The City on the Edge of the NIGHT of ADVENTURE

The first time people hear an explanation of D&D they always try to put it into the context of traditional games like RISK or Monopoly. This usually breaks down about the time I explain that after you make your character, you just go on adventures.

"But- How..." they stammer, as their brain tries to roll to get out of Jail, "But- But- How do you win?"

"You don't," I tell them, waiting for the inevitable follow-up.

"But- But- But-" they say as their brain realizes it's not in Jail, not on Free Parking, nowhere near Marvin Gardens and, in fact, is probably not even on the board. "But- But- But- How does it end!?

I smile in a way that I think is enigmatic but is probably just smug and annoying.

"It doesn't," I say.

No better proof of that can be found than in our most recent NIGHT of ADVENTURE!

To be fair, I'm a little behind: it's not one NIGHT of ADVENTURE, it's three.

NIGHT ONE Or, "Stick With Me, Baby, And Together We'll Make MINIONS."

• So what do you do after your group betrays the mayor on Evil Sucky Mardi Gras and engages in some totally not-at-all homoerotic cross-dressing in order to kill a minor aspect of the God of Death?
• You roll up new characters and start a new campaign.
• A couple of emails and a few rounds of finely-tuned min-maxing later and we have a whole new party. I suggest we cut to the chase by putting on women's clothes and murdering the mayor -- whoever he is -- but no one takes me up on it.
• Instead we find ourselves pressed into military service for the Empire of Smokermore.
• Turns out the "Empire" is just a town of 5000 people and ten times as many sheep, run by a dude who is the most annoying, ambitious agent you can imagine.
• You can take the D&D out of Hollywood but you can't take the Hollywood out of D&D.
• "Hey, hey, hey, you guys, wow I'm glad you're here," says Sheep Emperor Douchebag, "I am really excited to have you in the army, I've had my eye on you, you are really special! Want some mutton? Smoke? Anybody smoke? Huh, hey? SMOKE?"
• Sheep Emperor Douchebag lights up a fatty and proceeds to tell us how his little town of 5000 is going to take over the neighboring empire -- the one loosely based on ancient Egypt complete with divine rulers and massive slave armies. We figure, he must be smoking some REALLY GOOD shit.
• "So, so, so, hey, here's what I want you to do: Go out to the eastern watchtower and hang out there for a month. It'll be boring, nothing happening, but then, you come back, we get you promoted, and then some REALLY AWESOME SHIT starts to happen. Okay? GREAT!"
• Being adventurers, we ask him what to do if there's trouble. Being an NPC, he ASSURES US there will be no trouble.
• We know he's lying.
• We ask him what to do "just in case."
• "Dude, NOTHING'S gonna happen, trust me. This is all a formality. But hey, hey, hey, hey. If something DOES happen, you tell them:
  1. No.
  2. No.
  3. No.
  4. You have no right.
  5. Suck my balls.
• We were sorta hoping for "Read this scroll to summon 6d6 fiendish dire wolves."
• Armed with a nose full of belligerence, we head out to the tower.
• It's boring. As evidenced by the gin still, the worn deck of playing cards, and some very bad hand-drawn pornography.
• I mean really, I just don't think halflings can DO that.
• Day Two arrives and a dot appears on the horizon. Actually, about EIGHT dots. Six of them are VERY heavily armed, one of them has a book he keeps scribbling notes into, and the last one is Magistrate Sneddicker, Tax Collector of the Royal Empire of Ka.
• We are not at all surprised to find that this guy is a total dick.
• "YOU ARE IN VIOLATION OF THE SOVEREIGN LAWS OF THE EMPIRE OF KA!" he bellows. "YOUR SO-CALLED 'EMPIRE' IS IN ARREARS WITH OUR DIVINE NATION, AND I, THE GREAT MAGISTRATE SNEDDICKER HAVE COME TO COLLECT."
• "Um, yeah, that's great," we say from the top of our watchtower, "but, uh, we're just the hired help. You'll have to take it up with the boss."
• "YOUR INSOLENCE WILL NOT BE TOLERATED!" says the dick, "I SHALL NOW GIVE YOU ONE LAST CHANCE TO ANSWER TO THE CHARGES BEFORE ME!"
• Sneddicker clears his throat while the dude accompanying him furiously notes everything in the large Book of the World cradled in his arms. Apparently he is a Chronicler, who follows important people around and writes their deeds into the Immutable History of the World.
• Magistrate Sneddicker is more than ready to get his history on: "DO YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THE CITY OF SMOKERMORE IS A PART OF THE EMPIRE OF KA!?"
• This seems like pretty important stuff. We look at our notes. "NO!" we shout.
• "DO YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT IT IS UNLAWFUL TO DECLARE INDEPENDENT SOVEREIGNTY FROM THE GREAT DIVINE EMPIRE OF KA?"
• "NO!" we shout again.
• DO YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THE CITY OF SMOKERMORE IS IN ARREARS FOR OVER EIGHTY YEARS OF BACK TAXES?"
• Hey, we are on a roll here. "NO!" we shout again.
• "DO YOU RECOGNIZE THE RIGHT OF THE EMPIRE OF KA TO IMMEDIATELY AND FORCEFULLY COLLECT SAID TAXES?"
• "You have no right!"
• Magistrate Sneddicker looks strangely pleased. He nudges his Chronicler in the ribs and gives him a knowing wink before turning back to us. "Very well," he says, "Do you have any final words for the Divine God Emperor of Ka that he might show you some small pittance of mercy on the day his righteous army comes to crush your petty rebellion?"
• We look at our sheet and shrug. "SUCK MY BALLS!" we yell.
• Two days later, a righteous army shows up at our doorstep to crush our petty rebellion.
• We, in turn, hide in the basement.
• It's a pretty good trick, most of the army heads off to the city looking for Sheep Emperor Douchebag.
• Unfortunately for us, Magistrate Sneddicker and his Chronicler for the Book of the World have decided to wait us out.
• It's no big deal, we can handle two dudes. One guy, all he does is WRITE!
• Unfortunately, they are accompanied by a massive slave-army some 500 men strong.
• We make some molotov cocktails out of gin and pick a fight. We're only level one. How long can it take to roll up a new character?? Plus, we're really hoping those slaves are mooks.
• Turns out, they ARE mooks, and between our blaster-caster wizard and the 60 gallons of flaming gin we dump over the tower walls, we're able to slaughter a good 300 of them.
• Surprised at the ingenuity and tenaciousness of our resistance, the Magistrate calls a truce.
• That's good, we were out of gin anyway.

