McLean Wolf V Can't Fight

Sorry, ladies, gentlemen, and non-binaries: the road to hell is closed for repairs. So what do we do with all of these good intentions? We make a D&D character who has the best of them, but belly-flops at the thought of executing them. And thus we have a level one human mage created in the late 1990’s named McLean Wolf V. His name was so badass that there had to be five generations of those motherfuckers. Unfortunately, McLean was so bad at fighting that it was amazing there was one generation at all. Never mind abortion rights, because killing off the first generation would have been sufficient birth control for a fifth-generation character that turned out to be a drive-by abortion in the end. You see…how do I put this as delicately as McLean’s fragile bones? The man couldn’t fight worth a shit.

And it turns out, that’s how the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules designed mages to begin with. They start out with four hit points. Four! You know what that means? It means there isn’t a constitution modifier in hell that will keep him from dying from a fucking paper cut. Mages can’t wear heavy armor and they can’t use heavy weapons. McLean of course had neither of those things. He had a wizard’s robe, a knife, and a bola sling. That’s. About. It. You’d think with all of my experience playing Final Fantasy games I would have figured out a long time ago that wizard-type characters were going to be piss-poor fighters who couldn’t be self-sufficient if they tried. Tellah from Final Fantasy IV can throw all the lightning bolts he wants, but if an imp so much as pokes him with his short sword, he’s on the ground sucking his thumb like a bitch. In the very first Final Fantasy game, white mages and black mages are the first party members that monsters go after, because they’re more fragile than Lego sets. Ever wonder why bullies pick on smaller kids? Because if they picked on hulking body builders, the police would need the bullies’ dental records to identify them afterwards.

So…I’ve got McLean Wolf V ready to go for a campaign. What he lacks in fighting prowess, he makes up for in magic…provided that he studies his spells every fucking night like he’s cramming for the SAT’s. And once he exhausts his spells, he has to study them again…and again…for hours upon hours…Well, guess what, McLean? Your enemies aren’t going to give you hours and hours to prepare for them. If a barroom brawler wants to pound you into coffee grounds, he’s not going to wait for you to study your fireball spells. He’s going to beat the shit out of you weather you’re ready or not. Schoolyard bullies don’t wait for their victims to complete karate training. Terrorists don’t wait for their victims to learn how to use firearms. Nobody’s going to wait for McLean to get his nose out of his books. In fact, forget the footman’s mace, you could just take his Stephen King-sized doorstop and beat him to death with it. It would only take one hit and he’d go from lying on the ground to lying IN the ground.

And because McLean couldn’t do a damn thing on his own, my brother invited his friends Nathan and Chris to come play with us. They could wield all the battleaxes and long swords they wanted to. I, on the other hand, had to throw fireballs, lightning bolts, and magic missiles like they were substitutes for a gatling gun. And if you ever needed an indication of how forgetful of a memoirist I am (which is a lot like being a mage who can’t fight), I don’t even remember what quest we were doing or why we banded together. All I knew was that midway through the game, I wanted to tear up my character sheet and never see McLean Wolf V ever again. James, my DM brother, wasn’t having any of that nonsense. He said that if I did that, he would make my eighth level paladin Charles Goodhorn die of natural causes…even though he was only twenty-five years old. He’s not even old enough to use his bastard sword as a walking cane and already my brother wants to hold him hostage so that I’ll keep playing as a mage made of glass. I guess he was trying to motivate me to try new things since I was so accustomed to playing warrior characters. Either that or it was the 1990’s and we were constantly at each other’s throats due to the inevitability of problematic brotherhoods.

Well…the campaign continued and Chris, Nathan, and I found ourselves in the middle of a cleared forest getting our shit pushed in by orcs and goblins. Chris and Nathan’s warrior characters slashed and hacked their way through the frontlines while I was in the background preparing for a spell. This was my chance to save their lives and prove myself as a wizard. The orcs and goblins became too much to handle due to their swelling forces. Even with the heaviest equipment, Chris and Nathan couldn’t fight them all without getting swarmed. So…McLean conjured a massive fireball and rolled it onto the battlefield like a bowling ball on a snowy mountain instead of a proper bowling alley. The analogy was appropriate since the fireball indeed got bigger and bigger as it rolled along. The screams of goblins and orcs burning alive was like a Baroque symphony of beautiful music. Then came the magic missiles to take out the stragglers. And the lighting bolts to make the battlefield crispier than a bucket of KFC, though not as tasty, but probably greasy considering the monsters we were dealing with. And just like that, the battle was over and I was the hero of the day. My opinion of fragile mages hasn’t changed, but I had more fun playing them as I got older. Truth is, they’re better in groups than on their own, not unlike D&D itself. Tellah lived as long as he did because the dark knight turned paladin named Cecil protected him. Black mages are always accompanied by hulking fighters turned knights and thieves turned ninjas.

Teamwork is the name of the game. But the D&D party that wins together serves prison sentences together. It wouldn’t be a James Haines-Temons D&D campaign if it didn’t involve incarceration of some kind. At this point, we should change the name of the game from D&D to Shawshank Redemption. While none of our characters had rock hammers to dig us out or posters of Raquel Welch to cover up our schemes, McLean was allowed to keep his books. Prison libraries are a thing, not unlike The Shawshank Redemption. But why in the hell would you allow a wizard capable of throwing avalanche fireballs to have access to books? That’s his source of power! You wouldn’t give Chris and Nathan their weapons and armor, so don’t give McLean Wolf his books! Nothing made sense in the 1990’s, but this should have been glaringly obvious. I guess we’ll never know if McLean torched the whole fucking prison, because that’s where the campaign ended for the day. We never did continue it. Bummer.

