About Destiny Common Gamer

Destiny Common Gamer is a site is for fans of Bungie’s Destiny franchise, and in particular for players who are not videogame gods but nevertheless want to get the most out of their Destiny 2 experience.  I started the site in July 2021 to document my Destiny experiences, to help people enjoy Destiny, and as an outlet for my thoughts about the game.

The name “Common Gamer” is borrowed from True Vanguard, who uses the term to describe ordinary players as opposed to people who play Destiny’s crucible for many hours every week and become much more skilled than the average player.  FalloutPlays similarly uses the name “Johnny Dayjob.”  In my view common gamers are underrepresented in online conversations about Destiny, which tend to be dominated by content creators and very serious players.

This is a noncommercial hobby site which will not have any advertisements or sponsorships.  It is entirely self-financed.

About Me

I’m ZenSoCal, or, in real life, Fabian Gonell.  I’m a 53-year-old lawyer living in San Diego, and Destiny is my main hobby.  I love all aspects of the game, PvE (player vs. environment) and PvP (player vs. player).  I am not a technically skilled player — as an older gamer my hand-eye coordination isn’t what it used to be and Destiny is my first FPS (first person shooter) so everything I know about how to play I learned from Destiny — for better or for worse.

I played vanilla Destiny into the Dark Below expansion, entirely solo, then got stuck on one particular mission and gave up on the game.  I picked it up again for the last year of Destiny (after The Taken King) and this time figured out how to find online resources like youtube and reddit, and haven’t looked back.  I eventually found a clan and started raiding, and have played Destiny 2 since launch.  I’ve completed hundreds of raids, including flawless raids, as well as solo flawless dungeons.  I’ve gotten every seal in the game so far.  I am living proof that you don’t have to be a videogame superstar to experience everything Destiny has to offer.