Thread 96252793

What is something you love about this hobby, what keeps you coming back and what got you interested in the first place

I see so much doom and gloom here, and people complaining about the thing they supposedly love. I want to see some hope and positivity because I still love this stuff and I want people to love it too

>>96252793 (OP)
My own friend group. We're not that great, and organizing any game is impossible, but when we do get to play it's great

I’ll go first, I’ve seen people entirely change from playing games with them. Entire creative hobbies formed from wanting to do something more for a session. I got into painting miniatures from this hobby and I've written more than I ever did in creative writing class. I’ve been able to watch my friend go from barely understanding the game to running his own after a few years and doing a great job at it. And he only ever joined the group on a lark. I’ve been able to write and learn about so many topics fueled by this stuff, playing so many systems and settings, explore so many ideas

>>96252793 (OP)
On my part it's mostly character generation, both top-down "how do I make this flavor work in the mechanics?" and bottom-up "what kind of person would become this abomination?", just feels neat. Homebrewing into the cracks to smooth each also features heavily in my engagement, with occasional bouts of raw dice autism trying to balance things.

Overall incredibly crunch-focused with little gametime.

>people complaining about the thing they supposedly love

People only complain about things they care about. I don't complain about Nascar being garbage now because I don't care about Nascar.

>>96253045
Fair enough but there comes a point where the only comments some people can make are negative

>>96252793 (OP)
People come to 4chan specifically to vent frustrations that they'd be banned for venting anywhere else. Eventually you start to see that people are just desperate for a chance to be genuine about their feelings. The modern world is hell.

>>96252793 (OP)
I get to make the kind of game I want, without needing to know how to code, or how to make visual/audio assets, or without needing to worry if one miswritten line among thousands of strings and scripts has a misplaced bracket or something.
This is TTRPGs' biggest advantage over video games, and it allows me to make a game with consistent challenges, clear goals and restrictions, and a plethora of random tables to keep outcomes interesting and create a sense of danger, wondering what at any time is going to happen my character and her team.
It's something a lot of people forget, when they say "juth play a video game lol", they think that TTRPGs are only about story and lore, and that there's only one way to roleplay.
Roleplaying is any decision you make for a character that isn't yourself.

Friends and creative outlet. Good thread op.

>>96253180
Yeah I always wanted to make my own video game but never had the skills or patience for programming but I can write out the entire lore of a world and have all the sort of combat or gameplay quirks I want and I get to share it with people. I’ve come all the way around from the start and I’m back to being interested in running and playing games in basic vanilla fantasy after like 7 years of doing everything but

>>96252793 (OP)
I am an old cunt and whenever I play RPGs I get as excited about imaginary things as I did when I was a preschooler. That's hard to come by and I treasure it. And just within the framework of the game it is nice to be able to fiat anything you'd want. Dismayed about the lack of large player characters in videos games that really feel like you're playing something that weights 400kg? Now they exist in your game. Upset that not enough bad guys are using doomsday gadgets to threaten world leaders? There's an endless supply of Bond-esque villains to challenge. It'd be cool if there was a murder mystery on a submarine? It now exists. What a wonderful hobby.

>>96253155
No joke or sass whatsoever: You're projecting.

I used to love being a player. And while I still like really getting into a character and using them to explore whatever setting or scenario my GM has come up with, I've discovered that I really, really, love GMing. They say it's work you do for fun but it's work I have fun doing. I love setting up the pieces and elements, stirring in NPCs and factions and their various goals and motives, tossing a few players into the medley and seeing what comes out of the oven. There's nothing more satisfying than just getting to sit back and listen as my players debate and discuss what to do next, what their allies and enemies may be involved in, and most of all, seeing different players argue for different things based on in-character motivations and perspectives rather than OOC considerations.

>>96253567
At the end of this Sunday's session, the party captured an agent of the mysterious organization that's been hounding them. She may be useful if interrogated, but she's also dangerous and could potentially escape if not under constant supervision. One of the PCs wants to hand them off to a close ally of his for leverage and because then he'll be the one who has best access to her. Self-serving and yet at the same time, he reasonably pointed out that said ally has a whole host of servants that can keep her under careful guard, and his underground domain will be difficult for an outsider to escape. Another PC wants to hand them off to a friendly allied organization aligned with the English government, in the hopes of scoring brownie points with His Majesty since they are, after all, working towards the same end and likely have great experience interrogating prisoners. A third PC would rather keep their captive in their personal possession, rather than trusting them to an ally, citing the fact that they have extensive magical experience and would be able to put together a "safe room" that would prevent the captive from using any tricks to escape. All of them arguing in their own interest, but also making a case for why their option is best for the party as a whole. It's great. I love GMing. I love TTRPGs. Couldn't get this anywhere else.

