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"Dungeons & Dragons" and other TTRPGs are pretty misunderstood. What questions about the hobby would you like answered by those who play?
Since D&D gained prominence in the late-70s, it's been a game that outsiders to the hobby don't really understand. It has held the stereotype as that weird maths game where kids play as wizards in basements, or to some: a game that trains you in black magic to be devil worshippers.
D&D is experiencing a boom right now in popularity as the nerdy is becoming cool and many people who would never have dreamt of playing have found themselves with a new hobby. Whether you hold one of those views previously mentioned or are otherwise curious: What would you like to know about D&D and by extension - Tabletop Role-Playing Games?
-LTADnD
I'm not really interested in playing these days, but I'm curious - How do you get good at being a DM/GM? Back in high school my group of friends tried playing it for a few weeks and we quickly found that all of us (myself included) were pretty bad at running the show. Then one of the guys stole my redbox dice and I kinda lost interest.
I expect the generic answer to be 'join another group and see how they do it', but back then that wouldn't have been a possibility as there wasn't another roleplaying group around.
Honestly, it 90% practice and 10% talking to other DMs. With the internet, that latter part is many times easier.
-LTADnD
DMing is kind of an art form I find, I myself am a horrible story teller so I don't run games. But my DM has that talent, he can bring a city to life, as to how to get good at it, just practice explaining things in detail, try and imagine a thriving city in your mind tell the group about it. No one is going to be good the first time, it's learning what makes that place important, maybe it's the cracked cobblestone from years of travelers, maybe it's the sketchy citizens hiding in dark alleys.
"How do you get good at being a DM/GM?"
You just do it.
Accept the fact that you are going to forget rules or miss something here and there and fuck it. Thats okay its a learning process.
This will also help you learn to adapt on the fly (necessary because players will always do the thing they werent meant to do).
Read.
Not just the rule books but alllll kinds of books. History. Scifi. Cooking. Etc.
You can get inspiration for adventures/encounters from just about everywhere.
Talk with the players at session zero (character creation) about what they want to do/have happen and what you are planning.
You can mitigate a lot of head/heartache by being open about how the game is going to go.
Your players might be expecting a 40 session dungeon crawl where as you were wanting to run a political spy game.
Also, when you add stuff in particular to the players it increases buy in and makes them enjoy the game more.
Have fun.
Its not you vs the players. You are guiding a fun narrative that they are writing.
Who cares if they kill your super bad guy in 2 rounds.
If you all had fun thats what matters.
I think the biggest mistake people get caught in is that DnD has a lot of rules. People often worry more about the rules than the gameplay.
A good DM tells a story. If a player wants to do something cool, don't spend time in the weeds trying to figure out whether they can actually do it, and how specifically they can accomplish what they want - let the player do what they want (or rather, have a chance to do what they want) and apply some common sense to the outcome (or balance it in some fashion).
At the end of the day, your goal as the DM is to entertain the players (and hopefully yourself as well). They are going to remember the session where they got to do something cool (even if it was outside the rules) a lot more than the session where you spent 15 minutes trying to figure out if something was possible/plausible and getting bogged down in the rules.
This applies to any pen and paper game. You need to view yourself less as the "dungeon master" and more as the "story teller". Luckily, your players will do a lot of the story telling by their own actions and decisions, so all you really need to do is set the scene.
Matt Colville has a great series on Youtube about DMing called "Running the Game". It's worth a watch if you're interesting in DMing.
Is it really Satanic and made to push our young children to suicide?
Absolutely not, it's made to explore your imagination, try new things, expand your comfort zone, be what you want to be. The only thing satanic about it is if you create a satanic character yourself.
=P
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_controversies#Religious_objections
As a long-time D&D player (from the BECMI era) and the owner of an obscure early 1980s paperback that covered a lot of the contemporary drama, it's worth noting that the D&D of the late '70s and early '80s was a very different game than what's played today. Not just in the game mechanics, but the metagame as well.
