Ame and I are hosting a Dungeons & Dragons game at our place with a bunch of people that I’ve known through the years – all from my alma mater. I’ve mentioned Chad and Bobby before, but Dave and Matt and their wives have joined in as well.

I haven’t played or DM’d in awhile, so it’s a lot of fun. I’m running a 4th edition home-brew campaign and so far, the players are really liking it. Ame started off as the Dungeon Master, but I have since taken over duties and made the campaign my own.

The first week, Ame and I thought Snickers would be a big butthole and get in the way. In reality, he caused the least amount of trouble and people spilled their drinks on the floor at least three times. Eris wanted nothing to do with the whole group and sulked in the furthest corner she could find.

Since then, it’s been hard to get people together due to real life getting in the way, even when we try to hold it on Saturday. So far Ame, Chad, and Dave and his wife Traci are the core members. Matt and his wife have since dropped, not because they don’t do D&D, but they’ve moved quite far away to be practical.

This last session though was a blast: Under cover of darkness, my players infiltrated (ala Rambo: First Blood Part 2) and torched the bandit camp west of town and discovered the trapped, secret vault of treasure. Chad’s character, a druid named Elgar, brazenly walked into the main building and threw a Molotov cocktail at the guards and caught them all on fire. As that fire quickly spread, Traci’s cleric, Sam, blocked the door and wailed on them as they vainly attempted to escape.  Ame (Orianna) and Dave (Lyfe) have just discovered the vault of treasure that I’ve yet to roll up. They should hope I roll well!

These characters and players (except Chad) are all still new, so this whole bit of adventure should push them over the top to level 2. I hope they don’t find the treasure disappointing though – they are level 1 still after all. It shouldn’t too bad though, they’re all gamers (except Traci), so they should understand a level 1 treasure might not be the best, but should only get better.

I’m a big fan of 8-bit Theater over at Nuklear Power. I keep up on the strips regularly, and I’m happy to have it in my rotation. There was a feature that updated fairly often called Twinkin’ Out with Red Mage. In it, Red Mage, answered questions about anything, usually geeky, with a geeky answer. Sometimes people asked for relationship advice, ”Who would win in a fight,” or which combination of feats in D&D 3rd Edition would make a Monk godlike (It’s a trick question by the way: Monk’s are godlike without any feats).

Red Mage hasn’t updated in a very long time, and I want something like that to exist. So! Without further ado, I’m launching Ask Steve. It’s very simple. Send an e-mail to asksteve@pie-hole.com and I’ll answer anything you send. Even without incoming mail, I’ll still have something geeky to write about.

Go on! Ask me! I dare you!