About a year ago, I began fully immersing myself in everything Dungeons & Dragons – a tabletop role-playing game that’s been around since the 70s. It’s an immensely popular hobby, with tons of offshoots and communities. At its core, it’s a game where a group of friends sit around a table and collectively create a story, explore environments and slay monsters.
I’d played once before, a few years back, but I had no clue what I was doing – and that campaign sadly got cut short by everyone moving countries (the game industry was calling…).
It probably wouldn’t surprise anyone that D&D crossed my path again thanks to the release of – and subsequent mania surrounding – Baldur’s Gate 3. Literally everyone and their grandma was playing it.
Thanks to D&D’s rise to relevancy everywhere, I happened across a little-known show called “Critical Role” (‘where a bunch of nerdy-ass voice actors sit around and play Dungeons & Dragons’). It was around that time I caught a flu and became bed ridden, and ended up binge-watching the first 12 episodes over the course of that week.
I got hooked.
Once I caught that bug, I immediately set out to find folks to play with. As luck would have it, there happened to be a community in Stockholm that plays every month (Discord, for those interested).
This was a great reintroduction — which really opened my eyes to all its potential. That same year, I ran a one-shot for my family over Christmas, getting each of them a set of dice that matched their personality (a surprisingly fun challenge!). That marked my first foray into being a Dungeon Master—something that initially felt pretty daunting but turned out to be far less scary than I’d expected.
Since then, I joined a campaign, brought together several colleagues (for whom I now DM the Dragon of Icespire Peak) and I even started a one-on-one campaign with my fiancée. Not a week goes by without some D&D goodness 😀
All in all, I’m very glad to have found this hobby. It’s widened my social circles, created an outlet for creativity that I wasn’t able to express elsewhere, and opened up a whole new world for me and my friends to explore.
I thought it apt to open my new blog with something that makes me happy 🙂
Thank you for reading!
Resources that helped me get started
Player Class Guides by The Dungeon Dudes have been great, both for me as a player and as DM to send to new players!
Matt Colville – Running the Game is filled with great advice on how to run the game as a DM
I want to especially highlight this video I wish I found earlier:
