Tell me about you're non-roleplaing friend's RPG experience

[Jack Spencer Jr]

In this thread I'd like to hear some anecdotes involving people who had sat at your game table, tried it, and then never came back. I would prefer to just catalog theres experiences in this thread and start new threads if a relavant discussion comes up.

I'll go first. My brother had played once or twice when I was first getting into it. He relates his experience as going something like this:

Jim: "I try to hit the guy."

DM: "OK, what did you roll."

Jim: "One."

DM: "OK, you missed. Now he tries to hit you. OK, he does 3 points of damage."

Jim: "That leaves me with only one hit point."

DM: "OK, what do you do?"

Jim: "I try to hit the guy."

DM: "OK, what did you roll."

Jim: "One."

DM: "OK, you missed...."

This is the long & the short of what he took away about RPGs. "What did you roll? One."

[Nick the Nevermet]

I've had that happen.
Another time, one of our regular players in college couldn't come.  We still wanted his big ol' meaty Paladin in combat though, so we dragged a clueless roomate over, explained the rules, and let him loose.  

The result was pretty neat: he asked a lot of questions about everything, and told the GM what he wanted to do, constantly making sure it made sense, and finishing with "How do I do that with the rules?"  So here is this quiet little guy who has never displayed any interest in roleplaying or strategy games, playing a highly tactical warrior, and doing it well.

We begged him to stay on and make a character himself, but he wasn't interested.  He was the kind of guy who rarely left his comfort zone, and gaming was too 'weird' for him to try very long.




Then there was the guy who didn't want to roleplay, but enjoyed participating in Amber auctions.  *shrug*  Never got an explanation on why, but he did that twice.

[Lance D. Allen]

My ex-girlfriend used to sometimes come along when my friends and I gamed, and in one short-run game, she asked to play, rather than sit around. It was a D&D 3rd Ed. game, where I was playing a Paladin of Tyr, a friend was playing a rogue (my paladin was a bit dumb, so never realized..) and another friend had a cleric. She created a druid who used one ability total, in the exact same method, to absolutely no effect. She only played part of that one session, proclaiming roleplaying as stupid thereafter.

Her major complaint? That she didn't get a chance to play. The group of us were a rather gregarious lot, with strong personalities, and we didn't mind speaking up and interrupting each other, nor did we mind being interrupted. She sat quietly unless someone made a specific effort to get her involved by speaking to her character, or asking her "What do you do?" both of which happened many times during that session, as we tried to draw her into the game.

[K.R.Peterson]

In this thread I'd like to hear some anecdotes involving people who had sat at your game table, tried it, and then never came back. I would prefer to just catalog theres experiences in this thread and start new threads if a relavant discussion comes up.

Between 1 1/2 and 2 years ago I had an experience like this.

I'd been GMing for a 2-player group in excess of a month, and was somewhat desperate to find a third player to throw into the mix. Well, the three of us had a mutual friend who we often played CCGs and boardgames with, so it seemed like it might be a good fit. The four of us were Sci-fi fans, and got along well, so I hoped for the best.

When I first invited him to the game he was a little reluctant. Maybe the concept of roleplaying was alien to him; maybe he couldn't see it as a worthwhile form of entertainment. He agreed to attend, though.

The plan was to run a pre-written adventure in the Star Trek: Original Series genre. At the time, it seemed like a natural choice. Everyone was familiar with the setting and the flavor of the game. So, when the time came, I passed out pre-generated characters, gave some brief descriptions of the game mechanics, cued up some cheesy Star Trek music, and off we went.

The game preceded with a few bumps and hiccups, as I fumbled through the scenario, and the players affected a deer-in-headlights kind of mannerism. Within the course of 2 hours, the wheels began to fall of the session. The new player had brought a bottle of wine with him, and the longer the session went, the more he drank. (Noone else partook of the wine). The more he drank, the less inhibited he became, and the more distracting he became to the session.  After finishing the bottle of wine, he became bored, and played up his female character in a ridiculous fashion until the session became uncomfortable. I had to bring the session to an abrupt halt to end what had turned out to be a terrible experiment. (My wife had just returned to our house, and I felt so embarassed by how the session went, that I had to pull the plug before she witnessed what was going on).

The following day, the new gamer contacted me through email and apologized for his actions. He admitted that he was bored by the gaming, and found roleplaying definitely not to his liking. It was mutually agreed that he wouldn't take part in any further sessions.

For awhile, I felt disappointed by how the session turned out. I blamed myself for some time for not handling the situation as well as I could.  I thought to myself that maybe if had done something differently the outcome would have been more positive. I came to the conclusion, though, that I'd done the best I could at the time, and the events of the session were likely inevitable.