Last month, I started a workshop. Every Tuesday, I head down to my local game store, put up a sign that reads ‘Learn to Play Dungeons & Dragons’, and wait. The first two weeks, I sat alone. Third week, I had five curious souls. These days I get anywhere from three to nine folks crowding around my table. It’s amazing. I also scooped up a couple of GMs to run spin off games. This way, I’m still free to run for newcomers.

I started the workshop out of concern. I go online and regularly see posts where people want to play, but have no idea where to start. There are a number of resources available, but they generally involve someone wading through a number of different sites and posting boards to find a group. Even then, they might find the wrong group.

Nearly every gamer has a few nightmare GM stories. Sometimes there’s a player that’s nightmarish, but I find jerkwad GMs to be more dangerous. They’re in positions of power. If a new player winds up in one of those groups, they might get an idea on how exactly RPGs are run. From this one skewed sample, they will make assumptions about the community.

If you want to kill some time, and are feeling masochistic, check out this link: https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?498580-Gm-Dickery-Horror-Stories-Share-Yours

So I started up this workshop. I have a little sign people can see as they walk into the store. I have all materials ready to go. Pencils, dice, minis, pre-gens. I advertise on reddit, facebook, meetup, and anywhere else I can reach people. I’ve helped about twelve people so far. It’s just a drop in the ocean, but that’s twelve people I know haven’t had a crap GM their first time playing.

If you share my concerns about the tabletop community, please consider doing something similar. You may feel dumb at first sitting by yourself at a table for a couple weeks, but people will come and find you. They want to play, they just need an invitation.

Here is a link to a folder with all my pre-gen resources. Feel free to use them if you’d please: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6CydTxkkJycUXN3UEVFVjltbk0