Jamie Chambers

Walter

As many of you know, I’m a gamer. An über-geek, and proud of it. As much as I love wine, women, and song, I love games. I play and love ‘em all, everything from Texas Hold ‘Em to Battle Cry to Robo Rally and everything in between. And while I love board, card, and mini games of all varieties, my heart lies with role playing games (RPGs) and my first love was a little obscure game called Dungeons & Dragons.

When I was seven years old, living in north Georgia in the year 1982, my older friends Matt and Scott asked me to sit in on a game. I would get to play a warrior in a fantastic setting battling monsters while taking treasure and glory. My father, much to my mother’s displeasure, had taken me to see Conan the Barbarian earlier that year — so I could hear the music of the Anvil of Crom ringing in my ears and could recite the “best in life” speech at a moment’s notice. I was ready!

Never mind that my warrior was horribly killed by a black pudding in the third room, I was hooked and and ready for more. The bigger kids only wanted me to fill a seat, so I didn’t always get to play when I wanted. But within a year I had the gorgeous Elmore-cover red box set and probably went up a grade or two in reading level trying to unlock all its secrets. I became a better D&D player, and finally got to roll up my own character.

Warriors were bad-ass, thieves were good at sneaking around and stabbing monsters in the back, clerics could heal … but the power to wield magic and fling magic and fire at your enemies was not to be matched in my young mind. I wanted to be a wizard. I rolled up a character, old-school. Three dice and that was it. He was pretty much useless except for his high Intelligence and mediocre Constitution and Charisma. I named him Winston.

Flash-forward twenty-five years. I’m 33 years old now, and I have a seven year old son of my own, Alexander or just “Xander.” But he didn’t have to wait until his current age to be exposed to gaming. I’ve been indoctrinating him since before he was even born. I have, in my possession, the same red books from that very same early-80s D&D Basic Set that are signed by both Gary Gygax and Larry Elmore to “Alexander.” Signed while he was still in the womb at the Gen Con two-and-a-half months before he was born. There is a picture of him (check my MySpace album) of him holding a d20 in his hand and miniature AD&D rulebooks under his arm. Once he could hold dice in his hand, I would let him help me roll. (He got his start playing the Warlord CCG from AEG.) I could not wait to get my son interested in games! When Xander his four, I was able to score a copy of the D&D Board Game that you can only purchase in Great Britain (for reasons that defy all the sense I have as a game publisher myself). For those of you who haven’t seen it, the game is an excellent intro to the hobby that uses symbols instead of numbers and complicated game stats. All Xander had to do was roll the right colored dice and count sword-symbols to know his attack.

He loved it.

About a year ago we graduated to the new D&D Basic Set, using the pre-made characters that came along with it. Xander stepped up and played Regdar the Fighter, Lizzy grabbed Lidda the Halfling Rogue, Melanie the Elven Wizard. It was great fun! But after a few sessions, life and work and everything else put a halt to the game. We haven’t touched it for a long time … until today.

My son came up to me and announced that he was tired of us not playing Dungeons & Dragons. But, he told me, this time he’d like to create his own character. Being the man I am, there was no way to refuse him — so we sat down the D&D Player’s Handbook and a set of dice that once belonged to my good and much-missed friend, Richard Wilhite, and began the work of rolling up a custom-character.

The resulting character creation was a pretty kick-butt human fighter. He’s strong, fast, tough, and wields a greatsword (improved with the Weapon Focus feat, supplemented by both Power Attack and Cleave for my curious fellow geeks). This guy wears scale mail armor and has a dagger tucked in his boot. Way better rolls and choices than I made twenty-five years ago on my first character.

But as I went to enter his information into the computer so we could print out a character sheet, I realized that there was no name for this human tank. Xander wasn’t quite sure what to name him, so I whipped out my Extraordinary Book of Names, a handy resource for both Dungeon Masters and writers of fantasy. We flipped to medieval English names and I let him read the list for himself. “Well?” I asked.

“Walter,” he said. “Walter the Fighter.”

The grin that split my face probably could have taken off the top portion of my head. I immediately decided that it was the best name for a D&D character in the history of the world — and it wasn’t until an hour later that I remembered my own Winston (who was later crushed under a 5-ton granite slab in some dungeon or another). James Alexander Chambers really is a chip off the ol’ block.

My brother Digger was so excited by this story that he decided we had play — today! So he, Mel, and Liz were armed with characters and they hit the dungeon. There were goblins, locked doors, trapped chests, an orc mauler, and a shrieking harpy. Through it all, Walter the Fighter waded through his enemies in a sea of blood and gore as my son rolled his orange d20 and looked so excited I thought his head would explode. They made it through two major areas of the dungeon and everyone lived, earning some healing potions and a pair of magic boots, along with 400 experience points.

Xander had a good time, but I don’t know if he could have possibly enjoyed it as much as me. There is something about being a father to a son where you see everything through his eyes. It was like being seven years old myself and discovering the keys to the kingdom all over again.

I’ll play backyard catch with my son, like I did with my Dad. I’ll take him to the movies. But I don’t think anything is going to compare to this. I just hope we’re still gaming together when I’m a toothless old man.

No matter how senile I get, I don’t think I’ll ever forget Walter.