Role Playing Games RPG MMORPG

I am currently addicted to BLOOD BROTHERS on my mobile, and I know my twin's wife is a proper MMORPG addict, so to all of you that know Dungeons and Dragons was not originally a cartoon TV show for kids, then this is where nerds can admit to drifting into the dark side.

Where's the shame? Fgss is a step away from the norm, so this is no surprise........

I have not performed a nerdwank for many years, but bitd was known to play, many. cyberpunk 2020, top secret/s.i. twilight 2000, the obligatory d&d and call of cthulu amongst others.

I ran Cyberpunk, Call of Cthulhu and Warhammer FRPG. And mostly played Rolemaster and AD&D (and new D&D) in Warhammer setting.

The only video and computer games that can call themselves RPGs have been Fallouts, Planescape: Torment and their kind. Nowadays it seems the game is an RPG if your character levels or skills up. I find it sickening.

Derdge Alert!

A few of my friends are 'rpg-compatible' and I was thinking of trying out a game of something with them. It's been a long long time since I've played any trpgs - the last games I played were Gamma World, Vampire: The Masquerade and AD&D.

I've been reading about Fiasco, which sounds pretty fun and probably a good one to play with people who've not played more involved rpgs before. Also, there's no DM, which sounds good to me as I imagine I'd be DM by default and I can't be arsed really. Anyone played it? Or has anyone got any other lightweight trpg recommendations?

Quiet thread, there must be more interest than this!

A friend of my eldest has just got a simplified D&D rule set from somewhere online and they are really getting into it, solo quests, dungeon master-ing for their dad, and quests with my kid. We were over at theirs on Saturday and my youngest wanted to get involved (mid quest, not ideal) so I made up a simple scenario and with some lucky dice rolls and my made up rules they got on pretty well! Was a fun way to get their imagination going. I've never played D&D before but might have to get a copy of the rules.

I’ve seen something like this - might be the same one. It was actually on a teachers resource site.

Another system that works quite well for a younger player is Troika. It’s quite a stripped back and uncomplicated system that makes play fairly immediate and flowing - you’re not doing too much consulting charts and working stuff out compared to d&d

RPG? Lol, noobs.

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PDFs of the D&D handbooks can be found online pretty easily if you want to have a look through it before buying. Also worth looking at DnD Beyond which is a (paid) online source for everything and can have character sheets and stuff saved on there. I prefer traditional paper for playing though.

Another option is Pathfinder which is a similar setting as D&D but a slightly different system.

I think this is what they (the friend) have: sorry, amazon link

Would be good to stick with the same as the friend as they can play together without confusing different rules, and if the youngest gets into it too then they can get involved as they get a bit older.

Looks like Wizards host the starter rulebook from that set on their website, does this look right?
https://media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/downloads/dnd_starter_rulebook.pdf
Also possibly has the pre-rolled characters available too, but these could just be other generic pre-rolls:
https://media.wizards.com/downloads/dnd/StarterSet_Characters.pdf
Then from what I can see this is the campaign that's in the starter set as well.
https://anyflip.com/efdfy/hxor/basic

Moving on from their if people wanted to make their own characters with a few more options for personalisation, the Player Handbook is what you'd want which will look like this:
https://online.anyflip.com/afgs/xkls/mobile/index.html#p=1

Then I'd recommend getting an adventure to move on with, before going full out on DM Guide and Monster Manual to create your own adventures.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources#Adventures

There's a load of additional sourcebooks as well with more character options, monsters and rules but can get overloaded with stuff quite quickly.

Edit: the player handbook can be bought in loads of places, one example here https://forbiddenplanet.com/124353-dungeons-dragons-players-handbook-hardcover/

Think I've seen it for £30 places but not sure.

No idea what this would be like in practice but might be good for younger players as well
https://forbiddenplanet.com/314239-dungeons-dragons-the-young-adventurers-collection

Worth keeping half an eye on Humble Bundle, they often have D&D rules books/ expansions for pennies

Still have mine 😌 (obvs in Italian).

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Thanks, good to have free resources! I think a hard copy of the rules would be useful in time but that should get us started.

