D&D Group for Expats in Warsaw needs one more player...

It's been a blast playing so far, including a total party kill of experienced players, but we really do need one more player to round out the group. A couple of Poles were admitted into the group (against my better judgement because none of those people can keep a schedule - and usually they just want a free English convo class to add insult to injury) and both have dropped out.

When I say we're busy people I mean we work weekends AND travel, plus have family comittments. But busy people know how to make time. It is the not so busy people you need to worry about. So I am really bummed as I write to relate that the non-busy people have given the busy people the lame-o excuse that they are too busy... etc.

We have 3 players and the optimum player count is for 4+. It's sort of like Bridge that way. I will only accept expats now, and I should have kept that rule in the beginning so I would not have to write this message and feel let down (again).

If you do not know what is D&D, it is a dynamic storytelling game created by the players and a game master - that would be me. It is done around a table and sometimes with a cold drink in hand. It's a blast and a great way to meet interesting mature people who are otherwise busy. No experience is necessary.

Please drop me a line. I really would like to fill this spot as soon as possible.

If it would have been the opposite in UK, that only Polish persons were allowed to join, people would have been screaming like maniacs about racism.

Lucky we still have the freedom to choose with whom we associate and meet up.

Hello there!

Are you still looking for a fourth player? What version of the game do you play?

Would you accept someone for only a month?

Hi. Thanks for your interest and the great question.

The next game will be on the afternoon of 22 August; allowing for the holiday period to pass.

In general, it would not be a good idea for a player to join us for only one month - from the perspective of team building. Check out the Facebook group. If there is a familar face there, I would consider it in general.

facebook.com/?ref=home#!/group.php?gid=114651881879023

Specifically, you'll probably be gone by then. Sorry to have missed you.

Well, as I'm here just for the summer course I will be, indeed, gone by the end of the month.

Anyway, thak you for your response. I wish you good luck with your "quest" for the 4th player and some nice and well-played adventures!

One year and 11 days since the original post seekingplayers and we have quite a group. Looks like summer 2011 will be a slow period again. Still looking for new players, especially people who have never played before.

The current group has two Canadians, one American, one Bulgarian, one Italian, one Dane, one Finn, one Greek, and one Dutch: 2 women and 7 men.

But there is always room for more at a tabletop RPG. There are no counters and no game board just a relaxed, collaborative atmosphere of shared storytelling. If you're creative and imaginative or which to develop that part of yourself; if you enjoy people and wish to leave the stress of your daily life with a mental holiday as one of a group involved in an epic storyline solving mysteries, overcoming mythical creatures with might and magic and generally imagining yourself as a hero among heroes... really, what are you waiting for?

You remember the television show, Fantasy Island? Well this game is it.

So what are YOU waiting for, oh weakness, sitting alone in that smokey bar with that loud hammer on your skull and that shouting pratter that sends you unconscious; where 20 PLN is ripped from your wallet hourly one 20 at a time, and your clothes reek of stale purfume, alcohol and smoke...?

Also we have a group movie night coming up on 13 May 2011. ...
What did you expect the movie would be for a D&D group...?

Watching HBO's weekly medieval drama Game of Thrones, the movie night in 9 days, the next game of D&D on the 15th, living in Poland with so many castles and battlefields to visit and having a bunch of creative people around me for friends, it strikes me how different is my experience of this country than when I was surrounded only by people who paid for my creativity and whose motives were business motivated.

Although I am sure it doesn't approach the popularity of Dungeons & Dragons, it appears that there is another role playing game out there called "Rifts" that was created by a Polish-American named Kevin Siembieda.

somethingawful.com/d/dungeons-and-dragons/wtf-dnd-rifts.php Can anyone one the forum confirm that Siembieda is a Polish surname? It looks like it to me.

Poland has a number of homegrown games that are, or were, very popular like Dzikie Pola, Kryształy Czasu or Neuroshima.

Dzikie Pola actually has a direct connection to Polish history which would be interesting for expatriate players in terms of learning the origin point of some Polish customs and traditions. (Naturally, tragically, it is not sold in English.) The stories would be played independent of history, but be completely surrounded by the historical context. A good way to learn and increase empathy, IMHO.

