Of Dice and Men

By Cameron McNary

At the 2010 PAX gaming convention, 550 people waited in line for hours to see the World Premiere of "Of Dice and Men" by Cameron McNary.
The convention staff stopped counting after they turned away 250 people who got there too late.

"It takes some fucking balls to put on a show anywhere, let alone in a converted convention room. Something special must have happened in there, though, because people wanted to talk about it for the remainder of the show."
-- Tycho, Penny Arcade

“Of Dice and Men” made PAX for me. For laughter and tears, nothing else compared...They deserved the packed house and the standing ovation they got."
-- Chris Sims, Critical-Hits.com

"It is a play for our tribe, as McNary puts it. And yet this simple two act play could be a window through which mainstream, 'normal' people could see us for what we are... just as emotional, complex and hopeful as anyone else."
-- M, Geek's Dream Girl

The world of six thirty-something Dungeons and Dragons players is thrown into disarray when one of them announces he has enlisted in the Marine Reserves, and will soon be deployed to Iraq. In this blisteringly funny and deeply affecting play, playwright Cameron McNary examines why we game, what it means to grow up, and what true friendship looks like.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cameron McNary
• Release date: Feb 26, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458025753

Book preview

Of Dice and Men – A Play

Cameron McNary

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 Cameron McNary

PLEASE NOTE:

Possession of this script in no way confers any right to production or physical performance. If you are interested in performing this play, please contact Critical Threat Theatre at [e-mail] for the rights.

FROM THE PLAYWRIGHT

Around my 30th Birthday, the following things happened:

I got married and became a father, and moved out of my parents' house for the last time.

I was in a truly stellar production of a truly mediocre play.

I realized I had never seen any art about tabletop roleplaying geeks that was not suffused with self-loathing, if not just-plain-loathing. *

My best friend enlisted in the Marine Reserves, and was deployed to Iraq.

This left me:

An adult, all of a sudden, albeit one with all sorts of childish hobbies.

Inspired to write, as only forced participation in bad art can make one.

Inspired to correct an oversight.

All kinds of conflicted... and with something to write about.

The basic questions I was struggling with are the same one John Francis is faced with in the play: how can one be an adult with these goofy, childish hobbies? How can playing a stupid little game about wizards and orcs and unicorns mean anything in the face of my best friend leaving for war? Why do I play at all, really?

This play is my answer to those questions. The first draft came out in one fevered lump: 120+ pages in just under a month, from someone who had never managed to finish writing even a short play before. It took a couple years of shaping to get it into performable shape, but it was always insistent. It never sat quietly on my hard drive; it was always demanding to be finished. I don't know if I have more stories to tell, but I had to tell this one.

In addition to my best friend Jason, to whom this play is dedicated, I'd like to thank the following people:

John Bailey, Clinton Brandhagen, Nick DePinto, Chris Dinolpho, Tara Garwood, Tracy Olivera, Barbara Pinolini, Tonya Beckman Ross, and Todd Scofield for helping me hear the play in the table reads.

Callie Kimball for saying exactly what I needed to hear about the script at exactly the right moment. To include the thing about line spacing.

Tara Garwood for helping me get off my ass and actually do something with the play when no-one else would.

Ben Soileau, for getting the play harder than probably anyone other than myself, and for being the best producer a playwright could ask for.

Everyone involved in the first partial reading at the Inkubator New Plays Festival, the first full staged reading at PAX East 2010, and the premiere at PAX Prime 2010 (see the production history at the end for their names). You made this play more than I dreamed it could be, and that's saying something.

My wife Maureen for everything. Everything.

Some notes on production:

These are NOT stereotypical, cheeto-stained-finger, acne-blighted geeks. At all. Play for those laughs and you're missing the point, and breaking this play. John Francis, Jason and Tara should all be attractive as well as smart. John Alex can go either way, but even he should have his charm.

If you're going to spend money somewhere, spend it on the costumes and the weapons. And the actors.

Spango is simple, in the classical theatre sense. He means everything he says.

Despite the way she may read at first blush, Tara is a very strong woman. She is almost always being ironic when she's being self-deprecating. She may be vulnerable, but she is never weak.

A pronunciation glossary is available at the end of this play for the geek-impaired.

Any group that undertakes production of this play without playing at least one game of D&D together is insane.

May you always roll twenties,

Cameron McNary

* No disrespect intended to any of that art, by the way: a lot of it is fantastic. Self-loathing (and the other kind) is a major part of the geek experience, after all. It isn't the whole story, though. I hang out with a lot of attractive, accomplished, fully-grown-up tabletop roleplayers who happen to have excellent sex lives, and many of them have never ever worn a cape to school. They needed writing about.

Cover Design by Vanessa Strickland. Edited by Amanda Farough.

ACT I

Lights up on two piles of moving boxes, each labeled with a large handwritten sign:  one says TAKE WITH, the other says GIVE AWAY

JOHN FRANCIS enters, carrying a pile of books – a mix of D&D books and serious literature.  He sets the books down and begins to sort them into the boxes.  He takes his time with each of the D&D books, stopping to flip through and fondle each one before carefully and reluctantly setting it in one of the GIVE AWAY boxes.  He chucks each of the serious literature books into the TAKE WITH pile without even looking at it.

After a bit, offstage we hear the sound of a door opening, followed by a loud THUMP, the squeal of a cat being stepped on, and the sound of someone crashing down a set of stairs.

JOHN ALEX [OFFSTAGE]

SON