D&D and Me

 

My parents went through the Satanic Panic so my brothers and I weren't allowed to play Dungeons & Dragons, but the concepts of roleplay, being a hero, and fighting monsters found its way to me over the years in what little I heard or saw of D&D. This is why tabletop games and especially Dungeons & Dragons will be my forbidden fruit I cannot get enough of. The endless possibilities of adventures and exciting moments was firmly implanted in my mind. 

After years of begging to try D&D and being told, "no, it's demonic," something happened...I grew up. I had my own car, my own job, and more importantly my own money. So my best friend and I drove to our local gaming store and bought the 4th Edition D&D Starter Set. The store owner could tell we were at the beginning of our journey into tabletop gaming and was genuinely enthusiastic and excited for us. Even now I feel emotional thinking about it because that guy could have just not cared and made a sale and gone back to reading.

His enthusiasm was my first impression of the tabletop community and is a true testament to the passion and love for the hobby that I see not just in the OSR community, but the entire tabletop gaming hobby. We may fight with each other over a range of areas, but one trait we all have in common is our love of the game. That moment when you did the impossible and cheered with your party and shocked the dungeon master. So we buy the starter set and get back to my friend's car. I can barely contain my excitement as this was something I had wanted to do since I was ten years old. The moment had finally come, I had my own copy of D&D! 

We got it back home and carefully opened the box. We didn't want to damage anything or get any pieces of whatever was in there mixed up and ruin anything. There were pre-made character sheets, some dice, a booklet of the rules, battle maps, and starter adventures. We didn't understand what any of it was, but the ambiguity and the mystery made me more excited.

After reading through the rules, discussing what we could extrapolate from them, and pouring over the maps and other art I came to a conclusion that I have held to this very day...There's nothing satanic about this at all It's just a game! It's very complex and detailed, but still a game. I could see how people could let it take over their lives like too much of anything can, but that wasn't any fault of the game or its developers.

So we began rounding up people to play with us. My brother was mad that we had depraved ourselves by sinking to the lows of being losers. At the time D&D players were portrayed as such in shows like The Simpsons, so I didn't have a way to argue with him. I told him that if playing D&D made me a loser then that's fine. Continuing our search we got my other brother and two other best friends to play so we had a party of four and a DM.

It was a rough start, we constantly stopped to look up rules and many times we got the damage wrong. We actually beat a dragon nearly to death and were high fiving and cheering when my friend the DM points out that no the dragon was not only nowhere near death, but has been dealing enough damage to kill one of us every turn. That's when we all realized how powerful and terrifying dragons could be. It is that awe and respect that makes me treat them the way I do now in any game I encounter them in. Despite that first session it didn't ruin D&D for us. We knew that it was rough because we were new and with time and experience we would have more fun.

A few weeks later I made friends with a co-worker who played D&D with his wife and friends at his house every Saturday. He invited me to come and that Saturday was when I joined my first D&D campaign. I showed up with my character sheet thinking it was probably stupid to bring it as everyone likely had stronger and better characters or that mine was the wrong version.

They welcomed me in and the dungeon master introduced himself. He asked to see my sheet and said, "Cleric? Awesome! I'll help you get situated, but let me know when you want to make your own character." They were friendly, welcoming, and I was part of their group as soon as I got there. This cemented my impression of the tabletop community as a passionate, friendly, and inclusive group of people. Every Saturday I went to D&D and we explored the homebrew world the DM had made. I eventually made my own character and got to really use my imagination for the backstory and roleplay.

I went back to that gaming store to get a set of my own dice. The store owner and his wife were there and showed me the sets of dice in all their colors and variety. They were so excited and we swapped D&D stories. Other customers joined in and shared their stories. I picked my first set of dice and the owner bought them for me. I was so surprised and very thankful. It pains me that the gaming store and my first set of dice are gone now, but I still have the memories.

Eventually I got the chance to DM for that group when we had too many players show up and the DM could tell I was curious about that side of the game. I loved being a DM more than being a player as I had so many ideas for quests, NPCs, locations, and more. I wasn't a great DM at first, I made the usual mistakes, but tried my best to learn from them.

When 5th Edition came out my brother and a friend of mine were doing a small podcast together and I had told him about 5th Edition and that he should try it instead of hating it. He relented and played in my first 5th Edition campaign. It was a nautical campaign and while it was rough he had fun and realized how wrong he was about D&D being for losers. My brother is a very talented DM now and has just finished a five year campaign with our group.

We played on roll20.net and I have thousands of hours playing and running games there. The community is just as great as the offline tabletop community, but more diverse and eccentric. I played with Russians, Australians, Germans, and many, many Americans. I got to a point where I was playing D&D every weekday after work with one shots and random players each day. Then...I got burned out.

I tried bending and changing parts of 5th Edition to try new things, but it wasn't as malleable as I had wanted it to be. Questions on Reddit got frequent answers such as, "5E isn't really made for that, you should look at other systems." The idea was impossible in my head, abandon 5th Edition for some other game? What about all the years I spent learning D&D? So I kept trying to make 5th Edition work how I wanted it and every attempt was unsatisfying. 

One day, I was browsing Youtube looking up strange and unique settings for D&D when a video came up that was what I was looking for. The channel was called QuestingBeast and it had a variety of settings. I watched the video and all of them were so unique that I was intrigued. It was like discovering D&D all over again. I subscribed to his channel and began watching his videos. The algorithm caught on to what I was looking at and more OSR content came up as suggested videos.

I had found it. Everything I wanted to do with 5th Edition was being done by people in the OSR community. I was so excited, but had to figure out which of the many systems was I going to play? Necrotic Gnome had first made those brightly colored books for Old-School Essentials and QuestingBeast had a review on them. I had also seen a list of systems on DrivethruRPG's OSR section and looked each of them up.

I ended up with trying Lamentations of the Flame Princess for my first OSR system. I liked the horror aspect and the people on the discord and those that worked for LotFP were mostly friendly. I say mostly because I met Zak on the LotFP discord and he wasn't all that nice to me, but the community manager was sweet and welcoming. I played LotFP with an offline group for a long time trying out every weird module and adventure that came out. 

More systems, adventures, and content for the OSR came out and was reviewed by QuestingBeast who continued to show me the diverse and unique world of the OSR. I played Old School Essentials, Troika!, Mothership, Forbidden Lands, Vaesen, Mork Borg, Ultraviolet Grasslands, Electric Bastionland, Into the Odd, and more. The OSR community is as passionate and welcoming as the rest of the tabletop community. I love the OSR and I can't thank QuestingBeast enough for the work he's done reviewing and showing the OSR. 

I feel I have rambled enough, but this is my first post and wanted to share with you how I got into tabletop gaming and why I love it. This is a great hobby and everyone should be able to enjoy it. Tabletop gaming is a social hobby and people will remember how you made them feel. To this day I remember the kind, friendly, and passion those people showed to me. Thank you for reading my blog and happy gaming!