Finding and Maintaining a DnD Group

How do I find a Dungeons and Dragons group? This isn’t actually that hard, if you know what you’re doing. I’ve found that the easiest method is… TO BE OBVIOUS! Go to your local gameshop, school cafeteria, or other local hangout with lots of people and look like you want to play. Look around and see if you can find others who look like they want to play. Go on, go to where you want to play at, sit down, set op a character sheet, have a couple miniatures out, and read you’re books. Guess what? You’ll attract attention, and people’s curiosity. And BAM!, soon you’ll have a player base.

Unfortunately, just having a playerbase isn’t enough. You have to able to maintain this playerbase. This is especially important to your DM, but that doesn’t mean the players are free of responsibility. This has to be an environment that makes everybody want to keep coming back for more.

BEING A PLAYER: Well, you play the game. And keep it a game! Sure the rules are there, but mainly as a technique to keep the anarchy at bay. Try to know the rules beforehand, so you’re not flipping through books for the entire session. Nothing is more dull than arguing over rules and watching each other flip through books! Encourage people in your group to memorize stuff, and failing that, write it down on 3x5 notecards. This is even more relevant in 4th Edition, since pretty much everything is based around a power system. So write down your powers. Used a power? Put it in a separate pile. Wow, that was easy.

The DM: For most monsters, just write their stats on little notecards, and keep your combat data on one sheet of paper. Set up a section for player initiative, and write their damage and effects next to their name. Do the same for the monsters. Encounter decks are a good idea if you want a random element, but you should keep paging through the monster manual to a minimum. Try this, and this entire game has much less book flipping. And more hacking and slashing.

Try this stuff, and try browsing some forums, and watch how much more exiting your games become. You’ll be amazed how much more fun your game is if everybody puts in effort.