I’m not against the idea of wizards in my fantasy settings. They’re aesthetically pleasing, after all, and that’s why I enjoy fantasy so much. I could have a necromancer with skulls everywhere and poison mist surrounding him. I could have a pyromancer with fiery staves and spiky red hair that resembled his flames. I could have a sorceress who wore fancy black dresses into battle and could turn the skirts of them into circular blades while she twirls in a dance. The possibilities are as endless as my imagination. But as far as playing videogames and tabletop RPG’s goes, maybe it’s best if my wizards were accompanied by other characters. Every party has a role that needs to be filled. As much as I love the idea of an all-barbarian squad, who’s going to heal them when there’s no cleric and they get their shit pushed in after being exhausted from rage? What about an all-thief party? Who’s going to protect them without a wizard’s magic spells if they get caught? Like life itself, there’s something for everybody in this world. Nobody can do everything, but everybody can do something. A wizard can’t carry the load by himself. Otherwise, he wouldn’t need a chiropractor at this point, but an embalmer.

Go With Them...I Guess

“I’m going off on an adventure!”

“I’m going to seek glory!”

“Garrison, what are you going to do?”

“…Go with them…I guess…”

Ah, yes. When every D&D session is a holiday season in the sense that players should give their all, my specialty in large groups was hitching my wagon to the other players. Don’t contribute any meaningful character information, just…you know…”Go with them…I guess…” But then again, what else was I supposed to do? Walk away from the group and do my own thing? That would require an extra DM just to deal with my bullshit. The easier answer would be to just assume that I’m following my fellow party members around everywhere they go. In which case, I wouldn’t be an elf fighter or a half-orc wizard anymore. I’d be a dog. A loyal golden retriever who couldn’t get enough pets and love, as long as my fellow party members had beef snacks ready. Dogs don’t have to worry about serious character development since their histories amount to chasing squirrels and rolling in mud. Not much complexity there!

Even from my very first session as an elf warrior, it should have been assumed that I’d follow my party members everywhere they went. But that wasn’t how D&D worked in those days. I always assumed that it would be like Final Fantasy games where the party goes everywhere together and would only become active characters during a battle. Not the case at all, it seems. Super Nintendos can’t ask for the player’s opinion beyond a yes or no question. Dungeon Masters can and will. So imagine my shock when the DM, my brother James, asked everyone in the party what they were going to do once they got to a town. The two players before me knew exactly what they were going to do: explore. But when James asked me what I was going to do, I froze like Sub-Zero’s opponents in Mortal Kombat. I thought we were just following each other around. Nope! I actually had to make a decision independent of my party members. And I couldn’t do it. So my elf hunter jumped down a manhole and was never seen again.

All these years later, what is the right answer to the, “What are you going to do?” question when you’re in a group of two or more adventurers? Should Dungeon Masters just assume that party members are just going to follow each other around like dogs and do nothing until they’re specifically called upon? While that is a convenient answer, it would certainly get weird after a while, wouldn’t you agree? Wouldn’t the other party members wonder why these strangers are following them around without saying a word? The easy answer would be to say, “We’re on the same team. Live with it.” But are you? What makes you all a team? Are you just there for the hell of it? Do teams really get together because it’s the right thing to do and nothing should be questioned?

And this is where the all-important character development comes into play. As it turns out, it’s not enough to have a half-orc barbarian with bulging muscles and a battleaxe that can cut through the Golden Gate Bridge. Why is this half-orc barbarian running around with a Halfling thief and a half-elf wizard? How did this half-orc barbarian come into existence other than having a full-orc and a human fuck each other’s brains out? Why does he have all of these muscles other than he’s a barbarian and it should be a universally-accepted truth? What are the stories behind his scars? What are the stories behind his actions? What are the stories behind his blind loyalty to his party? When a character’s motivations and goals are explored beyond being a shallow drone, that’s when the fun really begins. After all, mindless drones aren’t nearly as much fun to read about as fleshed-out three-dimensional characters. Isn’t that right, Stephenie Meyer? How about you, E.L. James, do you want to weigh in on this subject? Didn’t think so.

Let’s go back to the example of the elf hunter who got so confused that he jumped down a sewer hole without giving a second thought. Could he have just hitched his wagon to the other PC’s and went along with them wherever they went? But why would he do that? Well, that’s where a “session zero” comes into play. It’s a D&D session designed to get the characters introduced to each other before the campaign officially begins. So what are the elf hunter’s motivations? Does he want revenge on someone who killed his parents? Does he want to earn enough money to pay for his sister’s heart transplant? Does he want to earn enough money so that he can go on a vacation to a sandy beach paradise? Does he want to earn enough money to go to school and learn more about the world around him? These are all reasonable motivations to have as a character. They may have been done to death by other authors and PC’s, but not you. You as the player have all the power in the world to fashion these motivations into something tangible and unique. So maybe the answer isn’t to hitch your wagon to a bunch of mindless drones.

But what if there’s a reason for being a mindless drone? What if all of the party members are part of a cult that just goes around doing whatever their higher power tells them to do? What if the higher power tells them to murder everyone they come across as a worthy sacrifice? What if the higher power tells them to steal enough money to make the cult richer than Scientology ever could be? In that case, while the players are still mindless drones, they have motivations beyond two-dimensional character work. But even if this were the case, the players who own those characters still have to put in the work when it comes to developing back stories and mythologies. If you’re going to, “Go with them…I guess…”, then at least have a reason for doing so. I hate to use the phrase, “Everything happens for a reason”, but in the case of D&D characters following each other around, it definitely does.

