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Pollyanna posted:Wait, why would Dungeon World be bad for newbies? It requires a solid grasp of PbtA GMing principles, like every other PbtA game.
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Jun 26, 2018 20:12
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Thom and the Heads posted:i'm looking for recommendations (and apologies in advance, i'm sure this has been asked a billion times at this point but i couldn't find a good "NOOBS START HERE" for RPG stuff) If you are fine with playing a one-shot game instead of an extended campaign with a dozen sessions, I'd recommend using Lasers and Feelings. It's a delightful little game set in space where the only stats are Lasers (what would Spock do?) and Feelings (what would Kirk do?).
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Jun 26, 2018 20:20
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Lemon-Lime posted:It requires a solid grasp of PbtA GMing principles, like every other PbtA game. This is only half of it. It requires a grasp of PbtA and fails to explain those principles adequately. If you sit down and try to run DW like D&D it'll suck. There's a reason that someone wrote a third-party guide because people just weren't getting how the game is intended to be run. Btw, Fellowship is a terrible suggestion for a complete newbie. It's a great game but in no way is it set up to be run by someone who has never seen an RPG.
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Jun 26, 2018 20:33
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So many good replies so far - thanks so much! So far, I'm really into the idea of Dread - I'm already thinking of bizarre, hosed up Lovecraftian things to put in front of my players. I think I'm going to start developing a scenario though the sample campaigns are super interesting. I'm definitely interested in 13th Age and Fellowship sounds neat - though I'm worried they may be more...involved than what my players are anticipating. I think it'd be a good idea to dip our toes with a self-contained, shortened campaign that doesn't require a lot knowledge of rules so I can see if they'd interested in the more in-depth stuff - that way we can all participate in creating a fun story without worrying about spending time going over minutiae. So I have some options. If they like the flow and collaborative storytelling elements of a game like Dread, then we can move on to the more traditional RPGs. If they hate it, oh well - we didn't waste too much time. Just looking through the DW and Pathfinder threads, I actually can't fathom starting them with that lol Splicer posted:What kinds of stories do you like? What story cliches do you like and dislike? I'm not opposed to high fantasy settings (Hell, I thought we were going to be playing Pathfinder until two hours ago) but I'll say I find them a little boring. I don't want to just have a campaign of killing various sizes of goblins and elves and poo poo. So alternative settings definitely interest me. I also think, since I'm likely going to end up being the DM no matter what we play, that I'd rather there be less crunchy rules. For now at least. I've always been drawn to tabletop RPGs because of the storytelling aspects, not so much the stat sheets and number crunching.
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Jun 26, 2018 20:34
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Thom and the Heads posted:So many good replies so far - thanks so much! I believe someone here ran an escape-from-Jurassic-Park game of Dread over a holiday break and it turned out well.
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Jun 26, 2018 20:41
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Thom and the Heads posted:So many good replies so far - thanks so much! There's a playthrough of Dread on the Geek and Sundry website which seems pretty solid if that'd be useful. There's also, like, 'Inspired by Stranger Things' settings for the game too which could be good as a buying in point.
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Jun 26, 2018 21:03
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Yawgmoth posted:You can't say that and not post the story! Sorry, I forgot to follow up on this So, this is almost entirely a story about one of the players, a Fighter played by a dude who we can call H. Did I mention that H had basically been out partying all night before our session and was half falling asleep at the table? So, we were exploring a city that was under siege, trying to find some magical item that we thought was responsible for weakening all of the high level casters and eventually determined it was in the City of the Dead, probably in the city founder's tomb. While we were navigating, H rolled extremely well and the DM decided that he stumbled over a big bag of money, like 1K gold. We were all making jokes about it being the founder's lost treasure and just kind of riffing on that theme. So we decide, hey, if we're gonna go into the City of the Dead and start hunting through old tombs, lets go to the Mage's college and see if they have any maps or histories or books that could help give us an idea of what we're looking for, you know the standard ancient curse or promise of vengeance type stuff. So, he has us all roll percentile to see if we find a useful book. H rolls a 1. His book starts trying to bite him. After a minor scuffle, he manages to kill the book. We suggest he then check if it was the book he was looking for. H rolls a 100. Our DM stops to think for a few minutes, and then eventually tells us that as he goes to check the book, it dissolves into smoke and a portal appears. Our wizard sticks his head in the portal and sees this humanoid figure peering into a crystal ball. The figure is covered in rotting clothes and is leaking black ooze from under his mask and in general is just some kind of abomination. The wizard gets out of there without being noticed and tells us what he saw, which is followed up with a lot of table talk with us trying to figure out what the hell just happened. Well H, in his vast sleepiness, decides that this dude