Young Writers Society

Personally, I've been playing Dungeons & Dragons since I was a toddler. My parents raised me up to be a nerd. I've gone from convention to convention my entire life. I believe that my first edition was 3.5. I had lovingly named my first character Gasanga (can you tell that I loved lasagna as a kid?).

Right now, I play D&D irl on Wednesdays and every other Friday, and I DM for my friends whenever we have the time. I'm in the middle of writing a campaign about a necromancer in order to save an NPC that I killed. (Her name was Sariel, she was a drow rogue, and somehow my players became incredibly attached to her???)

My level 9 noble sorcerer (with one level of cleric), her name was Romulus, died on Wednesday! She had lived an adventurous life, albeit I expected her to die in battle. She ended up dying when another character put on an unidentified red pearl necklace. There were eight pearls on that necklace and each pearl was a level-3 fireball spell. She died the way she lived, surrounded by fireballs. She was initially a he, but she drank from an unidentified fountain of water and it turned her into a girl.

So? Do you play D&D? Are you interested in playing D&D? Do you have any characters or tales that you'd like to tell us about?

I play on occasion, although I primarily DM (I rarely play) homebrew pen and paper RPG's when I play them. It's more fun I think, and I tailor individual storylines for each player. I created my first one back in 2014, and based it on my main book, which I am still writing. The lore is developed up the friggin' wazoo.

@IacanusNegraeus - What's your favorite storyline to have written?

Iii'm currently trying to tailor this most recent campaign to my druid player, given the fact that I've been focusing on the cleric for the past two campaigns.

Also, what edition do you play?

I play as much as I can, but that isn't a lot. My main character so far is a level 2 Warlock with a Great Old One pact named Corso Ghostfire. As you can see by the level, I REALLY need to play more. I play fifth edition and although I have not done any DMing so far, I'm planning one that I hope to play soon.

I'm interesting in learning, and right now I'm helping my sister make a world and plot for when it's her turn to DM in her group of friends who play together once a week online. I think she's going to find me a group of kids my age so we can all learn how to play together irl(she'll teach us) c:

@Feltrix - How long have you been playing? Level 2 isn't half bad depending on how much experience you get per session. I personally prefer irl D&D, but playing online is incredibly fun and could assist in leveling up! Do you play following the rules of the Adventurers League or do you play homebrew?

@TheBlueCat - Check to see if your local library hosts D&D games! I used to play with @ChocolateCello at a library and it was incredibly fun.

I want to play! But I've only ever gotten the chance to once, at a friend's birthday party. All of us were new, and even the friend, who was DMing, had only played a couple of times, so it took us a *long* time (like 4 hours) to set up our character sheets and understand the rules (We kept getting off track because some of the guys were really rowdy. Plus one of them decided his character was going to be this god in the form of a swarm of ants and tried to make him way OP.)

But once we finally got everything set up, we started exploring a system of caves and were trying to get this treasure, so we were planning to distract the guards with a noise and draw them away, then sneak in. Unfortunately, all of us had to leave before we completed the plan, but it was a lot of fun.

That was 4 or 5 years ago, and I haven't had a chance to play since then because I don't know anyone who knows how. But hopefully that will change in college this year.

I love DnD! Of course, you know that @Evander because you are my Dungeon Master.

I'm so happy that I sat down and learned how to play DnD when I did because I love playing I'm currently in two different campaigns, one includes @Hattable and @inktopus where we're currently on our way to fight a wyrmling (a baby dragon) at the moment after we were banished from the town that hired us because my Patron, (I'm a Warlock/Paladin) possessed me and killed a tavern owner. After being placed on trial and being exorcised by a priest, we were told to bring back the head of the wyrmling that's been terrorizing the town and to never come back.

I'm a Dragonborn Warlock/Paladin as well as a former professor. My character's main goal is to find her students that were kidnapped by a group of people wanting to use the powers of the Dragonborn and to take revenge on that group.

Her name's Eden Sienna currently as she feels too unworthy to use her former name, Sienna Eden because Dragonborn usually use the name of their clan but after Eden lost her pupils, she left her clan and changed that. She vows to only come back after she's found her students and taken revenge on those who took them away. We also have a Tortle Fighter named Chortle (Hattable) and a Gnome Ranger (Inktopus) that are both super fun to play with.

