Tabletop games are one of my very favorite things, if not my favorite things. It's been that way ever since I discovered the game in high school, and today, I have more thoughts and opinion about gaming that I ever knew I would be able to have. (That's probably apparent, given that this is my 196th article on this site.) But that hasn't been a product of simply playing the game for a given amount of time. I've had to carefully consider things at every turn and change how I've played. The following is both a chronicle of how I learned to play and how to to find the right group to play with (and stick with that group).
As I said, I first played D&D when I was in high school. Though I didn't know it then (because I lacked the experience to know about different DMing styles), my DM was a pretty rules-crunchy gamer who used modules for essentially everything. But I didn't have a frame of reference to know this. All I knew was that pretending to be Algar, my elven monk, was a lot of fun, and I got a big kick out of getting to inhabit him for the adventure.
Under that DM, I learned how to play according to the book. I memorized most of the 3.5 Players Handbook (and I still can refer to specific page numbers from the book if called upon). I learned about combat, from attack modifiers to attacks of opportunity. I turned Algar into the most effective character I could. But that campaign died and was replaced by an evil campaign. Good-hearted Algar needed to go. I created the evil wizard Loki and experienced all sorts of new things: capturing an abandoned castle, escaping an inevitable, becoming an urban legend. I had come to know and love D&D as a combat simulator.
But then I graduated high school, and I headed off for college. I couldn't find a game, so I decided to try my hand at DMing. I gathered some friends and started a fairly improv-heavy campaign that was (because of my players' tastes) more about silly antics than combat (though that was still a big part of it--that was what I knew). Before the end of my freshman year, I had taught nearly 50 people to play D&D, and I had run countless hours of highly goofy campaigns.
Something changed in me then. I don't know what it was, but I think I sensed that tabletop games could be something more. I began to develop a homebrew setting. The document for this setting, which stretched to nearly 30 pages of single-spaced information about the world. Sensing that this world was more serious, I set out to create my first real campaign that would be more than oddball shenanigans. The result was a campaign that lives on in my memory as the point at which my career as a DM truly began.
In the sprawling campaign I'm describing, I ended up having a total of nine players at various points, all of whom either set out to defend a city's royals from assassins or to assassinate the royals themselves. In the end, the party split pretty much evenly, and the final battle pitted these warring factions against one another. Importantly, this campaign had silly moments, but it was mostly centered around a serious story about power, leadership, and government. This party was the one that allowed me to begin to see the real potential of tabletop games.
When this campaign ended, I got very ambitious. I was working at a radio station at the time, and I proposed a show which would end up being perhaps the first serious D&D podcast of all time. The show, Listen Check, placed two players from the above campaign and one new player into a city filled with criminals fighting to survive. We ran the show for nearly three years, ending up recording 180 hours of gametime. It remains some of my proudest work as a GM, and I still stand by the work we did those years ago.
Then I got to play as a player for the first time in over five years. I played as Amund "Zig" Zigor, a troubled cleric. One of the players from the radio show was the DM, and the other two players from the radio show were also players in this campaign (as well as a few other folks). I began to use the game as a way to process my own feelings of guilt and shame. My engagement with the game on this level was a product of the brilliant DMing that my friend provided, and I got to see from the player's perspective what a roleplaying-centric campaign looked like.
Then I moved across the country. It took some time to meet the right people, but I began to run a smattering of campaigns. There was a brief attempt at a campaign that was ended when every romantic relationship in the party ended, causing us all to go our separate ways. But then I began to run another serious roleplaying campaign: the Eastweald. This involved a whole new group of players, three friends I had met at my first job after moving. Most of the group was new to tabletop games, and no one had played a deep roleplaying campaign before.
As this campaign wrapped up, I returned to the world of silly campaigns with a group of friends from another job and from my time in college. This campaign, set on the desert island of Ramsey, which was essentially a "Wild West meets fantasy" setting, was a return to my earlier days of DMing. One thing that struck me as I ran this campaign in the wake of the Eastweald campaign was that the difference between a humorous campaign and a serious campaign were much greater than I had realized initially. I hadn't recognized the difference because my changes between styles had taken place over a relatively long period of time (several years), but since I was running the Eastweald and Ramsey at the same time at some points, I really noticed the difference.
After the Eastweald wrapped up, I began a new campaign with the same exact group of players. This new campaign was based on requests from the players for a mystery, and so the mystery campaign was born. Like the Eastweald, the mystery campaign was a more serious campaign (although certainly with plenty of laughs). But unlike the Eastweald, which had been a mixture of roleplaying, combat, and shenanigans, the mystery campaign was a more pure roleplaying challenge. Readers of that campaign know that only two combats happened in the whole twenty-session campaign, and one of them was a friendly boxing match. It was a big step away from what I had started out as.
Most recently, I have been running some shenanigans campaigns: one at the school where I teach as a part of D&D Club (12-year-olds love shenanigans) and one with a few of the players from Ramsey and a few new friends (all of whom love shenanigans). Both of these campaigns have required me to return to my origins as a DM, which has admittedly been difficult. I have written before about why giving players the fun they want is the most important part of the game, but I also have to acknowledge that my perspective on the give diverges from this idea; I've also written about how roleplaying is, in my opinion, the height of tabletop games. So it's been a complicated process navigating these ideas.
But then there is my current foray into being a player: my dear con artist Asp. The game in which Asp plays is run by the player from my campaigns who played Carric (Eastweald) and Beor (mystery campaign), and he has decided to run a pretty serious roleplaying-centric campaign. This is perfect for Asp, who is not exactly a combat titan but does have lots of skills in interacting with people. Getting to be a player again after so long has allowed me to continue to refine my work as a DM.