was actually the city founder and that he should totally return his lost treasure and then good stuff would happen  . So he charges in there and goes up to the monster and says "Hey I think you dropped this". DM finally says "Roll Initiative". H still doesn't take the hint that this probably isn't working out like he planned even after the abomination looks up and yells "Infidel and Defiler". H then offers out the bag of gold again.The abomination then begins summoning a bunch of skeletons, and H finally realizes that things are going poorly and books it out the portal. So we've just been sitting at the table, watching this unfold being all  and  , so we ask him to explain what he saw since the rest of us stayed on the other side of the portal. After (poorly) explaining the events, he tells us that he was just glad he forgot to tell the GM that he meant to drop the bag of gold while fleeing.We gave the gold to a different character to hold onto, until H decides what he wants to buy (probably a healing belt once the siege is over). The Glumslinger fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Jun 26, 2018 |
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Jun 26, 2018 21:13
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I dunno, I ran Fellowship for a group of new players and it went pretty well. The fact everyone pitches ideas makes it very easy to run if you don't have solid ideas on where you're going. I'm not sure there is a worst game to GM first time, honestly; GMing is in general rough and I don't think any game is substantially easier to run than any other; some games just trade improvisation skills for mental arithmatic or tactical wargaming skills.
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Jun 26, 2018 22:54
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Thom and the Heads posted:I'm not opposed to high fantasy settings (Hell, I thought we were going to be playing Pathfinder until two hours ago) but I'll say I find them a little boring. I don't want to just have a campaign of killing various sizes of goblins and elves and poo poo. So alternative settings definitely interest me. I also think, since I'm likely going to end up being the DM no matter what we play, that I'd rather there be less crunchy rules. For now at least. I've always been drawn to tabletop RPGs because of the storytelling aspects, not so much the stat sheets and number crunching.
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Jun 26, 2018 22:54
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Before I forget, a number of crunchier RPGs do starter kits, which are boxes with an introductory adventure with pregenned characters and a pared down copy of the rules, usually with some maps and counters and stuff. They're designed to get you playing without throwing the whole game at you up front. The FFG star wars RPG has a couple of good ones, there's a D&D 5e one which... exists, and I hear pathfinders ones are good except for requiring you to play pathfinder. There's a small chance my personal opinions may have slightly influenced the above post.
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Jun 26, 2018 23:21
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The Glumslinger posted:So, this is almost entirely a story about one of the players, a Fighter played by a dude who we can call H. Did I mention that H had basically been out partying all night before our session and was half falling asleep at the table?
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Jun 26, 2018 23:44
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spectralent posted:I dunno, I ran Fellowship for a group of new players and it went pretty well. The fact everyone pitches ideas makes it very easy to run if you don't have solid ideas on where you're going. I'm not sure there is a worst game to GM first time, honestly; GMing is in general rough and I don't think any game is substantially easier to run than any other; some games just trade improvisation skills for mental arithmatic or tactical wargaming skills. There's a pretty big difference between someone who's played RPGs running a game for a bunch of new players, and an entirely fresh GM and entirely fresh players. Here are my suggestions *Any edition of D&D. Don't ask which edition, because it'll just open a huge can of worms. Just whatever edition you can get your hands on. The quality of the system doesn't actually matter here, they've got the advantage of fitting into the RPG-shaped-hole most people have. They are exactly the games most people think of when they think of D&D. If a player comes to the table with no idea other than "I want to play a wizard", you turn to the page labeled 'wizard' and there you are. If you remember hearing something about casting magic missile at the darkness or shooting fireballs, you can find those in the index. You don't need to make anything up, reskin anything or get involved with any of the higher-grade conceptual work that games like FATE or PbtA demand. It may not meet your needs for long-term play but it's totally unmatched in terms of cultural intertia and it's really hard to beat that with complete newbies. Every edition also has tons of support so finding basic, pre-made scenarios is easy. Dungeon fantasy's linear style also suits first-time players/GMs who often need more structure. *Savage Worlds. Savage Worlds isn't quite as good at D&D at slotting itself into new player's heads, but it makes up for it with a very easy and intuitive system. You want to shoot something? make a shooting roll. What do you roll? the die that's listed right next to 'shooting' on your character sheet. Definitely suggest sticking with fantasy style both because it fits the RPG cliches most people have in mind, and because the more complicated rules are those related to guns and vehicles. I'm not as familiar with them, but the world of darkness system and the Basic role-playing system are also both good options since they feature fairly straightforward mechanics and they're good ways to handle modern play without going too abstract. Both also feature a lot of pre-made material available already.
