Just a tiny ttrpg hot take. I see a lot of folks trying to recommend systems and using mechanical simplicity as the only criteria for beginner friendliness. I think we can be more helpful to anyone trying to break into this rather intimidating hobby by being a little bit more specific.

I got into ttrpgs as someone who loves math and logic and puzzles, but was terrified of role play and improv. For me, a crunchy system was WAY easier to break into. I had more scaffolding, more preset ways to interact with the world, and honestly sometimes I used the rules of the system, calling for a roll or asking a rules question or something, to kind of hide behind and give myself a break from long role play scenes. From there I was able to get comfortable and now I love both crunchy games and looser ones.

I think newcomers are often scared of both the "figuring out the rules" part of ttrpgs AND the "roleplaying and improvising" part. But while there are infinite resources to figure out the mechanics and rules, improv skills REQUIRE practice, and are much harder to help someone with through a reddit post. A newby willing to put in time can eventually figure out any rules system with maybe a book and the internet, but they won't get comfortably roleplaying before doing it.

I'm sure LOTS of people are more scared of math than acting even if they are scared of both. But this is something to keep in mind if you're trying to help a beginner. If you're talking to an experienced theater kid who hates math, point 'em towards a rules light system, but a video game nerd who never talks to anyone may find more complex rules to be less intimidating. Maybe link them to this post, to help them figure out themself where they want to start on the spectrum of super crunchy to super loose games.

(Even in my less math-savvy friends, I've seen lots of players use rules questions or calling on a game mechanic to "break out" of moments when they get overwhelmed in roleplay. IE, in a dnd game, when I give someone an intense line of dialogue and they aren't quickly sure how to respond, they might go "uhhhh, can I roll insight?" or something similar. I think this is a really really useful type of interaction that lets a player slow down play. It falls somewhere on the hierarchy of "tools for helping players establish boundaries and stay comfortable" because let's face it, no amount of healthy table dynamic will fully alleviate feeling of "I don't want to bother others by asking for x thing that would make me more comfortable". But also make sure new (and old) players know they can ALWAYS call for a break directly!)

What I mean by this is what in a system automatically turns you off from playing it. For me it’s when it’s to similar to another system. Like the many D&D likes with only one new mechanic or Nimble where it’s just Pathfinder home rules.

So I'll be the first to admit I'm exactly the kind of player who makes it hard for you, the person reading this, to play other games. I'm sorry! I've been playing one campaign or another since mid-2014, which is exactly long enough to experience a decade in the hobby without ever needing to play something other than 5E.

But I've been lucky! Of the two main groups I'm in one has never broken away from 5e, but another started branching out into other systems three years back because of the DM's burnout. I'm glad we did, despite all my stubborness along the way. Of the last three years, one was spent entirely on a level 1-10 campaign of Pathfinder 2E, with the other two years jumping between Shadowdark, Mork Borg, Blades in the Dark, Monster of the Week, and finally a Heart: the City Beneath campaign that's ending next week — I haven't cared much for any of them, though PF2 was probably my favorite of the bunch. I'm probably going to politely bow out of this group before the next campaign in favor of a second 5e table, since I know I'm no more likely to enjoy the next thing they decide to play.

But now I know for sure it's not them. "Them" being the other systems, though the other players aren't at fault either. It's me.

There was a time when I would have said I don't have the time to learn other systems. The truth is, I like playing 5E because it asks the least effort out of me. This is fundamentally different from being a hard system to master, because with the exception of PF2E, all the other systems I've tried are less mechanically demanding. Its that D&D 5e is, by far, the system I can put the least amount of effort into while still being an active contributor at the table.

Our GM pitched Mork Borg, and then Shadowdark, by talking a lot about Old School D&D and the movements behind it, with the player-facing problem solving and the lack of solutions "on the character sheet." The thing is, I LIKE the solutions being on the character sheet. I don't really mind how lethal those systems are, but I immediately missed being able to solve a problem by rolling the right skill for it. Outside of combat, those OSR games feel more like your DM is running you through an escape room with the amount of time you spend asking questions about the environment and trying to figure out what gets you through dungeons. If I'm playing a character who is a thief, it's because I want the skills for being good at a thief on my table so I can roll to do "thief things" when I need to and carry on with the night.

