[AE.Gaming] Questions on the subject of precisely when the wizard means to arrive.
I'd like to start by sharing a timely video I saw on Twitter today, from Amy Vorpahl.
https://twitter.com/satinephoenix/status/1503421645259624450?t=-H7UOIBqaYgKvioHXxzQFQ
I've been familiar with Amy Vorpahl as an artist for a few years now but I had never seen her own work and actually had no idea she was a musician.
I only knew her as an alum of College Humor/Dropout, where I know her best as an incredibly good sport in the very low stakes gameshow Breaking News, but where I first saw her in the Dimension 20 miniseason "Escape from the Bloodkeep" where she played the malevolently moist miscreant Efink Murderdeath, one of six chief lieutenants of a not-at-all veiled parody of Sauron in a deconstructive pastiche of Lord of the Rings that started about fifteen minutes before the jewelry hit the lava.
The video is about running tabletop roleplaying games rather than playing them, but I feel like it speaks to a lot of feelings that are common to both sides of the table... worries about inadequacy, not knowing how to know when you're ready.
It crossed my dash at a perfect time, as I've had a bit of a draining day after a sleepless night and wasn't sure how to keep my streak of newsletter updates alive, but it hit me that the aforementioned themes of the song get at the heart of some of the things I'm delving into in my tabletop game experiments, which is the psychological barriers to play and how to help people get over, around, or through them.
So, partly in the spirit of that and partly looking forward to having the weekly recurring end-of-week reader mail feature recur weekly for the first time, I would like to pose some questions.
If you're a reader who has considered playing a tabletop roleplaying game -- be it Dungeons & Dragons, another specific game, or just the general idea of wanting to get in on the fun -- I would like to hear about what holds you back, and what you would find welcoming, tempting, and/or inviting.
I'll throw in a caveat here that I know for a lot of people, the biggest obstacles are practical rather than psychological... you don't know anyone near you who plays, you've never been asked, everybody is working all the time, it's a pandemic, etc.
But I also know that the Venn diagram of people who have never had the opportunity to demur and the people who don't feel ready to play has some overlap.
And I also know that one of the most straightforward logistical solutions to not having a group to join -- learning to run and play a game for yourself and starting your own -- can also be considerably more daunting than being welcome into an existing group with a friendly guide on hand.
I'm also interested in hearing about experiences and feelings that are tangentially related to this, like practical difficulties, or attempts at joining or starting a group, or experiences that may have put you off of the hobby, or your thoughts on the subject from inside or outside of the hobby.
You don't have to consent to have your message shared to participate with a reply, as if there are enough responses I may sum up and address the general trends.
If you would like me to have the option of including your message, please say that you consent to it, and include the name (portion of actual name, nickname, screenname, etc.) you would like it to appear under, as well as the pronouns you would like to appear with the name. No name is an option; you don't have to come up with a pseudonym to be anonymous.
And that does it for the newsletter today. I'm sending it out a bit later than usual after crashing in the late afternoon, but still under the wire for keeping up a week-daily streak.
Looking forward to hearing from whoever is looking forward to being heard.
-Alexandra