Just giving this a bump ahead of September.
There will be an old sKool renaissancegroup
lulu.com/product/ebook/quick-primer-for-old-school-gaming/3159558 formed after the summer with (at the moment) two American players new to Poland. These new intakes make the core playing group of us at about 15 persons now. 12:3 in terms of male to female players with a medium age of 33, mix of working business professionals and students. We plan weekend games about 12-weeks in advance with a quorum of 3 players minimum. Then, if you can make it after all, drop in on the game with your character. The quorum ensures we plan to play.

And ladies, old sKool renaissance is perfect for more story and less fighting. So if you are on the fence about joining a bunch of combat intense men, consider this new group the antedote.

The game continues. ... but I am without Internet. So I cannot check on your replies. The next game is 4 weeks away from Saturday.... and new players need to be prepared.... and I am without Internet until Late NOVEMBER.

Yeah, I am not giving out my phone number here. LMAO

Maybe a player who is online here can take over the duty of collecting responses?

ALso.... there may be another movie night but it will be arranged offline, the old fashioned way, face-to-face. Conan wasn't bad a couple of weeks ago. Knights of Badassdom looks even better, IMHO.

youtube.com/watch?v=kn1I4Stb-o8

Sounds like "fun" for losers.

Sounds like someone is jealous of others that have a social life.

The request was ages ago, but if D&D is still on and you're still looking for players, I'm moving to Warsaw in a week. I haven't played in ages, and I only played once (not very good chemistry in that group) but I loved it. One of my best mates is currently in a very long ongoing D&D group that I haven't joined because I've been in China and am now about to move to Poland, so this sounds like it'd be a lot of fun. But again: not much experience playing, just love the game.

We would be a poor group not to exist anymore - since August... LOL Actually, we have been a group that has been steadily growing for the past two years. Lots of expats not interested in the usual get-togethers and wanting to meet people like themselves. D&D seems to fit that bill, attracting both men and women.

As I mentioned in my PM, I am without Internet - and you are real lucky to catch me tonight at a friend's house. I won't have Internet until December at the earliest.

Give me a call and we can see about how to integrate you into the group in time for the next game.

And if anyone else is interested, check out the Facebook Group Page. Not all our members are on Facebook but we keep a page open there for scheduling. ... and, of course, to let people know there is a group that won't disappear any time soon. If you're not on Facebook, you can always try to contact me but that will be difficult until the new year.

And we may have a movie night coming up to bring together our TWO gaming groups.

youtu.be/38an1IAG1TA

Yes, we're still here: bringing foreigners together through the power of imagination for the last 2 years (or so).

And, I am still Dark. But I do check in occasionally. The group has grown to a score of people and two games groups on alternating weekends. Newbs and casuals always welcomed.

The group has a blog. Come and meet other expats in Poland. The address to the blog is here: vecol.net/RPGPL

So... we're underground, in natural caverns that were reinforced by an Elven army with a pile of dead little lizard dog things and their large weasel pets around us. Up ahead is the cavern where all these thing came out of. What's next...?

This is the event of the week for our group in Warsaw. We don't dress up or anything like that in the game. Everything is imagined and verbally described. So this is a great opportunity to actually touch what we have been describing for the 2.5 years.

youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=byZ6lkFmtmk

We will be back to playing next weekend. "To the Battle!"

Next game is 19 May.

Continuing the adventures of a group of medieval adventurers who are in way over their heads.

Players do not need to know rules, and no prior experience is required to enjoy the game.
Just contact me if you want to try it out before the next game.

Summer hiatus. People on holidays and travelling means we stop the story and restart in October, when everyone is back.
(And we pick up some more players in the summer, introducing them to the game, to play with everyone back in the fall.)

Until then, a few California hipsters got together and explained role-playing - the greatest game of all time - for your enjoyment. @10:00 - 13:00
From Kriegspiel, invented in the 19th century, to H. G. Wells in 1913, to Gary Gygax Dungeon Master in 1970-ish, the trajectory of how the game came to be:

densepop.com/dense-pop-episode-01-dungeons-and-dragons

Dropping a few names:
RobinWilliamsBillGatesVinDielselNathanFillionAsiaCareraWilWeatonBustaR hymes....etc

I heard about it because one of my peeps, now in California, is interviewed on the podcast.
Yes, role-playing opens doors everywhere and builds social networks.... not only for hipsters.

Anways, 30 minutes and it's a nice listen.

