My Brief but Explosive Return to Dungeons & Dragons

There I was, a 39-year-old woman, strutting into a Santa Clara living room turned Dungeons & Dragons battlefield, squeezed into tight black leather spandex. Why leather spandex, you ask? Because when your friend invites you to “really get into character,” you go all in. (Spoiler: Not everyone got the memo.)

This is what happens when you finally go home to Silicon Valley after finishing a PhD that took way too many fucking years. Anyways.

The room was dimly lit, smelling faintly of Doritos, Mountain Dew, and broken dreams. Around the table sat the crew: a guy who definitely smelled like he’d been LARPing as a hobbit all week, someone who looked suspiciously like they had just Googled “What is D&D?” in the car, and another person clutching The Player’s Handbook like it was the actual Bible.

I plopped down into a mismatched chair (that was probably stolen from a dentist’s waiting room) and slammed my freshly printed character sheet on the table. I was playing Kaliara, a rogue assassin with a chaotic neutral streak and a flair for seduction. My leather spandex was method acting, okay? The Dungeon Master — this dude in a faded Marvel T-shirt — gave me the side-eye like I’d just walked into church wearing sequins and fishnets.

The session started off well enough. Our party entered a dark forest. We encountered a goblin ambush. I heroically rolled a critical hit. But then came the incident.

Marvel DM announced we’d stumbled upon a treasure chest. It was bolted shut and glimmering with magical runes. I had one job as the rogue: pick the damn lock. I leaned in, dice in hand, feeling like a leather-clad goddess of chaos. I rolled.

A three.

“Oh, tough break,” said Marvel DM with a smirk, “You jam the lock and trigger a poison dart trap.”

I could feel my eye twitching. Someone across the table snickered. “Maybe you should’ve put more points into dexterity,” Hobbit Guy said, stuffing his face with Cheetos like he just discovered fire.

And that’s when I snapped.

“Are you KIDDING ME? I literally have a +7 to lockpicking! What kind of rigged dungeon master bull — ”

“You gotta roll higher than a three,” Marvel DM deadpanned.

“Well, maybe you should roll higher than man-child energy for once in your life!” I hissed. Tight spandex does not breathe, by the way. My rage was simmering and I was overheating. Not a good combo.

The rest of the group just stared. Someone muttered, “It’s just a game.”

Just a game? JUST A GAME?! I didn’t crawl into this literal snakeskin bodysuit and drive 45 minutes to Santa Clara to get ambushed by mediocrity.

I spent the next two hours rolling poorly and side-eyeing everyone who dared to speak. Marvel DM tried to throw in a surprise boss battle with a dragon, and I just muttered, “Yeah, sure, that’s original,” while scribbling tiny skulls on my notebook.

By the end of the night, I’d alienated half the group and was threatening to “multi-class into vengeance paladin and ruin everyone’s life.” As I peeled myself out of my leather prison and drove home, I realized something important:

KISS MY ASS.