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noob thread

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 18:00:04 No.43336066 View Reply Report Delete

Hi /tg/,
I never played any tabletop game in my entire life. Where should i begin, and how can i have fun with my friends?
Also there's a wiki or something like that to help noob like me?

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 18:07:26 No.43336182 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43336066
http://learntabletoprpgs.com/

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 18:08:20 No.43336195 Report Delete

Quoted By:

I would recommend the 5th edition starters set. You can find a PDF of the basic rules online, and run through those with your friends. They're a little limited, but it'll give you an idea of whether you want to dump the money on a full PHB. BTW: Don't buy your PHB in a bookstore. most sell them for $50. Amazon has new ones for ~$26. Best of luck! D&D really is more fun with friends.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 19:35:41 No.43337851 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43338183

>>43336066
If you're playing with your friends, you don't have to worry about which RPG has the most players (D&D, that other edition of D&D, and that other game based on D&D), which would otherwise be a concern (you can't play a game if you can't find people to play with). This is great because D&D is a bit of a niche game, and may not run the kind of campaign you'd like. Also, even 5th edition D&D, which has tried to simplify things a bit, is a bit crunchy (rules-y) for beginners. There are, of course, older, simpler versions of D&D (like Basic D&D), and retroclones based on them (like Swords & Wizardry), but those can seem a bit dated and wonky to modern eyes. Also, they are, if anything, even more niche than modern D&D (good for dungeon crawls, exploration, and that type of thing).

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 19:49:26 No.43338183 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43338416

>>43337851
So where does that leave you? Well, there are two basic challenges you have to face. The first is to figure out how role-playing even works. I'm not talking about stats and math here, but the general idea of what you're supposed to do during a game. How do you manage a campaign? This sort of thing can, of course, be affected by the the rules and particularly the tone of the game you are playing, but the vast majority of the skills are the same.

Some games provide a guide for this sort of thing, commonly starting with a section titled something like "What Is a Role-Playing Game?" Other games skip that and assume that you either already know what you're doing or that you'll pick it up elsewhere. Obviously, it can be helpful to have a guide that's specifically calibrated for your game--something that can explain things in the context of the game's setting--but it's really not necessary. This is especially true because many of the games with the easiest, most approachable rules choose to forgo a how-to-role-play section for the sake of brevity.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 19:58:12 No.43338416 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43338625

>>43338183
The second challenge is to learn the actual mechanics of a particular system: how to generate attributes, how to make skill checks--that sort of thing. You may be completely on top of the whole concept of role-playing and how to manage an organized game of pretend with your friends, but if you can't do the mathy bits, you're in trouble. And while you can use general information to figure out the former challenge (reading how-to-role-play advice from unaffiliated articles, or sections attacked to different games, or even by listening to role-playing podcasts), the latter pretty much has to be game-specific. Unfortunately, there are a lot of games out there, and without already knowing how they work, picking one can be kind of tricky. So what do you do?

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 20:05:51 No.43338625 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43338771

>>43338416
Well, it's a good idea to aim for something fairly simple, or rules-light. More rules means more to learn and more to contend with during play, and if you spend all your session time wrestling with the rules, you won't have time to focus on broader issues of game management, or actual role-playing.

Additionally, you want a game that's fairly straightforward. For this reason, I stay away from games like Fate, which don't divide the roles of Game Master and Player quite as sharply, and which hinge on meta-story narrative concepts that work better if everybody involved has some experience and therefore perspective under their belts.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 20:12:29 No.43338771 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43339068

>>43338625
There are some barely-there systems which might be a decent beginning point, where you can fuck around without having to worry about more than a smattering of rules. Something like Lasers and Feelings, or Risus, for example. (Or for something a bit longer and crunchier/gamier, something like Old School Hack.)

Ultimately though, games like this are fairly limited when you're looking at playing a longer campaign. Sure, you can keep on playing with just a handful of rules--or no rules at all, for that matter--because ultimately it's a game of imagination, but chances are good that you're going to want a bit more structure for what you're doing.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 20:24:28 No.43339068 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43338771
And that leads you to a rules-light game like Barbarians of Lemuria, or maybe the rules-light core or beginners set of a rules-medium game that's conducive to this type of thing, like the Savage Worlds Test Drive rules. This is also where you start to encounter the simple end of the D&D family, like Moldvay Basic, Swords & Wizardry White Box, and so forth. But like I said before those are niche games, and unless they specifically do what you're looking for (and you're okay with a certain lack of refinement that comes along with an old game), you might be better advised to look elsewhere.

Of course, if finding other people already familiar with the game is a vital factor, that can severely restrict your options. In a case like that 5th edition D&D may be your best option, do to the size of its player base, and it's relative simplicity compared to other games (and editions) with large player bases. 5e is going to try to make things easy for you and walk you through things a bit more than most old school D&D and retroclones will, but it's also got a fair amount more content and complexity (being towards the heavy side of rules-medium).

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