Hello my name is David and I love Tabletop Role Playing Games. There I said it.
That’s right I’m coming out to you; I’m coming out of the dungeon. The 40th anniversary of Dungeons and Dragons has just passed as of this writing
and I am quite excited about the future of the Tabletop hobby as a whole. There
are innumerable systems out there and more to come with any luck.
My experience with role playing games began when I was about twelve years old. I had gone to a discount bookstore with my grandmother and while looking through the racks of 3rd in a series marked down novels something caught my eye. A black box the words across its lid read “Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Night Below: An Underdark Campaign”. My interest was piqued by the images on the cover of hideous creatures emerging from the darkness or, considering the title, the "underdarkness". I had no idea what these monsters were what a campaign was or where the underdark was located, but I wanted to find out. As I quickly looked through the paperback books and awesome fold out maps enclosed, a few people stopped to look on, sharing stories about this one’s cousin who thought he was an elf and this guy who took the whole thing way too seriously and got lost in his “character.” Well that did it I was sold, my grandmother threw down the eight dollars for the used copy and I took it home ready to escape into a world of monsters and elves.
Well, I was twelve years old in the Nintendo/Sega Genesis era and my attention span was less than impeccable (not to mention I didn’t have the PHB, DMG or MM) after further perusing the boxed materials of Night Below and understanding little to none of the numbers and abbreviations, I finally reasoned what the problem was: "Advanced" Dungeons and Dragons, I don’t even have regular Dungeons and Dungeons, how could I even begin to understand advanced materials. Alas due to that small marketing snafu on TSR's end Night Below went on the book shelf never to see the light of day again.
Years passed and I didn’t really consider Role Play again until High School. At that time I was into the whole vampire thing to the point that I wore exclusively black (yeah I was a tool…some say I still am). I got a book called “The Vampire book: Encyclopedia of the Undead” and while reading through it I found an entry under games for White Wolfs Vampire: The Masquerade. I was hooked before I finished the brief description of a dark reflection of our world controlled by the shadowy hand of blood thirsty immortals. I purchased all the gaming material I could from the local Walden books and poured over the fluff for hours on end; devising sinister plots and story arch’s, memorizing clan weaknesses and disciplines and imagining the possibilities of a world of darkness. Despite all this time invested; I never played in nor ran a game at that time. However I can still tell you all 5 basic levels of Protean by name and quote the code of Milan.
Flash forward about eight years later and I found myself in human services working with young adults with severe mental illness. A large portion of this job consisted of teaching various life and coping skills in group settings. That’s when a light bulb went off. I decided to facilitate a tabletop role playing game group as a means of imparting said skills in a fun and interesting manner.
I had never GM’d a game before, but I understood enough to know the concept held great potential for skill acquisition especially with the social and interpersonal focus that role play provided so I figured why not give it a go. I had picked up a used copy of the 3.5 Dungeons and Dragons rules a couple of years earlier at a local hobby shop but had only briefly browsed the pages, it was a lot of material so I splurged and got “Dungeons and Dragons for dummies” which was a much quicker read of the basics of play.
I went ahead and threw together a hokey plot about a wizard who had acquired an ancient magical tome and was planning to raise an undead army to topple the kingdom. I drew out a dungeon map on some graph paper, filled it with some low level threats, got some dice, gathered a group of players and hoped for the best. Seven years later I still work in human services and those PC’s are still adventuring, now choosing feats from the epic level handbook (they level up so fast). Though I use Tabletop RPG’s to teach life and coping skills in my work, that’s not what this blog is meant to teach (that's just my "how RPG's changed my life" story).
Playing in a role playing game for the first time can be a very intimidating experience; running a game for the first time can be even more so. There are a lot of books and columns that give methods on developing deep and immersive, multi-layered background tapestries and interesting and deeply engrossing NPC’s. There are many books and columns that give advice on how to use story devices such as foreshadowing and allegory to create a truly inspiring and moving shared storytelling experience for both you and your players. This blog does not make a focus of those things (though I highly recommend utilizing any and all such material when you feel ready to kick your game up a notch).
What this blog is designed to do is make your first and early games less intimidating (the operative word being less, it will always be somewhat intimidating to run your first games) and get you the perspective Game Master behind the screen quickly so that the adventure can begin. Looking back at the first games I ran I can see a lot of errors rules wise; but few if any errors in what made those games enjoyable and memorable.
We played Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 but didn’t use feats; NO FEATS IN 3.5! Characters and monsters got to use full attacks and take a move action in the same round. Encumbrance wasn’t even considered. No one ate a single ration. And yet, no one cared, because those rule oversights weren’t comparable to the time the half-ling rogue sneak attacked an illithid sticking a dagger in its head and subsequently saving the party from mindless servitude to psionic overlords; or the time the dwarf fighter was caught in a room with a descending ceiling and had to strip down to his skivvies douse himself in lantern oil and be squeezed under a closing doorway.