Asia Carera was one of the first pûrn actresses to be a member of Mensa. Victoria Paris was another, whom also has a degree in Nutrition.

Shouldn't that be who?

A podcast in California, recently launched to uncover the coolness quotient of pop culture, tried to define role-playing games. It's an good outsider looking in view with interviews jump cut into the mix like the best of public radio in the States. It is decidedly unBBC. But I thought to pass along this podcast since the topic is friendly to "normal people" ie. non-gamers. Our group is not a hobbyist-activity group and this is a better introduction to role-playing than a niche hobby podcast, of which there are many. I encourage "normal people" to consider meeting others through role-playing games as an alternative to, and a complement of, whatever else exists.

densepop.com/dense-pop-episode-01-dungeons-and-dragons

In our teens and 20s, there are few things as important (or integral) to the enjoyment we derive from life as our friendships. When you're in your 20s, weekends are a whirlwind of activity spent laughing and joking with a group of friends, mainly about something you did together last weekend. This may not be the case in our 30s, 40s and beyond.

ca.shine.yahoo/best-friends-thing-past-age-30-160000686.html

Making Friends, and rebuilding an expat's social circle in Poland is what brought this group together. It is the focus of the Greyhawk game.

New players always welcome. No experience necessary.

There is a type of Asperger's gamer that does not play-well with others that is not particularly welcome in our group of people looking to make connections and new friends. They are the well-known stereotypical, anti-social, Min-Maxed argumentative, condescending, competitive rule-slaves whom like to lord over their experience. These guys, more suited to video gaming, are sung about in parody:

(Because of spamming issues you may not post outgoing links or certain characters. You may remove "http" This rule is applied to all Guests and registered members who have posted less than 2 useful messages.) So you know what to do next.....

://t.co/otsHsmLZ

You will evidence the obvious in our group: that most people who actually like to play a social game together, rather than shout into a microphone-headset in front of a computer monitor, are friendly. But check out the song anyway. It is a sardonic anathema to jerks. You might have to have played an RPG to appreciate it though. Sorry about that.

By the way, the song is from the same guys who made the music for a commercial for Levi-Strauss/Dockers, which aired during Super Bowl XLIV.

I am always wondering to myself about the success of our group. I mean not everyone is a geek or even a Dungeons & Dragons "hobbyist." Most people are just plain, well... normal. We have had two engagements and one marriage (this past month) happen in the group. Saturday we are going to the movies (again). Last weekend, 4 couples went away to Zakopane together. We play D&D and we do other things together. Perhaps using the role-playing to test out how others behave or react in a given circumstance or, maybe, testing ourselves out through the process. When the game session ends, everyone is back to their normal, safe, selves. But some of that wall, that social barrier we put up around strangers, is removed.

If you're like me, wondering, or if you look down your nose at role-playing games (it's okay to admit it - maybe it is not for you), here is a post to think about.

"I truly believe that games like D&D help round out our social skills..." 12most.com/2012/07/31/life-lessons-playing-dungeons-and-dragons

"I have only been playing Dungeons & Dragons for a short time. My learning was greatly accelerated by a family member who owns 1st editions books.

Once you learn the basic rules then you can feel free to jump into any imaginary world. There is a great deal to learn from games of this type where the focus is on cooperation and not competition. The following is how I have applied those lessons to my life."

1. Teamwork
2. Looks are deceiving
3. Conflict is not a bad thing
4. Random chance is real
5. More numbers than 10
6. Everything has a use
7. Sometimes failing is entertaining
8. It only takes one good roll
9. Stupid can be brilliant
10. Charisma helps
11. Leadership is a skill
12. Games are not just for kids

Read the full article at:

12most.com/2012/07/31/life-lessons-playing-dungeons-and-dragons

"...positive social development across childhood and adolescence requires investments beyond development of the academic curriculum."

