Closer to the Heart
(Confession time, this was part of the last chapter I uploaded. For one reason or another, this site doesn't like word documents that are over 3,000 words long. I'm not sure why. Anyway, here's a song by Rush. Another band I grew up listening to. Rest in Peace, Neil Peart. Legendary drummer and fantastic songwriter.)
As we all walk in to my home, the girls all take a seat around the coffee table, while I make a pot of tea. Natsuki's taken the chair, which is where I thought I should sit, but I'll let it slide. Yuri and Sayori have taken up one couch, which leaves me sitting next to Monika. No complaints, here.
"So, I asked you two questions, in the club, Leyon?" Natsuki pipes up as I put a tray on the table, with a teapot, four cups, and a glass of ice with a can of soda for Natsuki.
I smile at my pink haired friend as I take my seat, opening the can and pouring the soda over the ice and handing her the beverage. "Well, to answer your first question, we're going to learn how to play the game by creating our characters." I inform her, while pouring the tea for me rest of us. I go back to my school bag, pulling out the Players Handbook, as well as a felt tray small bag, which I empty the contents into the tray, which are all my dice. "As for the second question, that can be answered in two parts. The first being that it'll be easier for me to help you create a character if I'm doing so as well, as an example. And the second part is I just enjoy creating characters."
From there, I give a brief explanation of the six abilities and what they represent and then grab four of my dice. "What we're going to do is roll these four six-sided dice, remove the lowest number rolled, and then add up the total of the remaining three. Then we go to the book and see what kind of modifier that gives us. This will be what we add to our twenty-sided dice result, when we roll a specific skill check." I say, shaking the dice in my two hands. "What I thought would be a good idea, is that we all roll once and make note of our results. The one who rolled the highest gets to roll the sixth time. Agreed?"
The girl's eyes light up and they all nod in unison. I nod to the girls and then roll, yielding a six, two fours and a two. "So, I remove the two and add the three other dice. Resulting in a fourteen." I make a note of that on a scrap piece of paper and pass it to my left, where Monika looks on, eagerly. "Your turn, Miss Club President."
Monika responds to me with a playful wink. "Here we go…" She says, happily shaking the dice and rolling them into the tray. "Oh! Okay, so that looks good. Two fives and a three… then we get rid of the one… so, thirteen? Right?" she asks me, which I nod with approval. "Great! Natsuki, your turn to roll!"
Natsuki closes her eyes and rolls the dice, surprising us all with three sixes and a two. "Wow! Eighteen! That's the best result!" She says, so proud of herself, noting the result down on the scrap paper. And then slowly handing it to Yuri.
Yuri takes a deep breath and rolls the dice. She opens her eyes to see two fives and two one's. "So that's eleven. Which means a zero mod. Great." She responds, dryly It's easy to see she's no happy with the result, so I should try to console her.
"Hey, don't worry about it. A zero modifier isn't bad. There's a chance to roll lower and get a minus number in the modifier." I say to her. I don't need to explain anymore, from there. Yuri nods with a slight smile on her face. I nod to her and move the scrap paper to Sayori "Your turn, neighbour!" I say to her, happily, perking up her already perked up spirits.
"Okay!" She shouts, excitedly. She rolls two sixes and two fours. "That's a sixteen, right?" She asks, excitedly, looking to me for approval. I nod and she bounces in her seat, writing down the sixteen on the piece of paper and passing it back to Natsuki. "Okay, Natsuki! Roll high again! You can do it!"
Natsuki takes the tray and slides it back over to Yuri. "You want a better role than that eleven, right?" She asks her. Yuri looks a little puzzled at first but then she understands and smiles at her fellow club member and rolls the dice.
"That's slightly better. A six and two three's, for a total of a twelve." She says and looking to Natsuki. "Thank you for understanding." Yuri looks to the diminutive manga fan, who nods towards her in appreciation. We then take a bit of time to sort out the six totals we've just rolled into our different abilities. Yuri then looks back to me, after she's picked her stats, then I talk about proficiency bonus, which adds an additional two points to skill checks to weapons, spells and kill checks that a character is proficient. "So, what do we do with these numbers, Leyon?"
I smile at her and turn to the next part of the book. "Now, we pick our characters race. The determines a base appearance, that you can play around with. As well as that, each race comes with ability modifiers to add to the numbers we just rolled and sorted. Meaning bigger numbers. For example, I'm going to make this character a human… Variant. This gives me two plus ones in two different stats of my choice. So, I'm going to take my two odd numbers and make them even. And a skill proficiency of my choice, which I'm going to add to arcana and-."
