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The Story So Far...
I started playing The Dungeons and The Dragons™ around the same time, and for much the same reasons, as many folk my age.
It had never really been on my radar, growing up in the late 90s and early 00s. This is surprising, given my predisposition to fantasy nonsense in my childhood. I was considered too young to see The Fellowship of the Ring in the cinema, but by the time The Return of The King released, I was obsessed. I went to see it four times. So genre wasn't the issue.
I went all-in on Warhammer 40K, too, despite my questionable painting and complete refusal to learn any rules. So I'd found the tabletop gaming niche.
Roleplaying video games have always been my favourite. I love the branching choices, the open worlds, the freedom to do dumb shit. You can see where I'm going with this.
How come nobody turned to a teenage Merlon and stated the blatantly obvious? There's this hobby, and it's been around for decades, and it's literally all your favourite things at once.
Truth is, on the subject of DnD's relative popularity over the decades, “I must professe I know enough to hold my Tongue, but not enough to Speake.” Still, I know I grew up in a lull. I knew about DnD - the name and the reputation, which was far from appealing - but I understood basically nothing about what it actually was. So it passed me by.
Thus, as it was for many others, it was down to Stranger Things (and that episode of The IT Crowd) to show me what I was missing. Only fleeting glances were enough to demystify this thing I'd subconsciously written off as "weird", and the seed was planted. I could feel the same shift in disposition among my friends, and it took a little while, but eventually it seemed like something we should try.
Been a few years since then...