#RPGaDAY2018 - Day 2: What makes you want to DM?

What makes me want to DM is the opportunity to perform for others.

Going back to yesterday's answer, I've found joy in entertaining others ever since all the way back when I used to play games with my siblings when we were little kids. Most, if not all, of the make-believe games we would play together would be led and designed by me. Even when we played console games, I would make myself the one in charge of making sure that everyone's having fun.

And that shaped the way I entered new situations and handled social encounters. I usually place myself in a spot where I can make sure everyone's having a good time, and often that has led me in a position of leadership. It's exactly the same for D&D.

I like to DM because I enjoy myself the most when I'm making sure that my friends are having fun. Coming out of a great gaming session and being able to pat yourself in the back because it was as good as it was thanks to you has to be one of the most rewarding experiences ever. And I believe it's an experience I would recommend to anyone.

Having control of absolutely everything that happens in the game is cool too, I guess

Today's actual question was: What do you look for in an RPG? And any answer I can give basically boils down to wanting to play D&D; I want familiar races and classes, easy rules for newcomers, a fantasy setting, and other tropes that you can trust D&D to bring. Even though I've tried a few other systems, all with their own merites, in the end I just want D&D in my RPGs. Since I'm aware that this is a pretty boring answer, I decided to pick one of the other alternate questions.

#RPGaDAY2018 - Day 1: What do you love about RPGs?

What I love the most about RPGs is being able to have many fantastic experiences all the while being in a comfortable place and remaining well-accompanied throughout.

Having four siblings, we've learned that best use of our time is to do play cooperative games instead of taking turns watching each other play single player games, since our parents would limit the amount of time we could use whatever console we had at the time; Better for us all to play one game for 2 hours than 30 minutes of an individual game each. All of this led me to become really fond of cooperative games.

Also, even before I learned about D&D, I would play little make-believe games with my siblings, often as a way to make chores more fun, and not just in your typical cardboard starship scenario.

So when D&D was introduced to us, an actual cooperative game of make-believe, I immediately saw it's potential to do exactly what I have been doing, but with actual rules that all of us could follow. And turned out to be more than that.

I'd say Zee Bashew knows exactly how to put it in his video:

My first experience playing a tabletop RPG, namely D&D, is also probably my fondest memory with my father. I remember that one night, he sat down with my 9 year old self and my younger siblings, and he ran the original red box adventure for us.

Taken from the internet, not my actual red box that was lost to time

While I admittedly don't remember my first character's name, I do remember our hilarious encounter against a Rust Monster, our exciting fights against skeletons, goblins, and giant rats, and our epic encounter against the evil Wizard Bargle before all of that even happened.

20 years later, I remember Aleena's death as clearly as last week.

RPGs allow me to have similar experiences as that first time. And all of it at the comfort of a table, with some good friends.

#RPGaDAY2018

For the next couple of days, I will be attempting to keep up with this event and write a new post every day.

The image above is probably too tiny to read, so here's a link.

You can read up on all the event details on the link above. The tl;dr of it is that I'll be answering one question each day until the end of august. Here's hoping I don't stop midway!