No Ordinary Channel - No Ordinary Friends - No Ordinary Heroes

Article by Adam Ray

To those who've watched my games or Magic the Gathering Arena on YouTube, or wondered what I mean when I sign off on podcasts telling people to look to Twitch. To those curious ones, let me tell you about my very dear friends.

We play games. We jam games. We consume games. Games are what we worship.

No Ordinary Origins

No Ordinary Heroes is a collective of my very best friends in the world. It technically started in 2014, when the 5th Edition of Dungeons and Dragons loomed into our lives and I said to the founder of this site and one it's contributors: "hey you wanna play DnD?" But that bubbled away in the background with great stories of pushing Dragons from caves and surfing spiders.

The creator of NOH and I met in the mists of 2017. Back when we were in the drudgery of higher education, I met a chatty but shy young lady. A friend of my then partner, she was around as I stuffed knowledge into my mind about how to be a better writer.

I'd spent most of my first year of university playing DnD and forging the most important friendships I have. The games fell by the wayside for the sake of my studies. A crying shame, I agree.

As the finish line of the degree was coming for me, that shy lady came to me and asked something that would change my life forever.

Something as simple as bringing back my DnD games sounded simple. At the moment it was. I met the young ladies' friends. They were all in a dance group together. A curious and anime loving gentleman entered our midst. A semi regular Dungeons and Dragons campaign came into being and a wonderful thing happened. It didn't fizzle or die away.

No Ordinary Feed

With the camera starting to roll on some of our gaming sessions and the No Ordinary Heroes Youtube channel rising around the girls, I found myself eager to make content of a kind. The emergence of Magic Arena lead me to record some of my gameplay as we made our DnD games all the more regular, broadcasting our adventures to the wilderness.

As the story that drew us together began to reach its conclusion, the Discord server rose around us. That shy but charming young lady who brought me reached out to the Internet for more games and brought the friends she made into an enormous chat room just for us.

The most important thing that happened is the bond I made with one such person. I've been with my loving girlfriend 18 months and I truly feel like she's stuck with me. Poor thing.

No Ordinary Reality

As for No Ordinary Heroes today? We're strong as ever. With one of the original girls returning to her homeland, Philip, contributor on this website was brought in and welcomed with the most open arms I could have imagined. Now that he lives state side, we let him play in the form of a face in a box, thanks to the conjuration magic of Skype. I've been prompted to rekindle my Magic Arena gameplay and the curious young man and his love of anime has lead to him making his own content. We've invaded Tik Tok and coloured Instagram with our Cosplay. The Discord server is a bustling community, with people eager to make their friendships come to meet us.

Love, laughter, and legendary stories. All because I said yes.