I never thought I would be the type of person to play Dungeons & Dragons, also known as D&D. I would always hear about the game from people I knew and from TV shows like Stranger Things. My brother was in a D&D club in school and always told me how much fun he had playing it and how he thought I would really enjoy it. The time just never seemed right to get into it, and I never had friends that expressed any interest in the game.
I am not the kind of person that easily makes friends, and I have social anxiety which certainly doesn’t help when trying to meet new people. It has always been hard for me to make plans with my existing friends too because I tend to worry too much about if they will find the activity I planned fun.
When I got into a relationship with my boyfriend I also gained quite a few new friends. They all met once a week to play D&D, and I started getting invited to sit in on their sessions. They always offered to let me join in and create a character, but I was too nervous because they are all experienced players. Seeing them play and have fun made me want to join in, and one day I finally took them up on the opportunity to take part.
In December 2022, we all got together to play a short RPG (role-playing game), called Honey Heist. Our Dungeon Master, aka the game organizer, turned it into a Christmas-themed game that took place at The North Pole. It was my first experience playing any kind of RPG and I had so much fun. I knew immediately after that I wanted to be a part of the next D&D campaign the group started.
For the new year, our Dungeon Master started a new pre-made gothic horror RPG called The Curse of Strahd. It has been such a joy to design my character, a Hill Dwarf, named Alice Fawn. She is nothing like me, but that fact has made it more fascinating to play as her. So far in our campaign we have been stuck inside a death house, met creepy characters, and gotten involved in a plot to rescue a woman from lethal vampires. We meet every week, and I never know what kind of craziness we will encounter in the game.
Seeing the characters that all my friends have created is so cool. We all wrote very in-depth backstories and all of our characters are extremely different. Some people make their characters a lot like them, while others try to manifest as a person entirely unlike them.
Our group always makes sure to make our D&D nights into a whole event. Our Dungeon Master transforms her apartment to fit the creepy gothic setting of our campaign by lighting the living room with nothing but the warmth of candles. These nights would not be complete without the bunch of food and drinks at our disposal.
I love my friends and D&D has brought us all closer together. Of course, we spend time together on other nights outside of our designated game nights, but it has been awesome having a set day each week when I know I can see my friends. I get to see how creative they can be when we have to figure out how we are going to defeat a monster or when deciding if their character should purchase a top hat or new armor. This has allowed us all to get to know each other more through our shared interest in D&D and I think that other people can use D&D as a way to have fun and hang out with their friends.