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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 2498034" data-attributes="member: 3146">I think you miss out on two or three of the most significant ways the RPGA can be helpful.First, it's quite useful for finding a game. A couple years ago, I moved to Canada to work on a master's degree. I spent some time on the gamers seeking gamers forum here and tried a post on Living Greyhawk's Duchy of Urnst yahoo group. I got the first response from the LG yahoogroup and ended up meeting a number of players who became friends through the RPGA there. Eventually, I also met up with two other players and a DM through the forum for a home game and had an experience that bore a disturbing resemblance to some famous rpg.net stories--mostly because the third player insisted on playing a "ninja" and had his character jump up onto the table and sit "like a ninja" in the "you meet at a bar" scene. We never met for a second session of the homegame, and I don't have any regrets on that account, but I continue to game with some of the people I met through the Living Greyhawk community up there. (At various cons).So, while my efforts to find a good home group were unsuccessful, I was able to find quite a few good games through the RPGA. I also met the people in my current homegroup at an RPGA con during that time and they invited me to join them when I returned to California. So, that leads us to use number 2:2: A neutral ground to meet gamers and understand their gaming styles. The two gentlemen I met at the RPGA con were both good gamers whose style meshed nicely with mine. We'd played three or four four hour games together, so when they invited me to the home group, they knew that I wasn't Mr. "I sit on the table like a ninja" and I knew that they weren't Mr. "I'm playing a really hot chick, but since I don't want your characters hitting on me in the four hour long session roleplaying the bar scene, I'm a lesbian and I'll hit on chicks in the bar scene." (The second individual is also from a home game that I attended for a short time).3: It is still a very good forum to experience different play styles and to improve your DMing skills. Even in a home group like my current group where we trade DMing and campaigns, you only see a few styles. In my group, we have a kind of storyteller who tells a good story and makes interesting encounters, but who is only very slowly getting the mechanics of doing things right and doesn't improvise mechanics well on the fly. We have a power-DM who likes bigger and badder monsters and has some really neat ideas but who seems to have trouble creating a story or detailing the environment beyond the individual level. (There are numerous high level people, but there don't seem to be cultures, understandable politics, or topography). And we have a couple DMs in between them. (And then there is myself). That's a fair amount of variety. But it pales in comparison to the local RPGA--both in variety of style, in the high end of skill, and in accessiblity.</blockquote>

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