This afternoon I helped a friend of mine work up some back story for a Dungeons and Dragons character he’s planning to play in the next little while.  I’ve found that creativity is more fun in teams and so, theoretically, I would like to try D&D but there are a couple of compelling reasons for me not to do so.

Firstly, there is So. Much. Text.  It takes forever to follow the thread of what’s going on and I just do not have anything like the attention span for it.  Frankly, I get kind of bored if something I’m reading (other than a novel) has more than about 600 words or looks as if it does.  Secondly (and this is similar to the firstly but looks at a different type of playing, in person vs. online), the time commitment is ridiculous (or so it appears).  I had a group of friends who got together every week or so to play.  I am pretty sure they would sit down at about 7:30pm or so and play until well after 1:00am.  This is a big reason why I am hesitant even to start playing.

When I was in high school, a guy I knew bought about $200 worth of books and supplies with intent to run an awesome game.  He and I and a few other friends sat down and worked on characters for a couple of hours, reading through various manuals and instructional articles and so on.  Picking our stats and things (this part was mindbendingly boring.  I do not care for this aspect of the game) took a good while as well.  By the time we were finished with all of that we didn’t really want to actually play at all.  I’m pretty sure the subject just quietly disappeared and was never spoken of again.  Is there any way of playing an RPG that doesn’t involve dumping years of one’s life into it?  Based on what I know of people who play RPGs (pen and paper, figurine based or electronic), I don’t think there is.

you never wait so long