Kinda feels funny...

[TheCountAlucard]

The following happened to me Friday. I feel the need to tell somebody about this, so I'm gonna talk about it here...

So, I was at this church-sponsored free lunch on campus yesterday; I had my laptop and a couple of D&D character sheets with me (I had just finished updating them, since my players' characters had leveled up), and I was just sitting there, eating a beef burrito.

Anyway, someone starts to walk by me; he's a complete stranger to me. I might've seen him at a previous lunch or two, but I didn't know the guy. Takes me a second to realize it (I wasn't really paying attention), but he had stopped, and was looking at the top character sheet (one of the four-pagers, belonged to the party cleric).

I started to explain to him that it was a D&D character sheet. Having expected him to lose interest, I was surprised to hear him ask what some of the numbers meant. I switched to one of the two-page character sheets, hoping that I wouldn't overwhelm him, and began to explain some of the simpler stuff on the sheet.

He took it all in, asking questions here and there, which I answered to the best of my ability. He seemed to understand the concept of an RPG already, and was pretty intrigued by D&D, once I had explained what I could to him. I pulled out some of my resources for the more complex stuff. Eventually, he asked me if there was some sort of online source of information; I told him about the SRD.

Anyway, yeah. In five minutes, I had talked my way through getting a complete stranger interested in D&D. I didn't scare him off or overwhelm him with hundreds of rules. He left promising that he'd take a look at the SRD.

Responses? What do you guys think? Any similar stories amongst you playgrounders?

[DementedFellow]

I must say your story took me by surprise. When I read the word "church" I figured you'd be telling us about how someone with no knowledge of DnD would be telling you that it is "of the Devil!"

I've only been able to interest a friend of mine into DnD by showing him the OOTS webcomic. He would read it and ask me to explain the joke, though most he would catch on his own.

Good job!

[Edan]

This is very close to how I was introduced to DnD. I friend I knew from church actually first showed it to me. He showed me how to do everything after church activities and the like. He even introduced me to diplomacy leadership cheese after only about 3 weeks of mutual talking and it went from there.

After about two months of after church demonstrations, book reading etc, I finally grasped Core 3.0, then I learned 3.5 when I started playing with his group. Then it disbanded, because the DM went to college and my friend also left. One of my fondest memories.

[Collin152]

I must say your story took me by surprise. When I read the word "church" I figured you'd be telling us about how someone with no knowledge of DnD would be telling you that it is "of the Devil!"

Word for word what I intended to type.
Word! For! Word!

[TheCountAlucard]

I must say your story took me by surprise. When I read the word "church" I figured you'd be telling us about how someone with no knowledge of DnD would be telling you that it is "of the Devil!"

...Especially considering that they were evil characters. The Cleric in question is a worshipper of Nerull, and is described frequently as "having a disturbing knowledge of funeral procedures and last rites." However, the guy seemed cool about it; he realized that the character was exactly that: a character.

Again, I was generally surprised.

[Chronos]

Heh, my first thought was to check for a location listing under your name, because I was at a church-sponsored student lunch on Friday, too. But I would have noticed if there were someone there with a laptop and character sheets.

[Rogue 7]

More importantly- did you invite him to your game?

[FMArthur]

You might've conversation-trapped him. Some people are just too polite to do anything but feign interest until it looks like you're done.

[TheCountAlucard]

More importantly- did you invite him to your game?

Part of me wanted to, but I ultimately decided against it for the following reasons...

1) It's finals week for me, and I'm stressed enough as it is.
2) I don't know the guy; I never even actually asked him his name (an annoying habit of mine).
3) I'd rather not start a new player off on an evil campaign, which is what I'm currently running.
4) I didn't want to risk scaring the guy off.
5) I'm going home for the summer, and it'd kinda suck to start the guy on a game and then leave.

You might've conversation-trapped him. Some people are just too polite to do anything but feign interest until it looks like you're done.

I like to think that he wouldn't have been asking so many questions if this was the case. Generally when I talk to someone who is faking interest, I hear a lot of "Mmm-hmms," not, "How does that work?"

[Starsinger]

Generally when I talk to someone who is faking interest, I hear a lot of "Mmm-hmms," not, "How does that work?"

Careful with that... Some people respond like that when genuinely interested too. I do once in a while if I'm particularly interested I'll wait until they finish before I ask a question.

[TheCountAlucard]

Careful with that... Some people respond like that when genuinely interested too. I do once in a while if I'm particularly interested I'll wait until they finish before I ask a question.

True. I'll admit, I was just using a generalization there; one can better divine a person's interest through body language, facial expressions, and the like.

So, anyone else got a similar tale?