The Adventure Began

I started this blog a long time ago, in hopes that i would find a group of DnD players that would care enough about my campaign. It seems i get into a hobby about a week before it becomes obsolete, and this is no exception. When i was in highschool i was accepted by no one, and that was BEFORE I started playing dungeons and dragons. I was however into magic the gathering, so lets start there.

before you think this is my life story, i have a point here:

i saw magic cards countless years ago, back in about grade 6, and you know i can't even remember how i got onto it. All i know is i loved them for the artwork. I would get a card, and it just totally blew me away. There was intrigue, there was atmosphere, there was an idea, and motives, and it totally stimulated me. I started collecting them, purely for the art, i would buy them JUST because they induced a feeling of inspiration within me, before i even knew what it meant.

Then i graduated to highschool, and as lame as it is it was only around then, that i discovered that you could play with them. I met a biology teacher who played with them. "play with them? Well, i guess it seems the obvious thing to do with a card, but still".

i decided to take it up. When i got home i downloaded a tutorial, learned the rules and printed out an ad to start a group at school to play the game. this might seem ambitious, but i had so much pent up inspiration, and no where to channel it... until now.

my principle on the other hand decided that it seemed too risky to start a group around "magic" and told me that i had to have an adult present. This was stupid of course but i was determined.

my point at this time is this, i played the game EVENTUALLY and you know what? The intrigue evaporated, and it came down to just a card game. i still love my magic cards, but for the same reason i loved them in grade 6, the illistrations and the little description at the bottom.

now, i managed to play a few rounds of this game with said biology teacher and described my dissapointment to him. He told my, there was a game much more rooted to the idea of intrigue and imagination, more of what i was looking for in a game.

so to backtrack a bit... i never had a member in that group... i didnt have any friends, no one liked me, and i had an outlet, my biology teacher (because at this point i liked him enough to want to take bio) taught my how to play dungeons and dragons, even though im prone to forget and slow to learn, he had the patients to teach me how to play, to extend a hand when no one else would.

what does this have to do with dungeons and dragons?

for the people who have trouble socializing, for the people who find it hard fitting in, and for the people who have been for a long time, isolated, for having been different, can fall back on this funny little book of rules, to find comfort, friends and a world of imagination and INTRIGUE!

my second point is that dungeons and dragons is by no means evil, it is after all, just a game.

so, why was it so hard to find a group to play with? think about it, is it video games? have they completely killed the art of imagination? is it the fanatics, who think that dungeons and dragons leads to rape and satanism? is it that few people have heard of it?


i dont think so... i get the immpretion that people are afraid of it. It is kind of underground, it does induce the act of, well, acting. how can one convince someone that it is just a game, there is no harm, and that is in NO WAY an excuse to look down on someone.

i have met people who are convinced that think this way, and it seems alien to me...

let me share a conversation i had with a DnDphobeist,

i wont give names, but you will know who i am:

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a:hey dude do you know anyone who play DnD?

b:lol ew no, you know my thoughts on d&d
are you desperate for rpg buddies?

a:i have a new campeign and website on the go complete with maps and a wiki... there are a few slots open for players

b: hahaha
oh how the net revolutionized basement gaming

a: too be honest ive found your views on dnd to be pretty biased... theres abolutely nothing wrong with it

b: blechh
yes there is

a: the cliches are old and tired there are few who play the old game to be anything more then people with vast imagination
what your thinking of is something else... cant remember the name... cosplay?
completely different....

b: cosplays even worse

a: its different
not even in the same book
the idea of roleplay as a concept is open to each variation but dungeons and dragons in itself is merly the act of taking ones place in an overall storyline

b: roleplaying is whack, ive got enough to deal wiht on this earth as it is

a: well it doesnt matter i didnt ask you if youd like to play i already know you dont, but i thought maybe you knew someone else whod be interested...

b: nope, all my nerdy friends are preoccupied with left 4 dead

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what has happened? has it always been this way? lets look at it on the other hand:

this person is a good friend of mine, he has different tastes from me, he does things i dont like.

but i have always been willing to try something, there is deffinetely an element here that is making people look at this harmless game, and wont even give it a chance.



next post i will be talking about how dungeons and dragons has changed over the years, and a little bit about "modern DnD"