RPG a Day 2017 Question 7

What is RPGaDay2017?

I’ll link here to the actual group. Basically, it’s a series of questions that you can answer. There are 31 questions that you can answer to help shine a light on the different reasons people play role-play games. This is my answer to the 2nd question. For my full list of answers check here.

Question #7: What was your most impactful RPG session?

Back in 2010 I was incredibly lucky to get the opportunity to write and then run a D&D adventure that was part of The Level Eater a multi-media gallery exhibit based on Dungeons & Dragons. I wrote an adventure, took it to Chicago, and spent the weekend running it for people I’d never met. The entire weekend was amazing, but a moment in the second dungeon was a stand out for me. The players had managed to track the evil cult down and make their way to a ritual to open a gateway that would summon Loth. We had the fight, the party barely won, and they saved all of the sacrifices. There were two moments that stood out. The first, a cultist got ripped through a portal to a hell dimension the size of a baseball then came back as a spider like creature where it was clear something had put him back together they just weren’t familiar with how humans worked. The players, people I did not know, were visibly shaken by the description of the death and return. The second, the cult leader escaped and when he did one of the players loudly exclaimed, “I hate this fucking guy.” Everyone at the table agreed with him.

I’d written things all of my life. My own adventures, stories, poems, and what have you. Being a writer professionally had always been an interesting theory. It was never a thing I really thought I could do. It was something I mused about, but it was a fantasy job, that other people had. After that weekend, it was the only thing I could imagine being.

That weekend, that session, was the reason I went back to school, a thing I despised. I got fired from a job shortly after that weekend and it didn’t faze me. I was actually happy to leave. For the first time, not having a job wasn’t scary. I was worried about how I’d pay my bills, but I didn’t care that I was unemployed.

Something I wrote evoked emotional response in people I didn’t know, who sat right in front of me. I do not have the words for how amazing that is. I literally changed my life.

My Group and me in our play space.