A New Beginning

In two weeks, I should be starting a new D&D campaign with a new gaming group.  And when I say 'new', I mean it; only one of three players I've rounded up have any experience with D&D.  To me, this presents an exciting opportunity to pass along my passion for d20-kickassery and introduce people to the sheer fun of the game.

As long as I don't screw it up, which I have before.

Missteps


A long, long time ago I played Magic: The Gathering with a decent amount of zeal.  After moving to a new city without a prevalent card-playing scene at the time, I tried to teach my wife how to play.  She had been very accommodating of my geeky tastes and wound up sharing quite a few of them, but Magic turned out to be an epic fail with her.  She was having trouble grasping the often-tangled concepts I was throwing out, and stung from losing the first few games I tried playing with her.  She often remarked, "I recognize all these words are English... but I still don't get what they're saying."  After that disastrous process, Magic became a taboo subject and was pushed to the back of the closet with my other forgotten games.

Later I found a pair of very, very well-written articles about applying conventional teaching methods to people trying to learn Magic, and discovered that in my rush to get my wife to play cards with me I had made every wrong move possible.  I had failed to see things from her standpoint, build decks specifically designed to not be overwhelming to a new player, to introduce new concepts like summoning sickness slowly and only move on after they'd seen them in action repeatedly, and above all... let her win.

Evolution

This is something I thought (and kinda hoped) I would never write:

I bought a Pokemon game.  And I'm having a great time.

My first brush with Japanese pocket monsters was when I was around 15 and rockin' the Star Wars CCG something fierce.  Magic was going through the heyday that was the Rath Cycle, and Star Wars was the other big juggernaut on the CCG block.  Pokemon was also insanely popular but looked down upon as fodder for first-graders with sticky binders full of worn cards, or for that guy who wore the weird animal hats and bought manga online.

I recognized that Pokemon had some strong gameplay at its base and probably other vaguely-redeeming values, but as the craze took off onto Game Boys and TV shows, I turned away and said "No thanks; not for me.  It'll burn itself by the time these kids hit middle school."

12 years later those kids are in college, I'm standing at a GameStop needing a new RPG fix, and I hear Professor Oak whispering like a creepy guy on a street corner wearing a trenchcoat...

"Just give it a try.  What can it hurt; nothing says you gotta catch 'em all, right?"