Crystal's Story Time: Sacrifice

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Illustration by Crystal Frasier

Cave raptors are sated; it's time to blog!

My father taught me a very important lesson as a young goblin: never try to eat a live cat. He also taught me that anything that is truly important to you requires sacrifice. And not the fun sort of sacrifice, where you get the family together for dinner and grandma bakes stollen and we all sacrifice a bound-and-gagged human for the greater glory of Lamashtu. No, it demands the unpleasant sort of sacrifice.

Gaming is important to me, and this weekend, it took its sacrifice. While running my favorite Pathfinder campaign, Curse of the Crimson Throne, and pantomiming the grisly death of a moderately important NPC, I took a pratfall that resulted in the unthinkable: my glasses were snapped like so much optometric seagull bone.

With my uncanny goblin skills (and a healthy supply of glue and wire), the break was easy to patch, but the damage has been done. I now sport the Prometheus Unbound of eyewear, and my shame is without end. No longer am I the office beauty, as any goblin should be, but rather a misshapen and hideous creature, no better than a common kobold. My game took a sacrifice of my dignity...

It also made a sacrifice of the 2d6 copper pieces I have jealously guarded since I was declared a 'combatant' at adolescence, but until we get into silver pieces, money just doesn't compare to dignity.

But I am not alone. Any serious gamer has had to make at least one sacrifice or compromise for the sake of roleplaying, and if I have to wear my sacrifice on the bridge of my nose for a few days, so be it! That delightful Tom Hanks fellow sacrificed his dignity for gaming, and look at him now! Sacrifice is an important element in the stories we tell around the table: it adds the cost that makes a victory valuable or the pathos that makes an encounter memorable. And the little sacrifices we as players make are no less important or memorable than the spectacular tragedies our characters make, and probably mean more to us in the end.

Roleplaying is worth a little hassle now and then for the happiness it brings, the friendships it forges, the occasional romance it inspires, and the birth of Warduke, who will unite us all beneath his iron fist. My sacrifice amused my friends and made their table experience that much more real, and I'm sure it will give my coworkers a few laughs as well. So as oxymoronic as it may be, I'll wear my wounded dignity with pride until I can get to the optometrist this weekend.

But until then, I can't see jack.

Crystal Frasier
Production Specialist