Over the years I’ve gotten at least a couple dozen inquiries regarding Role-Playing Games at The Loaded Die game nights, and the answer isn’t as simple as people hope. TLD and our TLD Game Nights focus on building and fostering a gigantic community centered around board gaming. Tabletop RPGs are obviously a close cousin of board games on the other side of the family tree from collectible card games (CCGs) like Magic: The Gathering. They all share a common relative: Tabletop.
Just because we’re centered around board gaming doesn’t mean we’re exclusive to board gaming. We did have concerns early on that if we advertised our event as friendly to CCGs & RPGs there was a chance that our mission of building a board gaming community would be hindered - like it or not, there’s something about groups of people with Magic cards, pencils, and dice that makes the potential casual board gamer think “think event isn’t for me”. But we’ve built a solid foundation of casual gamers, and our events are supported by a large community of players that are welcoming.
But the question I usually get is: “Do you run any RPGs at game nights?”. Well, we don’t really ‘run’ any games specifically except for maybe Wonky and Dixit. We ‘run’ a community, and that community pretty much decides for themselves what they’re going to play. Our owners and gurus collectively know the first names of thousands of players that show up to various events, and we leverage this community to find a place for new players when they show up to see what game night is all about. Here’s a good post if you’re looking for ways to join, support, and help grow that community between game nights. If you’re an RPG player looking to host or join games in the area I suggest joining and commenting in some of those Facebook groups and Facebook and Meetup events, and of course showing up to an event just to meet people and get in some board gaming.
One gamer is doing just that! Ryan Thompson it going to be running an Old School Renaissance (OSR) D&D campaign on a Monthly basis at Dragonmead brewery! Check out his blog for more details, and feel free to post in this week’s event for more details!