So, I'm a complete fucking noobtard.
Ihmhi
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I occasionally mingle with a group of Level 32 Ubergeeks. When I do, the topic of tabletop gaming has come up (DND, GURPS, etc.), but we never got around to it.
I have played some stuff on RP forums, but it was more of the R and the P and not so much of the G. Very free form and all.
So yeah, anyway. I have never played a tabletop RPG (although I have a strong desire to do so). What are the essentials I need to know? What should I avoid doing? Would it be worth it to read the ruleset beforehand? Is DND's third edition like the Necrowombicon and if I open it will I possibly summon some sort of world-ending My Little Pony?
Some people might figure it's pretty stupid to make a post like this on the PA forums, what with the community's reputation and propensity to announce that I am a "fucking fuck" or something equally palatable. However, I just see it as brutal honestly and I hope that you will gladly help me not seem like a giant tool the first time I sit down to roll the bones and slay some dragons.
Thanks guys!
I have played some stuff on RP forums, but it was more of the R and the P and not so much of the G. Very free form and all.
So yeah, anyway. I have never played a tabletop RPG (although I have a strong desire to do so). What are the essentials I need to know? What should I avoid doing? Would it be worth it to read the ruleset beforehand? Is DND's third edition like the Necrowombicon and if I open it will I possibly summon some sort of world-ending My Little Pony?
Some people might figure it's pretty stupid to make a post like this on the PA forums, what with the community's reputation and propensity to announce that I am a "fucking fuck" or something equally palatable. However, I just see it as brutal honestly and I hope that you will gladly help me not seem like a giant tool the first time I sit down to roll the bones and slay some dragons.
Thanks guys!
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The essentials you need to know is that, well, you need a rulebook (or three) and a group of players. One player will be the Dungeon Master/Game Master/Storyteller and that person outlines the world(s) and sets the scene for the others. The others then, basically, do whatever the hell they want. The rules exist solely to limit player responses or provide a quanitifiable way to measure the success or failure of a given effort. This is true no matter if you're slaying dragons in D&D 3.5, stabbing Sith in Star Wars, or hurtling chunks of mountains in Exalted.
The DM/GM/ST better damn well know the rules before the game starts. I usually give myself a week or two to read through rules and get a handle on them before I run a game. It's the job of the DM to help the other players create characters and get them set up for the campaign. The setting is the easiest part, at least for me, but the DM also has to be able to create enemies, outline battles and challenges and make sure that it's all fair. As DM, you are basically God over the party. If you run it like you're trying to beat the party, you always will. Thunder from the heavens, unexplainable black holes, whatever you want. The trick is to keep the game fun for your group and yourself, and part of this is that you have to realize that no one "wins" in RPGs. Killing whole groups of players is easy, but then you find yourself without very many players and thusly no game, so it's vital that you keep your group interested (especially if it's their first time playing a pen and paper game).
Also, something that a lot of beginning DMs struggle with is player freedom. D&D isn't Final Fantasy, and if players want to mug the shopkeep, steal his money and take his stuff, they have the freedom to. They have the freedom to totally ignore your plotlines if they so choose, and you've got to let them go crazy every now and again. I find that it's better not to have a central plotline that the group must follow, but a planned series of events that will occur whether or not the party is there or not. Say the group hears about a dragon that's been burninating local peasants. They can opt to go after the dragon, or not to, but regardless of what they choose the dragon should continue to make its effect on the world. Obviously, if the party chooses to fight the dragon, its effects will seem more immediate to them, but if they choose not to you can describe them walking past burning fields or destroyed houses or the like, or do whatever you want.
That's really what pen and paper RPing is. Doing whatever the hell it is you want to do in a make believe world. You can't ever lose sight of that.
I played Munchkin and while it is not technically a pen and paper RPG it has a lot of those free form elements that I love. (So much to the point that I made up my own own similar CCG based around a similar theme... I am still drawing the cards. <_<' )
In Munchkin you kinda have a GM: the game owner. If anyone disputes a ruling the GM can make basically any ruling he likes because he can walk out the door with the game. Also, cheating is legal until you are caught. It is probably the only game where stuffing cards down your boot is legal.
Munckin isn't every RPG, not by any stretch. It does a good job of making fun of the d20 rules (D&D, Star Wars: Sagas, True20, d20 Modern, etc.) but its jokes don't apply nearly as well to, say, Shadowrun or Exalted or Cyberpunk or what have you.
