What better way for me to start my journey than with a quote from my favorite Shakespeare play, Macbeth! "Methought I heard a voice cry - Sleep No More!"...and so my re-awakening had begun.
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| Shall We Play? The Games Store |
Actually, it was easy enough waking up. What I found difficult jumping back into the RPG scene was the unfamiliar landscape of which I awakened to. So I scoured the usual comic book stores and did 'Google' searches for websites of anything RPG in the Las Vegas valley. I was not disappointed. RPG is alive and well in my beautifully growing city. So diverse were the choices that it presented me with its own difficulty -where to start. I was overwhelmed at the many 'Meet Up' groups that ranged from die hard LARPers (a totally new concept to me), to groups seeking new players, to artists and I even found a club dedicated to RPG cosplaying! Eventually though I found my launch pad, a place not very far from my home. A gaming shop located in a quaint little commercial center in the northwest part of the valley called
Shall We Play? The Games Store. Truthfully, I was a little intimidated to walk in knowing how "noob" I've become. So I took a deep breath and simply followed where 'the force' would lead me. After browsing shelf after shelf of games I was seeing for the first time, it ultimately guided me to that of where it all began, Dungeons & Dragons. When I got to the D&D section, what immediately struck me as odd was that I could not find a trace of 'Advanced Dungeons and Dragons'! Was I in an alternate universe where Gary Gygax still owned TSR? What's going on? ...What's that you say? What deep underground cavern did I just crawl out from? Well, I guess that would be my first lesson into this mad fray I now found myself in. I was educated by friendlies that AD&D was rebooted several times over since the late 80's. It had reverted back into its original name 'Dungeons and Dragons' then followed by multiple editions and some controversy. Luckily my first encounter was a happy and very patient man by the name of Derek (please forgive me if I spelled your name, bro.). He ran the store and appreciated my plight. He filled me in on general but important bits of information such as the upheaval of D&D ed. 3.5 advocates when the 4th edition came out. Advocates cried that 3.5's ease to convert to and from the Pathfinder system was substantial. He also filled me in that because of that crisis, the 5th edition came forth. Derek then invited me to return that coming Thursday if I wanted to join a session of D&D. I was like, "W-what! M-me, play?", so I did.
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| Two dice I had not seen before...six and four sided. |
I was very excited to get back home and tell my kids that we were invited to join a session of D&D. But before leaving, I had to get me some new dice! There were two new shapes I had not seen before. I had to get those. Time fast forwards to next Thursday and there I was again with my two boys. We were greeted by a rather cool group of players who were all to enthused to show us the ropes. There was even a guy who belonged to my generation of RPG ancients, We exchanged a few laughs on memory lane then at approximately 7:00pm the DM arrived and with a wave of his hands we suddenly had characters ready to go. Given that we played non-essential, quick generated minions didn't matter to us. We were in. The long hibernation was officially over and I was once again part of the story-telling collective. So as the storyline progressed and we delved deeper and deeper into the plot I noticed that though some of the rules and aesthetics had changed, many had not, such as the art of storytelling. I disliked sessions that focused too much on the technical. Those I know eventually degraded into pissing contests between the DM and players on who memorized the rule books more. Luckily, my re-entry was not like that. Our DM handled both rather well. One innovation that I rather liked on the player's experience was the concept of making individual cards for character class' spells and skills. It was a list that I could only once get by rummaging through the pages of the Player's Handbook. But one of the players showed me that you could get spells in decks nowadays. That I thought was awesomely convenient.
Another aspect that appeared to be a cool staple, was the use of figurines and dungeon environments. Back in the day, we would just use graphing paper, chess pieces or action figures (I remember Skeletor being used as a frost giant). Hand painted figurines offered an additional creative element of imagination and created a kind of connection with one's character via the effort and time given to paint each piece.
So time flew and our impromptu session eventually came to an end. It's a good thing it was 'cause my wife was buzzing my phone already. The ogre was slain, but it was a feat attained at great cost to the party.
It was awesome! So with great sighs and congratulatory smiles to each other, we gathered our papers, figurines and paraphernalia's and called it a game.
Things wrapped up with Derek in the background, content at how the evening had gone. He handed out curious looking tickets with serial numbers on it. Apparently you get these tickets for every time you attend a gaming session. He instructed us to register them on the actual '
Wizard's of the Coast' website to be eligible for promos and stuff. So with feelings of accomplishment my sons and I thanked everyone for welcoming us into the group. We will surely be back to continue our adventures for the next session, in two weeks.
3/13/2018
Mig Roces
I was very excited to get back home and tell my kids that we were invited to join a session of D&D. But before leaving, I had to get me some new dice! There were two new shapes I had not seen before. I had to get those. Time fast forwards to next Thursday and there I was again with my two boys. We were greeted by a rather cool group of players who were all to enthused to show us the ropes. There was even a guy who belonged to my generation of RPG ancients, We exchanged a few laughs on memory lane then at approximately 7:00pm the DM arrived and with a wave of his hands we suddenly had characters ready to go. Given that we played non-essential, quick generated minions didn't matter to us. We were in. The long hibernation was officially over and I was once again part of the story-telling collective. So as the storyline progressed and we delved deeper and deeper into the plot I noticed that though some of the rules and aesthetics had changed, many had not, such as the art of storytelling. I disliked sessions that focused too much on the technical. Those I know eventually degraded into pissing contests between the DM and players on who memorized the rule books more. Luckily, my re-entry was not like that. Our DM handled both rather well. One innovation that I rather liked on the player's experience was the concept of making individual cards for character class' spells and skills. It was a list that I could only once get by rummaging through the pages of the Player's Handbook. But one of the players showed me that you could get spells in decks nowadays. That I thought was awesomely convenient.
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