2019-08-10 - A Game is Born

Kevin's beater Ford Escort pulls up outside Tobin's house, and he parks halfway down the block, popping out and grinning over to Magnolia as he gets out of the car. "It'll be awesome. Promise. D&D's cool now. I mean, it was cool back in high school too, just no one understood that." As he talks, he walks toward Tobin's door, offering out his hand to Magnolia and then snagging it back with a bashful look, "Sorry."

The little cottage with it's mostly obscured view of the bay looks pretty much as it always has. The little rose garden in the back that Tobin's mother tended is still there, but is much more sparse than it used to be when she was around. Inside, it's the same. That same warm cheerful interior that kind of radiates comfort hasn't changed with all the years. He opens up the door when he sees them coming up the walk from the street and grins, "Hey guys. Come on in, make yourselves at home. Coffee? Something else?"

Magnolia is out of the car moments after him, slinging her messenger bag back across her shoulder. She smirks at him, walking up toward the cottage with easy strides. "Yes. No one understood how cool it was... it was so cool, it was lame." Then she is brightening for Tobin, and she throws open her arms in great dramatics to hug him around his middle in a familiar kind of squeeze. "Do you have bourbon?" She whispers this against his chest.

"Dude." Kevin grins around as he steps in, stepping out of the way so that Magnolia can pounce Tobin, "This place looks exactly the same." He shakes his head, offering Tobin an utterly inadequate bro-hug in the wake of Magnolia's squeeze, "Even after four years in Seattle, I never picked up the coffee habit." Shrugging, he gestures to Magnolia, "I've totally convinced Lia to join in on the campaign. I've convinced her it's cool." Grinning broadly over to Magnolia, he blink-blinks at her, "Right?"

Tobin chuckles at the dramatic hug, wrapping both arms around Magnolia's shoulders and giving her a warm squeeze before murmuring down to her, "I will see what I can do." He does, in fact, have bourbon. Then he releases her and grins over at Kevin, giving him a one-armed hug with a smack to the shoulder, appropriately bro-huggy, chuckling as he does so. "What would you like?" he asks Kevin, "I have coke, water, juice, milk, tea, bourbon.." he nods at Magnolia, "beer.." He wanders toward the kitchen after stopping by the small liquor cabinet for the bourbon and pours a bit for Magnolia, refreshing his own cup of coffee, and getting Kevin whatever he wants before returning to the livingroom. "Man, I haven't played in so long. I think it'll be fun. We could all use a little fun." He ponders. "I wonder if Raf would play. I bet he would."

"You're a wonderful, beautiful person," Magnolia dramatically whisper to Tobin before she lets him go so Kevin can offer his bro-hug. Then she's stepping into the house, looking around with a casual smile. "Bourbon sounds great, Tobin. Splash of water with it?" Then she pads into the livingroom, accepting the tumbler of bourbon before she finds herself a comfortable seat on the floor, leaning back onto the couch. "Alright, so someone tell me what dragons I can choose from." What? She really has zero idea.

"Coke's great," Kevin responds quickly. He heads over toward the kitchen, then stops, glancing over to Magnolia and then back to Tobin, "Uh... with a splash of bourbon or something. That'd be great." He flops down on the sofa, then stops and stares at Magnolia, "Uhh... I mean, we could do a dragon campaign, where we all play dragons. But usually, the dragons are the the bad guys. Or, too be a little more complex, they're like... they can be allies or enemies or anything like that. Depends on how you approach them." Looking back to Tobin, he adds, "And yeah, I think I could do like... 6 or 7 players?"

"I don't think we ever did one where we played the dragons," Tobin says with a bit of a grin. "We could always do something where we're the dragons deciding if we're going to aid the adventurers in their epic battles or if we're just going to eat them as a snack and go back to napping." It's hard to tell if he's entirely serious or not. Kevin gets a coke with a little splash of bourbon in it. He settles down into one of the comfy armchairs near the sofa and says, "Cool. I'll see if he's interested. With Byron and Lilith that would give us.. six, right?"

"Hey. No pressure, babe. You have whatever you want with your coke." Then Magnolia takes a sip of her own drink, settling back against the couch on the floor. She squints at the two nerds with a slight speculative look. "But... it's called Dungeons and Dragons. I assumed we were the dragons, or do we go into dungeons and fight dragons? Look, someone just make me a character and I'll be here to swing a sword, or throw fireballs. Just make it cool." Magnolia was probably present at one of these campaigns, but was reading a book through the whole thing and only looked up at the cheers or groans of crits-- successes or failures. "Alright. I gotta ask... are Byron and Lilith a thing? Like, I thought Byron was dating Dr. Glass?"