>>96252793 (OP)
my friends i met on a /mlp/ TTRPG thread

>>96253471
>No joke or sass whatsoever: You're projecting.
I know there are going to be exceptions to the rule I presented, but I don't see how it's projection to simply point out the obvious. People are negative on 4chan because they're allowed to be negative. If you try to express dissatisfaction with games in other forums, you get banned. I'm not saying it's a bad thing either, I'm just trying to explain why 4chan seems like it's constantly negative about things.

>>96252793 (OP)
As far as entertainment medium goes, it's the only one where I'm a real, active participant. Movies, books, video games, etc, all of those things, you're participating in someone else's narrative. They wrote the story, they made the characters, you're inhabiting another man's creative vision. Even in video games, you're really coloring in-between the lines, doing what you're allowed to do.
TTRPGs allows me to legitimately express myself and explore my own creative drives, and share them with my friends. I like the inherently social, collaborative storytelling process.

>>96252793 (OP)
I like rolling on tables and narrating the results

>>96252793 (OP)
I started because a friend of mine introduced me in fucking elementary school (well, his older brother did). I'm pretty sure they got into it from Baldur's Gate.

Anyone, I love how flexible it is compared to CRPGs (or any computer game in general). I'm not talking about bullshit "Anything is possible if you can roll high enough!", I just mean like lateral thinking and coming up with ideas that the GM didn't expect, or as a GM thinking of weird crap to surprise your players, or having to scramble to figure out how to handle something they came up with that you really really didn't expect. There can be creativity in this hobby that's hard to find in other settings.

>>96252830
I know someone who taught herself ArcGIS in order to make fantasy maps and then got a job with it.

>>96252793 (OP)
there are a lot of things i love about this hobby, but one i've been thinking a lot about lately is how nobody, no corporation or individual or anything, can own the rights to your game or take it away from you. it's so cheap to get into, you don't even necessarily need a ruleset, just dice and paper and pencils, and even if you want a ruleset, you can find all kinds for free all over the place. in a world where most entertainment media is licensed, ie you don't really own any of the games in your steam library, etc, it feels nice to be part of a hobby where my shit can't be taken away by anyone.

>>96252793 (OP)
It's an excuse for me and my friends to set aside time to hang out every week. We've been playing for over a decade, we're all adults now. There are wives and kids and careers, but everyone has put in the effort to block off our few hours every Thursday to roll dice and drink drinks and eat snacks and I look forward to it every time. All my other friend groups I don't see as much as I used to, but my D&D group has stayed consistent because the hobby requires it. It's like friendship glue.

>>96254226
>If you try to express dissatisfaction with games in other forums
Name ten.
But seriously, name one.
I've forums ban people for expressing negativity about others, though this banning is quite selective e.g. misogyny gets a ban but it's okay to be a militant anti-male feminist, but expressing dissatisfaction about games and game playing is not something I've seen people banned or posts deleted for.
one exception was in a publisher's forum when the person was moaning about the publisher but am interested in the general instances you're saying exist

>>96252793 (OP)
>1)
I'm an art teacher (high school level) and I often get nerdy people. If they get into a higher institution (like art academies) I reward them by teaching them D&D3.5 (sorry, I don't know any better system) through a short campaign. The joy comes from seeing them actually start thinking creatively by making characters, researching mechanics, looking up or making up a lore and doing art instead of simply consooming media.
>2)
It inspires me to draw. The stuff that happens during session is very spontaneous and it produces situations that I myself wouldn't think of.
>3)
Socializing. While it doesn't impact me much, I see it help a lot of younger people since everyone is stuck in digital hell.

I love to be on a tavern on a rainy night, or camping in the middle of a dark Woods. I love seeing elemental Powers unleashed and searching for nixes in the river.

Only through rpgs can i live this in a consistent way

>>96252793 (OP)
>What is something you love about this hobby, what keeps you coming back and what got you interested in the first place
Just about everything anon.

