If anybody has read my last blog you would know that I run an RPG Club at my local Library, as part of their teen program. I am one of the GM’s, I help setup, organize, and send out emails for upcoming events. I didn’t plan on this, it’s just sort of how things ended up. But none of this would have ever happened, if not for certain events.
Almost 2 years ago my local library had put an event on their calender under the Teen section that read “An Afternoon of Dungeons and Dragons”, I totally flipped. Me and my brother were very excited. We knew about D&D, but had never actually played it before. The thing was we were 19 years old . . . . . ok, 19 going on 20 . . . . . ok, more closer to 20. With most teen programs they usually just go up to 18, but since we were technically still 19 (who cares about the fractions) and “nine”teen” is spelled with “Teen” I thought we would pass. If we didn’t go I don’t think we would be playing rpg’s today, this was kind of our last hope, so we had to go.
So to prepare for the event we made character sheets. Now the event didn’t specify what edition we would be playing. We knew some people liked 3.5 and others liked 4th, so we made characters for both systems. We had both editions on pdf and knew the rules of both games. The day arrives and we show up for the event, 4 other teens show up as well. We sit down to play, and learn that we will “not” be playing D&D. I was kind of bummed, but still excited to play something. We ended up playing Dungeon World, that was my first rpg that I ever played.
Later on 3 more people came. One of the parents who was watching our game had played and GM’d many games before so he took those 3 and ran a game for them (He would also become our GM). So we had a group of 6 and a group of 3 playing. We all had so much fun, I didn’t want it to ever end. After it was done I asked the group that I was with, if they would like to get together again and play, so we all exchanged emails. The next week after that I emailed everybody and we started discussing (when, what, where). We decided that we would meet at the library every other week on the weekend. Now for a GM . . . one of the members father volunteered to be the GM for us. Dungeon World was the game of choice since we had already played that. The following week after that we met for the first time.
Our group was formed, 1 GM and 6 players . . . . . ok 7. I know 6 should be the maximum player limit, but I wanted my friend to join us. She was also there during the D&D event, but she showed up late and was in the group of 3. My Gaming Group and I were the original club members. Now that event was suppose to be a one time only thing, but the librarians kept seeing our group come back every other week, so through our actions they decided to make a permanent RPG club.
When we turned 20 my brother and I had to sign up to become volunteers to stay on with the program. We started small, but then we steadily gained more people, so I had to step in as a GM even though I myself was new to gaming. We gained even more kids and then my brother graduated to GM as well. Our main gm and head adviser decided to step down and let me and my brother take over the club. Although he still attends, but works more along the sidelines. The RPG club has been official for 1 year now. Last month we had 17 teens attend! The team and I have very high hopes for the growth of this club.
So did I ever expect this to happen, No, not in a million years. I just wanted to play some RPG’s and make friends. Who knew that we would start something amazing, something bigger then we ever imagined. Our actions has built what is now a full functioning RPG club, of which I am now a club adviser and GM.
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🙂
The thing is with roleplay it’s incredibly hard to tell (or read) but very easy to show. I’m pretty surprised actually you knew all the rules upfront, (for both games you didn’t play) – that takes quite some willpower, especially considering the sheer volume of those books.
There need to be more RPG clubs! For the love of the hobby the least, but also for the love of the kids, their socialisation and friendships.
Do you by any chance have any experiences of running a club noted down?
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True Nikola, it was a pretty daunting task trying to read those books and understanding all the information in them. It took even longer because they were pdf’s (pdf’s are harder for me to read then the actual book). But I was very determined to eventual play one day.
I had known about D&D for a while now (a year or so). I did a bunch of research, and looked up game sessions and tutorials on the internet etc. It wasn’t like I had to learn it in a week or so, I was totally prepared. I just had never had the opportunity to play till then.
As for if I have noted down any experiences of running an RPG Club . . . I am in the process of doing so. I will be sharing many things on this site, one of the topics being my rpg club. So you’ll just have to tune in. Glad you enjoyed the post and thank you for the comment.