DragonLancer
Hero
I was taught by a friend at school. He'd just moved to the area and I had an interest in roleplaying from a few years earlier. The rest is just history.
How did you learn how to play?
- Thread starter der_kluge
- Start date
Kapalen
First Post
FIRST POST
The first I heard about D&D was when I was pretty young. A friend of mine said he and his brother played this game where you character was, get this, A PIECE OF PAPER. It didn't make sense at the time but just a couple years later i was a master of the 20 sided. Anyway, It seems like I always knew, I sat down and everything just clicked. So yeah, osmosis.
The first I heard about D&D was when I was pretty young. A friend of mine said he and his brother played this game where you character was, get this, A PIECE OF PAPER. It didn't make sense at the time but just a couple years later i was a master of the 20 sided. Anyway, It seems like I always knew, I sat down and everything just clicked. So yeah, osmosis.
shilsen
Adventurer
Completely self-taught. I had heard about D&D when I was about 16 (I lived in India, where - AFAIK - D&D has never been marketed) and was fascinated by the concept. When I went to the US to study in 1998, I bought the AD&D PHB, DMG and MM, read them cover to cover and taught myself to play.
Aust Diamondew
First Post
2e I was poorly taught. 3e I learned on my own and with the help of my friends (and vice versa) about equally. I'll vote self taught since I think it was more that than the other way arounds.
Hypersmurf
Moderatarrrrh...
My parents played 1E 
-Hyp.
-Hyp.
The_lurkeR
First Post
I voted 2, in that I was shown the game by someone else. But took that and learned the rules on my own and then dragged friends into it.
Shadowdancer
First Post
I voted the first option, but it was really a mixture of the first two: taught by a friend and self taught by reading the books.
That's pretty much what I was thinking. Except I was introduced by a friend, then wheedled my parents until they loaned me the twelve bucks for the basic set.
James Heard
Explorer
My boxed sets were Xmas gifts. I thought they were all somehow similar to Squad Leader and Panzerblitz and asked for them. My grandmother still tells me every time it comes up how much she regrets buying them for me. I think I had D&D for almost a year before I feel like I really "got it" even though I knew the rules fine. I really owe most of my introduction to "roleplaying versus rules" to Traveller, which was cheaper at the time and therefore easier to convince barely pubescent kids nearby to fall in for.
Steel_Wind
Legend
I agree. People are taught to play by others generally.
It is excedingly difficult to *successfully* start your own gaming group and learn the game teachng it to others.... cold.
But that is exactly what must be done in order for the game to grow and expand.
Here's my marketing 4000 tip (advanced) for WotC. Remember all those free CDs with the character software they gave us back in the 3.0 PHB?
They should bundle a disk again with the PHB and DMG. Except this time - make it a DVD which demonstrates with live participants how the game is played.
With cool maps - cool miniatures and reasonably attractive every day people. The production costs might be as much as 500k for something like this. Glittzy without being over the top. Professionally written, narrated, acted and and produced.
Expensive - yes. But it would be worth its weight in gold.
Get those things out and bundle them with basic sets. Get em out with a FREE download coupon for a Basic Set rulebook .pdf. Get em into Toys R Us at Xmas time. Make the bloody thing an annoying AOL coaster. Get it out to people who aren't gamers.
Insist on Atari bundling the disc with the next CRPG and Console title they sell. There are a LOT of CRPG players and Demonstone console types who don't play D&D and never have. But they are open to the concept. That's why they have that computer game in their hands. USE THAT CHANNEL.
Just get it out there and get them into kids' hands. Do it right and you can kick back and giggle. You only have to have a very low success rate in order for these things to be long term profitible and you are in the black. Anything more is gravy. And when you hook in a new gaming group - you hook in a customer that can pay dividends for years.
Better still - you didn't just get one new customer. You got a reasonably good shot at getting *5* new customers.
People don't need D&D for dummies. They need a live action DVD movie that shows ppl how to play. With a big wooden spoon and the temperature just right. Make it fun - show em how - and you can sell a helluva lot more 3E you already paid to develop and write instead of forking out a ton of dough more on 4E. Selling inventory is cheaper than developing new product - Every.Single.Time.
It is excedingly difficult to *successfully* start your own gaming group and learn the game teachng it to others.... cold.
But that is exactly what must be done in order for the game to grow and expand.
Here's my marketing 4000 tip (advanced) for WotC. Remember all those free CDs with the character software they gave us back in the 3.0 PHB?
They should bundle a disk again with the PHB and DMG. Except this time - make it a DVD which demonstrates with live participants how the game is played.
With cool maps - cool miniatures and reasonably attractive every day people. The production costs might be as much as 500k for something like this. Glittzy without being over the top. Professionally written, narrated, acted and and produced.
Expensive - yes. But it would be worth its weight in gold.
Get those things out and bundle them with basic sets. Get em out with a FREE download coupon for a Basic Set rulebook .pdf. Get em into Toys R Us at Xmas time. Make the bloody thing an annoying AOL coaster. Get it out to people who aren't gamers.
Insist on Atari bundling the disc with the next CRPG and Console title they sell. There are a LOT of CRPG players and Demonstone console types who don't play D&D and never have. But they are open to the concept. That's why they have that computer game in their hands. USE THAT CHANNEL.
Just get it out there and get them into kids' hands. Do it right and you can kick back and giggle. You only have to have a very low success rate in order for these things to be long term profitible and you are in the black. Anything more is gravy. And when you hook in a new gaming group - you hook in a customer that can pay dividends for years.
Better still - you didn't just get one new customer. You got a reasonably good shot at getting *5* new customers.
People don't need D&D for dummies. They need a live action DVD movie that shows ppl how to play. With a big wooden spoon and the temperature just right. Make it fun - show em how - and you can sell a helluva lot more 3E you already paid to develop and write instead of forking out a ton of dough more on 4E. Selling inventory is cheaper than developing new product - Every.Single.Time.
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