T w e n t y S i d e d

Reader Hal says this in the comments of this post:

Good question. My brother suggests the comic book store, which is sound advice.

If you have some friends who might play but aren’t sure: I suggest picking up some dice and the Player’s Handbook. Nothing will win over a newcomer faster than letting them hold a set of dice and read about how to roll up a character. They will want to roll one up, “just for fun”. And so it begins.

But this is an unusual problem. I take it most new players join existing games. D&D has a sort of Amway-ish life, with DM’s recruiting new players who eventually become DM’s themselves and who go on to recruit more. Getting started by your lonesome is a trick.

Another thing to keep in mind when looking for a group is that you want people who will match your desired style of play. This is much easier when dealing with friends than when signing up with a bunch of strangers. Some people play chaotic games, or evil games. One person I know had a game where they roamed around and killed villagers and burned down towns when they got bored. Some games have in-game fights between players which sometimes end in death. Other games have characters with an active in-game sex life. I’ve read notes from other DM’s who ran games where every person at the table ran three to five characters of their own, so that each person was a sort of self-contained adventuring party. All of these are valid ways to play the game, but I wouldn’t have any fun in these sorts of games.

Some groups are pure hack-n-slash. They are the tabletop equivalent of Diablo. Some guy in town tells you about a nearby dungeon, and you go in and fight monsters and accumulate loot until you wear the corners off your d20. Other games have deep, dialog-driven roleplaying with complex stories and a huge cast of NPCs with differing personalities and goals.

The fun of a game depends a great deal on the relationship between the players and the DM. When the DM has a story and a game style that works for the players, this game is one of the most satisfying and interesting you will ever play. When they don’t match, you end up with all of the frustrations and silliness that I use to fuel DM of the Rings.

LATER: It just dawned on me that maybe using the comic book store as a place to find other players will seem like nonsense to some people. I think it depends on the place. Our comic book store (New Dimension Comics, Clearview Mall, Butler, Middle ‘o frackin nowhere) is half gaming store. Once in a while I even see players gathered there for a game.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.