D&D 101 (Chicago Nerd Social Club) - Dice Dojo

D&D 101 (Chicago Nerd Social Club) - Dice Dojo

What I could do is point out that where you don’t see ponytails, you see hair being pushed behind ears. And facial hair. There’s plenty of facial hair. It’s mostly goatees, but you can see the occasional Gandalf beard or wild thatch of character-based sideburn. What I could do is crack wise about how there are enough pewter, fantasy-themed necklaces to fill an entire mall kiosk or enough ironic t-shirts to clothe every citizen of Ironicstan. Or Witsylvania. Or the planet Sarcastica. I could snide it up about the “Kneel Before Zod” cross-stitch, the villains of Star Wars wall mural, and the Battlestar Galactica… well, the pretty much every Battlestar Galactica thing ever that could be considered load-bearing in this nerdly hut. In fact, I’d planned on it. Relished the opportunity. (I mean, just look at me hypothetically go, for God’s sake: “Ironicstan”? Take that, nerds!)


But after I give it some thought, I come to the conclusion that I can’t make fun of these folks or their Fortress of Nerditude (zing!). At first, I think that it’s because it’d probably be hypocritical. After all, except for the ponytail (because, come on, ponytail) I’ve had the long hair and the goatee and the ironic t-shirt and even a damn pewter necklace. I think that I can’t make fun because I’ve most assuredly been here before. But then, after some thought, I realize I can’t make fun of these folks because, in the end, it’d all be so much sour grapes.

Sunday Night

D&D 101
Chicago Nerd Social Club
Dice Dojo
5550 N. Broadway Ave.
Chicago, IL

Time: 5:30pm - 8:30pm
COST: An Uncomfortable return to nerd-roots, Coming up with terms like Nerd Leap of Faith and The Nerd-to-Dork Exclusion Theory, Free.

Games give you a chance to excel, and if you're playing in good company you don't even mind if you lose because you had the enjoyment of the company during the course of the game.

-Gary Gygax


The fact that the Chicago Nerd Society has only existed for one year is a piss-poor excuse for me not having heard about them years ago. Seriously. When I moved to Chicago, the Chamber of Commerce sent me a letter welcoming me, a map of the area, and a coupon or two. Where was the mention of a society dedicated to board games, horror movies, role-playing games, and being an American goddamn nerd? Huh? And just what else are those Washington Fat Cats not telling us? Plenty. So when I found out about the CNS and their Dungeons and Dragons introduction seminar online, I began to scrounge up my motivation.

Who was it that once said “In Chicago, February is the most give-uppingest month ever there was”? Why, I did. By now, it’s been months since winter first set in, leaving Chicago with this constant, sick-E.T. hue that eventually makes residents want to die, if only dying didn’t seem like such a chore. Sure, there’s hope that spring and summer might just happen again some day, but, honestly, it seems like a long-shot. By February, the very concept of motivation has been lazily stabbed in the neck, is what I’m saying here.

So it took me a lot to “stand up” and “move” and “continue breathing” enough to brave the freezing rain and reduced bus schedule to get out there and meet folks. But, I have to say that in terms of talking to strangers, I couldn’t have set up something easier than the Nerdopolis realized when the terms Nerd Society, D&D, and Dice Dojo converge. An introduction to Dungeons and Dragons combines people as awkward as – and then very much more awkward than – myself along with a sort of forced, but fun, interaction. I’d be amongst my kind, where my pop culture references would be as appreciated as that one character when they did that thing in that movie or book.

The Dice Dojo is exactly what you expect. The front room is stuffed to the gills with every possible role-playing game and game accessory you could imagine, and then some more that you couldn’t imagine, and then a few that you still can’t imagine even when you’re looking right at them, all surrounded by a scattered assortment of nerdly detritus. The class took place in the back room, an open area with numerous table setups, folding chairs, and, hey-what-do-you-know more games, accessories and detritus. If someone asked me where I was on Sunday night, I could just say “There was a full wall dedicated to an ongoing Battlestar Galactica board game tournament,” and consider the question settled.

The setup and settling in period took more time than expected as the place was packed. I lost count of how many people were there, exactly, but did happen to make note that there were, in fact, 10 girls. Not out of surprise, mind you, but – I’m just saying. I sat down at one of the table setups and meet Tim and Jason, who may or may not be related, and each of whom have their own bag of dice. Also sitting at my table are Brenda and Matt, also with their own dice. Brenda has a notebook full of character sheets as well. It’s somehow intimidating, honestly. They all start talking about their fairly advanced experience with D&D and the differences between the 3rd edition and the (apparently) new 4th edition. Brenda mentions that she used to play the 2nd edition as either a point of pride or maybe to date herself. Me? The best I can muster is saying that I used to play a long time ago.

And it’s true. I used to play Dungeons and Dragons when I was younger. But it was a total fucking act of rebellion. Recognize!

