[Jim Bob]

Originally Posted by LucitasBastardChilde

I find that I have the most problem introducing people to RPGs because I have a somewhat rough time explaining them.

You've chosen no analogies, or the wrong ones. People like analogies.

Almost everyone's heard of the Choose Your Own Adventure books. If not, explain 'em, it's easy enough to do. Try this,

"Roleplaying is like those Choose Your Own Adventure books. You know the ones, where it says, you come to a fork in the road, there's a left and a right road. If you take the left road, turn to page 32. If you take the right road, turn to page 44. Then after that, there are more choices, and pages to turn to. So the story ends differently according to whatever choices you make.

"Well, a roleplaying game is exactly like that, only there's a person telling you what's happening instead of a book. This is better because instead of having five or six different endings, there are a zillion possible endings - and in fact, you don't have to end it at all if you don't want to.

"And because you don't have to fit the story into one little book, you can be someone different to what the book wanted. So you could be a strong guy, or smart woman, or whatever; what you choose to be, that determines how you'll deal with the challenges. So the strong guy can deal with the doors to break down, or the smart woman can deal with the codes to break. And of course you can be in a group, too. So there can be a strong guy and a smart woman in one group, so you can deal better with the different situations.

"Sometimes we need to know if the strong guy's strong enough for this door, and the smart woman's smart enough for this code - so we have rules, and dice. So you get to roll lots of dice, and that's always fun in a boardgame, right? But the rules provide a little bit of consistency, so you have a good idea of just what your guy can do.

"And the group part's the best. You get to sit around a loungeroom chatting and laughing and eating junk food and drinking coke or beer or whatever you like. In the end, a roleplaying game is just a bunch of guidelines for telling tall stories."

I've not met a single person who couldn't grasp all that. Doesn't mean they were interested, of course, but they understood it.

Originally Posted by LucitasBastardChilde

Let's face it - the rules are not the problem - WE are the problem.

Usually our main problem is that we're shy, and embarassed at the childishness of our hobby. So what if we do what kids do? Kids play football, don't they? Does anyone think that's childish? Probably not, since people get paid millions of bucks to do it. I see, it's not that it's "childish', it's that it doesn't earn millions of bucks, eh? Well, so what? Neither does watching TV, and people do that for hours a day.

Don't be shy, and don't be embarassed. Be proud of your hobby.

Originally Posted by Cessna

You could make an rpg with simple, easy to understand rules and the overwhelming majority of people still wouldn't want to play it.

I think we're falling once again into the "fallacy of the false dilemma" here. Simply because someone is saying that they find it hard to recruit players, does not mean that they're saying that we expect everyone to like roleplaying games.

I don't think anyone expects that. The model train guys and the stock car racing guys and the quilt makers and the chess players and the scrabble players and the Elvis memorabilia collectors - do they expect everyone to be interested in their hobby? I don't think so. Sure, a few loons do, but most don't.

It's true that it's not the game rules. Most people who can't recruit players or find a group are like people who can't find a job or a girlfriend or boyfriend - except for a very few unlucky people, most of them are either not trying very hard or they're very fussy. I'll repeat some actual conversations I've had.

Girlfriends
"Man, there's no good girls around anymore."
"What have you done to meet girls?"
"I went on some blind dates."
"How many?"
"In the last two years... two."
"You went out with two girls in two years, once each. Anything else?"
"Nup."

Jobs
"I wish I had a job."
"What have you applied for?"
"Heaps of stuff."
"How many jobs, exactly?"
"Well I look in the paper a lot."
"Sure, but how many people did you ring up or send a letter to?"
"Um, three."
"Since when?"
"Since the beginning of the year."
"Three in eleven months?"
"Yeah. But there's no decent jobs around, man."

Game groups
"I can't find a game group."
"What have you done to find one?"
"I went to the game store and put up a notice."
"When?"
"Six months ago."
"Did you call any of the numbers there?"
"No, they sounded like dorks."
"Do anything else to get a group?"
"No man it's pointless. There aren't as many gamers as there used to be, and everyone is playing Exalted. Roleplaying is dying."

Most people who find it hard to find game groups, unless they're very unlucky, most of them are not trying very hard, or they're very fussy.

It ain't the rules. And I say that as a guy who wrote a rules-light set, and one of the things I designed it for was to be newbie-friendly. The rules won't do it themselves, but they will help a little bit. They'll help as the GM and experienced players deal with the new players; they won't help just sitting on the shelf and picked up by a newbie.