Even the elf hunter has a reason for falling down a sewer hole (not just because the player didn’t know what the fuck he’s doing). Okay, so he’s exited the party under weird circumstances. Now what? Are there creatures lurking in the sewers? Does the shit-scented water have a dark secret buried beneath? Does the sewer serve as a passageway to another world? How about a secret entrance into a castle full of riches and sorcery? Now the question becomes, does the elf hunter keep all of his findings to himself or does he share them with his party members if and when he returns to the surface? Hopefully, he’s had a nice bath beforehand and not in a river of shit and piss. Otherwise, they’re going to think he’s a lunatic and have him locked in a madhouse.

But what does the elf hunter do while he’s confined to a padded cell filled with other crazy people? Does he share his secrets with the crazy people and get into even more trouble than he’s already in? Does he meet someone there who could bust everyone out and flood the streets with whack-a-dos? Does he meet a corrupt nurse who’s beating the shit out of the patients for no reason other than to satisfy their sadistic urges? If you look hard enough, everything has an angle behind it, everything has a story that can be exploited for creative fodder.

Here’s the thing with me as a middle schooler: I didn’t give a shit about developing back stories and looking at life through multiple angles. I just liked the shallow aspects of the characters I created and the places I went to. Does my character have skulls decorating his entire body? Does he carry an axe with a long enough shaft to double as a wizard’s staff? Does he have a drill bit on top of his head? Is his metal armor so thick that it can protect him from nuclear missiles in a medieval fantasy setting? For me back in those days, looking cool was more important than being cool. My characters could have the flattest personalities and the agendas of mindless drones as long as they looked cool doing it. I could get away with it back then, but not today as an author telling my own stories.

One thing I’ve learned as an author is that nobody cares if your dark knight carries a chainsaw into battle with him. Nobody cares if your dragon-born barbarian breathes ice instead of fire. Nobody cares if your goblin electromancer shoots bolts of lightning out of his ass. Surface-level character development isn’t development at all. Having thick armor isn’t a personality trait. Having trident heads for fists isn’t a relatable flaw. The audience doesn’t want chainsaw-wielding dark paladins if those same warriors don’t have an inch of depth or personality behind them. Ever wonder why we like one-line zingers? It’s because a mindless drone could never come up with them. Ever wonder why we like edgy dialogue? Because it takes a special kind of character development to come up with those sound bites. Characters are more than their swords, axes, and lightning breath. They have flaws. They have dreams and goals. They have styles of speech. They have reasons behind their actions that extend beyond Captain Evil territories.

So…do you want to know what the right answer to the, “What are you going to do?” question is? Well, if your only solution is to hitch your wagon to your party members whilst contributing nothing in the way of character development, your D&D session is going to be boring as hell and so will the stories you write as a professional author. It is somewhat surprising to hear me of all people say that, the same guy who struggles with character development because my characters are either too nice or too mean, too extreme or too bland, too smart or too dumb, or too good or too evil. I couldn’t find the middle ground with a map and a compass. 

But that’s why we have character profiles and character sheets: not to keep track of how many muscles our ogre barbarians have, but to keep track of all of their personality traits and why they act the way they do. Coming up with three-dimensional characters is a lot of work, but it’s work very much worth doing. Even out the extreme tendencies and make shit happen for a reason. Think beyond the shallow. Get in your character’s head like a schizophrenic voice. Ask yourself: what makes this character tick? But when you’re figuring this stuff out, take all the time you need. You don’t have to get three-dimensional character work right the first time, but you should get it right eventually. It’s a skill, one that takes patience. Do you have it in you? Of course you do! Otherwise, you wouldn’t have a D&D character sheet or a novel idea in the first place.

Oath Breaker

VERSE 1

I know this comes off as some shocking news

But a paladin’s powers can be abused

When he sends the orcs to the undertaker

He embraces the role of a fallen oath breaker

No more healing powers to wield

No more cutting undead with zeal

Just another tin can with a sword and shield

The consequences are always real

VERSE 2

A lesser man would sit behind bars

With his date of release so distant and far

But an oath breaker has a redemption arc

Another chance to leave a positive mark

Does he deserve it? Only time will tell

Everybody seems to think he belongs in hell

He’s more nuclear than a plutonium rod

Giving cancer to even the mightiest gods

VERSE 3

To burn an evil empire into smoldering dust

Is the only way to regain the common man’s trust

To derail the elven sex trafficking train

Is the only way to break the slavery chains

To slay the giants who destroy the town

Is the only way to regain the holy crown

Save the world just like you did before

Even if it means you have to win your own war

VERSE 4

The final judgment shall be cast upon you

But the verdict is something you already knew

Couldn’t erase the past from traumatized minds

A cell in the underworld is all you’ll find

Let he who’s without sin cast the first stone

Guaranteed broken bones even though you atoned

You can dig up dirty laundry from behind the grave

To the sins of the past, everybody is a slave

The Dwarf with Bad Aim

When I was an edgy little shithead during my pre-teen and teenage years, I laughed my ass off at Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles jokes. The cheese grater was the best book they’ve ever read. The fastest thing to go on land was their speedboats. The best way to torture them is to rearrange the furniture. Get it? Because they’re blind? Oh-ho-ho-ho! Blindness is so funny, isn’t it? You know who probably wouldn’t think those jokes are funny? The level one dwarf fighter I played as during a D&D campaign in the 90’s. I don’t remember a whole lot about that campaign, so the details might be a little fuzzy. Hell, I don’t even remember the dwarf’s name. Let’s call him Clark. Not very fantasy-like, but fuck it, I’m calling him Clark anyways because I like the name Clark.

