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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 3622725" data-attributes="member: 1165">I was introduced by a friend in junior high. He gave me a copy of the 1e Monster Manual (or maybe it was the 2e one) but since I knew nothing about it I just looked at the pretty girls (like the lamia). Heh. I started playing RPGs in high school where I was introduced by friends. I did got to an FLGS a few times, but to buy Vampire cards (they were really cheap). I didn't start going to FLGS for actual gaming books until university, buying Alternity stuff.I think people go to FLGS to reach "the next stage" of gaming, like buying your own Player's Handbook. If I had never heard of RPGs, why would I ever walk into an FLGS in the first place? There's also not many of them; I can't really stumble into one, even by chance. And if I'm interested but never played, there's quite a bit of risk in buying a product I might not enjoy (a big deal for me, since I was a high school student from a poor family without a part-time job when I started becoming interested).FLGSs could, however, sponsor "tournaments", where people could get friends who show any interest in fantasy (those who read the right kinds of books, etc) to show up and play a game. I know I was involved in two such "tournaments" at university, although in one case everyone who showed up had played before, so it was a bit of a failure.I think there's two issues with MMOs having greater acceptance. They're not all that new, but they've only fairly recently become known to non-gamers. (My mother, for instance, can understand a book but not computers. She hates DnD but has never heard of World of Warcraft.) Most of what people who don't play know about them are negative though (addiction, sitting in front of a computer for hours instead of doing things, a few people died from overplaying, etc) so I think over time their reputation will suffer.Second, you can play MMOs with total strangers, or people you meet online, and don't need to worry about meeting an MMO-hater face-to-face. You can organize a LAN party (or whatever they're called), or game with friends you know in real life, but you don't have to. It seems easier to join an MMO party than a DnD party. (Note, I've never played an MMO in real life, so dose this stuff with salt.)Hmmm... lots of people I game with haven't even bought one! Not one single book, and this is through many years and multiple gaming groups. Often after several years with the same gaming group it becomes obvious that some players are never going to learn the rules; gaming is just a chance to hang out with like-minded people. It's a bit difficult to force players in the group to buy Player's Handbooks (they're not that cheap, and usually there's enough floating around for everyone to make characters, even if it does mean chargen takes much longer than it should). Unless you make characters at home (yay for point buy!) you don't strictly need to buy the books. Despite years of playing 2e (and occasionally running) I never bought a 2e PH, and for that matter only bought the Alternity core books after I stopped running/playing it. Between rules familiarity and not wanting to use rules that are so complicated I have to consult the book to use, I didn't actually need to buy the books. Then again, I have a memory like a steel trap <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> I never bought a full set of 3.0 books (SRD, did buy the PH though) but did buy the three core 3.5 books.</blockquote>

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