Last Thursday I went out to the Friendly Local Game Store to partake in Living Forgotten Realms.  LFR is shared-world campaign that is played throughout the country.  Essentially you can create an LFR legal character, take it to any LFR event, and play it in an ongoing shared setting.  The Tucson RPG Guild organizes a weekly LFR event at Hat’s Games. It’s an easy way to get a D&D 4th edition fix without any commitment.  Although I enjoy going and I’ve had fun the few times I’ve gone, these LFR events have their advantages and disadvantages.

I like it for several reasons.  It’s a nice way to socialize and meet new people.  The Tucson LFR is averaging about 25 people each Thursday.  Like the monthly Tucson RPG Guild Gatherings, you get to meet and mingle with people outside of your regular gaming group.   It’s really nice for trying out different characters.  You can roll up a new character and try it out, but you won’t be saddled with it for the entire campaign like you would in a traditional campaign.  There’s no commitment.  I’m a busy guy with a full time job, wife, and two small kids.  It’s hard for me to commit to much of anything regularly.  Somehow, I’ve managed to make all my bi-weekly Swords & Wizardy games, but anything outside that is hard for me to make.   I like being able to drop into a game when I feel like it.

Another big thing that LFR has going for it is it’s very friendly to the RPG newcomer like me.  There are generally pre-generated characters available if you are not comfortable with character generation.  Like I said before, it’s a great way to try out characters.  It helped me with learning character generation, because I built a character, took it to LFR, realized some mistakes I made, but wasn’t stuck with those mistakes.  It can also be a way to find a regular game.  I’m sure that there are plenty of folks at LFR events looking for players.

There are some thing I don’t like about it though.  The few modules I’ve played have been rather bland.  The stories have been rather uninteresting and tend to be light on role-playing.  The combats were not particularly well designed.  Also, you can end up with a DM who is unfamiliar with the module they are running, since they may have not had time to prep and they don’t have the control over the story that they would in a home-brew campaign.  Luckily, Thursday, I had a great DM who handled the RP really well and kept the game moving which is important in 4th Edition.  The last time I went, which was some time ago, my DM was not so well prepared, though.  So, the DM’s can be hit and miss.  You don’t really get a sense of an ongoing story or shared world.  At least I haven’t.  Maybe I haven’t played enough to really get that experience though.  Since it is a shared world, you don’t really have any way to affect it in any meaningful way.  One other thing is, you don’t quite have get camaraderie that you get from a regular game with the same group of people which is a big part of what I like about the hobby

Still, the trade offs are worth it to be able to drop in on a game, no muss no fuss.  Check out Living Forgotten Realms some time if you’re a fan of 4th edition.