I want to introduce my friends to fantasy RPGs, but, evidently, d&d 5e and pf2e are horrible for this. If you disagree, please don’t just try to change my mind.
I’m familiar with the old basic editions of d&d, but the lack of a universal mechanic dissuades me from using them as an intro (you want to roll high for some rolls, low for others, percentile for some, x-in-6 for others).
So what would be a good “d&d for beginners” given these limitations?
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4E
There's some stuff in the OSR that copies the old basic editions but make a unified resolution mechanic. Not sure about the names, though. I think BFRPG does that. And it's also free.
If you want a really simple intro, try Knave or Cairn. Can't go simpler than that.
answer is 5e
WFRP
Index Card RPG
mini six
ICRPG is the best onboarding book for newbies that I have ever come across. There are one page RPGs that super simplify roleplaying and the mechanics and make for great games but yeah, my vote is still for ICRPG.
Mini Six is fricking dope.
Are they okay with horror fantasy and lower power levels?
Depends by what you mean with horror. I like low power levels though
That guy's going to recommend Call of Cthulhu and/or it's slightly higher PC power level version Pulp Cthulhu which isn't necessarily the worst choice if you're actively avoiding 5e and/or D&D in general.
It's mechanics are pretty easy, better suited to games in "modern" type (nonfantasy) settings and there's really quite a lot of games that use them.
Another option would be to learn GURPS through one of its solid setting books e.g. Transhuman Space.
Just always bear in mind that for better or worse the D&D scene is far bigger than the scenes for every other RPG combined.
If you already have a group, the size of the scene is irrelevant. Only the softest of wiener enthusiasts needs pre-written adventures.
Horror like horror. Either way, Shadow of the Demon Lord sounds like it'd work well mechanically. It's a pretty streamlined system but not devoid of options, and there are only two types of roll to learn. Both work the same way too it's just about if the TN is 10, or the TN is an enemy stat.
I know it's your brand now but please stop being a presumptive moron.
Basic/Expert rules 1st edition, colloquially known as B/X (/osrg/ can provide you with a relevant links, look for Players handbook, monsters manual and Dungeon Master's Guide. Abbreviated as PHB, MM and DMG)
4th Edition (pdfs all over the net, you need more or less the same titles as above, but made for 4th Edition, not Fiirst. Also go for MM3 or Monster's Vault instead of MM1 or 2)
3.5 (ban classes from PHB if you go with this)
If your friends can't figure out d20+modifiers, there's no hope.
>ctrl+f genesys
>0 results
as expected, but why?
WHERE ARE THE FRICKING DICE HOLY SHIT
I refuse to use some dogshit mobile app
Hey OP, maybe this will help you. Last summer my friend's kids asked me to run a D&D game for them because their dad told them I used to play. I made an abridged one-page version of the basic D&D rules for them to use as cheat sheets.
Everything is just d20+ mods. I took a page from Barbarians of Lemuria and had the players roll a d20 + their class level for general class-based stuff that wasn't covered by specific skills.
Just realized that isn't very helpful without the GM rules (which are few).
I started them at level 2 and told them they could either be a 2nd level character, or a 1/1 multiclass. Chargen was 3d6 arrange as desired. As said, all other rolls except the initial stat rolls are d20+mods.
I gave them a +1 for each rank they had in a skill, so a level 1 barbarian rolls 1d20+2 for climbing and 1d20+1 for anything else barbarian-ish that isn't covered by his class skills.
nm I'm moronic, stats were pointbuy with 6 points to distribute and the stat range was 0-3
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy
if pathfinder and dnd are too complicated then your friends are either
>children (who are moronic)
>mentally handicapped
your better off killing yourself. people like you piss me the frick off
he didn't say they're too complicated. he said they're horrible.
Timmy, this is your mother. What have I told you about posting on 4-Chan after your bedtime?
Someone tell Robotnik that shadow is posting on /tg/ again
Less than a year ago I would have talked over all the detractors as best I could and say 5e is the very obvious choice but it has taken a precipitous dive.
STILL though, I would - with reservation - still say to learn 5e. It's easy for players to learn, literally like D&D with training wheels. Don't buy books yet, learn from the online resources but in another couple three years the bottom is going to fall out of the resale value. When you start seeing good, core 5e books for like $10 start fricking buying them b***hes.
If Hasbro is successful in their scheme this will be the last high quality print edition of the game so if you want an actual physical D&D library (you should) this is the last edition you'll get a chance to buy up cheap.
Unless you want 4e right now but frick 4e
>buying 5e
What the frick is wrong with you, seriously? You know you can go to the general on this very board and download it for free, along with every other D&D rulebook. Are you actually working for WotC?
I'm literally advising them to learn from online resources now then when the market tanks to buy second hand 5e books below their Real Value explicitly so as not to get sucked into Hasbro's "D&D As A Service" online model.
If you don't physically own a particular edition and just float along expecting to play off your phone forever you WILL end up paying a monthly subscription fee for D&D before the end of this decade. I guarantee it.
If you already have a group that is only ever going to play original content and only ever with one another then the game of choice 100% depends on the needs of the group.
You can pirate the books, you lying c**t. Why do you equate looking at SRDs with downloading the rulebooks, except to distract people from piracy? Fricking piece of shit WotC shill.
Wow you literally have zero foresight, huh? I'll try to explain it to you again I guess. There is currently this service called D&D Beyond that Hasbro is working at funneling their player base into. Soon, if you play off your phone/computer it is going to be assumed by other players that you're using D&D Beyond.
When this happens, it will coincide with a point that used 5e books will literally sell for less than it would cost you to print them out in basic b***h quality. Buying them and playing from those books, with those rules that are physically frozen in time will be the only way you can avoid being swept online, where the only way you can play is by subscribing to the service.
I'm literally doing the opposite of shilling. My advice gives Wizards/Hasbro zero dollars. They've already stopped printing rulebooks, they'll probably start shredding them soon.
>the only way you can play is by subscribing to the service
If they can't keep the freeloaders off Minecraft and GTA:O then there's zero chance Hasbro is going to keep D&D subscriber only.
Plus, PDFs. If there's still people playing OSR there will still be all the other shit too.
>it is going to be assumed by other players that you're using D&D Beyond
First off, why would anyone assume this? Surely it's just far more reasonable to assume the GM has downloaded the books.
But also, why does it matter what people assume about your ownership of the game materials? You can just own them now, for free, like, this very minute. Just go to the thread and download the books you want. Why would it matter at all what other players imagine about why you know the rules, if you do indeed know them and have them available?
And since it's freely available, why would anyone pay for a used copy? Like, what is the point of what you're advocating for apart from lighting your money on fire?
You won't be able to play with people using D&D Beyond without using D&D Beyond. I'm literally already starting to see it happening in front of my eyes at the shop and a lot of the people you're conditioning right now to just play off their phones will switch. You will see soon.
What the frick are you even talking about? Do you understand that you sound like a deranged person?
I don't think I can be any clearer so I guess you'll just have to find out the hard way.
>sound like a deranged person
namehomosexualry does this automatically
>the only way to avoid losing the rules is to buy a book
Wow I knew you were stupid but I couldn't even imagine that you were THIS stupid. You can go download the PDFs right now and have access to them permanently. How are you so ignorant?
You need other people who all agree to play by a particular set of rules, Anon. The people who play off digital rules are going to switch to 5.1 or whatever very soon, probably by the end of 2024 and you'll be left with your PDFs in one hand and your dick in the other. Your options will be either to subscribe to D&D Beyond or play with a physical set of rules you provide all your players to reference. I suppose there will continue to be some wretches clinging to online games of the outdated rules but 95% of them will dry up within a few months of the official rollout - which is why the books will be so insanely cheap at that point there will be no valid excuse not to pick them up if that's the edition you want to stick with.
How much do you weigh?
Or, perhaps, I could read from a tablet or laptop instead of buying these books that are being shredded as we speak! Or maybe even *print* the PDF file! Oh my god! You’re right, I’m being ridiculous. I MUST own physical copies of everything because you don’t understand, they’re coming for your guns, kids, and DND books!
>you have to play the game on an electronic device with complete strangers who are fricking buttholes
Just play a video game
I agree completely and I expect they will lose a huge chunk of their audience to exactly that, turn based multi-player online games with heavy social meta, slick VTT-esque graphics and endless low demand AI generated adventures.
Because you're a morbidly obese, undisciplined consoomer who thinks most people buy goyslop uncritically like you do. Actually most people that play RPGs don't spend any money on them at all. "The industry" is a byproduct of disgusting whales like you.
Normal people play online with their friends. They use the 100% free rulebooks that they have individually and permanently saved on their computers. Nobody at all uses D&D Beyond except for you disgusting fat fricks. Even if 100% of the whales migrated to a pseudo-MMO game, 100% of RPG hobbyists would be unaffected, actually, not quite unaffected, their hobby would just improve. Please, frick off into your WotC containment zone forever you obese piece of shit.
This must be some kind of satire. Someone with such poor reading comprehension, math skill and general awareness couldn't possibly be functional.
To be so completely devoid of foresight does sync up pretty well with aggressive poverty though.
You may just be the dumbest person on this board. You're so far removed from how regular humans function
Regular people can and will spend ten bucks now and then on their hobbies. You'll see.
>Less than a year ago I would have talked over all the detractors as best I could and say 5e is the very obvious choice but it has taken a precipitous dive.
Yes, I would say D&D current idea of an adventure literally being "handle some particularly complicated coffee orders while working as baristas at your non-binary wizards college" is indeed a precipitous dive.
Yeah Strixhaven is particularly bad and some of these illustrations like that Ravenloft one you posted will age laughably (I hope) but wokeness is just an obvious symptom of the purveying corporate greed that is once again rotting the game in every way, just like ~1990 all over again.
This just seems like a paper thin method for reading D&D modules out loud to players like they were bedtime stories - which I suppose I might do with my little sons.
Seems like even the Beer & Pretzels crowd could handle, like, White Box or Labyrinth Lord though.
>I would say D&D current idea of an adventure literally being "handle some particularly complicated coffee orders while working as baristas at your non-binary wizards college"
Wasn't the most recent adventure release "Keys from the Golden Vault", which is a series of adventures themed around heists? The last adventure in the book involves stealing The Book of Vile Darkness from an efreeti in his lava-moat-surrounded fortress before he can use his armies and the knowledge gained from the Book to attack the PC's homeland. Oh and their point of contact is an arcanoloth that wants the Book for himself and so plans to betray the party for it.
Seems like it might be a bit more than just serving coffee, is all I'm saying.
Have you tried playing D&D?
Play Sword World 2.5
I'd recommend a retroclone since in raw mechanics they're probably easier on a new player and allow for a lot of creativity in play. Since they're rewrites, some may have solved your issue with the lack of universal mechanics.
Here's a link to OSE's SRD: https://oldschoolessentials.necroticgnome.com/srd/index.php/Main_Page
Maybe you'd prefer ACKS?
https://tkurtbond.github.io/ACKS/acks_srd.html
If not, check out glog.
The different flavours of 3e are all pretty complicated.
If you don't hate the at will, encounter, daily, everything is the same paradigm that 4e runs on, then use 4e, but you should hate it because it's terrible.
I'd just look around the endless sea of 5e hacks until you find the one that does the thing you want.
White Box FMAG is what you want.
I almost specifically mentioned this in the post I just made. Five bucks, 144 pages, authentic Dungeons & Dragons.
This. Hands down the single best version of D&D.
What do you like so much about it?
Dungeon World. Half PbtA, half D&D and unless you and your friends are complete idiots (which is a strong possibility) then you'll get into it very easily.
Basic Fantasy RPG. A hybrid of B/X and AD&D, with some modern conveniences built in. It's becoming my favorite game to play. All of the rules are available in PDF form for free, or if you refuse to have electronics at the gaming table like me, they sell print copies at cost.
The Beginners Essentials PDF is 15 pages and goes over every a noob would need.
I've used Mouse Guard in the past for groups of new players.
Now I would use Mauseritter.