NIGHT TWO Or, "AS PART OF THE TERMS OF YOUR SURRENDER, I HEREBY PROMOTE YOU."

• Day arrives, and so does the rest of the Divine God-Emperor's Righteous Army.
• Judging by the amount of armor on their horses, these guys aren't mooks.
• Magistrate Sneddicker strolls over to our tower, his Chronicler in tow. "Hand over your weapons," he says, "And we'll go see how your so-called empire has fared against the mighty forces of Ka."
• We don't seem to have much choice, so we pack up our sketches of hot halfling-on-halfling action, and surrender ourselves to old dicknose.
• A short ride later and we discover that the town we were sworn to protect was decisively razed by the forces from the Empire of Ka.
• It may be a fantasy world, but you still can't fuck with the taxman.
• However, having slaughtered over 300 poorly-armed slaves, we find we are now renowned for our heralded role in the "Battle of Watchtower East."
• It's sort of like being the Heroes of Lower Wacker Drive.
• Sheep Emperor Douchebag is still alive, but he's been demoted. "Yeah, we got defeated, man," he says despondently, "We're part of the Empire of Ka now... There's a lot of paperwork."
• The truth of life is: "There's some people who have Chroniclers who follow them around and write down what they do and become famous, and then there's the rest of us."
• Next we have an audience with the taxman, Sneddicker, and his paparazzi/publicist/Chronicler sidekick, Vergil1057.
• I try to give Vergil1057 a little nip-slip, but the flash on his camera is dead.
• The taxman gushes obsequiously about how important he is, and how great the Empire of Ka is going to be when his policies are implemented, and how important it is to have a good Chronicler around to write down everything he says.
• We shrug. There's people who have Chroniclers who follow them around, and then there's the rest of us.
• Turns out, slaughtering 300 slaves is no small feat. We're too talented to simply summarily execute, so we're drafted into the Empire's Army.
• You know you're playing D&D in Hollywood when even your characters fail upward.
• We get reassigned to the Western Watchtower, on the border of the orc lands. Apparently the Empire has another 300 slaves they want put to the sword.
• There's a poignantly awkward moment when we go to leave and the taxman's paparazzi/publicist decides to start following us instead.
• Never underestimate the power of a well-timed nip-slip.
• We think that maybe the taxman will have us executed for stealing his Chronicler, but then we realize that we wouldn't be WORTH following by a Chronicler if it turns out that just ten minutes later we get executed, so, clearly we are destined for GREATNESS.
• Either that or a really, really SPECTACULAR execution.
• We get sworn in as citizens of the Empire and await our imminent execution. The taxman, however, doesn't want the Chronicler putting his name into the Immutable Book Of The World as the crazy demented executioner of the Heroes of Lower Wacker Drive. We get our marching orders as the paparazzi/publicist/world historian hangs on our every action. We shuffle our feet awkwardly and shift our weight from side to side.
• The Chronicler writes down that we shuffle our feet awkwardly and shift our weight from side to side.
• This is why more people don't study history.
• Things get a lot more than poignantly awkward when we start to head off to Western Wacker Drive and the Chronicler decides to follow us out the gate.
• The taxman forcibly restrains him.
• I'm no expert on fate or whatever, but that just seems like some bad juju right there.
• We shrug. There are people who have Chroniclers who follow them around, and then there are people who forcibly restrain Chroniclers and try to get pictures of Lindsay Lohan without any panties on.
• The Chronicler finally gives up trying to follow us and hangs by the side of Sneddicker like a puppy that's been scolded.
• We may be the Heroes of Lower Wacker Drive, but that doesn't mean we get to go tromping across the countryside without supervision. The commander of the Western Watchtower is Sneddicker's nephew, Corporal Nassar. He's lazy, snobbish, and writes erotic fiction in his free time.
• We start looking up the 4E rules for friendly fire.
• The Western Watchtower is pretty much like the Eastern Watchtower, only with less sketches of halflings and one really annoying boss who expects everyone to cook for him.
• We sit around playing cards, trying to construct a still, and waiting for another army to show up on our doorstep.
• The next day, a human comes stumbling down the hillside. "My village is under attack by an army of orcs!" he sputters.
• Dang, we think to ourselves, doesn't ANYONE around here pay their taxes?
• We ask Corporal Nassar if we should go check it out. "Have fun," he tells us, "The serving boy and I are working on a new chapter in my novel."
• We try not to think about the implications as we high-tail it for the village as fast as possible.
• Turns out when they say "village" they mean "40 people holed up by the well" and when they says "army of orcs" they mean "10."
• TEN ORCS? I guess we're not getting anything named after us for THIS battle. Unless we become the "Heroes Who Mugged Those Dudes At The Bus Stop."
• We dispatch the orcs and meet with the village elder in his giant stone bunker that surrounds the well. "They only sent SIX of you?" he rasps incredulously.
• "Dude, what do you want, it's only TEN ORCS," we tell him.
• And that's when the ogres riding giant mountain goats showed up.

NIGHT THREE Or, "The Best Offense Is A Good Escape Plan."

• We barricade the door to the bunker and wait for the orcish-equivalent of a tax collector to show up with his Chronicler in tow. We are eager to repeat our speech from earlier!
• Turns out orcs don't care about taxes, history, or speeches. They just want blood, and lots of it. They send four mooks out to wheel up a siege engine and then a couple Black Orcs to tend it, and a giant ogre dude to beat on the door with a hammer made from a cannon and a tree trunk just in case the siege engine doesn't work.
• Needless to say we do not become the Heroes of the Steadfast Siege. It's more like The Pansies of the Tactical Retreat.
• The village elder rasps "I don't know why they only sent six of you!" We tell him, "Dude, that guy has a HAMMER made out of a CANNON!" He seems to think that's our fault.
• We find a natural choke point in the lower levels of the bunker. It works pretty good until they send the Gibbering Mouther after us.
• It's a good thing that Chronicler didn't follow us after all because most of the party spends the fight going "Wugga-wugga-wugga-SCHMEE!"
• Still, once we kill the thing, we think we can hold out. Despite the ominous rumblings above.
• The village elder is unconvinced. He shepherds his people down a secret staircase that supposedly leads to the dwarven realm and then drops a stone blockade, trapping us in the room with the well.
• Dude, those old people were just holding us back anyhow.
• We prepare for another assault (fiendish troll? catoblepas? flumph??) when a titanic hammering sound comes from above.
• Apparently they have something bigger than a tree with a cannon on it.
• We stumble around the chamber like the crew of the Enterprise taking multiple hits from a Klingon Bird of Prey. The walls and floor begin to develop cracks, and then suddenly there's a loud burping noise and the water in the well disappears.
• We decide to follow it.
• We drop down the well into a chamber that is lined with glistening silver crystal. As we quickly find out, this crystal also has the unique property of being completely frictionless.
• It seems like an ideal opportunity to do some great physics experiments, but we're too busy hurtling around the chamber after our 60-foot drop.
• Plus, you don't want to do too many experiments in the practical application of a frictionless environment when your main test subjects are sporting long swords and hand axes.
• Somehow, in defiance of everything Mr. Wolters taught me in 12th grade, we come to a stop.
• We consider abandoning our career as adventurers and starting a small center for the study of physics, maybe even set up a large hadron collider and bang out some pocket universes, but then we remember we have no training or capital and there is a large army of orcs with cannon-hammers above us.
• We chisel away at a small pocket of less-frictionless crystal and crater through the wall into a rough tunnel. Large steel pipes lead off into the darkness, and through a bit of trial and error we discover those pipes carry beer.
• Like any good group of college sophomores, we abandon our physics homework and head off to find the party.
• Hopefully Tri-Delta-Orca is not having Pledge Week.

-Tom, who prefers the Geek System to the Greek one.