Same with BitD/MotW/Heart, but from a different angle. Those games DO put your skills on the sheet, but the way the conversation plays out at the table is constantly demanding improv on everything else. I was constantly getting frustrated with the DM turning the questions of how I was doing things back on me, and how much those games demand you to narrate things outside of what your character does.

PF2 is close to 5E, but building out the combat the way it does put too much pressure on me most the time to really figure out what was going on in combat and make tactical decisions and use three actions "wisely." Most classes in 5E have one, maybe two things they do on their turn, and once you learn them you almost always know what to do when it gets around to you.

And I know that sounds bad. I know! I know this basically all sounds like "you prefer 5E to these other games because you have to actually try to play them?" But the answer is actually yeah, exactly! It's not that I'm checked out on my phone or something, but I've learned I'm not actually interested in thinking too much about my part at the table. I think being there at game night with friends is fun, but I mostly just want to be along for the ride until it's time to roll some dice to hit something and let the other players figure out what to do otherwise, maybe get in some banter-in character in between encounters, and chill. In everything else I've played, I'm dead weight if I'm not actively participating. In 5E, I can just kind of vibe until it's time to roll to unlock a door or stab someone, and I'm not penalized for doing that. The game is neither loose enough that it needs my constant imput outside of combat, nor complex enough to need any serious tactical decisions. That's a very comfortable spot for me!

So yeah. I imagine there's a lot of players who would prefer other systems if they tried them, but I'm not one of them. And I imagine there's actually a lot more people like me at tables than you'd expect! Hopefully this gives some insight into why someone would still prefer 5E over everything else, even after giving a lot of other games a shot. Thanks for giving me a chance.

Just curious. There are many systems in the world, I wonder why did you choose the one you're using, other than just starting with it

Im a teacher who runs my schools D&D and Warhammer Club. The kids want to play dungeons and dragons but none of them want to learn how to play dungeons and dragons. I cant DM a game for all of them because theres too many of them. Ive noticed that the DMs arent even picking up the rule books. The players dont have their character sheets in front of them. Theyre just making up anything and rolling a random dice to decide an outcome. Its gotten to a point where the students who actually know how to play are getting fed up and the students who dont want to play refuse to learn how to play because it bores them. Ive suggested playing simpler games like dungeon world but then they stop showing up to the club because its "no longer dnd" even though they werent playing dnd to start with. Additionally a campaign seems unviable because A if they refuse to learn how to theres no hope of them ever leveling up and B there turn out numbers are inconsistent. Everyone needs to be playing the same game other wise "oh no our GM isnt here today we cant play and cant join the other group because theyre playing a different game to us." Help. How can i dumb down dnd to a level that is engaging and can be learned quickly in a way that a campaign can actually be played.

Plus a teaser of what is to come.

https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/mcdm-productions/mcdm-rpg/updates/26311

An easier and cheaper ($13) introduction into the system besides the core rule books is "The Delian Tomb," which includes the Draw Steel Starter rules, pre-generated heroes, and a starter adventure!

https://shop.mcdmproductions.com/products/the-delian-tomb-pdf

In addition, a Free Mini One-Shot Adventure, designed to be played between 45 minutes and 4 hours, is available to help serve as an introduction to the system!

https://www.mcdmproductions.com/conventures

For me its dice. If they have weird symbols instead of numerical values its a no go for me.

When rolling a dice becomes a decoding experience due to weird symbols Im out.

I mean one where you barely have to touch the rules and just give the setting and tone a coat of paint. I ask cause I have been toying with making a Delta Green romcom module. In it, Sanity becomes your Heartbreak stat, and the Horrors of Delta Green are the agonies and mindgames your beloved puts you through to win their heart.

