A little over a year ago, I had the pleasure of introducing four brand-new players—all women—to D&D. The first was my girlfriend, Rachel, who often listened in on my regular Tuesday night campaign on Roll20. She was intrigued by it all, but I've been playing with most of those guys since 1985 and she was reluctant to dive into that game. She isn't well-versed in the fantasy genre other than The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter (books and films), all of which she loves. I don't think she's ever once played a video game, and she doesn't watch a lot of television that isn't BBC comedies or Bob's Burgers.
My other three new players were a little more familiar with some of the fantasy tropes. For years, we'd gotten together every Wednesday night for dinner and TV, and we'd just finished watching the unfortunate conclusion of Game of Thrones. I'd discussed with them how GRRM and the showrunners were all D&D players. We had also watched Freaks & Geeks during previous TV nights, which featured D&D in several episodes (and, coincidentally, depicted roughly the same era in which I first began playing the game, when I was roughly the same age as the characters in the show.)
The girls (my best friend, Marie; her wife, Cameron; and our mutual friend, Emily) didn't really get it, but they at least understood the basic concepts--that it was a game in which you went on adventures, rolled dice to determine success/failure, fought monsters, and found treasure. While walking one evening with Marie, she mentioned listening to a podcast that discussed using D&D as a means to rehabilitate prisoners. The show went into great detail about how the game worked, and she was interested in trying it out. I offered to run a game for my TV night gals plus my girlfriend, just to show them what it was like.
Rachel was definitely in, and I discovered Emily had been wanting to play for years but didn't know how to start. Cameron was going to be a tougher nut to crack, however. She'd been a student-athlete all her life and, by her own admission, had zero experience with childhood make-believe. So, to demonstrate how a “role-playing game” worked, I gave her a quarter (as a randomizer) and laid out the following scenario:
"You're leaving work one night, and in your bag, you have a cellphone, pepper spray, and a gun; you are also a green belt in karate. As you walk through the parking garage to your car, you see two men engaged in a struggle. One man is on the ground while the other man stands over him and beats on him. The man on the ground looks at you and pleads, 'Help me!' What do you do?"
Cameron thought for a second and replied, "I pull out my cellphone and yell at the other man to 'Stop!' I also back away a bit and dial 9-1-1."
I told her to flip the quarter (an Intimidation check): Heads, the man stops; tails, he doesn't. (The quarter comes up tails, so he ignores her and the beating continues.) I elaborate: "You hear the 9-1-1 dispatcher answer. Now what do you do?"
Excitedly, the other girls started throwing out suggestions, but Cameron remains calm and says, "I tell the dispatcher my location, pull out my gun and point it at the man, and order him again to 'Stop!'"
I had her flip the quarter again, with the same outcomes above. This time, it came up heads and the man stopped beating the other. Now, I rolled the quarter, telling her: "Heads, he runs off; tails, he advances toward you." (Tails.)
As I described the man coming at her, I told her "You can hear police sirens in the distance, but they won't get there in time to stop this guy from reaching you. What do you do?"
Her voice quavering, she said, "I shoot him." (To my immense surprise and delight, Cameron is totally into what is happening in her imagination.)
I told her to roll the quarter again, but this time, since she knows how to use the gun, I had her roll three times—best two out of three: Heads, she hits; tails, she misses. She rolled two heads and one tails, so I said, "Your bullet strikes the man and he goes down; moments later, the police arrive."
Her first question: "Is he dead?" Another coin flip later, and the attacker is alive and now under arrest. I explained how grateful the beaten man was that she came along, thanking her profusely for saving him from the other man--a mugger who had been preying on victims all over town.
She had a huge smile on her face, and I told her, "You just played D&D." She was totally hooked, so she agreed to play and we set up our first Wednesday night D&D session shortly thereafter. She has since become one of my stalwart players.
Introducing the game to brand-new players and watching them develop the skills to navigate the game has been a real eye-opener for me in terms of things I take for granted with my veteran players. The best part is, it's all new to the girls so they have no set expectations or assumptions about what is happening at the table. It’s a glorious New World for this jaded DM.
Covid forced us onto Roll20 for a couple of months while my state locked down, but it wasn't long before we started getting back together for tabletop sessions (we considered each other our Covid bubble.) Another revelation for me was just how superior the tabletop experience is vs. playing online. My Roll20 campaign had been going steady for five years or so, and I'd forgotten how often body language plays a huge role during a session.
We just celebrated our one-year anniversary in April, and the ad hoc game I started for them has become a full-blown campaign of its own. I wrapped up my long-time Roll20 campaign back in December and have taken a break from that while one of the other guys runs for a bit. For now, I'm simply enjoying exploring the game through brand-new sets of eyes. I never thought I'd be running a game for these friends, but now I can't imagine us NOT playing D&D together.
I’ve been keeping a campaign journal of the sessions we play (37 sessions, to date), and I intend to start posting those here, starting from the beginning.
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