#d&d beginner

I had been very loosely following Heroes and Halfwits on Achievement Hunter, and a coworker did a neat short presentation on how games like D&D can be a great way to learn some team building, help with social interaction, and helps exercise the mind, and did a work sign up for anybody interested in learning more about the game and possibly joining a new campaign. It certainly piqued my interest, and I gave Heroes and Halfwits another look and found that...yeah that does seem like a lot of fun.

So we took the hint. The two of us spent a few days learning how to do it and, after at least a year of watching D20 and listening to various live-play podcasts, we finally played a few hours for ourselves.

Here's what I learned:

I need to take way better notes

I somehow underestimated the level of encyclopedic knowledge required for this and I thought I was being quite generous in my previous estimations

I am a "writes a novel's worth of backstory that will never be used and is barely even relevant" person and I should not have been surprised by this

Three hours of playing D&D has taught me more about why it is actually truly Important™️ to have friends than 40 years of being an alive conscious and aware human person ever has.