To Todd, Dan, Steve, Amber, and the rest of my Thursday Dungeons and Dragons group,
I would like to offer my sincere apologies for my behavior over the last few sessions. The passage of time, and our culture’s ready availability for mood-stabilizing pharmaceuticals, has led me to realize that my behavior was out of line. In the interest of maintaining a stable, effective, and friendly group, I have drafted the following letter.
I apologize for insisting that my character’s full title was “Regrar, Vice-Duke of San Dimas.” In-game geography aside, it betrays a gross misunderstanding of West Coast politics; San Dimas, California, is not a dukedom, but an anarcho-fascist commune.
I apologize for Regrar’s repeated advances toward Amber’s character Fiona, although in my defense, I would like to point out that only most of those advances were of a sexual nature.
I apologize for my assertions (made both loudly and often) that Regrar was, in fact, “Sex-King of the Realm.” Not only does such a class not exist, but I neglected to grant Regrar the requisite feats.
I apologize for setting in motion the events that would lead to the death of King Javian the XXV. Had I known that he was such a well-loved monarch, I would have thought twice before engineering an elaborate plot to kill him and implicate his equally beloved nephew. I will say, however, that Todd’s failure to provide a reasonable answer to the question “Is there any reason I CAN’T engineer the assassination of the king and fabricate details about his nephew’s deviant sex life?” was as good as an invitation.
I apologize for not paying attention when Todd gave us the background on the realm and its various well-loved monarchs.
I also apologize for implying that it’s Todd’s fault that I arranged for regicide.
I apologize for encouraging the group to divide up the kingdom into seven individual city-states, each of which could be ruled as they wished. While I do not apologize for Todd’s inability to shift gears from a sword-and-sorcery setting to a slower-paced medieval political simulator, I do apologize for the additional work that this might have caused him.
I apologize for naming my city-state the Dukedom of San Dimas.
I apologize for any scandals and resulting embargos that resulted from trade policies with Dan’s country.
I will not apologize for losing my temper at Steve; I maintain that his inability to effectively deal with the rising threat of the lizard-folk in his domain was one of the key reasons Regrar’s dukedom lost its economic foothold in Steveotopia. I will, however, apologize for some of my comments; saying I would “grind his grandmother’s bones to paste” would be in poor taste in any situation, although I maintain I had no idea his grandmother had recently been involved in a fatal bone-pasting accident.
I apologize for telling Steve to “man up” and implying that “no one wants to hear about your dead grandmother,” and “it’s not like you don’t have another one.”
I do not apologize for not knowing that Steve did not, in fact, have another grandmother, although I do apologize for bringing it up.
I apologize for choosing Don Henley’s “Month of Sundays” as my character’s theme song. A shorter, more energetic song would have been a better choice as opposed to Mr. Henley’s perfect anthem of desolation, despair and impotent anger. In my defense, even this would have been acceptable if played once or twice—however, my insistence that it be played, in full, before I performed any actions in combat, created some friction in the group.
I apologize for suggesting that each player pick a theme song for their character.
I apologize for any humiliation I might have caused Dan as a result of any comments on my part; to be fair, I had assumed that everyone had known he was not the father.
I apologize for my frequent and flagrant abuse of Todd’s hospitality. The pizza bagels were clearly meant to be shared among the group, and my attempts at simulating “realistic hunger conditions” was not very well thought-out.
Lastly, I would like to issue a blanket apology to the citizens of the Seven Realms—my behavior was irresponsible, immature, and in most cases, inexcusable. The fact that they were, by and large, balls-to-the-wall awesome, in no way makes up for my deeds.
Sincerely,
Ross Hardy (Regrar the Brave, Vice-Duke of San Dimas, (Former) Sex-King of the Realm)
Feature Fiction: I must apologize for my behavior at Dungeons and Dragons