So why is it that a level one dwarf fighter named Clark wouldn’t have a sense of humor about blindness jokes? It’s not like he’s blind himself. He could surely set his empathy aside for a few chuckles, right? Well, not exactly. He could see just fine, but you wouldn’t know that from how often he missed his enemies during combat situations. He had this hulking battleaxe that could rip any monster to shreds. The original Axe Body Spray could have been Clark slashing a poor son of a bitch goblin in half…emphases on could have been.

The campaign was DMed by my brother James and played by me and his friends Nathan and Chris. I don’t remember their characters or their names. I don’t remember what the name of the campaign was (it was pre-written by Wizards of the Coast). All I remember about the campaign is that it used to be really popular among D&D nerds in the 90’s. The players had to transport a prisoner to the gallows only to find out that an elf thief was a mole in the group all along. Now the end goal is to send them both to the guillotine. There would be our fair share of obstacles along the way, all of which required Clark and his comrades to swing their weapons and actually hit something for a change. Nathan and Chris’s characters hit their targets with a sniper’s precision. Clark? Not so much.

The first battle during this prisoner transport was already underway with some bandits wanting to steal our riches. Clark had the opportunity to swing his axe and shed some blood all over the forest’s most beautiful features. He swung his axe…and missed. He swung again…and missed. He swung yet again…and missed. Nathan and Chris’s characters picked up Clark’s slack and left the bandits’ corpses stacked a mile high. And then we encountered some gnomes with a broken down war machine. The gnomes naturally blamed us for their misfortune and attacked right away. Clark swung his axe…and missed. He swung again…and missed. I put the twenty-sided die in my mouth and spit it out hoping it would improve the result. Not only did Clark miss again, but I got chewed out for being weird and getting saliva on the dice.

There were many battles to be fought whether it was with knights, mages, or the prisoners themselves. The story was the same: Clark swung his axe and missed horribly. There was even a time when I rolled a nat-one and had to skip an extra turn to pick up my weapon again. Nathan and Chris’s characters did the heavy lifting for me and laid waste to our enemies. Yada, yada, yada, the prisoners were executed and everything was happy in fantasy land. By the time the campaign ended, I had tears in my eyes due to how poorly Clark performed in battle. Every swing he took, he missed like a bitch. He let his team down, though his teammates didn’t show any hint of anger at him. But Clark knew he deserved their scorn if they had any. He was just extra weight freeloading experience points from their labor. As the tears poured from my eyes, I bemoaned the fact that I wouldn’t get any experience points. But James gave me some anyways, though I didn’t do anything significant to deserve them.

Because this was the 90’s and wisdom wasn’t my strong suit at the time, I didn’t see an opportunity for a compelling story when it came to Clark’s misfortune. All I saw was a series of misses. It wouldn’t be acceptable in a game of Final Fantasy IV or Chrono Trigger, because that’s how your characters die. But Clark lived through it all. He leeched off of his friends and never once paid them back. If there was a story to be had there, my younger self couldn’t see it and no, that’s not a blindness joke.

So…now that everything happened and Clark is a broken man, where does he go from here? As a wiser storyteller than I was in the 90’s, I see many angles this can take. Obviously, Clark is overwhelmed with guilt. But how does he handle it? Does he train harder and get better? Does he use his pay from the campaign to sign up for fighting classes? Does he push himself beyond what he’s capable of and jeopardize his health? 

Or does he let the guilt take a stronger hold of him and instead of using it as inspiration, he uses it as an excuse to quit. Maybe Clark retires from adventuring altogether. Maybe he spends his money on alcohol to silence his guilty conscience. Maybe he meets a woman who finds him attractive, but he pushes her away because he “can’t satisfy her”. Ever hear the phrase “those who can’t do, teach?” What if Clark feels so guilty that he thinks he would suck as a teacher as well as a real-world fighter?

What you have to remember as a D&D player is that this is a story above all else. It’s more than just swinging axes, casting spells, and slaying dragons. Everything is an opportunity for a story. And when your characters go through those stories with newfound experience, they, you guessed it, gain experience points. And then those characters develop into three-dimensional people. They feel real despite the fact that they’re in a fantasy setting. They feel human despite being a dwarf, elf, or orc. They have thoughts, opinions, dreams, ambitions, and goals. Sometimes those goals are self-destructive, sometimes they reach beyond the cosmos. The more you develop your story and your characters, the more invested you and your audience will become. If you only care about your misses and failures, that’s all your audience will care about as well.

Everything has a story behind it whether you see it or not, even the ordinary aspects of life. That bookshelf you’ve got in your room? It has seen a lot during its time. It was crafted by creative hands. It’s had many owners who used it for purposes other than storing books. It’s collected dust and formed cracks in the wood and paint. There will be a day when your bookshelf breaks down completely and has to spend its final days in a landfill somewhere. Or the wood from the shelves could be refashioned into something else like a nightstand or even firewood for a camping trip. If an ordinary bookshelf can have this much of a story behind it, so can Clark. But Clark is not an inanimate object. He’s a person with thoughts and feelings. How he deals with his thoughts and feelings is what will determine how three-dimensional he really is. Okay, Clark, so you missed all of your shots and let your teammates down. What will you do next? That’s a story very much worth telling.

But maybe Clark can’t do a whole lot anymore because he really is going blind. Maybe it’s time for him to put down the axe before he hurts someone he didn’t intend to. Maybe he has to spend his time in a home for disabled dwarves. But then Clark has to deal with ableism and people who whine about how their tax money is being spent. If the aggression against him gets so bad, he might have to pick up his axe again to defend himself. But he’ll have help from that woman who found him attractive. She’ll guide his every step and he’ll get progressively better at swinging his axe and murdering ableist assholes. And then…he’ll believe in himself again. His self-esteem will grant him the willingness to marry that woman and start a family with her. And just like that…you have a compelling, three-dimensional story about Clark a.k.a. The Dwarf with Bad Aim!

