Seven Nerds Around A Table

The Satanic Panic may have been a bout of 80’s paranoia but there is a type of magic created when 7 nerds sit around a table with their sets of 7 dice and roll their d20’s like their life depends on it.

For the last year I have been playing… no running… a D&D campaign with a group of some of the 6 best people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. Last week, that campaign came to an end. A glorious beautiful end, but an end nonetheless.

In Summary

The last year has not been easy on me, a fact you could track on my sporadic posts, I have battled my own demons, but these 6 nerds pulled me out of holes I didn’t even realise I was digging. Whether they realised it or not, they were the light at the end of many of my tunnels, and a consistent bright spot in an otherwise rather stressful year.

For some, Dungeons and Dragons may just be a game. For me, it is a story, a process, these are not just characters but a part of ourselves. D&D has pulled me into a world I would otherwise avoid. Helped me make connections, find people like me, find a place to be. D&D is not just a game. D&D is a way to connect to the world, to make connections in that world, it gives you a common purpose and goal and something to bond over while you find your people in the chaos and uncertainty that is the cruel and unforgiving world we live in. This game has, in no uncertain terms, made me the person I am today. It brought me out of a shell I had carved around myself like a tomb. Gave me confidence, and taught me skills I wouldn’t have built otherwise.

In all that, DM-ing for these 6 nerds has been one of the most fulfilling experiences of my last three years. For privacy reasons I will spare some details… but.

A year ago I found a cafe. A board game cafe with some of the nicest people you have ever met on staff. I hosted a game of D&D, just to play it with my old campaign falling apart. A six session one shot and half of these six showed up. Those three stuck around for a year long campaign, which was joined by some of the more consistent players from my old campaign. They know who they are. Every Tuesday for the last year we have played a regular game of D&D in a cafe that quite honestly started to feel like a second home, a place that I will miss as much as the people it was populated with.

In this last year we have laughed a lot, lost a few characters, killed many of my monsters, met some loved NPC’s, ate and drank a truly unholy amount of pretty dang good cafe food and drink, and had some of the most fun I’ve ever had playing D&D. When 7 nerds gather around a table, we make magic. A magic you can’t capture in words, or pictures. We have a 70+ page google doc to remember this story by and still the magic that us around the table created will be impossible to capture elsewhere. To be a small part of magic like that is a blessing. If it’s offered to you, you should jump at the opportunity to embrace it.

So, Nerds, If This Is It – For Now – What Do We Take Away?

I will remember the joy these sessions gave me even on my toughest week. The smile I left with even when I could barely get out of bed.

I will remember two diet cokes, blue lagoons. Plain chicken flatbread. Coffee to make it till 10 after a long day at work. Legitimately some of the best mochas I’ve ever had. A growing collection of cash in my pocket. GIF’s in the group chat. Dice thrown across the table and post it reminders on the back of a DM screen.

I will remember a zombie hoard and a stubborn refusal to run.

A bugbear bound in leather.

A string of suicidal clerics.

A Druid who befriended everyone she could.

A shopkeeper who dealt in stories and gossip like it was currency.

A piss bandit who did far more good than she ever could crime.

A Demi-God who saved the world to see his parents.

A Goblin who fed the world.

A pair of reformed demons.

A half-orc wizard who fought with a blade-singing flourish.

And a tiefling who always came back when they really needed it.

I will remember meeting family in unexpected places, and trading stories for magic rings, and robbing the rich blind, and burying friends, and travelling halfway across the world because no one else was going to do it, sailing the high seas, dungeon crawling with an army, visiting the fey realm and defending many shores.

I will remember a last stand with a demon and a glorious victory in the face of great power. Saving the land we created together.

Drinking on a Saturday till we knew way too much about each other, and losing in a battle to the best use of banishment I have ever seen.

I will remember the Pesimon Isles. The Arm, 💪. The burning sands of Fyre Brann. The Republic of Ender and all the lands we ran out of time to see.

And, yes, goddamn it, I will remember the bloody Friskial Syndicate.

You are my favourite nerds. May we make magic again.

Art credit to the best person I have ever known, Arlo.

And to the owners of the lovely cafe we played at, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Thanks

This post is just a thank you to some of the best people I have ever met. If you are not them, thanks for reading it anyways.

I do not know when regular posts will resume, but in the mean time why don’t you follow me on socials at the below links, or take a dive down some posts you may not have seen.

Socials: Instagram at: @thebomff or on Threads at: @thebomff

Thank you all, talk soon.