The Forgotten Citadel Part 1

I was sitting on the back porch and watching the June Bugs crisscross the yard like mad kamikazes slamming into each other as I waited for the others to join us. Poot and the Master Planner were already sitting down at the table drinking cheap, warm beer, while I sipped a cocktail. 

I had been playing Dungeons and Dragons for three months and had made a new character every three days as each Dungeon Master repeated the same pattern. To the man, each had stepped forward and announced, "I intend to run this campaign from level 1 to 20. So if you don't have to stomach for it then step away as this is where the big boys play." We would then play a single night of the campaign and they would act like the walls were incredibly interesting whenever they were asked when the next session would be run. 

At first I had assumed that the problem was with me, the Master Planner, or Poot. After all, in each of the games we had been playing we had been the only constants. But after I had brought this suspicion up to Thief 1 he explained the problem to me. "You see," he began in his faltering manner, "the problem is that all the guys have these great ideas, and then they put them into to play and watch them fall apart in the first five minutes and they've no where to go. So they bug out."

I had just spent sixty dollars buying my own set of books so I was not in a mood to spend day, after day, after day rolling up nameless characters that would be tossed into the bin as soon as we had finished with them. I had a job and enough other interests to take up my time. 

To say that my interest in the game was waning would be an understatement. I had already begun to look into opening an ebay account so that I could get some of my money back when Poot and the Master Planner decided to take things into their own hands. Each of them had gone to their own contacts within our gaming group and gotten their friends to agree to take this next game seriously, push it beyond that first level, and on towards a full campaign. 

In all honesty, I was done with the hobby and done with sitting around pretending to be a fairy-fucking-tale. So I had no intention of playing Dungeons and Dragons tonight. In fact I had been sneaking off to my truck with my fishing gear, a thermos full of my favorite cocktail, and was heading towards the lake when Poot had pulled up that evening with a six pack of Pat's Blue Ribbon and the Master Planner in the passenger seat. Together the two of them had been able to convince me to give this game a shot.

They say that in the cool of a summer evening, when the crickets start playing their songs and the peepers come out to sing along that anything is possible, and I sure as hell was hoping that this game wouldn't be another waste of my time.

Click here to read Part 2