Writing My Own Story
I have always been a person who could find themselves getting lost in a good story. Whether it was with my first excursions into reading with the Magic Treehouse Series, the classics in world building like the Lord of the Rings, or my recent foray into the Discworld series, I always find myself looking deeper than what is written on the page. Who are these characters? What drives them? What is the world they live in like? Where is Mordor in relation to the Shire? How long would it take for Daenerys to fly her dragons from the wall to King’s Landing?
This love of worldbuilding and storytelling took a new shape when I discovered tabletop roleplaying. In my freshman year of college, I was invited to join a group of new adventurers through a homebrew Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 edition campaign. I fell in love with the ability to take my character and shape them to the world they lived in and, with the help of my fellow adventurers, tell a story that was collectively and uniquely ours.
Though I did not continue with this group of adventurers, my love for the medium only grew. I began running games for my other friends who showed an interest in the topic. This started with running pre-written, one shot modules to me creating entire settings. The map, who ran the city council (if there was one), the history of the world, these were all things to consider and create. While some ideas were better than others, (the town of Yettabe [yet to be named], ruled by the powerful family Wellfigureitout spring to mind) they were all part of a world that my players experienced and grew with me.
With this love of worldbuilding also came a love of character building. I am constantly thinking up unique people for my adventurers to interact with. I do keep some of my more “interesting” characters for myself when I have an opportunity to roleplay them over the course of someone else’s campaign. Some of these lovely individuals include:
A dwarf who was raised his whole life to be a member of the army. Day in and day out, he would train and prepare to be one of the realm’s best fighters. Every opponent he faced found themselves weak against their awesome might. His swings always met their mark and his ability to read the tides of battle was unparalleled among the ranks. Unbeknownst to him, he had a sorcerous heritage that manifested itself through his combat prowess. He was unaware of his magical abilities and believed that he was simply the best fighter the realm had ever produced.
A bard who, through the force of his personality and performance, convinced the local Jarl that he was, in fact, a powerful wizard. Some of his feats included, pulling a rabbit from a hat, making flames appear from where there were none, and detatching and re-attaching his thumb from his hand. He eventually fled when he conjured a bouquet of roses for the princess, much to the Jarl’s chagrin.
The leader of a local thieves guild who aspired to become the leader. They were not driven by vengeance, or a hatred of persons in power, or even greed per se. They really enjoyed being a thief/spy and were very good at it. They figured if someone had to lead the guild, it might as well be them and through his leadership, could potentially reform the guild from the inside to be less of a blight upon pleasant society.
I love breathing life into my characters and worlds and can go on incessantly when brewing up new adventurers and campaigns to try and convince my friends to give up five hours on their weekend to listen to me make various silly voices at them, often getting into conversations with myself (at the suggestion of one of the players most of the time). It provides me with an opportunity to let my imagination run wild and share my ideas for my story with close compatriots.
Can’t We Play Something Simple?
I love complications. Seriously. The more complicated something is, the more I enjoy making sense of it and distilling everything down to its simplest form. And, the more (needlessly) complicated something is, the more I enjoy it. This is best encapsulated by my ever-growing collection of board and card games. A few times a month, I try to organize a game night with friends. Whenever I introduce someone new, I will half-jokingly tell them, “If the instructions have a table of contents, it’s probably really good.”
While I enjoy almost every game I play, some of my favorite genres include:
Deck Building (Dominion, Puzzle Strike, MtG)
Asynchronous (Betrayal at House on the Hill)
Hidden Role (Bang!, Mafia, Werewolf)
Resource Management (Settlers of Catan, Lords of Waterdeep, Scythe)
I try to experience as many different types of games as I can. One of my favorite spots to bring my friends to is a board game bar in downtown Philadelphia called Thirsty Dice. They have a massive catalog of games that are available to you while you eat and drink. A typical Friday involves grabbing a game from the wall and trying to figure out how it works while bonding over bar food and some pretty sweet milkshakes.
Music Section
I have been playing instruments since I was recruited to play “Little Boy Blue” for my Kindergarten school play. I had a brief foray into concert band, but eventually dropped it once I realized I would need to march around in formation for hours while playing my clarinet. I then switched to acoustic guitar and eventually bought myself an electric guitar in 8th grade. I have continued to play guitar since then, learning what songs and solos I wanted and sometimes playing for bands in small venues. Over the past year, I bought a digital piano and have been teaching myself to play. I definitely thank my years in concert band as I was able to retain some ability to read music and have been learning some classic piano riffs, like Rocket Man, Piano Man, pretty much any “Man” song. While I am currently covering other artist’s works, I eventually want to develop my skills to be able to arrange my own compositions.