Hello Variants! Berry here, welcoming you to the Port of Entry! Any and all willing creatures are welcome here.

When I began to play more and more TTRPGs, my friends who had not yet joined the community became interested and asked to join. As I welcomed them into our games, it became increasingly apparent that many TTRPGs are more complex than a lot of board games. For one, TTRPG games take place largely within the theater of the mind. We as players are not limited by a meeple or symbol when representing ourselves or the characters we’ve built, nor are we locked within the confines of a game board or play mat. Furthermore for many TTRPGs, the rules that outline the game operate as suggestions or guidelines rather than hard rules from which we are not to stray. When compared to card, board, or even other dice tabletop games, TTRPGs are their own unique culture.

In pondering the many differences between traditional tabletop games and TTRPGs over never ending bowls of pasta, J and I determined more could be done to lower the barriers of entry to the TTRPG hobby. In our planning, a mighty dragon emerged from its lair in the depths of our imagination, and thusly the Port of Entry was brought into being. This series is designed as the first stop for new TTRPG players, aiming to be “Everything you wanted to know about that Dragon game but were too afraid to ask”. And although we intend this to focus largely on new Dungeons and Dragons players, we encourage experienced players, and players of other TTRPG systems to give it a read as well. If nothing else, it may help remind us all what it was like to be new at the table, but perhaps we can all learn something new along the way.

Allow me to be the first to welcome you to this Port of Entry, there is no passport required!