Posted by:
Carl
on
1/24/2010 12:00:56 PM
I've been exchanging email with a player of mine who moved to Portland recently. He started a game down there, and then started mining my blog for tips. Poor bastard.
Fortunately he discovered Alexis' blog through my repeated linking to it and has now begun to learn how to run a D&D game this isn't just a more complicated Choose Your Own Adventure story. Bravo to both of you.
He described a situation I've found myself in over and over. How do you get the players off the rails and into the sandbox?
I think the best way to do this is to take a look at the original sandbox. Go look at AD&D. He and I discussed this, and I counseled him to go purchase a set of the holy trinity of AD&D books and then read them cover-to-cover. I said that he'd probably learn more about role-playing games from them than anything he'd picked up from me or the other games he'd played up to this point. That game was designed to be a sandbox from the start.
The other thing he asked me, which is the same question I've struggled with for years and years is, "Which system do I use to run my game?"
The answer to this is tricky. I told him what I've posted here on more than one occasion. That it's not the system, but rather the people playing it. Every system has it's good and bad points. Some really are better than others, but in the end it all comes down to the people playing the game. Both the Dungeon Master and the players factor into this.
He wants to run a fantasy game. He's got the germ of an interesting world with a mysterious past, political conflict, and mystical people and places. He's imagined the possibilities. He's on his way. I recommended either AD&D or the Basic D&D Rules Cyclopedia, sometimes referred to as OSRIC, although the acronym's definition escapes me now.
In the process of doing this, I felt a compulsion (charm) to check out this great game I'd been counselling my friend to go and check out. I scanned my bookshelf and discovered the three volumes that I thought I'd set aside years ago were gone. The compulsion grew.
The next night I suggested to my lovely and talented wife that we go out to dinner, as it was a Friday, and as long as we were headed that way, why not stop over at Half Price Books for a little pre-dinner browse? I'm a sly one and she's a sucker for a used book store.
It wasn't until we stepped through the door of the place that she asked, "Why did you want to come here, anyway?" Oh-uh-yes-just-browsing-really-boy-do-I-love-a-bookstore. Why look there! A full set of AD&D books! And what a great price! I could get all three for less than $35! That's when she gave me The Look. Then she smiled and I bought the books and skipped out of the store feeling like I did on the day that I talked those kids out of that AD&D Player's Handbook they'd found in the bushes on the side of the road. I think I've told that story here. If not, I'll re-tell it on another day.
What does this mean? I don't know yet. That was Friday. Since then I've been reading the Player's Handbook. I think this is the first time I've read it from cover-to-cover, or even had a plan to do so. It was always more of a reference book to me before. I read only what I thought I needed to play whatever character I was playing, or understand which spells did what. When I finish this, I'll start on the DMG.
Do I want to run a Traveller game? Yes. Science Fiction was my first literary love. I live it every day in the job that I do and have more source material for "how this shit really works" than any fantasy game I could run, and maybe that's my problem. It's too real. And by too real, I mean boring.
All that aside, Dungeons and Dragons was my first taste of forbidden fruit. My school principal called it Devil Worship and my mother took that declaration very seriously. I was only 10 when I was introduced to it by Jimmy, the neighbor kid, and I knew if loving it was wrong, I didn't want to be right (I know, I know, but it's true). I love D&D. It is and always will be a part of me.
It is the sickness. And I love it.
So.
Anyone want to play a little D&D?
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