Johnny Glass's Underage Beer Run

 An elven thief named Johnny Glass walks into a bar. The bartender looks up at him and says, “Can I see your ID?” Sorry if you were expecting a cliché bar joke. To be honest, I was expecting one too when I played a lone session of Dungeons & Dragons with my brother James in Pennsylvania in 1999. What was I doing in Linesville, Pennsylvania at the time? A whole lot of fuck-all, that’s what. To be fair, that’s all there is to do in the super rural town of Linesville. Everything was so far away from my Aunt Ruth’s farm that finding entertainment was damn near impossible. So James and I had to create our own. Dungeons & Dragons was our escape from a place that couldn’t be escaped.

But what about the medieval town that Johnny Glass was a citizen of? Did that have a lot going on in the way of kicks and thrills? The closest thing to that answer was getting plastered at the bar. Or smoking a burned out cigarette until he had extra crispy Kentucky Fried Lungs, that could be done in a bar too. But let’s go back to the point where the bouncer (not the bartender) asks to see Johnny’s ID. It seems like a standard practice for any bar, but there’s actually a lot to unpack here. First of all, Johnny was an elf and the typical age for elves in a game of D&D is somewhere in the fifties and sixties. They’re an immortal race that doesn’t pass away from old age, but goes into isolation when they do. It’s like 2020, but forever. If an elf looks like he’s fifty or sixty, why would anyone question his maturity when it comes to chugging a stein of beer? The only reason I can think of is that the mostly human town holds a deep-seated bigotry against the elven race.

And while we’re on the topic of anti-elf racism, if I had the storytelling abilities back then that I do now, there might actually be a plausible reason why an elf would have an ordinary human name like Johnny Glass. Maybe where he’s from, his culture was suppressed by the conquering humans, so all the Legolases and Grimlords became Johnnies and Jackies. Names say a lot about a person’s cultural background. So when you see an ethnic minority with an ordinary white guy name, you know some ordinary white guys had major influence over the conquest. There’s a whole story right there! But alas, the only reason I chose the name Johnny Glass for my character was because it was convenient and it was all I could think of at the time. Little did I know or care that everything has a back story if you look hard enough.

Getting back to the ID check at the bar, how exactly is Johnny Glass supposed to produce a document that didn’t even exist in medieval times? The only way an ID would ever work is if photography was invented. That’s the whole point of it: to put a face with the name. There’s no photography in D&D. So what was Johnny supposed to show the bouncer? A painting? A magical seal? A doodle? Oh, god help him if he gets a doodle. The artist might actually make him look like a caricature goofball if racism was the true reason for this campaign. Maybe he’d draw Johnny with a massive nose, Dumbo ears, and a saggy belly, which is not only humiliating on its own, but it wouldn’t grant him access anywhere since that’s not what he looked like. He looked like any other elf: pointy ears, light green skin, blond locks, and a skinny build. He looked like any other elf because with a name like Johnny Glass, that’s what he truly was under the thumb of the dominant humans.

Naturally, Johnny didn’t have any ID papers on him, then again, who did since photography doesn’t exist yet?! The humans never had their ID’s checked, but Johnny did. And because he entered a bar where his age was questioned over and over again, he broke the law. Thieves breaking the law isn’t anything new, but at least said thieves stay hidden in the shadows when they commit their crimes. Not Johnny. He walked into a bar a (somewhat) free elf, came out with his hands and feet shackled by law enforcement. Johnny served himself on a silver platter to the racist humans. Not a good way to start a D&D campaign as a stealthy thief.

But don’t worry! Surely a trickster like him could slip out of prison and never be found again, right? Well, there’s a lot to unpack in that department as well. First of all, this was my first time ever playing a thief. Beforehand, I played loads of fighters, one paladin, and one wizard. I had more fun being a fighter and a paladin than any other class, because I could actually defend myself in a brawl and look badass doing it. If a wizard doesn’t have his spells studied and ready to go, he’s fucked since he can’t wear heavy armor or wield heavy weapons. Plus, wizards naturally have a low amount of hit points. Unless the goal was to try something new and exciting, why would I ever want to play a thief? If I ever got caught, I couldn’t defend myself against knights with gigantic battleaxes and claymores bigger than their bodies. Backstab wouldn’t do me any good, because that only works if I’m undetected.

But here I am in a prison cell with no chance of parole. No fair trial, either. Democracy and photography had a lot in common in D&D: they didn’t exist. The prison guards told Johnny they were going to lock him up for life. But that turned out to be a joke that Johnny would never laugh at in a million years (or however long elves lived). He instead was sentenced to five years. He could do five years standing on his head, given his elven immortality. But why would he want to unless he had an escape plan? You think I would have learned one by now given that my brother loved locking my characters in prison and using that as the main storyline. He did this a lot. I never got away once, but he still insisted on doing prison campaigns. Would Johnny Glass be the one to finally break the curse? Well…not exactly.

There he was shackled to the wall of his own eight-by-ten cell. In case the shackles weren’t enough, the prison cell had a barred door and there were guards on the other side of the cell block. It was time for Johnny to show what a master thief was all about…or at least until he failed a roll to pick the locks on his shackles. Then he failed a strength check. Then he failed a dexterity check. Then he failed pretty much every other roll in his arsenal. I can’t remember how exactly Johnny got out of his cell, but that just goes to show how unprepared I was for life as a thief. What to do next? Well, in order to simulate the idea of thinking fast, James, my DM brother, gave me only enough time until his fist dropped to his lap. Because I freaked out and couldn’t think of anything on time, the guards came through the door and threw me back in my cell before shackling me to the wall again. And then Johnny Glass was back to square one.

