A day at the library

Ok, maybe not a whole day, but at least three hours. In my previous post I was talking about going to the Wood County District Public Library on Saturday, November 14th to take part in National Gaming Day @ your library. Now that I've had some time to process and get some feedback I'm ready to talk about it here.

I was running a demo of the Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Starter Set. I was slated to 'work' from 2 - 4pm. I arrived early and check in with the librarian. She walked me over to the Teen Space. This was a very cool room a few steps away from the circulation desk. It has one entrance and the room is long and narrow.

The place was very inviting and looked like a cool place to hang out (which I'm sure was it's intent). It has several comfortable and stylish couches, three tables (one regular height, one about waist high, and a coffee table between the couches), a reception desk and small computer station. All the walls were lined with books. Like I said, a very cool place to hang out.

I chose to set up at the tall table because this would allow easy access to the game pieces while standing (I like to stand when I game master - I tend to get very animated and would fall out of my chair if I were sitting down). Without chairs, visitors could slide up to the table and see what was going on very easily.

I laid out all my 'stuff': dungeon tiles and counters, laminated character sheets, grease pencils, dice, quick-start rules and Dungeon Master guide. Everything mentioned came in the Starter Set except for the laminated character sheets - which I printed and laminated - and the grease pencils - for marking up said character sheets.

I had studied the short delve in the DM guide prior to arriving and was ready to go. All I needed was players. I didn't have to wait long and they started showing up. The event was advertised at the middle school, at the BG Teen Central after-school program (which I had stopped into on two occasions in the two weeks prior to the event), and on posters around the library.

Before long I had six players, most were teen males between the ages of 11 and 14, one teen female in the same age range and one adult female. I launched into my spiel about the game. I didn't spend a lot time on basics, only enough to set the stage. Then I launched into the requisite meeting in the tavern to get their first job.

Thankfully everyone played along and the party was soon delving the ruins under the village for the goblins that have been harassing the villagers. They soon came upon a group of goblins and quickly set to battle with great relish (and a little mustard and horseradish on the side).

I did most of the instructing as we played. I explained new phrases and key words that were common parlance to old hats like me (speaking of 'old', when I posted on Facebook that I had introduced teens to D&D, one friend commented, "You 'introduced them' - like a grampa would 'introduce' chess??? Old Man!!" to which I replied, "Old and proud of it!"). Everyone started picking up the game very quickly. Combat was moving along and soon the goblins were defeated.

At this point I took a short break to see if any new players would stop in. Since two of the players were sticking around for the whole session I didn't wait too long to gather the troops and start back up. The adult female and one male teen were back from the first session. We were joined by four more male teens in the same age range as the first group.

We were able to get the new players up to speed quickly. There was much more encouragement and suggestions from other players this time around and everyone was getting into the battle with a new set of goblins deeper in the ruins. Long story short, we went over our time allotment by thirty minutes because everyone seemed to be have a very good time.

Today, I received great news from the librarian who processed the surveys that were turned in by the participants for the event. Seven of the participants that took part in the demo filled out a survey and six of those stated they would be interested in a community role-playing game that met consistently. Everyone selected "good" or "excellent" when rating the program. Of the seven replies six stated they would be "very likely" or "somewhat likely" to come to another similar event at the library.

Needless to say, I am thrilled at these results. I hope to continue working with this library (and possibly others) to develop a library RPG program tailored to the needs of the participants and the library. I'll be sure to post more information as it becomes available.

Follow Your Bliss,

JJ

National Gaming Day @ your library

This Saturday, November 14th, is the second annual National Gaming Day @ your library. I will be participating at the Wood County District Public Library in Bowling Green, Ohio. This national event is to help show patrons all the wonderful activities available at libraries. Gaming has been making inroads at libraries as supported events for all types of gaming.

For my part I will be at the library from 2-4pm to run demonstrations of D&D 4th edition. I have a copy of the new D&D starter kit that I will be using. I've been a fan of boxed sets since the magenta (pink) cover of Basic D&D back in '81. This latest one is by far the best. While the 3.5 version of the starter set had plastic minis, this one has cardboard punch out tiles and tokens. Though this is not as cool as the minis, you get lots more of them. The rules for this starter kit are excellent. Much clearer and straight forward than the last boxed set I had. The starter kit also has a short delve (three encounters) which leads right into the Keep on the Shadowfell adventure (which can now also be downloaded for free).

