THE ABSENCE
As I mentioned in my last post, If There’s An Emergency is currently on a pause. You might think that without a film to work on that there is nowhere to get out my creative juices and they’ll build up until the right side of my brain explodes out of my ear. You’d think that, and you’d be wrong, because I discovered DND and it is slowly taking over my life.
My name is Chloe Cobb, and this is my confession.
THE FIRST EXPOSURE
You might be thinking, “Chloe, you are an enormous nerd, you own over 3,000 issues of comics, you know the difference between a stegosaurus and a stegoceras, you’ve read Animorphs fanfiction, you have opinions on the best version of the Legend of Zelda theme music, you spent multiple days researching the state fish in order to rank them, how were you not already into DND?”
The Stegosaurus is the one with the thagomizer.
And the answer to that is….I was ill-informed?
My first real interaction with DND, or Dungeons & Dragons for those that are too cool for school, was when one of my friends got into it and tried to get me to build a character. Over the next 30 minutes he tried to show me how ability scores work, explain battling, show a dungeon…and I thought it looked ridiculous. Hard pass.
When I was older, I saw a few sessions being played by friends. It seemed like they were having fun but I had already decided that it wasn’t for me and bowed out.
THE HOOK
That was until I saw Stranger Things. And Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. And my friend Geneva’s web series The Party. Oh, and over lockdown several of my friends talked about their DND parties which sounded really fun for some reason. Maybe this ridiculous little game was more fun than I thought.
THE BEGINNING
It started with buying the Player’s Handbook and a set of dice. I read the book cover-to-cover and spent around a week or two designing my character, a badass half-elf ranger named Tharet that was basically a fantasy version of fantasy Chloe. I got her ready, full backstory, character sheet…and I couldn’t find a game.
I shelved Tharet, meaning to come back later.
THE RE-EXPOSURE
I didn’t play for over a year.
Then, a local community group I was a part of announced that they would start a campaign, and I was so excited! I dug out my Tharet character sheet and excitedly sat down to play, making sure I was familiar with all of the rules and how the game worked beforehand.
It was about halfway through that first session when my control freak tendencies took over. I realized, I don’t want to play in other people’s worlds (well, maybe occasionally). I want to make a world for other people to play with.
And then I was lost.
THE ENGULFING
Since that first session - about four months ago - I have become absolutely entrenched in research and learning related to DND. I have read 4 and a half rulebooks and half a campaign book, and own another rulebook to read through (and these aren’t small books - they’re 300 very large pages with small print). I have watched hours of YouTube videos from Matt Colville, Ginny Di, and Pointy Hat, and am now on Episode 42 of Critical Role Campaign 1 which has four-hour episodes (I also watched all of The Legend of Vox Machina). In researching my own world, I have read hundreds of articles and excerpts from books and listened to close to a hundred hours of podcasts about mythology and history and culture for world details players will likely never see. I am putting together two different campaigns. I have bought a whole assortment of miniatures and learned how to paint them.
This hobby is taking over my life. And it’s awesome.
This is exactly the kind of nerdy shenanigans I adore and lets me play with mythology and history and tell stories with a big group of people. And even my random dinosaur knowledge is relevant here!
THE SPREADING
If you’re a total nerd who likes to be creative but all of your passions are your actual work so you don’t have a real hobby, go play DND (as if you’ve never heard of it). You just might find your own addiction.
And if you’re not a total nerd but just want a way to hang out with friends on the weekend, you can also join a DND game. There’s a good chance you’ll have a really fun time.
Don’t know where to get started? Start with the basic rules from Wizards of the Coast. They tell you how to make your character and how to play the actual game.
For further info, you can get the Player’s Handbook. If you have the itch to DM, grab the Dungeon Master’s Guide and the Monster Manual. (There is an incoming rules revision with some controversy surrounding it, but the listed resources are still very available and playable).
If you’re looking for a real life game, ask all of your friends. Seriously, ask all of them. Some will ignore you, but there’s probably someone who wants to get into the game and doesn’t know where to start, just like you. If you’re fine with online spaces, you can also look at Discord DND servers or r/lfg on Reddit.
And if the idea of RPGs sounds fun but you don’t really want to play DND, there are plenty of other games out there, such as Call of Cthulhu (Lovecraftian horror), Brindlewood Bay (little old ladies solving mysteries with eldritch monsters), Blades in the Dark (Victorian era crime stories), Thirsty Sword Lesbians (fun queer adventures across a ton of settings), Coyote and Crow (a game by Native American folks using Native American and First Nations folklore), Fiasco (star in your own Coen Brothers film) and so, so many more. There’s probably something you’ll enjoy out there, so why not take a look?
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