>Like real life but you are a mouse
>Cats are dragons
>Let's take your mice for a walk in the forest.
ran mausritter before
fun stuff, but cutting out all the paper was annoying >_<
Ooooff fair enough,
Thanks for the heads up
The inventory cutouts thing is just so kids don't have to write and read.
Pretty much everything has 3 durability points, and heavy or large items take 2 slots. That's all.
Obvious Forbidden Lands if we are talking about old-school.
As for super-hero heroic high fantasy I am not sure if there a good product on the market.
Rules Cyclopedia/Basic DnD.
Read "the old school primer" before doing so.
EZD6 by Runehammer Games.
Easy to teach: Just roll a 1+? amount of D6 dice and one of those numbers have to beat my number which I come up with depending on the situation (2 very easy, 3 easy, 4 medium, 5 hard, 6 very hard).
Lets your players use imagination instead of getting torn down by a specific rule.
>"Can I have a gun?"
>"Sure kid, but all weapons normally do 1 strike anyway so you're free to spice things up!"
>"What spells do I have as a fire mage?"
>"Just tell me what do you WANT to do as a fire mage and I tell you what you have to roll."
Also easy to run:
>Characters and monsters have different amounts of strikes that go from 1 to 15 (?), with normal enemies having 2-4 strikes. Each hit does 1 strike of damage normally. If you crit you can roll again and could score another hit. If you keep critting, this keeps going until you dont.
>Players describe how they do something cool? No need to check up on a rule, just give them a bane or a boon depending on the situation(roll a +-1 D6 more dice).
Also easy as frick to prep and this comes from a guy who despises prepping for games: Converted a PF1 Beginner Box scenario for EZD6 in 30 minutes and winged a lot of it during gameplay. Worked pretty well. Also ran it for 2 complete newbies and they loved it.
EZD6 does "beer and pretzels" D&D better than any rule set I've read or used. No bullshit. It has exactly the rules you need to play and no more. Honestly just toss out your D&D books. This game is better.
>but the lack of a universal mechanic dissuades me
Why don't you just ask players to roll a d6 and set the difficulty for each task then?
>but the lack of a universal mechanic dissuades me from using them as an intro
It's 5e. You want 5e.
If you think 5e is "too complex" or "complicated" for new people... Either you are a moron, or you're trying to get a moron to play.
SOTDL is a better d&d than d&d
Just ask your DM to go easy a bit. Quit being a pussy snowflake who needs special rules and systems.
Related, why are players so reluctant to read the rules? Why do I have to spoonfeed them fricking everything? DnD players do this but I've had it in every system I've run.
Because players are by and large lazy shitheads who expect the guy running shit to do everything, including thinking, for them. I have had the fricking book out on the table every session, I have pdf copies of the rules, I send them copies of any additional homebrew we end up using, and they still hold up the game every time they want to cast a spell. Maddening.
Relatedly, how the frick do you get your players to stop being morons? Hypothetically speaking, of course, since moronardation is terminal. Mine seem to expect me to force-feed them not just the rules but adventure hooks, character motivations, and even their own plans, and they routinely misinterpret everything I do through a videogame/Visual Novel-corrupted lense so it feels like I'm playing with badly trained AIs who refuse to roleplay instead of actual human beings.
>including thinking
This is the biggest hidden obstacle to overcome teaching D&D to new players in the 2020s. Mechanics can be extremely simple especially for certain classes but the vast majority misunderstand the fundamental nature of role playing games. Even the role playing itself is awkward because most players are 10x more focused on their own character than on other characters - but when it comes to collaboratively keeping track of what's going on and creating rational plans using the team's combined resources it's like pulling teeth.
You guys aren't going to like the obvious answer. The fact is these games are designed for the dedicated autist. I'd argue this is even true for the simplest popular game. D&D 5e. The people designing these products obviously have never played with the average, and by default casual, human being that actually makes up the vast portion of players. The only possible solution is to either make apps that do all of the thinking for them. Or to make the rules so simple that even a completely casual moron could play the game without reading them. One way to do this without removing too much complexity is to remove player facing rules. This was the approach the earlier editions until D&D 3e went with. It's why the games were so easy to play. You could invite anybody to your table and within minutes you could start playing. Unfortunately, this doesn't help if your DM is also a casual or a moron. In my very strong opinion, the obvious solution is to release a highly streamlined version of D&D 5e with only a couple pages of rules and highly simplified linear class design and progression. However, the autists will SCREEEEEEEEECH! Why? It's not just the rules. They are under the mistaken impression that you need more rules in order to customize their Barbie Doll. This isn't actually true because players have been customizing characters since OD&D.
