My friends and I are big dorks. Every other Sunday our house hosts D&D. We roll dice, battle bad guys, and save the world. Good times. D&D is also the best feral kitten socalization ever. Six of my friends patiently wait for their turn to hold the cute fuzzy thing. (”Dude, it is your initiative, give up the kitten.” “Hey, your mark went off, don’t you want to teleport? Not if it means I have to hand off the cat.”) Our DM has become accustomed to “awwww” moments distracting all of his players. Not all kittens are good at D&D. Some want to explore, some want to hide, and others attack our figurines with the ferocity of a rabid mindflare.
Oliver, however, is a D&D mastermind. For those of you who don’t play D&D, it is a roleplaying game which has a heavy strategic (read: pretend combat) element to it. This means we have a map on which the environment is drawn, miniatures (or whatever we have handy) to indicate where our characters are, other miniatures (or, in our case, dice) to indicate the bad guys, character sheets that tell us what our character can do, cards that explain our powers, and little colored styrofoam squares to indicate what effects are present on each character. Below is a picture of the game actually in progress (normally we put the squares under the figurines, but the ooze we were fighting was represented by a snapple cap, so it was easier to put them on top.)
Oliver found D&D very relaxing. He curled right up between our Wizard and Cleric and took a nap. This is Oliver sleeping next to our Cleric’s character sheet. Note how carefully he positioned himself to not block any information. An expert D&D kitten indeed!
Of course, sometimes D&D combats can take a little too long and attention spans can be rather short. Distractions occur and playtime happens. I speak not of the kitten but rather of the aforementioned Cleric and Wizard. Remember those little styrofoam squares? Soon the kitten was dazed, prone, on fire, and marked a whole bunch.
Oliver was so down with the effect marker squares, he ignored them even as our Cleric took his turn. (Which is good, because we sure needed the Cleric’s healing!)
Cutest. Gaming. Kitten. EVAR. Maybe I should take Oliver to the local gaming store and see if he can get a home there! Any of you gamers interested? He purrs as he attacks the darkness!