I was driving somewhere back in 2000 when I heard an advertisement on the radio for the D&D College Tour. I’d transferred to Ohio State that year and remembered a friend of mine who went to school there would set his away status to “Playing D&D in the Union” every Saturday, so I went over to check it out. I picked up some tat, which I still have, and then went to the Union that weekend to play my first D&D game. I made a fighter, which the group helped me name (Gorman). I think I ended up getting the books as a Christmas gift. I played 3e with that group for a while, then my friend and some others split off to run our own game.
I eventually got my turn to DM. My game was very strange because I made it up as I went along. It was set ostensibly in the Realms, but since I never bothered to read any of the books, I just used the names on the maps and made the rest up. I’m sure someone who was deeply into the lore would have had a conniption, assuming the campaign itself didn’t do them in. That campaign is still a source of memes though all these years later, so I must have done something right. We took a break from D&D for a while, but we eventually came back, and I’ve been our forever DM ever since (other people run other games, but I’m the run who runs something D&D-like).
I’m also still running for that and one of the other guys from our college group these 22 years later.
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