So I rolled a lock pick check and failed. I rolled a strength check and failed. I rolled a dexterity check and failed. Whatever rolling tactic I used to try to break free, it failed. And then…James mercifully pulled a Deus Ex Machina out of his ass. There just so happened to be another thief in the cell with me. He asked, “Do you want to get out?” I said yes, so he unshackled me and opened my door. That was it. I was a free man. All I had to do was wander down an underground maze and my freedom would be solidified. One drawback to all of this is that I got no experience points for what I went through. I figured I wouldn’t get them anyways since I wasn’t involved in any fights. But that’s not how thieves gain experience points. Fighters get them through fighting. Wizards get them through casting spells. Thieves get them by being sneaky as fuck. I don’t know how I would have gotten those points since I failed all of my rolls.

I wouldn’t get the answer until a few years later when James put me in another prison campaign, this time with a different character. He was shackled to the wall. His cell door was locked. There was a loony tune in the room with him who wet himself. The piss was traveling like a river toward my general vicinity. So what did I do? James gave me advice this time: use my surroundings to my advantage. There was a pile of stones next to where I was sitting. I smashed the stones against the shackles and evaded the slow-moving piss trail. That was somewhat satisfying. But I have to ask: wouldn’t the builders of this prison have foreseen this happening? What exactly is a pile of rocks doing next to shackled prisoners? That to me is even more of a Deus Ex Machina scenario than Johnny Glass being let out by a cell mate he never knew he had.

So…what can be learned from this experience now that I’m a storytelling adult? First of all, I should probably ask the DM what my surroundings look like so that I’m more aware of what the fuck’s going on. It feels like such a minor detail to ask for, but authors have to do this too when describing an unfamiliar setting. They don’t want to describe too much, but just enough of the relevant parts to create visuals in the reader’s mind. Okay, so Johnny Glass can’t pick his way out of prison. What else can he do? Provided there are no stones this time, he could hoot and holler until a guard paid attention to him. Then he can hide in the shadows to make the guard think he’s gone. When the guard investigates, Johnny could spring on him and strangle him with the shackles. He grabs the key and frees himself. Wah-lah!

There are lots of ways in which a thief can be clever. There are lots of ways in which a player can be just as much of a storyteller as the DM. The biggest lesson above all else…be prepared for the role you’re playing! Study your characters! Refine them! Develop them! Give your elven thief a reason for being called Johnny fucking Glass! Maybe it’s not racism from humans, but racism from within. Maybe he’s the Candace Owens of elven lore. Or maybe he just wants to blend in, like a forty-year-old woman named Karen. The more you know about your characters, the more solutions you can come up with for their problems. I wish I would have invested this much time into developing characters for my first draft novels. Fixing them would have been a hell of a lot easier! Thank you, Johnny Glass, for opening my eyes. You can open yours too since the bartender wouldn’t let you have that beer after all.

RPG Memoirs: Fiction or Nonfiction?

So…I’m at a little bit of a crossroads here when it comes to my nonfiction. Many months ago, I wrote a memoir about a D&D campaign I did with my brother in 2003 where I was a bounty hunter named Regal (it went about as well as you’d imagine, haha!). Ever since then, I’ve wondered if I should do those kinds of memoirs in the future. A small little voice told me that if I’m going to do them, why not just write them as fictional stories instead of memoirs? There’ll be more opportunities for showing instead of telling and it’ll feel like a real story. But given how some of those role-plays panned out, they wouldn’t make for very good stories on their own. Under a nonfiction microscope, I can analyze what went wrong and why. That’s basically the point of these memoirs: to show how much my storytelling skills and I have changed since those days. They can either be cautionary tales or legitimate master classes. What do you guys think? Are these kinds of stories better served as fiction or nonfiction?

The House of Hathaway

Ah yes, the year 2003: a time in my life marked with bad mental health, suicidal thoughts, shitty education, and fights with online friends over inconsequential BS. So what’s the cure for all of this? Playing D&D with my brother James, of course! Whenever my mind wasn’t being bombarded with schizophrenic voices, I could put it to good use and guide my character through an epic adventure filled with magic and wonder! Or I could completely waffle it and confirm everything my head voices ever told me. Whoever said mental illnesses produce the best creativity needs to have their head mounted on a trident.

Speaking of tridents, guess what my character’s weapon of choice was! Everybody else in the campaign used a long sword because they had war in their bloodlines. I used a trident because I allegedly had fishing in my bloodline. Never mind the fact that the minimum damage on a trident cushioned every bad roll I could have made in combat. Nope! I’m just an angry fisherman named Regal. No last name, just Regal. My brother’s player character was named Riant, which apparently gave him a license to call my character Reg...which is short for Reggie…which rhymes with wedgie! Ugh…

But before we could get into the actual campaign, there was a mild disagreement between my brother and I over where in my bedroom we should sit. He sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor and I sat in my computer chair. He urged me to sit on the floor with him, but I refused. So our campaign began with Regal tending a barn full of animals during a thunderstorm. Weird, but okay. I moved the animals all over the place until lightning struck me and killed me. This was all an elaborate April Fool’s joke to coerce me to sit on the floor with him. I of course didn’t catch on, because, you know, schizophrenia and all. Plus, I had just argued with an online friend the night before and pretty much terminated our relationship, so there was that weighing heavily on me.

