Getting started in D&D

[deadly7]

The *For Dummies books obviously have completely different staffs for most books, so I'm not sure why you have such a notion against them!  I think you just don't want to be seen reading a book implying that you're a dummy.

Because every single one that I've read has sucked.

Well, a lot of people don't play with "pieces and stuff", I personally only use books and dice.  We can (and have *looks at Sidoh*) argue all day about whether or not using miniatures/figs is good, but there's one thing we can agree with: they cost more money.  So if you want to experiment, if for nothing else, I recommend not using figs.  But it's up to you. 

If you want a really simple game that you can mold yourself (that's how I started), you should consider my Tunnels&Trolls rules.  They're pretty straight-forward and open-ended.  I tried to keep the rules as simple and fast as possible, for the most part, which lets you spend more time on the game and less time looking up rules and rolling dice.  That's my personal preference, but again, it varies from person to person, some gamers I know are very much into rules, to the point where half the game time is spent flipping through stacks of rule books. 

It really takes some experimenting, with a group of 2 or 3 good friends, before you figure out what you're doing.  It definitely won't be easy the first time, especially because you've never played a game (I don't think?), but just have fun with it, and always keep in mind that you're there to have fun. 

Yeah, I meant miniatures.. just forgot what they were called.  If not, we could be creative and use action figures or something similar.  Now that's practical.

That's one of the first things I did think about, truth be told.  "Gee, how would Ron do it?" "..." "Tunnels and Trolls!"  And then I remembered I deleted all the T&T++ stuff I had because we never played.

What kind of dice should I have?  Are dice fairly cheap? =\

[iago]

Dice are pretty cheap.  If you intent to be a gamer, you should buy:
- A cube of d6's (36 little ones is a good number) -- $5 - $10
- A cube of odd-ball dice (d4, d8, 2d10, d12, d20) -- $5 - $10

T&T uses only d6's (as I said, simplicity), D&D uses everything.  If you want to play D&D, you should get more odd-ball dice. 

If you want T&T, you can get the rules: http://www.javaop.com/~ron/RPGs/TnT -- you only need the main .pdf, everything is included in that.

[Joe]

Blah.

what happened to your D&D group

did you guys give it up??

More or less. I'm still hoping for a new group to form... The only thing is that we'd need a DM, and Newby seems to protest becoming one.

iago's going to DM (GM?) a Shadowrun game as soon as he finishes some kind of web interface, or something.

[iago]

iago's going to DM (GM?) a Shadowrun game as soon as he finishes some kind of web interface, or something.

Yeah, but that's a longist project.  I'm trying to make it really good, which takes time.

Plus, ever since I hurt my back, I haven't been in much of a programming-mood.  I'm starting to get better now, so I should be spending more time on it.