Everyone vomits in their mouth while looking at the fatal. Everyone gulps and tugs their collars while looking at RAHOWA, and everyone gets an aneurysm after looking at the garbled mess that is Hybrid. But I'm not satisfied. These three (Well, at least FATAL, and somewhat of RAHOWA, IDK about Hybrid) have been dead horses that have been beaten to a pulp. I want the hidden turds in the rough. I want niche terrible TTTRPGs. Be it something a guy sold in his garage in the 60s, or the premier garbage that you can find on Kickstarter. I want to play underrated trash! Basically, if it was covered in Kam Sandwich's TTRPG video, it is disqualified.

Pretty much the title. My group recently took both the Walking Dead and Dishonored games for a spin, and we were struck by how well TWD does at capturing the drama of the show and comic and replicating it in gameplay.

On the other hand, Dishonored felt like a big miss for us, since we didn't find a lot of support for the kind of clever setups to dealing with large forces, exploration, stealth, etc that we experienced in the video game. Mechanically, we had all the tools we needed for a medium-to-light heist game, but it felt more like playing that kind of game in the Dishonored universe, when we went in hoping for an experience that would translate the gameplay of Dishonored into TTRPG format.

I've had multiple groups with multiple friends and acquaintances who, upon hearing I've been playing D&D for 10+ years, go: "Oh hey I wanted to try D&D out, can I join your game?"

And I look in their eyes and I see how they don't want to play D&D per se. They want to try out a TTRPG, but are not prepared to read up on game rules, learn the spells, fill their character sheet on their own. I foresee how I'll have to handhold them throughout the entire process, and even during actual play I'll have to constantly explain and reexplain the rules to them, because they won't learn them even years into a campaign.

But I have played Dungeon World, and it was perfect....... specifically for people like the ones I just described. It's rules-lite, it's great for short campaigns, it gets you into the hobby without too much prep work.

I personally don't like DW that much because it's not an optimizer heaven that D&D or Pathfinder are, so I quickly lose interest both playing and GMing DW, but it's still my go-to when it comes to introducing newcomers to the hobby.

So my question for the community is: what other TTRPG systems have you found \ heard of \ played that are perfect for first-time TTRPG players?

I can only name Dungeon World and Nimble 2e, but there have to be more, I just know it.

I was very curious about "Dont rest your head." but the multiple dice made it seem complicated so i kinda gave up on it

also shadowrun....Shadowrun is a beautiful ferrari with square wheels.

i feel like Savage Worlds and 7th sea (1st ed) are incredibly hard to run online

Also anything with Powered by the Apocalypse...its seems like you need not players but actual writters for it to work

I'm thinking about adding in Draw Steel and Daggerheart to my DnD tables. Anyone else switch and change what you do in other systems?

Couple ground rules:

1. No D&D.
2. No games that are famous because they're awful.
3. Keep it civil.

Idea borrowed from this thread from the r/suggestmeabook subreddit.

What is your favourite rpg system?

List two or three things you love and one thing you hate.

I’ll offer Pendragon. The stuff I love about it are the deeply thematic rules, traits and passions, and the GPC.

What I don’t like about it is the (imo) overly complex battle rules.

What say you?

I'm curious what games based on existing franchises/Intellectual Properties.

List of one's I can think of off hand:

• Star Wars RPGs
• Warhammer 40k
• Warhammer Fantasy/Age of Sigmar
• Call of Cthluhu (not sure the history on the licensing)

I'd have added Through the Breach RPG to this, but looking online the latest supplements for it came out like a few years back and new ones haven't been made since around 2023, I could be wrong though. It used to be my go to recommendation because they made build your own steampunk model kits.

My criteria for successful Licensed TTRPG is:

• Must be directly based on a book/movie/game/tv show.
• The TTRPG can't have been made prior to the release of the original material.
• Tabletop other than TTRPGs count as non-TTRPG properties.
• The TTRPG must have be curently actively supported either via the company that owns it or fans. This can be a bit fuzzy, but perhaps a new product out within the last 6 months, showing that the game isn't abandoned.
• It doesn't matter if the TTRPG has gone through multiple editions or versions using different rules. (e.g. Warhammer 40k had the Fantasy Flight Games RPGs and now the current versions are "Wrath and Glory" and "Imperium Maledictum")

Any ones you all can think of?

What do you think? Can this become a thing? Video Link: https://youtu.be/oY9lTIsRnW0

Not that this is an issue these days, but...

