“It is as I feared. You’re all morons.” - Me
So, exactly as I expected and feared, rather than balancing the party, everyone locked onto the rather strange Ranger class in W&W. Rangers are primarily archers and spell casters in W&W, and all their spells can be delivered as touch spells through arrows. In other words, by shooting someone or something. The only difference between the characters, really, was that Useless Lou insisted on carving pithy names, like "Eye Gouger", into the shafts of his arrows.
So, the new party of Rangers headed into the dungeon, and actually won their first fight, defeating 6 giant rats in room 6b. It was a pretty bloody affair, especially since the rats closed immediately, making archery difficult. At the end, once the last rat had been run through, everyone needed healing, and every one of my players decided to administer their first level heal spell by shooting another member of the party.
By the end, only Useless Lou was left standing, at which point a goblin from room 6a, hearing all the commotion, wandered in and poked Lou with a sharp stick, finishing him off.
I started to admonish them about balancing the party. About goofing off in the dungeon. About being smart.
But they couldn’t hear me because they were all laughing their heads off. Instead of being upset over their characters dying off, or mad at me, or the game, or each other for killing them by delivering cure wounds spells with arrows, they were damn near pissing themselves with laughter.
So, naturally, I got mad and chased them out of the building with the business end of a stapler. How dare they have fun, I thought, collecting my notes, pencils, and dice.
At home, later, after a few drinks, Mrs. Supreme Marketing Goblin asked, “Well. Didn’t have fun this time?”
“No.”
“You didn’t kill them all again?”
“I did.”
“Last time you said that was the best part,” she said.
“Yeah, but they didn’t take it seriously,” I said. “They basically killed themselves.”
“So they were having fun?”
“Yes.”
“Rude of them,” she said. “I thought the game was about you having fun.”
“I can tell when you’re being sarcastic, by the way,” I said, turning about the lights. I’ll show them, I thought to the darkness. Next time I won’t let them die. That’ll teach them.
