Dear Mr. Baker,
I'm living in Sofia, and I play since the earliest times that you describe, or nearly so. While it was a nice surprise, I was rather surprised to read your article. I mean, the feeling was that your hosts and me are living in different countries, not the same city!
I guess they just presented you only their version of the story. That's fine, but makes for some surprising "is this the same Sofia" moments.
Just for the fun of it, let me point out some inconsistencies.
What really gave me pause is the statement that people in Bulgaria would rather deal with UFOs than with D&D! There's no more of a problem here than in USA, I guess. It's even less of a problem, because while the games are less known, there isn't a prejudice against them, either. Jack Chick and BADD were unknown here, I learned about them on English-language forums.
Personally, I print his comics for fun and give them to newbies after their first or second session, or whenever I'm in the mood for it. It always makes them laugh. There is also less of an idea that "D&D is only for geeks". When younger, I tend to mock mercilessly anyone who mentioned it.
How easy is it to get new players to try the hobby?
I've recently started a group consisting only of new players. They are not the only ones that I know have joined this year only. (As far as I know, none of them has any interest in UFOs whatsoever). I know personally another 5 or so who were recruited last year. If anything, there is a shortage of DMs that can run games! It's harder to get people to fill that role. For all I know, it's harder to find game masters than players in the USA, too.
Between this, and another all-newbie group that I know is starting to play soon, you should now understand why I can't relate to the statement.
Now, I can't say the hobby is thriving and becoming a fad, this would be a lie. But as far as finding people to play with, I have never had a problem.
I remember when we played systems with 6-sided dice because multi-sided ones weren't available...
Wait - I don't, because such a thing has never happened! Yes, there was a shortage of dice, and ordering and delivery was a problem. So far, it's true...
Except we never had a problem with this, because it is a little-known fact that you can, in fact, use some rather simple solutions allowing us to roll dice with 20, 12, 10, 8 or 4 sides! It's achieved by rolling up to 3 six-sided dice of different colours at once, but the chance of rolling 1, 10 or 20 is the same, just as with a regular 20-sided die. That's what you get when playing with a mathematician
.
I remember running my first D&D campaign this way. It tanked, but not because of the dice, but because it was my first time being a GM. There wasn't a single die at the table short of d6s, and it wasn't a problem.
Trading dice is something that we have never tried, although we knew that other people are doing it. But to us, they were after the oddly-shaped dice because they liked them, not because they needed them! Well, we like them, too.
(The first time dice became a problem was when we wanted to play a dicepool system. Now, rolling double the number of dice seemed like too much of a hassle. That was years later, though, and it only took a while until we made a mass order for multi-sided dice).
Now, the Bulgarian systems use d6, yes, because they are more easily available. But what we play has never depended on the dice alone. The reason I went to play Axiom was that I knew some people, including the author of the system, who were friendly and positive, and that's what they played.
Also, the full system Axiom was recently released as a free download, with the permission of the author. As far as I know, the PDF incorporated the latest changes in the system. The author is working in the game industry, but he's now in another sector.
All this said - and I'm afraid I got carried away, but I'm still chuckling about the dice - I really liked the article, Mr. Baker! What I wrote isn't a criticism - I'm pretty sure you were faithful to the information you received. I just wanted to point out that some people may have rather different memories from those early years.
Actually, this is not surprising at all. We all had different experiences. And although Damyan introduced me to the hobby, it was other people that persuaded me to stay and try another game, so we haven't played a lot together. I suspect other people would remember it in yet another way.
To finish on a lighter note, I'd like to point out that I really hope you would use some of the Bulgarian customs when writing about some nations of Eberron, or any other setting 8) ! Eberron is a very cool setting, in my opinion, although I've never got to play an Eberron game. There are so many cool games, and so little time...
Edited to add: I just read the other articles from the series. Can't wait to read the next one !
Or you could go to forums.rpgbg.net as Mr. Baker pointed you and try there . Actually, I learned about this article there.
Of course, this offer is open to anyone from Sofia! I can't guarantee I'm going to play with you - it depends on whether we like each other's company enough to spend a few hours a week together - but if you need advice on getting a game, I would do my best to help you! And I'm pretty sure everyone on the forum Mr. Baker pointed would love to help you, too!
. Actually it was fun. After all, we are all playing because it's fun, right?
And there are other options, too .
I'm living in Sofia, and I play since the earliest times that you describe, or nearly so. While it was a nice surprise, I was rather surprised to read your article. I mean, the feeling was that your hosts and me are living in different countries, not the same city!
