My Introduction to Tabletop RPGs

My Introduction to Tabletop RPGs

Today, I watched a video on Tenkar’s Tavern OSR channel where the host told a story about how he got introduced to the tabletop RPG hobby, and it made me think about my past – how I got introduced to the hobby, and how many people I introduced to the hobby. So, let’s reminisce!

I live in the middle of nowhere, where the concept of tabletop RPGs and D&D was and pretty much still is almost unknown. None of the books were published and sold here when I was younger, so there was no way for me to just stumble upon one in a bookstore. Ironically, the D&D novels were translated and published here, so I did read some Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms novels but I didn’t even realize that they are based on a tabletop RPG. I played some D&D-based video games too without realizing that they are based on a tabletop RPG. War of the Lance, some Dark Sun game, Dungeon Hack, Dungeon Master, and even Neverwinter Nights (the 2002 one, not the 1991 one). I never played Icewind Dale, Baldur’s Gate, Pool of Radiance, or Planescape.

In 2003, I remember my father buying the Temple of Elemental Evil (the video game, not the adventure module). I recall him telling me “People say that it works very similar to the tabletop version.” I thought “Huh? A tabletop version?” and later decided to investigate this on the internet. This is how I found the translated D&D 3.0 rulebooks, downloaded them and printed them out, as they were Word documents with no pictures. I was completely hooked – I read the Player’s Handbook front to back multiple times, and I can clearly remember the sense of wonder the book evoked. I felt that I found something that would be able to entertain me forever. Despite my current dislike for D&D, this is one of my most cherished memories.

I was what, 11 years old at that time? I downloaded a couple of adventure modules and ran them for my older brother and his friend, even successfully so. Now I realize that the modules actually were for AD&D, but somehow I managed to make it work with D&D 3.0. Then I ran the same module for some of my school classmates with moderate success, afterwards switching to adventures of my own design. In hindsight, the way I was running things was definitely not good and the adventures were awful, but we had a lot of fun, and some moments are fondly remembered to this very day.

Then came a realization – the core three D&D books were not the only ones. Where do you get the other books? That’s right, this was the 2000s, so I had to trawl through eMule to find the PDFs. For some reason, a lot of hentai porn was masquerading as D&D PDFs and I still don’t know why. Anyway, I got a bunch of books, and they helped me a lot in learning English. Only much later did I find a huge torrent with the entire D&D 3.0-3.5 official library and a ton of third-party books. That was like striking gold back in the day. I also found out that I had AD&D books all those years hidden away on one of those “50 video games on 1 CD” compilations that you could buy from a shady street vendor. That might be an Eastern European thing; I don’t know if this practice existed in the West.

I believe that in total, I introduced 8 different people to D&D, but only one of them actually stuck with the hobby. Then 2008 happened and D&D 4e was released. I didn’t like it at all, so I stuck with D&D 3.5 and later incorporated some Pathfinder material. This is when I started looking at D&D in a more mature way – I noticed that it’s not at all perfect. Years went by, and my frustration grew. I believe it was 2013 or 2014 when I thought “Enough. This is garbage.” and started my search for a better system. I think I stumbled on a thread about GURPS on the Giant in the Playground forums. People were talking a lot of shit about GURPS, bringing up some examples and rules that they found stupid. And I remember thinking “Huh? Why is this stupid? This GURPS thing seems absolutely amazing!” I procured the GURPS Basic Set and gave it a read. I had the same sense of wonder that I had years ago when I read the D&D 3.0 Player’s Handbook, and I knew that I found just the thing that I wanted.

The best part is that the friend I mentioned before who stuck with the hobby, made the switch to GURPS with me. He’s still actively playing and running games with or without me, and he provides the best feedback. I think he probably is the only person who reads deeply into the stuff I write and tells me if something is dumb and should be changed. Very often I agree and change it. To be honest, I think he runs GURPS better than I do, and I try to learn from his games. I'm very happy to have introduced him to the hobby in the first place. Aside from him, I introduced like 5 or so online friends to GURPS, but I think only one of them is still active in this regard.

And here I am now. As you can see, I haven’t been in the hobby for as long as many players. I’m still very much content with GURPS and I don’t have any thoughts of switching to something else. Even though I’m more or less a hermit when it comes to interacting with the GURPS community, I’m still running, playing, and creating content. Sometimes, it’s nice to look back and see the entire path you walked up to this point.