Should We Get into D&D?

Denise Sawicki | June 25, 2008
My husband and I have just recently started thinking about getting into dungeons and dragons or some such game. Maybe it has something to do with watching a lot of Freaks and Geeks.Coincidentally, the 4th edition of D&D just came out. We've never played before. We like RPGs on the computer but have no experience with paper versions. I'm just hoping to be talked into it I guess. I don't want to go out and spend $63 on the 3 books and then find out we can't use them even once. I'm stupid about money that way. Problems we might have:

1. I know there are people who say 4th edition sucks. I think these are people who are very attached to previous versions. Since we've never played before, I think we should be fine. 4th edition is supposed to be easier to get into than previous editions so in my book that is a good thing.

2. Maybe we're just too old to learn new tricks. We're over 30 after all. Sigh. We have plenty of free time though.

3. There's only 3 of us (if Darrell's twin brother Darrin will hang out with us) or 2 (if he won't). We don't make friends. Nobody else likes us. We have to accept that there's only 3. :-P

Pros:
1. We don't want to be tied to computer games. Computers are annoying.

2. I used to write adventure games for the computer (when I was 14... eek) so maybe there's some well of creativity still in me somewhere... we thought maybe I would try to be dungeon master first because we assume maybe that is the more complicated role and I might be able to get into it better without getting frustrated as Darrell has a tendency to be. But then again maybe you'd need to be a supergenius to come up with a decent campaign for D&D, which I am NOT, thank you very much. I've also gotten very lazy in recent years...

General questions:

How do you keep track of everything? Presumably each move takes a certain amount of time and you have to keep track of how much time has gone by, as well as keep track of everything in your inventory and everyone's current hit points and whatever else... it seems there would be a lot of writing and erasing of numbers?

How necessary is it to have miniatures? I would think it wouldn't really be necessary, but apparently the new edition is heading more in that direction somehow.

Can you just get these 3 "core" books and know how to play the game or are there subtleties I'm going to get completely wrong like how hard of monsters to use and how much treasure to offer?

I know I'm demanding too much of people by asking all this but any bit of advice would help I guess...

Erik Bates | June 25, 2008
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Denise Sawicki | June 25, 2008
It confuses me too I guess but I'm quite intrigued.

I hope I'm wasn't being rude by posting a big thing like this. I guess I did this before when I was thinking about getting high speed internet and then I never got it. :( This is a more justifiable expense though I think, $63 once as opposed to $50 a month for life... so it's more likely to happen... Sorry if it's rude, I just don't know that many people to ask questions of and I know that a number of people on here have been in gaming groups.. I'm excited about trying this thing so I wrote a bit much.

I should have just put it in my blog if anywhere. I'm kind of an idiot...

Lori Lancaster | June 25, 2008
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Aaron Shurtleff | June 25, 2008
I have comments to make, but no time at the moment. I'll be back later. ;)

Tony Peters | June 25, 2008
before computers and game systems when the Navy went to sea a lot of guys gamed (many still do but it was excepted by a larger number of people back then)....the last game system that I played was Rifts, miniatures not required, more SciFi than Fantasy though enough magic to please most. I still occasionally pick up source books just to read when they appeal to me. I like the premise and consider it more believable than D&D (at least to me)

Denise Sawicki | June 27, 2008
Well we ordered the box set of the 3 core books for D&D 4th edtion. It's on backorder though so if I hear anything really bad about how we definitely can't handle it, I can still cancel the order :-P. (I intentionally ordered the out-of-stock one so that I can cancel). Nobody can really predict what we're gonna like anyhow... I just wanted to get in the order in case amazon gets rid of their "sale" anytime soon...

Sorry Scott if I've been actually offending you with my impatience. I did e-mail Scott about this a few days before but then I got impatient and posted this... As my friend in college told me once when I was impatient to hear from him, "stop your whining, Santa has a lot of other houses to get to first" :P Haha... Scott would never say anything that annoying though. I didn't exactly learn my lesson, I'm still an annoyingly demanding friend but at least I feel bad about it now, constantly haha. :P

Scott Hardie | June 27, 2008
Sorry, Denise. Kelly's parents visited all week and I've only been online for a few minutes each night.

RPGs are a great pastime. I've played them on and off for years, and found them to be a good creative outlet, a good source of friends (hi Aaron!), good exercise for the mind, and a good way to keep up a social calendar with regular sessions. The downsides are the social stigma they carry, and the amount of effort they sometimes require to play and prepare. But you get out of them what you put into them: Plan a little or a lot, and you'll get a little or a lot of enjoyment.

Personally, I don't care for D&D in particular, compared to other RPGs. It's complicated, and I've spent too many evenings staring silently at the ceiling for fifteen minutes at a time while the DM looks up something in this book, then that book, then another book, just to make one simple success/fail decision. My rule of thumb for DMing is, if you can't look it up in one minute, just call it yourself and move on. But that's just me, and plenty of other people like the complexity of the rules because of the precision it allows for their strategies and character customization. (No disrespect to the DMs I've played with, all of whom are good people and created good games. I blame the D&D system itself.) One night, I got so bored of sitting there waiting around for the next turn that I surreptiously taped a moment of the uneventful silence. Here's Aaron Shurtleff and Michael Cote:



The upside to playing D&D instead of other RPGs is that every RPG fan plays D&D and few of them play anything else. You can easily find other D&D players online with sites like meetup.com, and by asking around at a local comics/gaming shop, where there's probably a bulletin board or other communication forum for players in search of other players. It's a very social game, and an easy way to make friends, if that's something you want to do. Assure them that you're a newbie and they won't give you any hassle for not knowing the rules or strategies; it's worked for me for years. :-)

To answer your specific questions, in order:

1) There are character sheets to keep track of numbers like hit points. Keep a list of inventory on a sheet of paper; common sense says when you're trying to carry too much. (Actually, there's probably a chart in some book that explains it, but you have to look up modifiers in this other book, and then penalties in another book...) Time is loose and rarely matters; the DM decides the time when it does matter. If you're going to DM, get used to making lots of minor snap judgments to keep things moving; no one should object.

