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To Make a Friend, Be a Friend

Establishing great gaming relationships with your fellow role-players is an integral part of enjoying the experience.

These days, the rosters of local gaming groups change frequently. Gone are the days when you got together with your close friends and started a gaming group. Role-playing game shops and the internet especially, make it much easier to join gaming groups of people you’ve never met. This leads to a whole new age of problems.

And if you think joining an established group is hard, try forming a new one; it’s much harder. Most people overlook the obvious reason this is so hard; in order to effectively role-playing game with a new people, a high level of trust is fundamentally necessary. The truism is “you can’t game with strangers.”

The Obvious That Needs to be Mentioned
You’ve probably heard it all before, but it bears re-thinking. Here are a few tips to get you started:

• Introduce Yourself - a name and a short description are much better than being ‘the new guy’.
• Be Polite - even as much or more than you are with your parents’ friends. (It works!)
• Learn Everyone’s Names - believe it or not, the more you say someone’s name, the more they like you.
• Share Your Interests and Remember Theirs - beyond gaming. What made those old-time, role-playing games so good were the outside friendships they were built on.
• Treat Everyone with Obvious Respect - even if you have to go out of your way to show it. (Why? Read the next line closely.)
• Give Trust to Get It - it’s a fact of life and yet so many people forget it. Everyone gets the benefit of your doubt, no matter what! If you trust everyone in the group explicitly, the rest of the group will defend you if you are taken advantage of. Honest!

Real Quality Goes Beyond the Gaming Table
I’ll say it again; if you want a great, role-playing gaming group, you must be friends with these people away from the table too. Do things together outside the sessions. Remember those interests I made you remember? This is what you can do with them. The important part is to learn to think of them as people (and especially as friends), not as gamers (or even just as their characters).

The best way to carry yourself is to be considerate, but tough enough to be honest. Make yours an equal relationship with neither taking advantage of the other. This is the best avenue to any friendship.

If you feel you are having trouble fitting in and may be upsetting the people in the group, keep an eye on the quieter members of the group. They usually reflect the feelings of an established group the most, just not verbally. If they look uncomfortable, do what you can to throttle back and be more sensitive; if they look happy or excited, you’re doing fine.

Because everyone has such a personal investment in the game (especially in their characters), avoid all conflict with players and be careful in conflicts with characters. Players often identify quite closely with their characters and take insults and injury to them quite seriously. Remember? “Treat Everyone with Obvious Respect.” This is where ‘tough, but honest’ is most necessary. Make it clear where you stand, focusing on the outside of the game situation. (Such as, “Only my character hates your character’s guts. I like you.”)

Possible Problems
You can go all over the internet and find real articles on how to deal with these: Favoritism, Best-Friend-itis, Turtle Players, Rules Lawyers and Month Hauls. The fact is almost every problem at the gaming table stems from someone not wanting to be taken advantage of, mostly a matter of being subversively defensive or overly generous. Be charitable and in order win their trust!

Finally
The most important thing to remember is that you’re there to share the fun! Nothing more, nothing less.

“This is an exhibition, not a competition. Please, no wagering!” — David Letterman