Hi, my name is Luke. I like Dungeons and Dragons. A lot. My thing, though, is DMing. I love DMing.
There's a bunch of text below, but here's the TLDR version: I've DM'd 2nd edition and 3.5 edition, and I currently DM 5th edition for 4 different groups of players. (Yar!!!)
My D&D Story
In middle school (1992 or so), my mom bought me Streams of Silver by R.A. Salvatore. I'm convinced that book changed the trajectory of my life. I read that book at least a dozen times over a couple years before I discovered that there were more books by Salvatore than just that one. (Remember, this was back in the day before internet. So, the only way to know about books was to physically go to book stores, which I didn't get to do much.) Anyway, I began to devour everything Salvatore wrote. Those books will always hold a special place in my heart, and every few years I still reread ALL OF THEM.
Anyway, in high school (around 1995 or thereabouts), I found a 2nd edition Player's Handbook at the bookstore, and, if I remember correctly, my grandma bought it for me. I didn't even know it was a game when I first got it; I just though it sounded cool. Once I realized that it was a game (my first introduction to RPGs), I promptly got the Dungeon Master Guide and Monster Manual. First, I started running the game for my little brother (two years younger), but I think we fought more than we played and it was frustrating. Then I started playing D&D with some friends from school. That was a blast. We did that pretty much until we graduated high school and moved on to college.
I didn't pick up DMing again until after I graduated from college, and then I only played for one year until I moved to Central America. For two of the four years I lived there, I DMed 3.5 edition on a play-by-post site since I couldn't really get anyone from there to play. When I moved back to the States, I stopped the play-by-post gig due to work.
About two or three years ago, a coworker invited me to play in a 5th edition game he runs. (I still play with that group.) That got me back into it, and I was hooked all over again. After almost a year of just being a player, I became interested in DMing again since by that time I had a pretty good feel for 5th edition. So, I got the Monster Manuel and Dungeon Master Guide and started DMing for my daughter. That was a blast! And I started to really get into buying and painting miniatures at this point.
Eventually, though, I felt the desire to DM for players in my own age bracket, more or less. However, I didn't really know any potential players. So, I turned to the internet, and found Reddit. Within a couple months I had gotten enough players to begin two separate D&D groups. All of my players except for two I met through Reddit. If I remember correctly, my Waterdeep Campaign started playing in January 2016, and my Wood of Sharp Teeth Campaign (which has since turned into my Prince of the Apocalypse Campaign) started playing in February 2016. Both groups still meet every other week, which means I DM every week.
I also still run a game for my daughter, and in the fall of 2016 I began to run what I call the Youngling Campaign. That's a group of players aged around 10 years old or so, with my daughter also playing in the group. One of the kid's mom reached out to me asking if I could run a D&D game for her son and a friend. That group only meets about once a month. It's great teaching "the next generation" to play D&D, and the kids have a blast. The mom told me once that the kids were more excited to play D&D than they were about an upcoming trip to Disney World.
Other Stuff About Me
I grew up in Michigan and went to the University of Michigan where I studied creative writing and literature.
I've been a teacher (English and Math mostly with some other subjects sprinkled in), a factory worker (yay!), a logistics analyst (worst job ever), a warehouse quality supervisor (slightly tolerable, but still horrible), and a technical writer (for seven years; really enjoyed it). Currently, I'm a scrum master at a financial services company (and the verdict's still out).
Contact Me
You can contact me at info@thedmlair.com.