Benefits of Storytelling 1 (Patreon)

When I received a message from the university student affairs, telling me that I had to host yet another role-playing tabletop game for a group of students as punishment, the only thing that prevented me from preventing out loud was the fact that I was in the library, lost among a sea of students, and doing so would have seriously damaged my reputation. 

And I had thought myself so clever that I had managed to convince my psychology professor that doing my thesis on the effects of role-playing games on resolving interpersonal conflicts. At that time, it seemed the perfect way to have a few nice games with a couple of new players rather than spending endless hours in the library. After all, it wasn’t my real college, but a community near my home I was attending during summer to get a few free credits that I could use as my electives to push for early graduation. The college was not only expensive, but an overachieving nerd like me surrounded by other nerds, was also boring. The sooner it ended, the better. 

The problem: it worked too well. 

I still remembered the shine her eyes had when she read the first draft, before essentially forcing me to transfer into her advanced class because she liked my drive. Which was weird since I wasn’t a psychology major but a prospective engineer instead. It was more work than I was ready to do for a summer elective in a community college —my own major was complicated enough— but considering how nice it would look on my CV to actually do something useful in a community college, not to mention the value of extra credit that would basically clear my whole elective schedule to guarantee early graduation, it was an offer impossible to turn down. 

Then, a week after registration, she launched another surprise to me. Apparently, she managed to convince the school management to actually support our paper, with an actual budget I could spend on, some of it going to more books, actual props, and more dice than I could want, which was always. It was nice, until I learned that there was a twist. 

Rather than playing the games with fantasy enthusiasts, I was actually going to use the game to resolve the conflicts of the students that had been having actual conflicts. The first week, I had to run a game between two theater students and two bullies who thought that breaking the set that they had spent a week building. 

Running the game while they were making absolutely no effort had been difficult, though somehow, it was even more annoying that after two sessions, they somehow managed to become best friends, with their bullies rebuilding the stage on their own, and one of them actually joining the play in a small role. 

Perfect news for the paper, not so good for my free time. Suddenly, my workload tripled, killing my free time completely as I dealt with more dysfunctional groups. The fact that I had to transcript every game —with some software assistance, thankfully— hadn’t made things any easier. 

Since I was about to run the game just for the evening, I focused on my paper, trying to finish it before I could go to the room. From the experience, after the first game, I would be too annoyed to actually finish my work. 

Hours later, I finished the paper and checked the time, only to realize I had only minutes to begin the game. I slammed my laptop shut and dashed toward the room, wanting to prepare the room for a new game. I barely twenty minutes until my prospective players arrived, which was barely enough to set up the room. 

After setting up the lights —a dim environment worked best to calm people— and rearranging the rack of equipment that the players could use some tools to immerse themselves into their role. Then, I started waiting. 

When the door opened, I was expecting yet another annoying jock, stretching his muscles to exert his domination. Thanks to my height and my running habit which gave me a decent body, I hadn’t really had to suffer bullying during high school despite actually setting a role-playing club and being an active member of the chess club, but that didn’t mean many of my friends hadn’t suffered the said fate. I was man enough to admit that it gave me a noticeable bias. 

Then, my eyes widened as my first player. It turned out that I was half-right. It was really an athletic jock, but I was mistaken in terms of gender. Instead of another football player, I was going to host a redheaded gymnast. A redheaded, very sexy gymnast wearing just yoga pants and a sleeveless shirt that left her midriff open. 

Moreover, I recognized her only because she had just won a local competition, which earned many big accolades from the management, with a dedicated event to celebrate her achievements. Her name was Eliza. 

“Is this the conflict resolution event,” she asked with a calm, detached tone. 

“Welcome,” I said, struggling to contain my reaction in two ways. The first was the effort not to allow my gaze below her neck, not wanting to give away my attraction, though with limited success. I was lucky that she was more occupied with the decorations rather than my expression, giving me the time to control my expression. 

The second reaction I suppressed was a disappointed sigh. I had no idea who the rest of the players were going to be, but with such a spectacular example of sexiness in the game, I had no doubt that the rest of the players would flirt with her rather than playing the game. 

It was going to be torture. 

“Take a seat,” I said as I gestured to one of the four seats that were arranged around a half-circle table, with me sitting at the center, allowing me to observe all players together. “The rest of the players should be here in a few minutes, then I’ll explain the process.” 

“Sure,” she said as she walked silently. “It’s a bit … different than I expected,” she murmured. 

“You mean nerdier,” I said with a chuckle, amused by the way she flinched slightly at the confirmation. Nerd wasn’t the slur it was when we were in middle and high school, triggering endless bullying —thank gods that I was tall enough to avoid the physical side of it— it was still an insult, especially at the smaller towns, such as the one that my summer school was located. “Don’t worry about it, I wouldn’t have actually done research on the topic if I was ashamed of being a nerd.” 