Now that I was cross-legged on the floor with James, the real campaign could begin. The House of Hathaway (very British-sounding name if I’ve ever heard one) put a bounty on some guy’s head because he stole something valuable from them. There was a poster on the city walls with his likeness and price printed on it. The poster said he was last seen out in the countryside. So naturally, my first move would be to go out to the countryside to look for this thieving bastard. Riant disagreed. He wanted to go to the local jewelry shop to ask a bunch of questions. Regal didn’t see the point of this, but played along nonetheless. He even asked, “Are you ready to go?” Apparently, this came off like an invitation rather than a demand, so Riant dinged Regal for that one.

So Regal goes over to the jewelry shop to interrogate the clerk. When I, the player, couldn’t think of any questions, James urged me to think like Vic Mackey from The Shield. How would he interrogate someone? What kinds of questions would he ask? If you’ve seen The Shield during its heyday in the 2000’s, you would associate Vic Mackey with ass-beatings galore. That’s how he got all of his information. Was James suggesting that I beat this clerk’s ass? Seemed unreasonable to me. Riant started the conversation with, “Any word of thievery?” I continued the line of questioning with a bunch of “personal questions” that got us kicked out of the shop when the clerk got offended. Why did he get offended? Why was he not cooperating with our line of questioning? My first guess would be because the clerk was a dick who didn’t respect our authority. But Riant insisted that Regal was “asking the wrong questions”.

So after that little kafuffle, Regal and Riant finally agreed to go to the outskirts of town where the real clues led. Regal went home to get an ox to ride on and Riant gave him a weird ass look for it. Regal also got weird ass looks from ordinary citizens for carrying a trident around with him. Never mind the fact that every weapon in the D&D franchise has a sheath and that’s what I was trying to do: put it in a sheath. James insisted that tridents didn’t have sheaths (they totally do), so this was the result: a bunch of crazy stares from the extras of the campaign. Oh, excuse me, the “background artists” of the campaign.

So as Regal and Riant make their way to the countryside (with no ox to ride on), Riant gives Regal a lecture about his poor performance in this bounty hunting mission so far. “Why am I always the one helping you? I wish you’d help yourself.” This would have been the perfect time to mount Riant’s head on a trident, but Regal held back and also held his tongue. The reasonable answer would have been to complain about everybody no-selling the seriousness of what Regal was doing. They treated him like a clown for reasons I would never understand. Then again, understanding everything isn’t in the schizophrenic’s arsenal, especially under heavy medication.

The two bounty hunters go out to the countryside to interview various farmers about the last time they’ve seen the House of Hathaway’s prized thief. Regal goes up to one farmer and says, “Excuse me, can I talk to you for a moment?” The farmer says, “We’re talking now, aren’t we?” Another example of NPC’s no-selling the gravity of the situation. We weren’t talking before, that’s why Regal asked the fucking question! I can’t remember what questions Regal asked after that, but the conversation took another steep turn when the farmer asked why he was being interrogated. Regal admitted to being a bounty hunter and the farmer lectured him about how that lifestyle could get him killed or arrested. To be fair to me, I had no idea bounty hunting was a sensitive issue since bounty hunters are on the same side as traditional law enforcement. But oh well. Can’t put the words back in my mouth now!

Regal and Riant go out to the forest to look for clues and they find a series of footprints in the dirt. Regal’s assessment of the situation was that there was a struggle taking place due to the awkward angle of the foot prints. Maybe a cult had gotten the thief. Was the thief even here? Who knows? Before I had the chance to find out more, our campaign ended when James and I were called away from the game by our parents.

This campaign was supposed to be a tribute to The Shield, but it looked more like The Three Stooges…except there was only one stooge and multiple straight men. That stooge was named Regal. He was a stooge because he couldn’t figure out basic detective protocol. To my young mind, The Shield wasn’t about nuance and politics. It was about ass-beatings and edginess. If Regal tried any of the tactics Vic Mackey used on The Shield, he would have been locked up a long time ago. Regal had no official authority; he was a freelancer and didn’t have any of the privileges of a traditional cop.

I don’t want you all to think that the House of Hathaway campaign was a microcosm on its own. My role-playing abilities suffered all throughout the 2000’s due to my mental illnesses and general naivety. You talk about NPC’s no-selling the gravity of the situation? That happened in pretty much every RPG I was a part of, including ones where I was the game master and had complete control. From 2010-2011, I took the role of Dungeon Master once more, but this time had better results. My players were actually being receptive to my awkward and insane ideas. It’s because of this newfound success that I decided to write fiction on a regular basis, not just movie scripts where the characters went along with each other despite the awkward writing.

To this day, I still have ups and downs when it comes to mental health. The one rule I follow to keep D&D campaigns and creative writing pieces from getting too weird is to not work on them while I’m having a bad mental health day. If the schizophrenic demons keep me boiling with anger or the depression keeps me tired and unmotivated, that would be the perfect time to take the day off. The other important rule I have to follow is to not shame myself for needing a personal day. I shame myself a lot and I think it contributes to my mental health being worse overall. Then again, mental illnesses depend on the victims cycling through negative thoughts. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be mentally ill in the first place.

I can look back on the House of Hathaway campaign and laugh about how silly it all was. Even if failing miserably hurt my self-esteem for a while, I think I’ve gained some of it back over the years and that’s why my writing career has picked up along the way. Come to think of it, writing novels is basically just playing D&D by myself. Or playing WITH myself, depending on the adult content of any one novel. Hopefully, I’ve come a long way from Regal in 2003 to Garrison Kelly in the present day. I’d like to think so. Maybe. Sometimes. I don’t know. Could you repeat the question?

