Page 90 of Playworld

“I’m glad you’re here,” Marc said to me—he was playing a bard—“because I’m sick of two-handing your character,” which was what the group did whenever a player character was absent and a rare concession to Wexworth’s usually orthodox observation of the rules. Marc had saved me the seat next to his and, when I took it, slid me my notebook and bag of dice.

I was playing a half-elf assassin—I’d named him Sylvanus—whom Wexworth had boosted to the eighth level so that I wasn’t a drag on the party.

Play recommenced. We were seeking to penetrate the dreaded Tower of Marahall, and the party was forced to split up. Wexworth exiled Mason, Colson, and me to the hallway, where we took a seat. Mason, who was massive, gave his Afro several pokes with his blowout comb and then stuck it near his forehead, so that it looked like a samurai’s datemono. Fall to spring, he wore short-sleeved button-down shirts, a dress-code violation for which the faculty gave him a permanent pass. He wasbuilt like a linebacker and played power forward on the varsity basketball team. He was also a math student of some renown. This largeness he projected, the brains and the brawn, was nowhere near as impressive as his haughtiness. I figured we’d be outside for a while, so as we were leaving I asked Mason if I could borrow hisPlayer’s Handbookto study while we waited. He said, “Fine, just don’t read my notes,” but I did anyway. There were fighting strategies and mnemonics regarding certain monsters and druidic spells. There were wicked cool diagrams, though by far my favorite was the Character Alignment Graph:

I could not help but analyze the souls of those nearest and dearest to me (Amanda: chaotic good; Fistly: lawful evil; Mom: lawful neutral, Dad: chaotic neutral, Oren: chaotic neutral).

“Why do I need to ‘be mindful of weather in outdoor combat’?” I asked, echoing one of the notes I had just read.

Mason, who was talking to Chip, held up a finger to him and said, “What do you think happens if you Call Lightning during a thunderstorm?”

Chip said to Mason, “Did you hear they’re going to add a new class of magic user this August?”

Mason scoffed. “No one’s seen the revised rulebook, you fucking nerd.”

“My cousin in Kenosha has,” Chip said. “He was at Gen Con last year and that was the rumor.”

“What’s the ‘Gen’ in Gen Con stand for?” I asked.

“Lake Geneva,” Chip said.

I didn’t know anything about anything. I didn’t even know where Lake Geneva was, or Kenosha.

“As you can tell,” Mason said to me, “Chip’s not getting a lot of action here at Boyd.”

Chip pushed up his glasses, then crossed his skinny arms. “Neither are you, blood.”

“Oh, snap,” Mason said.

Wexworth opened the door. “Gentlemen, will you join us, please?”

We stepped inside.

Everyone in the room looked upset, except for Wexworth.

When Mason took his seat, he said, “Don’t they have to leave the room?”

“No,” Wexworth said. “They’re all dead.”

—

I’d gotten so wrapped up in the game I’d spaced on rehearsal. Damiano appeared at our door and said, “Hey, asshole, did you forget something?” He waved for me to follow him, but as we were leaving the classroom, Mason called out, “Mr. D,” and caught up with us outside. “Can I have a word with Griffin, please?” And while Damiano stood in the hallway, fists to hips, Mason said to him, “It’s private.”

“Come to the theater the second you’re done,” Damiano said.

We watched him huff off.

Mason said, “You still don’t know what you’re doing in there.” When I started to apologize, he interrupted. “Cut the bullshit. I’ve got plans for your character but not if you don’t. So straight up. Do you want to play or not?”

I nodded.

“Then march yourtyroass to West Side Comics and buy the books. Don’t come back until you do.”

I started to walk away.

“And, Griffin,” Mason said. When I turned around, he added, “Readthem.”

Which I did not. At least not at first. Late that afternoon, on the bus ride home from the store, I opened thePlayer’s Handbookto its table of contents and scanned its endless appendices and tables and charts and its preface, at which point I closed the book, cowed, and opened theDungeon Master’s Guide.This was an even thicker, more intimidating volume, and as if it were a flipbook, I let its pages flap from front to back with my thumb and spied its index, its vast glossary of miscellaneous treasure and magic interrupted by pictures that were far easier to pause and dream on than the blocks of text were to peruse. And then, randomly, I stopped at “General Naval Terminology,” the first several items of which read: