Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

D&D 5E Discussion

Alex

Arcane
Joined
Jun 14, 2007
Messages
8,750
Location
São Paulo - Brasil
To be honest, never met a person that didn't know how to behave when playing RPGs, and I've been to conventions a couple of times. The worst I've seen were people who were too shy to participate. Well, that and commies, but they usually didn't let their communism affect the game too much.
 

Catacombs

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 10, 2017
Messages
5,928
One thing my DM does when recruiting new members is meeting them for dinner. It's pretty much an interview that only an idiot could fail. He does the initial meet outside the restaurant, and if the person seems cool, then they eat.

He told me he's played with creepy neckbeards and other people who were a shade away from being on the sex offender registry in other groups and didn't want those kinds of people in his campaign.
 

ProphetSword

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jun 7, 2012
Messages
1,755
Location
Monkey Island
My group will meet a new prospective player in a public place as a group, and if even one of us has an issue, there’s no way that person will get into the game or know where we live. Luckily, this has never happened. We have been lucky enough to find players who are well adjusted human beings who have lives and jobs outside of the game.

Never let strange people into your house without discovering what they’re like first. Words to live by.
 

ProphetSword

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jun 7, 2012
Messages
1,755
Location
Monkey Island
Can't people just play tabletop games with their real-life friends? That's what I do.

That's fine, in a perfect world, and it's certainly how I started. But, later in life I moved to a new city with my wife far away from the people I once played with. It took me a good four years to find a group to play with, but they're actually the best group I ever gamed with in my 30+ years of gaming.

So, short answer is: Sometimes, no, people can't just play tabletop games with their real-life friends. At least, not until the new players they meet become their friends, anyway.
 

Catacombs

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 10, 2017
Messages
5,928
Can't people just play tabletop games with their real-life friends? That's what I do.

That's fine, in a perfect world, and it's certainly how I started. But, later in life I moved to a new city with my wife far away from the people I once played with. It took me a good four years to find a group to play with, but they're actually the best group I ever gamed with in my 30+ years of gaming.

So, short answer is: Sometimes, no, people can't just play tabletop games with their real-life friends. At least, not until the new players they meet become their friends, anyway.

What took so long to find a group? Did nobody play or were you playing with different groups until you settled one you liked?
 

nikolokolus

Arcane
Joined
May 8, 2013
Messages
4,090
Shit, even on something like Roll20 I'm super selective about who I let into my game. I haven't had a ton of bad experiences myself (mostly just wankers with anti-social tendencies and rules-lawyer-y types), but I've read some real horror stories.
 

Dexter

Arcane
Joined
Mar 31, 2011
Messages
15,655
this is me asking them today, around 16 people
A morbidly obese neckbeard
An obese racist trump supporter who got the "kekistani" flag
An obese man
Guy who roofied a girl at a party
guy would not wash himself
And that man's name? Albert Einstein.

there was a player who was call[ing me] a FAGGOT really loudly. yelling homophobic slurs...its bad
You sure sound like a FAGGOT, no wonder only Albert Einstein wants to play with you.
 

DavidBVal

4 Dimension Games
Patron
Developer
Joined
Aug 27, 2015
Messages
2,994
Location
Madrid
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Pathfinder: Wrath
Can't people just play tabletop games with their real-life friends? That's what I do.

That's fine, in a perfect world, and it's certainly how I started. But, later in life I moved to a new city with my wife far away from the people I once played with. It took me a good four years to find a group to play with, but they're actually the best group I ever gamed with in my 30+ years of gaming.

So, short answer is: Sometimes, no, people can't just play tabletop games with their real-life friends. At least, not until the new players they meet become their friends, anyway.

I don't know how you guys manage it.

My group of friends with whom I RP'ed 20-27 years ago still lives mostly around the same urban area, in a radius of 50km. Still, we're unable to play. With work, families and whatnot, all our attempts to ever organize a game is hopeless. In my case I kind of have freedom, with a flexible work schedule and grown-up kids, but most "adults" are work-drones nowadays, with so little time to spare that they (understandably) spend it with their family. :(
 

Sacibengala

Prophet
Joined
Aug 16, 2014
Messages
1,098
you guys are lucky to even get that kind of people to play. Where I live some people still thinks that RPG are devil worship and others think it is some console genre. The few that actually knows what it is are simply not civilized enough to sit at the table and use creativity to separate real life from fiction, taking stuff like losing a character too personal. In more than 15 years of DMing, there was only 3 girls at my table: two of then were my friends girlfriends that played just to stay close to the guy, and never played for fun, or even played at all, and another one was another friend sister, that just popped up, played one day and never got back. That one was on some kind of experience trip, like doing drugs, kissing girls and playing RPGs. Today she is just lesbian and smokes some pot.
 

Dzupakazul

Arbiter
Joined
Jun 16, 2015
Messages
707
When I was abroad on a work trip to bring home the very much coveted euros, I met a guy from Bulgaria who said he really liked all sorts of classic cRPGs and strategy games, but he decided to lay low in the Netherlands after rejecting his old gang and forsaking the drug dealer lifestyle. Said he'd love to play D&D, but he has to appear tough in his usual acquaintance circles where there's no room for even video games and the only acceptable outlets are fucking prostitutes, getting into fights and doing coke.

I'm not sure if he was shitting me with some of those stories, but I hope he's doing better. Personally, my last campaign was D&D 4e which was cut short after the third session because the players, respectively, 1) moved to a different city, 2) changed careers to start driving trucks across Europe and they're basically never home and 3) have a heavy workload and not too many free weekends.

