Your First Table Top RPG Game

 Okay, you were invited to a night of table top gaming. Maybe you know the people well and maybe you don't but it's exciting to be included. The first time playing may be tricky and may even convince you never to play again! Here are a few things to do to help prevent you from totally losing your cool or having a bad time. (No guarantees though!)

Remember, the point is to have fun! 

What's in Your Control 🎮

In the game, there are elements that are not in your control. The outcome of dice rolls, how other people will behave, and the rules are unknowns. But the following things are under your command: 

• Your Character: Even if you are using a pre-made character or an assigned character, you control it. 
• Your morals: Your beliefs are yours. While you can play a character with different morals, you don't have to abandon all that your mama taught you. 
• Your safety: Your body is in your control. Have a backup plan or a contact if you're done and want to leave early. 
• Preparation: With the materials you have on hand, you have to do the reading. 

What to do Before the Session 🕒

Hopefully, you have some time before the session to prepare. If you are looking to join a session, some of these things you'll want to do before you start looking for a group. 

• Where and when you are playing:
• Where is the story the set, character limitations, and the premise of the story
• Who else is playing the game? (How many, general ages, and gender).
• Where will you get a copy of the rules for making a character? Is the GM providing copies or do you need your own?
• Ask about dice: if you need to bring your own or not (or how it will be handled virtually)
• If in-person, ask about the food/snack situation. Are you expected to bring your own or any cash for food orders?

Making your First Character 🧙

Honestly, the majority of rules are about how to build a character which makes this part tricky. 

To make this a bit easier you can: 

- Use a Pre-made character

- Use a trope template

- Using a Random Character Generator

- Filling out a Character Sheet with an Online form

- Ask for help from GM or a fellow Player

What to Bring to the Session 👜

- Your character sheet

- A copy of the rules or references

- Dice (if you need to bring your own)

- A snack or cash to donate toward any meals 

- Paper and Pencil for notes (a notebook works well)

Expectations for the Session 😄

• First session is about introductions, let people know you're new (if they don't already know).
•  The GM gives the opening introduction to the setting and premise of the story and a "hook" to insert your characters into the action. 
• Each player, at some point, will give an introduction description of their character's visible traits, their class, and perhaps a bit of backstory. (Side Note: Sometimes the GM will introduce everyone. It tends to speed things along so don't feel bad if you didn't get to share backstory.) 
• In any given scene, the GM will either pick a player to go first or the player that speaks up first takes the first action. They will describe what they want to do in response to the scene. 
• The next player will jump in or the GM will select someone else to respond after a time. 
• This will progress until a conflict occurs or there's an action that has the probability to succeed or fail. The GM will ask the player(s) to roll a die. (If you're not sure which one to use, ask the GM to clarify or see what everyone else is using.)
• Once the die is rolled, any rules about it are applied and the GM explains the result (or asks the player to describe how they either succeed or fail the action.) 
• These steps continue until the GM thinks the group has reached a good stopping point or their time is up. 

Warning Signs 🚦🚧✋

These are behaviors or things that can detract from the fun of the game. They're more of an annoyance than anything to really be concerned about but, it can give you insight about your fellow players or the person running the game. It's a Yellow light, because this is mostly because the people are inexperienced at running or playing the game. (or you know you're are just dealing with people in general.) If these things truly ruin your fun and annoy you, you can decide to leave if you run out of patience. 

- Rule Discussions/Arguing 💢: While it is tedious, it is not uncommon. The rules are as complex as local laws sometimes and they are up for interpretation. If it happens once in a while, it's not too concerning. If it's the same two people arguing, there may be more going on than meets the eye. But if most of the session is spent in these kinds of arguments (and people are losing their tempers), you might start looking for another group. 

- Rule Changing 📚: The GM can change the rules of the game or session. Sometimes it's to make things more interesting. Often it can be making up for an imbalanced game or in response to players exploiting a loophole making things harder for the GM. New GM's may introduce new rules at the beginning of a new session due to what happened in a previous session because they did not properly balance their game. (It's a tough skill to learn.) Again, this can be annoying but may just be a sign of a new GM. If it seems to be personalized against a certain player then it's likely you're dealing with an immature person. Not fun. 

- GM delights in Traumatic Events (in-game) 😱: It's not going to be all sunshine and rainbows...unless you are playing the MLP: Friendship is Magic game. Terrible things will happen to characters. Everyone has a comfort level for describing events of gore or terror. Feel free to ask the GM to tone down the description a bit...especially if you're eating. If it seems to be a constant theme of the GM's story to crush character's and player's spirits, then it may not be fun anymore and you can quit if you like. I will say some settings like Lovecraft or other Horror base settings won't have happy endings and end up tormenting characters all the time. But it's an expectation of the genre and setting so if that's not your bag, find out beforehand! Also if the GM refuses to tone things down, that turns from a yellow to a red flag. 

