Thank You Critical Role!

I have a short story for you all (that I hope you will find interesting). A couple months ago I was on about a two+ hour car ride to an adventure for myself (Heading to meet up with my Brother and his friends for a 5k obstacle course race through the woods in western Mass). Along the way, as it tends to do on longer drives, my mind started wandering. I had found Critical Role a little before, binge watched and caught up. Inspired by the show, I started daydreaming about a back story for a potential D&D character. This was interesting to me since I only played one, maybe 2 games of D&D ever with my Brother's group about 25+ years ago. I had fun but some of the role playing aspect was a little "weird" to me (being an overly self-conscious teen and all). I brushed off the activity and figured I tried it and was all set.

My daydreaming continued for about half the ride until I stopped off at a rest area that just happened to have a small farmer's market set up off of the right side of the parking lot. It's not something that I'd usually be distracted by but I went to check it out and ended up buying something. As soon as I was back on the road, my mind started going again. I had two possible character traits of this new character that I couldn't decide on so I split one off and applied it to a second potential character. This continued for my entire ride back home the following day. This alone would be enough for me to feel like I should thank you guys because it was like I got an extra 4-5 hours of entertainment out of watching your show. However...

A few weeks ago, I remembered and wanted to use what I bought at the farmer's market and went to my fridge. I couldn't help but laugh at the label.

I still can't believe that I hadn't noticed it before. Especially since the NPC Gilmore has been one of my favorites from the show and is one that started opening my eyes to the truly creative world of RPGs.

That label, the fact that I obsessed over these two characters on and after that trip, the fact that the trip was to hang out with my Brother who tried to bring me into the game all those years ago pretty much made it like all the stars were lining up to point me in the right direction. Even someone as sometimes oblivious as me could see that this was a sign for me to give D&D an honest try so I immediately reached out to my tabletop gaming group.

The payoff to all of this, is at the age of 44, I am less than a week a way from kicking off my first campaign with some real good friends. I REALLY can't wait and I owe it all to a group of friends/adventurers that I stumbled across while on the web.

So, thanks for going out on a limb, putting yourselves out there, and proving me a fool. The creativity, fun and camaraderie you all have has shown me I was wrong to shun the experience all those years ago and I'm sure I'll be eternally grateful.

May you all never roll a 1 (unless it's really funny)

Andy (The New Druid)