As for the other campaign, I'm a level three, almost level four Tempest Cleric named Vi who worships Kord and comes from a family of mercenaries. Vi is short for Vicious, but since Vi left his family and became a Cleric after being a mercenary-in-training, wanting to do good in the world and make his own path. I play with Hattable in this campaign and in the next arc our goal is to bring Sariel back to life, the NPC that died in the last session.

The last session of this campaign lasted five hours and wow, what a finale to an arc. So much went down and staying up until three in the morning to finish was well worth it. That session was intense.

Those are my DnD experiences! I'm also planning to run a campaign of my own, DMing for Evander and Hattable soon enough which is exciting because I'm going to be DMing my first campaign mostly from scratch, too. I've loved the experiences I've had with DnD and I hope I have many, many more.

To answer your questions, Evander, I've been playing for about nine months, but it's been spread out over a long period of time. And I'd probably be level three or four except my DM always forgets to distribute XP, which makes leveling up much harder. I try to play by the official rules as much as possible, but there are so many that we have to ignore a decent amount of them just to keep things reasonable. For instance, my group ignores the rules where you have to pay a certain amount per month based on your quality of living and we don't keep track of how much everything we're carrying weighs.

@Evander

I forget which edition. Usually when I am playing D&D, I am not DMing.

Favorite storyline? That's a toughie. There was one where my friend was a half-fey in my homebrew, and I made a sidestory that was incredibly developed and originally intended just to be a road encounter. Basically, he was on his way to assess the situation in a city that was on the verge of rebellion in the northmost realm of the Alliance, on behest of that nation's archbishop (another player), to whom he served (the Black Bishop, as he was known - a name given to him following something he did in the past). On the way, he encountered a village that suffered from a mysterious plague. The people of the village each had their own demons, and he soon discovered that one of them was likely responsible for bringing the plague to to town. In order to solve the mystery, he teamed up with the local reverend in order to figure out who did it. After investigating a handful of villagers, they soon discovered that each of them had a motive, which really confused him.

- the Alderman: secretly the town's former reverend, who, after losing his faith, faked his own death and, with the help of a mysterious necromancer reported to have been in the region, faked his own death. He took the place of the actual alderman, who is buried in the churchyard in his place. He doesn't have a legitimate motive, but he's definitely a nasty person.

the only fey in town: Has a degree in alchemy from the University of Kelingrad, in a nearby kingdom, with a concentration in potion-making. Is secretly responsible for the death of her half-sister after falling in love with her husband, whom she ended up marrying.

the inkeeper: he simply has beef with the rest of the townsfolk after something that happened in the past. He's secretly responsible for murdering. Turns out he is a former assassin, and has been teaming up with the fey woman and killed several townsfolk whom they shared a mutual hatred.

the militia captain: the true ruler of the town. The militia are his cronies basically. He's a bit of a red herring.

the local herbalist: a mysterious old man who lives on the outskirts. He turns out to be magic, which is a bit of a red herring too because I make him seem like he might be the alleged necromancer. He was going to be important later on though. He also knew of the fey lady's murder of her sister, and helped provide the ingredients for the potion that was used.

the visiting physician: an expert in the study of plagues. It turns out that he was in town even before the outbreak, which led my friend to believe he brought it here on purpose as an experiment. Turns out he works for the king (a character in my book, who killed his brother three years earlier and took the crown...which happens at the end of the book, as this takes place three years after it ends).

Eventually, after a whole whodunnit thing, my friend discovered that they are all terrible people who brought nothing but misery. Yet, they were all innocent. Back at the church, the reverend reveals, in a shocking twist, that he was actually the phantom necromancer. He created the plague in order to cleanse the world of the evil that lurked in the village. He simply wanted to show my friend the transgressions of the village. Everyone else pretty much had hatred in their hearts too, and these were but a few of them. So, I gave my friend a choice. I posed this moral quandry:

What was the true plague? Was it the disease itself, or the village itself? Was it the evil that tainted the village, and the rest of the world? The decision was to kill the necromancer and cure the illness with his antidote (the righteous, lawful neutral option), or to leave the village to die (the consequentialist, chaotic neutral decision? He chose the latter and teamed up with the necromancer.

Note that this was ONLY a random encounter. THAT'S how far down the rabbit hole I go when it comes to being a DM...

