Some time in my past, I was working as a classroom assistant in a small elementary school. The class I worked with had a few bright-eyed, geeky kids who had not yet gotten their first taste of tabletop roleplaying. I recalled being their age when I first stepped into my local game shop (most timidly, as the sign on the door said that only kids 13 and up were allowed without a guardian, and I was still twelve, a secret I kept until I was no longer a rule-breaking rapscallion). The Dungeon Master of my first D&D game was in his mid-20’s, about the same age I was during my employment at the school.
I felt a torch held out to me, waiting to be passed.
Not one to shirk my responsibility towards the next generation of nerds, I whipped up a (very) reduced and simplified version of D&D, designed for minimal mental math and maximal impulsive creativity. And with the blessing of a very cool boss/afterschool program director, I was able to get paid for running a D&D game with a group of fifth/sixth graders.
The next seven years were a bit of a blur.
In late 2018, We were able to wrap up a campaign that had become truly epic in both scale and absurdity. For better or worse, much of what happened in those seven years that spanned two and a half interconnected worlds is lost to time and the chaotic memories of growing teenagers (thus, some of it is very much lost for the better). The only things that remain are well-worn character sheets, a plethora of inside jokes, and several binders of utterly disorganized campaign notes. I truly wish I had had the presence of mind to record or organize my materials more properly, so I could give everyone else a better glimpse into one of the most spectacular campaigns I’ve ever run.
What I did manage to do, however, was keep a running list of some of the most amusing quotes that I heard the kids utter during our sessions. With the blessing of the young adults who helped produce them, I decided to use them as the content of this project- Chaotic Youthful.
Now you too can enjoy the creativity, ingenuity, and the apropos insanity that guided this gang of growing adventurers and their put-upon yet still very willing DM; a .pdf containing all of the C_Y posts is available as a pay-what-you-want .pdf book on DriveThruRPG or itch.io!
— Nagi