== Childhood Social Relationships Key to Adult Happiness ==
Article written by guest writer Rin Mitchell
ARTICLE: bigthink.com/ideafeed/childhood-social-relationships-key-to-adult-happiness

from SOURCE:

Positive social relationships in childhood and adolescence are key to adult well-being, according to Associate Professor Craig Olsson from Deakin University and the Murdoch Children's Research Institute in Australia, and his colleagues. In contrast, academic achievement appears to have little effect on adult well-being. The exploratory work, looking at the child and adolescent origins of well-being in adulthood, is published online in Springer's Journal of Happiness Studies.

medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-early-relationships-brainpower-key-adult.html

Maybe it is not /so/ important to link the RPGs hobby to anything more than what it already does: bring neighbourhood kids and teens together regularly to cope in simulated situations presented as a game at a table? And quite possibly this can also be replicated within the expat community. Away from their home networks, they can build a new local network of friends through the same child-like social exploration?

You mean Sheldon Cooper types :)

Would be fascinated to eavesdrop on one of your evenings,see how the people with different national myths bring a slightly different edge to their game. Norse,Greek,Roman, must have an impact on styles.

Do you find this at all? Are American players more influenced by more modern interpretations,ie,fantasy novels and movies....do Danes hark back to Vikinger styles? Can you trust that Greek if he comes with a gift? :)

Hi.

I am so far away from "those types" I have no idea who a "Sheldon Cooper" is. And I am not Googling.

You're very right about the different nationalities presenting themselves in game. The Sheldon Cooper types present a specific gamer culture... but normal people bring their own lives to the table. I enjoy inflicting ethical and moral decision-making on the players and watching what they do with the problem and how they rationalise through it. Is homicide ever justifiable? And if it is, perhaps not justified but expediently beneficial, what happens to the players characters according to law? It's the old question about Hitler: knowing what we know today, were you to travel back in time when he was a POW during WW1, would you shoot him? How would you handle the situation regards the law courts: run, accept punishment..? Would murdering Hitler even have an impact on later events: delaying or accelerating them maybe? Do we have agency or are we simple living a predetermined life?

I guess it is possible to sit around a living room and have these discussions once a fortnight but I think it would be rather boring after a while - even annoying. Play it in a game and vary the situations and the experience is changed. Beats all hell out of the questions: "Why did you come to Poland? Do you like Poland? Do you have a job and make money? Are you planning to stay in Poland.....? All of which tell me nothing about the person besides the bored, sometimes rehearsed answers.

Playing D&D With prn Stars a blog about playing role-playing games describes our default play style: Picaresque

"So this is what a D&D party so often is: not a group of people necessarily destined to grow and change and bend to conform to Principles of Drama, but a group of people who demonstrate, with infinite variation, how you can get through life by enacting different styles of being week after week in different short stories.

And what styles are these? These are styles that emerge organically from the psychologies of the people playing them, and styles that, from a distance all look like "pulp fantasy" but, on further insepction, reveal shades of differences in tactics and role-playing that are really differences in outlook. And when you put these differences in outlook together in a crowded matrix of poorly-lit 10x10 rooms for a few months, you get drama. And comedy. And it's all a surprise. And it's fun."

Just thought I would share this with the gamers who read these posts. Our game is definitely much more about meeting people than it is about anything else.

So a documentary about the origins of D&D is being put together and the tailer makes it look like a thorough bit of journalism. The same as ENRON was not about the energy industry, this documentary is not about the game per se. Of course, you can learn much about the energy industry from ENRON so I assume you can learn something about the game from this film which is more for anyone interested in something besides moving army men on a battle mat game board or rolling dice as "play actors," who can conceptualize how such a game can affect group dynamics. In short: The Sheldon Coopers will find this boring. Normal people might find this fascinating.

Here is the kickstarter for it - the place whee the trailer can be seen:

And if anyone wants to meet other foreigners, you know our Dungeons and Dragons group is especially created for that kind of group dynamic.

10 Business Lessons I Learned from Playing Dungeons & Dragons

javaworld.com/community/node/3156

"I played in standard D&D and other created-worlds (such as Harn), but mainly I played in independently-created universes, at the whim of a particular dungeonmaster (DM).

I got real jobs as a result of playing D&D, one of them directly. One DM hired both my husband and me after we'd played in his universe for five months, because D&D is a great way to find out how someone solves problems and copes with stress. However, in this post I'm not talking about people-networking but rather gaming skills that map to real life."

The author is talking about "Old School" role-playing... It is worth a read and will disabuse the belief that role-playing games are strickly dice rolling and rules arguments. Our group is Old School. We bathe.

Giving this a bump because there is a game on Saturday 22 September, and I might be able to include one more person if I have a chance to prepare them a few days beforehand.