I grew up in a relatively strict Baptist house and, as such, was routinely forbidden from partaking in things that the church deemed “wrong,” because they’re “sinful” nature would get my “soul” “cast” into “eternal hell.” This not only included drinking and drugs and swearing and oh so many other things I currently enjoy, but also any hot-button issues that came up. Ozzy Osbourne was recruiting kids for satanic cults with his music, it turned out. No Ozzy for us. He-Man promoted magic use and The Smurfs were actually the ghosts of dead children. No He-Man or The Smurfs for us. When Madonna’s Like a Prayer video aired, and the church reacted, my sister threw all of her Madonna cassettes into our fireplace. As she solemnly watched the tapes melt, I seem to remember her saying something along the lines of “you can almost see the demons burning, Andy.”

When it turned out that I was playing Dungeons and Dragons with some neighborhood friends, I was quickly forbidden from ever seeing those friends again. My parents had heard (through the church) that some kid somewhere had gotten high on acid this one time and, after playing Dungeons and Dragons for 30-hours straight, had jumped off a roof and died because he thought that, like his D&D character, he would be able to fly. Like so many other suburban, Baptist youth, flimsy urban legends pretty much ruined my childhood.

The point is, at the age of 14, when the opportunity came along to play D&D and some other role playing games, I went for it. Eternal soul be damned, so to speak. And for about six months, I played on the weekends in the back room of Action Comics in Newport News, Virginia. So, like I mentioned, I’ve been here before.

Personal past and conflicted feelings out of the way, however, I can’t compliment Chicago Nerd Society enough on this seminar. There was a discussion about what role-playing was, a bit about the history of D&D, founder Gary Gygax, and what makes the thing so much fun. They also showed off some D&D relics, the most impressive of which was a copy of the very first edition of Dungeons and Dragons. According to the speaker, the original game was completely unplayable because the instruction books included in the set didn’t have enough information to actually begin a game. Key components would have to be provided by someone who had played the game before, just as that person had been taught by someone before and so on. This went on and on straight back to Gary Gygax himself teaching his friends how to play and, in this way, the game was founded on the idea that the most important part of game-play was live, social interaction. Social interaction is a keystone of the game’s development and something that Gygax would continue to emphasize with each new iteration of the game.

After the discussion, we’re given the option of joining a group and using some pre-made characters to go on a brief quest or creating our own character and come back on one of the evenings that CNS hosts open games at the Dice Dojo. Sitting beside me is Rusty, who I talked to for just a moment before the seminar begins. While the rest of our table is talking about which editions they preferred, Rusty tells me that he’s never, ever, ever played D&D in his entire life. His parents raised him as a Christian Reformed, he says, and that they looked down on the occult aspects of the game. I tell him that I know what he means. Rusty is one of the few who decides to forego the adventure and create a character. I see him later on buying several books and some dice.

This is another point about D&D 101 – I genuinely think that CNS set this event up primarily to introduce people to something that they enjoyed. Going into this, I expected to have the game pushed on me time and again, pressure to buy this or that, or at the very least have to purchase my own dice, but that wasn’t the case at all. Most of the discussion and the following group adventures really felt like people showing other people something they love to do. It was downright refreshing.

After the discussion, there’s a brief introduction to the game at our table, mostly for my benefit and the benefit of Cynthia (who came in a little late with her boyfriend John). Our DM (Dungeon Master, y’all) explains stats, combat, spells, and basic adventuring technique before the nine of us get underway, investigating claims of a kobold infestation in a nearby town. There’s a kidnapped grandson, and a bar fight, and a well leading to a dungeon, and it all feels very familiar to me as I generally manage to slip right back into playing along.

This time around, though, more than fifteen years later, I notice a sort of shared phenomenon that I’m still having trouble defining. At the time I think of it as a Nerd Leap of Faith, and while that doesn’t sound quite right, I can’t think of a better term, so, live with it, huh? It first happens during the main discussion, our main speaker, Phil, is talking about role-playing in an abstract way (i.e. role-playing is like when you pretended to be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the playground; role-playing is a way to get together and eat crappy food and have fun, role-playing is a breeding ground for in-jokes), but there came a moment where he had to talk about his personal experience in role-playing, and that moment is what I’m talking about here.

In talking about what a DM does, he starts to bring up personal experiences, noting that he’s currently leading an adventure where the characters are traveling through time and fighting gods and that soon they’ll have to travel back through time and become gods themselves. Typical stuff, really, a dragon here, some magical staff of whatnot there, no doubt. Somewhere in there, however, it becomes necessary for him to drop the pretense of talking about this adventure like it’s just some story and begin talking about it like it’s something in which he and his friends are actively participating, and that shift, that moment and how the rest of us react is what I’ll have to keep referring to as The Nerd Leap of Faith.

