Fortresses and Wyverns

I started playing Dungeons and Dragons a while ago. I blame The Adventure Zone for sparking an interest in it and making it sound fun, and the confidence I gained through improv to make it seem not as wild of an idea to roleplay. I will admit I was completely in the "D&D is for nerds" camp for a while there, but through the persistence of the same person who got me to listen to TAZ I eventually caved and agreed to "try it just once."

Now I'm in two campaigns and running a third. So you could say I decided I liked it.

D&D is the literal definition of escapism and living out your fantasies that video games try to be. The difference being, of course, how much more finely you can control that in a tabletop setting. You aren't bound to set actions, map edges, and unbending rule sets. Your character and their actions exist completely as you want them to, within a world that is just as dynamic. It is truly an open world, which is amazing.

It is also paralyzing if you're one of those "when you can do everything you can't do anything" people as I am. That was one of my biggest hang-ups when people started asking me to play. "You can do whatever you want!" My brain doesn't work like that. I need a box to play in. Give me boundaries and I can expand to fill that space, but leave me with infinite possibilities and I will immediately assume the fetal position. When there are literally thousands of combinations between race, class, subclass, feats, and who knows what other factors there is just too much for someone who wants to "do it right" to pick from. Nevermind how to decipher the best way to apply numbers to the different stats.

Luckily for me I've had a number of experienced friends around to guide me through the process, and resources like DnDBeyond have been immensely helpful. That website auto-populates all of the choices available to you based on the other options you've picked, so it's pretty impossible to miss something. Don't like how it's coming together? Just go back and change the selection and everything will update accordingly. Coupled with pages that explain what everything means and some friends who can share their experiences about how things work in reality you've got a pretty solid foundation for making your way through creating a character and starting to play.

Both of these wonderful drawings of my characters were done by the talented @katiesimrell.

I have been having an absolute ball playing on both sides of the DM screen. It's incredibly interesting to me how the experience varies so much depending on who is running the game, and who else is participating. There is so much fluidity to the rules and play styles that no story would ever play the same way twice. I also love how accessible it is; you can play for free very easily, in person or online, with friends or with strangers. It's a heck of a game, and you can bet your butt there's going to be a lot of D&D related posts coming in the future.

Have you played D&D or another tabletop RPG? If you've thought about it but haven't tried it, what's holding you back?