#by playing an extremely nosy bugger who writes everything down

[philcoulsonismyhero]

Man, I'd missed DnD. My flatmate got a group together and we had our fourth session tonight and it feels like we're really properly getting into the swing of it and it's So much fun.

My character, Benjamin Larkwright, is a war wizard who was a magically-trained soldier as a young man and then a watchman for about a decade before quitting to take up his magic again and become an adventurer, and playing a mystery adventure as an ex-cop who keeps forgetting about his magic and solving problems like a detective is Really fun. I'm getting to mess around with all the crime drama tropes that I love while Also being a wizard, it's Great.

A couple of stand-out moments from this last session included getting to do the Hot Fuzz fence jumping thing, where the loxodon paladin just walked through the garden wall and Benjamin, on principle, vaulted a bit of still-intact wall aaand managed to roll an 8, land badly on his bad ankle and nearly faceplant in the street. The other wizard who, despite being a nerd and unathletic, is also 17 and limber managed to get over the wall with no trouble and got waved off from helping him up with a cranky "I've got a bad ankle, it's fine, I'm old, leave me alone." (He's like 45ish.)

We'd also earlier been to talk to the local sheriff about the epidemic of missing people we'd been hired to investigate (by his sister, it turned out, who thought he wasn't doing enough about it), and I got to play Benjamin going from marching in all judgemental and dragging this guy's curtains open in the face of his dreadful hangover and pointedly shifting the bottles off his desk to put down the list of missings we got from his sister, to leaving with a gentle word about hangover cures and all his missing person files and a promise to deal with whatever hold the villain has over him that he couldn't tell us about but had clearly caused an extended breakdown and is preventing him from investigating properly himself. (Kidnapped wife and son, we later worked out, who are among the people going missing around this Highly Suspicious Casino that appeared in town six months ago.)

The best moment, though was when I finally got to catch the other wizard out on the gems she stole from a bag in the mail car when we were searching the train to the town for Weird Shit. She'd managed to do it while the rest of the party were all out on the platform tidying up the mess from our fight with a gargoyle that had also been sent in the post via the train, so none of us had any reason to even suspect she'd nicked them. But then we were investigating a weird magical effect outside the temple we were in, and Abigail goes and pulls out these gems right in front of Benjamin's nose to see if they react to the magical field. He recognises them from before, asks her where she got them from, and she lies to his face that they were something she inherited from his wizard grandfather. So, two sessions after the theft, I finally get to insight check her, with my +5 insight vs her +0 deception, and I roll a 21. Which, upon realising that there's nothing she can roll to beat that, causes me, out of character, delighted, to exclaim "ha! Get insighted, crime child!"

Which was apparently the highlight of the session to the DM and everyone else and got me an inspiration as the culmination of a bunch of good ex-policeman roleplaying, which was delightful. (Got a good grade in DnD, which is both normal to want and possible to achieve.) The player of the other wizard now desperately wants me to draw a very pleased-with-himself Benjamin looming over a cowering Abigail pointing and exclaiming "Get insighted, Crime Child!", he was that amused by it, and honestly I might later when I'm less busy.

In-universe, Benjamin just gave her The Look, though, and said "alright, I'll believe you", with them both knowing Full Well that he doesn't. It was then followed up by him dashing (so Detect Magic didn't run out) over to the temple down the street to check if the magic field effect was also unable to penetrate the inside of that temple, and passing Abigail who tried to follow him on the way back, much slower on her "weak nerd legs" and pestering her into jogging the whole way back again while Benjamin made it very clear without outright saying that the jogging was her penance for the petty crime. (He's not a watchman anymore and he's not her dad so he's just going to mess with the kid in the hope that it makes her think twice the next time she gets the urge to be sticky-fingered with potentially dangerous magical items. And also for his own amusement, tbh.)

It was all very funny, I'm having a great time being the (metaphorical, he's aroace) straight guy to the rest of the party's hijinks and also occasionally indulging in my own. We ended the session thoroughly convinced that all roads lead to the Suspect Casino, having tugged on every investigative thread to Benjamin's satisfaction (and everyone else's), and he snapped his suspiciously-police-looking notebook shut and said "On that, Droozh, we are in complete agreement." to the loxodon paladin's declaration that he thinks now is Definitely the time to march into the casino and demand to know what the hell is going on. And yes, Droozh has wanted to do that since we arrived in town and the place seemed a bit sus from the whole 'got sent a gargoyle in the post' thing, but now we can march in and start cracking skulls in an Informed and Well Considered manner, having a better idea of what we're up against.

I love DnD, I've missed it.