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Jun 27, 2018 00:54
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oriongates posted:*Any edition of D&D. Don't ask which edition, because it'll just open a huge can of worms. Just whatever edition you can get your hands on. The quality of the system doesn't actually matter here, they've got the advantage of fitting into the RPG-shaped-hole most people have. They are exactly the games most people think of when they think of D&D. If a player comes to the table with no idea other than "I want to play a wizard", you turn to the page labeled 'wizard' and there you are. If you remember hearing something about casting magic missile at the darkness or shooting fireballs, you can find those in the index. And if they say "Hey, can I be a badass warrior dude, like Aragorn?" You sort of shrug because the fighter class is just about saying "I attack" every turn and then going back to checking your Twitter feed. At the very least point him towards 4e, so people who aren't wizards have some decisions to make.
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Jun 27, 2018 01:04
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What's up with recommending 13th age as a good game for a beginning GM? I mean, yeah, it's probably better than D&D, but one of the first things in the book is a bit that straight up says "this was designed for experienced GMs", and there's shitloads of sections where the explanation starts with something like "This should already be familiar from other games..."
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Jun 27, 2018 01:16
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For the love of christ, please don't inflict any edition of D&D on new players.
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Jun 27, 2018 01:18
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Are there just no RPGs that are good for first-time GMs?Lemon-Lime posted:It requires a solid grasp of PbtA GMing principles, like every other PbtA game. Well yeah, but it's not like they're difficult to understand. It flows pretty naturally once you get into it.
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Jun 27, 2018 01:21
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Pollyanna posted:Are there just no RPGs that are good for first-time GMs? Honestly it's amazing that in the dark ages before fantasy heartbreakers and PBTA people bothered to play RPGs at all.
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Jun 27, 2018 01:28
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Pollyanna posted:Are there just no RPGs that are good for first-time GMs? some are better than others, but if you're going in completely cold with no exposure to roleplaying you're gonna have some growing pains. but at this point, i reckon most prospective GMs have played in a game before or watched one of the many RPG streams/podcasts at this point (not that this doesn't have its own pitfalls that will need to be worked through in play). in the end there ain't nothing to do but do it
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Jun 27, 2018 01:29
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Pollyanna posted:Well yeah, but it's not like they're difficult to understand. It flows pretty naturally once you get into it. Dungeon World is a particularly bad take on PbtA tbh. It has boring moves and suffers from a lot of weird cruft imported from D&D. Also come on, I know goons really like to rag on D&D but me and my friends taught ourselves D&D 3.5 when we were 11-12. 4e/13th Age are all much easier to understand, and all of them benefit a lot from having a very distinct structure.
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Jun 27, 2018 01:29
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The first game I GM'd was Feng Shui and it was definitely a learning experience but it wasn't particularly onerous either, and these days compared to other systems I've had to parse it's almost transparently simple, but frankly if you're coming in cold then most RPGs except the most convoluted and crunchy are going to present brand new GMs with a similar amount of conceptual speedbumps to get over before it starts clicking. I do not actually think that someone coming into RPGs totally cold is going to have a significantly harder time learning how to run Apocalypse World than they are D&D 5E. If there's a game you really want to run, the best advice is to sit down, brush up on it as best you can, and just run it. "But my players just want to play D&D" tell'em tough poo poo, you want to run this one.
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Jun 27, 2018 01:33
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Pollyanna posted:Are there just no RPGs that are good for first-time GMs?
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Jun 27, 2018 01:45
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The Glumslinger posted:Well H, in his vast sleepiness, decides that this dude was actually the city founder and that he should totally return his lost treasure and then good stuff would happen This is really funny. Just shaking a bag of gold at a monster, trying to be its friend.
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Jun 27, 2018 02:08
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The big issue with suggesting D&D for first-timers is that D&D isn't nearly the same as what those newbies have in their heads. They probably expect wild adventure but instead have to deal with varying degrees of resource management/minutiae/whatever other quirks that the game has. It's not for nothing that we note D&D teaches particular habits that have to be unlearned when encountering anything else in the market. That said, Feng Shui would be my suggestion on what to run as a game for newbies. It has its own quirks, but it cuts out a bunch of the lagtime the players might otherwise experience in the name of having that ridiculous adventure (and ridiculous combat) they're expecting. Hell, the introductory adventure at the back of Feng Shui 2E's core can be done in a single session without difficulty.
