Lore Dump, Lore Dump, Lore Dump: The Introduction

Hello! Welcome to Gen Z DMG, a blog about our love and fascination with TTRPGs and the incredible tool they can be for creativity and developing relationships. Instead of yapping into the night after a session about why something is cool, funny, or wonderfully stupid, we decided to not only share our thoughts with others, but document them too! Two twenty-something white guys talking and arguing about a game made for children with pollen allergies. I’m sure our parents are so glad we are doing this instead of studying for the LSAT! On this site, we want to make you laugh, think, maybe cry…but that’s all good, and try something new via TTRPGs. Sometimes, we’ll cover heavy themes like loss, grief, mental health; and sometimes we’ll make fun of elves for 1200 words because they deserve it. Everything about good, funny, and immersive TTRPG gameplay is on the table, and we aim to roll the dice (see we’re so committed to the theme we use it as self-referential metaphors or something idk I wasn’t an English major).

Why We Do This:

We are bringing our group chat and post-game talk to the internet, where all dreams come true. We have been talking about some kind of blog for our love of TTRPGs and the skills they develop for years, and now, we are making it happen. To hear more about the specific people we are, keep scrolling. Also, yes, you don’t have to be Gen Z to read our material. Additionally, if you are ancient like people born before 1995, we kindly ask you to mail us a doubloon, drachma, or whatever currency they used when you were a wee scamp back in the Neolithic period to support us and help pay for our climate change survival kits.

Meet the Founders:

Danny: Hey there, I’m Danny! I’ve been playing TTRPGs for as long as I can remember (though I took a ten..ish year hiatus there in the middle). I’ve kept up with one of my best friends – see below for more details – for a few years after graduating college and haven’t looked back since. My background is all in higher education, instructional design, and sociology. I like to use all those things to help me project manage my friends into playing these games that we hold so dearly in all our hearts. I love to find ways to tell creative stories, or put a new twist on old faithful ones at that, you ever heard of the boy who cried werewolf instead of just a plain old boring regular wolf? This blog was a half-baked thought that Webby, and I came up with one night after playing our home game and then diving into all the complex humanities stuff that came along with the BBEG saying this one sentence that I improved and spawned a whole new wave of plot development. I hope it brings you some inspiration, laughs and maybe even challenges you to find a cool way to integrate your own personal backstory into the games you play with your best friends. Thanks for reading, stay tuned for more!

Webby: Hi, I’m Webby. I started doing this nerd thing after I graduated college as a way to stay in touch with some of my favorite people that were starting up a game. Since that fateful day in May that I took a break from the stress of apartment hunting, I’ve been hooked. My academic background is in philosophy and economics, I’ve worked in tech startups, academia, and economic development. I use this haughty liberal arts background to ask annoying questions to my GMs so I can give my fellow players and I the advantage in seemingly straightforward encounters. My idea is, if the fight looks unwinnable, make the enemy stressed out about something they can’t control! I like playing characters that take some idea like “what if the military industrial complex was a person, not properly therapized, and also had a paranoid genie in their head” and work with my GM to make it fit. I like finding ways to make seemingly uptight and academic ideas into characters that are not only relatable, but my fellow players enjoy laughing at and with. I will mostly be writing about player tips, character creation ideas, and whatever Danny agrees I can post that won’t hurt our professional futures, thank you for checking us out!

Call to Engage:

Thanks for learning about us! We will be working out a content schedule as this develops so please check back frequently and feel free to reach out with suggestions or questions. We want to hear and engage with you! This TTRPG community is at its best when it is open and inclusive, we want to write things you want to read, feel free to let us know what that is.