I've always been a very imaginative person. A lot of my childhood was spent writing stories (which would sometimes fill entire notebooks), coming up with elaborate dramatic games with my friends, and generally fantasising about impossible worlds. Yet, despite this I didn't discover tabletop RPGs until I was in my twenties.
I mean, I knew they existed and I saw the appeal, but it also seemed so far away. Something American kids did. Getting together with others to
make up stories? What a ridiculous idea.
I bought a copy of Fabula (a Norwegian RPG) during secondary school. I wanted to understand these games, and I wanted to play them well. There were two problems.
1. I found the book to be confusing. I had to read up on all this backstory in order to make my own stories based on it?
2. I didn't have anyone to play with.
I did get to try it once, with a rather reluctant cousin
(boy does that sound dirty if taken out of context), but it wasn't a hit. I remember being pleased with my story-telling skills... Have no clue what my cousin thought about it. We never mentioned the game again.
One thing that scared me away from D&D were all the rules. It didn't make sense to me that a game that is all about making up stories should have to have such extensive and complicated rules. All the tables, charts, dice, abbreviations, rules, and guidelines... it made my head hurt.
When I eventually played D&D for the first time, I had a mixed experience. I thought things were too slow, combat was confusing and character interaction was awkward. I got bored and restless a lot, and couldn't for the life of me figure out how people could spend countless hours doing this. I was ready to tell myself that "Okay, I've tried this, but I guess it's not my thing". But for some reason, I just couldn't let it go. I wanted to like the game.
So last night, I started running a D&D campaign as a DM. I spent all day preparing and reading up on rules, and I felt like a little kid on Christmas eve when we were ready to begin. Sure, there was only one other player (who had to juggle four different characters in order to make it work) - seems I've still got problems finding people to play with - but I had an excellent time! I finally understood what it's all about.
Having fun. I have to thank the Gamers movies and the Penny Arcade D&D podcast for rekindling my interest in D&D. Most of all, though I have to thank the genius of 4th Edition D&D. It's made things simple enough for me to run a decent game and not feel frustrated. It's amazing! A completely different experience from when I clumsily tried to get through a 3rd Edition adventure.
We started the
Keep on the Shadowfell adventure and though I'm not confident enough to venture too far away from the scripted story yet, I'm already fantasising about writing my own adventure from scratch. And I definitely want to try and gather up some more people to play with from now on.
