lullabyknell:

In the last chapter of my crack fic “Team Iruka vs. Paperwork” (x), I revealed that Naruto, Chouji, Kiba, and Shikamaru have a longstanding Ninja D&D group (Shika is the DM), and had Naruto forcibly drag Sasuke and Sakura off to join them in a game. While planning for the next chapter, in which Iruka does manage to find Kakashi at the house party, I was planning on having Iruka tell Kakashi that his team had run off to play Ninja D&D or something. 

Thinking about how Kakashi would respond to this, the first thing that popped into my head was Kakashi turning to Iruka with a genial, genuinely interested, “Oh? Were they now?” I suddenly realized that according to my Naruto universe worldbuilding, there’s NO WAY that Kakashi hasn’t played an absurd amount of Ninja D&D and other RPG games. 

See, while my Naruto fics might not all share the same ‘verse, they do tend to share worldbuilding and characters. In my Sakumo & Kushina fic, “What A Big Heart You Have” (x), I established that it was Kushina and her friends who invented Shinobi D&D, and that Minato (who was a massive nerd) was in their gaming group. If in my Naruto worldbuilding, Kushina AND Minato both played (and Kushina invented the damn game), then there’s no way that Kakashi (who is also a massive nerd) didn’t play. (Btw, Gai also absolutely plays.) 

So, I imagine the rest of this scene would play out with Kakashi cheerfully saying to Iruka, “My, my! I didn’t know they played! I’ll have to play a game with them sometime.” And Iruka, who has heard of Ninja D&D in passing but never fallen into it or had it explained to him, is… cautiously approving. Like, this is a board game, right? Fun board game bonding for Team 7 sounds… Iruka, ignorant and optimistic, “That sounds like a good idea.” 

(Note: Board game bonding has never been a good idea for any Team 7. First example: the last time the Sannin tried to play a board game, several people nearly died. Tsunade, Jiraiya, and Orochimaru all have this totally fake laid-back attitude, like, “This is a family game. It’ll be easy. No, I don’t care if I don’t win.” Except in a horribly passive-aggressive way, because all three of them were at that age (and continued to be) also intensely competitive.

Second example has been redacted. We do not speak of what went down during that night of Ninja Charades / Ninja Pictionary / etc. with Minato’s genin team. 

Third example: while Ninja D&D was fine, every OTHER board game with Team Minato was cursed with bad luck. It fell most often on Obito, and even if it didn’t the games always ended up being painfully unbalanced. Obito and Kakashi would end up not speaking for a month. The least painful game of Ninja Monopoly basically consisted of Rin unmercifully, strategically crushing everyone else while sincerely apologizing for it (without actually stopping).

Iruka has no idea what a terrible idea this is. He doesn’t know that board games have been banned in Hokage Tower since the time of the Shodaime – oh, not one-on-one strategy games, like Shogi, just anything that wouldn’t be out of place at a Family Night that ends in fire and tears and blood. Like Ninja Uno.) 

Iruka’s reasoning is partly that, if Kakashi is playing a harmless board-game-like-thing with Team 7, then Kakashi probably won’t be putting them in mortal danger or driving his kiddos up the wall for funsies. (He’s so wrong.) 

The point of this rambling post is that I was struck by the beautiful, terrible idea of Team 7 playing D&D, with Kakashi as the DM. On one hand, you have a truly chaotic D&D group determined and capable of screwing up ALL the poor, exhausted, absolutely done DM’s carefully crafted plans. (Naruto: “I eat the suspicious rock.” Kakashi: “What? No.” Naruto: “Okay. I lick the suspicious rock.” | Sasuke: “I kill him.” Kakashi: “…Your… own teammate?” Sasuke: “It’s the easiest way to deal with the problem.” Kakashi: “It’s… really not.” | Sakura: “I challenge the dragon to an arm-wrestling competition.” Kakashi: “It doesn’t have arms.” Sakura: “…Yeah, I’mma do it anyway.”) 

On the OTHER HAND, Kakashi is almost certainly the DM from hell. The upside is that this absolutely translates to their training. Team 7 is suspicious of everything. They can spot a trap from a mile off. The downside is that Kakashi could casually say, “Roll for initiative,” outside of a session, in any everyday and otherwise normal situation (at the grocery store, in a meeting, just hanging out at the noodle bar), and all three of them would scream and panic on reflex. (Not that Kakashi considers this a downside, of course.)