One of the things I’ve always wanted to do is play through a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. There is this stigma with people that play D&D, commenting on how silly they are, calling it playing make believe way past the acceptable age, hearing passing comments in Sunday School when I was young about the spiritual dangers of Dungeons and Dragons(btw; what kind of Dungeon Master doesn’t give you a save vs poison?), or see it get poked fun of on TV. Despite people looking down at the D&D crowd a little, something attracted me to the idea of participating. Maybe it was the idea of that which is forbidden or maybe I never experienced that level of nerdom, but for some reason I wanted in.

Brief spiel on what Dungeons and Dragons is if you don’t know: Dungeons and Dragons(D&D) is a structured and open ended role playing system where players create and control a character to interact within the game world usually run by another player known as the Dungeon Master(DM). There are rules that everyone, yes even the DM 99% of the time, must follow which governs how players can progress, attack, or generally interact with other characters or the world itself. There have been many different systems, editions, variations, and rule sets created since the original conception in 1974 by Gary Gygax, but at its heart the goal has stayed the same: keep the system free enough so the players can to do whatever the hell they want to but while still keeping them under some realistic limitations. You can play an evil wizard seeking revenge but you can’t play as a dragon archer that shoots swords out of its eyes(well at least not when you’re only level 1!).

Fast forward through highschool and college, where I avoided any D&D action, to when I started watching Rollplay. Rollplay was created by twitch/youtube content creator itmejp and the rest of the cast are mostly personalities from the professional USA Starcraft 2 scene. I don’t think any of them had played tabletop D&D proper before, except for their DM who has played for years, so it was really fun and interesting learning how the game works alongside the cast. I also got the opportunity to moderate itmejp’s twitch channel which is cool but also a big chore; sometimes I just want to watch the show and not ban a douchebag in chat every 7 minutes. So what started in February 2013 has continued over a year to today with Rollplay consisting of four different campaigns/shows, hundreds of exciting plot twists, and thousands of people tuning in each week to see what happens with their favorite characters. If you think Game of Thrones is exciting and keeps you on your toes, try watching Rollplay D&D/Solum. When you have a good DM(a mix of fairness, creativity, and a bit of a desire to kill you) the world and story never seems dull. When you have interesting characters(complete with their own back stories, personalities, and quirks) interacting with each other adds more to the story and plot. It can feel like a well written book at times if the harmony is there, except for one thing: the main characters aren’t safe. The Dungeon Master doesn’t want to kill you(at least not outright) but he certainly has to try to put you in danger, otherwise it’s no fun. If the characters are guaranteed a cinematic resolution, then there isn’t any danger, and a world without danger is boring. If a player character dies, that’s it. That character is done, and usually don’t get to find out anything more about them. If all the player characters die, you don’t get to find out what happens in the story because it ends there. And it is this aspect that makes D&D exciting. The characters are supposed to save the town by killing the evil dragon on the mountain. If this was The Hobbit(and I very much love The Hobbit) we’re fairly safe in assuming that is what will eventually somehow happen, but in D&D the whole party could die and Bilbo never gets heard from again. “But what happens to The Ring that Bilbo found!?” We don’t find out, not until The Fellowship Of The Ring D&D campaign begins and then the dangers start all over again.

So after watching 150+ hours of the Rollplay gang do their thing, I decided it was time to take the plunge myself. Would the other people in my party be super awkward and weird? Would they all get frustrated with me learning how to play? Would we get along? Would I even enjoy playing? This was all new territory for me so I was a unsure about a lot of things. Luckily everything went super smooth, I found someone asking around r/itmejp, a community mostly for Rollplay fans/content, if anyone was interested in jumping into a campaign for first time players. Cool! Everyone else in the group was brand new or relatively new to D&D and it was the DM’s first time running a campaign. It was very helpful, and a bit of a relief, to know I wasn’t going to be the only noob asking questions. We play online using the webapp roll20.net which allows us to roll virtual die(with a really good random number generator for dice rolls) and facilitates the DM to create maps, environments, and keep track of player data. A few play sessions into our campaign we started streaming our own sessions via twitch.tv and have even started gathering our own small audience! If you haven’t popped over to the An Adventure For Beginners Page, that is what it’s all about. It’s been a journey in itself playing with my group and we have just passed our 30th play session.

Some thoughts:

People who play D&D aren’t weird, well not all of us I’m sure there are weird people who play, but you get that with any activity. They’re just people who enjoy playing the game. I’ve met sport jocks, English majors, theology students, and musicians that all love to play. People from all walks of life enjoy coming together and participating in a common activity, what a concept eh?

Playing the game isn’t always super exciting I usually am always having fun but you aren’t in a battle against hordes of orcs saving the local King every minute. Like in real life, you have to take time to run errands, restock supplies, plan what you’re going to do next, plan again after the road you wanted to take is closed, and even take a rest day or two if your character gets sick. A lot of it is simplified thanks to the rules/system and a quality DM, but it still happens. A few times an entire session simply revolved around our party staying in a town talking to locals and shopping for items. Learn to embrace it as a very important part of the game.

Our group is awesome I honestly couldn’t have asked for a better group to find. Not only was mostly everyone else in the same newbie boat as I was, but we all get along really well. Most of us are fans of Rollplay and get to discuss the weekly happenings on the show. All of us have very similar humor and love to joke around in game and out. We even started to play other games together. The players, characters, and DM all bring something different to the table and it really makes the game stand out. Dare I say…I’ve made new friends through a random D&D party?

Streaming our game online adds an interesting dynamic This isn’t something you’ll find in your typical D&D group but we have had lots of fun doing it. Its a little frustrating when twitch decides to delete a recording or when parts of the recorded video go corrupt, but we’re learning how to work around the issue and are also hosting our recordings on YouTube, possibly with additional content. Whether it is the audience interaction, hearing how watching us helps others understand D&D better, or just having the last session recorded for an easy recap makes the extra work worth it. It has also propelled me into some web development involving wordpress and twitch integration, something I’ll share in the future.

I am having a lot more fun than I thought I would Going into it, I was pretty sure I would have fun playing. However I wasn’t expecting to have this much fun. The first time we jumped into combat in game my character shot his bow and I rolled two perfect 20s in a row, critical hit! One of our party members got arrested and we had to go through finding witnesses and a trial to get him off of a unfounded murder charge! I can’t count the number of times we’ve gotten ourselves too far into combat with half the party unconscious and our cleric dishes out damage and heal spells to save us. A bard in our group played Wrecking Ball on his flute and rolled a 1 for his skill check. These are moments I will remember for a long time. I look forward to Monday evenings when I can chill out with some friends online and roleplay Cabaan the Elf ranger who sucks at perception checks.



Moving forward, I’m not entirely sure what the future looks like. We finished “Season 1” of our campaign with 30 play sessions, around 26 of them are recorded and online our twitch and youtube channels, and have had over 10,000 viewers. 10k isn’t a whole lot in the world of internet videos but it is pretty damn impressive for what we’re doing I think. We will be starting the next season this week and I’m definitely excited to see where our story goes.

If you have any interest in checking out what our D&D sessions look like, jump over to our campaign page or stop by my twitch channel on a Monday evening(8pm EST | 5pm PST) and say hello!