Roll Initiative!

"Friend. Really? We've been sat here at a door for nearly half an hour, and that was the answer to your riddle?"

I grinned. Gandalf's stare, with his bristling eyebrows, glaring at me over the table, might have been intimidating to anybody else, but he and I had been playing tabletop games like this one ever since we were children, and I was just giddy for the chance as the DM to pull one over on him.

"It wasn't that difficult," I retorted. "The answer was right there in the question."

"Can we get on with it?" demanded Merry, slumping back in his seat. "We haven't even had a single encounter tonight."

Aragorn shook his head. "Be careful what you wish for."

I just smiled and pointedly didn't say a word.

"Regardless. The door is open; let's get inside before anything worse happens." Gandalf reached over the table and moved his token on the battle mat.

I opened my books and woke up my laptop. "As soon as you do that..."

"Uh-oh," said Pippin.

"Roll initiative?" Merry grabbed his twenty-sider.

"Just a moment," I answered. I dug around in my box and pulled out a token—well, actually, it was a finger puppet, a gooey plastic dragon with big eyes, and one of its spindly arms broken off. It had been my toy ever since I was a child, when Aragorn and Gandalf and I played our own games on the living room floor. Everyone around the table laughed as I placed the dragon in the middle of the lake I'd drawn on the battle mat.

"Uh-oh!" Pippin said again.

I sat back. "Roll initiative!"

A clatter of dice went across the table. Everyone called out numbers, and I wrote them down.

"Aragorn and Sam, you tied at nineteen. Decide who goes first."

Sam looked at Aragorn and paused. "Well, I don't want to fight about it." He picked up a six-sided die. "Roll for it?"

"Go for the twenty-sider," Aragorn answered, and rolled his own. He leaned over his die and opened his mouth but—

"I got a five," grumbled Sam.

"Rolled five?" I clarified.

"Yes."

"I did better than that," Aragorn chuckled.

"All right!" cheered Merry. "Whatever it is, Strider can hack its limbs off!"

"Just a moment!" I shouted over him. "All of you, I need your passive wisdom perception scores."

A chorus of twelves, thirteens, and fourteens answered me from around the table.

"Good. Surprise round!" I leaned over the mat. "Let's see, who's closest to the water...?"

Boromir, who just threw a stone into the lake, covered his eyes with his hand and laughed. "Oh no."

"Let's see..." I grinned. "Frodo!"

"What?!" he cried. "I'm nowhere near the water!"

"No, but you are the Ring-Bearer," muttered Gandalf.

"And this thing has a twenty-foot grab range." My grin just got wider.

Frodo just pushed up his glasses to hide his face in his hand. "Right."

"What's your armor class?" I asked.

He checked his character sheet. "Uh...fifteen."

"Fifteen?" Aragorn quietly raised an eyebrow. "Why is your AC so high?"

Frodo shifted in his seat and didn't answer.

"He got an ASI bonus a while ago," I answered for him, "and he picked Dex." That wasn't the whole truth of the answer, but only Frodo and I knew that for now. The rest of the party would find out soon. "Anyway, you said fifteen?"

"Yeah."

"Great, I got a twenty-seven."

Frodo put his face in his hands and started laughing. "Ah, I'm dead."

"Don't worry, it wasn't a crit. But you are grappled by a tentacle, and being dragged towards the water."

"Great."

"You got twenty-seven and it wasn't a crit?" Gimli leaned over the table.

"What is this?" asked Legolas.

"Whatever it is, it's terrifying. Uh..." I rolled a die. "Yep, Bill the pony bolts for it."

"No!" cried Sam, half angry and half amused. "Not Bill!"

"Everyone else, give me a wisdom saving throw versus being Frightened. Saving throw DC sixteen."

Gandalf grumbled something about proficiency in wisdom while a clatter of dice went around the table.

"Yes!" Sam jumped in his seat, pumping his arms in the air. "Nat twenty!"

I kept quiet. A crit on a saving throw didn't mean anything special, but I let him have his moment.

Frodo slumped. "That's a nat one."

"Eighteen," said Gandalf.

"Wow." Aragorn checked his dice. "Thirteen. That's no good."

Legolas sucked on his teeth. "Fifteen."

"Okay," I interrupted, "everyone fifteen or lower is Frightened. Who didn't save?"

A chorus of murmurs and grumbles went around the table. Only Gandalf looked stoic, and Sam looked pleased as punch.

"Great." I pulled out my notes. "You see tentacles erupting from the lake like a host of snakes, and you are Frightened. While Frightened, you have disadvantage on Ability Checks and Attack Rolls while the source of your fear is within line of sight, and you can't willingly move closer to it. You can make another wisdom saving throw at the end of your turn. "

Aragorn frowned. "A host of tentacles? You're making us fight a kraken?"

I grinned. "I didn't say it was a kraken."

"Everyone in the party is level seven. What's the challenge rating here?"

"Ten."

"Are you trying to get the hobbits killed?"

"No. This is the only encounter for the night."

"Some encounter," grumbled Gimli.

"Okay, surprise round over," I announced. "Top of the round with Aragorn."

He leaned his elbow on the table and his chin on his hand. "Well, until the Frightened condition is lifted, I suppose melee weapons are out."

"Aw." Merry slumped in his chair. "But Strider's mighty sword!"

"Strider's mighty sword will be no use if he can't get closer." Aragorn plucked four twenty-siders out of the pile. "I'll try both my attacks with the hunting bow instead."

"Go ahead," I said. "You're at disadvantage."

He rolled one pair and then the other. "I don't suppose twelve hits?"

"No."

He leaned his elbow on the table and chuckled. "That's a shame." He rolled another twenty-sider. "And I've failed the reroll of the saving throw as well. Sorry, Frodo."

Frodo shrugged. "I guess it can't be helped."

"Not yet," I confirmed. "Next, Sam."

Sam grumbled, arms crossed over his chest, as he looked at the battle mat. After a moment, he lifted his head. "How fast can a pony run?"

"Uh..." I wasn't expecting that. I woke up my laptop and punched in the question. "Speed of forty. With Dash...eighty."

"So I probably couldn't catch up to him," Sam guessed.

"Not with a halfling's speed, no. You've got fifty at most, and you wouldn't be able to grab him."

"Don't forget I'm being pulled to my death," Frodo said cheerfully, waving at Sam. He'd rolled very low on the initiative score too and wouldn't be able to do a thing until almost the end of the round.

Sam grumbled something under his breath and thought for a moment more. He sighed. "I can dash and then use an attack at the end of my turn, right?"

"Not dash, but you can use your movement."

"All right then." He leaned over the mat and moved his token. "In that case, I'll run over to Mr. Frodo and start hacking at the tentacle."

"Hooray!" cheered Frodo.

"Hacking at it," I repeated. "With your..."

"Short-sword," Sam answered.

"Short-sword, right. Okay, two attacks, roll to hit."

He grabbed his own twenty-sider and another spare one from the pile, shook them both in his fist, and rolled. He sighed and slumped. "Two fourteens."

"Actually, those are both hits."

He perked up. "Oh!"

"Roll damage."

He picked up two six-siders. "This plus four?"

"No, plus eight. Two times your Dex modifier."

Frodo smiled at him as he shook the dice. "Thaaaank you, Sam," he said in a sarcastic, saccharine voice.

Sam grinned and gave him the stink-eye back. "You owe me one. I lost the pony over this." He rolled the dice with a clatter, then picked up his sheet. "Okay, plus eight...sixteen! That's it for me."

I marked down the damage and raised an eyebrow. "Are you forgetting something?"

Sam looked confused. "Uh...no?"

"Are you sure?"

He looked still more confused. "Yes...?"

I pressed my lips together and didn't say anything. It wasn't the job of the DM to railroad; even if it was to remind the players of their class abilities. "All righty then. The tentacle let go of Frodo. Next on the round—"

"Oh, wait, wait!" Sam interrupted. "Can't I pull him away from the water?"

"Uh...no. Sorry, you used your action already. You'll have to wait until your next turn."

Sam huffed and sat back, crossing his arms. "Fine. Worth a shot."