Kevin tries to play off Magnolia's comment with a shrug, then takes a sip of the drink, nods his thanks to Tobin, and then chuckles, "Dragon-game might be pretty fun, but if we're going to have a couple of newbies in Lia and Dr. Glass, maybe we should start with something more straightforward." He double-snap-points to Magnolia at her second assumption, "Yeah. You usually don't fight dragons right away. A dragon'd pretty much wipe out a starting-level party, unless they're super-smart about it, but yeah, we can sit down, put together a character for you." The question of who Byron is dating draws a shrug, "I... I got no idea. I haven't kept as in-touch as I should've. But she was sort of part of the original Guild. I mean, some of the time." Looking back to Tobin, he inquires, "Whaddya think? Going to go elf-y again? Or break type and play a half-orc?"

"Raf, too, if he comes. I don't thinkt hat he's played before either on account of not wanting to get more beat up in school," Tobin says with a little bit of a crooked smile. He takes a sip from his coffee, glancing between the two of them. "But yeah, something straightforward sounds good for a start. Could always do a dragon game later on if people were into the idea after learning the basic." Magnolia's question earns her a slight shrug of his shoulders, "I don't know, honestly. The two of them have always had.. something. But then I thought Vivian and Byron were a thing, too. So, I don't know." He grins at Kevin then and says, "You know me -- always have to be the pretty boy. I'll be an elf, or human most likely."

Magnolia scoffs at the mere idea of her being called a newbie, even if it is true. She does take a sip from her tumbler again, and she cuts a glance toward Kevin before she looks back to Tobin. "I don't know. The whole thing was awkward." Then she takes another sip before she talks about more serious topics-- character concepts. "Oh. Elves. Right. So, can I just basically choose my favorite character from The Hobbit and make one of you create it for me?" She takes another sip, glancing between the two curiously.

Kevin nods at Tobin's mention of Raf, "Yeah, so you two, Raf, Byron, Lilith, and Dr. Glass -- that's six. Leaves room for one more person to get dragged along." His eyes cut over to Magnolia and he grins, "I mean... I could run a kid-friendly game if you want to bring Lark, but I discovered in college that booze and adults makes for way better gaming." He pauses and looks back to Tobin, "Wait, did I get beat up in school because of D&D?" He laughs, clearly knowing it was far more than that. Magnolia's suggestion cuts off the laughter, however, and he stares at her, "What. No." He narrows his eyes at her, "I mean, yes, you can. But come on. You can do way better than that. We'll poke at character concepts later, yeah?"

"Raf's brother Iggy might be interested, if we want another," Tobin says, when Kevin mentions that there is room for another. "This definitely needs to be a booze and adult D&D adventure. We can always do something special for Lark another time." He definitely seems to be in the non-family-friendly version. He grins at Magnolia and says, "You can pick a type of character from the movie that you like and use it as an inspiration to come up with something original based around that."

"Okay. Any chance I have to have Mommy-Only Time is precious, so if I can get a longterm babysitter to watch Lark every week so we can do this, I'm going to have Mommy-Only Time." Magnolia says this to Kevin before she flashes a wink to Tobin. Then she sobers up her look to glare slightly at Kevin. "Okay, fine, but I want to play a badass Dwarf. Can I play a half-dwarf/half-elf?" She looks between Tobin and Kevin for confirmation. Then she looks to Tobin. "Bring Raf, bring Iggy. The more newbies we have, the better."

"I mean, I wouldn't be looking for a seventh. But I can probably handle it. It's been a couple of years, but I had a group of eight in college, and one of ten in Seattle. That was crazy." Kevin takes another sip of his drink, and then nearly spits it out at Magnolia's request, pressing his lips together and then carefully swallowing. "You can't play Tauriel and Kili's baby." Chuckling, he adds, "But, you can play a badass dwarf -- they don't have dwelfs or elarv -- nope, that one doesn't work. But yes, Mommy-Only Time is great." Looking over to Tobin, he nods, "And yeah, you're right. Booze and D&D is the best."

"You should play the one played by Aidan Turner in the movie. The hot dwarf," Tobin says, and then laughs when Kevin says that she can't bea Tuariel and Kili's baby. "Why not?" he asks, "That'd be a hot half-dwarf half-elf." He is /not/ helping the situation. He does give thumbs-up to booze and D&D. "Did you want to have it here? There's plenty of room, and we can set up the dining room table for it."

