Hello, Readers! Clevenger here.

Ah, Graham. I accept the snarky response and will handle the southern language for the both of us. It is the least I could do.

But on to the topic at hand. Table Top Role Playing Games (TTRPGs). They are an essential part of how this book became a thing. How the story began, how the collaboration between Graham and I is so easy and natural. It’s because RPGs gave us the similar passions and story development skills. The writing ability became what we needed to put it on paper, but the story… that was already there.

However, Graham isn’t why I got into TTRPGs. He is merely why I love them so much. You see, my introduction to RPGS came in early middle school. A friend of mine (Mikey) introduced me to HeroQuest and other games when I was in seventh grade. When he asked me to join his Advanced D&D Game, it sounded pretty cool. Mikey introduced me to the dungeon master, I sat down and built my character (which ended up being a wizard, much to my pleasure) and I sat down to play my first, and only game.

What ended up happening was that I found out they were very into the “game.” So I ended up uncovering a small loophole and wrecked the DM’s BBEG for the session. After the fight, every room we opened dozens (literally dozens) of monsters poured out of and attacked my character. Ignoring everyone else. Within three hours, I had ruined their game, ruined my friendship with Mikey, and gained a distaste for D&D.

I didn’t attempt to play for another five years.

At the end of my high school years, my friend J, who is still one of my best friends, asked me to swing over and try a D&D game with a new group that he was asked to play with. They were hoping to start up and needed an extra player, and he thought I might enjoy it. And while I was hesitant, he assured me that this would not be a repeat of the last time I tried. And it wasn’t.

It actually went pretty well. I got to play a wizard again. I did something foolish and broke a rule, but instead of being punished, the DM laughed at me and made me try to recover from it. And with botched roll after botched roll, I ended up creating a new BBEG for the game to fight and we were excited to see where it would go. Unfortunately, the group never was able to work out another session, and the game fell apart after just the one session.

But I now knew that RPGs could actually just be about fun. And about two years later, when Graham and I started talking about RPGs, I was pretty excited about giving it another go. Again, there was some hesitation, but I was excited to try it out. I had never played HERO system, but wasn’t attached to anything else, so I was pretty open. Graham helped build Zenesul. Yes, you will recognize him. The old man has been my favorite character for nearly 20 years, so he is being brought into the world of Sainan and is everything I wanted him to be.

But you see, he was Graham and I’s character from the beginning. Graham helped me build him in HERO System, asking me questions about who he was, how did he train, where did he learn his magic, and what made him tick. And as a Game Master (GM) he took me through a story. I learned how Zenesul would react, I understood why he felt the way he did. His rebellious spirit became ingrained in my mind as we went. And while many of those details changed as Zenesul entered our new story and the world, he is still the man Graham and I made him to be.

Over the last two decades, I’ve become involved in many more RPGs. Currently, I play weekly with Graham, and we entwined our current characters in a complex arc that neither of us anticipated. We’ve also developed other characters and stories with him as a DM that are not able to make an appearance in the Stories of Sainan series. But maybe one day, they will. I look forward to the world meeting “Blight” someday. He’s a chipper guy… no dark backstory present with character named “Blight.” Nope.

I also DM a game weekly here in the Chicagoland area. As a DM, I’ve always enjoyed putting interesting hooks for players to explore or ignore at their leisure. But I’ve encouraged the players to expand their backstories and write hooks that tug at their views of the characters and let them explore those concepts even deeper. I have become a more vivid storyteller, using tips for writing and storytelling that Graham and I have honed over the last two years. As my games unfold, they inspire my writing, and my writing is now inspiring me as a gamer. The cycle continues, and I am happy that RPGs are part of my life.

I also echo Graham. I grew up hiding my gaming. I didn’t tell my wife until three years into our relationship that I played D&D because of the stigma it still carried. Now, I wear my Ampersand shirt to work and have a gelatinous cube stress ball that sits on my desk. Embrace your hobbies and loves. No matter how “odd” they may be. If it brings you joy, somewhere out there someone else may enjoy it, too. Find your people.

Thanks for playing with us.

Be Kind.

-Clevenger

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