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TheFinalBistro
2016-12-09, 02:45 PM
I'm sure this is a thread repeated a million times over but here goes...I'm someone who has never had the appropriate friend base for games like d&d but have always been interested. As a complete beginner I have no idea how to find a community, let alone one that would be willing to help me learn and grow. I'm 24, and I'm sure that's a late start, but I've always yearned for the chance to explore these worlds. I just never knew how to start. I apologize if this is a much replated question, please don't hate. This is me taking the first step.

Knaight
2016-12-09, 02:50 PM
I'm sure this is a thread repeated a million times over but here goes...I'm someone who has never had the appropriate friend base for games like d&d but have always been interested. As a complete beginner I have no idea how to find a community, let alone one that would be willing to help me learn and grow. I'm 24, and I'm sure that's a late start, but I've always yearned for the chance to explore these worlds. I just never knew how to start. I apologize if this is a much replated question, please don't hate. This is me taking the first step.

It might be viable to just grab a couple of nerdy friends who are also total novices and see if they're interested - that's how I started, and while I had some advantages you didn't in getting a start (my mom played D&D back in the day) it worked out pretty well. Absent that there are organized play organizations for a few different games - check your local boardgame/comic/general-nerdity shop. You can generally hop in that way, and while everything I've heard about it suggests the games are sub par it does give a place to learn the basics.

BRC
2016-12-09, 03:12 PM
Hi, welcome to the hobby.

First things first, some terminology, Games like D&D are usually referred to as "Tabletop Roleplaying games", "Tabletop" Games, Tabletop RPGs, ect. "Board Games" usually refers to games like Monopoly, Settlers of Catan, ect. Theres enough overlap between the hobbies that it could lead to confusion.


As for getting started, if you don't have a group to play with, you'll need to find one. You could try to join a PbP (play by post) game on these forums, but I honestly don't recommend it. Play by Post is hardly the best method for playing the game, much less learning it. There is really no substitute for playing in-person among friends.

There's also no good substitute for learning the rules besides playing with people who already know how.
Tabletop gaming is a lot more popular than some people realize, so it's possible you already know somebody who plays and would be willing to teach you. But if not, you have two options:

Option 1: Find your local game store. Many stores run organized play sessions of some sort, which, even if it's not as fun as playing with your friends, is a good way to learn the game. Besides, the members of that group might become your friends.

Option 2: Get some friends together and start your own group. You really only need three people (Once of the best campaigns I've even run was with 2 players), but the game plays best with between 3-5. Spend some time mucking about with building characters and running simple one-shot adventures until everybody is comfortable with how the game works, then get into building and playing a campaign proper. If you have at least 3 or 4 players, you can start using the published modules if you're not comfortable with building your own adventures.

Another thing to do to get a general sense of how the game feels is to watch some of the many streamed-D&D series that populate the internet these days. Critical Role is my personal favorite, but there are many others. I wouldn't use them as a guide for how the specific rules work, Critical Role at least is a heavily houseruled mashup of 5e and pathfinder, but it's a great example of the core principles of gaming and storytelling. If you want to get a sense of what a good RPG session looks like, those session-streams are a good place to start.

As far as purchases go, you'll need books and dice, which will change depending on which game you want to learn. Some games have a pretty extensive free online SRD (Systems reference document, open-source rules content for the game), but those can be pretty hard to parse unless you're familiar with the basic mechanics. Some games have "Starter Boxes", with a basic rulebook, some pre-made characters, and a pre-made adventure, specifically to help people just starting out.

Finally, feel free to ask this forum for advice. People here are pretty friendly and patient with newcomers to the hobby.


Some things to be aware of that might catch you off guard.

First is the commitment. An RPG session usually lasts between 2-4 hours, and a group can easily fall apart if they stop having regular sessions. People need to be ready for that, especially in a longer campaign, or else your group could lose enthusiasm. Combat in particular tends to take a very long time, so be ready for that.

Second is the Math. RPGs have a lot of numbers, terms and boxes, and for the most part this is frontloaded in character creation, so people's first experience with a lot of games is seeing a blank character sheet with a hundred empty spots, being given a book of rules, and told to figure out how to use the rules to fill in the spots. This can lead to people being overwhelmed. Starting with pre-made characters can help, but the most important thing is for everybody to be patient. People tend to get the hang of the rules pretty quickly, just be ready for it.

Finally is the relationship tabletop RPGs have to video games, specifically video game RPGs. One begat the other, and they share a lot of common DNA. Playing CRPGs can help provide reference for a lot of things you see in tabletop RPGs. A lot of the stuff on your character sheet has an analouge in games like Diablo or WoW. However, the experience is very different, and if you take a WoW quest as your model for a D&D game, you're probably going to end up pretty miserable. Same as if your players sit down at the table expecting this to feel and function just like a video game.

Anonymouswizard
2016-12-10, 10:00 AM
As a side note, I highly recommend not starting with D&D, even 5e. It's a rather large investment and rather complex. Instead look for GAME like Dungeon World, which Can get you from 'no game' to playing in five minutes or less, and have simpler rules with less exceptions and subsystems. But advice on getting into our making your own group has been good enough that I don't feel the need to parrot it, but if just playing with other friends who haven't played, don't start with D&D, it's rather complex.