2) I don't know much about 4th edition, but generally, miniatures are not necessary. They're nice if you're into precise strategies and character movements and large-scale battles, because they help you measure distances and see how everyone relates to everyone else on the ground, but you certainly don't need them, especially for small games. They can be pricey.

3) I think you just need the three core books. If I haven't made it clear, I'm not a big fan of collecting all of the supplemental books. :-)

My advice is to start simple. Leave magic out of your first game, and keep the monsters simple, and the first plot should be straightforward. Once you have the hang of the game mechanics, you can introduce greater complexity.

I wish I were there in Fargo to join you. Enjoy. :-)

Aaron Shurtleff | June 27, 2008
OK, A) Dang, Scott! You could have warned me! Not that anyone would know it's me, but still... :)

b) To add to what Scott said (most of which I agree with):

They (RPGs, especially D&D) do carry a social stigma, however, if you are looking to meet more people, you'll meet the best people through RPGs (hi, Scott!). Most of us into "the scene" are pretty much used to being or dealing with people who are "different", so we are, and can deal well with, people who are a little "different". It sounds like you might not want to expand your group, but I'm positive you could easily.

As you've stated earlier, it's hard to really compare D&D to other RPGs, since every new edition has really been a new game. I don't know much about version 4.0, but... I think you compare each RPG to the one you start with, for better or worse.

The new editions have been moving steadily towards the need for miniatures, honestly. You can get by without them, though. Try to keep things simple, and you can introduce more complexity as you get more familiar with things. Most of the rules you'd need miniatures for fall under that umbrella.

And you totally don't need any of the other books. They'll add more complexity than you need to worry about for some time.

Scott Hardie | June 27, 2008
Sorry. Let me clarify: One of the indiscernible blobs in the shadows is Aaron, and the other is Mike. (And if you want it gone, just ask, no problem.)

Aaron Shurtleff | June 27, 2008
:) LOL! It's no problem really.

EDIT: I'm the blob on the left, correct? That looks like the way (with my one leg over the other) and manner (with my back to the wall) I would be sitting.

Lori Lancaster | June 27, 2008
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Denise Sawicki | June 27, 2008
Thanks everyone... it's OK... I think I will probably just stick with this unless given specific instructions otherwise. They say it has gotten simpler. With Darrell's OCD I'm rather afraid he'll feel the need to use every rule perfectly though. It would help if there was an actual rule saying that the DM is allowed to ignore some of the rules or something.

I don't care about any social stigma by the way. I am enough of a social stigma just by existing. Anything else won't make much of a difference.

Anyway thanks much. I knew you were probably just busy but sometimes I get obsessed with things :P

Aaron Shurtleff | June 27, 2008
Actually, I believe you will find that (or at least you typically could in every edition I've played thus far) it states quite nicely that the DM is welcome to use and/or ignore any rules that she feels prevents the game from being fun, or bogs things down, or whatever. So, you should have no problems there!

And I think that if Scott were being less surreptitous about the filming, the quality would have been much higher, Lori. :)

Scott Hardie | June 28, 2008
Sorry, I have no other videos to post. I would have just uploaded the avi file to goo.tc but it's 8mb. (That's right, 8mb for 29 seconds of blurry, dim footage of nothing happening.) YouTube seemed like an easier way to get it up here, although their compression made it even blurrier and harder to watch.

Scott Hardie | September 2, 2008
Any updates, Denise? How is the game going for you now?

Kelly & I have started to play 4th edition with a local group, and it has made a D&D fan out of me at last. The rules are much simpler and sensible than in earlier editions. There aren't a ton of miscellaneous rules that have to be looked up in various books, although that's probably only because there aren't many supplements yet; many are coming. Simplification comes with a price (most characters fit basic archetypes lacking customization) and I know a number of old-timers who don't like the new system, but so far it has won me over.

Denise Sawicki | September 3, 2008
Well cool... glad you like it. To tell the truth, we can't play anymore, for reasons that can't be discussed :/

Erik Bates | September 3, 2008
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Scott Hardie | September 4, 2008
Gamers have found Chick's comic hilarious for years, just like the Dead Ale Wives Club skit, but a lot of people think like the comic. A friend and I tried to start a gaming club in high school so that could use building resources (the tables in the library after school), and we were turned down because "some kid killed himself in a sewer tunnel because his character died" and the dean didn't want to have to explain why he school was endorsing that. For what it's worth, he probably did us a favor.

More gamer humor:

Amy Austin | September 4, 2008
I want a minion.

(Oh, wait... I guess I already have three! Well... at least two, anyway.)

"Who's my minion? Who's my minion??? *You* are, yumyumyumyumyum..." ;-DDD

Scott Hardie | October 21, 2008
More gamer humor. (thanks Kelly)