I ran a weekly Wild West D&D 5e game at a LGS for 1.5 years after being a player for 3 games. You can live the dream too! /u/BaskertonPress DnD: Roll for Initiative!

TL:DR – In Sept, I wrapped up a weekly homebrewed 5e game at a LGS that ran for 1.5 years. Alll our players were strangers that ranged in in lifestyles and age but the game brought us together. After we wrapped up another person in the group took over the DM spot and now I coach them. The group said I should write up my campaign and I am taking steps to do so. I published last week on DriveThru and got a few sales without advertising. All that to say you can live your dream too, just try!

Long Story – I was pretty late to the D&D game. I started listening to Crit Role (Campaign 2) during the pandemic when I started working at home for background noise. I was always pretty nerdy, played MTG, Warhammer and WoW but then had kids so most of that got put on the back burner. My kids are older now (both in their late teens).

During the pandemic I wanted to try a game so I DMed a few sessions for my wife and kids. They had fun but not really their jam. After the apocalypse I decided to venture into my local LGS to potentially join a game. The DMs style was not mine so I turned to Facebook Groups to find a group. Turned out one was starting at the same store on a different night. So rolled up my first character using DNDBeyond and joined the group.

After a few sessions the DM announced they were moving so we were going to be without a DM. I offered to do a one shot for the group using the wild west world I cooked up for my family. I actually am not even a big fan of westerns but my oldest was playing a lot of red dead at the time so he agreed but only if he could just play the same character he was in the game. The DnD group was interested, so they rolled up some new characters since my game was a wild west setting.

Now, I should mention that my 9-5 involves facilitating a lot of discussions for groups ranging from 5-40 people so I certainly have experience with managing a group. None the less DnD tables are different. But we did it.

2 people at my table are in their 70s. A few were around 40s and a couple were in their 20s. We had a couple ex military a couple strong in the LGTBQ. We certainly had our table drama but we made it through. I did have to kick one player because they did not mesh with the group. Over time we lost a couple to moves. One of my players expressed interest in running a game and everyone was open to the idea. So they took over after me. Now I coach and help out a bit.

When we were getting close to wrapping up a few of my players said I should try publishing my content. So for the last few months I have been heads down writing up weapons, new species and a bunch of subclasses (2 per core class). I just published on Drive Thru RPG last week and have already made some sales without even advertising (not quitting my day job anytime soon but its kinda neat seeing people interested in my stuff. I plan to start sharing on the r/DnDHomebrew sometime soon if I can figure it all out.

So all that to say, if you want to run a game you can, if you want to just be a creative you can do that too, but just try. I am an introvert at heart but I do have to say what I did is pretty fulfilling.

TL:DR – In Sept, I wrapped up a weekly homebrewed 5e game at a LGS that ran for 1.5 years. Alll our players were strangers that ranged in in lifestyles and age but the game brought us together. After we wrapped up another person in the group took over the DM spot and now I coach them. The group said I should write up my campaign and I am taking steps to do so. I published last week on DriveThru and got a few sales without advertising. All that to say you can live your dream too, just try!

Long Story – I was pretty late to the D&D game. I started listening to Crit Role (Campaign 2) during the pandemic when I started working at home for background noise. I was always pretty nerdy, played MTG, Warhammer and WoW but then had kids so most of that got put on the back burner. My kids are older now (both in their late teens).

During the pandemic I wanted to try a game so I DMed a few sessions for my wife and kids. They had fun but not really their jam. After the apocalypse I decided to venture into my local LGS to potentially join a game. The DMs style was not mine so I turned to Facebook Groups to find a group. Turned out one was starting at the same store on a different night. So rolled up my first character using DNDBeyond and joined the group.

After a few sessions the DM announced they were moving so we were going to be without a DM. I offered to do a one shot for the group using the wild west world I cooked up for my family. I actually am not even a big fan of westerns but my oldest was playing a lot of red dead at the time so he agreed but only if he could just play the same character he was in the game. The DnD group was interested, so they rolled up some new characters since my game was a wild west setting.

Now, I should mention that my 9-5 involves facilitating a lot of discussions for groups ranging from 5-40 people so I certainly have experience with managing a group. None the less DnD tables are different. But we did it.

2 people at my table are in their 70s. A few were around 40s and a couple were in their 20s. We had a couple ex military a couple strong in the LGTBQ. We certainly had our table drama but we made it through. I did have to kick one player because they did not mesh with the group. Over time we lost a couple to moves. One of my players expressed interest in running a game and everyone was open to the idea. So they took over after me. Now I coach and help out a bit.

When we were getting close to wrapping up a few of my players said I should try publishing my content. So for the last few months I have been heads down writing up weapons, new species and a bunch of subclasses (2 per core class). I just published on Drive Thru RPG last week and have already made some sales without even advertising (not quitting my day job anytime soon but its kinda neat seeing people interested in my stuff. I plan to start sharing on the r/DnDHomebrew sometime soon if I can figure it all out.

So all that to say, if you want to run a game you can, if you want to just be a creative you can do that too, but just try. I am an introvert at heart but I do have to say what I did is pretty fulfilling.