Despite my realization/self-delusion that our Facebook integration is a joke, I feel I must post this, now that I have thought of it.

I was born and raised southern Missouri. For those of you unfamiliar with the area, it is among the more conservative in the country, especially in rural Missouri. People here are firmly grounded in tradition, for better or worse. They resist change, new ideas, and Democrats.

It is very much a Christian area, people of other religions keeping away or keeping quiet, because while not disallowed, that kind of thing is frowned upon here. Children listen to their parents, parents listen to their priests and party leaders.

I tell you all this, much more than I have ever discussed with any Innmate, so that what I say next might have more meaning.

As a child I had two loves; reading and gaming. I loved short stories, novels, platform games and puzzle games. I discovered my first rpg early on, an old NES game called Ultima. While at the time I was too young to do very well at it, I loved the concept. A game that was fun to play, but told a real story too. Both of my loves in one place.

It would be a few years later that I had my first exposure to tabletop, and it was a strange one indeed. We had bought our first SNES at a yard sale, along with two games. My favorite Zelda title, and a game none of us had heard of called Eye of the Beholder.

Mom turned the game on, controller in hand, and froze at the title screen. She looked scared, and soon began to hyperventilate. When my father came back in the room, he practically ripped the game out of the system, took it back to yard sale, and angrily demanded a different game. These reactions were started by a single line of text along the bottom. "Sequel to Dungeons and Dragons".

Being naturally curious, I asked them later what had scared them and upset them so bad. My mother then told me some of the more popular anti-DnD stories, all of it culminating in the "facts" that Dungeons and Dragons, and anything like it, were evil, and could cause you to do evil things. Being a child, I trusted my parents would never lie to me, and took the words at face value.

Growing up, I continued to see Dungeons and Dragons references in a lot of my favorite shows, games, comics. I didn't find this out until later though, as I still had no idea what exactly DnD was. Just that it was evil.

As the years passed, I grew older got to know people. And more things were added to the list of evil that I was to have nothing to do with. Pokemon. Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. Digimon. I was upset at the time, since all the kids I knew were interested in such things, at least limitedly, but accpeted and moved on.

The wake up call that every child gets happened to me in my early to mid teens. Harry Potter had started sweeping the nation. When our small school library finally got copies of the first three books, I devoured them. J.K. Rowling became, and remains, one of my favorite authors. I felt like I knew Harry, and his adventures kept me happy and rereading for many hours, eagerly awaiting the fourth book.

Two weeks before it came out (or perhaps it was before we got our copy... I have trouble remembering) Harry Potter was added to the list of evil things. My world was rocked to its foundations that day. I had never had cause to question my parents choices on things like this... but I had read these books several times. The people at school (not the most literary bunch) had even taken to them. I hadn't become evil by reading them, had I?

I apologize here for the digression, but the point is that the conservative views here are so strong that they altered my entire view on something I loved, just by telling me it was evil.

Fast forward a few years. I had finally broken down and read the rest of the series, against rules. I had discovered that my parents weren't always right. This is important because around the time I hit 18, I made my second friend. Going over to his house, I saw long shelf full of DnD books and expansions, drawers full of dice, and folders full of character sheets. I was immediately interested, and spent the next day or two reading the whole of the PHB while I was over. This is what I had been looking for my entire life. The chance at a story with the potential to be as great as Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, but much more personal, to the point of fully interactive if done correctly. The perfect video game wasnt a video game, it turned out.

I made the mistake of mentioning the books to my brother in my parents hearing. I got treated to another lecture on the evils of DnD, and was "strongly advised" not to spend any more time at Pat's house.

Again, I digress, but I felt that important as well. While the community as a whole didn't believe the exact things my parents did about everything, they hold much the same views on tabletop gaming, and still do. At best, gamers are seen as odd people with no sense of maturity and questionable sanity. At worst, we're a cult.

Having no place to explore my new favorite hobby, I tucked it away in my head for a few more years. I entered an on-site training program and moved across state-lines.

While not totally accepted, gaming was seen in a much more neutral light at this new place, even had a small on site group. So I joined, and threw myself into it, eager to experience the wonders of tabletop gaming. I was sorely disappointed.

The group was small and had commitment issues, the DM sadistic and fairly incomptent, and the campain restarted ever couple weeks when the DM got bored. Disgusted, I turned away from gaming again.

This time however, it stayed in the front of my mind. I had read the books myself, and I knew, absolutely knew, the potential it had. I just had to find other people who saw it the way I did. With no other options to explore gaming, but no need to hide it anymore, I began surfing the web for more reference material, in the hopes I'd find people to advise me on my little group.

After a few weeks, what I found was the Red Dragon Inn.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I looked over the staff blogs, the DM's corner and the Player's Guild, cracked the Vault. Then I hit the forums. And my mind was truly blown.

Page upon page, post upon post, words flowing together and weaving stories better than anything I had yet thought of. Characters that stood tall as Titans. You could feel the love people had for the game.

I joined that day, though I was quite inactive at first. The site was amazing, and the users seemed ok, but I didn't feel I was ready to try play-by-post. I had never been (still havent) in a real game before.

Then one day, I saw someone in Dragon Chat. I dropped by, and was introduced to Pit F(r)iend.

I can safely say, had I not stopped by, I would have moved on from the Inn after a few months. But meeting Pit triggered something. He started introducing me to others around. Ody. Eol. Meri. Grugg. And slowly, I started coming out of my shell.

What does the Inn mean to me? It's fun and games. It's family and friends. It's laughter and tears. It's love, hate, and everything in between. It's finding comrades, finding friends, and finding acceptance in a way I can't find in my real life.

