Barrelhouse Presents: My Weird Quarantine Obsession (DadHouse Marathon!)

Believe it or not, one of our favorite shows to watch during quarantine is on Twitter. DadHouse, “the best imaginary reality show on the internet.”

This weekend, we’ve asked the stars of DadHouse to tell us about their own Weird Quarantine Obsessions.

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Dungeons & Dragons, by Matt Perez

Fantasy rules. Reality still sucks. So why not get it right? That’s what Dungeons & Dragons does best. The original role playing game’s newest edition – just the fifth since 1974, a stunning figure in today’s world of continual updates and digital do-overs – has created an amazingly flexible rule set that determines the success or failure of everything with rolls of the dice, from real estate negotiations to storming a demonic prison city on a different plane of existence with your sky ship. With each roll you live or die to become a hero or heel, maybe with a little help from your friends and your wits.

 {Perez rolls a D6 for example Non-Player Character}
1= beggar
2 = innkeeper
3 = busker
4 = town guard
5 = merchant
6 = priest
{5}

 A long time ago, your party’s halfling Rogue, Royce Fleatherflops, had a meanspirited laugh by pants-ing and robbing a fruit merchant at first level. Now you return after far-flung adventures to find that very merchant ended up a power-mad Merchant Prince, and with a good roll of a dodecahedron she remembers you; you’re all wanted criminals with a bounty all of a sudden. Now what?

You flee from her hired army after a harried escape and discuss. There is no board or blueprint to tell you what comes next while a chain of events is set in motion by Royce’s single, ill-advised action. The players and DM now set out to adjudicate the outcome over the next few sessions (or maybe, um, year?). Do you seek to clear the group’s names through heroic and mercenary tasks? Do you embrace being a criminal and create a camp of ne’er do wells in the woods to rob from the rich, give (or not give) to the poor, and plot the merchant’s downfall? Do you steal a ship and become pirates? Do you apologize and buy your way into the Merchant Prince’s good favor? Imagination really is the only limit if you’re playing well and then the world of the game spins delightfully – DELIGHTFULLY – out of control. And let’s not forget about the roughly five hundred spells available to truly warp reality and make things completely absurd.

 {Perez rolls a d6 for crazy-ass spells}
1 = True Polymorph
2 = Haste
3 = Plane Shift
4= Modify Memory
5 = Time Stop
6 = True Resurrection
{4}

Like, there is a spell called Modify Memory (!) in which you hack into the mind of a character to insert or remove anything you want in their gray goop, and the changes last FOREVER. Think about the possibilities for your siblings… 

My favorite Dungeons & Dragons podcast is Critical Role. There are a lot of pretty good D&D podcasts out there, but what sets Critical Role apart is its level of professionalism. My nerdiness demands certain things in a D&D podcast: that the rules be basically adhered to, as limitations make for good invention; the game is administered by an expert Dungeon Master adept at organization, storytelling and improvisation; and that the players choose to act out their characters with intent, development, and community spirit.

Like life, it’s not enough to simply play the game, but play it well, and the players and Dungeon Master on Critical Role do just that. It helps that they are all voice actors with hundreds of small and big screen credits, even an Emmy award, and they’re just as obsessed with Dungeons & Dragons as the fans.

If you want to dodge reality properly, tune in and turn on.

Play well.

All hail The Gygax! 

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In real life: Matt Perez is a charismatic hippie type, writer of some not entirely shitty words, Fiction Editor for @Barrelhouse, and beautiful bird.

In DadHouse: @MattPerez18. On the road Dad, just trying to figure out what’s happening all the time.