Magic

The thunderstorms of electromancy
Elven royalty dressed in robes so fancy
Pixies and gnomes dancing together
Underneath purple sunset weather
Ogres mourn the loss of beauty
Old witches still call them cuties
Orcish children play among dwarves
A fantasy world removed from war

But in today’s world of disgust
Wizards are met with distrust
The dragons don’t fly anymore
Gatekeepers make life a bore
It’s all about STEM and business
Calling the disenfranchised “idiots”
For daring to believe in a better place
Rebelling against the corporate rat race

The magic is gone, but will it ever return?
Or will the beautiful pages continue to burn?
It’s up to us to slay these hellfire beasts
To bring back childhood memories so sweet
Don’t let the overlords tell you to grow up
Be there for your army when they show up
Fight with swords, staves, and magic wands
Your barbaric war cry is your epic song

The magic didn’t die; it took a vacation
Now it’s alive in a world of devastation
Throwing fireballs and summoning gods
Electrifying the sky with a serpentine rod
Raising an army of skeletons and zombies
Shapeshifting into grizzlies, animal mommies
Our legacies will live on forever and a day
Let’s dance in celebrate in the gnomish way

Thunder Sword

CHORUS

With my thunder sword!

I will slay the horde!

I will win this war!

Shake shit to its core!

VERSE 1

I am the bringer of light

I am the one who will fight

I am the paladin knight

I will do what is right

No more dark politics

No more dirty tricks

No more throwing bricks

At the weak and the sick

CHORUS

With my thunder sword!

I will slay the horde!

I will win this war!

Shake shit to its core!

VERSE 2

I will occupy

The wasteland and sky

Justice will be mine

Right now is our time

I ride on my warhorse

Cut straight to the source

Leaving another corpse

A thousand more of course

BRIDGE

With blade in hand

I’ll cleanse this land

I’ll be the last to stand

I’ll be the firebrand

I’ll bring you down

As my war cry sounds

It’s the final slash

Your body turns to ash

EXTENDED CHORUS

With my thunder sword!

I will slay the horde!

I will win this war!

Shake shit to its core!

I will thirst for more!

In this world of scorn!

I have become reborn!

In this blood rainstorm!

Five Finger Death Punch X Shinedown Concert

***BEFORE I BEGIN***

Halloween has come and gone, so I’d like to speak a little bit about mine. As many of you know, it’s one of my favorite holidays of the year due to the dark fantasy creative fuel that comes from it. Ghosts, goblins, mummies, warlocks, necromancers, Halloween has the whole nine yards. I could write short stories and novels for days with this kind of inspiration, as dark fantasy is one of my favorite genres of books, movies, and videogames. Because I love scary themes so much, I dressed in a Slipknot mask (Mick Thomson’s take on Hannibal Lector), red Hawaiian shirt, blue pajama pants, and green cloak. Reina referred to my costume as a “random creepy guy” and I couldn’t really disagree with her. I collected a few frightened reactions on Halloween as well as a shit load of candy from Reina and I venturing to different neighborhoods in Port Orchard. It was a fun night, but make no mistake about it, at my weight and my age, it was an endurance test. I begged my mom to take me to the chiropractor after Halloween and that’s what we’re going to do sometime this week. I’m not as energetic as I used to be, which is why whenever I go to concerts, I now pick seated tickets instead of general admission floor tickets, which makes a nice segue for the main topic of this journal.

***FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH X SHINEDOWN CONCERT***

This coming Saturday November 5^th, Five Finger Death Punch is going to headline a show at the Tacoma Dome with Shinedown, Sixx AM, and As Lions opening for them. I’ve been a Five Finger Death Punch fan since 2012 and continue to rock out to their badass speed metal and melodic tunes. I only started listening to Shinedown on a regular basis when WWE Raw used their song “Enemies” for the opening theme music. I’ve only heard one Sixx AM song my whole life and that was “Rise” (damn good song if I say so myself). I’m not familiar with As Lions, but I hear the singer is the son of a heavy metal legend. Four badass heavy metal bands, one night of awesomeness. I may be doing some writing or other art work that day, I may not, depending on my energy level during that general timeframe. I jokingly refer to music concerts as one-day vacations, which means despite my temporary absence from the internet, I’ll always be back for creative work. In the words of Ivan Moody, “Let’s burn this motherfucker to the ground!”

***DEMON AXE, CHAPTER SIX***

Detective Shawn Henry is having a busy night at the crime lab doing some bureaucratic bullshit for what should be an easy case. Naturally, he’s exhausted and bored out of his mind. He can’t wait to get home to his family. Roger Zee, who waits in the shadows for Detective Henry to be by himself in the crime lab, holds him hostage at blade-point and even reveals that Shawn’s family is also being held hostage in a mysterious location. Roger will let the Henry clan live in exchange for unlimited access to police resources, whether it’s computer databases, cop cooperation, or those lovely pieces of military equipment they love to flaunt so much. Will Shawn crack under the pressure and give into Roger’s demands or will things get bloody in a hurry?

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

As long as I’m opening this journal with a brief discussion of Halloween, I might as well bring up the biggest piece of dark fantasy news of all, the next entry in the Dark Fantasy Warriors collection. World, meet Bradshaw, a badass Kord-worshipping cleric whose biggest claim to fame is texting during a battle with a bloodthirsty dragon. He let his party down in a big way, but he still looked like a champ doing it. Bradshaw was a D&D character in the short story “Emoticon Artist”, being controlled by a sorrowful millennial named Beth Bradshaw. In fact, all of those D&D characters were named after the players’ surnames. That is what a creative genius I am. Cue the eye rolls.

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“Right between your eyes! Nowhere to hide! Click-clack, reload! Click-clack, unload! Life ain’t on your side! You’re out of time! Click-clack, reload! Click-clack, unload!”

-Five Finger Death Punch singing “No Sudden Movement”-