My relationship with Dungeons & Dragons

When the pandemic started a few years ago, we were all lost in what it is we were going to do. Our lives seemingly flipped upside down from the norm. At the same time, it gave us an excuse to explore and learn new things. We learned how to make sourdough bread. We learned the art of putting together puzzles. Me, I learned Dungeons & Dragons.

​My good friend and coworker was getting his business off the ground. The concept? Professional dungeon mastering via online gaming. He would be the GM and customers could get their D&D fix when meeting in person could not be easily achieved. It was a perfect opportunity to make the most of this troubling time. The only trick, a little practice using technology was in order.

Now, prior to being asked to be on a testing team, I had very little D&D experience. I tried to partake in a campaign that only ended up being a couple of sessions because everyone got busy. It was never that I didn't like it. I just didn't have the time to fully experience it.

June of the pandemic, the testing team assembled and we started our first campaign...Curse of Strahd. We started with level one characters and did the preamble event that would bring our characters up to level three for the story. From the first session, I was hooked!

A few years and several hundreds of hours later, D&D remains my favorite hobby. Since we finished Curse of Strahd, we played Tomb of Horrors to test streaming our games, and immediately our test team became the stream team as dove into Tyranny of Dragons. I've participated in charity streams and made guest appearances on friend's streams. It allows me to flex my creative muscles that I don't normally get to do in work and in other parts of my life. I'm a D&D player for life now, and in a way, I have the pandemic to thank for it.

We currently stream each and every Thursday beginning at 8pm ET at twitch.tv/openheartgames This is where I play my favorite character I have ever built, Zed. You can learn more about him specifically in my character summaries or come hang out for a session and see why he is so special.