I’m sitting in a room full of people calling me “Briar.”
That’s not my name.
It all started about three hours ago
Looking back, there may have been a tip off somewhere along the line that I was going to end up here. Some glaring clue that I would one day be sitting at a table, wondering if I should choose to speak “Orc” or “Elvish”, and chewing over the merits of strength versus charisma… but I can’t recall it now. I only know that I’m here, and that my roll of 17 for intelligence is something that I immediately took pride in, though I’m not quite sure why.
“What’s your class?” A man, my Dungeon Master, asked me before we got started. I looked up at him, waiting for further prompting; a look of “well, you tell me” written plainly across my face.
He didn’t tell me.
“Uh, what are my options?” I asked. I admit to having very little experience in the world of fantasy characters. My first instinct was to choose a fairy or a pixie—something with excessive amounts of glitter likely embedded in its skin. I don’t know why this was my first instinct, however, and I chose not to investigate.
“Almost anything you can think of.” He answered. “Think real hard. What do you want to be, in your heart of hearts?”
I pondered this, as he gestured to a man two places to my left.
“For instance,” he continued. “Rulon here’s a demon.”
I looked at Rulon, a pensive curly headed man wearing a black Led Zeppelin t-shirt and sunglasses (we were inside) whose only response was a slight head nod. This didn’t help me.
“Okay.” I said, biting my lower lip. I thought hard, like the man asked. I looked in to my heart of hearts, and I realized what I wanted to be. “Well, I was a Mesmer in Guild Wars 2, and I really enjoyed that, so…”
“Great!” The DM responded.
A Mesmer is born
Thusly, Briar the Level 0 Mesmer blinked in to existence. It was that simple. A moment before, I was standing on the other side of a line that divided people who have played Dungeons and Dragons from people who have not, and then, for better or for worse, there was no going back to who I used to be.
It turns out that my new identity came with a lot of baggage. I’m a loner and a street rat that, earlier in the day, saved the town from destruction with my one stun ability. Like my intelligence roll, I was quite proud of this… even though it was actually just part of my back-story, and I hadn’t actually had anything to do with it. Nonetheless, I looked around the table expecting everyone to be awed by my magical prowess, but apparently saving entire towns with stun abilities is an every day occurrence around these parts, and no one was particularly impressed.
Somehow, I found myself in the labyrinth of sewers underneath the city I had grown up in, with two Orcs headed closer and closer to me. They were described as big and scary, and covered in gore from some battle they had just partaken in. I wasn’t afraid of them, because I’d decided I’d played with Orcs as a child and was fluent in the language. I mean… why not?
“Hello!” I called out. The Orcs jumped in surprise.
“… What are you doing down here?” The first Orc asked.
That was a good question.
What even is this
It was around this time when it occurred to me what I was actually doing. I was playing Dungeons and Dragons. Three years ago, if someone would have told me that I would not only eventually play D&D, but that I will have actively sought out a group to play with… I would have been very impressed when it actually happened. I also wouldn’t have believed them. It just wouldn’t have added up with anything else that had happened in my life up until that point. In fact, if I’m being completely honest, the girl that I was three years ago would probably have a little giggle at the girl I am now.
But she doesn’t know me, and I don’t know her, and I couldn’t care less.
So after a brief moment of introspection, I continued on with the game. Some weird things would come to pass over the course of a few hours. I received some secret information that I delighted in holding to myself until I let the group coax it out of me. I became infatuated with a werewolf teenager named Fillion (played by my friend Linda), and I became close with the two Orcs who found me hiding in the sewer. They even saved me from what I’m pretty sure was an attempted seduction from a 32 year old ranger (played by my friend Charlotte).
Now, does all that sound a little silly? Maybe to you. Maybe to a lot of people… But the great thing about D&D – hell, the great thing about playing games, is that you get to be around a bunch of other people who just want to play; who just want to have fun. There’s no judgment for those moments you slip in to your English accent, because everyone’s doing it. There’s no laughing at you for getting in to your character, because that’s what’s expected of you.
So, yeah. I’m sitting in a room full of people calling me Briar, and even though it’s not my name, I’m answering to it.
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