How Smiteworks and Fantasy Grounds CHANGED (SAVED?) MY LIFE!
by
, September 7th, 2017 at 21:16 (29532 Views)
Hey, everyone.
Those that know me already have this information, but some may not know...
Three years ago in August 2014, I had a liver transplant. While I was under the knife for 11 hours, my mother passed away. DURING SURGERY! Amazing. Tragic.
I had my surgery in Seattle, I was in the hospital 58 days. I came back to Spokane on Thanksgiving 2014 and proceeded to start my recovery through the holidays. I spent the first 3/4 of 2015 "looking into what I should do with my life". Mostly in my mind. I was a professional stand-up comedian and actor for 15 years. That was over now. Los Angeles was out of my system and I was very happy with the idea of living in my home town of Spokane. But I needed something TO DO!
Along comes Fantasy Grounds, and I became interested immediately! I had played D&D since 1981 and had never heard of Fantasy Grounds. I was ALL IN. As a matter of fact, I purchased the Ultimate License, and all the 5E material available from WotC at the time. This was September 2015. I was in for a few hundred dollars. The very next day, everything in the store went on sale. Had I waited a few hours, I could have saved myself a lot of money. I was heartbroken at my timing (being a comedian and all).
I emailed Doug Davison and explained I had just made a major purchase the day before the sale. Doug refunded my entire purchase and allowed me to rebuy everything at the sale price. Wow! I was hooked for life.
Not only was this a great software application for a Virtual Tabletop, but the people running Smiteworks (and the community for it) was great. I became involved.
I started to enter games, getting to know people and turned all of that into what it is today:
- I stream 6 days a week on Twitch exclusively Fantasy Grounds D&D 5E
- I have over 30 items published on the DMs Guild and only one of them does not have a Fantasy Grounds component (including collaborations with other authors)
- I currently have 14 titles in the Smiteworks store that I developed from third party companies (with more to come)
- I have developed a Discord community and have collaborated with other DMs and players on various things
- I'm even in a game with Doug Davison himself (Wednesday nights - Tales from the Yawning Portal)
So I found something to do! I have a purpose I absolutely love!
And tonight I will be clicking refresh refresh refresh at 9 pm PT because "Tomb of Annihilation"!
A big thank you to Doug Davison, Smiteworks, the community, and my fans! You all saved my life!