Ask me six months ago, and I would never have thought I'd want to spend my Friday nights in college playing DnD. But then three friends and I got hold of a beginner's DnD set, and we'd play at about six hour intervals once every two weeks on a Friday. It was really confusing at first, and I'm sure we're still not strictly following the rules, but boy it is a lot of fun. We were too confused on how characters work, so we used the given box characters that came in the beginners set, and changed a couple minor things. We're all about level 3 now, and we add really silly renditions to the story since sometimes we have a different person joining us (to which we named the on-and-off again guest Stacy Thunderbolt.......lol).

We also don't really 'roleplay' our characters very well since we often forget (and we're often not sober enough anyways ), but we spend A LOT of time arguing for tactic! That's gotta be the most fun part about the game; we would legit spend two hours to sneak up on sleeping guards, kill all but one, then torture the last one to get information on some treasure whereabouts, only to be given information we already know. Or we would be so obsessed with the little things, like fighting over whether we should ditch our cart to rescue some cousin from level 1 goblins. The convo would go something like this:

"We have to resuce my cousin!"
"This was our first fight and we almost DIED. Your cousin can deal."
"But guys, the cart! They're gonna steal our stuff."
"Oh, you're right. I say we ditch the quest to return the cart, then secretly sell everything in the black market. I'm from a gang, I have the connections."
"Good idea, let's do that!"
"NO, THIS IS MY OTHER COUSIN'S CART."
"Well, we either lose the cart or save your cousin. I want more gold."
"Can we make the cart invisible then come back to it when we're done?"

And the DM, who's sick of us bickering for a solid half an hour of what to do, said, "Sure. You made the cart invisible with your invisibility spell." ....that we thought we had, but didn't.


OH. And one time, the wizard in our group who jokes around a lot started collecting skulls and would always roll to behead a monster we slayed. When we asked why he was doing this, he said, "I'm collecting the skulls to make a skull staff."
To which the DM said, "Uhh, you know that doesn't exist, right?"
"I'm going to make a skull staff."

And at one point, we reached a cave with some flesh-eating monster, and the only way to get past it was to feed it some flesh. And our wizard was quick to say, "I take out the head I beheaded." lol we all burst out laughing since we didn't expect this at all.....aaaaand this was also a million times funnier when it happened, and looking back at the words I typed, I realized this was really dorky.


So, yup, DnD is crazy fun, especially with other dorks.

So I see @Carina's silly antics gets likes, but not my dark, morally ambiguous whodunit? Hmph

lol @IacanusNegraeus

Our posts wildly contrast each other, don't they? It seems like there are two types of DnD'ers: those who are hardcore, and those who are silly derps.

You probably don't need to guess which type of player I am.


On a somewhat random note, my post got me thinking about my DnD experience, so I talked to my DM last night. Apparently, he said being a DM was difficult for him because we always deviate from the options/story in the book, and he has to think on the spot often.

So mad respect to all the DMs out there... You guys have to deal with the sillies. xD

@Carina I wasn't seriously upset or anything. Tis' all of it levity, so fear not - don't cry for me, Argentina.

I do, however, enjoy myself a goofy one-shot. My brother RPs a female half-elf named Luna Seapoppy Sanchez. My friend's girlfriend RPed an elven warrior-prostitute named Flavia, who was attracted to cats. It all depends on the mood and the groove, I guess.

I'd go on about my experiences playing, but you already know about them, and @Kaylaa already went over the gist of it. There were some good specific scenes but I don't recall them too clearly and I don't feel like sifting through backlogs, lel.

I did used to play Pathfinder, which I guess is an older version of DnD. Played that irl with some friends, but I don't really recall a lot that happened. There was some demon monster we fought one time, that was probably the strongest thing we encountered before the game tapered off into nothingness. I also remember some scenes in caves.
My character then was an elf? sorcerer? named Seldon? He was basically pre-generated for me, 'cause I didn't know squat about the game and I was kind of too dumb to fully grasp it at the time (I'm so glad I can understand it now).

But yeah, as for 5e, I'm currently working on building a Fire Genasi Mage. I should probably slow down on my roster 'cause I've already got Chortle (Tortle Fighter), Credence (Aasimar Bard), Dex (Tiefling Druid), and the newest character-- Thazzall (Goliath Barbarian).
Dex is probably my favorite to play, at least combat-wise, 'cause he gets close to beast mode quite a bit. It's great. Character-wise, they all feel pretty similar and I'm not a fan of the fact that I can apparently only play one kind of character (the mediocre comic relief, lel).

But yeah, Genasi looks really neat, and this one will be my first female character, so maybe she won't play quite like the boring boyes I've got. *finger guns*

Looking forward to next session!