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How Did You Learn to Play D&D?

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26 Oct 2017 09:02 #256385 by Sagrilarus

charlest wrote: In middle school, sometime around 96, the huge brand new Barnes and Noble in the area had this little magazine sized book in the fantasy section. It was a Free AD&D adventure module that was just a few pages. It literally had the words FREE big and bold in the corner and I had to make sure it was actually free before leaving the store (was worried they would think I was stealing it).

After that I grabbed the starter box which had pre-gen characters and a few scenarios. My friends and I learned together. Not long after I had the player's handbook, monster manual, DM's guide, and tons of supplements.


About that FREE part . . .
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26 Oct 2017 09:43 - 26 Oct 2017 09:43 #256386 by san il defanso
Has anyone else here actually just learned recently? I was invited by a friend to play a game of 5e when the core books were still coming out. We played over Google Hangouts, and we only got in about 3-4 sessions before we all wandered away. Later on, I was invited by another group in Dallas to join in, and again we only got a few sessions into the adventure before I moved away. But once I got here I realized that I didn't want a gaming hobby where roleplaying wasn't a part of it, and I plunked down money for the core books. It's been my biggest gaming investment maybe ever, and I absolutely do not regret it. I've been playing a number of sessions over the past year. Roleplaying was exactly what I needed at this point in my hobby experience.

I do wish I had discovered D&D in high school, because converted board gamers are bad about focusing on a single game to the exclusion of all others, even if it's just for a few weeks. I haven't yet completed an adventure, either as player or DM. But that wasn't about to happen, my very evangelical family would have balked at their son playing D&D. Now my parents are cool with it and get it, but it's not something I go broadcasting around church. (Although all of the players in my current game attend our church, so this is obviously changing.)
Last edit: 26 Oct 2017 09:43 by san il defanso.
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26 Oct 2017 10:17 #256387 by Sagrilarus

san il defanso wrote: I do wish I had discovered D&D in high school, because converted board gamers are bad about focusing on a single game to the exclusion of all others, even if it's just for a few weeks. I haven't yet completed an adventure, either as player or DM. But that wasn't about to happen, my very evangelical family would have balked at their son playing D&D. Now my parents are cool with it and get it, but it's not something I go broadcasting around church. (Although all of the players in my current game attend our church, so this is obviously changing.)


One of the things that was always overlooked early on was that the system pretty much allows you to take it where you want. I knew a bunch of guys in college that called themselves the Holy Rollers, evangelical Christians that couched the game in a Christian milieu and played characters with Christian values. Having a demon or two in the baddies book was just good sense -- holy rollers need something to swing at. They never saw the game as anti-Christian, though their use of wizards was very limited.

Most players I know now (which granted is limited) attend the local Nazarene church. They make it work.

As for point of focus -- if the DM is good and weaves a good story, other games will be set aside. You need to get away from the technical aspects of combat and get into a more fully painted world, and fully painted characters. That's what sets roleplaying apart. If you don't have a group that does that then other games will likely interrupt the play, and that may be appropriate at that point.

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26 Oct 2017 10:23 #256388 by Da Bid Dabid
My first ever role playing was done here at F:AT on the DW play by forum that Lutes ran for everybody... it didn't finish but I was full on committed and gave me a taste of things that I know I needed more of.

Did a little research and ended up with DCC which I detailed here... fortressat.com/forum/35-mos-eisley-canti...ing?start=240#235510

I now have attended a local con and played in 2 sessions, done some CoC as a player, GM'ed some Tales from the Loop, and of course that same DCC group. I wish I could play more, like weekly but it just simply isn't happening; I'll take the 1 session every month or so I can get. I prefer RPGs to board games now, but any excuse to chuck some dice with friends is why I do the hobby, the actual vehicle for that socializing is far less important.

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26 Oct 2017 10:27 #256390 by san il defanso

Sagrilarus wrote:

san il defanso wrote: I do wish I had discovered D&D in high school, because converted board gamers are bad about focusing on a single game to the exclusion of all others, even if it's just for a few weeks. I haven't yet completed an adventure, either as player or DM. But that wasn't about to happen, my very evangelical family would have balked at their son playing D&D. Now my parents are cool with it and get it, but it's not something I go broadcasting around church. (Although all of the players in my current game attend our church, so this is obviously changing.)


One of the things that was always overlooked early on was that the system pretty much allows you to take it where you want. I knew a bunch of guys in college that called themselves the Holy Rollers, evangelical Christians that couched the game in a Christian milieu and played characters with Christian values. Having a demon or two in the baddies book was just good sense -- holy rollers need something to swing at. They never saw the game as anti-Christian, though their use of wizards was very limited.

Most players I know now (which granted is limited) attend the local Nazarene church. They make it work.

