Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh man okay so


I was one of those guys who, for the longest time (like into my early 20s) always thought "man, I'm nerdy enough as it is, but I'll never be one of those basement-dwelling D&D nerds!!!"

I was an idiot. Please forgive me. The trick is reaching out and finding people who share your interests outside of the tabletop so that you can get a genuine connection. We had a Gamers on Campus club at my college, and I would always attend all of the videogame days and boardgame days, but never the tabletop days. I got dragged to one against my will and watched some of my friends play D&D 3.5e. I watched another group play Shadowrun. On the next tabletop day, I went of my own accord, and observed some more.

Turns out D&D (and other such systems) is pretty easy, and entertaining if you've got lighthearted people to play with.

I've been playing off and on for seven years now, and once a week for nearly three years straight. In my time, I've run two games and participated in half a dozen more. We've played D&D 3.5e, D&D 4e, Paizo's Pathfinder, Shadowrun, and CraftyGames' FantasyCraft (and a touch of SpyCraft 2.0 blended into one of the FC games).

The easiest system to be a Dungeon Master (henceforth DM) of is D&D 4e. It's very much like a videogame on paper - you have power cards that can be used in various circumstances, some of which only once or twice per battle, scene, day, etc. It's grid-based and strongly encourages the use of miniatures to visually play out the fights. It's simple, but not terribly condescending. I like to think of it as a beginner's guide to tabletop gaming.

Pathfinder is a great system because it took a handful of the neat things from 4e and blended them back into natural D&D 3.5e. It's unique, and fun to play, but the DM has a lot of work with regards to the scale of the fights, dungeons, traps, challenges, etc. There are so many options as a player though, so it's a great time if you're not the one at the helm.

But our last three games, including the upcoming one I'll be running in the spring? FantasyCraft. It's a wonderful system that rings true of 3.5e but with very simplistic mechanics. Building NPCs in the game is practically automatic - decide what they should be able to do, plug in some numbers, and adjust for level. They build themselves, so it makes DMing very simple. Plus, as players, there is still a ton of freedom with regards to race and class. And, if you can find an experienced DM, you can do what we do: take things that you love from other systems and find ways to balance and integrate them into the system that you enjoy playing the most.