- System Changes 💻: If you are in a long campaign, sometimes a GM will decide that the system you're using is not the right fit for the story or characters and may suggest changing it at some point in the campaign. It's annoying to recreate your character and learn a new system, but the new system may actually be a better fit and easier to play. However, if it keeps changing every session, then it may be that the GM lacks focus. 

- Rude Fellow Players 😈: Some fellow players want to hog the limelight and be the lead role. Some may be constantly on their phone and not paying attention when it's someone else's turn. Some might be impatient when others are slow or ask the same questions over and over. Some players might like to antagonize others either at the table or with their character's behavior. I promise this does not only annoy you. It's annoying to the whole table, especially a GM. Sometimes a GM has issues with asserting authority or controlling the group. It can be a personality issue or simply a young, immature person. 

-GM plays their own character 👑: So this is not always a bad thing, because it lets the GM be both narrator and a player. But it skews the balance of power and can easily take agency away from other players. A good GM will play temporary NPCs to help the players pass a tricky spot in the game or provide balance (again if they miscalculated something or someone in the party leaves/can't make it). 

-GM "Railroads" the story 🚂: What this means is that the GM has specific encounters in mind and instead of prompting or suggesting the party's next move, the GM just switches the scene and location to the place they wanted. For example, instead of giving the players the choice to enter a cave and explore, the GM fast-forwards to the Monster's Lair inside the cave and starts the fight. This is generally a young or new GM issue, but it's not always fun.   

-Competitive Players/GM 💥: Sometimes it's hard for someone to grasp that no one "wins" this game. But there are players that will try to "beat" the GM and there are also GMs who enjoy trying to kill the whole party. 

Red Flags 🚩👎🚨

These are things to watch out for because these can be quite serious. Since this is a social game that you can play with strangers, you need to know when to pack up your dice and go. It's not going to be fun anymore anyway. 

- Predatory Behavior: I don't want to scare you away from playing all together, but you can find videos and posts online about "horror stories". Much of it, unfortunately, is because someone in the group is a predator. They will single out someone of interest within the group (or in the vicinity of the group) and try to establish a relationship with a young or seemingly defenseless person in the group. Don't give them your personal information. Tell someone you trust about the behavior or report it to the appropriate people.

- Creepy Behavior: This stuff should make everyone uncomfortable at the table. But because of the nature of these games that let people do whatever they fancy, sometimes they fancy doing awful things to the opposite sex. Even if the player's character is the opposite sex, they seem to put them in awful situations. You don't have to put up with that. It's not acceptable behavior. Some fantasies are best kept private...and even then should be treated. 

- Socially Maladjusted/Immature: I feel this happens in groups regardless of the age of players. Not everyone matures at the same rate. And to be fair, some may legitimately struggle with social boundaries and expected behaviors. That makes this tricky because we want to be compassionate towards that person's struggle, but not just accept that behavior. Sometimes, we all can fall into this like throwing a temper tantrum because of a bad roll or the story not going the way we like or our character not impressing anyone. Time and experience and growth may heal these things, but you are not responsible for other people's inability to behave appropriately in public. 

- Harassment: This means that a player either in-game or out of game is threatening your physical safety or causing you distress. Hopefully, you're in a group that won't tolerate such things but if they don't seem to have the courage to stand up to this person, get yourself out of there! This is supposed to be fun, don't let anyone deride you based on race, gender, sex, religion or who you are. 

- Rabid Fans: Okay, so this is a mix of the immature, creepy behavior and harassment that are associated with a player or GM very enamored with the lore or characters in the game. They want to recreate their fanfiction in a roleplaying game. They don't want to hear a bad word about their beloved franchise or story world. Players don't get agency in this game so it's never fun. There's a difference between reading fanfiction and playing it. Readers expect to be dragged along for the ride. Players expect to sit in the driver's seat and drive wherever they want. 

I sincerely hope and pray that your first session does not include any Red Flags. 

Encouragement 💪

I hate to end on a bitter note. If you do your best and have a good group of people, it can be one of the most meaningful, fun experiences ever! But a LOT will rest on what your GM is like and that can be hard to predict. 

I found it helpful to watch YouTube videos of people playing the game. (Edited ones are nice because yeah, livestreams last for hours!) There are also several podcasts and communities around these games that can give you a primer before going to your first game. (I must note that nearly all of these are often for mature audiences as they are adults playing with other adults. So language, jokes and situations can get rather inappropriate for children.)

I think the book Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress: A girls guide to D&D is a pretty safe for work book. 

Otherwise, check out my post about MY first game session that will hopefully give you some idea of what it's like. I'll probably do a short video for it too. We'll see.