Roll For It

I'm sure that anyone who's played for very long has run across some point where a decision needed to be made, but none of the folks in the group could come to any consensus.  It's often those points where nothing is done, or an argument erupts within the group because someone isn't getting their way when someone else is.

It's at points like this were moderation and level-headedness is usually best, but is often in short supply.

Still, a decision has to be made.

Unfortunately, there're occasions where an unpopular decision has to be made.  At points like that, everyone tends to look at the others around them, hoping someone will make the decision for them.  Saturday afternoon, while adventuring with my wife, Phrudin (Belzur) and Kukoo was one of such occasions...

We'd all stepped out of the Cerulean Hills to allow the zone to reset and for our group to take a smoke break.  When we came back to our respective keyboards, we noticed there was another character standing near the gate to the hills, amidst all our characters.  He'd asked in General chat what we were doing.  I replied that we were running the hills, to which he asked to join our group.  Following a brief check with the other members of our group, I let him know we had room.

I should've known what we were in for when he replied rather impatiently in General chat "then invite me."

Hmm...

A bit annoying, considering I was already in the middle of sending an invite.

Doesn't anyone have any patience anymore?

Still, as soon as he joined our group, I said "Welcome!" over voice chat.

A very juvenile voice shouted back "What?"

"I said 'welcome.'"

"What did you say?"

Typing into Party chat, "I said 'welcome'."

Replying through voice chat "Oh.  What're ya doin'?"

Phrudin responded "Cerulean Hills."

...

I could feel the 'you gotta be kidding me' glares from the other members of our group.  Since she was sitting beside me in our home office, it was easy for my wife to comment off-line that our new player sounded rather young.  Perhaps too young for much of the content in DDO.

I guessed that he was somewhere around the 7-9 age range.  Phrudin guessed around 12-14.

Regardless, it prompted me to remark to my wife about DDO not being rated E for Everyone, but that many so-called adults refuse to actually parent their off-spring.  Especially when it comes to telling them 'no' regarding subjects and activities that are inappropriate for them.

Particularly with the mature language humor amongst the all of the 30+ aged adults in our group before he joined.

Of course, it was our group that he was joining, so no one felt compelled to reign-in their behaviors.  Not that we were out of control, but that this is a game for an older audience, not a younger one.

As we began our second excursion out to the hills, our new group member started to chatter about topics irrelevant to the rest of us, and he charted his own path through the wilderness.

It didn't take long before he'd begun to deplete Phrudin's healing resources.

After Kukoo had ask him twice to stick together with the rest of the group, I sent a /tell directly to Phrudin advising him that if he didn't feel like playing catch-up with the young Fighter, that he should withold healing, that the youngster would either heal himself or someone would pick up his stone and put it in their pocket until we reached the next shrine.

Once we'd passed through each of the points where we were looking for particular rare encounters, we decided it was time to recall to drop-group and reset the zone.

Now, perhaps this was a little under-handed of me, but I invited the adult members of our group back together before inviting the juvenile Fighter back in.  It was clear by our discussion that no one really wanted to bring him back in, but that no one wanted to be the 'bad guy' who had to tell him to go find another group to run with.

My wife, being the kind-hearted woman that she is suggested that we just let him continue to play with us.  Even though she obviously wasn't thrilled with the idea.

So, the four of us hemmed and hawed (that's a southern expression) about letting him back in.

That's when Phrudin expressed a suddenly brilliant idea...

"You know, in pen-and-paper, when you need to make a decision, you roll for it.  I say we roll a d100 and let that decide.  1-49, he's out, 50-100, he's in."

"Great idea..."

So, in party chat, I typed /roll d100 and pressed enter.

...

"34"

There was a cheering burst of laughter over voice chat.

And in a classic D&D twist of fate, the dice gods cast the annoying juvenile Fighter out of our group.

Perhaps the cheers and laughs were a little inappropriate, but the youngling couldn't hear us, as he wasn't a member of our group when it happened.

But, all of us adults were relieved that the dice gods had chosen that moment to favor us.

Shortly thereafter, I sent the youngster a message letting him know that we'd be proceeding without him, but rather than being callous, I decided to bend the truth a little, and told him that we had a couple of guildies log in to complete our pre-planned run of another quest.

But, it was remarkable...

Phrudin was exactly right.  Even though this's an online, real-time environment, DDO is *still* Dungeons & Dragons.  When a decision has to be made, especially an unpopular one, it's time to break out the dice and roll for it.  It's the only truly fair way to make such a decision.  And everyone who's ever played pen-and-paper knows they have to concede to the dice.  That's just the way of the game, even if they don't particularly care for the result.

And, for those who've been playing long enough to remember, we used to roll for it quite a bit, when it came to figuring out who would claim the raid loot from the Dragon and Demon Queen raids.

I miss those days.

There was something thrilling about being dependent upon the roll of the dice.

So, keep it interesting...  Roll for it!