrived (Jenny and Violet) They live near the hospital in a little place that looks like a motel from the outside, like one building with lots of doors right along the parking lot, though inside their apartment they had stairs leading up to a second floor. Jason came down still dressed in his pajamas, which I found kind of amusing since it was almost five and he knew I was coming.
We got things set up with the character sheets and all. I ended up with a chaotic neutral human folk hero, ranger class. After he'd helped me out, Jeff needed to whip up his own character, so I started sketching mine:
He's kind of grown on me. I might have to remove the D&D
elements and use him in a story someday since I love his design
We played a pre-made Version 5 campaign since it was supposed to be shorter, and presumably easier to set up (though I have nothing to compare it to). Rangers get "favored enemies" that in some versions (not 5 for some reason) give them the ability to deal extra damage to those races, among other effects. Rara's favored enemy was "undead", since Jeff hinted that would be a good one for this campaign. I interpreted that to mean he had a fear of creepy dead things, and every enemy we fought turned out to be either a ghost or an enchanted broom or something. This was funny, because I consistently rolled high enough that Rara went first in every battle. He flailed his rapier around a lot. Near the end of the campaign, he opened a trunk and found a dead woman inside it, and he let the lid drop and "Nope"d out of there so fast.
Another part of the game I found amusing was, Jason was playing a paladin dwarf, and I think paladins are supposed to believe in deities. Jeff was a huge dragonborn barbarian with a giant battle axe (and a top hat he stole from one of our first rooms- I took a cloak while Lawful Good Jason inner turmoiled constantly). When we finally made it to the basement floor, we found several treasure chests around. Jeff opened the first two, despite our warnings about there being traps. Basically, what happened was, he ended up taunting Jason's character that his deity should give him strength to open chests without dying from possible traps such as poison darts (which we'd seen embedded in a skeleton earlier).
Jason was playing a very devoted character, so he found he had little choice but to go along with the taunt. He strode up to the first chest and rolled a D20 (twenty-sided) die. Of course, he landed on the twenty. Critical hit. The chest exploded under his fists and he took three damage from the broken shards. Then he moved to the next chest and landed a critical again. So basically, this tiny dwarf was standing there with his damaged hands among the wreckage of these treasure chests, and he slowly swiveled around to face the massive dragonborn barbarian with the axe and top hat, and said in a quavering voice, "Never question my faith". Fun times.
Anyway, I enjoyed the game, though I bowed out right around 9:00. I had hoped to get some work done tonight, and I had warned them that I didn't want to make a huge time commitment. Jeff said he had homework too, and Jason said he had work tomorrow, so we cleaned up. As you can see I took my character sheet home so I could scan in Rara.
I felt comfortable being around Jeff and Jason, safety-wise. I felt like they cared about me and didn't want to see me hurt or force me to do anything I didn't want to. I wasn't fully comfortable with some of their choices, however- too much swearing and dirty jokes for my liking. It was more or less the environment I'd expect around a D&D table, I suppose.
Despite that, I'm tempted to go back next week so we can finish off our campaign, and request that they try to keep such things to a minimum. We ended on a cliffhanger- a mini-fight shortly before the boss, with both Jason and I down to one hitpoint (Things went bad for Rara after he missed his jump over a pit of spikes, took damage, rolled a one and critically failed his first attack in the next battle, stabbed himself, caused bleed damage that resulted in me losing 1 HP every time it was my turn for the rest of the fight, became dazed for three turns in a row, and ended with just 1 HP left. It would have been helpful if someone had told me earlier I could roll some sort of medicine check, because I thought I had to use items to heal myself or stop bleed damage. Oh well.)
I'd asked Mom to call me around 9:00 to check up with me too, and she caught me just as I was heading out the door. I asked her to wait until I was home, and reassured her I was fine. Jeff drove me back to Blue Square, and I made it to my room suddenly feeling very tired. I guess between all that math and the game, my brain had done all the thinking it could handle for one night.
D&D definitely does take up a lot of time, so I could never incorporate it into my regular routine. I prefer having the flexibility to start and stop activities when I want too much for that sort of life.
