The Greatest Adventure - or how I learned to stop worrying and play D&D (Part 1)

Greetings Adventurers

Gather around the hearth, warm your weary bones and let me tell you a tale.

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Andre, I am 38 years old and I am a professional Dungeon Master.

My love of Dungeons and Dragons began as a small child when I fell in love with the fantasy genre, reading the Hobbit and Lord of the rings, followed by the old D&D novels (The Dark Elf Trilogy and the Dragonlance chronicles are the first two I remember) far before my reading comprehension was at a level to completely process them. I then was fascinated by the advertisements I would see in comic books for D&D materials, but it wouldn't be until my early teens that I would have my first proper encounter with Dungeons and Dragons.

Most of my experience with Dungeons and Dragons has been as a DM, at first through

necessity (as someone had to run the games, and I was usually the one to get the games together) then through a genuine love for guiding my friends through a story of heroic deeds and nefarious plots.

My journey into the world of paid DMing began in the early winter of 2018. I found myself unemployed, depressed, and directionless. I was recovering from a work burnout after having driven myself to the point of absolute exhaustion, being unable to pull myself out of bed without breaking down into tears for the fear of facing another day. I moved from the city back to the small rural town that I grew up in. Maintaining my parents property and doing some small projects around the farm in exchange for rent while my parents are out of province training race horses in the milder weather of southern Ontario.

I had no idea what I was going to do, money was getting tight. Even with no rent, surviving on only my wife's paycheck was getting difficult. I needed to find a way to bring some money in. So I did what any reasonable, responsible adult man would do, I found a way to distract myself.

I had recently rediscovered D&D, while Dungeons and Dragons had been my introduction into the world of RPG's, I wasn't a fan of 3rd edition. So when it was released, I tried it, and didn't enjoy it. So I explored other systems and genres of RPGs, resolving myself that D&D had changed and was no longer the game for me. However, my son had Liam had expressed an interest in playing D&D, so I started looking into 5th edition. I was very pleasantly surprised, the system was streamlined and simple, it had interesting character customization with sub classes and feats, without the complexity and bloat that I had experienced in 3e.

So I went online to find a game of D&D to distract myself from the reality that I might, very soon, find myself working for someone else, putting my body and mind on the line for someone else's profit. While browsing the LFG forum on Roll20, I saw a few people charging for their games. At first I was shocked. RPGs had always been an activity among friends, and while GMing was a lot of work, it was something you did for the love of the game. However it didn't take long for me to change my tune as I wandered the wastelands of LFG forums and pick up games. Trolls, Munchkins, Power Tripping DMs, Railroads, Protagonist syndrome, PvP, PvDM, Racism, Sexism, Disappearing or unreliable DMs or players, I saw it all while trying to find a group and a game that worked for me.

It was then that I put 2 and 2 together. There was a severe lack of skilled, reliable DMs, and a huge number of players looking for a good game. I've been DMing since the early 90s. I could give this paid DMing thing a try, worst case scenario, it doesn't work and I'm back in the same situation I'm in now.

So I gathered up some maps, made some tokens, and put up some ads for my first paid games. The D&D starter Kit adventure, The Lost Mine of Phandelver.

This series of Blog posts will explore my first year as a Professional DM, the challenges and triumphs, highs and lows. Interspersed with the Greatest Adventure posts, I plan to have posts with GMing advice, dealing with difficult situations, Adventure prep, Roll20 usage, and any other related topics that happen to be on my mind.

Until we meet again, may your blade strike true!

Andre//FalseZero