Post Zero: My TTRPG Backstory

I woke up this morning (Yay, life!) and decided that I needed a space devoted to tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPG). Annnnnd, presto-webbo: welcome to PEWPEWHUZZAH!

This blog will be my receptacle for all things TTRPG. I'm eager to release the Content Kraken and attack various topics, with weekly-ish posts on narrative design, tabletop storytelling, game mechanics, virtual tabletop tech, and my approach to GM-ing. Before I do, I'm going to summarize my background with the dungeons, the dragons, and the funny dice – so you know where I'm coming from.

1988 -

I fell in love with TTRPGs as a kid and played a ton in the late 80s and early 90s: D&D (red, blue, teal, black, and gold boxed sets), Top Secret, Phoenix Command, Twilight 2000, Star Frontiers, Gamma World, and others. So many late nights playing, laughing until it hurt, and then laughing some more. Looking back on this time of my life with some perspective and a smidgen more WIS, I now see my caffeine, sugar, and polyhedra-powered silliness for what it really was: an outlet and escape for an awkward and introverted teen that didn't really fit anywhere else.

1995 -

After high school, everything changed like a Thanos snap. Life was one thing, and then it was something else entirely. My sink-or-swim existence, brought about by an unplanned promotion to husband, dad, and provider, didn't leave much room for slaying kobolds. The Forgotten Realms were forgotten, or rather overtaken, by the stuff of life.

2016 -

Twenty years later, while using The Google Machine, I saw an ad for the Fantasy Flight Star Wars TTRPG. I clicked. I read. I remembered. I was hit by a Mac truck of nostalgia. Memories of the good times from those childhood TTRPG sessions were projectile vomited from my Hippocampus and overwhelmed me to the point of ordering all three rulebooks: Age of Rebellion, Edge of the Empire, and Force and Destiny.

Soon after getting the books, I pulled together a Star Wars one-shot with a few friends - including my best friend who was there with me in 1988. It was so much fun and led to me, once again, diving back into the world of TTRPGs.

During my Gen X high school experience in rural West Michigan, Dungeons & Dragons was an esoteric game whispered about in hallways and played in tenebrous obscurity to avoid taunting and ass-kickings. While I was in the throes of extreme adulting and chronic workaholism, D&D evolved. It became a mainstream global phenomenon with streams, celebs, podcasts, events drawing tens of thousands of people, and a thriving global industry, completely blew my mind. (Really. There was a faint pop just before a gooey-gray slurry leaked out of my cranial orifices – a wide smile plastered on my face. I haven't recovered.)

Today

Most of my time has been spent playing or running dnd 5e, but I've filled a bookshelf with games I'm itching to play. Lately, I’ve been immersed in the world and rules of Cyberpunk RED in preparation for my first campaign that kicked off late June. (That R. Talsorian crew knows how to make a game. Wow. More on this in later posts.)

I hope to attend my third PAX Unplugged later this year and, if that happens, I will document it here. Although it's months in the rearview, I've also had the urge to brain-dump about my PAXU 2024 experience. You can probably expect that to land here in coming weeks.

How about you?

What is your TTRPG origin story? What are you playing? What system are you infatuated with or itching the play? Share in the comments!