Paper to PC, from DM to Gamedev.

I want to briefly talk about how I didn’t realize I was a game designer long before I became a game developer.

Ever since I was a wee child, like many geeky kids, I loved to play pen-and-paper games with my friends and family. However, instead of following any rulebooks, my family enjoyed making games from scratch, and we would write all the rules down on a sketchpad and use the same pages for our stat sheets. This was my earliest memory of game design. I tried making my games and systems as well, but as the youngest among my cousins, I never felt confident letting them play.

Those were magical days. The sides of our hands were stained with pencil lead, the floor covered with eraser shavings, elaborate world maps long forgotten, and severely unbalanced combat systems. We even LARPed with the games we made. One of my fondest memories with my cousin involved rolling a giant fluffy six-sided die while we portrayed the outcome with our colorful plastic weapons.

Then we grew out of that phase, and I still never got them to play any of the games I dreamed of on my sketchbook.

I only rediscovered my love for pen-and-paper games when I was in the last year of college. My friend played D&D and volunteered to run a 5E game for me and our friends. A passion I had forgotten was rekindled. On our first session, I came with a wooden sword strapped to my back. Suffice it to say, I was excited to be role-playing, and it was even more fun as an “adult.”

My very first session of D&D was electric. Seven of us were packed into my apartment and squeezed to fit around a table meant for four. We hung on to every word of our DM, and every moment felt like a revelation. I felt comfortable even though I didn’t know the rules, but I knew how to role-play, and I knew how to IMAGINE. After the session, I was in love. I wanted to play more, consume more, and read more.

Inevitably, I met the real enemy of D&D, “Scheduling.” We didn’t get to play as often, so I did the only thing I could think of. I downloaded all the 5E handbooks onto my laptop and started reading them in school. Certainly, it wasn’t the best thing to do when I was in the last year of my education, but D&D truly changed my life for the better.

That was how I became a DM. I studied the manuals with religious fervor, not knowing exactly what I was doing. My trips between school and home were spent catching up with all of season 1 of Critical Role, which at the time still was about 50–60 episodes.

What I didn’t realize was that being a DM was the same as being a game designer. You plan out your sessions, you adjust the game to your players’ preferences, you change things based on their feedback, and your number one priority is FUN. Also, now that I think about it, a ruleset like D&D 5E is the game engine, a very flexible game engine.

One of the best parts of being a DM is preparing your sessions because you get to “play” D&D before actually playing it. I feel the same way about game development. I love playing games so much; being able to get into the nitty-gritty of it all has been an absolutely profound experience, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything else.

Don’t listen to people when they say you should grow up! Maturity doesn’t mean getting rid of your toys and to stop playing games. You can be an adult and still enjoy life like a child!

Insert sign-off here!