What’s your relationship with roleplaying games? Is it something you’ve always wanted to play? Is it something you’ve played, but left behind for some reason? Is it something you’ve played continuously since the 70s?
This can be a thread for general questions and pointers to places you can learn of, introduce yourself to, or just leave something other people can find interesting about D&D or other roleplaying games.
Are PbP or IRC decent ways to begin seriously playing?
I’ve played in a few short campaigns and DM’ed a one-off but have never been able to find a stable group my work hours keep me out of game stores, too, even if I decided to go that route.
It was something I’d always been super interested in as a kid, but through school and college I just never really met anyone else with enough interest to actually play. Once I hit university and discovered a tabletop club and a tonne of new friends who were plenty into them, that changed pretty rapidly.
PbP & IRC are all valid and legit ways to play! There’s also lots of tabletop discords with rolling macros built in, or you can find and play games with peeps on Roll20.net (a very convenient tool and way to find games!)
I think they are! Often it’s the only way you can find a group of people who are interested. The Waypoint Discord has the groundwork for a few games being laid down now but I’m sure there are a lot of forums and online hangouts with groups already around in large numbers.
Role plying is something I am very new to, been running games for about 2 years. The first time I viewed something that had TTRPG content was Role Play: Dark Heresy. However the first time i wanted to GM was watching Roll20 Presents: Apocalypse World. Running 3 games a week Apocalypse World, Blades In The Dark and Fate.
I played D&D in middle school and high school back in the '90s and then didn’t pick it up again until about five years ago. I think the impetus was the Dungeons and Dragons episode from season 2 of Community. I helped organize a game on my last naval deployment back in 2012 using 3rd edition rules, and then was introduced to the new 5th edition stuff at PAX East in 2013 and have played that regularly since, mostly over Roll20.
The one resource I think I’d point folks interested in playing 5th Edition D&D to is Roll20’s Rules Compendium. They took the subset of the rules that Wizards of the Coast released under the Open Gaming license and made it easily searchable.
I just started playing DnD last year with workmates and it snowballed into following multiple different actual play podcasts and then more games with internet folks. It’s such an amazing hobby to get invested in but boy does it require investment. D:
I’ve wanted to get into TTRPGs since high school, but as of yet I still haven’t gotten around to finding a group to play with in meatspace. I have been in online groups off and on using roll20, mostly playing D&D, but certainly not enough that I’d call myself an expert.
That said, I just started running a game of John Harper’s Blades in the Dark a month or so ago. (waypoint fans may recognize it as the game used for the Marielda arc of Friends at the Table) It’s nerve-wracking but also exhilarating; I’m excited to see where we can take this campaign!
I played a ton of pen and paper stuff in high school but lost interest for a while. But now I run a Shadowrun game with some folks and that’s been a lot of fun. First time I ever DMed anything but I played in enough bad games to know what not to do. I went from having not played anything in forever to being really into it again.
As a child I had “the talking game” with friends where I was sort of… stumbling into a natural “I explain the world and the results of your actions, what do you do?” sort of proto-DMing, but that fell off in or around grade school. I’ve listened to a decent number or podcasts or youtube videos of people playing since (The Adventure Zone, Friends at the Table, Acquisitions Inc, etc) hadn’t played more than a session of Pathfinder and half a dozen sessions of Call of Cthulhu…
Well, until a couple months ago when the Skeletism segment of the 72 hour Waypoint livestream inspired me to call up a few friends scattered around the west coast and ask them if they wanted me to run them a Dungeon World campaign through Discord and Roll20. 20ish sessions in and we’re having a blast! It feels great to have a creative outlet again, since my creative writing has been suffering for the past 5 years or so; withering on the vine, as it were. Now that I have people relying on me to produce the next session’s worth of plot and set-pieces, I’m having a blast!