I look round the room and the puzzled expressions on the girls faces tell the whole story. Maybe it would be easier to break this down into step-by-step chunks and explain it for their character rather than use my own as a teaching tool. "Uh, alright, Monika. Let's start with you. What race would you like to play? There are nine to choose from: Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, Human, Dragonborn, Gnome, Half-Elf, Half-Orc and Tiefling."
Monika looks through the options before looking back up at me. "I think I'll make my character Half-Elf. I did think about going for either Elf or Human, so knowing that there's a middle ground is the perfect choice!" She smiles, sweetly at me and we go through all the benefits of the Half-Elf race. Which is a lot.
"So, after applying the ability score raises, you actually have a maxed-out Charisma score at level one. That's impressive, Monika." I say to her, nodding and smiling back at her. I doubt she managed to pull that off on purpose, but it is what it is. "When it comes to picking a class, later, you might want to consider one that uses your Charisma as a spellcasting ability." I point out. I get a look of interest from our Club President as I move around the table "What about you, Sayori? Have you picked a-!"
"Human!" She calls out. "I just want something simple. But human variant, specifically." Of course, she's picked the same as me. I'd already gone over half of it, so all we need to do is polish it off. "Variant Humans get to choose a feat, Sayori. Feats give you an extra edge towards something, but we'll come back to that, because that's best chosen after you've picked a class, alright?"
"Okay!" She responds, enthusiastically. I nod at her and look towards Yuri and she looks motivated.
"I-I've made my choice. I want to pick an Elf. Specifically, a Wood Elf." She says, confidently. I'm impressed. She seems to have taken in a lot of information very quickly. And we noted down the important details even quicker than that. Darkvision, Mask of the wild, all of it. That leaves Natsuki.
I give Yuri a quick nod and turn my attention to the Tsundere cupcake specialist, who shuffles, awkwardly in her seat. "I… Don't like Any of these races." She mumbles. I think she's expecting me to sigh, get mad and tell her that it's her tough luck and she should just pick one. However, I have something else in mind.
"That's alright. There are more races than the one's in this book. Let me grab one of the expansion books." I stand up and head to the bookshelves behind the sofa. "Did you have something in mind, Natsuki?"
"I can hear her shuffling in the chair. "Something…. Don't laugh okay?!" I hear from Natsuki. The other girls must be staring, or scowling, or somewhere in between. "… S-sorry, Leyon." I can hear, barely. Poor girl has been through enough with her father. "I-I was hoping for something more cat-like."
"Cat-like… I know exactly what you're looking for." I come back to the table open at a page from a different book, showing artwork of an anthropomorphised cat. "This is a Tabaxi. They share a lot of habits with a house cat. They're also adept fighters, as you can tell." After I explain this to Natsuki, I look up from the book to see a smile on her face.
"It's Perfect!" She says, taking the book and making notes of all that she needs. I knew there was a race, for everyone, even Natsuki. Same goes for classes. Talking of which.
"Now, we need to pick a class. Each class gives each character combat capabilities, such as the ability to cast spells, or to hit someone with their fists harder than others. I'm going to make my character, for example, a Ranger. They are one's with nature and their surroundings." I say as I look around, seeing interest on everyone's faces. Now I've got them. Let's see… Who to start with… Got it! "Yuri! What would you like to do in combat?"
"Well… I'm not sure." She responds, looking at the first page of the classes chapter. "I like the sound of the Druid, so I'll go with that." I smile. A druid is always a fine choice. I can see Yuri's happy with it as well, as she turns to Sayori. "What about you? What do you think you'll choose?"
Sayori looks troubled? "What will we have to fight? Real, or not, I don't want to hurt anyone who doesn't deserve punishment." She looks sad, and the game hasn't begun. I have to make sure not to upset anyone, to harshly. I know the perfect class for her!
"Sayori! You should play a Paladin." I say to her. She looks on, curious. "Paladins are warriors of a sacred oath. They fight to protect. To punish evil." Sayori's eyes light up and she immediately writes up her class. I knew that was the one for her.
"Well, I know what I'm taking!" Natsuki speaks out, a finger raised upward from a fully outstretched arm. "I'm choosing Monk!" She adds, enthusiastically. I must admit, I felt that one coming. Though, it makes sense. Monk is closest to an anime character this game has. "Which leaves you, Monika."
I have to admit, I am a little curious about what choice she's going to make. I recommended she pick a class that uses her maxed-out Charisma, but she doesn't have to. She could easily pick Rogue and still make use of that Ability Modifier. "I choose Bard." She says, looking up from the book.
"That makes too much sense." I say, laughing. Monika joins me with that. We both know I'm right. It seems like a foregone conclusion that she'd pick a class around music and rhythm.