It was in many ways a harder game back then, but the rewards for advancement and progression were much greater. After a year or so of playing every other week, you might have cheated death in a dozen harrowing escapes, become the duke of a large holding, have thousands of people under your command, be waging a war or siege against some evil ne'er-do-wells, and trying to right some ancient wrong, long-term. Imortality could be within reach. That was the ultimate long-term objective, which the game had mechanics for. Just think of the implications! With your just and kind (naturally...) hand at the helm, your nation-state's prosperity was assured, and once immortality was yours, you could turn your sights beyond your borders. Don't like the Earl to the east? Wait a few decades, arrange a few marriages, and poof, problem solved. Of course, you had to get to that point first, and there was no guarantee it was going to happen, no matter how careful you were. It's not hard to see how a player, having invested, you know, five percent of their real-world life into the growth and rise of their character, could be devastated by its untimely death, by seeing their hopes and dreams crushed, by having immortality slip from their fingers.
It wasn't maybe so bad if just you died, because there was, sometimes, IIRC, a way to bring about resurrection. But if the whole party got cheesed, you were all SOL. And potentially out a bunch of money, if you'd been playing published modules. Most published dungeons were heavy on the traps and tricks and so on, and if you remembered where and what they were, they didn't have a lot of replay value. "Okay guys, let's not go straight to the room with the hidden doorway that leads to the next level, but just wander around the completely pointless northern quarter of this map for a while, 'k?" Time to go invest in a bunch more modules...
The metagame is very different nowadays. Immortality isn't really a thing anymore. Not like it used to be, anyway. And encountering actual gods isn't so much of a thing anymore, either. TSR always flirted with the religious side of things, to greater or lesser extents depending on the world setting and the era. WOTC does their best to ignore that these days, as far as I can tell. And there are a lot more resources out there for DMs to plot out their own campaigns and adventures, without the heavy reliance of yore on published modules.
tl;dr: D&D has changed dramatically from what it was when all the panic and hysteria was going down.
That whole situation was mad, but any publicity is good publicity. The controversy massively increased orders for the game and D&D might not be around today without it.
-LTADnD
It was so silly and still makes me giggle whenever I think about it today.
I feel like that's making the same link people try to when they say video games cause violence. Sure, some people might get lost in the fantasy or some of those people were already deranged so dnd didn't cause what they did. But your statement asked if it was made to be satanic and drive people to suicide, which it absolutely was not made to do.
...
...
...I was making a joke about those people.
Funny you should say that - up until a year or so ago the only things I new about DnD were either from the animated series as a kid or from hearing a story about some kid in our high school being committed by his parents when they found him swinging a diy sword at imaginary dragons in the back yard.
One day I was browsing Geek and Sundry and found Critical Role (episode 77 iirc). I'm not really the typical geek type but gave it a shot and now I don't miss a week - truly appointment "television".
At this point I feel like I could probably join a game without slowing everyone else down too much so I might give it a shot. I've heard there are online games where you can connect with players but it seems like irl would be more fun. Any suggestions?
Although online may be more convenient, IRL is certainly more fun. If there are any game shops around you, see if they run Adventurers League - the organised system for public D&D games. There's no pressure to stick with an AL game so you can drop in and out if you like and an AL character can play at any (level appropriate) AL table anywhere.
Alternatively, if you see yourself more in Matt Mercer's role just get some friends together and DM for them. I talked about DMing in a bit more detail elsewhere in this topic.
-LTADnD
I play a tabletop rpg where we play actual demons or angels. But it's french, so I guess it's OK. (joking aside, "In Nomine Satanis / Magna Veritas" is a really neat RPG)
Oh no no no. Not at all. Whatever gave you that silly idea?
(It's a joke based on the old religious outrage and committing of players to mental hospitals because they thought they were possessed.)
I know. A friend had to hide form his parents that he played when we were teenagers.
What's the best way to get into it for people that have never really played? I find the concept really fun and exciting but I don't know anyone that experienced enough with the rules and all the ins-and-outs to host a party or even a quick attempt at it. Do you really have to read all the rules in order to just attempt to play or what?
So there are two roles in D&D - regular players and a special kind of player called the Dungeon Master (DM). There is one DM in each group. They run the adventure and are the arbiter of the rules. The other players make up the adventuring party of heroes.
No. If you are the DM you need to know the basic rules surrounding skills and combat, but even as DM there are many rules that are just looked up when needed. As a player, you pick up the rules as you play. The Player's Handbook is a reference book to consult, not a textbook to memorise.
