Play Style Matters
Its all about who you know
The play style matters, its not the only thing that makes role playing fun, but it is whats going to make it either an unbearable experience, or the most fun a player has had in ages. And it starts with the DM. The dungeon master sets the games pace, and balances the events and ultimately controls the entire feeling a campaign can have.
A lot of people give D&D, Pathfinder, or other role playing games a hard time because all they can picture is a bunch of dressed up weirdos getting way too serious about a troll or a magic spell. A lot of people who consider themselves "nerds" won't even touch it. I've played many campaigns, with many groups, and many DMs. Not once have I dressed up to play, or have i ever used an alternative voice to my own. I have played with people who have, and i don't fault them for it, but its never been my cup of tea.
The best play-throughs I've ever had were light, funny, and had a good balance of action intertwined. I have gotten nine people to play D&D with me, nine people who had never played before, nine people who were skeptical. And now those nine people are addicted, they want to play every month. And i believe that their good experience as a group and the light hearted and fun environment we built around our campaigns has every bit to do with their love for the game now.
If You're Not Laughing, You're Not Doing It Right
Most sessions we spend more time laughing than we do rolling the dice. The freedom role playing games like D&D and Pathfinder gives a player is infinite. And when the DM gives his players leave to, or even encourages players to be ridiculous from time to time, it makes for some wild adventures.
We've had a gender fluid gnome who's antics have foiled the party's attempts at investigation on many fronts, by being both as perverse, and as disturbing as possible.
We've had an unlucky mage, who had a fire spell back fire and burned one of his teammate's extremities off (I'll let you use your imagination).
We've had a dragon piss on a door handle and it ended up giving it magical properties.
My point is the game can be much more than a dungeon crawl. If you are with the right group of people you are going to have just as much fun getting nothing done, and failing miserably at simple in-game tasks, as you would powering through and epic adventure.
And oh, there's more, so much more
I've touched lightly on the topic of playing with the right group of people, and adding the right mixture of madness into the game. But i did not begin to talk about the technical aspects of role playing that make it fun, the choices and imagination you get to use to either soar high, or fall hard.
There is a deep meta culture based around owning and purchasing as many dice as any one human should ever own, as well as other accessories and items you pick up in the real world that make it more of a hobby than a game.
Soon i hope to touch on these subjects in another post. But for now i hope you read this post, and either want to try it for the first time, give it a second chance with a new group if you had a bad experience, or you just have the itch to play again with your favorite play group after reading this.