I wouldn't be surprised if the fairly recent resurgence of board gaming didn't come to be because of old RPG players deciding it's much less work to set up and run a board game night every now and then, without hard feelings if someone flakes out. Plus drinking beer at the table sometimes causes the ability to roleplay to deteroriate, while at a board game table it doesn't matter as much.
 
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
4,189
RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In
Can't people just play tabletop games with their real-life friends? That's what I do.

That's fine, in a perfect world, and it's certainly how I started. But, later in life I moved to a new city with my wife far away from the people I once played with. It took me a good four years to find a group to play with, but they're actually the best group I ever gamed with in my 30+ years of gaming.

So, short answer is: Sometimes, no, people can't just play tabletop games with their real-life friends. At least, not until the new players they meet become their friends, anyway.

I found it easier to just convince normal people I know to play than find strangers to play with.
 

mondblut

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2005
Messages
22,205
Location
Ingrija
Rules and lore complexity certainly play a minor role in the missing appeal of p&p games for women. What keeps them away is that the scene is populated by people who look like Mearls, a classical neckbeard, and are so socially inept that they try to white knight by insulting women's intelligence and ability to appreciate richness and complexity.

kek the only women I know who play non-storygame rpgs play pathfinder.

Simply put, the number one thing that has turned them off from playing table top rpgs, and this is me asking them today, around 16 people:
1, 2 and 3: A morbidly obese neckbeard who acted all feministy and shit and was overwhelmingly nice to them until he asked them out at which point he grew ridiculously hostile to them when he was rejected to the point where he'd randomly attack their characters mid-battle or try to rape them in the game.
4: An obese racist trump supporter who got the "kekistani" flag tattooed on his chest and constantly asked her what her political opinions are
5 - 9: An obese man who looked like a medieval polish villager whose complete and utter ineptitude at playing, running, or being nearby tabletop games, taking actions in the game personally, getting mad at people for not doing what he wanted, and sometimes just outright hostility(like ripping up his campaign notes, balling them up into a ball and bouncing them off one of their heads for sneaking past an encounter and then screaming at her and telling her if "she was so fucking clever, maybe she'd like to do his fucking homework and suck his dick")
10 - 12: Guy who roofied a girl at a party a few years ago showed up and when pressed the man admitted it and cracked jokes about it and the DUngeon master called them "SJWs" for wanting him not being allowed to play
13 - 16: guy would not wash himself, constantly had his hands down his pants and usually smelled like shit. tried to fuck one of the player's preteen daughters, and the rest of the male members of the group told her she was being a "bitch" for not letting a 29 year old neckbeard date a 13 year old

What's wrong with 10-12? Kudos to DM for standing up for a bro and not letting snowflakes have their way. Real life is not fucking twitter.
 

Catacombs

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 10, 2017
Messages
5,928
Can't imagine any woman I know wanting to play tabletop role-playing games, they would all claim it is varying degrees of boring, gay, shit.

They must suck. I've played with plenty of women, and they enjoyed the game.
 

Theldaran

Liturgist
Joined
Oct 10, 2015
Messages
1,772
Rules and lore complexity certainly play a minor role in the missing appeal of p&p games for women. What keeps them away is that the scene is populated by people who look like Mearls, a classical neckbeard, and are so socially inept that they try to white knight by insulting women's intelligence and ability to appreciate richness and complexity.

Idk, when we all were adolescents there wasn't those distinctions, everyone played and enjoyed together.

And things like Dragonlance brought dem women into D&D, Margaret Weis is a woman and there are a lot of things to like there if you're one.
 

Archibald

Arcane
Joined
Aug 26, 2010
Messages
7,869
I wouldn't be surprised if the fairly recent resurgence of board gaming didn't come to be because of old RPG players deciding it's much less work to set up and run a board game night every now and then, without hard feelings if someone flakes out. Plus drinking beer at the table sometimes causes the ability to roleplay to deteroriate, while at a board game table it doesn't matter as much.

Yeah, thats what happened with me. Additionally with many games being designed as "gateway games" it is way easier to get new people in and temporarily replace few that can't make it for one reason or another.
 

Catacombs

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 10, 2017
Messages
5,928
Are you sure they are actual women?

A woman I played with attended a game with her boyfriend, who is part of our group. She tried to get the DM and the rest of us to make moves faster because we were playing during their "date night." She wanted to leave early so she could salvage the rest of the evening for a dinner and movie.

So, yes, real women.
 
Last edited:

Keldryn

Arcane
Joined
Feb 25, 2005
Messages
1,053
Location
Vancouver, Canada
The first person I taught to play D&D after I bought the Basic Set in 1987 was my younger sister (we were 13 and 10). She still plays today, as does her daughter (age 12).

I don't get to game too often now, but it's most frequently with husband & wife pairs. Sometimes the wife is actually the longtime player, with the husband tagging along.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I ran a couple of sessions for my wife and our daughters (ages 5 and almost 8). My oldest had been asking me to teach her to play D&D for a few weeks.

They couldn't get enough of the game. The kids anyway. ;) My wife does enjoy playing though (5e or 1980s Basic; she really didn't like 4e).

My youngest got right into it. I described two goblins emerging from a cave and asked "what do you do?" Without missing a beat, she stood up on her chair and shouted "KILL THEM!!!"

I'm so proud of her.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom