Dungeon World, or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Enjoy the Game

Last Saturday, I attended a party that was being thrown by this local RPG Meetup group that I happen to belong to. Since I had been on hiatus from the hobby (and the group as well), I thought it would be nice to drop by, have a beer or two, and maybe play a game if the opportunity presented itself.

When I arrived with a two-liter of coke in hand and a set of dice in my pocket, I quickly found myself at the large table in the dining room watching a few of the party guests playing a game of Pirate Fluxx. While they were playing, another guest mentioned they'd be playing a game of Pathfinder later and I was welcome to roll up a character. Seeing that I had been itching to play some Pathfinder already, I was happy to oblige and ended up generating your typical, mercenary fighter (I felt like keeping things simple since it was just a one-shot. 

However, I slowly noticed the group who would be playing Pathfinder was growing bigger and bigger by the second. After all the party guests had arrived, I believed the final number of players was about nine. I've never been a big fan of playing in huge groups, I decided to bow out and spend my time chatting with a friend I hadn't seen in awhile who wasn't interested in playing either. 

After chatting for awhile and finishing off a bottle of Honey Brown Lager (which was delicious by the way), this friend mentioned he has brought a few games as well and if we could find a few more players, he'd be willing to run one of them. He brought Apocalypse World, Coyote Trail, Don't Rest Your Head, Dungeon World, FATE: Accelerated Edition, Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, and My Ex-Wife. While I personally wanted to give FATE: Accelerated a try, we eventually ended up playing Dungeon World. 

Now, I will make a quick confession: I had never played Dungeon World before that night and I was actually kind of nervous about it. While I had heard great things about the game, I always seem to get nervous when playing a game for the first time. If I had to take a guess why that is, I'd probably say its because I'm afraid I might mess something up since I'm not familiar with the rules and ruin the other players' time at the table. 

However, once I finished creating my dwarf fighter named Jarl Goblinslayer, I noticed my nerves slowly melting away and my excitement growing. There was just something about creating a character for Dungeon World that made me stop worrying about things and just enjoy myself. After everyone created their characters and we entered the Desecrated Temple of the Snake God Undu, I ended up having one of the most insane dungeon crawls of my life...and it was utterly awesome. So awesome in fact that I plan on purchasing the Dungeon World rulebook as soon as I have the money and playing it again as soon as I get the chance to. 

So, while it might sound cliche, I learned something last Saturday. I should let my nerves get to me when playing a game that I've never played before. Instead, I should focus on the excitement of playing a new game and seeing what this new system has to offer. From now on, I'm going to do my best to just put my nervousness towards new games aside and just let myself enjoy the experience.