Community

I've been lurking about on various RPG forums recently (such as www.enworld.org, www.ukroleplayers.comand, of course, community.wizards.com/go/forum/viewcateg...) and I've noticed that the edition wars haven't quite faded away yet.

Whilst the fires aren't raging like a Balor stepping out of his molton lava shower onto the upturned plug from his iPod charger the embers do still seem to glow brightly.

I've been giving the whole edition war subject a lot of thought and I believe that I may be able to answer that firebrand of a question, "What am bestest game plz?" (or, for those of you who didn't waste language slots or feats learning to read Internet Goblin, "What is the best game system please?").

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First, a little background. Those of you who have read any of my ramblings

So far in this blog series I've talked about gaining the confidence to play RPGs again and also preparing for your first session. This time I want to explore the first session itself.

Those of you who have been following this blog will have noticed a long gap between the previous part of this series and this blog. First up I'd like to apologise for the wait and secondly I'd like to offer the reason for the delay. The reason is this: My own first session couldn't have run much better than it did and as a result between work and D&D preparation I haven't had much time to write the third part of my blog.

Believe me when I say all of the advice and commentary I'm giving is from experience! So, without further a-do, let's get to it.

If you have been following in my footsteps

Just before I put up the third part of my 'returning from....' blog series, I sat down to basecoat some of my minis and looked over the plastic pre-painted D&D 'Players handbook characters' minis I have in my collection. The paint jobs on them were universally awful, many of the details had just been swabbed over with a single uniform colour and it seemed a real shame.

Unfortunately this led to me touching them up instead of painting my actual minis. Now, despite the poor moulding and wobbly weapons they actually look quite good. I wouldn't be embarassed to put these on the table now.

I wonder - how many D&D players end up doing what I've just done and re-paint their pre-painted minis? Do you? If so, do you just neaten it up or do you just go for broke. What techniques

This is the second part in my blog series about returning to RPG games after an absence. In the previous part I talked about some tips for catching up to your game of choice and gaining confidence to play. This time I want to look more in-depth at actually planning to play in your first game.

The first game is always scary. The first time you ever played RPGs you were probably nervous, excited, confused, inspired and apprehensive, all at once. The first game back from an absence feels similar in many ways but with the added advantage that you at least know the nature of RPGs and know a little of what to expect.

The first thing to note is that nervousness and apprehension are perfectly normal and should be accepted as such. There really is no need to worry about getting things right or

This is the first part in my blog series about returning to RPG games after an absence. I introduced the series on March the 15th and the original blog post can be found HERE.

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Welcome. In case you haven’t had a look at my profile or my earlier blog posts, my name is Doug and I’m a DM with more than a few years experience behind me. I’ve recently had an extended break from gaming and am now preparing to launch a new game group using the Dungeons and Dragons 4^th edition rules. As part of this series I’ll be exploring some of the themes and challenges of my return to gaming and will be trying to impart a few tips and tricks for making the transition from ‘used-to-game’ to ‘gamer’ a little easier.

Tonight I’d like to

Life gets in the way of gaming. It's an unfortunate fact and many of us have to cope with it at one point or another. The reasons and lengths of absence from our hobby are as varied as the colours of all the dragon scales in existence yet it always comes down to a single question:

How do you get back into an RPG game after an absence from the game table?

Hi. My name is Doug. I've been a DM of the AD&D 2nd edition game since 1991. I've written works for many fanzines and websites, ran my own RPG website and community for a short time and have written immesurable words in homebrew adventure modules, game worlds, rules systems, add ons and such - just like thousands of other veteren DMs in this very community. In 2009 I wrote an article in the wizards community forum about