Heading off to play my first D&D game with others

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And I'm scared as s&#*. In D&D, a roleplaying tabletop game, one is supposed to roleplay there characters, and I'm only good at roleplaying on the computer where I have time to formulate exactly what I will say and do. One time, I larped and failed epicly at roleplaying because of my ADD and shyness. Plus, I had no knowledge of the world the Larp was set in. In D&D, I understand the mythos to an extent, but I'm still quite new to it. I think we'll be playing the Points of Light campaign setting, which really is just a generic high-fantasy sandbox with not a lot of background info, and that would be a little easier, but hopefully it's not the Forgotten Realms where other than the history of Kara-Tur, I know very little.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dviVx60qSrA&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

its easier then you'd think
remember to have fun with it, be creative and enjoy
and don't be afraid to ham it up, it is fantasy after all

I find tabletop much harder than LRP. Much less context to help you react to things.

tabletop stuff (like warhammer) is easy once you know whats going on
that and if you pick a new army

Chose a kind of character you feel comfortable with. If possible/feasible give him/her a background of growing up in a different culture than the one where the campaign takes place. That way you can blame a portion of your own social blunders on your character not knowing his/her way around.

I hope you have fun.

That's why I play Thri-kreen. But in a structured game set in another campaign other than Dark Sun, Thri-kreen are usually not allowed.

I hope you have lots of fun.

You are making middle aged me very nostalgic. Back in my day (early 80's), computer games hadn't been invented yet (except for Pong and Asteroids) and so we played live D&D because that was how all role playing games were played. I'm delighted to see that it has retro appeal.

And now, no one of my generation touches D&D because they basically think "why play an rpg with pen and paper when you could just play WoW?" I play because I like world building, I think it has more depth to it, and I like to be my character and not just play it. Sadly, none of my friends want to play because it looks or seems boring to them.

It's not quite the same thing. Loosely speaking, the difference is that while both styles tend to have very, very complicated rules, tabletop RP (like D&D) is unbounded by them - the world is not defined by the rules, you can in principle break them by agreement with the GM, whereas tabletop wargaming (like Warhammer*) is bound by them - the world is strictly defined by the rules.


* or at least, like the kind of Warhammer that has armies - Rogue Trader was/is closer to tabletop RP

Yeah, that's a silly attitude. Similarly to what I was saying - in a tabletop RP you have freedom to do stuff that hasn't already been defined for you, in an MMO you are restricted to doing things that other people define for you. It's an advantage that MMOs will never match, at least not until they have a human-level AI able to randomly handle, for example, what happens when a player decides to offer jelly babies to the orcs. Etc. ^^ Another advantage they have over MMOs is the social one - tabletop RP is a social occasion and while I expect for most of us it's not an attractive advantage, for most tabletop RPers it's a wonderful chance to get together with friends, talk nonsense and eat junk food, which shouting at guildmates over IRC can't match.

I wholeheartedly agree. Plus, people nowadays have a lack of imagination and creativity thanks to the games.

This is key.



Speaking as someone who grew up playing D&D and other tabletop RPGs (as well as computer and video game RPGs), I wouldn't call it a retro appeal at all. D&D is no more retro than, say, Scrabble is. It may be an old(ish) game and not modern in style, but it has remained popular over the decades. The appeal has nothing do with nostalgia. I hope this doesn't sound argumentative, because I don't mean it that way. I suppose I'm just trying to say "D&D is great regardless of era."

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, ShenLong. I found it very stressful at first, but grew to love it.

Wel, unfortunately my dad bailed on me and decided not to bring me because we're going to my Grandparents' house tomorrow and he doesn't want me to lose sleep. That and that he had to go to hockey and my mom was working late. Oh well, maybe next week. They run D&D Encounters every week, it's just that the game shop where they play is like 11 miles away but feels longer because of all the traffic in that part of town. Why there cannot be a game store closer to me, I'll never know.

Ah, I'm sorry to hear that. Oh, and as far as being shy about roleplaying--I'm sure the amount of roleplaying done varies from one group to the next, but among my friends, we did fairly little of it. Basically just RPed conversations with NPCs and occasionally with each other (mostly so that we could faux-argue and give each other some good-humored grief). As long as you're comfortable with your character, I wouldn't worry about it.