Considering what a dirty nerd I am, you'd think I'd have been playing Dungeons & Dragons all my life. But I came to the game relatively late - at the ripe old age of 30.
The timing was fortuitous, as 30 marked a particularly transitional stage of my life. I was newly married, and coming to terms with the fact that improv was no longer lighting my fire.
I had been performing onstage since my sophomore year of high school (my life in drama predates the founding of YouTube, Facebook, and the iPhone; grok that), and when I returned to California after graduating college, my brother and I formed Improvinitus. For the next ten years or so, that took up most of my social life: First doing tiny shows in people's backyards, then graduating to stages in Orange County, then joining the Improv Collective and traveling from Costa Mesa to LA and beyond. While Improvinitus's roster grew and gradually shrank to just me and the indomitable Robert Souders, the Collective only multiplied. Over time, it expanded to include not just improv and sketch shows but improv classes and an entire generation of new performers.
It was beautiful to be a part of that. I cherish the memories of standing on stage with my team and hearing the packed Starlight Theater erupt with laughter, then commandeering the nearest empty table at Goat Hill Tavern and singing Carly Rae Jepsen songs until the beer spilled onto the woodchips at our feet. The faces of Improvinitus changed over the years - Robert, Fernando, Ethan, Leo, Nick, Maddy, Nina, Chris, Casey, Amish, Derek - but our reputation was solid. We made people laugh, and there is little in this life so magical as that. Improvinitus was how I met my wife, and that holds a unique magic of its own.
But doing local theater is different in your twenties than it is in your thirties. Improv was always something I did for fun, not as a career, and when you're weighing your career and family against your hobby, the latter will never win. I was focusing more on writing and my marriage, but beyond that, I was coming to realize that something I used to love passionately was now something I simply liked. It had ceased to be my top priority. At our height, Improvinitus performed shows almost every week, and Saturday afternoons were dedicated to hours of practice sessions (looking back as a 35-year-old father of two, it's almost impossible to imagine so much free time). By 2017, our roster was down to about 3-4 players, and soon it would become just me and Robert performing two-man shows once a month. Practices became a thing of the past as schedules shifted and members said their goodbyes.
That wasn't an issue for the Collective, because there were always new teams and sketches being born, and never enough dates to accommodate everyone. It had grown far beyond our little band. Robert shepherded most of the new recruits, so was never out of practice. I think he invited my rusty ass back every month because he knew it meant something to both of us that we were the last men standing. Geezers in solidarity.
Before I went into unofficial retirement, a former Improvinitus member and fellow IHS alumni, Casey, invited me to play Dungeons & Dragons. Taking place largely in the imagination, it's a game well suited to those with an improvisational background, and I was delighted to accept.
D&D was not unknown to me, but I'd never actually played. I'd wanted to. Way back in my early teens, I'd persuaded my mom to buy me a starter set. (Given that vague timeline, it could have been anything from 2nd edition to 3.5 - I remember it had a dragon on the cover, but they all have dragons on the cover.) I was fascinated by the idea of such a freeform game, but the encyclopedia of rules was far too daunting for one kid to tackle alone. It sat on my shelf for years, untouched and gathering dust, before it finally disappeared in one of the family's many moves.
I suppose I thought I'd read the book cover to cover and then teach my brother to play, or gather a fellowship of friends I didn't have to do this very nerdy - somewhat taboo - activity with me. It was not to be.
Decades later, I finally got a chance to join a group. The experience was not unlike performing on stage, but it was also far more intimate, even more communal, and would provide a much-needed sanctuary when the pandemic reared its monstrous head in 2020. But that is a story for another day…