I personally much prefer having the actual book when playing, but just because I find it easier to flick around pages quickly to reference things if and when it's needed. The stuff on anyflip is definitely useful to get an idea of things or if there's a group all trying to make a character and fighting over one player handbook. The character players don't need to reference the book too much in game, maybe some of the magic based characters more so unless they have spell cards or a track app or something. DM will check the manual and adventure guides quite a lot though.

FWIW i prefer PDF rules (or dndbeyond) to hard copy, but that's mainly because i am an idiot what runs Shadowrun so I gotta spend a LOT of time searching through a million rulebooks for keywords. Being able to use computer search for stuff I know is in some manual is a lot better than searching through them manually for me, but the "i know it's in there" part helps since I already know what I'm looking for. Though that helps with the physical manuals too, I guess. I do like having the option for both.

if the youngest gets into it too then they can get involved as they get a bit older

you're fooling nobody with this. You're one of us now, and your child will have no choice but to capitulate. Welcome!

Couple of friends published "your very own village" recently, it helps GMs generate simple scenarios for kids (or for new adult players!) that might be useful for you as you play.

you're fooling nobody with this.

I've already suggested to the dad of the other kid that we set up a parents D&D group ... not entirely in jest.

I was wondering if a thread like this existed! A few friends and I started playing D&D virtually during lock down. I never thought it was something I'd get in to but it was sort of the highlight of the week for a while. We still play occasionally but haven't quite managed to replicate the magic of a bunch of grown men getting absolutely steaming on a Thursday afternoon and trying to wind our DM up as much as possible.

Haha! Hope he goes for it. I was on a zoom call with a colleague the other week and he was giving some work-related anecdote or other (I forget the context), that he likened to DMing dnd and then he got really embarrassed about making the analogy. I had a chat with him afterwards about TTRPGing to soothe his embarrassment a bit 😆 and he told me his neighbour had very shyly invited him to his regular game the day before! In Germany though, so you're probably not the neighbour. There's loads of us, though, hiding in plain sight.

Ahh, im jealous you managed to get that going. I've got a few mates who I semi-regularly play board games with and we've always wanted to get a TRPG going, but we lack a DM. None of us are keen!

The closest we've got have been the Escape The Dark Castle/Sector games, which have an RPG vibe, but very much on-rails.

Can you have a rolling DM with some spurious reason why the stand in DM's normal character can't play this part? Sleeping potion mistakenly drunk instead of a swig of mead / knocked out by freak giant spider accident / went for a pee in the night and got a bit lost...

You can play D&D on your own right, so you must be able to act as DM and your own charcter too? Just don't take the piss with "I'll just check under this rock... oh I've found the supersword of invincible strength" type scenarios? That way you could rotate DM and still play your own characters. Must be possible.

Gloomhaven is a kind of board game/RPG hybrid, but there are GM-less systems that might work - Reddit has a big ol' list of GM-less systems, maybe you/your mates would enjoy one of those.

I've wanted to play Alice is Missing since it came out but haven't found the time for setting a group up!

The RPG sub-reddit has a pretty big list of games that don't need a GM, never looked deep into it nyself but might be worth looking at if you're not set on a specific setting/ruleset.

edit: refresh before posting or 'as bothwell says'.

Completely missed replies above, sorry - thanks all!

I’ve kind of resigned myself to DMing and decided I’ll just get into it and enjoy it rather than seeing it as an onerous task. I’ve got a group of 4 (not including me), which seems a decent amount. Because we’re all noobs, I’ve decided to go with the Troika rule system. It’s basically an OSR style system based on the old fighting fantasy system. Super simple. Rather than use Troikas very idiosyncratic setting, I’m porting it to straight D&D/Tolkien style fantasy, as it’s a world everyone is familiar with.

I have a vague Adventure written (which needs fleshing out) and I’ve even drawn up a character sheet and some character art, to surf the wave of enthusiasm while I’m on it :-D

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Sounds good, I think GMing is actually really good fun once everyone playing has a grasp of the rules and their personal play style and a group of 4 is a nice number I think. I love that character art too. Reminds me of an old indie flash game that I used to love.

I have a vague Adventure written

Might as well just throw that in the bin once the players speak to the first completely unintersting NPC they find though...

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The people in the session are all people I regularly play board games with and im hoping they have a level of understanding enough that if im putting a clear quest initiation hook in their path, its a bit of a dick move to not play along :-D

Will report back when words have been eaten and friendships have been ended!