It’s goofy as hell, is the thing. When you get right down to it, here is a grown-ass man talking about how his friend is a wizard who adds spells to a crossbow so that it increases the cold damage of his attack. He’s talking about how they nicknamed one of their friend’s characters Kenny, because he died in combat so often and then talking about Kenny killing some ogre or something. Not to belabor the point, but in the simplest terms, Phil is talking about the experiences he had through role-playing and by the very nature of it, the language he uses is the same as though these things actually happened. And as a result, you feel this sort of instinctual embarrassment. As a result, you feel this cynical impulse to laugh or make fun or at least roll your eyes, but you don’t. And you don’t because that’s what you’re there to do. How you play this game is everyone invests themselves into a character and pretends to be that character and makes decisions as that character reacting to events as though, to some degree, those events are actually happening. And, guess what, it is goofy as hell.

But the thing is, it’s a sort of social investment into what you’re all doing there, with everyone agreeing to be goofy as hell and not to laugh and not to roll their eyes or make fun. And to be honest it’s such a rarity that I can’t think of much else that comes close. Even the theatre that I’ve done feels a little less daring because, at the end of the day, you’re doing what a director told you to do based on some words that were written ahead of time. Even on-line role-playing isn’t the same due to the relative anonymity that being on-line essentially provides. No, this is something else. It’s a group of people mutually, wordlessly agreeing that they’re going to have fun playing a good old fashioned game of pretend and, yes, they’re going to get invested in stupid dragons and spells and rock monsters and other nonsense. And then, on top of all of that, they’re all agreeing that the more invested they get, and the less they judge each other, and the goofier they can be, the more fun they are going to have. It’s its own special brand of cool when you think about it. If you think about it in the right way, anyway.

But this time around – fifteen years later – I can’t do it. I get into the game a bit and I’m helping out and talking through the character and fighting, but it’s not the same at all. And it’s not just being old. By the look of it I’m pretty much the median age of all the people who showed up. No, I just can’t pretend to be a wizard fighting kobolds in a dungeon anymore. I end up staying on the periphery of the adventure, using my wizard’s insight to suss out whether someone’s lying, and being grateful when Brenda’s Rock Monster saves my wizard from drowning, and, check it, motherfucker, I even get to cast a goddamn magic missile, just like the cool kids do. And it’s fun, but I’m clearly not into it as much as everyone else and looking around, it’s clearly my loss.

I still can’t quite figure this whole thing out, though. I’m not exactly sure why I can’t get into a ridiculous role-playing game, especially since I put my heart into each and every Rock Band performance, and, well, do other nerdly things that I won’t get into. I want to chalk it up to a well-practiced cynicism, but that doesn’t seem quite right either. In the end, I have no choice but to attribute it to self-consciousness. I can’t pretend to be a wizard, not in front of everybody, I mean, that’d be goofy. So, sadly, it turns out I’m too much of a dork to hang out with nerds.

In any event, while I’d like to make jokes about the guy who’s playing his alignment to the letter by torturing a thief and being an unapologetic jerk or make fun of Brenda for letting us know that her Rock Monster is dumb and is going to get into fights whether we like it or not, or our DM for playing Crazy Mary (she of the kidnapped grandson) as extra-crazy with twitches and such – as much as I want to make fun, I can’t. The whole Nerd-to-Dork Exclusion Theory aside, it simply wasn’t long enough ago that I’d be doing the same thing, ordering shitty Virginia pizza and taking breaks to watch Faces of Death or learning how to smoke cigarettes and being awkward and goofy and a big, fat fucking nerd. I mean, all these people, they’re all just having a genuine good time, and if you want to make fun of someone for that, well, just call yourself an insufferable asshole and get it over with.

That said I reserve the right to make fun of other people for just having a genuine good time if I can’t find the redeeming factors in it. I mean, I’m certainly not going to withhold judgment on Twilight fans or people who tries to convince me of the genius of any band that doesn’t start with Radio or end with Nails, or have passions that I consider to be “stupid.” For that, yeah, I’ll gladly wear the insufferable asshole nametag.

So as not to end this on a down note over how you can go home again, nerd-wise or end it on a slightly less down note as I come to the realization that everyone deserves their happiness only to sweep that realization aside in favor of making fun of people who have stupid happinesses, I’ll say this much: It was nice to revisit something like this, and nice to have the opportunity to revisit something like this. Chances are good when you pick up old games or re-examine childhood obsessions that you’re not going to understand exactly why you liked it in the first place or, at best, the thrill is going to wear off quickly. But it’s important to reconnect with your roots from time to time, be it family or friends, the place you grew up or even the ridiculously stupid things that you used to find ridiculously compelling. It was nice to go back and to find that some people still find it ridiculously compelling.

And I’m certainly going to get in on other Chicago Nerd Society events in the future. Definitely the Board Game Night that they host. Especially if they’re playing some Risk, y’all. Pretending to be a wizard? Not so much. Pretending to be an insufferable world-dominating asshole who is not at all above base-camping it in Australia? Yes.

Best believe.