My favorite gaming memory

Quinns' little YouTube message was originally posted in 2014, but I just saw it today.  It broke off a part of me.  I say something about that, and then answer his question: what's your favorite memory of playing a game?    Well, it's pretty late now, but Quinns, I'm so so sorry.

If you have ever played a game with me, my apologies.  I swear the best moment with you is #2.  "Third boulder" was the best.  Mage Wars at a wedding -- I love you all over again for that.  Ghosts in the Graveyard after sunset, Cosmic Encounter wheeling and dealing, just the fact that two dozen people were willing to spend their party playing Kill Dr. Lucky with me -- I nearly weep to think of it.

I'm sorry, they're #2.

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Dungeons and Dragons cobbled together game, and my dad says he'll DM for us.  We're walking and come to sarcophagus at a crossroads, and a fearsome creature jumps out of it.  Worse than a skeleton.  Worse than a vampire.  It's a skeleton OF a vampire.  (No, I don't know how that works.  We don't have time to puzzle it out now, it's fangs are nearly upon us!) 

I cast Burning Hands, and it does 8 damage.  Dad asks which die I rolled to get the damage, and I tell him it's a d8.  He says "oh yes, that fried it.  The bones char and fall into ashes."

This is the critical moment.  Not because of the story at all.  Because here's some things I realized:

• Dad asked because he needed to know if 8 damage was a lot or a little to roll.  He didn't know.  And he didn't know how many hp this creature had, he just decided a big hit would end it.  
• He didn't know what a skeleton of a vampire was - he just made it up.  On the spot.  Out of his head sprung a completely new thing and we just fought it.  To be clear: my dad could do magic.
• He was just winging the whole thing.  I mean, I sort of knew that, but I didn't understand what it meant.  He was telling a story, and throwing us into it, and using the rules like glue, applied with the most delicate touches, to help keep the thing together.

We continued to a nearby town, where we walked into a shop and the shopkeeper only told lies, which we figured out because every time he named the price of a thing and we paid him, he'd give us the wrong change back.

Why is there a shopkeeper who only tells lies?  Because Dad loved Raymond Smullyan's logic puzzles, and he knew I loved them too. 

And I don't know if there's any other reason for anything to be in a Dungeons and Dragons game.

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That's my favorite memory.  One of the most painful to remember, too, but maybe that makes it more precious, not less. 

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