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Jun 27, 2018 02:09
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13th Age is OK for beginners, but hard to recommend for your first RPG ever. I'd go with something ultra lite, like Lasers and Feelings, Cthulhu Dark, or that one Infocom based thing. Maybe just free-form a mystery or something?
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Jun 27, 2018 02:31
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NGDBSS posted:That said, Feng Shui would be my suggestion on what to run as a game for newbies. It has its own quirks, but it cuts out a bunch of the lagtime the players might otherwise experience in the name of having that ridiculous adventure (and ridiculous combat) they're expecting. Hell, the introductory adventure at the back of Feng Shui 2E's core can be done in a single session without difficulty. Also Feng Shui is fairly easy to conceptually grasp even for complete newbies since the odds are that every group of aspiring nerds has seen a couple of action movies in their lives.
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Jun 27, 2018 02:32
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All of this is proceeding from the mistaken assumption that light games are a gateway into RPGs. This is completely wrong and a disservice to light and crunchy games alike. What you really have is basically two different genres and if you actually want to play D&D (or more properly, the genre it represents) then play B/X or 4E or one of the numerous modern games that take the basic premise there and skew a little more gamist than simulationist. (13th Age should be fine.) Conversely if you want to play Fiasco or Dread or whatever other tincture of gameplay you prefer to dissolve into your cup of freeform RP, then do that!
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Jun 27, 2018 02:36
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Pollyanna posted:Well yeah, but it's not like they're difficult to understand. It flows pretty naturally once you get into it. The PbtA thing can be really hard to get into if you've only ever played D&D-like games and go into them with the same mindset. A shitload of people who've only ever played D&D-like games think this means that PbtA games are really hard to get into.
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Jun 27, 2018 02:39
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:All of this is proceeding from the mistaken assumption that light games are a gateway into RPGs. Yeah, honestly freeform stuff with weak structure is actually really hard for people who are new to roleplaying! AlphaDog posted:A shitload of people who've only ever played D&D-like games think this means that PbtA games are really hard to get into. 
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Jun 27, 2018 02:39
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AlphaDog posted:The PbtA thing can be really hard to get into if you've only ever played D&D-like games and go into them with the same mindset. Luckily for me, I've played like one session of D&D and I couldn't get into it at all cause of the crunch. GMing Dungeon World has been a lot more fun.  I will admit that listening to a D&D actual play is a hell of a lot more interesting than listening to a Dungeon World actual play, which I find tremendously boring. If people are still wondering why everyone finds TTRPGs intimidating and hard to get into, it's poo poo like this right here.
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Jun 27, 2018 02:41
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I would argue that even if inflicting D&D on people is something you are willing to do, any edition is the wrong answer because too many of them want you to have 3 books to play a coherent game. Rules Cyclopedia isn’t perfect either, because of how thick it is, being that it is actually a restructured collection of five different box sets, the first of which would be my actual suggestion if it where available, but it is cheap now to get hold of a hardback, and is actually probably the cheapest legal way to get a full edition of the game that there is.
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Jun 27, 2018 02:42
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:All of this is proceeding from the mistaken assumption that light games are a gateway into RPGs. Making characters for new players in 4E, as much as I am a fan of the game, is something of an arduous process, and while the digital character creator which still exists is an extremely valuable tool it also lacks a lot of user-friendly functionality that would make it better for such purposes like the ability to selectively hide 90% of the dumb bullshit cruft new players shouldn't need to worry about. There's value in a game like Feng Shui where character generation is straight up "pick which one of these guys looks the most badass to you, make the following tweaks, give them a name, done." I too don't buy into the notion that new players need simple games to be eased into roleplaying and that people can and do pick up on crunchy stuff easier than it's let on, but I also know that the average RPG session has a mayfly lifespan and for someone new to running a game my suggestion would be to look at games which minimize logistical workload in favor of something that's quicker and simpler to just sit down and play, then if the group seems like it's going to be a longer term thing with players that are really invested in digging into what RPGs have to offer as opposed to "yeah it's all right I guess, something to do when we aren't playing board games or whatever" then you can start breaking out games which require and benefit from that additional player-facing investment.