If this site moves to Facebook, I shall attempt to follow. But I am not ashamed to admit, I will shed tears for the loss of my first Home.

...We LOVE you, too, Chess!

*hugs*

Several years back I lost the love of my life. Her name was Jessica and we started dating despite her having pretty advanced breast cancer. I got her into DnD because it was something she could do in bed on the days she felt the worst. It was her only social interaction outside of her family, the people at the doctor's office and me. Toward the end it was also the only way she had to escape thinking about her impending death. She told me once that while she was being Kriea, she wasn't a young woman with cancer, she was a gorgeous elf that wasn't going to die for centuries. After Jessica died I stopped living for a long time. The world went on around me but I didn't. I dropped out of school and moved in with family because I had tried suicide once and they were afraid I would try again if left alone... and they were probably right. I hadn't even considered gaming again until someone found my player's handbook by chance in my closet and said they had been interested in playing but never got the chance. I had a lot of mixed feelings, the most prevalent terror. I had no idea if I would be able to, would the game still be tolerable for me, let alone actually fun? Could I possibly bring myself to come up with stories knowing the last time I had seen Jessica I had wasted it playing a stupid game instead of just holding her and telling her I loved her the whole time? Then I came on here and thank the gods that I did. I may joke a lot but it's still sometimes really hard for me to even open my player's handbook because for a while I held some pretty deep resentment towards the game for so long. The joy the Innmates got out of the game reminded me of just how much Jessica had loved it and how much it had honestly helped her in her worst hours. I'm not going to say I'll ever be able to see gaming again in quite the same light, but I can say the Inn's been a healing place for me. I've really opened up to some of the people on here and I really feel more like myself before I lost her than ever. I thought when I stopped playing the last time I was closing a chapter in my life and little did I realize how much I honestly needed it.

Thank you guys for giving me a chance to be someone else, a lot of other someones. Thank you guys for welcoming me with open arms and not treating me badly for being new to the game(again). Thank you for a home when I've been wandering lost.

I'm personally very proud of the community that's been built here. My only regret is that I don't have the time or energy to be as active as I used to be.

No, rest assured the Inn isn't changing, moving, or going anywhere.

But there totally is a facebook group. And you should join it. That part was real.

It bothers me that some people of faith seem to use their religion as an excuse to hate things they don't understand. I have been fighting this battle for years. I literally almost jumped for joy when I found a church where not only is pastor a DM, but he actually knew Dave Arneson.

D&D is a tool not unlike a pen. If someone wants to write a book full of innocent fun, then they shouldn't be lumped with people who want to write "how-to-murder-babies-while-worshipping-Satan." books.

My current gaming group has two atheists, two deists, a catholic and me. Know how often we fight about religion? Not once in 5 years.

Now that I have bared my soul, how about a few more? C'mon guys, what does the Inn mean to you?

*evaporates*

I'd just like to say thanks Chessic and thanks Kriea for opening up, it was a good read and I'm glad that the inn is here for everyone. Also Addy I guess I'm lucky that I've never run into anyone who has hated DnD, living in central New York it's a pretty open minded place.

My mom is quite supportive of it too, as long as my brother and I aren't spending the money on things like drugs or porn or alcohol, and instead buying models, books, and dice then she's totally fine with it!

One day, she walked by our table as we gamed in our dining room and said " ya know, I never thought I'd raise such nerdy kids." We laughed and went on. She herself has read all LOTR books as a teen and enjoys scifi movies as much as I do.

Now, as for the inn, I discovered this place back when I was 12, and that was a full decade ago. it's given me people to talk to and game with when I couldn't hang out with my friends, and now more recently when I've been away to college with RPG dry spells going on months at a time.

I guess it's been one of the most consistent things in my life, even though I'd take multiple month long breaks from the inn I could always return, and the people were always the same. I've literally grown up with the inn from 12 to 22, a period of time where your personal growth is probably the most dramatic it will ever be.

Also, when it comes down to people who I chat with online and people who i can relate to and have fond memories of, most of them come from the inn.

So thanks everyone, I've really enjoyed my time here and I know I have many more years of gaming to look forward to!

Thank you for those who have shared so far. It makes it feel even more like a real family when we open up to one another.

I grew up in the country for most of my life, between two very small towns. I was a nerd for as long as I could remember, always had my nose in a book, played video games, wrote poetry and short stories. I always enjoyed fantasy and scifi and such, so I had signed up for Yahoo chat, and I learned how to role play on the yahoo chat rooms. Usually roleplaying as a wolf character. On occasions I would be Sorceress Selena, some random human sorceress. I fell in love with gaming despite only having three styles. T1, T2 and T3, I rarely used any of them except T2 for fights, or T1 I think? Don't remember, but it was the one that was paragraphs. Of course some people had bots for the yahoo chat to let them post super fast that you had no time to post a reply and boom your character was dead.

The yahoo chats died for the longest time, and I was so addicted to roleplaying I had to find myself another place to practise this new found entertainment. I stumbled upon RDI and met some amazing people who helped (and still help) teach me how to game, and the rules etc. I never really had many friends, so my time was spent socializing with random strangers on the internet. Spent a lot of time gaming whenever I could because my parents were always gone. I would get up go to school come home and start gaming while I cooked supper, had to clean the horses stall etc, had lots of work to do, but always found time for gaming.

RDI is my true home, its the only time I truly feel at peace is when we are together talking in chat, and playing our games etc. It's really an extension to my family. *huggles everyone*