As for point of focus -- if the DM is good and weaves a good story, other games will be set aside. You need to get away from the technical aspects of combat and get into a more fully painted world, and fully painted characters. That's what sets roleplaying apart. If you don't have a group that does that then other games will likely interrupt the play, and that may be appropriate at that point.


Heh, I'm an associate pastor at a Nazarene church. F:AT is bleeding into the rest of my world!

A big reason for the failure to complete adventures has been that I've moved a lot in the last couple of years. I'd still be playing with my group in Texas if I lived there. Actually my current group is a lot of fun, and we've been able to stay pretty steady with our game. Since I'm moving AGAIN in the spring, we're just going through Lost Mines of Phandelver (the starter set adventure). I suspect we'll be able to finish before the end of March without breaking a sweat.

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26 Oct 2017 10:28 #256391 by charlest

Sagrilarus wrote: As for point of focus -- if the DM is good and weaves a good story, other games will be set aside. You need to get away from the technical aspects of combat and get into a more fully painted world, and fully painted characters. That's what sets roleplaying apart. If you don't have a group that does that then other games will likely interrupt the play, and that may be appropriate at that point.


While I don't disagree with most of what you're saying, "you need to get away from the technical aspects" is an issue with D&D in particular, not RPGs. I have a lot of respect for D&D and for what it's done for the hobby, but I think it's a pretty terrible system that usually works against the goals of the players. The technical aspects of more well designed RPGs do a great deal to create buy-in and drive the story.
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26 Oct 2017 10:35 #256393 by Sagrilarus

charlest wrote:

Sagrilarus wrote: As for point of focus -- if the DM is good and weaves a good story, other games will be set aside. You need to get away from the technical aspects of combat and get into a more fully painted world, and fully painted characters. That's what sets roleplaying apart. If you don't have a group that does that then other games will likely interrupt the play, and that may be appropriate at that point.


While I don't disagree with most of what you're saying, "you need to get away from the technical aspects" is an issue with D&D in particular, not RPGs. I have a lot of respect for D&D and for what it's done for the hobby, but I think it's a pretty terrible system that usually works against the goals of the players. The technical aspects of more well designed RPGs do a great deal to create buy-in and drive the story.


I agree completely with what you're saying. D&D was the offspring of a wargame, designed by a wargame designer. It took a huge step in the right direction and started a new industry, but it has been much improved on by games with smaller rulesets. Part of D&D's weight comes from TSR needing to find ways to publish more (to keep the revenue flowing) in order to remain a profitable company. The result was a lot of technical material that is nothing but a burden to the fundamental concept of role-playing. My group of the last 25 years has jettisoned much of the 2nd Edition rules because they don't add to the enjoyment of the game.
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26 Oct 2017 10:53 #256395 by san il defanso
One big advantage that D&D has over other systems is its ubiquity. New people can find good examples of D&D games on Youtube, and it's probably as easy to find players as it is for any other lifestyle game. The issue of having to split time with board games is much less of an issue now, because my group is composed of people who have played more D&D than anything else. I think if we could schedule it to work this way, we'd just play D&D and use off nights to play other games.

For me at least, 5e does not have too much extraneous stuff. It's been a very intuitive system both to run and play. I think my biggest issue has been that the DMG is oddly opaque about what precisely a DM should be doing and how adventure buiding really needs to be done. I understand it better now, but when I first was reading it I was a little baffled. It's like it's making some assumptions about how it always has been done, or it doesn't want to tie the system down in any direction because everyone DMs differently. I wish they were a little more direct. Having the DM's Guild around to buy cheap, well-written adventures is really good. I'm a lot more interested in running the game than I am in coming up with my own adventures.

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26 Oct 2017 11:02 - 26 Oct 2017 11:07 #256396 by Mr. White
off topic post
sorry
Last edit: 26 Oct 2017 11:07 by Mr. White.

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26 Oct 2017 11:45 #256402 by Shellhead
Excessively detailed rules get in the way of actual role-playing, but a detailed combat system can be fun as a tactical game. If I want to run a dungeon crawl, I prefer a heavy tactical game like 3.5 or GURPS. If I want to put more focus on role-playing and story-telling, I prefer a lighter rule set that doesn't get in the way of the story. BRP is a good system for Call of Cthulhu, because a complex combat system slows down the pace and dispels the mood of a horror game.

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26 Oct 2017 12:27 #256404 by Mantidman
I had an older cousin that started me on the journey. I remember him having the 1977 Basic Set, though I don't know when he got it. In early '82, I purchased the Erol Otus Red Box and had a blast. Mainly just read the books, picked up modules, started painting miniatures, and played with family members. Junior high saw my friends get involved and that continued through high school. Stopped for awhile in college until I found some fellow bio majors that played (a Dark Sun campaign).
I was able to bring fellow grad students and a post-doc into the fold in the mid '90's. Took a break until my boys were old enough to play (2009) and we started with Labyrinth Lord. Lots of wonderful memories and hopefully we can move the campaign forward over the Thanksgiving Break, when my eldest comes home from his first semester in college.
Thanks for the opportunity to remember and reflect.

