Tales of the Table
November 22nd, 2010
Hello everyone, and welcome to Thanksgiving week (and, on a highly related note, welcome to Thanksgiving Week, our theme week devoted to, well, the holiday of Thanksgiving). If you’re wondering how on earth we could make tasteful, relevant, and interesting articles which manage to be about both Thanksgiving and Dungeons and Dragons (or at least roleplaying games in general), then I urge you to keep reading, and of course to stick around for the rest of the week, as the festivities are just getting underway.
Of course, Thanksgiving is about more than just food, football, and fall sales (I had to stretch that one a bit for the alliteration, but I think it was worth it). In theory, at least, Thanksgiving is about taking a moment to recognize and acknowledge all of the good things in your life, and to be thankful that you have them, and perhaps to ponder and reflect on the lives of those less fortunate than yourself. Generally speaking, not precisely the most feel-good kind of activities, as they mostly tend to leave you with a heavy dose of catholic-grade guilt.
Throughout most of my childhood, it became something of a family tradition, at the end of the Thanksgiving meal, for my father to recite a little story. I, being an ungrateful child who found all of the above introspection highly uncomfortable for all of the reasons listed above, did my best to nod politely so that I could leave quickly, while at the same time trying very hard to not actually learn anything from the encounter. For this reason, the story’s a little hazy in my memory (truth be told, I seem to recall it was never really that well-developed of a story), but it went something like this:
Somewhere in Africa (or else it was sometime back in the 1800’s, I think it may have changed from year to year) there was a little poor boy, who barely had enough money for food. Because he was poor, and had to walk everywhere, this little boy’s shoes were quite torn up, and barely even manage to cover his feet. He had blisters and calluses and often had to run around barefoot because he didn’t have any shoes. Then, one day, someone gave him new shoes (I think it may have been an annual thing, like a Christmas present, or something), and he was so excited and grateful, because they were the best thing he could imagine.
To the best of my knowledge, this guilt-laden story was too heavy-handed to have much of an impact on either myself or my younger brother, as neither of us was very interested in learning any kind of moral lesson which came with so much baggage. Besides, I never really understood why being thankful meant that you had to feel bad because you didn’t find shoes exciting, and wished that your parents would stop giving you clothes for Christmas.
Perhaps I missed the point of the story entirely (my spider sense is tingling that this may, in fact, be the case), but even if this is the case, it still demonstrates that the story, as a ritual, was a failure: after all, if the message didn’t get across, it didn’t really do its job, even if it was because the audience wasn’t receptive (or wasn’t getting it). My father was also fond of saying that effective communication is about getting ideas across to other people, and even if your means of communicating is “perfect” in a vacuum, if the other person is unable to understand it (through their own shortcomings) then, as a communicator, you have failed. You always need to take your audience into account (this, by the way, sounds like an excellent topic for a Dark Designs, but isn’t where I’ll be taking Dark Designs today).
So, when I decided that I wanted to use this space to tell a Thanksgiving story like my father used to tell me, and tap into that sappy, heartfelt gobbledygook that television tells me Thanksgiving is really all about, it seemed to me that I should pick a topic that was a little less heavy-handed. I could talk about what the world would be like if hobby gaming hadn’t come about, and how much we all owe Gary Gygax and Richard Garfield and others of their kind, but at the end of the day, that also seems like the sort of thing that isn’t likely to cause anyone to walk away feeling any better about themselves. And besides, my job here is to entertain, not to preach (not that I can’t do both).
So, instead, I’d like to tell you a different little story. One that’s different from my father’s, where no fingers are pointed and no one is implied to be ungrateful. A feel-good story. If you learn something, that’s great. If not, that’s fine too.
This is a story about a gaming group. It’s not a true story (at least, not any more than the story about the poor kid with no shoes was a “true” story), but it’s not all fiction, either. It’s not about anyone in particular, but at the same time, it’s about lots of different people, all across the world.
The DM spends hours and hours working on his campaign, creating NPCs, towns, plot arcs, and stories, pouring his heart and soul into telling his story, creating a work of art. His players (those that make the time to show up regularly, that is, instead of bailing to hang out with other friends, sleep in, play computer games, or otherwise being generally flaky) are obviously less excited and involved in this than the DM, who’s put all this work into it, and so tension arises as the DM feels underappreciated and the players feel railroaded. Some players are texting or making phone calls during the game, while others are busy on Facebook or Tribal Wars. The game keeps trailing off to jokes or side-conversations.
Meanwhile, one of the players never brings any snacks, and always eats more than his fair share. Another player always has to be in the spotlight, and a third always has to make the most powerful character possible, scouring the internet for the best possible combination of classes and feats. Neither of these players can handle seeing their characters lose or die, and anything of the sort tends to end in shouting matches.
The DM tries to control the group, driving them back to the story like a horse to water, resenting their apparent disinterest in his hard work, while the players resent his railroading and heavy-handed ways. The evening ends, as it often does, with shouting and the slamming of doors.
But most importantly of all, somewhere, perhaps in rural Australia or some other backwater, there’s a player who desperately wishes he could find a group—any group, even the one above, which most sane players wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.
So, don’t take your group for granted. Thank your DM for the work he or she puts into the game. Thank your players for being courteous enough to show up on time (or, if they can’t manage that, thank them for making the time to be here).
And if my story wound up a little more guilt-laden than I’d intended, well, you can solve that easily enough by picking up a little something extra for your next game. Sweets, maybe, or some new dice for the group, or even a sourcebook if you’re feeling particularly thankful. I’m not saying you should, or that you need to, mind: I hate charity guilt trips. The point is, there are thousands of horror stories about terrible groups out there, and thousands of people who wish that they could find the time or the people or the place to game regularly. Be thankful that you can surround yourself with friends once or twice a week (or however often you can). Tell your group you appreciate them.
Most of all, have a good Thanksgiving, people.