Hamato Family D&D Night

This is a cut scene from Chapter fourteen of Spider's Web With Strings Attached that I couldn't make work with the rest of the chapter. It works better as a short snippet anyway.

Hamato Family D&D Night

As much of a nerd as Donnie was, he wasn’t the biggest Dungeons & Dragons player in the family. That mantle fell to Leo. His fascination with knights and dragons had only grown over time. He forced his brothers to play with him (April refused after the Cosplay Wizard Freakout of 2016).

To say that it was a disaster would have been an understatement.

Leo was the Dungeon Master, but was admittedly terrible at it. He had a favorite NPC (Luscious-locks the Elf) who never failed at anything to an obnoxious degree. He’d made Luscious-locks seem like the main character of the whole campaign, much to the chagrin of his brothers. However, his brothers weren’t much better at playing either.

Raph’s character adopted every single animal they encountered. (“Raph for the last time, you already have six stray cats.” “But Raph needs a seventh to name them all after days of the week!”)

Mikey always spent too long making the most intricate backstory for his character he could think of. And then he was never consistent with his roleplaying. Some days his character wanted to solve everyone else's problems with kind words and hugs. Other times he was the first to suggest burning a village to the ground to solve its grasshopper problem. It made for a rather frustrating experience.

And then there was Donnie.

He did not seem to understand the words “suspend your disbelief”. If Leo described a town their characters visated, Donnie demanded a map, a list of all the citizens, their ages and professions, a layout of the irrigation system, and a detailed list of the materials the town used.

“I don’t know!” Leo cried at last. “Oak houses, or something!”

“But you specifically described that the woods around the village were made out of birch wood. This begs the question: where did they get their oak? They’re not near a major road for trading, and there are no rivers in sight. In fact, this village is surrounded by mountains, meaning trade with the entirety of the outside world is extremely difficult! Therefore, this village must have obtained their oak wook through illegal magical practices, and the evil wizard Sathsomore must be hiding out here. We should burn these oak houses to the ground.”

“I second that!” Mikey piped up. “I cast fireball!”

Leo banged his head against the table. “Mikey, you’re a barbarian; you don’t have magic!”

“But I rolled a 20!”

“Raph’s character wants to save all the animals before we burn it down!”

“Too late, I already set the tavern on fire…” Donnie said flatly.

With all the maturity of a thirteen-year-old boy (which he was), Leo flipped the table. For years afterwards, dice could be found in the corners of the Lair.

And so Hamato family Dungeons & Dragons game nights were no longer a thing.