Introduction

Yet another RPG and/or D&D blog?!

In June 2021, in the midst of a global pandemic, one of my oldest friends reached out and asked if I wanted to moonlight in their Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition campaign. Since Australia, my home country and where these friends are located, was under some of the harshest lockdown conditions in the world at the time, the group couldn't meet physically. Adding me via Zoom, thousands of kilometers away and minus eight hours of time difference in Switzerland, seemed like a fun temporary distraction during what should have been weeks of lockdown and that ended up being months.

Not having played D&D for a couple of decades (and 3.5 Edition being the last ruleset I played), I was excited but also a little daunted. I rolled up a 5th level character, Tomas of Tyr, using D&D Beyond and min-maxing the hell out of my stats, which were very generous from our Dungeon Master. I basically wanted to do a lot of damage, so a Vengeance Paladin was a good choice.

The magic of adventuring in the well-trodden fantasy setting of Forgotten Realms came flooding back to me and I was hooked! Over the following months, I dove heavily into bringing myself back up to speed on 5th Edition, consuming a copious amount of content from online videos and podcasts. But best of all, playing D&D again awoke in me a creative spark, something outside my regular corporate job that uses a different side of my brain. That creative spark, coupled with a love of writing, has led to this blog! 

And while this blog is mostly an outlet for me to capture my thoughts and assuage my need to write, I hope you find some value in living the journey with me as I rekindle my love of roleplaying through D&D, board games, and other tabletop role-playing games. Given the time constraints of being a father of two small boys, this blog is intended to be written and consumed in small quantities. But I believe that A Dash of RPG makes for a more fun and more fulfilling life! If you agree, read on...

Dashmeister

January 2024 Update

So, this blog has officially passed two years of age, with 52 articles in that time. That is one article every fortnight! Although the winter holiday periods see more posts, and summer less, I am happy with the consistency overall. Not that there is some arbitrary objective mind you, since this blog is mostly for my own gratification, and occasionally shared with my friends and fellow players.

What has changed since I started the blog? The pandemic is over, thankfully. My boys are a couple of years older, making life that little bit easier. Apart from my long running D&D 5E campaigns that I play in, I am running Curse of Strahd one-on-one, and have also joined a local face-to-face roleplaying group that is cycling through various systems. The Wizards of the Coast Open Gaming Licence fiasco accelerated my exploration of non D&D systems, which I dubbed my 2023 RPG Crawl. That will continue in 2024. I am a lot more focused on solo roleplaying than I was, allowing for me to spend more time in the hobby I love.

Branching out from D&D has seen me run or play in over ten other games: The One Ring, Savage Worlds, Dune, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Pathfinder 2E, Blades in the Dark, Old School Essentials and Alien RPG being the most well known. I've also experimented with some smaller, indie titles, such as Detect or Die, Rune, and Four Against Darkness. 

Games on my hitlist to run or play in 2024 include: Forbidden Lands, The Walking Dead RPG, Ironsworn, Shadow of a Demon Lord, Ruins of Symbaroum, and I'd love to dip back into The One Ring, or its 5E adapation, Lord of the Rings Roleplaying. No doubt I'll add a bunch of other games through my local roleplaying group, with the next game slated being City of Mist. Lots to look forward to!

I hope this update finds you rested and relaxed after the conclusion of 2023, and you have at least a dash of RPG planned for 2024, maybe even more than that. Enjoy.

Dashmeister