Roommate Survival Guide
So, you’re in college! Kudos to you, I guess! But now you have to deal with roommates, because at Wiggenstaff’s, there is no living alone.You cannot escape them. You cannot run from them. Your roommates are forever. Since you’re stuck with them for five years, you should probably learn how to live with them.
Now, there are a lot of different types of people, and this guide can’t cover every possible situation, but I can give you general advice that will apply to the most people’s situations at once.
1. Please, for the love of Lloth, lay out ground rules. If you do nothing else on this list, lay out ground rules. This is like, some first day shit. Do it right off the bat. They’re your rules, and you can put whatever you want on them, but boundaries are important. Some things I’d recommend you include are rules on physical boundaries, food, relationships, and quiet time. For most people, it’s a good to establish a “quiet time,” because if you and one of your roommates are both bards, but your other roommate is a barbarian, then practicing your music in the dorm at 3 AM is a bad idea that will result in you possibly getting chucked out a window.
2. Set up your space. If you want to survive all five years, making it very clear whose space is whose is essential. At first, it’s useful to use duct tape to clearly mark out where your space ends and your roommate’s begins is important. Later on, the duct tape may not be necessary, and some of your stuff is all going to bleed together into general “room space.”
I drew a diagram to show you what our room looked like in freshman year. Marlena completely ignored the duct tape and made an invisible barrier around her space, which I bumped into a lot. I got a lot of bloody noses freshman year.
3. Do some roommate bonding! Nothing brings a group of people together faster than being locked in an enclosed space together where the only way out is to work together. After that, it’s doing shady activities together! Try to sneak out of the school to make a secret trip to Last Hope. It doesn’t matter if you’re set on the hero track, you’re not above initiating a prank war with your next door neighbors! And for Lloth’s sake, this is a magic school, so get creative with your pranks. A favorite trick of Marlena’s is the classic Pocket Pudding, which is a good way to get a real prank war started. Any team building activity is good, but make sure you’re having fun with it!
4. Communication is key. If your roommate is acting sullen, ask them what’s wrong. If your roommate is doing something annoying, tell them! Or be overly aggressive in sparring and walk them to the infirmary.
5. Steal Bartholomeus’ quills. They’re magic, and theft is a wonderful exercise in team building. Just trust me on this one. Steal the magic quills.
6. Give your roommates space when they need it. If your roommate needs to have some time to chill, let them. If they need to fly around outside the building, don’t try to follow them. If they’re going down to the dungeon to blow off steam, really don’t follow them, for your own safety.