Teach it or your hobby dies with you.

Part 1 where I'm coming from.

Gotta start somewhere.

It's that time of year again, I remember I have a blog and proceed to stick something on it.

Maybe I'll stick with it this year, where have I heard that before.....

But back to the topic at hand.

RPGs in general have a bad reputation as having a high bar to entry and that ranges from the belief we need to read a stack of books to know how to play, to finding other people to play with, expensive books but it boils down to accessibility.

How readily accessible is the game for new players.

And this is where my focus over the past year or so has been. Many publishers have an organized play system WOTC, Paizo, Pelgrane press and a couple of others who escape me.

This article isn't a critique of how successful they are or not and it isn't about which is the better system.

I've been running the Wizards of the Coast D&D Adventurers league for the last 18 months.

And I've been doing this as I came to the realization that as a person gets older it's easy to look back at RPGs as something you do when you are younger and give them up.

I know I did, kids came along, university ended, full time work and travel all become things that took priority over rolling dice and interacting with a fantasy world.

As my kids got older and I had a little bit more free time becoming available I started to unearth all of my RPG books and they stretch back a ways to 1st and 2nd AD&D, 3rd ed GURPS and assorted odds and ends.

The fifth edition D&D playtest was winding down and the countdown began until it's release. I hadn't been part of it but signed up and snagged the playtest files out of curiosity more than anything else and they were........ interesting they had stripped down a lot of the "crunch" that kept me away from 3rd - 4th editions pathfinder included. When you are time poor too much crunch becomes a big disincentive.

I snagged the starter box as soon as it became available to see if it was as good as promised and it was pretty darn good in fact, it all made sense and looked like it would flow well. Only problem my wife was less than enthused about being dragged into my schemes and the kids still a little young and not the best when it comes to teamwork.

So looking around I found the WOTC organized play information on-line, unfortunately none were registered in the city nearest me. At the same time I found the rules, online as well a little bigger than the starter set rules but still stripped down and pretty bare bones available, but I'll discuss this further.

So I wanted to play fifth Ed but had no one to play with, I had the option of finding a group which is harder than you might think. But I realized you mostly luck into a group as they tend to keep to themselves and meet at someone's house and it's pretty low key.

There were a few folks who played regularly in the store but it was a start, so we played a few games some pathfinder, swords and wizardry and a bunch of long form board games.

I kept coming back to the adventurers league in my head and realized if no one else was going to do this I had to do it myself. I got the blessing of the store owner and started running the starter box adventures as a public event and was listed in the WOTC store finder. Initially it was awkward and a bit strange running things in a public setting but it gets easier.

There was also a slightly ulterior motive as we made contact with players some of the more experienced we could funnel into the RPG group at the store and get more people playing other games in addition to more fifth edition. We had plenty of players to start in my homebrew world, more on that in the future.

There are criticisms of the system WOTC has implemented but they so far haven't turned into deal breakers. I am sure that paizo's pathfinder society will have its own detractors.

Running games in a public space can seem a little unusual for most players of RPGs but by doing so it demystifies the games and it is making them more accessible to the newer players coming up.

And the teaching that next generation is where I'm going to in my next article.