I'm not even playing 5e, I'm playing B/X with a mix of 5e and n00b players and I think that's the problem. They keep expecting to throw dice at things til they go away and I'm expecting them to actually interact with and, y'know, play with the stuff I've spent all week building. I even made it easy on them and gave them some extremely simplified caster classes modified to fit the setting but it still didn't help. They seem to be allergic to dungeons too, so it's no wonder I put the game "on hold" a while ago. I've had 5e-playing, gamer types who were competent players before but the majority turn into bumbling mongs as soon as they sit down at the game table.
>B/X
>players are allergic to dungeons
Whew. Have them take down a church. Dipshit modern players eat up "the church is actually evil" plots and a big cathedral can be a dungeon without the players catching on until they're already having fun with the dungeon crawling mechanics you just have to keep dangling the "just a few more rooms until you get to spit in God's face" carrot.
5e is really beginner friendly but if you use D&D Beyond to make character sheets your players will end up permanently handicapped and be unable to do anything else. I don't know why it is, but introducing someone to TTRPGs with Beyond makes them permanently moronic.
You could always do Microlite20. It's light, it's simple, it's fast and doesn't take a lot of knowledge, and it gives decent skills to get into other TTRPGs. It also teaches you how to fill a character sheet.
The most important part is you actually sit down with them and teach them the character sheet, make sure that they understand what the frick they're doing, or else they're going to get frustrated and not play.
>I don't know why it is, but introducing someone to TTRPGs with Beyond makes them permanently moronic.
Holy shit I'm beginning to notice the same thing. Wtf?
I noticed the same with Pathbuilder2e for Pathfinder 2e. Once you show that to players they stop using their brain. They don't bother learning their character abilities even though they are one click away. Then they start acting fricking moronic when you have to apply a condition, penalty, or bonus to their rolls on the fly because they can't find how to do it on the app quick enough. Honestly don't even know if it's possible because I don't rely on apps to play the game. I read the rules.
Funnily, you yourself could probably benefit from running some AD&D where a lot of modifiers (especially circumstance penalties) are solely the DM's responsibility and get applied behind the screen after the player has reported what they believe to be their result.
Modern players are likely to hate this kind of thing and react quite negatively though, even if you explain the mechanics behind it to them. If the corpos are going to actively dumb down the player rules they're going to *have* to re-prioritize DM fiat which, to 5e's credit, it has done more explicitly than 3 or 4 ever did but older editions have Mystery baked into every bit of the player experience.
As it stands right now it's become pretty normal for me to apply circumstance modifiers directly to DCs and track conditions for the players including moving their miniatures back to the limit of their actual movement or the dreaded "okay now roll it again" when they forget to apply disadvantage.
So arbitrary post-hoc modifiers are good, but fudging rolls is bad? OSR is weird.
They're not arbitrary, Buddy. They're just getting applied by the DM because players (eg you) can't keep track of them. It's the same as if the players don't know what a DC is and players are always trying to roll dice at unknown, (often unset) DCs.
That sounds like GM fiat with extra steps.
they're not post-hoc or arbitrary.
Do you promise, GM-kun?
Basic D&D - B/X
>the lack of a universal mechanic
this is bad design. It is like socialist regimes, leveling everything at the lowest common denominator. It is a quality you should seek to avoid.
> high for some rolls, low for others, percentile for some, x-in-6 for others)
it's not rocket science. see attached
>M3G4
folder/VqoR1BjL#uJtN9VBzYIPa0sB_0mv9Ag
And now osrgays regressed to calling universal mechanics a socialism. Holy shit, my Basic Revolution for People games and Grandiose United Revolutionary Process System are in danger!
At least Americans have some funny food analogies, not this stupidity.
just play escape the dark castle
Dungeon Crawl Classics