This afternoon I helped a friend of mine work up some back story for a Dungeons and Dragons character he’s planning to play in the next little while. Â I’ve found that creativity is more fun in teams and so, theoretically, I would like to try D&D but there are a couple of compelling reasons for me not to do so.
Firstly, there is So. Much. Text. Â It takes forever to follow the thread of what’s going on and I just do not have anything like the attention span for it. Â Frankly, I get kind of bored if something I’m reading (other than a novel) has more than about 600 words or looks as if it does. Â Secondly (and this is similar to the firstly but looks at a different type of playing, in person vs. online), the time commitment is ridiculous (or so it appears). Â I had a group of friends who got together every week or so to play. Â I am pretty sure they would sit down at about 7:30pm or so and play until well after 1:00am. Â This is a big reason why I am hesitant even to start playing.
When I was in high school, a guy I knew bought about $200 worth of books and supplies with intent to run an awesome game. Â He and I and a few other friends sat down and worked on characters for a couple of hours, reading through various manuals and instructional articles and so on. Â Picking our stats and things (this part was mindbendingly boring. Â I do not care for this aspect of the game) took a good while as well. Â By the time we were finished with all of that we didn’t really want to actually play at all. Â I’m pretty sure the subject just quietly disappeared and was never spoken of again. Â Is there any way of playing an RPG that doesn’t involve dumping years of one’s life into it? Â Based on what I know of people who play RPGs (pen and paper, figurine based or electronic), I don’t think there is.