THANKFUL - NOVEMBER SERIES, PART 1
In this, the first week of November, I find myself looking back at nearly 45 years spent playing TTRPGs, as a player and DM, and asking myself where did the time go? I have helped to create so many wonderful stories with the help of my players. Moments of triumph, tales of loss, epic foes beaten by my players, and all of the incredible stories we have told together. The majority of them have been great, some good and only one that I look back on and ask myself what the hell happened and how things went so far off the rails. That particular story I will share another time, but I am thankful for the experience it has provided me as a DM and I think impacted my ability in a positive way to make my table a safer place for all who sit at it.
Together my players and I have explored the Forgotten Realms from the frozen landscape of Icewind Dale to the steaming jungles of Chult. From the Sword Coast to the Empire of Thay ruled by the Red Wizards. We have explored the Ruins of Myth Drannor, the seemingly endless dungeons of Undermountain and the sea of sand that makes up the Anarouch Desert. We have walked in other campaign settings. We have been to the Lost City, Greyhawk, Krynn, The Desert of Desolation, Ravenloft and countless other realms and planes. I have spent countless days reading, researching and prepping for games and I have loved every moment of it. I wouldn’t change a thing. Even the recent experience with a terrible player who all but single handedly ended a nearly three year paid game campaign I cherished. So many stories, so many moments I sit and recall alone at times, or share with friends. Tales that would make a great series of novels, that bring a smile to my face or make me laugh at some crazy stunt one of my players pulled at our table.
As November commences and we all start to think on the things we are thankful for, I am thankful for my cousin Jerry who on that fall day in 1983 asked me if I wanted to play a game his English teacher at school had taught him, a game called Dungeons and Dragons. Little did I know that he would be responsible for setting my feet on a path that would last a lifetime. That journey would culminate in a collection that would make any grognard a bit red with envy, only to lose the majority of it to a fire. A journey that would see me make friends, part with others, be alienated by most of society when D&D was the “nerdy game” that only losers played and the Satanic Panic had parents and the media vilifying a world I have come to love and call home. I am thankful for those long weekends where Jerry and I would sit at his kitchen table on Friday nights, him as the DM and me as his only player, delving into dungeons and slaying monsters until we were too tired to stay up. We would sleep and get up on Saturdays to start all over. We would roll dice, laugh and weave awkward tales with our rudimentary understanding of the game at the time. We would drink liters of Mountain Dew, eat pizzas we made ourselves, not knowing the memories we were creating and that I carry with me to this day. Times of innocence and exploration of the world that Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson had created and we gladly lost ourselves in, if only for a weekend at a time. I am thankful for Jerry introducing me to D&D, TTRPGs, fantasy and sci-fi. Though we lost him in 1985, in my mind he is still there, living on in the game we both love, watching me DM and smiling over my shoulder. Through this game part of him lives on and he is never truly gone.
Thank you Jerry for bringing me into these realms and starting a life long joy that I would trade nothing for. For this and so many other things I am truly thankful.
