Your mileage may vary, but I have determined that Steel Reserve and D&D do not mix. Last night marked the second session of workplace D&D, with all three players present.
Roya and her puppy hosted, providing a plethora of tasty things for us to eat. Rolled tacos, gourmet pizzas, sausage, chips & salsa. I would expect no less of a menu at one of NikChick’s Ars Magica games.
Jeff brought the beer, the aforementioned Steel Reserve. I was polite enough to drink one can, but I made sure to savor it (if "savor" is even a word used to describe what one does when they choke down the stuff). The two things to understand about Steel Reserve are the price (cheap) and the alcohol content (high). This is the sort of stuff that winos drink out of dirty paper bags on dark inner city streets. It is not the sort of thing I would expect to see making the rounds at a game of Dungeons & Dragons.
We needed to bring Ms. Roya up to speed, so we didn’t accomplish as much as I might have liked. The presence of the rotgut, not to mention its effects on the players, contributed somewhat to the languid nature of the game. There were also a number of very bad dice rolls.
Even though I needed to leave on time, the game went on half and hour longer than I’d anticipated. There were two encounters (one with a nasty dart trap which Deana’s rogue disarmed, and the other with a zombie bugbear). The undead bugbear is a tough critter (which I kept looking at and thinking, "Man! This thing is only CR2?"), and the between the bad dice rolls and the fact that nothing they did seemed to slow it down, I think everyone was getting somewhat frustrated.
We ended somewhat abruptly at 8 o’clock. I allowed the PCs to pull back to the relative safety of a nearby chamber to regroup, with the bugbear in as hot a pursuit as a zombie can be in. Next time (if there is a next time), we’ll see if they can manage to lay the beast low.
Any veteran D&D player would know how to fight a zombie, even one this tough, effectively: what weapons to use, how to move tactically so as to use the zombie’s plodding pace to their advantage. These guys are rookies, so it’s going to be trial and error for them. I suppose I can give them some hints, and I probably will.
The next game is not scheduled yet. I’m thinking two weeks from now may be a little bit optimistic, considering I’ve got a new baby arriving this coming Monday. We shall see.
On the writing front, it’s starting to heat up a little bit. My current project is near to wrapping up, but it’s followed by at least two others (one of which I’m very excited about; mum being the word, you’ll have to guess).
As to Saam’s Tale, for those of you who are curious, that’s about as far as I’d gotten on it. I have one more section which is about half done, but I’m not sure when I’ll get around to finishing it off.
Until next time.
1 comment:
So is it called Steel Reserve because you have to steel yourself up to drink it, and it's what you have in reserve for after you've drunk all the good stuff?
Post a Comment