I always eyed rpgs from afar until I read about Monsterhearts on Shut Up and Sit Down. From there I learned about Apocalypse World, Burning Wheel, so on and so on…
Now a couple years later, I’ve read a ton of these books, and read a ton more about their design, but I still haven’t managed to get a group together and play for more than a couple sessions
That’s where I’m at now, listening to actual play podcasts and yearning
Yes, bearing in mind that they work very differently from tabletop in all? Most? Of the ways that make tabletop interesting. Which is not to deter you (at all! PbP is great!) but it’s like the difference between writing a play v doing improv. Sorta.
IRC works fine as a medium to play games and meet interesting people, but it’s also a really effective way to meet shitty people as well. I wouldn’t recommend it as a first experience, but it can be if you can be assertive with people who want to drag you down.
I recently started playing my first tabletop game (DnD 5e) but I’ve been listening to The Adventure Zone since it started and am halfway through COUNTER/Weight on FatT.
I’m having a blast playing DnD but really want to take a look at The Sprawl or other sci-fi hacks of Dungeon World and maybe start throwing together something once we’re through our DnD campaign. I’m interested in the new sci-fi Pathfinder stuff too but I’ve heard Pathfinder can get really roll and mechanics heavy when all I want to do is cool stuff.
I run a game at least once a week. I usually play in games about half as much, on average. Most of my running is in person, most of my playing is via Google+ and Hangouts. I make little games that I almost never show to anyone else (outside of running them).
I’m not sure what started me other than getting the red box when I was eight. That’s a lame answer though, so I’ll leave it at the last RPG thing I read that I wanted to run: Gloomtrain - the Bode (douche disclaimer - the above linked thing mentions something I did. Not at all why I’m linking to it, I promise x 1000).
Since as far back as I can remember I made up all sorts of worlds and drawing maps of fantastical places and would tell my mom all about them, pretty much up through middle school (I’m pretty sure she has all that stuff in her diaries). Then in High School I discovered D&D and instantly feel in love with DMing. Making up worlds and maps is still a favorite past time of mine and having a way to share that with people is amazing.
I did burn out of D&D after a couple years and really don’t like the D20 system anymore. I prefer less mechanics-heavy systems, New World of Darkness (and now the Chronicles of Darkness) Storyteller system is pretty much my perfect RPG system and I use various homebrewed variations of it for all my games. However, two years ago I moved a couple thousand miles from home to Seattle and haven’t really found a local group yet.
I played the Neverwinter video games as a kid, and read tons of stuff made in the fringe of D&D through high school, but for some reason I didn’t start playing roleplaying games until I was 19 and in Uni. These days I GM two groups - one D&D and one with different smaller games – and play in one – mainly Edge of the Empire.
I’ve played Pathfinder, D&D5, Fiasco, Star Wars Saga Edition, Edge of the Empire (and some offshoots), Apocalypse World, Lasers&Feelings, and a number of other smaller games. D&D5 is my go-to (I like the cross between the crunch and the flow), but I’ll play most things. NWoD, some Chthulu variants, and others are on my to-play-list.
I didn’t start getting into tabletop RPGs until pretty late in my life. Around 2010 I started running my first campaign, 4th edition D&D, after listening to the first series of Acquisitions Inc. podcasts. That campaign grew to over 12 players split into two parties at one point, and lasted for 7 years. I learned a lot.
Last year I started playing 5th edition D&D, primarily influenced by Critical Role. I’m running a game for some friends who haven’t played much D&D before, and I’m also playing in a 5th edition game run by a friend. Neither game has made much progress so far because of scheduling so I’ve been itching to get back into it.
Though part of me hopes they kind of fizzle and die so that I can start playing Dungeon World. I played a one shot about a month ago and it was a blast. After primarily playing with d20 systems it was really eye opening, and I think I prefer RPGs that are more rules light and focus on everyone getting to craft a narrative together.
Some of my other favourite games are Microscope and Fiasco, and I am very tempted by Blades in the Dark.
As for tips or gateways into RPGs lately I’ve been eating up basically anything Adam Koebel is involved in and the Rollplay games hosted on itmeJP’s youtube channel.
my work hours keep me out of game stores, too, even if I decided to go that route.
I went from having not played anything in forever to being really into it again.
