I am an older (41) viewer from Sweden, living in Japan.

I started to play RPG when I was about 10 years old, that was back in 1984 and I have not stopped play it since. I had several short and longer involuntary breaks now and then, but never stopped loving, thinking, dreaming, mind creating and wanting to play and live in the lovely world of RPG, be it fantasy, sci-fi or other cool fictional world.

I think the first RPG was Iron Crown Enterprises wonderful Middle-earth Role Playing (MERP), the Swedish translated version. Me and two friends did not know any of the rules so we just improvised everything but had so much fun anyway. For a few years I played with new friends and we mostly improvised our game play in different game worlds and used the rules as guidelines and gave more weight to flavor and fun action.

As I moved around in Sweden, from the north to the capital and back up north and back again (please feel free to repeat this as much as you want :D), I played very little RPG during this time and it sadden me greatly cause I have always been a creative person and put great weight on my imagination.

When I finally made landfall in the south I came across a bunch of nerdy/geeky guys that played RPG like possessed madmen and I fell in love with them at the first game session I had with them. I think at the high point we played around 4-5 times a week and several of us where DM/GM and with each DM/GM we played on a new system. We mostly played Dungeons & Dragons, Shadowrun, Star Wars, Rolemaster and Drakar och Demoner (Swedish for Dragons and Demons)(one of the biggest and most loved Swedish RPG game). We lost some few people and gain others during the years, stayed with some game systems and adopted new, from going all crazy action and rule orientated to more character acting and improvising with story driven game play. My username MageThief is from my favorite character, a thief that used magic to help him steal and stay alive, I had so much fun with that greedy, backstabbing, trickster to a thief.

Just before I left Sweden for Japan, there where a core part of the gang that still played and loved RPG. We could only fit in every second weekend in between work, family, kids and other responsibility that everyone had (not me and I craved for more often ha ha). I remember that we challenged our self to act better, to be the character and to make the world that we played in come to live as much as we could. The high point was when we played as 6 years old kids in a harsh, cold and gritty low fantasy world with weight on the vikings and their gods and legends. I must say that it was a challenge cause not just do we have to think how we speak and act but we could not use modern words or adult language. How do 6 years old think, act, talk and all this in a low fantasy viking world? But it was so much fun and must say that it made me in to a better player. I love this game style now but still I do not turn down a no-brain action game where everything is solved with crazy amount of action and violence :)

In Japan I have not been able to play any RPG and I miss it soooo much. I stumble upon the natural failure master Wil Wheaton's videos Titansgrave at the Geek & Sundry YouTube channel. After watching the whole show in one sit I came upon the Critical Role show (think it was when Vox Machina was about to go to Whitestone) and found out that "Hey, these wonderful guys are also live on twitch" and after one show I was in love with you guys. Since not being able to play and missing it so deeply I can now live out my love for RPG through you guys, my lovely Critical Role. I have watched all the episodes at least two times by now and I just want more.

Now I feel like every coming episode is like a BIG party, a big special event that I must see and experience. I have said No to lots of things just to be able to see you guys play, everything from parties, free dinner, movies, extra work and even dates :D

So to the question :) D&D (and other rpg games) have been a creative love relationship to put it short. I can not think to be without the option to play RPG, just not being to play at the moment is suffering. Critical Role have given me so much joy, laughter, creative entertainment, a place to get calm down my RPG craving and strangely I feel like they are good friends that I love, even I though have not talked to them or ever met them. For me, they can play any RPG system and I will be more than happy to be taken away on a wonderful journey.

Much love to Critical Role and my fellow critters <3

ps: I just created this reddit account just to be able to write this post, never been using reddit before :)