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Jun 27, 2018 02:42
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Pollyanna posted:If people are still wondering why everyone finds TTRPGs intimidating and hard to get into, it's poo poo like this right here. Rofl ok. I've only GMed something like fifteen different systems, and played in probs twice that, including with new players in most of those, but yeah the only reason people don't like Dungeon World is that they're D&D cultists. For real, if you and your group are enjoying Dungeon World, all well and good. I've tried to bring people who are new to RPGs into games where they're expected to contribute to the story/setting/narrative, and most of them have gotten really intimidated and lost. Also, I found Dungeon World intensely boring compared to most other PbtA games I've played. fool of sound fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Jun 27, 2018 |
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Jun 27, 2018 02:45
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:All of this is proceeding from the mistaken assumption that light games are a gateway into RPGs. Nooooo - if your friends want to play elf adventures, nothing will suck the joy and wonder out of them faster than spreadsheeting a 3.5 D&D character, wading through PF's feat lists, or building a GURPS hero from scratch. If they enjoy the experience of a lite game but say "hey this is fun, but I wish we were calculating how many coins' worth of encumbrance the heroes can carry based on a modifier derived from a stat," then smile and reach for AD&D. But don't start them on that, Jesus.
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Jun 27, 2018 02:48
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moths posted:Nooooo - if your friends want to play elf adventures, nothing will suck the joy and wonder out of them faster than spreadsheeting a 3.5 D&D character, wading through PF's feat lists, or building a GURPS hero from scratch. I'm still mystified by the goon insistence that D&D character creation takes more than 10 minutes. Less so in better editions and spinoffs.
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Jun 27, 2018 02:49
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"pick 3 spells from this list of a bazillion and 2 from this list of a bazillion" takes forever
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Jun 27, 2018 02:50
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:"pick 3 spells from this list of a bazillion and 2 from this list of a bazillion" takes forever That doesn't actually happen tho... e: The slow part in most D&D editions comes from picking equipment, and that's only if you don't take the pre-made starter packs. fool of sound fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Jun 27, 2018 |
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Jun 27, 2018 02:51
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fool_of_sound posted:I'm still mystified by the goon insistence that D&D character creation takes more than 10 minutes. Less so in better editions and spinoffs. I'd say it definitely does for first timers but when you get more play experience you crank them up in less than ten easily. e: Although on stuff like the 4e builder a new guy might be able to do a sheet fast.
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Jun 27, 2018 02:53
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fool_of_sound posted:I'm still mystified by the goon insistence that D&D character creation takes more than 10 minutes. Less so in better editions and spinoffs. I went to board game night at the FLGS which also does Pathfinder organized play and one of the guys I knew fairly well there was enthused to play because he'd never done it before. I was downstairs playing Netrunner and got like five or six games in when he came down hours later, intensely frustrated and put-off by the volume of class options, feat choices, spells, and etc that had basically been tossed at him without consideration which had given him an enormous case of Chargenitis. It doesn't have to be this way no, but the way a lot of new players get introduced to someone's 3.X or 4E games seem to be by people tossing them into the deep end and telling them "you can make whatever!" which hits them the same way your experiences with trying to introduce new players to sharing a hand in the narrative elements of RPGs go, it leaves them bewildered and drains their enthusiasm.
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Jun 27, 2018 02:53
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Kai Tave posted:I went to board game night at the FLGS which also does Pathfinder organized play and one of the guys I knew fairly well there was enthused to play because he'd never done it before. I was downstairs playing Netrunner and got like five or six games in when he came down hours later, intensely frustrated and put-off by the volume of class options, feat choices, spells, and etc that had basically been tossed at him without consideration which had given him an enormous case of Chargenitis. It doesn't have to be this way no, but the way a lot of new players get introduced to someone's 3.X or 4E games seem to be by people tossing them into the deep end and telling them "you can make whatever!" which hits them the same way your experiences with trying to introduce new players to sharing a hand in the narrative elements of RPGs go, it leaves them bewildered and drains their enthusiasm. Yeah it's definitely fair to say 'just generate a level 5 character' or something would be a brick wall for a new player. e: Even yeah, going 'here's all the books just dig through them' is going to be a problem, but I'm skeptical that an all newbie group is going to start there. fool of sound fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Jun 27, 2018 |
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Jun 27, 2018 02:55
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Hell even Exalted 3E has an actual pretty good chargen guide. The only real effort you make is choosing charms
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Jun 27, 2018 02:56
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