Ash

I'd dabbled a bit in D&D before playing with Erik as my DM. I liked the mechanical parts of the game- especially after sinking my teeth into Baldur's Gate 3. But the roleplaying aspect? It had me a bit nervous. I struggled to put together a backstory for my character, had a hard time finding my character's voice, even though I had general themes about her that I liked. Erik did an amazing job to meet me where I was at. No fleshed out backstory? That's okay, I'm free to figure out who my character is as I go along. Though I've seen him put a lot of time and consideration into making content that hooks into people's backstories too. I was nervous about having conversations with NPCs, despite playing a high charisma character. Thats okay too! He let me describe what I wanted to say a little more generally, but worked with it in a way that didn't break the flow of the game. I was able to come out of my shell and gain confidence, and these days I enjoy bantering with his NPCs all the time.