Chronicles of a n00b: The Beginning

Welcome to the first post of Chronicles of a n00b.  I feel that my nerd credentials are pretty strong.  I work in IT maintaining enterprise level servers.  I own almost all of the major gaming consoles since the Atari 2600 and have many of them still hooked up to my TV.  I played MMOs when they were text based and called MUDS.  When it comes to “The Lord of the Rings” the movies were good but the books were better.  Ditto for “Watchmen.”  Math is fun.  At my desk at work, I have the standard pictures of my wife and kids but I also have 3×3 and 4×4 Rubik’s Cubes, a Pokemon miniature, three Star Wars figurines, and a little Tron guy.  I’m passionate about politics and am a former first chair percussionist to cover band nerd.  I could go on and on but I think you get the point.

There is however one major checkbox on my nerd card that I hadn’t checked until recently.  I have a confession to make.  I never played Dungeon’s & Dragons or any other table top roleplaying game.  Yeah I know.  Point at your screen and laugh.  Proceed to the next paragraph when you are done. 

You’re not done yet?  Fine.  I’ll keep typing.  Catch up when you finish.

Growing up, I was among fellow nerds.  One guy recorded every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation to VHS whenever it was on.  Most of us were band nerds and would spend a lot of weekends playing epic games of Risk or other board games.  I didn’t get into comics until later in life but if I’m in need of damn near any major comic released from 1985 on, I had friends that could loan me theirs.  The pieces were there but we never got into D&D.  I always wanted to and even brought it up a couple times but there were no takers.  Apparently that was one too many steps towards full on nerd. 

After graduation, I left that small town for college.  One summer, I stayed at an apartment next to a group that really got into it.  Every few days I would see a half dozen wizards, fighters, and elves walk in their door.  I wanted to ask them about it but I never got up the nerve.  Plus this was the first time I wasn’t living with my parents or in a dorm room.  There was a lot of partying to do and a lot of girls to act awkward in front of.

Many (many) years later, I learned that a group of my friends dabbled in D&D.  I dropped several hints about my desire to play but the timing was always off.  Recently one of them decided he wanted to put his DM hat back on and run a Pathfinder campaign.  Finally I had my chance.

So far we have had one session and I’m hooked.  It was as much fun as I had hoped.  My next post will talk about the first session and what has happened since.  Our second session is tonight so you can expect some more soon.