The GM is far more than just the rules arbiter. They're also the story teller, as in, the one that creates the world for the rest of the group. The when, where, why, how, and etc. of everything in the game is up to the GM.
Think of it, perhaps, like this. The players are the actors in a movie. The GM is the director, scriptwriter, producer, set designer, sound designer, and all of the extras/ important other characters.
I'll agree with Lib in the sense that a lot of it is to do whatever you want, but generally there is a story you follow and other gamers will tend to get upset if you act out of character or argue when something happens to you.
As for getting familiar with table top RPGs, it depends on what kind of system you could play with friends. It's worthwhile to read up on the d20 system so that you're familiar with the general idea of how stats work, what different attributes do, and so on. Most RPGs will utilize a similar system, sometimes with different names and sometimes with different ways of arriving at a players starting stats. Not to mention that if you have the basic knowledge of a d20 system down, or at least somewhat understood, learning a new system is pretty easy.
I played when I was younger with some people who were not good roleplayers and were not very good at explaining the system. They were keen on creating high powered characters right off the bat so the game was basically stat-porn, rather than an actual game. Don't be a stat-whore. But also, don't go so far into the RP aspect that the fact that you're playing a game is lost.
The D20 rules are freely available on the net, but they tend to establish bad habits -- MontyHaulism, statwhoring, munchkinism -- so if at all possible, try not to let your first around-the-table RPG be something that says 'd20' on the cover. Seriously.
Having said that, I do realize that d20 is like 90% of the RPG-market, so you may not have a choice. But I honestly believe that d20-based games warp beginning roleplayers in very unpleasant ways!
Check out indie-rpgs.com for alternatives to the WotC-koolaid. Or rpg.net for more mainstream views.
"Laugh while you can, monkey-boy!"
~ Dr. Emilio Lizardo
I find the exact opposite. I started on good old DnD, and I think d20 is one of the most wonderfully modular systems around. Being inherently filled with crunchy bits, it's a GOOD starting point because when you shift to a more narrativist/subjective system such as a White Wolf, you go "Oh hey this is really easy."
The system has little bearing on roleplaying ability and I'm sort of offended you'd think d20 breeds munchkins. No, bad gamemasters and poor teachers breed munchkins.
I actually don't believe that d20 breeds bad gamers, and I'm sorry that I lack the skill to properly express myself. What I meant was this: D&D breeds bad gamers -- not d20 in general.
I state this as opinion, not fact: In my experience (22+ years of roleplaying) D&D'isms -- bad gamebreaking habits bred by exclusively playing xD&D -- have corrupted almost every other game I've tried. Seriously.
I know people that simply cannot conceive of playing a game other that D&D who will play COMPLETELY DIFFERENT GAMES as if they were D&D and then complain that, say, killing a random bystander in a game of GURPS Black Ops doesn't yield any XP. Gee, I wonder why.
I don't want to turn this into a long essay about why D&D sucks rancid donkey dick, so I'll just cap this off by saying that many of the people I've played with would turn fuckin' Faery's Tale into a goreladen killfest because "that's the way they roll, yo".
So I do agree with you that bad gamemasters and poor teachers breed munchkins. Hell, I know! I've gamed with the meatspace versions of the Black Hands for more that two decades, and I blame D&D for their deficiencies.
(To not end this in doom & gloom, I've had some successes recently with Agon. Man, reprogramming D&D cultist is a bitch. It literally takes years!)
"Laugh while you can, monkey-boy!"
~ Dr. Emilio Lizardo
Anyone with half a goddamn brain won't fall into the MMORPG mentality, unless their DM fosters that sort of shit. You're entitled to your opinion, but it's entirely subjective and you sound like you've had a lot of bad personal experience.
But to say that DnD fosters bad gamers is going a bit far; DnD does cater to a certain style, meaning Hack'n'Slash and tactical decisions, but it can have just as compelling a story if the DM wills it so. Sure, there's a stylistic difference, but complaining about that just means maybe you shouldn't play DnD. It's like playing Madden and complaining that you can't shoot the linebacker in front of you. Well, no shit, the game is about Football. Not shooting things. Just as DnD is about plunging into a dark dungeon and beating up some monsters first and foremost. But it doesn't necessarily lack a story, either.
