#RPGaDay2022 - Day 1 - "Who Would You Like to Introduce to RPGs"

This year's #RPGaDay daily comes in a peculiar, progressive form where week one talks about the Who/What/When/Where/Why of introducing people to RPGs and week four does the same my current character.  Interesting way of stretching out topics and making things less overwhelming for new participants, but using Rule 0 of #RPGaDay, I may combine days with my writing, so I'll find some other amusing topic to fill in the blanks. 

Day One of #RPGaDay2022 is "Who Would You Like to Introduce to RPGs."  

I don't travel up that mountain any more.  People go up the mountain to see me. 

That sounds very pretentious, but after 30+ years of teaching people RPGs at home, in stores, and at conventions, I'm effectively retired from active RPG proselytization.  I can safely (and proudly say) that I've taught hundreds of people various games, some are still rapid players, some are casual, and almost all have a resoundingly positive outlook about the hobby.  

I also don't push things onto people, either.  That barely worked when we were teenagers and we unwisely tried to promote the hobby onto our friends and family.  Almost all end in some form of disaster.  Someone has to ask to learn before extend my hand and share my dice with them.  Call it buy-in, call it consent, it always makes the experience better for both individuals.  

Not that I haven't prepped situations in the past.  For  a short time, nearly a decade ago,  we played murder mysteries with friends.  They were the type right off the store shelves, with not much more than a CD or DVD, and suggested props to make.  Some were into it even more than I was, and as casual conversation continued after each game, sometimes Dinner Theater, RPGs, and even LARPs were brought up.  Although the conversations never progressed to interest or enthusiasm, there is a short set of notes for a Call of Cthulhu  mystery where everyone played 1920s avatars of themselves, very akin to what I did with my 1920s campaign.

Nowadays, I'm happy recruiting players for my Monday night Star Wars d6 Campaign and planning games for historical wargaming conventions, but if I got the call nowadays to teach role-playing to, I'd have to say the group that stole my daughters from regular gaming sessions:  their basketball teammates.

My daughters, Maja (13) and Millie (11), were taught a host of games growing up.  Setting up and running games for the kids is far, far better than putting the Barney DVD on for a the millionth time.  Sure, you can't play a complicated set of rules, and toddlers don't add dice very fast, much less now their numbers all of the time, but their enthusiasm and thinking outside the box (they didn't know there was a box to begin with) always kept me on my toes.  

Although I had some opportunities to expand that during COVID, the opposite happened.  Work got crazier, our Savage Worlds Campaign petered out, and basketball became religion.  

Since the winter of '21 both have been heavily involved in both local championship teams and top-ranked AAU programs. Between practices, lessons, travel, and the games themselves, this is a heavy schedule for an adult, much less kids, and I'm happy enough when we get time to break out Uno or Chess.  Throw in my work schedule and procrastination, and opportunities just aren't there anymore.  

And then Millie invites her basketball friends over and in between swimming, scary movies, and making TikToks, takes them down to the the basement, where my painting bench is.  The reaction from each of them is genuine excitement, and the concept that I use them for games is near mind-blowing.  I've given very casual offers whenever they have another activity to set up something, but we'll play that by ear.

Maja's group are officially teenagers in every aspect of the term, Maja's already the slightly weird one with her fascination with Manga (and reading books in general), but they're also a quirky bunch on their own right.  I wouldn't do a traditional sit-down for the group at large, but with a tournament complaint of "I'm bored." something like Post-Match Interview by James Mendez Hodes in The Ultimate Micro-RPG Book is just the right amount of sports, improv, and zaniness to get them to take the plunge.