{M} I thought we were going to play D&D! [IC]

[Highland Sniper]

Reven was excited, and he knew his fellow players would be, too. Who wouldn't be excited about starting a new D&D game?

Reven had joined the party about two months ago when they were searching for some new blood. The first thing he played with this group was Jorgon, his half-orc rogue. The adventure was group, and so was the rest of the party.

When the comparatively short campaign ended they were looking for someone else to DM, and Reven jumped at the chance. He already had a world and setting in mind as well as some other interesting ideas to make things a little more interesting.
And after sharing the idea with the party, they all agreed to play his world.

After agreeing to meet at his place a few days later, they got session 0 and some world development out of the way and agree to meet again next week for session 1.

Reven was so excited, he had gone over each character and their backstory at least five times, and his notes almost ten.
All morning he made sure everything was perfect.
He had drinks and snacks, a great 3d board, miniatures, plenty of dice and extra paper.
He even checked his special book, his older sister would swear he looked at it every minute.

And now the time had come. The players would start arriving in the next few minutes. He could hardly wait.

But little did everyone know that they would be having the adventure of their lives.

I Thought we Were going to play
D&D!

Dion knocked on the door. It didn't take long for Reven to open the door. The guy looked excited, and maybe a little too eager to start. He couldn't blame him. Dion was excited, too.

"So, where do I sit?" Dion asked.

"Oh, right. Just over there." Reven said and gestured to another room that was all set with an amazing 3d board of a field, and minifigures with their sheets at each one.

Dion walked in and took a closer look at the setup and noted that the minifigure with his character sheet matched his character's description amazingly.
"Man, you made all this?" Dion asked, a little amazed.

"Uh... yeah. Took me forever." Reven said as he walked in.

"That's so cool." He said, picking up his minifigure and examining it closely. It was beautiful. "when do we start?"

"As soon as everyone else gets here." dion said.

[tbgg]

Riss walked up just after Dion did, and was able to enter the room just behind him.

“Hey D, Rev,” she greeted the two of them.

Grabbing a can of Sprite from the table and opening it, she quickly took a swig. “Man, Mr. Lucas has been a real pain lately. We’ve got our semester project due in a week, he gives us 20 pages of reading a day, and on top of that, we have an exam on Monday. I won’t even mention the work in my other classes. I need some down time, and this game is just the thing!” She gave an enthusiastic grin.

When she saw the figurines, she immediately grabbed her own, squeeing excitedly. “This is exactly how I imagined Myste looking!” she gushed to Reven. “I don’t know how you knew, but great job!”

Riss next pulled out a paper plate and put some chips and dip, a brownie, and some grapes from among the snacks on the table onto it. “Mmm, I’m famished, too, and these snacks are just the thing for a hungry belly. You rock, dude.” With that, she popped a grape into her mouth and began chewing.

“Is Sam supposed to still be coming, as far as you know?”

[Highland Sniper]

"Glad you like them," Reven said, practically basking in the praise.

"He didn't say anything to me one way or another," Dion said, "he's probably just held up a little."

"Oh, he'll be here," Reven said, "I know."

Dion looked at Reven quizzically for a split second, "Who would want to miss out on D&D," Dion said. "What I'm happy about though, is that soon, I won't need to see Corvin's face. Man, I hate that guy, and that's saying something."

Dion grabbed some of his own snacks from the table, filling his plate with a browny and a pizza before grabbing a can of cream soda and sitting down across from Riss.

"yeah, well for a bit, you're going to be in the amazing world of Tiadona," Reven said as he grabbed a can of sprite and popped it open, "I just hope you guys like what I got planned."

[tbgg]

Riss pondered. She didn’t recognize Corvin as a teacher’s name, and she was pretty sure she knew the names of most if not all of the teachers at their school even if she couldn’t recognize all of them by sight. Was Corvin another student?

Finally, she decided to ask. “Ummm, D? Who’s Corvin? And what kind of grief has he been giving you?”

[Highland Sniper]

"He's one of the guys I invited to a discord server and he threw a fit about some of my rules," Dion said, "he's been pushing my buttons ever since. No fights, sadly and thankfully. But man, it smart."

"Slightly bigger, glasses, brown hair, looks messy?" Reven asked.

"yeah." Dion said.

