Which level of German language (by TestDAF) is needed to play Pathfinder with native speakers?

Question

I currently live in Germany, and if everything goes OK, will stay there till June 2018. I am here to learn German language, and I am thinking about doing so via playing RPGs. It also seems to be a good way to make some contacts here.

The problem is that my German is currently pretty bad. I don't have any certificates, so I don't know my exact level, but some online tests reveal my skills to be slightly under the B1 level threshold.

1. I am not sure if I will be able to play well myself: if I don't understand a lot of words, I will likely make a lot of stupid moves, sometimes I will need much time to understand what was said.

2. I don't want to be a burden for my group. I don't want to anger them with having to clarify everything 10 times and repeat everything 100 times before I understand it, or with stupid moves that may lead to a party wipe because I activate some trap in a dungeon.

So, what level of German language do I need to play with native speakers? How can I overcome possible difficulties with the language?

I am going to mostly play online, as I live in a small village where I do have internet access, but seemingly no gaming groups around. If I find some gamers, I will probably attempt to play with them.

I would like to see answers from people who have either:

• Played with native speakers, being non-native speakers themselves
• Played with foreigners, being native speakers themselves

The language in your experience does not necessarily have to be German.

Answer 1

I live in Germany, I am native German, and occasionally play Pathfinder, in a college environment with several non-native speakers.

I can't say what level of competence you need based on a school test, but my experience showed me some interesting points:

• When rules are concerned, we often speak "Denglish" (German-english-blend), because a lot of specific terms we quote from the (original) english rules.
• a student from China who had some real trouble with German entered the group and we switched to english play. He wasn't quite happy with that, so bought himself the Lord of the Rings on German. In the following month we slowly shifted to a 'german dominated' play style, using occasional english to substitute for words unknown.
• I am in a long time Chat based RPG round of mostly German players. Up until mid last year we had a member on the US east coast, who had taken German as a college class as far as I know. I don't know if they ever took a formal test, but over the 4 years we played together, we rarely encountered language barrier problems. There was the occasionally "Was heißt noch gleich 'flower' auf Deutsch?" (for the Germans in reverse: What's 'Blume' again in English?), and we often gave them some help on sentence structure in the beginning, but that's about it - Rule discussions were done with the "Denglish" anyway.

So, some words of advise based on that:

• Look for an RPG group or club around the universities - the people in them speak a good english and quite some would take the little inconvenience of speaking english to get a new member.
• There are several websites in Germany that try to connect player groups. Some examples:
  • https://www.spielerzentrale.de/ - via Suchen (Search) you can try to find players around your Zip Code (Postleitzahl/PLZ)
  • https://www.spielerverzeichnis.org/spieler/rollenspiele/ is similar, listing individual players.
  • http://dmoztools.net/World/Deutsch/Spiele/Rollenspiele/Vereine_und_Clubs/ is an example list of RPG clubs.
• Local game stores often have a black board listing open groups or clubs. If your town doesn't have one, most of the large towns do. You might need to google for the shops (the term you might want to search for is "Fantasy shop")
• Try your German, if you don't know the word just substitute in English or ask for it.
• Germans know their language can be hard to master, and often can be quite forgiving.
• Take a game that has its rules puplished in both English and German. Reading the rules side by side could help you.
  • This also means to some extent: Fingers off German native RPGs like "Das Schwarze Auge", which is notoriously famous for having some of the most complex rule texts that highly rely on German semantics and no good English translation.

Addition after learning where:

• In Walsrode specifically there is the 'culture center' http://www.mittendrin-walsrode.de . Their workshops page lists a monthly RPG Workshop, and while their calender is a bit outdated, it does have a contact telephone number for more information.
• The Tabletop/Wargaming scene has a club in Walsrode: https://www.tabletopturniere.de/club/Khachamon