“If they do, then you have big problems on your hands.”

The above is a paraphrashed quote from the host of the New Year’s Eve party we attended, mentioning how he wasn’t trying to kill us with the authentic French food he prepared for us. After stuffing ourselves with goose, three different kinds of mashed potatoes, apple sauce mixed with onions, prunes wrapped in bacon, and various meat spreads (called “pa-tay” - that is how it is pronounced, but I have no idea how to spell it correctly), we spent New Year’s Eve the way any geek would - playing D&D.

Our usual D&D sessions run from 7:30 to 10:30. To end the year with a bang, we had a super-sized session that ran from 5:30 to 12:15, with a cheesecake break toward the middle. My barbarian, who is hungry for combat and hates talking to people, threw only one punch during that entire session. He was disappointed.

I’ve been meaning to post session notes. When I finally get around to it, I will post them under the name Soren and tell the story from his point of view.

I find it unusual that I have never discussed my all-time favorite pastime, playing D&D, in a meaningful way on this blog. I’ve been posting for over three years now, and I find it surprising that I’ve never talked about it.

On my birthday we were at the local gaming shop picking up some books. I mentioned to the manager that I had not been in a game for a long while, and that I was looking to find a gaming group in the shop. He mentioned a meet-and-greet that was going to take place there in a few weeks, as well as his own campaign that he runs with his friends. They play in the town we live in, a short five-minute drive away from the house. He invited us to join, and we took him up on his offer.

After an almost two-year long hiatus from the game, Nad and I attended a character-building session; the first session of any D&D game is rolling dice and building your character. I tend to wait until everyone else chooses their character before I make my own, so that I can fill in any gaps. The D&D system is based around the four-person group: a fighter to lay the smackdown, a rogue to disarm the trap, a cleric to heal the wounded, and a wizard to blow the crap out of anything the fighter didn’t kill.

There are many different ways to play this game; our Dungeon Master (DM) has gone with the hack-and-slash Monty Haul style campaign, which means it is light on the role-playing but heavy on monster-slaying and treasure. I’ll post write-ups of the sessions as they come along.