Occasionally we feature a post from our friends at The Malted Meeple. This time around, it’s about the fundamentals of playing role play games or RPGs.

I remember the first time I was asked to play Dungeons & Dragons. I was a senior in high school and about to go to college when a friend of mine invited me to play D&D with some people on Saturday night. I was hesitant. I had played very few table-top RPG’s. I was not against the idea, but I knew almost nothing about it. My initial reaction to his invitation was, “but I don’t know how to play.” If I invited you to join my friends and I in a game of basketball, but you knew nothing about the sport or how to play, you might respond the same way. However, one of the greatest elements of an RPG like D&D is that it is all make believe. These are games that simulate reality in a fantasy world. You get to take actions and make decisions in a world that doesn’t exist, for the sake of entertainment. So it doesn’t really matter if you aren’t an expert! 

We get a lot of questions regarding RPGs at the Malted Meeple. I would like to address some of the more common ones, in the hopes that I might make it easier on another newcomer to the hobby.

Can I just jump in?

The beauty of an RPG is that it is completely facilitated by someone commonly referred to as the Game Master or Dungeon Master. These games often have a storyline, and it will be the responsibility of the Game Master – or Dungeon Meeple as we know them here – to work new players into the story. If playing Dungeons & Dragons was like a softball league, there would be a clear consequence to starting in the middle of the season. But since these games are narrative and not usually competitive, it’s easier to imagine a newcomer as a character who shows up in the middle of a movie.

Read more about getting into RPGs, including frequency of play, learning the rules and what to bring along, on the Meeple Moments blog.