So how do you try the game out?
Well, the easiest way is to check out your local gaming shops. Many run something called Adventurers League (AL) which is the official organised play scheme for D&D. Basically how it works is you show up on game night, you'll be helped through making a character (AL gets a lot of newbies, so don't feel out of place by not knowing the game) and that character will be able to play in any Adventurers League game anywhere. You'll be shown the ropes will learn as you play.
If you can't find anywhere that runs AL or you think a public game isn't your cup of tea: Try DMing a game yourself. It's fun, it's creative, and it's not that hard. There are multiple sources of beginner DM help online, including this one which I and many others swear by: Matt Colville's "Running the Game". Watch the first three episodes of that and you'll have everything you need to run a one-shot adventure (for free!).
You seem like you know a bit about the game, but if you haven't actually seen it played before, here are a few sources to give you some insight.
Critical Role
High Rollers
Dice, Camera, Action
Note about Critical Role: They are professional actors and while they are playing D&D by the rules, they treat it like an improv acting show. Your game probably won't be as professional as their show, so don't set them as the bar.
-LTADnD
To add another option here, if you enjoy listening to podcasts there's a ton out there where they play DnD. I'd suggest listening to The Adventure Zone, because the people on it start playing the game blind - that is to say, they know close to nothing about how DnD works when they start. They take a lot of liberties and do things wrong at times, but that takes a back seat to telling a story, which I think is more important and more memorable than getting bogged down in rules.
Even if you don't listen your way through the entire thing, you'll start to understand the game within a few episodes.
I'll second that recommendation. I certainly wouldn't use TAZ as a reference for the rules (God knows they abandon them all the time for the sake of Rule of Cool, not that that's a bad thing) but it would be a good way to get a feel for how the game works in general.
this is something I can help with!
One of my friends dropped myself and two others a message about 2 months back asking if we would like to have a go, we all said yes. He then roped in 3 others and we each bought the players guide book and had at it. The first session was a mess but we all had an absolute blast, the last two have become a bit smoother but nowhere near what it should be.
Each time we get together we end up talking for an hour before even setting anything up, I've made 3 new friends, I get out one Friday evening every 3 weeks and it's so much easier than I ever could have imagined. I've kinda jumped all in and ordered my first mini last week that will arrive today and I'll try to paint it later in the week. I'm 110% sure it will look like a total mess but I don't care it's all about learning and having fun
Just join a game. Don't worry about the rules at first, people will happily cover you on that, just get your head around the dynamics of the table. Read the rules later (it will be a lot easier to understand that way anyway).
I can attest that learning a TTRPG is like learning a foreign language - in that it's very difficult to learn one from a book. You really have to use it in practice to get a hang of it. Furthering the analogy: it's also progressively easier to learn more games after you know one.
-LTADnD
If you wanna get a feel for tabletop roleplaying without having to invest a ton of time, it might be worth trying simpler and less crunchy systems. I find Dungeon World is great for introducing people to tabletop, it takes all of a minute to roll your character and DM prep is fairly minimal as well. It was the first game I'd ever DM'd, and I'd usually prep for an hour tops before the session and improv the rest. Of course I might just be a shitty DM, but that campaign still managed to stick together for over a year.
Nah, improv and rolling with the "punches" are key skills for a DM to have. If the players wanted a story on rails they could read a book or play a linear video game. D&D is a group activity, and is at its best when everyone is influencing the story being told. That means you, as a DM, can't possibly prepare for everything. Instead, I think a good DM prepares a bunch of generic encounters (combat/puzzle/social/etc) and uses those as a base to allow the players to fully flesh out the story.
Yeah, usually D&D games I've participated in as a player have had two week spacing to give the DM time to come up with new stuff, but I think that Dungeon World really does just require less prep. No combat maps to keep in mind, and I didn't do dungeon crawls so I didn't need those either, random encounters are a breeze to come up with at the drop of a hat, etc.
I just played Dungeon World for the first time last week. I thought it was awesome!!
Yeah, I haven't gotten to play it more than a handful of times, but it's one of my favorite games to run. There's not many tabletops where you can hash out a full session in the ten minutes everyone's digging for their character sheets.