[tbgg]

Privately, Riss wondered how you could know what someone looked like on Discord when her experience with it had involved only written and voice chat, but she decided not to ask. Maybe there was one of those bot add-on feature thingies that allowed video communication and she had simply never seen it before. Besides, she now thought she remembered D mentioning this guy, though not by the name Corvin.

She asked, “Is he the one you told us about who said he didn’t feel like the word ‘no’ should ever apply to him?”

[Highland Sniper]

"Yeah, you said that a few times." He said, "You saying you don't remember him? He goes to our school."

"I've seen him around," Reven said, "He's some piece of work."

Dion had met the guy at school, they got along well enough until Dion invited him to discord and he started complaining about the common no NSFW and other clean rules. Since then, he's been a real jerk to Dion.
He was sure he mentioned it to everyone. Then again, it was in the middle of an online game and everyone was probably distracted.

[Enigma]

Sam checked the address on his phone again, aware of the people staring and talking about him as he walked down the sidewalk. It didn't matter what he wore, he looked like a thug. Some of them probably thought he was here to collect for a bookie.

There was a woman with a stroller, talking animatedly on her phone while she was walking towards him, she turned away when he glanced at her. No need to guess who she'd called as a police car turned the corner ahead. He just put his phone away and shoved his hands in his pockets.

The siren gave a little "whoop-whoop" as it came to a stop next to him.

"Can I help you, mister...?" the officer swallowed nervously.
"Sam Woodburn. I'm just walking here," Sam said defensively. "Going to a friend's house to play a game, that's all."
"You uh, come here a lot?"
"First time he invited me over."
"Probably the last time, too," the cop muttered softly.
"What?" Sam demanded.
"Er, nothing! Well, I hope you have a fun time!"

The cop car pulled away but he knew they were watching him in the mirror. It wasn't like he got into a lot of fights. People usually took one look at him and ran off. There was that idiot Dean who tried to block his way out a door once by putting his leg across it. But all he did there was to grab the outstretched leg and lift it higher so Dean lost his balance and fell on his butt, knocking all the air out of his lungs so he just laid there on the floor gasping for air. He wasn't the one in the wrong, but he got a week's suspension from school over it.

It was like he was a prisoner, but the prison was his body.


Sam was half-way down the next block before he found the house. Putting his phone away, he went and knocked on the door, hoping this new kid Reven answered the door and not a parent. Too often they'd slam it in his face.

[Highland Sniper]

"I'll get it," Dion said, "Might be Sam."

Dion walked over and opened the door to find that is was indeed Sam.
"Sam! glad you could make it, we've only been waiting half an hour," he teased, "Come on."
Dion walked back inside.

"Look who showed up!" he called in as he walked back to everyone else.

"Great!" Reven said, "Who's ready to get started?"

[tbgg]

Riss laughed in amusement. “He might go to our school, D, but that doesn’t mean I know him. We do have more than 500 students in our year alone. And with me taking mainly advanced and college prep classes, if he’s not doing the same, our chances of meeting aren’t that high. And since I’m not the most social person, our chances of meeting are even lower. Don’t you remember how shy I was that first time we played D&D together? What was it, the fourth or fifth session before I finally unwound enough to say anything that wasn’t directly related to the game?”

She turned to Reven with a self-deprecating smile. “I was a regular little weirdo, full of lots of knowledge from all the books I’d read, but not much ability to relate to others. Even now, it’s still not really my strength. D forgets that I can chat now because I had the chance to get comfortable with him and Sam.”

She turned back to Dion. “But I get it. Corvin sounds like a guy who prefers a ‘different’ kind of D&D, one that’s fun for him but no one else. My mom would say he probably doesn’t have a good dad to show him how to be. I’m glad he’s not at this game, though. People who can’t respect rules or players they disagree with aren’t much fun to play with.”

Upon seeing Sam walk in, she waved and greeted him, “Hey, glad you made it, Sam. We’ve been waiting on you to get started.” On the one hand, she didn’t understand why so many people treated Sam so badly. On the other, he generally didn’t go out of his way to seem any less intimidating, so she understood why some people felt uncomfortable at the sight of him. She was glad he had been smaller when they’d first started playing D&D together, though even then he’d been on the big end of the size spectrum. It had given her the chance to see he was a person like anyone else before his size became the first and sometimes only thing people noticed about him.