Roleplaying games are a huge part of me, as you no doubt remember, being something that has been a part of my life for almost as long as I've been alive.

After a lonely childhood, I made a few true friends in high school, who were all fellow weirdos, and most of whom were all too excited to try out DnD with me. At first it was just my girlfriend at the time, her sister, and our other friend Corey, who had played a bit of DnD in her youth.

About a year later though, near the end of my junior year, I discovered a little game store in our neighborhood during the day off everyone who isn't a senior gets for Senior Project Day. It was called Full Blast and was co-owned by Mike, a published writer of TTRPG materials himself, and Brandon, an actor who had had a memorable part in a later David Carradine movie.

I initially only brought my girlfriend there. I didn't really feel like I had a lot of tabletop friends. My girlfriend's sister wasn't that interested in the hobby, and Corey had a lot of other things she liked fucking around with back then. But one night, a few folks I went to high school with wandered in through the door for some Magic card tournament, and soon after we were pulled into a DnD game run by one of the adults at the shop, John (who would later become the creator of Mecha vs Kaiju).

He ran us through the Sunless Citadel (spoilers for it are inbound). I played Grimjaw the Fearless, a half-orc barbarian. My girlfriend played Siloqui, an elven druidess. Our friend Daniel played Bowen Draco, a human paladin (which I made fun of for being so plain). Alex played Deviro Lightningfist, a human cleric (Alex gets a pass for being hilarious). Anyone else? Am I missing someone? No?

Oh right. The wizard Milot Dole played by Kai, one of the most truly obnoxious people I have ever met who wasn't some right wing moron. We were joined later on by Izzy, who would later become one of my best friends, and he played Sammel Thistleknot, halfling rogue.

Now let me tell you, this was a shitshow. We didn't know how to work together very well, half of us hated each other, none of us knew the rules, and all of us were teenagers. To say there was nonsense is an understatement. The first roll of the campaign was Alex seeing if he could have slept with one of the people we were trying to rescue from the dungeon. He got a nat 20.

"With that result... are you the kind of person who kisses and tells?" "Yes I am!" "Well that might explain why she doesn't talk to you anymore."

I kicked open a door for no reason other than I saw a picture of a half-orc barbarian doing it and I wanted to also. This turned the Kobolds on the other side of the door hostile and made the whole dungeon a lot harder.

The battle with the Kobolds in the hallway took two sessions, and was a constant slog of insanity, with us risking total party kill constantly while we holed up in their kitchen and desperately fended them off. Steph's character's wolf familiar was killed, leading to her having a breakdown and kicking one of the adults in the shop who made fun of her with her steel toed boots. We eventually did defeat them, and upon realizing it was my fault, I insisted we spare what remained and felt like a total asshole who shouldn't make decisions. I wonder if that left anything in my subconscious.

We fought a big troll and nearly died again (this happens a lot) and Izzy ended up pretty wounded. We decided to make camp and rest, so I stepped out of the room to buy a soda from Mike up front, and when I came back I heard John telling Daniel "WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF BEING A SHITTY FIGHTER"

See, ol' Daniel (whom we called "Doomp" for the sound he made when firing a grenade launcher at people in Rainbow Six) got bored waiting for me for the two minutes it took for me to buy a soda and let Mike know how the game was going, and decided to throw Izzy's character's unconscious body down the hallway for no reason. Most paladin oaths forbid this (This was back when only lawful good folks could be a paladin).

To be nice (?), John offered Daniel an alternative to working to restore his powers by accepting a deal to become a Tainted, someone who has bound with a demon and is empowered thusly. So Daniel did just that, though he kinda tacitly agreed not to throw anyone down hallways from now on.

It made for some good RP, what with Grimjaw feeling he didn't deserve to lead because of how his actions led to the deaths of innocent kobolds, and Draco being an egomaniacal psychopath. We clashed constantly.

At one point we captured some goblins, and Kai's character just started beating them randomly with his staff, and ultimately accidentally arming them and sending them against us (every player needs that first reminder that this isn't a videogame, and that the goblins weren't going to fight for us just 'cause we beat them senseless for no good reason). The scenario basically repeated when we found a wyrmling white dragon that became hostile to us because of who we were as people, and led to Milot Dole tying it up and gagging it. This was the last straw for me and I forced him to free the dragon and made the party stop fucking around.

The final battle was something to behold. We fought the dark druid Belloch and some tree people in a fucked up underground grove. The druid used heat metal on the heavily armored Daniel which caused him to have a bad time (and gave him some trauma, he would always insist on having his armor modified after that to be able to be quickly removed). Grimjaw was entangled after getting one good charge at the druid. Milot Dole and Deviro fucked around with a bunch of twigblights and were almost overwhelmed. Draco fought the tree-transformed version of his mentor. Ultimately, Siloqui managed to down the druid with her scimitars, and Grimjaw put a crossbow bolt in his head.

Summer ended at that point. John went back to school and I took over DMing. I thought I was just as good, but I wasn't really, and it took a great deal of time, effort, and study to improve on my DMing skills, but of course, that is a story for another time.

So there I was, with everything I had ever wanted, playing DnD with my dear dear friends, the first time in my entire life I had had friends. The adults at the shop called us the Scooby Gang, after Buffy which was still on the air at the time. It was the first time I could recall since early childhood of being truly happy.

Y'know what they say about good things, though. And indeed, this one was no different. But I'll tell that tale another day.