Dear Tom Bruno,

A loan that you had requested:

Loan Title: Tomb of horrors : an adventure for character levels 10-14 /
Loan Author: Gygax, Gary.
TN: 61991

is now available for pickup at the Circulation Desk.


Tomb of Horrors! Someone (the City of Mesa Library in Mesa, Arizona to be exact) actually had this vintage Advanced Dungeons & Dragons module, pulled it off the shelves, packed it up, and shipped it all the way across the country so that I could groove on down memory lane. Wow. Back in the days when fantasy roleplaying wasn't something that Hollywood "it" people like Elijah Wood and Vin Diesel would have admitted to dabbling in, even at gunpoint, the original creator of D&D - the one and only Gary Gygax - was still writing the gamebooks and dungeon modules himself. One of these was the infamous Tomb of Horrors, first printed in 1978, an underground adventure that had been specifically designed by Gygax as a deathtrap for high-level characters. I remember when I first ran this game as Dungeon Master. Unlike most adventures written up to this point, Tomb of Horrors was a series of puzzles, requiring players more accustomed to smashing, grabbing, and smashing again to think on their feet, or watch their characters die. Surprise surprise, the latter happened more often than the former with my players, and it didn't take too much carnage for them to decide that this was the worst, most evilly-crafted dungeon module ever; and unlike other adventures, which strangely they enjoyed playing over and over again, even after having "solved" them, they had no desire to ever try their luck with it again. Needless to say, I loved this module. And it's great to take a peek at it again, as I'll be damned if I know what happened to my original copy.

My players probably burned it.

But aside from making a public display of my complete and utter geekiness, I bring up my old D&D days for an important reason. Watching the way George Bush and his Cabinet have been comporting themselves in the face of (rightly) skeptical allies and unfavorable vetoes this past week or so, I couldn't help but find their petulant behavior familiar. Then it hit me. They were acting exactly like my age-old friend back in high school, when we used to play D&D for entire weekends at a time. He was a great player, who approached his character like a Method actor, hurling curses at his enemies, relishing his victories in a grand, high fantasy style, even lurching around the table during a "fight" as he parried imaginary blows and hacked and slashed with an equally nonexistant sword. But one thing he was never good at back then was losing. Not having things go his way - a bad roll of the dice, other players mussing his epic moments, or losing a favorite magical item or piece of treasure - would cause him to fly into a rage and threaten to quit the game. As Dungeon Master, this always put me into an awkward position. Should I mollify my friend to keep him at the table, and undermine not only the good will of the other players (who never caught such breaks) but the integrity of the game itself? Or do I tell him too bad, and risk his berserker wrath? The United Nations and NATO are now finding themselves in a nearly identical bind. The world's most powerful nation doesn't like how the game is turning out, and is screaming bloody murder that if it doesn't get exactly what it wants, it's going to kick us all out of the living room and finish up on its own. But that's not how D&D works, nor is it how international relations in the 21st century should work. In either case, the magic (be it a successful night of gaming or the survival of civilization itself) is only kept alive by a roomful of geeks sitting around a common table, agreeing to abide by the rules, even if the dice don't break their way - especially if the dice don't break their way.

But I don't suppose George Bush played much Dungeons and Dragons, back in the day. Too bad, because unless we figure out a way to stop him, he's about to take our country (and the world along with us) into the Tomb of Horrors...