Ok, first of all, welcome to steemit! This is actually a pretty awesome platform to motivate oneself to write. To perhaps answer some of your questions....
You can search by genre tags if you like and place your works in up to 5 at a time. You probably already figured that out though. There are groups available to join that can help you narrow down to the niche you are looking for. I belong to a group called MSP (Minnow Support Project) on Discord Chat. Its a great hub that has a great many fields for bloggers to classify themselves into. Within MSP I focus most of my time within the Fiction Workshop Channel. We share ideas, contests, peer edit, save the world, etc. We just created our own curation trail: Steemhouse Fiction Trail or SFT. There are several published authors and professional editors that spend their time there as well. I would really recommend it. If you are interested, I can get you an invite link. There is a slight learning curve and you will need .002 steem to get registered (which I am totally ok with sending you if you dont have any yet)
What will you focus on? Well, you mentioned D&D, I've seen someone actually trying to host D&D games on steemit, oddly enough, not sure how thats going, but pretty cool. You can choose anything, and as long as your professional about it, you will get results. Usually not immediate, but gradual.
I choose to write fantasy and sci-fi usually. I have a novel that I have been releasing chapters at a time. I like short stories as well as entering contests. Contests are some of the best way to get your work out there as well as help you gain followers.
The Fiction Workshop probably has been the best thing for me out of it all though. Really helped me become a better writer. Anyway, I've rambled enough. Welcome to the community! Cheers.
Part of the initial learning curve will definitely be trying to identify the smaller communities within steemit. It seems like you've found yourself a wonderful spot already, and it's glad to hear that others have found places which they identify with.
You asked what I would focus on, and that's something I can't even answer yet. I think my initial writing will be focused on sifting through these possibilities. In an ideal scenario, my brand won't be crafted at all. Instead, I feel it should be formed from the things I have done... Kind of like some idyllic 'integrity'.
My roots are definitely already deep within fantasy and sci-fi, but I'm not sure /what/ will be my identifier. I studied game theory in college and like to think of myself as a great host for roleplaying games (tabletop and discord servers alike). I was brainstorming what I could offer this community, and I came up with a great format for a choose your own adventure (CYOA) style episodic... But now I'm not so sure. I want to engage with the community, but I've examined the CYOA's that are currently on this site and... Now I'm hesitating. I think I'll wait before pushing out any big projects for now. I'll stick to writing for contests for a few months until I get a better feel for my relationship with his site.
Thank you for the warm welcome. It's comments like these that inspire me to find my place in Steemit. The best of luck to you!
Yes! I've also toyed with the idea of a CYOA type of story on this platform. I think it could be very fun and enable you to write a large quantity of smaller posts that would engage your reader. The only issue is keeping them together, since they tend to get pushed down in the blog format. Doable though. Gather a few digital artists and showcase their work when you got known well enough. It would be a lot of fun. Ever since my childhood reading the Lone Wolf CYOA books, I've always wanted to try my hand at one. Those were classics. I think you can actually download an app and play/read them all on your phone now. Anyway, just rambling, feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Cheers!