I love the opportunity to craft a story with my friends, and the inherent surprises of the emergent where things don't always go as you expect. I love seeing what my GM comes up with and being transported to another world by them.
I love the intellectual challenge whether that's coming up with a well-thought out tactical plan for how we're going to take down the bbeg or carefully reading through the rules to see how various options might fit together to make something powerful.
I love the opportunity to catch up with my mates, talk shit and hang out for a few hours. And I love the fact that game night locks this routine in place, no matter what else is going on in our lives we'll always catch up at least once a fortnight. More than anything else, I met my wife, my best man and most of my closest mates either directly or indirectly through gaming, even if I never touched another d20 in my life that'd still be about as meaningful an impact on my life as I can imagine from any hobby.

And I like the fact that you've posted a thread trying to bring some positivity into /tg/.

>>96254875
The fact that you can get hours of gaming out a pen, paper, pirated rpgs and some plastic dice is pretty fucking great too.
I'm on a six-figure salary now but I grew up with a mum on welfare and there was no way I could keep up with the latest vidya or really any hobby that involved regular expenditure of any kind, fortunately rpgs don't.

>>96253026
Making the character is my favorite part too. I find it neat to tie how the stats, backstory, and class come together to a believable person. I like to include a secret to the character. I don't care if the other players won't care about it.

I will extend this to include seeing how the other players made their characters. I find it interesting that we all got the same basic premise but our characters came out different.

I like reading metaphysically different settings that have fundamental differences to how base reality actually works in them.

When I still played in games with people, I liked the camaraderie, in-jokes that would emerge, and in general just having fun with people.

>>96252793 (OP)

>RPG bros move away, get busy with wives/kids, develop weird health/sleep problems, or only want to play super specific games/settings and won't consider compromise
>Assume RPG career is behind me because I'm in my 30's and it's too late
>Feel like a ghost haunting my old LGS and get self-conscious walking around alone in state parks full of families and friend groups
>Talk to new work buddy who introduces me to his buddies and now I have 10 new people who all like TTRPGs and hiking

Never give up, frens.

>What is something you love about this hobby, what keeps you coming back and what got you interested in the first place
Two main things really: it's intellectually satisfying to prep and run games, and it's a fun social activity.

I have spent thousands of hours on video gaming, and I still enjoy it, but there's really something about sitting around a fucking table and spending real time together. I've moved to a new city a few times and have always successfully used tabletop RPGs to meet new people and build something resembling a social life. Occasionally the nerds I meet turn into real friends and that makes it even more worth it.

Intellectually, reading rulebooks and adventures and prepping games is fun. It's occasionally stressful because it takes real effort, but I generally find that it is worth it. Running solid games gives me confidence and is just a lot of fun. Besides, playing these games is a good example of an activity done for its own sake. For example, a lot of things are done for future rewards: running today so that I can complete a race in six months; studying now to get my MA in two years; buying materials now to build a shed in the future, etc etc. A lot of things exist 'in the future', or are done for future rewards, but playing roleplaying games is rewarding for its own sake and having such activities is healthy, in my opinion.

I don't recall exactly what got me interested. I was part of a campaign in 2011; I think I was just curious about what the tabletop nerds got up to, especially since I did enjoy party-based RPG video games. I've been GM'ing a lot of different games since '14.

>>96252793 (OP)
This is going to sound cringe, but I love GMing. Hosting an evening of thrills, chills and adventure and people thank you at the end? One of the best feelings in the world. Plus you get enhanced daydreaming for the rest of your week.

I love this hobby.

I look forward to every session I have with my friend and our buddies because I enjoy hanging out with them, and I love my friends.
I enjoy playing with people I don't know because while there may be tensions at first, it's good to be challenged and encounter new thoughts and modes of play.
I like trying new systems but I'm also okay with going back to an old favorite.
I don't mind new ideas because they can lead to positive changes, nor do I mind old ideas because they survived the test of time for a reason.
RPGs give me surface-level knowledge about a wide variety of topics and some of the stuff that interested me, I went into a deep dive on.
It also pushed me in a new direction in my career, got me to write my first book, and expanded my skillset (mathematical modeling, statistics, writing, time management, people management, communication - just to name a few).
It made me a happier man.

I love this hobby, I love RPGs, and I enjoy every second of it, even the stuff that was bad at the time, it was actually good or useful in retrospect.

>>96257752
>Hosting an evening of thrills, chills and adventure
>adventure, not spills
Tidy GM confirmed, good on you for keeping a clean ship.

>>96252793 (OP)
I've been a /v/ermin all my life, and ttrpgs are basically everything modern video games are not.