New intakes this month stand at four. That's pretty awesome for one month, particularly a September. The larger group meets on a date in October, not yet determined because not all the players have returned to Warsaw.

Remember, if you want to join us, experience is un-necessary. You do need to meet me so you can be prepared to play at the game; and once you are prepared it will take me a few days to include you. It's not the sort of thing you show up for fresh off the street.

The next date looks chosen as Saturday 15 October. I have time to prepare more players before that time but I think I will close off my game group (20 people!) after that because it gets to be too much work for me accommodating and preparing new players who drop in.

Players of these games play a role in a story, and the in-game conversations are quite lively, making this an interesting method to get to know people indirectly. But it also takes time to prepare new players because I have to work with them to create a story character on top of what I do with the main group. I want to have a break from that over the balance of the fall and winter months.

What is D and D, The Shadow? I googled it and got a range of different answers.

D&D is a role-playing game. It is a game where you, as a player, play a role inside a story with other players. It is a conversation starter. It is problem solving. It is a good verbal work out and a fine way to meet other people. At the game you have a character name, a list of possessions you carry and visual description of yourself written on a piece of paper. This is something you work on before playing the game. It is your persona. Depending on the story genre, you can play a detective, a housewife, a slave, an adventuring hero... basically anything you fancy within the story. One player, usually me, creates the story world around players. The players interact, react and act on data I provide, which you imagine. The point is you can change the world by your actions together with the other players.

Like any other game, this one is challenging, has risk involved and it is fun. Player skill is basically how people think, and they express themselves collaboratively within the story. Unlike other games, role-playing has no board, no counter pieces, is not competitive. It creates experiences that are imagined but which form a bond between players who go through the adventures together, working together just like in other team building exercises.

Examples of games:

Steal Away Jordan
Call of Cthulhu
And, of course, D&D (Dungeons and Dragons):

No experience is necessary or required. But I have to meet new players to create their character before they can attend the game.

Our table is allot like the way it is presented in this commercial. Sucks that the Youtube link function does not seem to work.. Try the link below to leave this site and go to Youtube to watch it.

youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TJdT52EsGIU

Maybe I am a bit simple and for sure very old-fashioned...but this is sooo artificial. We meet up with our friends for a beer, for dinner, for a walk in £azienki.

No role playing. For that one I have a good book and a cold beer in the Old Town.
But again, maybe I am totally oldfashioned :(

Truly your posts here tend to be woefully simplistic, but if you were really old-fashioned you would see the value that D&D has for its players. The game harkens back to a time of adventure before life became mechanized and dreary. Although I haven't played it since I was in junior high, I will always have fond memories of the escape it offered, and I also credit the game for teaching me methods of scholarship which would serve me well in my academic career.


It is the artificiality of modern life that D&D seeks an escape from. Looked at from the Heideggarian perspective of Being-Towards-Death most modern lives, and most modern deaths, are so very paltry. Whilst in D&D, life, and death, even the deaths of the most lowly characters, are very interesting. Even being "slain by an owl" is preferable to wasting away in a sterile hospital bed.


^Case in point regarding the paltriness of modern recreation.


You are not. Your blandness is utterly modern.

Consider your situation were you to leave your friends and all that was familiar to become a stranger in a foreign country where the culture and language was - for the most part - limited to within its national borders. It is not so easy to read the character of the local people, or the characters of other foreigners for that matter, when you have little context.

You could arrive as the spouse caring for the house or as the breadwinner promoted to a developing emerging market by your career aspirations. You might find that your focus, as either spouse or breadwinner, centers on inviting business peers to dinner. You might realize this is a communal effort that extends from workplace to your kids' international schoolhouse, soliciting invitations to a specific social strata of people who are actually potential business contacts.

Consider the role-playing from that perspective....

You might arrive to your job in a foreign country without a spouse. After reading the advertisements in the local guides and foreign language press, you might decide to visit an establishment because of its allure to foreigners, or you may be curious about the flash mob scene, as a way to meet strangers. You may soon find yourself surrounded by an over-abundance of job seekers and assorted salespeople.

Consider the role-playing within role-playing going on in such meetings....

A locally situated p1ss artist who floats from one employer to another, seeking a job rather than following a career, will always have a much easier time meeting people. The success of these people is anchored in the social element. But associating with p1ss artists can get tiresome as such roles quickly play themselves out.

