milliways_bar | (no subject)

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george lovelace

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George is thoughtful as he comes down into the bar this evening. He doesn't particularly like being thoughtful. Being thoughtful leads to having thoughts about things like family and friends and Scotland and Idris and kneeling in front of the Consul and...

And there'll be no more of that sort of thinking.

Still, when he slides himself onto a stool in front of the bar, he says, "Ehm, I don't suppose you could just do me a Cullen skink?" he asks, and he's greeted with a steaming bowl of haddock chowder, like his gran makes, a pint of ale, and chunk of hearty bread with butter. "Cheers," he says.

And then he adds, "You don't happen to have any books on...what was it called. Dragons and Dwarves? No...that's not it. Dragons and Dungeons? Dungeons and Dragons?"

An ABSOLUTELY ENORMOUS PILE OF BOOKS appears on the bartop. It's several books high and several stacks deep.

"Right," George says, pausing with a spoonful of soup halfway to his mouth. "Is there a...beginner's version or something?"

The trove of books disappears and is replaced by a neatly bound printout of the basic rules. This is much more manageable, and George settles in with his soup and a brow furrowed in concentration.

This is...much more complicated than Simon let on.

[ooc: See back room for more info.

You don't have to be a part of the D&D game to tag here, of course!]

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Graverobber isn't paying attention, except for when he sees an GIANT pile of books briefly appear. That takes him aback a bit, though they do seem to be replaced quickly enough. Still, Christ, what was that?

"You ask the bar to give you a library?" he asks, still blinking in surprise.

"No," George says mildly but with a touch of a smile, "I asked her to give me a game."

"Huh," he says. "What sorta game would that be, refill the book store?"

George holds up the manual. "Dungeons & Dragons," he says. "My roommate used to talk about playing it."

George is skeptical. It seems to be more maths than game.

"Ah, okay," he says, wearing the face of a man who has no idea what that is. "Seems...complicated, given the material involved."

"From what I can tell," in the half a minute he'd taken to peruse it, "it can be relatively simple or it can be massively complicated, depending on what you want to do with it."

"That sounds exactly like what people say when they're about to tell you something that is only massively complicated," he says mildly, glancing at the guide in his hands.

"I...am not sure that's untrue," George says. "My friend, Simon? He loves this game. He was always trying to get us to play it at school."

"Ah, okay. He give you an overview or anything, maybe save you some heavy reading?" he asks.

"Well," George says, trying to think of any specifics Simon had given him. "It's like a group telling a story together? And they have to roll dice to fight monsters."

"Okay so like, storytelling and gambling all at once, then?" he asks. "Sounds like it could be interesting."

"Ooh, maybe," George says, nodding. "I hadn't thought of it like that."

He picks up the book to flip through it again. Looking at it like betting odds actually makes way more sense.

"Right," he flips through a few more pages. "So you sort of...make up a character, and then you and some friends gamble your way through a story."

"Okay," he says. "And what's the story then, or do you just make one up?"

"Sort of? One of you is the..." he flips through some pages until he finds the term, "Dungeon Master. And they set up the story for the others to go through."

"Dungeon Master is a fucking badass job name," he remarks, making a note of remembering that. "Sounds kinkier than it probably is, though."

"Does it?" George asks, considering the name and wondering just what Simon and his mundane friends got up to back in Brooklyn.

"I'm going to choose to call it badass and leave it at that."

"Yeah, probably fair enough," he says. "So, you friend, what kind of story stuff did he do, exactly?"

"I don't actually know," George says. "We never played it with him. There were wizards and dragons and elves and...ehm...like bards? Rogues?"

Look. There's a lot of material. A lot.

"Fair 'nuff," he answers. "Does seem like it covers a whole lot of territory."

"That seems to be part of the point. That you can play this game a million times to a million different ends."

Kudos to them for that, really.

"Okay, so it's not like a full game, it's like..." He frowns and thinks for a second. "Backdrop, I guess."

"Aye," George says with a smile. This guy is really good at summation.

"I think you can get a pre-written story, though. If you want. I'm guessing that's what the library was."

"I'm gonna go ahead and guess there's more than just one, otherwise that's a whole lot of chapters for one book," he says mildly.

"There seem to be decades worth of them," George says. "This game's been around a while and people just keep writing stories for it."

So many stories. How is it even possible?

"Guess people must like it a lot then," he says, trying to imagine writing so much stuff for a game. "Especially if it's lasted decades."

"Simon?" George says. "My roommate who played this? He and his mates used to get together once a week and play out stories for months on end. They'd play all day."

Simon had told some pretty epic stories of his past campaigns.

"...that sounds almost like an addiction," he says, blinking a couple times as he comprehends this. And he would know addictions, wouldn't he.

George tilts his head, considering. "If it is, he had a hell of an easy withdrawal."

No dragons at the Academy. And no dungeons unless you counted the moldy basement they lived in.

He raises an eyebrow at that. "Might not be, especially if all your friends are into it, too," he says, shrugging slightly. "People get hooked on weird shit."

"Oh, no," George says. "I believe you. It's just...we were roommates? And he never got to play it while we were at school. If he was craving an addiction, he did a damn good job hiding it."

"Fair 'nuff," he says. "Still, sounds like a hell of an intensive hobby. But then I guess if you do it with people you're really good with, it'd be a good way to wile the time."

"Aye," George says. "In eight hour chunks. If you're looking to waste time, I think this will do you quite well."

Graverobber does the mental math on that and says, "That's almost like taking on an entire second part-time job's worth of time."

"I've never had a part-time job," says George, thoughtfully. "But it's a full night's worth of Shadowhunting."

"What's that?" he asks, curious, tilting his head.

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