I don’t like drama.
      I don’t. I’m not a roller coaster girl; I prefer the scrambler.
      That’s a strange metaphor, but the point is that I don’t like high drama in my life. People who are constantly in flux that way freak me out. I don’t deal well with it, I don’t like it; just keep your UP and DOWN and UP and DOWN life away from my nice, peaceful, mellow one.
      *cough*
      So yeah, there haven’t been any roleplaying updates here because we had some serious drama following the previous session of our King Maker campaign. I won’t elaborate here; my husband wasn’t entirely blameless in the exchange, but the DM was utterly mad with rage over something super trivial. So… the DM left the table (permanently, he says) and we were left gameless.
      Until *dum-da-da-DAAAAA* Mark volunteered me to take over. And I did. And we all lived happily ever after, or at least, we survived the first game with Josie as Dungeonmaster!
      At any rate, I didn’t have time to write my usual recap because I was busy preparing the run, familiarizing myself with the module, trying to figure out if I should be happy to have my first DMing experience (for the group) be a pre-build module or if I should ring Mark’s neck for volunteering me.
      In the end, I decided to take the opportunity – since everyone was really excited about the campaign as the previous DM began it – and run with it.
      To my surprise, we ended up playing until 2:15 a.m. It has been AGES since we all stayed up that late, rolling dice, laughing, killing monsters. We were all (even me) on the edge of our seats for the last battle of the night…a battle with an OWLBEAR. Despite the fact that they were all first level, no one “died” though we left the table with two PCs “unconscious” and the threat of 2-8 additional Owlbears in the vicinity (not to mention a clutch of young, somewhere). In total, we nearly lost the druidess’ companion, the paladin, the cleric (whose awesome bursts were healing the Owlbear as well, muahaha) and the halfling barbarian. The only complete “death” of the night was Buttercup, Ryven’s war pony.
      I really, really thought they would run. Most of the PCs tried to run in the first round, but they’re good aligned and when the cleric was too close to outrun it… they turned back to try and help him escape. In doing so, poor Buttercup (and actually, the cleric’s mount as well) got eviscerated. The Paladin was within one point of being truly dead! The fighter was down, briefly. It was brutal.
      So were my dice rolls!
      I’ve had a few really poor nights at the table lately. Ava couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn either of our previous sessions. Last night, that damn Owlbear (even with +8 to hit!) could not get his claws into the PCs for the life of him. And in another combat, I had three archers each loosing at Erin, the (male) cleric, four rounds in a row. He was hit twice. For 2 and for 4. Out of 12 arrows, only two found him. TWO. *sigh* I couldn’t roll above an 8 for the life of me!
      I guess I shouldn’t feel bad, the PCs weren’t rolling too hot either. And only one critical hit all night was confirmed (curse that hin! He killed one of my NPCs outright! LOL).
      So, no updates written by me, but I’m sure I’ll find other junk to write about.
      Like Mark starting classes today!
      Like getting back to school in the Fall!
      Like a cross-country move (just our stuff coming from WA to PA)!
      Its going to be an exciting Summer. I can’t wait to see what Life has in store!

Note: Image is “dices” by tijmen from SXC.hu