You may be the only person I have every come across who has never role-played - what we tabletop role players would call LARP (live action role-playing). At least, at our meeting, we agree the situation we role-play is fantastic and, perhaps because of this, we tend to role-play ourselves in character. You may think of what I am describing as a kind of "IQ Test" for empathy, morality and values.


This is a very incisive observation about our gathering of people! Plenty of times humour fills the room as we look upon ourselves with a kind of distance we do not usually experience when we role-play in our real life settings. Strangers become friends sooner by getting to know each other under these circumstances and then, sobieski is correct: we also meet up for a shared drink, dinner and activities together.

I am closing the door on new joiners to my game today. I have tried my level best to meet with new people and prepare their characters so they can join the game but it is too time consuming for me to continue that at this time. I still have the responsibility for creating the story, handout materials, visual designs of coats of arms etc., but I need some time for myself. The main group returns to play on Saturday and having today, tomorrow and Friday to meet someone new, create a character with them and then meet them again to play a short game before they join the main group is now impossible to manage time-wise. So, until further notice, the door to my game is shut.

The general group, however, is large enough (40+ people!) that it supports three other games being played parallel to mine. These games are less accessible to those new-to-the-hobby (i.e. people who are not min-maxers, rules lawyers and munchkin lovers or who know to what those terms refer). These are elitist, competitive games unlike the social and story emphasis of my collaborative game. I would be happy to forward people to those games but, here's the catch, you MUST be an experienced wargamer. So Private Message me the name of games you have played and I will pass along your eMail to the other gamers. But it goes without saying that if these guys are not interested they will not have the courtesy to contact you.

My game resumes for the winter in 72 hours but I am sealing the group until further notice. Have a great long winter!

Okay, so I see this forum is having issues with its features. Nice. Nothing says welcome home quite like broken..

This video was posted on Youtube today and has garnered almost 800 comments at this moment. If you take a look at it (perhaps a moderator can fix this feature?) you may see some of the rationale behind meeting strangers and developing friendships through a role-playing game.

Listen to Tolkien - writer, Great War veteran and professor.

After we have seen Skyfall and while we're anticipating The Great Gatsby now in May, we have the next movie for the list of movie nights.

Seems tailor made for inside laughs. (Yeah, we don't like those guys either.)
youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eiz95K1ngiI

It cannot be said enough, the appeal of our group is broad. A fun game that lets you understand other players' thinking and get to know them. This article points that out.

The last game of 2012 was played and we've had our Christmas party. Like all our group get togethers, we met at someone's home in Warsaw and tasted cuisine from China, Norway, Venezuela, Holland, Canada, Greece and Kaziksan. Christmas Day will have a group of us go to the movies for The Hobbit - of course. Then there is the annual new year's eve party.

We start up again on 5 January. We have a new person to Warsaw joining us so if you want to join us, now is a good time.

Merry Christmas!

Well, one of our players has left Poland to return home to further her career prospects so today was a little sad as we "retired" her character. It is funny how you can become attached to some people just through their interaction in a game. She played a friendly character just like her personality: helpful, inquisitive, and a problem-solver. All good attributes for even a wizard or an accountant.

So we have another place at the table so soon for an English speaking expat who wants to meet other expats. And the story continues.

• 
  It's worth noting here.. ...
  

Hi there.

I was going to message you about possibly joining your group, but apparently i have to send three posts (of curiously unspecified length and import lol) before I am allowed to PM on this forum.

So, here's my first :D

Eco

I am going to go out on a limb here and assume this would not be your first experience with role-playing and that you are aware of the all the types. The particular game I lead is more focussed on players' skill rather than "pure acting" as in say Monsterhearts or Apocalypse World. There are other RPG-styles within the group but I am responsible for the OSR style AD&D 1e particularly as a method to meet people by getting to know them through their stated actions and beliefs. We do not rely on disarming traps, for a vivd example, by rolling dice but by a verbal description of disarming a trap.

That may be a slight over statement but it is useful to know. Players new-to-the-hobby tend to be happier with this style than players with experience in Pathfinder, for example. It is worth noting.

Shoot me a message when you can finally use the private message feature.

So the game, and its story, continues tomorrow afternoon. I am looking forward to it.