To your bad experiences, I am sorry. No need to bust out 'nerd credentials' either. DnD3.5 can be just as rewarding as a good game of CoC or GURPS if you have a fine GM who knows how to foster creativity. You get what you put in.
I think it's one of the reasons that MMORPGs are so popular -- you're not limited to your local gaming population. So you don't have to put up with statporn gamers.
Otherwise, I'm going to repeat what others have said. You need at least the general rulebook of the system you want to attempt and a group of players willing to give it a good try. You will need a reliable place to play where you can control the environment, and supplies such as writing utensils, paper, paperclips, colored markers, dice, coins (as markers) a table (DUH!) chairs, some food and drink (alcohol is ok, but not to excess) and about 4 hours of free time a day for everyone for a minimum of 4-5 days in a given 30 day period.
D&D 3rd edition is a good place to start, and readily available and accessible for almost all people. Additionally, you shouldn’t have much trouble finding helpful hints & tricks online, and it's not so obscure that if you ask a question in these forums, you'll have to wait long for a response.
Dudes, you're just lucky. It is certainly possible to play a decent game of D&D -- just not where I live.
More on-topic, I don't think that D&D is the best game for beginners because, well, you're aware of my opinion on that topic. I'm thinking that something like Buffy the RPG is the ideal beginners RPG, because...
- The rules are easy...
- The game world is easy to understand and get into...
- There's plenty of monsters, magic, heroism and adventure...
- And the source material is easily available (Buffy is in syndication now, right?)
(And the same could be said of Buffy's companion, Angel the RPG.)(Arcanis, no, I don't blame guns for people getting shot. I blame D&D for ruining my friends, and now that the damage is done, it can't be undone. "You can't teach a hammer to love nails." My buds are the hammer, non-D&D-RPGs are the nails. See my problem?)
"Laugh while you can, monkey-boy!"
~ Dr. Emilio Lizardo
...yeah, I think it might be possible you take this stuff way too fucking seriously. In your "twenty years" of gaming did you perhaps notice that different players in fact crave different things? My friends enjoy tactical action so we play a lot of D&D. Sometimes we feel more like hard-core RP'ing and opt for other things - but if we didn't, I wouldn't cop some ridiculous attitude about it, since my job as DM is to give the players what they want, not to beat their fucking heads in to make them like what I like.
So before we go telling the OP "play this, play that" perhaps we should establish what he's looking for.
Google and check the wayback machine as well.
And I was lying about having played RPGs for 20 years. I stole my very first box of Alliterative Dungeons & Dragons -- the original purplish green box! --- from fuckin' Adolf Hitler minutes before he popped himself in the Berlin bunker in '45. So actually I've played RPG's for more than 60 years -- biotch!
This is the internet. All our opinions are just that, opinions. And mine is that D&D can warp beginning players in a non-cool way. Your opinion differs, as does your experiences, I'm sure.
I will pray to Jesus for your salvation, in hope that you will never have to play RPG's with the kind of people that I've had the great misfortune to play with for more than 80 years!
"Laugh while you can, monkey-boy!"
~ Dr. Emilio Lizardo
Personally, I usually start new players on one of these two:
D&D : If you want a high fantasy game I highly recommend D&D, it's fun, classic, and not too complicated. If you have people in your group that favor "munchkin" style playing however it's easy to slip into in this game. Of course if you all like the hack and slash style of gaming it's not even an issue and will work well.
White Wolf: WoD games tend to have less dice rolling and be more RP oriented. The have a more intuitive, simple, character based system and most of them are set in modern day (however there are "dark ages" versions of several WW games), so new players have less of a stretch to get into character, as the setting is comfortable and familiar. Most WoD games are rather dark and for more mature players however so I'd recommend against letting anyone too young sit in and play.
They both are great beginner games, it just really all depends on what you want out of the game.
Discworld GURPS(finding non-map stuff is a pain, but it is the best game for reprogramming D&D cultists)
Shadowrun(If you GM well, you can do this, jack of all trades characters(ie,someone with a decent deck) make things better for the GM(just dont play 2nd/1st ever and dont play 4th unless you have a bunch of 3rd ed stuff that you can convert easily.).
Mechwarrior.
For beginners, I'd emphasize using the common enemy aka "Friend Computer" over the internal enemy aka "each other".
That having been said, a calm session of "Call of Cthulhu" generally creates appreciative and skilled new gamers.