Dungeons and Dorks

"What the fuck is this?"

"This-" Kaminari said dramatically, spreading out his arms like he was selling a car instead of his bedroom. "Is our new and improved game night!"

The room was the cleanest any of them had seen it before, with pillows all set up circling the large coffee table that Kaminari had placed in the center of the room. All of their dorm rooms were relatively the same size, but there was plenty of room for the entire Bakusquad, plus Midoriya, Todoroki, and Shinsou, to shuffle into the room and circle the table, taking their own respective pillows with various degrees of confusion and excitement. The table itself was covered in a stack of books and each pillow had a paper in front of it, a set of polyhedral dice, and some writing utensils.

Kaminari took his seat at the head of the table with his own stack of books and notes, as well as a bag that clacked with his own little hoard of dice.

"I'll say again. What the fuck is this," Bakugo growled from his position next to Kirishima, grabbing the papers in front of him as if it'd give him some sort of answer.

"This is D&D baby!" Kirishima said excitedly, leaning over Bakugo's shoulder to point at where it said 'Dungeons and Dragons' at the top corner. "Dude, yes. I've always wanted to play but never had the chance! Why have we never done this before?"

"What's D&D?" Midoriya frowned.

"D&D is short for Dungeons and Dragons," Kaminari said with a smile, grabbing a book from his pile and holding it up to show off the 'Dungeon Master Guide' at the front. "It's a table top role playing game where you create characters and the DM, that's me, creates a story for you to play through."

There were a mix of excited nods- mostly from Kirishima and Mina- and confused or hesitant expressions from the rest. "So it's like- a video game?" Sero asked.

Kaminari nodded. "Exactly! Except you guys have more control over where the story goes than in a video game. It's like an open world game. So I will have a plot figured out already, a series of challenges and puzzles and stuff that you guys can do, or you can just kind of do whatever and I'll go along with it," he instructed. "You can fight bad guys, go bar hopping, go shopping, really whatever you want to do. I just ask that you don't become murder hobos until you're a bit more versed in how the game is played. And remember that your actions in the game will effect the world around it." There was a long silence as they all shared glances and Kaminari bounced eagerly on his pillow as he waited for a response. "Well? Come on guys! I promise it will be fun! And if after a few sessions, no one likes it, then we can do something else. Pleeeasseee?"

"Bro you had me at D&D," Kirishima grinned.

"I'm so down!" Mina cheered, fist bumping Kirishima from across the table.

Sero shrugged, agreeing easily and Midoriya followed suit, turning a blinding smile towards Todoroki who simply gave a nod in agreement- because lets be honest, he would never say no to Midoriya. Shinsou was already flipping through the book labeled 'Players Handbook' and Bakugo just threw his hands up and groaned.

"Fucking fine. But if this turns out to be stupid, I'm not playing."

"YES!" Kaminari cried, pumping his fists in the air before waving towards the papers in front of everyone. "Okay, so first session is usually just set up. We'll make your characters and I'll explain rules, and if we have time after, we can get into the actual game. But I usually like to just do creation the first session. It gives everyone time to come up with backstories and stuff if they want to."

The others nodded along, listening intently- though Bakugo was making a show of not giving a fuck as he leaned back on his elbows and stretched his legs out under the table, knocking them between where Midoriya and Mina sat.

Shinsou hummed and glanced up at Kaminari. "You've obviously played this before."

"Oh yeah, it's kind of a tradition in my family," he nodded, blonde hair bouncing with each movement. "Before moving into the dorms we used to play every weekend. Usually my dad would run the games, but I've ran a few for my sisters and their friends. And I played with some people in middle school too." He handed one book to Kirishima, who sat between Bakugo and Sero, and then gestured towards the book Shinsou was reading through. "So- you're going to have to share because I only have two copies of the players handbook. We can just have one for each side of the table. That's where you'll find character information. You'll each have to choose a class and a race, and you'll be stuck with that until you either die, or you decide to switch characters, so make sure you look over all of them. There are also some extra races and classes in Mordenkainens and Adventurers Coast, but I usually recommend starting with something easy first."

"And a class is?" Sero asked.

"Ah- a class is basically... kind of like your job. So like, there are two overall kinds of classes- the fighters and the casters. Each one has different benefits and different scores," Kaminari explained, patiently going through the differences between the classes and answering questions as they arose. The others seemed to follow along easily, each chiming in throughout the session for a question before going back to scribbling at their papers.

After he'd helped Kirishima, Midoriya, and Sero create their full characters, Todoroki raised a hesitant hand, his face screwed up in an adorably confused fashion. Kaminari laughed before nodding at him.

"I do not understand the differences between the casters," the half and half hero said, a bit shyly. "They all can cast magic, yes? They just have different spells?"

The electric hero nodded and bobbed his head side to side. "Technically yeah, but casters all get their magic through different means. So like, a Cleric gets their magic from a god, Sorcerers are born with their magic, Wizards have to learn their magic, and Warlocks basically make a deal with some sort of entity for their magic. Druids gets theirs through plants and the other classes just kind of have a teeny tiny bit of magic in their bloodline or something that will give them a handful of spells," he explained as simply as he could. "The spells that you get will depend on what kind of caster you are. Are you trying to pick between them?"

Todoroki nodded, glancing down at his still empty page. "I am debating between a Wizard and a Sorcerer."

Kaminari hummed as he wiggled that information through his mind, tapping his chin. "I would recommend Wizard as your first try. Sorcerers can get really complicated because you have blood magic you have to take into account, as well as sorcerer points. They can be really powerful, but a little overwhelming if you don't understand the game to begin with."

