Curiosity

[TakodaVega]

While I've heard of D&D and things like that, I have always been drawn to the White Wolf spectrum of things.

The problem is I don't know much about it, save from what I've read from two of the books {Vampire: The Masquerade, And one of the Mage ones [though for the life of me I can't remember]} but I wanna learn! I'm not exactly picky but the problem is I think is none of my friends who have been really into this stuff have given the time when I have shown interest to at least take baby steps to help me figure stuff out T.T;

Granted - I think somewhere I still have my Vampire:The Masquerade video games but...>> I wanna learn the tabletop version. HELL I wanna learn Tabletop games in general. A lot more of my friends do D&D than white wolf, but I've played neither one. I think it was because there were a few specific White Wolf titles that crept into my 'browsing of Wikipedia' that caught my attention [Changeling and Scion; to list respectively].

BUT Since currently I'm not sure anybody would be willing to go around explain EVERYTHING to me [because I'm one of those types of people who needs to be hands on kind of taught?] I'll throw this question out to you guys -

How did you get into your tabletop games? Did you learn on your own or were you taught in a group or were you dragged into a game?

[TaemaNai]

I used to dislike WhiteWolf because its dice pools were, from the start, huge. It also felt too much like railroading because the setting was built directly into the system itself. Do werewolves have to be tragic? Do Tzimesce have to be more intellectual than social? Why can't we win against the Wyrm? There's plenty of things in life to invoke a depression so while I love the lore of WhiteWolf, I've not stuck with a game for long.

My first RPG (Final Fantasy doesn't count. I'm sorry, but it really doesn't) was Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition introduced to me by some friends in school. Now that I've carbon dated myself, the games sucked. But I kept playing until I found a game I liked. The DM, while reprehensible as a person, allowed players to do as they liked provided they played it through. Suddenly it was possible to make characters I hadn't considered. A wizard with a theoretical physics degree. A motorcycle riding paladin. An archaeologist with all the skills of an assassin but an aversion to killing. Cookie cutters just aren't nearly as exciting as asking the question 'What if' and roleplaying for me is about those sorts of questions.

So for a story-based system, WhiteWolf gets my respect and admiration. It's built around the simple idea of add a stat to a skill and roll the dice. That's the whole game right there, all of their games. Everything else is just the setting which is why I'm not as avid of a player for their system. I like asking questions.