loser of the D&D group

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I thought I would really like D&D since I spend most of my life reading fantasy novels and I was hoping my social awkwardness would not be as bad in this situation bcs we are together for a specific purpose...........but it was worse! The other characters would say and do witty or cute things and would come up with crafty solutions to out team's problems.............and I just sucked. There was social interaction between the real people and between the characters and in both cases I just felt like the tag along and out of step with the group's"rhythm". In the end I got the fewest experience points of anyone in the game...very few. Also I couldn't enjoy it too much because the social dynamics and my awareness of my awkwardness kept getting in the way. My one friend who got me into this group got annoyed with me when I said I didn't want to continue playing or that I'd just play through Skype because now I'm a part of the team and Skyping would slow everyone down........and because I gave up too easily (which is true). I really wanted this to be something social that I enjoyed because it's related to something I'm interested in....but it wasn't really. I'm so exhausted and drained from this one 3 hour session and I just hate being the loser of the group.

Last edited by daydreamer84 on 06 Nov 2012, 12:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

There's lots of different kinds of dynamics in an RPG group. It's possible this one won't work out well for you, and isn't necessarily the way it would be with any group at all. When a newcomer joins a group where all the other members have been running role-playing games for a while... this is actually one of the tougher situations for the new guy.

You're right.......my friend did say that it's always hard to be the newbie.................... but I feel like whenever I'm part of a group I always end up being the loser of it. I'm not witty or cute and I'm really slow and kind-of freeze up like a deer in headlights when I have to think on the spot like in D&D. Also I can't just enjoy myself in spite of this.............now that I have some social awareness I'm too aware of everybody else seeming cute and fun and intelligent and me seeming to lack the previously mentioned qualities and being very awkward.

You should join a new group. Not all groups are the same. Another option is to do PbP (play by post) forums if you're in it for the gaming (but not necessarily the face-to-face social interaction). You might even get some practice with the roleplaying and intercharacter banter that could help you get better in the group you're already in.

Exactly. Because I do so crappy socially and I LOVE D&D i was mostly concerned with reading the game guides adn such (adn btw forth edition sucks, sucks sucks and sucks some more) and then I met my now best friend and GF. we talked about it, read together about it and started playing together. We have a game that has been going on for seven years. . . wow I don't think i would want to play with anyone else to be honest. I just realized this is probably not good advice!

Find a Traveller group. They're less flakey.

delete

Last edited by daydreamer84 on 07 Nov 2012, 1:40 am, edited 1 time in total.

What's a traveller group?

Okay this is good advice. I didn't know you could play it by posting in forums..........that sounds so much easier. My friend is still going to be angry at me for leaving the group though (if I do this) since my character is already involved in our scenario.

Traveller is a science fiction RPG. It's mostly inspired by older-style written sf from the 40s-60s, so some people consider it a bit "retro" nowadays. It's been through a few different versions, the relative merits of which I won't debate here. You can read about the most recent version here.

Fun fact: in Traveller you generate a character by determining what he's done with his life before the game and how it's worked out for him. E.g. four years in the naval academy, 8 years as an officer, retiring due to injury, another 4 years captaining a merchant ship, et cetera. In the original version, if you were unlucky you could die in character generation and need to start over from scratch.

A lot of rpgs espicially complicated ones have a learning curve to get used to playing them and learn to play them well. How expirenced are the rest of the players?

The problem with play by post is that it is really slow.

The players vary in terms of how much experience they have...some have been playing for a long time and some are new to it too...they just seem to be able to fit in better.

interesting...thanks.

If you decide to try playing with that or another group my suggestion is to approach it as a character.
Try to find an inspiration for a specific character type. I've used real people, characters from books or movies and even my cat to base a character on. I don't "act out" the character with voices or anything, I just try to look at everything in the game from my chosen characters point of view. e.g.-The character based on my cat spoke normally as a humanoid, but he would quickly identify the most interesting thing in a setting, immediately investigate it, discover something interesting or dismiss it and then move on to the next thing just as quickly.
The best characters for this are active and sometimes funny. You really have to immerse yourself as the character while still playing strategically. And, if you pick a personality that doesn't work with the group, be willing to dump the character and start a new one. Not all of my ideas have worked out well.

MMORPG generally have a steep learning curve. It may take some people a long time to skill up their characters and become good at the game. D & D, World of Warcraft, Diablo, etc can be huge time consuming games. Any other game type besides MMORPG have lower learning curve required to become adequate at playing the games.

My character is based on a character I made up who fits into the world of the novel series I'm currently reading and who features in my imagination quite often.........therefore I've developed this character in a lot of detail. Still I couldn't keep her the way I imagined her because I was only allowed to give her certain kinds of abilities and magical objects based on her level, class, race ect. so she ended up being quite different from the character she's based on. Also I still don't know how to react as her or me to some of the interactions and things the other characters say or do....I'm just not good at thinking ojn my feet....and making witty responses or at figuring out when people are joking, kind-of joking or not joking. Also she isn't as funny or interesting as the other characters because she is actually someone I'd want to imagine myself as whereas the other people seemed to develop characters partly to be entertaining . For example, the characters' names: one character is called To-may To (tomato) apparently in the last game she was Patay To. Another is called Dr Speadum. Mine just has a plain girl's name that I like.