The rest of the session went on easily, even Bakugo seeming to get into the details of the game, determined to make the best character out of all of them, despite Kaminari insisting that you can't win in Dungeons and Dragons. He didn't seem to care. By the time midnight hit, they'd all finished their characters, each satisfied with what they'd created and eager to begin playing.

"Okay," the blonde grinned, clapping his hands together to get everyone's attention. "So, since you've got your characters figured out now, your homework is to come up with backstories for them. Nothing too OP, remember you're still first levels. So don't be like- oh I killed my father who was a level 20 wizard- or something like that. And you don't have to make a tragic backstory if you don't want to. You can make your characters know each other too if you want, or I'll set it up in the first session where you meet, but if you'd like to add other players into your backstory, that's alright. Just make sure you guys figure out the details together."

Mina and Kirishima shared an excited look across the table, earning a glare from Bakugo.

"We'll introduce everyone next session, since it's getting kind of late, and Aizawa might get upset if he sees my light on any later than this, but then we'll get right into the story! Any questions?"

Several hands raised immediately and Kaminari laughed brightly before nodding at Bakugo first, deciding to just go around in a circle.

"What's with the dice? Was it just to roll for stats?"

"Nope, that's how you do pretty much any sort of skill in the game," he explained. "So your modifiers that you wrote down will add onto your skill checks. So if you wanted to parkour over a wall, I'd make you roll for acrobatics with the 20 sided die, and then you'd add your acrobatics score."

Bakugo's face screwed up in angry confusion and he sneered. "But I can parkour over a wall."

"Maybe, but you aren't in this made up world," Kaminari argued with a grin. "Your character is and he may not have the same training as you or the same skills. We let the dice decide. So if you roll too low, you may not succeed depending on what the skill is you're trying to accomplish."

"And who decides what's low or high," Bakugo growled, already knowing the answer.

Kaminari pointed his thumb at his own chest. "Me! I'm the dungeon master, so I'll be running the game. That means I'll be playing all the extra characters, I'll be driving the plot and deciding who succeeds and who doesn't. This is usually done with DC's. So if you just want to jump over a five foot gap, your DC to beat will be lower than if you wanted to jump over a twenty foot gap, since it'd be harder to do that."

"But we could like, not have to jump if we used magic or something to help, right?" Midoriya asked.

"Exactly! See? You're already learning! Finding ways around things is how the game works. Next question!"

Mina raised her hand next, waving it back and forth until Kaminari called on her. "Okay so like- you say it's a role playing game right," she asked, wiggling her eyebrows and drawing a snort from half the group and a roll of the eyes from other. "So do we like, just say what we want to do or-?"

Kaminari wobbled his hands slightly and screwed up his face. "Really that's up to you. I want you to be comfortable playing, so if you're not comfortable role playing directly, I won't make you, but it does make the game more fun in my opinion. If you want to just say, "I go up to the barkeep and ask him where the secret door is," then you can do that. But, it's more fun if you like, tell me you want to go ask the barkeep a question, and then in character, you ask me. And I'd reply in character. It makes a lot more sense in the game. But it's really however you as a player wants to do it."

Mina nodded, seemingly satisfied, though Kaminari could see a look of worry on Todoroki's face.

"Do we need to know all the rules in the book?" Todoroki asked, peaking over Midoriya's shoulder where he was already skimming and taking notes in his own notebook.

"Not really, it'd help for sure if you want, but you don't have to," the blonde replied. "It's really easy to pick up, and I'm happy to explain things as we go where it might make more sense. I only have two big rules," he held up two fingers, making sure everyone was paying attention before he pointed to the first. "First of all, we are here to have fun. If someone is not comfortable with what's happening in game or drama starts to happen, we will pause to figure it out. Depending on where you guys want to go in the game, it can get very intense and mental health check-ins can be important to fun game play." Bakugo snorted at the rule, but didn't say anything further, and the others just nodded, both Shinsou and Todoroki looking a bit relieved at the rule.

"Second," he said, pointing to the next finger. "I have the rule of cool. I am not a rules lawyer and I don't want you guys to be. In the end, I'm the DM so I'm basically your god. What I say goes," he shrugged and waved his hands a bit. "However, if you think something will work or you want to try something super cool that may not technically be allowed, I'm willing to hear your case and let you give it a try. I'm pretty lenient when it comes to the rules, it just depends on what you want to do."

They all nodded, Todoroki watching as Midoriya frantically wrote the rules down in big letters at the back of his character sheet.

"The rest is pretty much up for grabs. I recommend bringing a notebook or something to take notes on. You'll get special items or information throughout the game that you'll have to keep track of, I won't do it for you," he said with a bit of a snarky grin, glancing towards Midoriya. "Though you may not need to with Mr. Note Taker over here. Still, I recommend it because I might give some of you information that others might not get."

Sero frowned, raising his hand. "Why wouldn't all of us get the same information?"

"Well, if you're the only one in a room when something happens and you learn a big secret, I'm going to only tell you what it is," Kaminari explained. "It'll be up to you after that to tell the rest of the group or not. It's mostly so people don't metagame- uh, that just means using information you may know to change the outcome. Sort of. So if Bakugo isn't in the room with you when you learn the big bad guy's name, then his character logically wouldn't know it. So, he wouldn't be allowed to use that name to summon the guy later on. Not if you didn't tell him, if that makes sense."

The others nodded and Mina jostled in her chair excitedly. "Oh my gosh this is going to be so much fun! I can't wait to get started on backstory. I'm going to go all out, full life story!"

Kaminari cheered with her and clapped his hands. "Please do! The more information you give me, the better. You don't have to come up with a big long backstory if you don't want to, and it can be as simple or complicated as you want it to be. But I like to mix backstory with plot, so the more information I have, the more fun it will be."

Kirishima let out a loud whoop.

"Let's D and Do this!"