Also looking forward to our night out on Monday at Sala Kongresowa for the Gregorian chant troupe. That should be a hoot too.

The game continues tomorrow....

FOREIGNERS MAKING FRIENDS IN WARSAW

Remember high school, that place we had to go 5 days out of 7? Remember all the friendships we made back then, making plans to just hang out? Remember just hanging out? Remember when life was less self-monitoring and how easy it was to make friends when there was no pressure and social barriers were less concrete? Remember how you laughed at the jokes that might embarrass you, especially in the company of your professional colleagues today - the new place we go 5 days out of 7?

Well, short of going back in time, how do you make those close friends in later life? Those people you met and became close with in the good old days still exist. The difficulty is finding them and having a nurturing environment to grow the bond.

I have an answer for that in Warsaw.

Every two weeks, for the past three years, a group of us foreigners get together to play a tabletop role-playing game in English. You do not need to know all rules to play. This game is our platform to explore the attitudes and beliefs of strangers within a story where we imagine ourselves together. We come together first as strangers but, as we play, we become friends. We even start to share friendly camaraderie creating inside-humour and rekindling the embers of the social freedom we enjoyed in high school.

So make it a date to join us, regularly. It costs you nothing to join in but your time; and even that won't be a cost to you once you start to enjoy the group and reap the benefits of having close friends. It does take time but the time passes in friendly company.

For our partners, typically local natives, who do not participate in our tabletop role-playing game meetings, we have a Widow's Club where they all get to know each other and do things together. We also have private parties, cinema outings and shared trips together around this country. But it begins with us getting to know strangers through the attitudes and beliefs they express in our relaxed game before the door opens wider.

Nothing will change from your side of the computer monitor - or it would have already.

More information on benefits of role-playing:

An example of tabletop role-playing games - courtesy of Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher, from Star Trek: The Next Generation):

This is a real easy activity to get to know someone.
"I was amazed by how quickly the students picked up the game," Gilsdorf said. "A few of them seemed hesitant at first, but within the first 30 minutes, the groups really got into playing their characters - hobbits, dwarves, wizards. Before long, they began exploring the dungeon,battling orcs and trolls, casting spells and coming up with some really inventive solutions to the puzzles and traps I'd created. I was impressed by how much fun they seemed to be having."

Brittani Ivan class of '16, was among the D&D novices that took part in the game.

"I didn't know how you created a character, or even how game play worked. I vaguely knew there were lots of dice," said Ivan, who decided to be a "reckless, relentless elfin warrior."

However, Ivan threw herself into the game and was quickly hooked.

'I didn't want the game to end at the end of the night - I wanted to argue with the elf king and storm off to the next grand adventure right then and there. I was part of a fellowship on a life-or-death quest for three hours, and I lived every minute of it," she said.

Man, wish I could join you guys. Haven't played AD&D in years. I used to play as a teen in the 90's (we played 2nd ed), every Saturday and twice on Sundays. I made some great friends during those good times but sadly the core crew of 8 drifted apart geographically and we stopped. I agree that D&D really fosters long lasting friendships, fertile imaginations and quick thinking. What edition do you play mate?

Good afternoon to you!
We play AD&D 1e with modifications; more abstract than simulation but deadly "old school." 3D6 in a row. Player Skill is important (something lost in later iterations) and, starting at 1st-level, I encourage players to simply play themselves without a backstory. The group has a game in progress so I have no reason to fish for ideas from players at the start and I attract people who have never played before simply because my game is so low key and "system-less." Backgrounds can come into the game naturally. Muchkins are without a net and min-maxers find the combination of 3D6 in a row and no skills/feats frustrating. So I end up with mainstream ("normal") people new-to-the-hobby who come together to discuss personal attitudes, values and philosophy in the context of playing a team game. Their experience with each other and the game is direct without the rules mitiagating (Meta-Gaming) the conversation becaue new players do not know all the rules - which is how AD&D 1e was written to be played.

Also, when the game is broken out of the "Geek locker room funk" jailhouse, more women are drawn to the game and the players whose characters participate in its story. It's easier to stay in-character and have a fun time together when discussions about whether or not Hirelings deserve a portion of XP flies over the head of players rather than consume their thoughts.

We have sessions between 5 - 8 hours, depending on scheduling and including dinner.