It’s kinda crazy for me to think about. Story time! Otherwise just ask me anything :)
Around 11 years ago, I sat in the lounge that the Video Game Club occupies once a month on college campus. I looked over and saw a group of gamers go into one of the meeting rooms attached to the lounge - but instead of laptops or gaming consoles, they had books and dice and paper. I scoffed and thought they were too nerdy and cringey - I then went back to munching Doritos, chugging MtDew, and playing Borderlands/Skyrim/Pokemon for the next 12 hours lol.
Thankfully I was saved from my misguided views. A member of the VGC invited me to try out DnD, his group had an open spot. I was hesitant, but I craved more creativity in games that just couldn’t be supplied. So I decided to try it out.
Ended up not having a great time. One player was entirely checked out for 80% of the time and was a scumbag during the 20% he was engaged. The DM either was very new, or just had some very questionable calls. There were of course some fun moments but not a great impression.
I knew the game had potential. And I knew I could run it better.
So 10yrs ago today, my Players Handbook arrived, which is when I really began my journey to learning the rules, how to make characters, and how to run the game.
I’ve since had a few successfully completed long term games, including one that was over 5 years. I’ve ran a game at a convention, I’ve done some paid birthday parties, in person and online long campaigns, even some very successful afterschool programs while I was a teacher for a few years.
At my peak, I was running 4 games weekly. Since then I’ve slowed down a bit more and focus on two good weekly games.
Willing to share tips or stories for any who ask :) otherwise I just wanted to share this milestone.
I’m going to agree with others that this isn’t very specific to DnD, so shouldn’t be posted here.
Now if you were asking about toxic masculinity experienced at the DnD table, then it would be more appropriate.
A small, sillier one is two of my players constantly feel the need to one-up each other when it comes to height or muscles in-game. We started a new campaign and one person mentioned their character was 6ft. One of these two goes “well my character is 6’4”” and then the other (not the first) goes “well my character is 7ft”.
Like guys do we really need to do this, in DnD?