Welcome to Roll Stats!

So this isn’t my first rodeo. I played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons in my teens. But I played the OG D&D (remember that weird time when Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings were classes, not races?), The TSR stuff. I played the Basic D&D boxed set, the Expert D&D boxed set, the Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia… And I loved it! Hell, I Still do!

But then life happened. It got harder and harder to find time to play a session, let alone prep for one! Everyone was busy, everyone had new responsibilities… No one–including me–had time for dungeon delving anymore. The Orcs were slain, the Lich was defeated, and the magic was fading in that part of our lives.

Cut to 2015, and the release of Dungeons and Dragons 5e (Technically 2014, but it was December, and I didn’t hear about it until January…so… Semantics. Anyway where was I?) which, mechanically, drew heavily on prior editions (including my beloved OG material), while introducing some very cool new mechanics (think advantage/disadvantage, standardized proficiency bonuses, and better stat based situational checks) which simplified and streamlined play. Suddenly everyone was talking about D&D again!

Then I found Matt Colville on YouTube and his very compelling pitch to turn me from someone who wants to play D&D, into someone who wants to run D&D. I’m sure you’ve seen it, if you haven’t, stop reading this and go watch it now! Seriously! I’ll wait. Matt, more than anyone, or anything else convinced me that I should start running a 5e game. Well, he wasn’t trying to convince me specifically, I mean, he doesn’t actually know me, but you get what I mean. He was very convincing.

In the very unlikely case that Matt Colville comes across this page one day… “Hey Matt! How’s it goin? Just wanted to say thanks for giving me back the hobby I love! Love your channel! You are truly a river to your people!”

So anyway, enough fanboy gushing… Now I have a whole new set of D&D source material.

A ton of new heroes and inspirations (Hank from Drunkens & Dragons, Matt from A Fistful of Dice, and Cody from Taking20 just to name a few…) And more importantly, I’m really excited about Dungeons & Dragons again! So we finally get to it. I mean this is the About page right, and that’s what Roll Stats is all about. I’m excited about playing and running D&D, you should be excited about playing and running D&D, and if I can inspire even one of you to play or run D&D the way these guys have inspired me, then the circle is complete.

Okay… Enough with the chit-chat. It’s game time! Let’s #rollstats…