“Still, sorry,” she murmured, but her expression didn’t shift much. She was rather standoffish, which was technically good news for my game as at least it would dissuade the boys from hitting on her, as long as I didn’t get a persistent jock, or god forbid one of those so-called nice guys who thought a couple of hours of discussion without explicit insults as successful flirting. “What’s all those dice for?” she asked. 

“They are here to add a sense of randomness to the game, which helps players to get a better handle of the risks,” I explained. “But if you don’t mind, I will delay the exact workings until the rest of the group arrives. It’ll keep you from getting bored from listening to them twice.” 

“I see,” she answered, again coldly, but for some reason, there was a stillness in her tone. I wondered why, but before I could explore it, the door opened once more… 

And another drop-dead gorgeous girl walked inside. I had to bite my lips as I tried to suppress my reaction, once again for more than one reason. The girl that just walked in was no less known than the superstar gymnast, but not with the same positive connotations. She was Tia Taylor, a sexy, lithe blonde with an impeccable taste in fashion, and the sole heiress to one of the biggest businesses of the town. 

Part of my reaction was the same I had to Eliza, a struggle to hide my arousal and fear that her beauty alone would have been enough to destroy any hope of a sustainable game. And wearing stilettos and an elegant black dress that barely covered her ass, she was just perfect enough to enchant the rest of the game. 

However, there was an additional layer to my frustration, because, across the school, Tia was known for her sharp demeanor and biting wit. And considering her family was the biggest donor for the community college, it wasn’t just the students afraid of her but also the professors. 

“Hi-” I started, only to be silenced by a hand gesture as she walked toward us, her stilettos echoing on the floor. 

“They are late,” she commented, and at that moment, it wasn’t hard to imagine her as the evil witch —a very sexy, very blonde evil witch— ordering her monster to execute the heroes. However, she looked at Eliza as she commented. 

Eliza just nodded, her distant posture changed, tightening even more than I had thought that to be possible, suggesting that I wasn’t only going to be possible lovesick male players that were going to be problematic. Leading roleplaying games since my childhood allowed me to learn how to read people better, and I could see that whatever problem they had between them wasn’t just a simple row about a boy or equally casual. 

I cursed myself for not checking the participant list before. At least, it would have been helping me prepare for the disaster mentally. 

Tia perched on the chair at the other end of the half-circle, her eyes closed, her posture stiff. 

Two minutes later, the door opened once more, and another unexpected figure entered. This time, I was pleasantly surprised that she was another female. I crossed my fingers. At this point, I was hoping that the fourth participant would be the same, at least removing the aspect of the playful flirting from the game. 

However, the lack of alert didn’t mean that I wasn’t surprised. After the star female athlete and the ice queen, I had been expecting another sharp personality. I wouldn’t have been surprised by the captain of the football team, or one of the rich boys, for example. Or maybe another socialite. Instead, I got a petite brunette I barely recognized, with slouched shoulders, walking silently. 

The other two turned to her, and she slouched even further as an attempt to make her smaller —which, admittedly, was very effective considering her short size. Without saying anything, she took the seat next to Tia, which was another surprise. With her casual loose clothes and her slouched stance, she definitely didn’t belong to the same group as the others, and her backpack, filled enough to explode, underlined that difference further. 

I caught her gaze and smiled softly, recognizing a fellow nerd, but she just avoided my gaze. 

I was considering the best way to initiate a dialog when the door burst open and my last player run in, and I gulped. It was yet another familiar figure, dressed in a very familiar outfit. Bianca Friar, the most famous cheerleader in the school —and probably the most famous person, period, thanks to a combination of her curvy body crowned by a lovely face and blonde hair, her excellent dancing that stretched her curvy body to the limits, and a cheerful personality that brightened any room that she walked in. 

Well, any room but this, apparently, as the moment she walked in, the expression of the others tightened even further.  

“Sorry, I’m late. The practice run longer than expected. You must be Harvey,” Bianca said cheerfully, hitting me with a bright smile. However, since I was looking for that, I could catch an uncharacteristic tightness in her expression that marked her cheer as fake. 

Admittedly, however, I was having trouble focusing on her expression, once again struggling to keep my gaze up, because she was still wearing her cheerleader outfit, which displayed her toned legs and her big tits perfectly.

However, I managed to notice an interesting detail despite the beautiful distraction she was providing. She had claimed that the practice ran late, but her outfit looked perfectly pressed, and while her blonde mane looked slightly wild, it did look more like something a hairdresser would do rather than the natural effect of jumping and dancing for two hours. 

It was going to be a complicated game…