Every Thursday, our own Mike Christensen shares his stories, advice, and opinions on the subject of tabletop role-playing games.

Before we begin, I wanted to call out some of the comments we got last week. I posed the question, What do you think of when you think of Dungeons and Dragons? Sergio Moraes commented that he also flashes back to sitting at the table with friends (and particularly the snacks and junk food), but Lillian also left a very touching comment about how D&D was the only time she got to spend time with her brother, which is incredibly heartwarming. Thanks so much to both of them for sharing!

When We Last Left Our Heroes…

Trapped in the tower of a necromancer, we fought off an army of goblins, while our mage made bombs to bring down the tower and secure our escape through a secret passage. But before the bombs were ready, I had to guard the secret passage against any oncoming forces…

Oh, and yes, we did split the party. Sometimes it happens, and you just gotta make due.

I’ve talked previously about the creation of my first character, Calvin Dugray (a human swashbuckler). Roleplaying as him was a blast right off the bat, but if I’m honest, I was crap at the game. I spent months, if not years, simply confused about which dice I was meant to be rolling at any given time. I certainly didn’t design or play my characters to take full advantage of everything the rules were capable of (though I’ve watched players completely break the game bending the rules of character design to make themselves all but invincible, so there was certainly no shortage of people who could offer guidance).

But what I loved was slipping into the skin of a character once a week and going on an adventure.

As I was saying, Calvin was the only man guarding the back door (our first mistake), and I noticed hobgoblins coming up the stairs – a female lieutenant, flanked by two thugs.

Now, at this point, the logical response is to draw my sword - you know, that thing that the book gives you stats for, and tells you how to roll dice to hit and do damage. But (A) I was a newbie, and (B) I had a flair for the dramatic. So, instead, I asked our DM, Daniel, if there was a torch on the wall. Daniel looked confused, but said that there was.

So, I told our wizard (Roth) to have his monkey (Nanners) bring me a vial of oil. Nanners did as requested, and I smashed the oil down on the lieutenant’s head. Then I ran up the wall, grabbed the torch out of the sconce, and brought it down on her oil-soaked head, setting her ablaze.

It was incredibly satisfying, even when one of her soldiers smacked me with his sword and knocked me out. (Calvin spent a lot of time getting knocked unconscious.)

"But Mike," you might be saying from your side of the computer screen, "you got defeated!" And yes, if you get technical, that’s very much true - there were three soldiers, and I managed to outlast only one of them, which is not a great score at the end of the day.

But I didn’t care. It was incredibly rewarding to be able to come up with an outside-the-box idea, and turn to my friends and say, "Guys, my guy is a swashbuckler. He’s going to try something." And I still remember the look on Daniel’s face when I asked about the torch, as it started on a combination of confusion and sympathy for his poor friend who just couldn’t grasp the rules, then transitioned to a look of dawning comprehension and excitement as he realized what I was trying to achieve.