Picture this.
It’s college, the late naughts, and we’re playing Dungeons & Dragons in someone’s dorm room. Pencils, dice, and character sheets carefully balanced on the backs of well-loved 3.5 manuals and math textbooks. Mountain Dew and Cheetos abound.
Except for our paladin, because he’s diabetic, so he’s drinking Fresca.
I’m playing the party rogue, because I play complicated, mildly-broken character builds and in D&D 3.5, Use Magic Device meant the party rogue could do anything. As long as they had enough scrolls. Which was easy to do, because if you’re doing it right you had Use Magic Device as well as Open Lock and Move Silently.
The rest of the party generally accepted this, as we were in college. College games are not known for their in-depth moral discussions. The rogue stealing things to grease the wheels was an accepted fact of life. Mostly.
Except for the Paladin.
Sometimes, he found my shenanigans cheeky and cute. At other, seemingly random intervals, he found my shenanigans to be evil shenanigans. And as his combat stats were much better than mine, this was a Problem.
Like any good power-gaming munchkin friend, I tried to find a reason. Was it the theft target? The object taken? The general glee? The complete lack of morality?
Nope. It was his damned blood sugar.
Our Paladin had Type I Diabetes, and he was real, real bad at managing his blood sugar. Consistently, without some form of snacks he could enjoy, he crashed somewhere between the first and third hour of game. And his Paladin went from “What Fine Yet Rustic Architecture” to Jean Valjean.
So, I did what any good rogue friend would do. I started bringing healthy, diabetic-friendly snacks to the game.
And suddenly, all my antics were cute and cheeky.
I share this story not to dunk on diabetics, or paladins, or even terrible college games of Dungeons & Dragons fuelled by Mountain Dew. I share this story because the moral is The Problem is Usually Out of Character.
Coincidentally, I told him (and the rest of our group) all this after the second session when I confirmed that’s what was happening. We all had a great laugh and learned a valuable lesson.
Ever since, I make sure my games have food. Real food. Hearty proteins, healthy fats, and some form of fibre.
Gaming is a brain intensive exercise, and your brain takes a lot of calories to function. ESPN covered how chess masters can burn over 500 calories over the course of a two-hour game, and can lose a huge amount of weight over the course of a tournament, including the 1984 World Chess Tournament being cancelled because Anatoly Karpov lost twenty-two pounds over the course of his forty-eight games.
The next time you’re wondering why your fantastically character-driven players suddenly turn into murder hobos… check if they’ve had some form of protein or fibre in the last four hours. If everyone is suddenly taking twice as long to get through a combat turn, consider breaking out some carbs to keep their energy up.
Otherwise, you get Diabetic Paladins, PvP, and no cheeky shenanigans whatsoever.