I guess they just presented you only their version of the story. That's fine, but makes for some surprising "is this the same Sofia" moments.
Just for the fun of it, let me point out some inconsistencies.
What really gave me pause is the statement that people in Bulgaria would rather deal with UFOs than with D&D! There's no more of a problem here than in USA, I guess. It's even less of a problem, because while the games are less known, there isn't a prejudice against them, either. Jack Chick and BADD were unknown here, I learned about them on English-language forums.
Personally, I print his comics for fun and give them to newbies after their first or second session, or whenever I'm in the mood for it. It always makes them laugh. There is also less of an idea that "D&D is only for geeks". When younger, I tend to mock mercilessly anyone who mentioned it.
How easy is it to get new players to try the hobby?
I've recently started a group consisting only of new players. They are not the only ones that I know have joined this year only. (As far as I know, none of them has any interest in UFOs whatsoever). I know personally another 5 or so who were recruited last year. If anything, there is a shortage of DMs that can run games! It's harder to get people to fill that role. For all I know, it's harder to find game masters than players in the USA, too.
Between this, and another all-newbie group that I know is starting to play soon, you should now understand why I can't relate to the statement.
Now, I can't say the hobby is thriving and becoming a fad, this would be a lie. But as far as finding people to play with, I have never had a problem.
I remember when we played systems with 6-sided dice because multi-sided ones weren't available...
Wait - I don't, because such a thing has never happened! Yes, there was a shortage of dice, and ordering and delivery was a problem. So far, it's true...
Except we never had a problem with this, because it is a little-known fact that you can, in fact, use some rather simple solutions allowing us to roll dice with 20, 12, 10, 8 or 4 sides! It's achieved by rolling up to 3 six-sided dice of different colours at once, but the chance of rolling 1, 10 or 20 is the same, just as with a regular 20-sided die. That's what you get when playing with a mathematician
.I remember running my first D&D campaign this way. It tanked, but not because of the dice, but because it was my first time being a GM. There wasn't a single die at the table short of d6s, and it wasn't a problem.
Trading dice is something that we have never tried, although we knew that other people are doing it. But to us, they were after the oddly-shaped dice because they liked them, not because they needed them! Well, we like them, too.
(The first time dice became a problem was when we wanted to play a dicepool system. Now, rolling double the number of dice seemed like too much of a hassle. That was years later, though, and it only took a while until we made a mass order for multi-sided dice).
Now, the Bulgarian systems use d6, yes, because they are more easily available. But what we play has never depended on the dice alone. The reason I went to play Axiom was that I knew some people, including the author of the system, who were friendly and positive, and that's what they played.
Also, the full system Axiom was recently released as a free download, with the permission of the author. As far as I know, the PDF incorporated the latest changes in the system. The author is working in the game industry, but he's now in another sector.
All this said - and I'm afraid I got carried away, but I'm still chuckling about the dice - I really liked the article, Mr. Baker! What I wrote isn't a criticism - I'm pretty sure you were faithful to the information you received. I just wanted to point out that some people may have rather different memories from those early years.
Actually, this is not surprising at all. We all had different experiences. And although Damyan introduced me to the hobby, it was other people that persuaded me to stay and try another game, so we haven't played a lot together. I suspect other people would remember it in yet another way.
To finish on a lighter note, I'd like to point out that I really hope you would use some of the Bulgarian customs when writing about some nations of Eberron, or any other setting 8) ! Eberron is a very cool setting, in my opinion, although I've never got to play an Eberron game. There are so many cool games, and so little time...
Edited to add: I just read the other articles from the series. Can't wait to read the next one
!I can confirm it's a good place to find people, or any help on starting a game you might need.Keith Baker said:
A simple solution would be to PM me. If I can't get you into one of my groups, I'm at least going to point you to someone else I know. Since I'm starting a group where everybody else is new to the hobby, you might be more comfortable playing.Galad said:
Or you could go to forums.rpgbg.net as Mr. Baker pointed you and try there
. Actually, I learned about this article there.Of course, this offer is open to anyone from Sofia! I can't guarantee I'm going to play with you - it depends on whether we like each other's company enough to spend a few hours a week together - but if you need advice on getting a game, I would do my best to help you! And I'm pretty sure everyone on the forum Mr. Baker pointed would love to help you, too!
Thank you, but as you can see in my answer, it wasn't all that hardRoyas said:
. Actually it was fun. After all, we are all playing because it's fun, right?
Some people like it, others, not so much. I guess it's like most forums.Jenx said:
And there are other options, too
.
