A few years ago I got a hankering to play some D&D, something I hadn't done for over a decade. I didn't have any nerdy friends in my area so I went out on a limb and wandered over to Google to see if I could do some stranger danger and find a game. After a brief search, I ended up finding a small ad on kijiji for Saturday night drop-in D&D at a local game shop which, up to this point, I never even knew existed.

So Friday night rolls around and I hop into my car and head off to the gaming store. I’m a little nervous since it had been some time since I had played. I wasn’t sure what edition they’d be playing or how much the rules had changed since the last time I had played. I wasn’t even sure that I’d be able to play, depending on how many people they already had playing. Anyways, I pulled up to the store and strolled in. The store was fairly empty except for one table where there were three people playing a board game. I wandered around the shop awkwardly for a few minutes, a bit curious about where the D&D group was and about who was even in charge of the shop. Eventually, I ended up back at the board game table and started watching. At this point my nervousness was hitting a boiling point. I was about to walk out of the store when finally one of the people playing turns to me and says “Is there anything I can help you with?” I then proceed to start asking him about the D&D group and he kind of starts to give me a strange look and informs me that I was there on the wrong day. We had a little laugh about my mistake before he asks me if I’d like to join them for the next round of the board game. A bit embarrassed but feeling a lot less nervous after my failure at identifying the days of the week, I decide to join them and end up having a fun evening.

The next day, I headed back to the store for D&D. Now as I had mentioned earlier, I hadn’t played D&D for a considerable amount of time and D&D had changed a lot since then. At the time we were playing 4th edition and in 4th edition every class has a plethora of skills and abilities, all having different rules and cooldowns. This came as quite a shock to me since I was expecting that I could just make a barbarian and wade into battle, sword swinging. To me, someone who’s last D&D experience came when the main stat of the game was THAC0, it felt like everyone was playing as a wizard. Every turn of combat was each player looking through their spellbook, trying to figure out what to do. I just wanted to dive in and smash some goblins with my greataxe! The experience was vastly different than my fond memories of playing in my basement as a teenager. I wasn’t totally in love with this new D&D but the people I met and played with kept me coming back. In fact, two of the people from my very first session a few years ago are still in my weekly D&D group today.

I quickly learned that D&D was more about the people playing and the fun we would have together than the exploits of our characters. One of those interesting moments was the first time I decided to play a female character (I’m a fairly large dude with a pretty deep voice). The other players kept referring to me as male constantly and I finally decided to start reacting to it by exclaiming, “I’m a woman!” Even though I ended up making this exclamation repeatedly, the other player kept calling me a man by accident. Each session it was almost a guarantee that the first person to talk to my character would make the mistake of calling me a man and, of course, each week I would be forced to loudly correct them. Eventually this became a running joke within the group and is something that still comes up on occasion.

(I'm a woman!)

I have met lots of interesting people from drop-in D&D. From the first group which included someone who had gone to the same high school as me, to the girl who was an improv pro, to the guy who played the most painfully obnoxious drow I’ve ever encountered. Each group I’ve been part of has been unique and most of them have been enjoyable.

Currently, I play D&D every Monday night, led by the guy I first met when I walked into the gaming shop. He’s the Dungeon Master for our group of friends and every single week we have an absolute blast playing. Our current campaign started about a month ago and is still in its infancy. I look forward to playing each and every week and hope that you will all be interested in me sharing that experience with you.

Love,
bwar