Now I don't have to deal with fomo shit and infinite grind treadmills keeping me playing the same game all day every day, or subscriptions and predatory mtx trying to milk me dry, or forced updates that ruin parts of the game that I enjoyed, or games that I bought and paid for getting shut down and becoming unplayable because the developer said so, or retards defending that because "acktshually u didnt buy the game, u bought a loicense to play the game".

Now It doesn't matter what the corpo is doing, or what other people are doing, my games are mine and no one will take them from me. Taking the plunge and convincing my friends to do the same was tough but it worked out in the end. It's nice.

>>96252793 (OP)
I really like the 80s sword and sorcery aesthetic but those kinds of sensibilities only exist in old school fantasy.
My friend started making fun of me because he called me out over everything in that genre having rape and tits. Which is probably why it's not popular anymore. I don't even have a rape fetish, I just like characters having down to earth motivations.

>>96258042
This is a coaster-using household. Technically I also have a bunch of knock-off Stanley cups for gaming nights and they don't sweat condensation or spill when knocked so those are also acceptable.

>>96256973
Lucky you, anon. I had two consistent groups for over a decade - weekly or fortnightly games. During COVID it got harder to organize, and then after that everyone got really busy with families (myself included). Haven't played for 2-3 years. I don't think I ever will again.

>>96254347
is this real

>>96258593
Don't be shamed for liking S&S - it slaps harder than the shit they put out these days.
Also, S&S was lighter on the rape than people think. Characters like Conan or Kull never raped anyone, although there was the threat of such things from the villains of the stories.

>>96252793 (OP)

A friend brought up an NPC from a one of my games that happened in 2008. And that's the best feel ever as GM, realizing your game stuck with someone and made their life better.

>>96258593
Did you call him out on having reductive opinions about a genre he's never read? Because there certainly isn't much rape in any of the S&S I've read.

>>96264022
From the top of my head I remember rape being commonly referenced or mentioned in the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser books and in a few Conan Stories he often saves women who are about to get raped. A few more sleazy novels do contain it in a very explicit form though, but well sleazy novels of all genres do.
Old S&S pales in comparison to modern p̶o̶r̶n̶ fiction aimed at women, in that regard. I do know women that are very fond of the more sleazy S&S stories though.

I enjoy the surprise that comes from collaboration with others - seeing a story pan out in a way far different than I envisioned, and the highs and lows that come from a roll deciding whether or not your latest stupid decision works out.

The art is a big one for me, classic art to *some* more recent stuff. Wayne Reynolds may not be to to everyones tastes but he’s one of my favorites for his graphic sharp art

>>96264022
>a genre he's never read
>S&S I've read
Read? Why just read, haven't you see any movies anon?
>Deathstalker
rape
>The Sword and the Sorcerer
attempted rape
> Red Sonja (the 80s one, don't know about the yet to be released movie)
gang rape
>Amazons
multiple attempted rapes
>Excalibur (don't let the excessively shiny armour fool you, it's sword and sorcery)
rape
>Barbarian Queen
multiple rapes including gang rape
>Hercules Unchained
been a while since I've seen it but if not explicit then it's implied the queen rapes the men she drugs, it's an old film so it's probably just implied
>Beowulf & Grendel
rape
and in "comics"
>Savage Sword of Conan
rape, not by Conan of course but still in the magazine

>>96262109
Ummm...the Frost Giant's Daughter? Seem to recall that was a bit rapey.

>>96253180
>I get to make the kind of game I want, without needing to know how to code, or how to make visual/audio assets
This PLUS it's good for the kind of guy who can write worlds and improvise a bit, but can't write a coherent plot because your players are in charge of where the plot ends up going

>>96279011
The ideas guy finally gets a win!

>>96252793 (OP)
>What is something you love about this hobby
I love the peace and quiet I get from painting miniatures and especially the nice feeling I get when I achieve the peaceful and calm zen of painting miniatures.
>What keeps you coming back and what got you interested in the first place
Just wanting that zen and seeing what I've painted gives me a good feeling.
what got me interested in miniatures in the first place was when I made the connection of assembly and painting to the construction of Lego sets and saw it as an evolved version of the hobby I loved as a kid. I've been hooked since.

As embarrassing as it is to admit:
my social and problem solving skills have also improved since I did TTRPGs with people in real life

>>96285632
>spoiler
Me too man.

I know this is the worst place to talk about this but I like the diversity in the hobby. In the same table you coexist with powergamers, edgelords, roleplaying troons and (usually, as long as nobody is TOO autistic) you have fun and peace.