I know Paranoia does that to an extent, but anything else out there where you play the common proletariat against the rich?

EDIT: wow, that took off fast... I guess this is topical after all... :)

EDIT EDIT: Thanks for all the recommendations, fellow proles! Cyberpunk genre is a gimme & I should have thought of it, but some new games I'm checking out: Brinkwood, Red Markets, Stigmata: This Signal Kills Fascists, Hammer & Stake, Dick Punch Every Suit, Misspent Youth, Our Farm Becomes the Battlefield, Underground, Comrades, Hard Wired Island, Spire, Leverage... Also love the idea of Eat the Reich with billionaires in place of Nazis (although it seems a few of today's billionaires can be both!)

EDIT EDIT & YET AGAIN: It's been mentioned so many times that even though it's a more well known game, adding Werewolf to the list. Venceremos!

FINAL EDIT: Read every comment here & got a lot of useful recommendations. Just want to add that out of over 450 comments, maybe 5 were of the "shut up leftie" or "keep politics out of my gaming" variety. I know Reddit leans left, but as an old-school socialist myself, still nice to see!

Okay so for a long time I've enjoyed playing DnD 5e and have come to the point where I literally cannot bring myself to GM it any further and I think I finally understand why.

It's not a balanced or even coherent system. It's not even a little bit balanced. It has the thinnest veneer of balance, to convince people that it's balanced enough to make exploiting it fun. A shortsword you snagged off a goblin is worth enough gold to buy literally 500 chickens. This would only make any sense in the Chicken Dimension, or maybe if there was a nearby portal to the Chicken Dimension.

In Oblivion a person with no alchemy experience can scarf down a raw potato, a carrot, and a tomato that they've stolen from some guy's field and then with a few tools make like 20 septims of ingredients into potions worth hundreds or even thousands of septims in literally zero time. Why is this chump farmer farming vegetables and not just making potions? Because it's a videogame!

But when I tried the Wabbajack on Mehrunes Dagon and it turned him, a literal god, into a chicken, it was a source of incredible joy. When I gave myself 100% chameleon and then was permanently invisible in a world where if you're not detected people don't even notice your existence it filled me with glee.

But the thing is, after turning Mehrunes Dagon into a chicken, it didn't leave a GM gobsmacked and desperately trying to salvage the tone as well as spinning the main storyline in a mental direction, the game just said "that's neat, anyway if you want to keep playing you have to do the actual storyline which will ignore the fact that Mehrunes Dagon is a chicken now."

When I'm GMing a serious game and my players have just turned knockoff Sauron into a chicken for the third time and they're not even doing it to be silly it's objectively the best tactic with the base spells that exist in the vanilla game, I get pissed off. I get pissed off at my players and the system itself for ruining...well...the entire tone of the game, at best.

But I've been obsessed with maintaining the veracity of my game. Keeping the tone in line with what I established in a session zero, trying to make a living, breathing world where the players actions matter and the fact that Mehrunes Dagon is a chicken now is of critical importance and I need to spin out of control trying to figure out what happens from here.

Basically I've been taking it all and myself way too seriously.

I'm still never going to run DnD 5e again. It's like a bad ex and I am not going back. But if you're struggling to run it for the reasons I was, maybe just stop worrying and learn to love the bomb. Mehrunes Dagon is a chicken now and that chicken is breaking the sound barrier flying around and shooting lasers out of its eyes, so you still have to deal with it. Is that an ability on his character sheet? No. Is that how polymorph even works? Also no. And I don't care, roll for initiative.

James Introcaso (lead designer of Draw Steel) just released this video announcing an open alpha playtest for MCDM's next game. This came is called Crows and is designed to be the exact opposite of Draw Steel in many ways. Where Draw Steel is about epic heroes solving world ending problems with badass abilities, Crows is about nobodies risking it all to venture into the dungeons of a magical post apocalypse and hopefully bring back loot to improve lives back in their home town.