I've also managed to play and GM other systems, including but not limited to Don't Rest Your Head, Exalted, Call of Cthulhu, and several others. I highly recommend playing other systems occasionally to see the breadth of possibilities; doing so has allowed me to make changes to my homebrew rules that have really improved player experiences.
So now that I've given you my history in groups, it's time to address how to find the right group. You'll notice from the above section that I've played in a fair number of groups. My high school group, my early college groups, my early roleplaying campaigns, my recent roleplaying campaigns, and my recent shenanigans campaigns have all been different iterations, even with shared people. I would estimate I've played D&D with over 100 people at this point, counting the public one-shots I've run in gaming stores as well. This is not intended as a brag or a reach for nerd cred--I'm simply saying that I've deliberately gamed with lots of people. And that's the first piece of advice: get out there are try new games, new parties, new game styles, and so on. You won't love all of them, but the only way to find out what you like to to try different things.
This has a twofold benefit. You will get to know more about your opinions of different games and styles of playing by being in the game in the first place. But you'll also find out who you enjoy playing with. I'll be the first to admit that some of my predictions about what I like and don't like have been wrong. I tried playing with an ultra-serious Adventurer's League group and hated it. Turns out, it's not the seriousness I like, but the focus on roleplaying over combat. I've played games with people I like only to find out that they and I do not mix well in-game, and vice versa, have had a great time playing with people I wasn't a huge fan of. Really, truly, you don't know until you try.
This was especially the case with my D&D Club games. Keep in mind, I mostly run the game for middle schoolers. I have taught several of the D&D Club kids as students and struggled to enjoy being around them, but found them to be absolute delights at the table. Conversely, I've looked forward to a student's contributions to the game only to discover that they only want to kill everything. On a similar note, a few of my closest friends have been in campaigns I've run, and I've found it exhausting to play with them. Again, you don't know until you give it a chance.
Another detail that you may notice from this history is the fact that I've stuck with various members of certain groups. This is the benefit of playing with many people in action. When the Ramsey campaign ended, the group more or less fell apart. So later on, when I wanted to start a new campaign, I reached out to the players whose style had most matched mine and invited them to help me build a new party. This allowed me to not have to start from scratch and enjoy gametime with people I already knew I enjoyed playing with.
This was even more the case with the Eastweald/mystery campaign group. Building a good party is a delicate art, and I am incredibly proud that I hit the mark so well with this group. A moment of bragging: the three players who began and finished these campaigns did not really know each other before I put them in a party together. Last week, I was able to hang out with a member of that party at another member's wedding--that's how close we have become. With a group like this, you hold onto it. I assembled them for the Eastweald campaign, kept them for the mystery campaign, and we have even switched DMs but kept the same group for the campaign where I play Asp. When you find a good group, you latch onto it.
But how do you go about such a thing? People grow and change and drift apart. It's hard to get everyone on the same page even after years. There are a number of things I recommend. For starters, keep up communication with players and GMs you want to stick with. Tabletop games are incredibly social, and that bond goes a far way. It's also important that you keep the game fresh. The Eastweald and mystery campaigns were extremely different, and the campaign I'm playing in now is also very distinct from either of these. But the good news is this: if a party really works on all levels, everyone involved will want to stick around, so just maintaining a positive game goes a long way towards longevity.
Another note about keeping a good party together: it used to be that having a player move away from the rest of the group was effectively the end of that player's involvement. But now, with online chat programs being the way they are, it's relatively easy to keep a group together. In both the shenanigans campaign I'm currently running and the roleplaying campaign in which I'm currently playing are entirely online, and we have players in different states in both campaigns. There is a certain magic to being around a table together, but it is often worth sacrificing that in order to keep a good group.
I also want to call to attention the fact that I never would have realized how much I enjoy the roleplaying aspect of the game if I hadn't branched out. I started as a crunchy combat player--Algar and Loki were built to be interesting and fun presences in combat (though Loki certainly pushed me in the direction of roleplaying, however slightly). This gave me a solid foundation in how the game actually works. I moved to shenanigans and found that some good humor can really improve a game. I tried roleplaying and discovered that I really enjoyed the depth of being a real part of a world, and I saw that same excitement in my players as a GM. I quite literally would not be the gamer I am now if I had stuck to only what I knew to start.
It's also worth noting that I learned things as both as GM and a player. It is probably no surprise coming from a GM like myself who has written so much in order to make GMing more approachable for beginners and intermediate GMs, but I really stress the importance of trying to run a game at least once. The perspective you will be granted by stepping outside your role as a player will help you to understand so many things that would otherwise seem insignificant. GMing has taught me about storytelling, public speaking, improvising, social connection, and what being a player really means in the scope of the game. I'm a better player for GMing, and a better GM for playing.
But ultimately, this is about finding and keeping the right group. So what makes the right group? It may not be the things you assume are most important. You want a group that is fun to be around--social interaction should be rewarding and easy. You want a group that agrees with you on how the game should be played. And you want a group that you can depend on--a great group is good, but not if you can't ever get everybody together to play. When you find people who match this, keep them.
Are other factors important? Sure. Having people agree on the theme of a main quest can matter (though this is something players can negotiate about). Having people who know each other can matter (though they will get to know each other through playing). Having people who know how to play can be nice (though they can learn to play as you go). Your needs for your party will be distinct depending on your group and your campaign.
The bottom line, though, is this: tabletop games are an experience. That means that in order to understand how you really feel about something, you will have to experience it yourself. A good game is not all roleplaying or all combat or all comedy, but a mixture of them, and you can't determine the right mixture without experimenting a bit first. So if you want to know your style and to get the right group for you, keep trying until something fits just right. You'll be better for having experienced things.
That's all for now. Coming soon: how to handle in-game romances, what to do when the players think of something you didn't, and what to do when you regret a decision as GM. Until next time, happy gaming!
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