"Next up, Legolas."

"Go!" Gimli slapped Legolas on the back, making him cough. "Stick an arrow in its gob!"

"You're at disadvantage," I reminded him.

After recovering from the slap, Legolas nodded. "Two shots with the longbow, then." He borrowed the extra dice from Aragorn and rolled them in pairs. "Seven," he read, "and...thirteen."

I winced. "So close! You needed fourteen."

"Perhaps if he'd had a bardic inspiration die," Gandalf said, glaring daggers at Sam, "he might have succeeded."

Sam had the good grace to look ashamed. His face was beginning to resemble a tomato. "Can I do that over?"

"No, too late now," I answered. "No mulligans."

"Fiddlesticks." He sunk into his chair.

I turned to Legolas. "Would you like to reroll your saving throw?"

He tossed an extra twenty-sider, read it, and laughed. "Another fifteen. One short again."

Sam hid his face so he couldn't see the way Gandalf was glaring at him. The shade of red was deepening.

"You're next, Gandalf."

"A shame Master Gamgee had to choose between his spells and his sword as well." Gandalf sat up, setting aside the player's handbook that he'd been poring over. "A good round of Calm Emotions from our bard would have been very helpful. Thankfully, I had the foresight to include it in my homebrew of this staff." Turning to me, he announced, "I will expend one charge to cast Calm Emotions."

"All right," I replied. "Can you fit everyone in a twenty-foot radius?"

Gandalf moved his token. "Yes."

"Great. The entire party is no longer Frightened."

"What, just like that?" asked Merry.

"You can roll to succeed on a saving throw against Gandalf's spell and stay Frightened if you want," I answered with a grin. "But I doubt you'd want to do that. Gandalf, anything else?"

"I am," he declared, "going to shout at everyone to start running and whack the nearest person on the posterior with my staff."

Everyone around the table burst into laughter at once.

"Who's the nearest person?" I peered at the mat and laughed. "Pippin!"

"What?!" Pippin cried through his laughter. "Not me! Boromir is the one who threw the rock!"

"More is the shame, fool of a Took!" Gandalf shot back. "This is revenge for harrying me about the riddle."

"Throttle the hobbit!" cried Boromir, and everyone laughed even harder.

Everyone spent their turns running into the Mines. The round was almost over.

"Next on the initiative order, Frodo."

"What?" he asked. "The creature hasn't taken its turn yet?"

"No, it's after you. It went first because of the surprise round, but it actually rolled lower than you did."

He laughed. "Well, that makes me feel a little better. I guess there's nothing to do but run."

"But it does get an opportunity attack against you," I grinned.

He seemed too frustrated to laugh and too amused to frown. "Oh no."

I rolled the die. "Thankfully, it missed. Your turn is over...now the Watcher."

"The Watcher!" Pippin echoed. "Ooh, spooky!"

"Very spooky." I picked up a few dice and shook them between both my hands.

Under his breath, as if to himself, Gandalf muttered, "The moment we are all through and it's back to my turn, I am placing an Arcane Lock on that door."

"Don't worry about that." I threw a fistful of dice over the table with a clatter. "It was attacking the doors." I tallied up everything I saw. "And did quick work of it, too. The doors and part of the ceiling collapse. You are blocked in, and all you can see is darkness."

"Now we're stuck in Moria," Aragorn sighed.

"I'm all right with that!" declared Gimli.

"I'm not," Boromir frowned.

"I'm going to cast Light on my staff." Gandalf sighed. "We've got a long night ahead of us."

fin

A/N: My first LotR fanfiction! And it's this nonsense. Typical.

I'm rereading Lord of the Rings again! If you haven't come from there already, I started a Tumblr blog to chronicle my thoughts and post silly art, and you can find it at Frodo-With-Glasses. That should explain why Frodo has glasses in this fic.

I'm thinking the DM here is actually Tolkien, but I went with first person POV because "John Ronald" being included in the same story as LotR characters' names seemed a bit jarring.

Written with the help of Tessera, resident DnD encyclopedia, and fact-checked by Smallwood, our DM!