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26 Oct 2017 14:05 - 26 Oct 2017 14:05 #256410 by Matt Thrower
I learned from this book



It was my introduction to gaming as a whole.
Last edit: 26 Oct 2017 14:05 by Matt Thrower.

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26 Oct 2017 14:06 #256411 by jpat
Replied by jpat on topic How Did You Learn to Play D&D?
I had a group of guys who played in middle school (maybe late elementary) and high school. The middle school group whittled down over the years and a few people were added, but there was a core of us who played together for at least probably six years, even early into college on breaks, pretty much every weekend at someone's house for an overnight. (That part I didn't do so well with; I was a early-to-bed, early-to-rise person not so much out of desire but biology; they were the opposite, and the best parts of the games usually happened after I nodded off.) We played the old basic and expert boxes, but only briefly, going on to and staying with AD&D almost exclusively for that time. By the end, I was burned out on it and we sometimes tried other systems (Paranoia 2e, CoC, (Mega)Traveller, Star Frontiers, Bootleggers, Top Secret/SI, probably a few others--Champions was intriguing but always seemed beyond my grasp at the time). We were genuinely roll players, with very little characterization, and were (sadly) somewhat contemptuous of people who put more into their characters when we'd encounter them at the old Omacon in Omaha, NE. Thinking back to the "starting over" thread on here a couple days ago, we ultimately felt kind of trapped by the existence of a few uberpowerful characters until we realized we could start over again--I remember that night distinctly as being a fantastically liberating revelation.

I was a fairly terrible player. My paladin (and I for whatever reason wanted one most of the time) ended up with low survivability, so in that group I never got into a grove as a player. I'd started out DM'ing for everyone, and so while they were learning the ropes, I was behind-the-scenes. You'd think that would've been good training, but it seemed inadequate at the time for the other side of the table.

We had a good time overall, and I wouldn't change it, but the later it got into high school, the more I felt burned out on the game itself and how frequently we were playing, and how much it felt like a poor proxy for dating and other things I didn't do. That's not those guys' fault, but while a few were more outgoing, had relationships with girls, and such, a few of us were self-styled losers who didn't. RPG shopping--which was an enterprise at the time; we had to travel to Sioux City from my small Iowa town (only about 60 miles or so, but still)--to get to anyplace that had a selection. And I would often buy a new system that might or might not get tried, hoping, I guess, to find something that felt like D&D the first time and that would whisk everyone along in wanting me to lead the experience. That never quite happened, but I did get to play a bit more varied stuff in the first couple years in college. What I still consider my best DM'ing was a semester-spanning weekly session of Temple of Elemental Evil updated to 2e. They didn't get all that far--Homlett took a looong time--and schedules tanked the game after a semester, but I felt fluid and confident and free to characterize and improvise in ways that I just hadn't before. I also got my first exposure to CoC, which I liked, and my first real experience with (Mega)Traveller. And a brush with wargames beyond A&A, Fortress: America, and Supremacy.

The most memorable thing I can recall about "botiquing" on a new system was when playing Top Secret/SI with my high school group. One guy, who was used to D&D, had his character get shot, which proved life-threatening. He said something like, "Getting shot hurts!" No giant pool of HP or armor to soak all that up.

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26 Oct 2017 14:17 #256413 by charlest

san il defanso wrote: I think my biggest issue has been that the DMG is oddly opaque about what precisely a DM should be doing and how adventure buiding really needs to be done. I understand it better now, but when I first was reading it I was a little baffled. It's like it's making some assumptions about how it always has been done, or it doesn't want to tie the system down in any direction because everyone DMs differently. I wish they were a little more direct. Having the DM's Guild around to buy cheap, well-written adventures is really good. I'm a lot more interested in running the game than I am in coming up with my own adventures.


That's because D&D wants to be everything and support everyone's agenda. If you want to play a game bent on simulation where you're worried about every last piece of equipment, feeding your pack animals grain, calculating days of travel, etc. you can. If you want to be story-focused you can ignore many smaller details. If you want to focus on "winning" and the competitive aspects of challenge and combat, have at it.

Designing adventures, and adjudicating situations for all those different agendas requires a very different approach/mindset.

The best GM advice nowadays is found in story games like Apocalypse World. Part of that is because the game and ruleset is designed with one thing in mind - being narrative focused.

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26 Oct 2017 14:26 #256416 by fastbilly1
It all started with Magic in 93, then when wanting something deeper we found Spellfire. Then when we found Spellfire alittle disjointed, the card shop owner bought our cards and we ended up with a 2nd Edition AD&D book set. Then years later back into the fray with college friends and 3.5. I have not had a weekly group for many years, but I have played fringe games of 4th, 5th, and Pathfinder ever since.

Nowadays most of my roleplaying is done with TFT.

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