Roll for a Plan

Role playing games like D&D give us the opportunity to come up with a plan and then see what happens when it is implemented. But what about the factors (such as dice rolls) That you can’t control?

I’m on a pretty strict diet and it has a number of calories. This is my battle plan.

It had been at least a month since my last Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) session. Five hours (two of which are dedicated to travel) out of my Saturday is a large chunk. The time commitment stinks, but the experience of role-playing is totally worth it.

Here’s the thing with D&D, it’s bound to not go exactly as you planned.

This Saturday, I unexpectedly had to leave home extra early. It wasn’t what I planned, but I was excited to get together with my friends, find treasure, and beat up monsters.
I was going to make it work.

My first encounter was ‘The Iced Mocha’. (A glorious potent concoction of coffee and chocolate.) A treat to myself. I’m a novice to the Mocha Monster, they are expensive, but I was convinced I could squeeze it in. I also decided that I had buffered enough calories for a secondary cookie encounter. If I only ate half, I would still have enough points left for the planned raid on dinner.

(I really wasn’t excited about having to leave early. Can you tell?)

THEN IT HAPPENED, life rolled me an unanticipated series of Dunkin Munchkins (A small sweet ball like donut creation.) at D&D.

DM: Roll for Resistance to Munchkins.
Me: Three.
DM: You are unable to resist the Munchkins. Roll a d12 for damage.
Me: Eight.
DM: You suffer eight munchkins worth of damage.

On the way home, after two additional unplanned stops, round two of the cookie happened. I finished it off but I was really down on myself.

what did I do wrong? How did I end up eating a bunch of munchkins and a whole cookie? I’m usually really good at saying no and sticking to my eating battle plan.

I realized on the way home, I planned poorly. I knew I was going to be away from home for seven hours. An iced mocha and half a cookie was never going to satisfy me for that long. I should have packed some actual healthy snacks to eat with the treats. I’m confident I would have been able to say no to the munchkins if I had something else to eat.

It all boils down to the plan. Plans are what help you achieve goals because they give you a way to measure your success or failure. But, similar to the factors you can’t control in your D&D games, when faced with factors you cannot control, you still have to work your way out of it. As we become better at evaluating and adapting plans, we become adept at finding solutions and we empower ourselves to do better next time. We develop resiliency.

Is success guaranteed?

Never. But the important part isn’t your successes.

It’s the challenges you face,

It’s how you roll with the dice that matters.

Nyssasarah

Read  Nyssasarah’s personal blog ‘Cake and Choices’