KJ

Earlier this year, I went back to tabletop RPGs for the first time in literal decades, specifically Dungeons & Dragons. It was a planned out campaign with a defined endpoint; the DM ended with a hook for a new story, but then had to end the game because she no longer had time to run it. These things totally happen, but I was sad to have rediscovered a hobby I enjoyed and have to give it up. A few month later, I mentioned this on an extended family Zoom call, and my cousin D offered to either find or run a game with the two of us.

This plan appealed to me for several reasons beyond getting to play more D&D. First and foremost, D was my best friend when we were growing up, and although he now lives halfway across the country and we don't see each other or even typically talk regularly anymore, we still have a strong bond and I loved the idea of hanging out with him on a more regular basis. Second, although we'd technically never played a tabletop RPG together, a common activity when we were kids was to roll up characters and scenarios in D&D or another system (we still have inside jokes relating to Star Frontiers) and play around with them. We even started writing a joint story at one point, sending an increasingly-long letter back and forth, and one of the characters we created for it was the basis for the first D&D character I ever played in an ongoing campaign (an elf ranger named Dev Donovan). So getting into an actual, regular game with him seemed fitting on many levels. He brought in a couple of friends, and we've been playing regularly since late August or so.

When I needed a character for the game I started back in March, I based her on a character from Dev's backstory, and because of the history I couldn't resist bringing her into this game, too. My cousin was immediately delighted when I introduced a half-elf named Mallory Donovan with an adventuring aunt, with whom she's had a falling out. It's not quite the same character as before -- the earlier game started the characters at level 5, but this is a level 1 game, so I needed to tweak her history quite a bit. But she's still an Arcane Trickster with mediocre stamina (but I re-rolled the stats and this time was at least able to start her with CON of 10), so she's not so different. Right now we're hanging out in a small city and learning its secrets, and I can see the seeds of plots being sown. But also I'm just having fun with it, and hoping that it will continue on as long as we can all make it work.