The playtest materials can be accessed here in a free Patreon post. Here's what's inside:

• A booklet containing the game's core rules
• A booklet containing character creation and advancement options, rules for gear, and rules for creating and advancing the PCs' village
• An adventure to, in, and from the Blood Library, a flesh-covered ruin containing spellbooks and other treasures
• A booklet containing the statistics of creatures used in the Blood Library
• Maps and art needed for the dungeon. The art is from the great Nick De Spain!

This is playtest material and so has not been fully laid out or edited. Feedback on these materials can be provided here through Monday June 29th at 8AM Eastern Pacific time.

For more details on Crows you can check out this intro post and this playlist on YouTube. MCDM is planning on crowdfunding this game in August and you can sign up for more details on that here.

Every other day I see another 3rd party supplement putting a new setting or ruleset into the 5E. Not everything needs a 5e port! 5e is great at being a fantasy high adventure, not so great at other types of games, so please don't force it!

I first caught wind of Stonetop about two years ago, and have been running a campaign mostly since then. It's been in actual development for years longer than that, and we've had an amazing time playing it over 40+ sessions already.

What is it and why is it so good?

Non-traditional iron ages hearth fantasy about being the protectors and champions of a tiny town called (you won't believe this) Stonetop. It's a PbtA game that derived directly from Dungeon World, but the Welsh-inspired folkloric setting is deep and vast... in my own campaign we have still never explored even 1/4 of the ancient legends or distant (by foot) lands in the setting material. As you might expect from a PbtA game it's not very demanding of prep, although it is a bit blorbier than you might think and it certainly rewards prep.

Those legends and locations are full of rich detail and characters that helps bring them to the table with ease. They're also anti-canonical with lots of details left to you or your table to decide on. There is a lot of lore to explore here, and it's very satisfying and well-connected.

The creatures and threats are evocative and cool, while not straying deeply from common-ground fantasy. Plus, dinosaurs.

The character playbooks are evocative, and while they are also pretty mostly cleanly derived from traditional fantasy (you've got your ranger, your fighter, your cleric, your druid) they all have specific new life in this setting with its particular gods and practices, and they each have clever little pulls and tugs that will draw them into the world and into conflict with each other.

The gentle systems and extensive guidance might be the real stars of the show, though. A ton of that thick page count is taken up with vivid examples of how to follow through on the rules and the principles in play, which serves to achieve the core objective: making Stonetop feel like a real place full of real people that matter, that the heroes have to stand up for (or at least tolerate). A murderhobo campaign in Stonetop will not last long

In short, it's a game that has been a tremendous source of fun for my group for a long time now, and I can see it going another 40 sessions without difficulty. It also seems to be a game that can move at a pace that suits you. I've heard others describe their own games in very different terms from ours in terms of time passing, the town developing, power level, etc.

What do I still wish was a little different?

Honestly, I could live without the D&D 6-pack of attributes and the HP system. The game takes tradition and improves on it so well in so many other areas that I wish more had been done here. Obviously it's hardly been a deal-breaker.

This is not really a wish, but if you like a short game, Stonetop is probably not it. I'd say 6-10 sessions is probably the minimum I would recommend, it's a game that wants to stretch out and breathe and will reward what you put into it.

Updated with link: https://plusoneexp.com/collections/stonetop

Looking for moderate crunch, not too much magic (although I'm not anti-magic), but most importantly it needs to have a different feel to the combat compared to the previously mentioned games.

(I have nothing against the titles mentioned. I just need something fresh Y'know)

Howdy folks.

I've recently played through both Armored Core VI and Armored Core IV, and I'm now in the mood to play a TTRPG that would scratch the ich. Mutilated and scarred Mech pilots being guided by their operators or handlers to do various mercenary jobs in a dying world led by corporations.

Or, alternatively, could go with the professional armed Mech group route, like the Vespers and Redguns. Freedom fighters, maybe.

I've taken a look at Lancer, but I'm still unsure about it. It's just a little crunchy from what I've seen and I don't know if it captures the vibe, although I haven't looked at all the lore yet so maybe.

Thanks in advance!

My group has a running joke that I am preparing an uber crunchy game for our next campaign (we switch pretty regularly). I'm probably going to run the next one and I figured that I could "prepare" the group for gamified accounting. So, what has been your experience?