Don't be afraid of the drop command! It's actually pretty simple and easy to use once you get used to it and use it a little bit. Read Vektorbosen's drop tut and keep it around for reference. Then grab one of the drop engines in the editors depot. Get started with a particle from one of those engines, then mess around with it to see a bit (using the knowledge you gained from the tutorial). You should be dropping great effects in notime!
I know, because I was like you a few weeks ago. I thought that the drop command was probobally preetty complicated and hard to use. But then I did the above, and now I'm pretty comfortable with the command.