sometimes a game really resists being played this way. and the prevailing wisdom is, well, change the game. you're the man now dog. and sometimes i do a little bit of this! but i think it is better to just play a lot of different games and see what they have to offer. here is an example: dcc is a game that wants you to be in a dungeon at all times. it does not want you to go outside. but i think it is fun to go outside sometimes! so for one group of players, i added in some hexploring rules for walking around outside. but something felt wrong and i had a little bit of regrets about doing this, and i think this is because: when you are walking around outside, you are not really playing dcc. you are playing something else. dcc is happiest when you are blasting through one bonkers dungeon after another, seeing a weird frog statue and doing a magic wrong and having your arms grow too much. dcc does not really care about falling into a ditch on your way to the haunted mountain or watching an npc's kids grow up in the town you fought to defend from the barf beetles which is why every module ends in the dungeon blowing up behind you while you walk away with your sunglasses on.

but i DO like to walk around outside and fortunately, b/x* has procedures and tables for doing that, which go a long way to making it a thing that the game is happy doing. we haven't done it yet because the group is Very Focused on mapping the incandescent grottoes but we COULD, and i think we probably WILL soon. we are all having a great time doing classic dungeon stuff like Keeping a Door Open With Iron Spikes and Getting Eaten By Giant Frogs.

MOLDVAY

a lot of characters have died since we started. we are keeping a high score table on our wall with each character's name, class, player, xp, manner of death, and last remarks, and i think mac and i are also going to expand it into a zine. every character belongs to an organization known as "the mischief musketeers"; their record-keeping is excellent, which occasionally makes up for the fragility and impetuousness of their members.

DARLLY CHARK	CHRYSANTHEMUM	CHAOTIC CLAW	CONAN LINKTHE

THE HIGH SCORE TABLE OF THE MISCHIEF MUSKETEERS

NAME	CLASS	PLAYER	XP	KILLED BY	LAST WORDS
chaotic claw	assassin	miles	0	giant frog	...
chrysanthemum	druid	tiffany	0	giant frog	...
larx canfel	elf	mac	0	giant frog	"welp"
darlly chark	acrobat	mac	0	acid trap	"what's this?"
chaotic claws	assassin	miles	0	mummy	...
delphinium	druid	tiffany	0	mummy	...
fally pip	magic user	mac	0	mummy	"how dare you"
conan linkthe	knight	rey	0	mummy	...
donyx xandrite	barbarian	mac	100	cave turtle	"i didn't skedaddle fast enough"
chaotics claws	assassin	miles	500	giant frog	"i vow to return in another life for revenge on all giant frogs"
sœuro duboish	paladin	mac	0	giant frog	"how dare you"

we play every monday night, usually for about two hours or so. this is a good amount of time to map a few rooms, argue with some troglodytes, or get into a battle. i draw the rooms as they move through them on a mat, and use wooden blocks and scrabble tiles for features and npcs. when the mat fills up, we erase it and keep going. tiffany is the mapper of the party and it's fun for me to see the discrepancies between our maps. i might move to using cut-out paper rooms in the future to save time drawing, but there is a nice feeling of suspense when they enter a new room so maybe not. i like the scrabble tiles because it feels kind of like playing nethack, although it is a pain to dig through and find the right letter in the heat of things, so often a group of monsters is represented by upside-down tiles. the players currently use buttons for miniatures which is my fault for not having any non-goblin miniatures for them to use. b/x kind of benefits from abstraction when visualizing the dungeon, though. but not when moving people around and seeing who is standing next to what. you need to know that stuff.

GIANT FROGS AGAIN
LUNCH NOTES FOR MILES	LUNCH NOTES FOR MAC

playing every monday night means that i don't have time to do a lot of prep, which is good for me. it keeps me from being too precious. it's also why we are playing incandescent grottoes. it's a good adventure! i have a lot of good stuff tumbling around in my house and i don't need to make everything from scratch. sometimes i catch myself saving something and for what? i think it is actually because i am afraid i am not a good enough referee to run it but there's no better time to play something than right now, and no better people to play it with than my family, because they're also right here in my house. i still want to make an oops-all-fairies megadungeon someday** but i am enjoying actually using the stuff i already have.

SOMEWHERE	IN THE OOPS-ALL-FAIRIES MEGADUNGEON

in conclusion, d&d is fun, rip darlly chark.***

*yes we are using ose but there's a mysterious romance to the 1981 moldvay box set for me and i prefer to think of it that way

**one of my many ongoing here-and-there projects and the reason why all bwamp minis have b/x stats included

***darlly's death is one of my favorites and also very emblematic of how mac plays d&d. it was the mischief musketeer's second trip into the grottoes after a TPK in the previous session, and mac was very excited to play an acrobat with all their fun traversal skills. the party heard a noise, and miles wanted to MOVE SILENTLY to go check it out. mac was miffed that they weren't going first and ran into the room after miles, shouting "I'M GOING FIRST". once they caught up they kept running, charging through three other rooms and stopping only to CLIMB SHEER SURFACES. they touched the ceiling and shouted YEAH before doing a cartwheel into the fifth room. the entire floor dropped down into a pool of acid, instantly dissolving them. they paused for only a moment before picking up the pencil to record their final words and start a new character. rip darlly chark.