The Pen & Paper RPG Renaissance

There seems to be a lot of discussion on the internet about the “rebirth” of pen and paper RPGs.  This especially centers around some of the groups that are filming their play sessions and posting them on youtube or the other video locations.  This is a good thing, and I’ll give you my reasoning:

When I was a kid I bought the white and blue box - the one that wasn’t “Basic” and wasn’t “Advanced”.  Inside was the rule book, an adventure module, and if I remember right “chits”.  Chits were little pieces of laminated paper with the numbers 1-20 written on them and used instead of dice.  Pretty cheap!  I know!

But what we all believed at that time, and what too often proved to be true, was that you couldn’t learn how to play the game from reading the book.  Typically someone who had played needed to teach you, or at least run a game so you could get a feel for it.  That is the beauty of these videos - they can show you how it’s done, so anyone (theoretically) can now learn to play. 

How impactful is this?  I’ve considered doing a video of a session where I teach a couple of young girls how to play Legend Quest.  Why?  Because I do believe it is a smooth and easy system - easy to learn and easy to teach.  I think a demo of how to play would make it easier for anyone thinking of playing LQ but perhaps a bit nervous about how it works.  Why haven’t I done it?  Because I have absolutely no idea how to edit video, and I am certain that I can’t just run a camera the whole time and come up with something that would be worth watching.

So are we loving this?  Not entirely.  Most of them are playing the main stream game that has been dumbed down.  It’s good if it brings more people into the hobby, and I do think it is doing that.  It could be bad if people start to think that that is the only way to play RPGs.  We’ll see how it all works out.

Rather than do a sales pitch right here, Legend Quest is a great game and you can learn more about it by clicking this link.  And if you know how to edit video - contact me at info@boardenterprises.com.  I could use some help!!