The Road to Dungeon Master: Part 1

I discovered the world of RPGs as an adult. A handful of years ago I had never played an RPG. They were like a foreign land to me: distant, exotic, and intimidating. Today I’m playing in and even running games across multiple RPG systems. How did I go from non-gamer to player to game master? It was a process to be sure, but one that I think is not unique to me.

When I was growing up I loved the Dragonlance books – absolutely devoured them. Reading these stories kindled my desire to play the role playing games that were set in that world. Unfortunately, when I wanted to play Dungeons and Dragons, my mom forbade me because she had heard it was akin to devil worship. There’s really no way to argue with that when you’re a kid, so I never learned to play.

Fast forward twenty plus years. I’m a mom myself now, and my son is old enough that I have a chance to do some things on my own again. I came across an episode of Game Store Prophets in which the guys were talking about their RPG experiences and how much they love playing. As I listened, I lamented to myself about missing out on the Dungeons & Dragons experience when I was a kid. Then it hit me: I’m an adult. I can learn to play it now! I immediately called my friendly local game store and asked how I could go about learning to play. Lo and behold, they had D&D: Encounters every Wednesday night. They are a series of games designed to introduce people just like me to the world of role-playing games.

The next several months were an exciting adventure for me. I learned what a d20 was, how to read my pre-generated character’s stats, and how to interact with a group of people I didn’t know before the game. Before I knew it, we had progressed our characters through third level and the story arc for that season of Encounters was coming to an end. We didn’t want it to stop, so many of us decided to come back for the next season. This time I decided to create my own character using the online custom character generator that Wizards of the Coast had for 4^th Edition. It was easy to do now that I had a handle on what character creation looked like, and creating my own character helped me invest myself more in the game and in the other PCs (player characters) in the party.

I played through a few seasons of Encounters during my first year, trying a number of characters from a variety of classes and races. I’ve heard that a number of people that have been playing for years don’t like this version of the game, but for me it was a fantastic introduction to RPGs. The focus on movement and mechanics over character development in 4^th Edition made it easy for a beginner like me to understand how my character could perform as a fighter or bard or wizard. Once I understood that, I was eventually able to transition into understanding how my character could act and react as a person.

After about a year, a few of us grew bored with stopping at the end of each season. We debated starting our own gaming group but none of us had much (if any) experience running a game. More importantly, none of us could commit long-term. Besides, playing at our game store meant that we had to be finished by the time the store closed at 9pm, and that was a challenge even in Encounters. We debated our options for several weeks and came up with a solution: once a month we’d play mini campaigns, often referred to as one-offs. While adventures might bleed into the next session, there would be some kind of conclusion at the end of each night of play.

Our group decided to meet on “Thor’s Night” (the second Thursday of each month our game store has Thor’s Night and the store stays open until midnight) and take turns as game master. When it was your turn to GM, you chose the adventure and the level of character that players needed to bring. I had a blast combing through old editions of D&D magazines and finding ready-made adventures that I could run. The custom character generator was a huge help to me; on my nights as GM I’d bring a few extra ready-to-go characters I’d created in case a new person wanted to join us, or someone forgot their character sheet. Through these games I had the chance to play more classes and races at high levels than I’d reasonably get to experience in a “regular” campaign. And I also got to sample the resources that Wizards of the Coast provided in their magazines and on their website.

Every time I’d head to the game store for Thor’s Night my son would ask if he could come along. Usually the answer had to be no because he had school the next morning. But during the summer I brought him with me every month. And this is quite possibly the very best thing to come from my venture into the world of RPGs: my son and I get to play together. In fact, it was the desire to play in a long-term game with him that inspired me to start my own campaign.

Playing RPGs with my son has been – and continues to be – tremendous fun for me and for him. Next time I’ll share with you some of our gaming experiences (both the hilarious ones and the ones that make me want to pull my hair out). I’ll also share some things I’ve learned about gaming with kids that might help you find ways to play with the kids in your life.