Basements & Board Games
“Dash it, dwarf, we play in character! In character! You have to speak as though you were a suburban software developer in his mid-30s.”
The three of them — a rogue, a dwarf, and a wizard — were sitting in a dungeon. Their only company was leaning against a boulder in the corner: an orc skeleton with his leather trousers still intact. Complete darkness was prevented by faint torch light, which seeped through the cracks in the heavy oak door high above, and an eerie orange glow that came from behind the boulder, giving the huge rock something like a halo.
“I will not play this rogue way.”
“It’s not the rogue way; it’s the standard way, and it’s how it has to be played.”
“In dwarf culture, we declare our character’s actions and words in plain terms. Not this play-acting foolishness.”
“It’s called ‘role-playing,’ and it makes the experience more immersive.”
“Immersive is not the dwarf way.”
“We need this to be immersive. You have to trust me on this.”
“Trust a rogue? Ha! I’d as soon trust an elf.”
The rogue put his finger and thumb on his temples and shook his head. “Look. I have an idea on how we can get out of here, and it involves playing this game. It might not work, but it’s something. If you have a better idea, I’d be glad to hear it.”
“My idea was for the wizard to float us up to that door in the ceiling, and for me to smash it open with my axe.
“But we don’t have your axe, and the wizard doesn’t have his memory.”
The rogue blamed himself. If only he’d have known the castle had a troll on staff, he would have recruited a larger crew. Now they were in that castle’s dungeon, weaponless, and with a wizard who had been hit so hard by the troll that he hardly even remembered he was a wizard.
The wizard put his hand to the makeshift bandage on his head and moaned.
“Come,” said the rogue. “Let us continue play. If nothing else, it distracts him from his pain. Play however you must, dwarf.”
The rogue continued: “You walk down the creaking wooden stairs into the basement. It is an unfinished cement-floored wasteland with tan boxes stacked in one corner and an unused weight bench in another. Assorted mousetraps and roach hotels line the walls. Dusty daylight streams in from a pair of squat windows near the ceiling. The wife calls down from above, ‘Bill, I need help with the kids!’” The rogue yelled in her voice.
“I tell her I’ll be up in a minute,” said the dwarf.
“You said you would help!”
“I tell her that was before Marshall came over,” said the dwarf calmly.
“You can play your dad games after the kids are in bed.”
“I ignore her. What is the treasure again?”
“The treasure is a book of game mechanics for the tabletop adventure Jails and Giants. The group is getting back together tonight now that everyone’s kids are back in school, but you can’t play if you can’t find it.”
The wizard spoke as Marshall, “I think it might be in one of these boxes.”
The dwarf protested, “You don’t have the initiative — “
“The wizard can go,” cut in the rogue.
“But he doesn’t — “
“I’m the Basement Boss, dwarf. The next time we play, you can enforce whatever rules you want.” Then he leaned toward the dwarf and whispered, “Trust me on this. I can get him to remember.”
“The next time we play, we will do it the dwarf way,” he grumbled.
“Let him go ahead,” said the wizard.
The rogue watched him. “Are you sure?”
The wizard nodded.
“Alright, dwarf,” said the rogue. “What do you want to do?”
“I want to open the box on the top.”
The rogue spoke, “You open the box. Inside are thick computer programming manuals: C++, Java, SQL. Your wife yells from upstairs: ‘Bill, if you don’t help with these kids, I am canceling your game night.’”
The dwarf huffed, gritted his teeth, and said, “I go upstairs, turn on a kids’ show, and sit with them for the first five minutes until I can go back downstairs without them noticing.”
“Alright, wizard, it’s your turn. What do you want to do?”
The wizard ran his fingers through his long beard.
“Take your time,” said the rogue. “Concentrate.”
The wizard closed his eyes. “I open the box right below the last one. No, the one right behind it and slightly to the left. Yes. That’s the one.
“This box contains several board game boxes packed tightly together. Hero Guest. Buynanza. Carcass Zone. But what’s this? Wedged between two boxes is something much thinner. You inch it out with your finger. It’s the official third edition manual of Jails and Giants!”
“My turn,” said the dwarf.
“No, you’re still upstairs.”
“I said I would leave after five minutes.”
“It’s only been two.”
“No, it hasn’t.
“Fine, it’s only been one.”
“This isn’t fun!” cried the dwarf.
The rogue threw up his hands, “It’s not about fun, it’s about getting out of here!”
“How is this going to get us out of here? We have no weapons. We have no spells. We clearly only have one set of wits — “ he pointed to his forehead “ — between the three of us.”
The wizard mumbled to himself, “I pick up the manual.”
“Look, small one, I had everything under control. But you couldn’t sit still and let someone else lead the way. Just like in Qaladar.”
“Don’t bring up Qaladar!”
With his eyes closed, the wizard thumbed through imaginary pages.
“We agreed before Qaladar that I was going to call the shots.”
“Don’t!”
“We agreed that you were going to take orders, just this once.”
“I don’t want to hear it!” The dwarf covered his ears.
“We agreed — “
“I found it,” said the wizard.
The rogue and the dwarf looked at him.
“What did you find?” asked the dwarf.
“The spell,” said the wizard.
“He remembers!” cried the dwarf. He looked at the rogue. “Because of the game?
The rogue smiled. “Stories can recall to us what we never knew, or teach us what we forgot.”
“But that’s a Bard move,” contested the dwarf.
“What can I say?” replied the rogue. “I see something useful, and I steal it. Will you trust me next time I have an idea?”
The dwarf nodded. “If it’s as good as that one.”
From a pocket in his robe, the wizard took a die and threw it onto the stone floor. It bounced three times and settled on a high number.
Lifting both arms, he cried in an ancient language: “Erevom da martep!”
The boulder in the corner of the room budged, scraping against the stone floor. The orc skeleton collapsed into a pile of individual bones, and the glow behind the rock grew brighter.
Then in an instant, the boulder flew upward. It smashed through the dungeon door and disappeared beyond. Bits of ceiling rained down. Guards screamed in alarm and called for reinforcements.
The dwarf took an orc femur into each of his thick hands. “We’ll have to fight our way out.”
But now the dungeon was flooded with orange light. The rogue looked to its source and saw that the boulder had been plugging a hole in the wall. He went to it and leaned inside.
“It’s a dragons den!”
“A dragon,” said the wizard. “That means — “
“Treasure!” cheered the dwarf.
An arrow struck the stone floor and snapped in two. They looked up. Half a dozen guards had gathered around the newly-destroyed ceiling, some with bows, some with swords.
“Do we fight our way to freedom,” asked the rogue, “or risk death to steal a dragon’s hoard?”
The three of them looked at each other, smiled, and charged into the glowing hole.”