"I don't even know what this entails," Magnolia says honestly. "I've only seen memes." Then she takes another sip of her tumbler, savoring it a moment before she gives Kevin a glare. "I sure as hell can play Tauriel and Kili's baby-- you shut up." Her glare stays on Kevin for a heartbeat before her nose wrinkles good-naturedly. Then she looks back to Tobin. "Just like old times."

"That's Kili," Kevin informs Tobin, "And yes, he's hot." But then there are mechanical reasons for, "Because there's no race for that, and the homebrew one is just stupid. Like, a -4 Charisma, +2 Dex and +2 Con," yes, he only pronounces the first part of each word, "and half the toys from each side. It's like... perfect fighter-bait. Too perfect. Total fan-wank." He narrows his eyes between Tobin and Magnolia, and puts on his best Palpatine voice, "So it's treason then."

Tobin lifts up a hand for Magnolia to give him a high-five when she proclaims that she can totally play Tauriel and Kili's baby. "I'll try not to hit on your character too much." He flashes a grin then, and laughs at Kevin's reaction. "Maybe just a little treason." He finishes up his cup of coffee and then sets it off to one side, pulling his legs up so that he's sitting cross-legged in the chair.

Magnolia returns the high-five with gusto. Then she is plopping back into the couch. "Thanks, dude." Then she is taking a sip from her glass, almost finishing it. "Alright, just let me be an elf and we can shove the dwarf thing in there without stat changes." She hesitates. "They're called stats, right?" Uh oh. She might have just given a little away there.

Kevin watches the high-five and shakes his head, "Whole bunch of traitors. The both of you." At Magnolia's compromise, however, he waggles his eyebrows behind his glasses, "We're definitely still doing phrasing. Because 'shoving the dwarf thing in there' is definitely phrasing." Gathering his glass in both hands, he leans forward, narrowing his eyes at her, "That sounds suspiciously like someone who's played before, Lia. You haven't been holding out on me, have you?" He glances to Tobin, "I think she just wants Raf and Doctor Glass here so that she looks awesome in comparison."

Grinning, Tobin says, "But you love us anyway," to Kevin. One brow goes up and he says, "I think you might be right, there." He says, "Alright so, I'm going to be playing an elf, probably a ranger like usual. May as well stick to what I know." He gets up then, wandering off to grab the bottle of bourbon and brings it back out to the livingroom. He refills Magnolia's glass a little bit and pours some into his now-empty coffee cup.

Magnolia crosses her arms at her chest, fingers held loosely to the edge of her tumbler. She narrows her eyes at Kevin before she huffs out a breath. "Look, I played World of Warcraft for like a year when I first started Sneakers. I was low on cases, and it was easy to level-up while I was waiting for clients or waiting on database retrieval-- look, I haven't actually been holding out."

Kevin waggles his hand at Tobin like 'maaaaybe,' then grins. "Two elves, even if one likes to tell people that her mama was a dwarf. Or daddy, or whatever." Magnolia's 'confession' draws a gasp from Kevin, and he presses one hand to his chest, "What the hell, Lia? You're a WoWer? I totally gotta rethink my life." Then he breaks into laughter, "Where'd you play? I had a Blelf pally on Andorhal for years. Best thing to do while waiting for a story to break." He looks back over to Tobin, "I don't know. We might need to go to the third judge. Is that holding out, Tobin?"

"Hey, I play WoW from time to time too," Tobin says, "Though not really all that often. I don't think I even have a max level character anymore at this point. I've got one of each of everything, though. I used to play a lot more often, before I actually took over ownership of the business. I tend to play more in the off season." He laughs and shakes his head at Kevin, "Nah, I don't consider that holding out. MMOs are not the same as tabletop." That seems to be his deciding criteria.

Magnolia blinks as she looks over at Kevin, taking a sip from her refilled tumbler-- THANKS TOBIN! She considers the nerd for a long moment, squinting and all. Then she inquires, calmly, "Did you ever hear of the guild 'Seducers of Devotion?'" Her eyes train on Kevin a moment before she looks back over to Tobin. "They are definite time sucks. I had to eventually stop after the Lich King expansion." Careful, Magnolia. You're starting to sound like a nerd.

Kevin takes Tobin's ruling with a gracious nod of acceptance, "I might have gotten into raiding a little too much for my..." he slowly turns toward Magnolia, "...own... good. What guild did you say? You seriously didn't just say Seducers of Devotion? I mean like, creepy name, but one of my co-workers played in it and they were a great raiding guild and oh my god did we play in the same WoW Guild? That's like, totally and utterly random."