Shaking his cupped hands, JJ tossed the handful of dice on the table. They clattered and spun, finally coming to rest, scattered all over the tabletop. There was a moment of silence as they took in the result, mentally calculating what their results meant.
"Hit," JJ yelled, raising his arms above his head in triumph.
"Roll for hit location," Tony said, referencing his gaming charts.
"Head hit," he yelled, shooting to his feet and knocking his chair over backwards, "take that!" All of the other players cheered and congratulated him.
"Congratulations," Tony said with a smirk, "you just killed your contact."
"What? No!" JJ dropped back onto his chair, falling on his ass because he had knocked it over.
Everybody laughed at him, but also got up to make sure he wasn't hurt. Offering him a hand, Alex pulled him to his feet. He was still stunned at the GM's revelation, and the fact that his character had just killed the NPC that they had been looking for.
Tony began folding up his charts and papers, "I think that's a good place to stop for tonight."
There was a round of groans and protests, but they all gathered up their character sheets and reference books, putting them in folders or book bags. Dice were gathered up and put back into dice bags, one person had an extremely fancy carved wooden box that was lined with silk that she put her dice in along with a small lead figure that represented her character.
"Man I love this game," Tony said, "I'm glad you guys invited me to join your group."
"We can always use more good players," Alex said, "and when you said that you were a GM too, that just cinched the deal."
"Everybody wants to play," JJ agreed, "few like to GM."
"I love to run games," Tony said, "I love putting people into fucked up situations to see how they react. And I love pushing the players, challenging them to really play their characters well."
"That you do," Kris agreed with him as she put her precious box into her black backpack.
Karen pulled her laptop out of the bag that she had just put her gaming stuff in. "I want to show you something," she pulled up a web site, "this is a site called World Anvil. It's amazing! You can store character sheets, NPCs, maps, timelines, campaigns; everything."
"Oh my God, that's cool," Tony said as he watched her navigate the site.
"You can get set up for free if you want to try it out."
Tony was mesmerized by the site, "I know what I'm doing tomorrow."
"I'll get the beers," Kira offered, "let's retire to the living room."
"Excellent call," Karen agreed, closing her laptop.
"But..." Tony whimpered, "but I wanna see more."
"Later. It's beer time."
They all got comfortable on the couches and chairs around the fireplace. A merry little flame danced happily along the few logs that were still there. JJ threw on another log and prodded at them to get the flames crackling higher and hotter.
"Beer," Kira announced as she brought a tray in and set it on the coffee table, "and one high-priced imported German lager for Tony."
"Thank you very much."
"And one wine cooler for Karen."
"Nice. Thanks."
"And one red wine for me."
"Question of the night," Tony said as he hefted his bottle, "what's your favorite type of character to play in any game? Alex, you start."
"Paladin," he said without a pause, "or some kind of protector character."
"Predictable," Tony said, "why?"
Alex shrugged, "I like protecting people."
"Fair enough. JJ?"
"Berserker or fighter. I like being the enforcer and cutting down anyone in my way."
"Obviously," Tony quipped, "Marcus?"
"I like stealth," he said, "thief or assassin characters."
"Expected. Karen?"
"Hackers, of course," she smiled, "or a tinker of come kind."
"Naturally. Shannon?"
"Healer or medic. Maybe biotech in a sci-fi game."
"Natural for a nurse. Kris?"
"Shaman or sorceress."
"No surprise there," he eyed them all and grinned. "Next game I want you all to make characters that are the opposite of what you normally play, or at least significantly different. I want to see if you can play something against your natures."
"Oh wow," Kris breathed, "that's going to be hard."
"That's kind of the point," Tony said, "It's a test of your role playing abilities."
