Every town has a friendly local gaming store (sometimes abbreviated to FLGS in online discussions). The name varies from place to place here ours is called "The Gameshelf" and its locally owned and operated. Every town will generally have at least one. I suggest doing some searching. If my tiny ass Canadian city of 120k people can have 3-4 of these places. I'm sure most cities will have at least one.

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Also look for stores that have "magic the gathering" or other card game tournaments since those often overlap. At least here. You will usually be able to find players there.

I looked for stores with "Magic: The Gathering" card game tournaments. A website had a store finder and I looked at the websites for those within a reasonable distance, but none of them mention D&D so far. I don't even live in a city.

Often times you will find overlap in the hobbies. They usually list magic since its so big and popular compared to table top games. If not there WILL be people there who can help direct you. I guarantee you. On my word as an oldie of this forum. I doubt I will be wrong though.

Frankly, I still doubt my ability to find one and, even if I did, I was simply interested because it sounded as though it might be something fun to do with friends. There is only one of them whom I know would be interested. The rest wouldn't be patient enough to learn the rules properly. And, if we were all new, who would even be Dungeon Master? So, nope, I think I'll give D&D a miss.

I think you know the answer. If you build it, they will come. You could be the Game Master. I was, no one else wanted to do it. I built what I am from nothing but the whispered rumors of a friend. Generally regarded as an amazing game master. I wasn't always like this though. I started just reading the core rules to the best of my ability, and not sweating the mistakes too much at first until I got more comfortable playing. I never knew about my hobby shops at the time, so I carved out my gaming group through persistence. It started small, but quickly grew to be enormous. Then over time almost died off since the older players had real life stuff to do. Now it's stable again. Growing too fast even, too much players can be a bad thing.

Everything I've done has been under my own sheer willpower and determination because I knew how fun it would be. It is worth it because its not an experience someone can just get these days. Was it worth all of the work and cost? Yes, TT RPG's have become a good passion of mine. All I had to go off of was "hey this sounds fun". I bought the books and did all the work and for the most part still do today. Though my players will occasionally chip in. Then again I have come to like collecting these books and reading them just because its so interesting. I doubt anyone will go as far as I have, but still. I was almost broke back then too and saved and scrounged.

I still have those original three used books I bought. Amongst my most cherished ones. I still run games with them 10 years later. Though less often these days. And even back in their heyday of use I played with them for 3.5 years. It's much less expensive when you look at it from that kind of perspective. The books will never be out of date. You could pull them out two decades later and run a game with them again.

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You can even play on Skype if need be.

When your broke and a video game comes out you want you can't get you sit there like a bump on a log. When you have a TT RPG and a game comes out you can't afford you don't really care, since you can play something new anytime you want.

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More TT RPG's then you can ever imagine. http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/

There's a difference, however. I have literally nobody to play it with, not even one person who could spread it about to attract more. Besides, I don't have much willpower, I'm lazy like that. I never stick to any hobby if it becomes challenging. Martial Arts, Photography, Warhammer 40K, Model Making. D&D would just be added to that list. It's why I enjoyed gaming, I suppose.

Oh well, guess your Blearch won out this time. http://theoatmeal.com/comics/running

That was actually rather amusing. I think I might give D&D a go. There were some people I have on Skype who I met and played some online RPGs with. If they liked those, maybe I could convince them to give D&D a go? Skype isn't the same experience as being around a friend's house in person, but it'll let me try out the game at least, right?

The few people I know with a knowledge of the game want me to be Dungeon Master for their games. How hard is it to do this? Like, are D&D's rules really complicated, or can most of them be taken as simply guidelines so long as you all have fun? Kind of like how people have different rules each for Monopoly...