Were the rule calls on those events by the book? Absolutely not; but those events amongst others are still remembered fondly to this day. The posts in this blog are full of anecdotes suggestions and guidance. Like the rules of the games you will GM, take what you like and discard what you don’t agree with; but if nothing else do the following as often as you possibly can...
My experience with role playing games began when I was about twelve years old. I had gone to a discount bookstore with my grandmother and while looking through the racks of 3rd in a series marked down novels something caught my eye. A black box the words across its lid read “Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Night Below: An Underdark Campaign”. My interest was piqued by the images on the cover of hideous creatures emerging from the darkness or, considering the title, the "underdarkness". I had no idea what these monsters were what a campaign was or where the underdark was located, but I wanted to find out. As I quickly looked through the paperback books and awesome fold out maps enclosed, a few people stopped to look on, sharing stories about this one’s cousin who thought he was an elf and this guy who took the whole thing way too seriously and got lost in his “character.” Well that did it I was sold, my grandmother threw down the eight dollars for the used copy and I took it home ready to escape into a world of monsters and elves.
Well, I was twelve years old in the Nintendo/Sega Genesis era and my attention span was less than impeccable (not to mention I didn’t have the PHB, DMG or MM) after further perusing the boxed materials of Night Below and understanding little to none of the numbers and abbreviations, I finally reasoned what the problem was: "Advanced" Dungeons and Dragons, I don’t even have regular Dungeons and Dungeons, how could I even begin to understand advanced materials. Alas due to that small marketing snafu on TSR's end Night Below went on the book shelf never to see the light of day again.
Years passed and I didn’t really consider Role Play again until High School. At that time I was into the whole vampire thing to the point that I wore exclusively black (yeah I was a tool…some say I still am). I got a book called “The Vampire book: Encyclopedia of the Undead” and while reading through it I found an entry under games for White Wolfs Vampire: The Masquerade. I was hooked before I finished the brief description of a dark reflection of our world controlled by the shadowy hand of blood thirsty immortals. I purchased all the gaming material I could from the local Walden books and poured over the fluff for hours on end; devising sinister plots and story arch’s, memorizing clan weaknesses and disciplines and imagining the possibilities of a world of darkness. Despite all this time invested; I never played in nor ran a game at that time. However I can still tell you all 5 basic levels of Protean by name and quote the code of Milan.
Flash forward about eight years later and I found myself in human services working with young adults with severe mental illness. A large portion of this job consisted of teaching various life and coping skills in group settings. That’s when a light bulb went off. I decided to facilitate a tabletop role playing game group as a means of imparting said skills in a fun and interesting manner.
I had never GM’d a game before, but I understood enough to know the concept held great potential for skill acquisition especially with the social and interpersonal focus that role play provided so I figured why not give it a go. I had picked up a used copy of the 3.5 Dungeons and Dragons rules a couple of years earlier at a local hobby shop but had only briefly browsed the pages, it was a lot of material so I splurged and got “Dungeons and Dragons for dummies” which was a much quicker read of the basics of play.
I went ahead and threw together a hokey plot about a wizard who had acquired an ancient magical tome and was planning to raise an undead army to topple the kingdom. I drew out a dungeon map on some graph paper, filled it with some low level threats, got some dice, gathered a group of players and hoped for the best. Seven years later I still work in human services and those PC’s are still adventuring, now choosing feats from the epic level handbook (they level up so fast). Though I use Tabletop RPG’s to teach life and coping skills in my work, that’s not what this blog is meant to teach (that's just my "how RPG's changed my life" story).
Playing in a role playing game for the first time can be a very intimidating experience; running a game for the first time can be even more so. There are a lot of books and columns that give methods on developing deep and immersive, multi-layered background tapestries and interesting and deeply engrossing NPC’s. There are many books and columns that give advice on how to use story devices such as foreshadowing and allegory to create a truly inspiring and moving shared storytelling experience for both you and your players. This blog does not make a focus of those things (though I highly recommend utilizing any and all such material when you feel ready to kick your game up a notch).
What this blog is designed to do is make your first and early games less intimidating (the operative word being less, it will always be somewhat intimidating to run your first games) and get you the perspective Game Master behind the screen quickly so that the adventure can begin. Looking back at the first games I ran I can see a lot of errors rules wise; but few if any errors in what made those games enjoyable and memorable.
We played Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 but didn’t use feats; NO FEATS IN 3.5! Characters and monsters got to use full attacks and take a move action in the same round. Encumbrance wasn’t even considered. No one ate a single ration. And yet, no one cared, because those rule oversights weren’t comparable to the time the half-ling rogue sneak attacked an illithid sticking a dagger in its head and subsequently saving the party from mindless servitude to psionic overlords; or the time the dwarf fighter was caught in a room with a descending ceiling and had to strip down to his skivvies douse himself in lantern oil and be squeezed under a closing doorway.
Were the rule calls on those events by the book? Absolutely not; but those events amongst others are still remembered fondly to this day. The posts in this blog are full of anecdotes suggestions and guidance. Like the rules of the games you will GM, take what you like and discard what you don’t agree with; but if nothing else do the following as often as you possibly can...
Play.
