Dungeons and Dragons; an experience in itself.

I started to learn how to play Dungeons and Dragons with a few online friends at the beginning of covid-19 lockdown of 2019 summer. I began my journey with a Dwarf -Druid named Rosaline Warhammer, who had a large red beard alongside her bushy and curly red hair. I almost died 2 times within this game, and I ended with a permanent injury to my knee which decrease my walking speed by five foot, and as a dwarf only has 25ft of walking speed - this wasn't very good at all.

This game really opened up my eyes to what an amazing world the dungeons and dragons world really is, most of that was down to the Dungeon Master Xander. Now Xander, an experienced veteran of Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), created this mystical world that we as Player Characters (PCs) could 100% immerse ourselves in. It was almost as though we escaped into a whole new world, and we had become the characters we had rolled. Without Xanders' imagination and his incredibly descriptive story telling I don't think my love of D&D would have been ignited quite as much as it was, I just wish I could have gamed more with him, maybe we'll game more together in future.

Now I was a newb, I had ZERO idea on how D&D works other than the over-dramatised version of it in films or TV shows. Xander and his players were extremely welcoming, I had been introduced to them by my friend Kat, who had been playing for a few weeks with them, she knew it would be perfect for me to game with them also, and for that Kat I am incredibly grateful for you dragging me into the wonderful world of D&D.

My first task was figuring out what class and race I wanted to be, now as above you can see I chose a Dwarf Druid, the reason for this is that, i am a short, Ginger women, who likes to see themselves as a bad ass that won't take sh!t from no one. Silly, I know, but I really wanted to be able to play a character that I knew already, or thought I knew. I wrote my backstory before I rolled my dice for my stats, and got really into creating it. One thing I've loved doing is writing my own supernatural/medieval stories, I kinda wrote a short story about my character rather than a brief backstory, which didn't really give me much flexibility to expand the possible secrets of my life (or so I thought).

Me being me, I wanted to know Everything about Dungeons and Dragons, the rules, the various different type of characters, races, classes, weapons, monsters, E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G. The good thing was I had a printer! I printed every PDF about D&D I could print out, I highlighted everything I thought was important and some things I thought were really cool. Safe to say this was a lot of printing, I bought more ink for my printer and printed more and more things until, my partner eventually asked "Are you sure you haven't printed doubles of everything?" I just laughed; almost sounded like a cackle, as I printed more and more things about D&D. I read everything my little brain could take in, I researched the things I didn't understand. I had multiple phone calls with Kat asking her and her boyfriend John many questions about the game, what I should and shouldn't do, what they would advise for a newb like me to do to prep for the game. The main gist of the advice really came to "don't over prepare" and "just enjoy the experience" and "ask questions if you need something confirming." - The last answer I can't stress enough, Ask questions if you are unsure about something, your DM would rather you ask questions then struggle to get through the game, as this in turn would make you frustrated and not enjoy the game play.

Now we already know I was a bit too eager and a little too over prepared with all the printing I did, so that advice was already ignored. the other advise made me a little nervous, I'm quite an anxious person and this meeting new online friends and having to roleplay made me panic a little. I have got to be honest with you all, there was absolutely nothing to worry about. We had quite a large party of PCs we had a Warforged robot called HK-69, that was played by John(1) (different John to Kat's boyfriend), a Tiefling which was played by Kat, other john played a wizard that loved Thunderclap (or thunder thighs as Kat and I used to joke), we also had a dragon born and of course my Dwarf druid Rosaline. (we may have had another player or two but it was a year or so ago and I don't have the best memory)

It was finally game day and i was excited, nervous, anxious, over energetic and shy all at the same time, it was a roller-coaster of emotions, but the day was finally here! I was able to finally put into action my character. My first game wasn't as smooth as i thought it would be, i was too anxious to speak up but, the great all knowing DM, that is our wonderful Xander, kept asking me what I want to do so I could have my say too- this made me feel like part of the team even though this was the first game I had played with them and they were part way through a campaign, they truly made me feel like part of the D&D family.

Xander explained everything, down to the smallest of detail, it was an incredible experience, we had music for suspense and epic game play, John the Warforged had a robot voice to really play in his character, John the spellcaster really played into his chaotic nature, Kat the Tiefling played into her chaotic devilness, the dragonborn played into his brute force and I finally got to play the bad ass short, protective and kind hearted Dwarf druid Rosaline. The game went on for a fair few hours, I believe it was 6 hours, it was one of the best 6 hours I spent with these new friends I had made.

I came away from the game with happiness and amazement as Xander just blew my mind with the detail of the game, the action within in, the laughter us as players created, the pure chaotic fun left me in a tired but satisfied state. I had just played my first D&D game, and I never wanted to stop.

As soon as the game finished I searched for a beginners set for myself that would have dice, a DM screen, a campaign and some extra bits and bobs, and i began to read through the campaign, getting more and more excited as what is to come in this campaign, but at the same time, I wanted to run my own game. I wanted to be like Xander, explaining everything in great detail, telling the story with the characters moulding the story to their own experience, as I had researched, no game is the same- even in the same campaign.

I spent weeks playing D&D with this awesome team and weeks trying to set up my own campaign on Roll20, and set my sights on what the world of D&D could offer me as both a player and a Dungeon Master.

As you can see from my first experience D&D was a perfect fit for me, especially as i had such a good group of people I could play with. Alongside playing D&D i began to watch Xander and John on their Twitch stream on Yorkshirerolls, (if you're interested in tabletop RPGs you need to check these peeps out 100%) And the players of Yorkshirerolls, inspired me even more to find what more the D&D world could offer me.

This was the beginning of a really exciting investigation of who and what I wanted to become within this new mystical world of D&D. Follow this blog for more posts about my experiences with Dungeon and Dragons, also you should check out the players and DM socials I have mentioned above.

Xander; twitter; vmprbt

John; twitter; therobotfrom94

My twitter; pronotincl

Twitter; ammodinosaur

Twitch to follow; Yorkshirerolls (also the same tag for twitter)

My Twitch; proficencynotincluded

Thanks for reading and I hope to see you all next time! :)