I'm hoping to spread the word and get more folks interesting in role-playing games in general, and, more specifically, RPGs in libraries and other public venues. I think gaming in libraries is a great way to bring the games 'out of the basement'.

I'm looking forward to the event tomorrow and will be sure to post here the results.

Follow Your Bliss,

JJ

D&D Game Day 2009

This weekend to celebrate this year's D&D Game Day I will have gamed a total of 12 hours: 3 hours Friday night and 2 hours Saturday morning (DMing Team Beta in the Back to D&D Basics campaign), 4 hours Saturday afternoon (playing in a D&D 4E sanctioned event), and 3 hours Sunday evening (DMing Team Alpha in B2B). For me, especially these days, that is a lot of gaming.

The happenings regarding the B2B Campaign can be found here. It was a lot of fun to play so much D&D with my boys and their friends. Friday night's group encountered a magical trap which put one of their party to sleep. An attempt to wake him led to an entire room in the ruined castle of Mistamere being set aflame. Eventually the sleeping member was wakened from his slumber with the casting of a Dispel Magic spell by a high level magic-user (which also depleted the party's funds).

What I found amazing was that simple encounter was the talk of the night and went into the next day when we sat down again to play a couple more rooms before having to return boys to their respective homes. This glimpse into their sense of wonder at the event was enlightening and encouraging that the time spent playing was truly appreciated by all.

As a counterpoint my experience with the Game Day event at a local game store was...interesting. My expectation was that this would be a scripted beginning adventure for 1st level pre-gen characters. The adventure was not scripted. In fact it was more of an adventure toolkit than actual adventure. And the pre-gen characters were not 1st level.

Each table of participants first gathered to create the adventure. This included selecting the creatures to be used in each of the two encounters and providing tactics and background story to get the party of characters involved in the action. This sounds like a great idea, but I would imagine this would seem very unusual to a person who had never played D&D before and was participating in the event to see what all the fuss was about.

Once the adventure was created the DM from our table went to a different table to run the adventure that was just created. Likewise, another DM came to our table to run his adventure for us. Now this seems odd to me because his adventure used all or most of the same pieces-parts (i.e., monsters) that our adventure had used. We had all read over the monster stats as we were putting together our adventure. Somehow there was little room for wonder once we got into play.

I will admit that the way that the monsters were implemented and the background to the adventure were unique in each case, but, I don't know, it didn't really sing to me. I knew that we would be facing minotaurs and dark dwarves, probably a scarecrow and demon priest. I guess it's no different than going to see a Bruce Willis movie and knowing he'll save the day, but not knowing how he'll get there.

The characters that we had to pick from were all 6th level, which in 4E means they have a laundry list of abilities as long as my arm (and I was playing a human fighter). In fact, some basic abilities were left off the sheets due to space limitations. I have played 4E on two other occasions and I've been playing RPGs long enough to stumble my way through. But if I had been a new-comer to the hobby, I think I would have walked away thinking this is way too complicated to be fun.

Another thing that rubbed me the wrong way was that once we arrived there were seats for us to join, but we each had to go to different tables. I didn't get to see how my son played. That left me a little sad and may have colored my overall appreciation of the event. I did enjoy gaming with the players at my table - most of whom I'd have no problem inviting to one of my games. This exposure to other players was refreshing.

In hindsight the event was not to get new players into the hobby. It was an event for experienced players. This too makes me sad. I was likening Game Day to Free Comic Book Day, in which people who did not read comics or had stopped reading comics could see what today's comic books were all about.

Participating in the event did introduce me to new players and got me into a store that I seldom visit (I was disappointed that a store closer to my home had not planned ahead and had not Game Day events). I now have the opportunity to join a local gaming group with ties to Bash Con, a local gaming convention. So maybe the event did what it was supposed to do, even it was not what I was expecting.

I hope players that enjoy D&D were able to participate in a Game Day event or celebrated D&D in some form or fashion.

Follow Your Bliss,

JJ