Request for recommendations: This upcoming weekend I'm going to some sort of trip/retreat-thing with some friends, and I'm trying to plan activities... so obviously I think "we should do a short campaign." But I also know that probably half of them have not played a tabletop RPG before. I'm personally a fan of D&D 5e but I'm worried that the learning curve / prep-time for that is far too great for what might be only 1 or 2 relatively short sessions.
So I'm looking for some alternative that is in the same style as D&D but has a very quick learning curve and character-creation process.
@NautArch I'm gonna split it. Just gotta figure out where. I think I'll just do "Can you" and "what happens". Can someone 'on hold' (too broad) this one for me? @doppelgreener @nitsua60
Yeah, Dungeon World is quite simple to pick up. But it does require a lot of paradigm shifting if you're already used to DnD - the way it works is massively different.
@PhiNotPi If you're unfamiliar with the show Harmon Quest (if not, I recommend it), they have celebrities come on and play "a tabletop game" with very loose rules. The GM is actually playing Pathfinder, which is even more complicated than 5e, but they streamline it so the mechanics don't require any attention, and make a lot of handwave rulings to that fun things will happen.
The basic mechanic of Dungeon World is "to do it, do it" - in other words, it suffices to just tell what your character is doing and the group determines whether that triggers a move. The move might call for a roll: 2d6+modifier, where 10+ is a hard hit, 7-9 is a soft hit and 6- is a miss (a failure, or a very interesting success).
One of the bits I like in Apocalypse World and Dungeon World is such emphasis on the narrative, and having rules to empower the players to cool stuff. The GM can't subtly up the TN if the players roll well because the TN is always the same, and the roll is always open.
@PhiNotPi Going rules-light does put more burden on the GM though. In addition to making most of the rolls for the PCs, the GM has to build the characters, prepare their items and spells, etc.
I never got the same good touch with DW, but with Apocalypse World I can improv an entire movie's worth of adventuring over the course of one evening with zero prep and about half an hour of character creation. That rocks
@nitsua60 rpg.stackexchange.com/q/124704/41726 it is contingent on the answer (an assumption I made) to another question and thus is virtually 2 questions in 1
@kviiri The black box model is generally useful for new players, who don't want to get bogged down with numbers and calculations, and want to have fun instead
For players who don't want numbers, I'd recommend something not-DnD in the first place, but with DnD, there's a reasonably complex combat mechanic that, when hidden inside a black box, just becomes really obscure and chaotic.
For example, I get really excited about the big numbers and all the fun math that I can do with them. Whereas my less tabletop-experienced friends want to experience the adventure and exploration part of the game, but are hesitant to tackle all the math and number-juggling.
Basically, the GM uses the numbers to determine whether things succeed or fail, or by how much they succeed or fail. The players describe what they want their characters to do.
@kviiri I think the idea is to treat it like they describe the action, you perform the mechanics (rolling dice, etc.) and tell them how it played out. It's numberless for them, but normal for you?
@NautArch Yeah but does that give enough feedback on whether the action one took was good? Combat is the most gamey part of DnD and relies quite heavily on knowing what is actually happening.
I vaguely recall an RPG with a Fate-like mechanic wherein players could accept tokens in exchange for concessions, and redeem them later to compel the narrative
I mean, I'm picturing a scenario where the player tries a variety of things without knowing which of them actually work, because the connection between DnD mechanics and reality is rather tenuous at times, and just winds up being really confused
For example, if the party is retreating from a fight, the GM might say "I need someone to get wounded" and that character gets a token that they can later spend to say "I shoot the bad guy in his face"
@kviiri Accomplishment will be based off your dice. THey describe their attempted action, you figure out what mechanic works with it, roll the dice, narrate the outcome.
Example: > GM: "Okay, it's Ragnar the barbarian's turn." > Player: "Uh... Ragnar is going to run up to the goblin and attack with his broadsword." > GM: [rolls dice] "The goblin dodges out of the way!" or > GM: [rolls dice] "You hit!" [rolls damage] "The goblin is now heavily wounded."
A toy example: I want to help my Ranger friend hit the target with their bow and arrow so I push the target prone. If I roll well, the Ranger has a harder time hitting the target.
Point is, there a lot of possible ways to run "rules light" D&D. But in general, the players don't need to know all the rules before playing, so the GM ends up picking up most of the slack.
@kviiri butyou'll encounter that problem with nearly any game. What you want is very low overhead game with minimal rules so that they don't need to learn them.
What about any of the 200 word RPGs from the contests here?
@kviiri Yes, given that the arrow is moving toward them. But if they're harder to hit, then it's less likely that the arrow will be moving toward them in the first place, so dodging isn't as important.
@kviiri Because every game is going to have rules and possibly rules that aren't immediately obvious (like prone and ranged attacks.) If you don't want folks to have to read a large set of rules in order to be prepared to play, then you need a system without a large set of rules.
@kviiri Right, if you're right next to them its easier if they are lying down, if you are further away it's harder. This isn't a rules obscuration problem, it's a PC doing something that is obviously a bad idea.
@kviiri Okay, I've only looked at a few systems and they all seem pretty rules-heavy. But I'm sure there are - i'm just saying something like that is what you need based on what you've said you'd like to do.
All I know is, I have friends who really want(ed) to play D&D, because high fantasy and adventure and killing things. But as soon as I started describing the basic mechanics (actions, bonus actions, initiative, skills, classes) their eyes glazed over and they got bored
@MikeQ I get that a lot with some of my friend groups too. One of the things I've done in the past is play some minimalist games to get them into RPGs (Roll for Shoes is a great starting point for example) and then slowly add fun mechanics as we play. Eventually they are basically playing D&D and I just make the formal switch next campaign
I've teached many people to play TTRPGs, and people don't tend to have a clue about what DnD is like, apart from "there's an alignment grid and you can pretty much do anything you want in a fantasy world" is a pretty common starting point.
So when people ask me if I could teach them to play DnD, I ask them whether they really want to play DnD or would they like to try some other TTRPG. Over the years given the choice, exactly two people wanted specifically DnD, one because "it's the real deal" (which annoys me to no end) and the other because she had gorged a figurative ton of Forgotten Realms literature in her teens.
As a side note, I still like superhero stories, but I'm starting to get a bit jaded on them after realizing that they make all make a basic implication of "might is right".
The real deal guy did change his mind too, because he had rather inflated expectations about DnD... basically boiling down to it being far crunchier than he expected :P
Alignment can be fun with Vengeance Oath Paladins.
"I'm here to eradicate cultists of Tiamat." "Tell me, does a good character stealth the room, assassinate four men in a well coordinated maneuver, make a bone totem out of one, then get the rogue to unlock the next door, open it, have two corpses tossed inside, then slam the door shut while you start loud negotiations of the remaining cultists choices?" "Yes. It's the right thing to do."
"Admittedly the bone totem might have been a bit much, none of them got to see it."
"You're scary." "You're sounding like an agent of Tiamat." Paladin sneer intensifies
I'm not really in love with it, personally, because I can't help noticing things I prefer in Apocalypse World... but it does put some effort into maintaining the dungeon adventuring spirit of DnD.
@MikeQ I've heard it described as "DnD as imagined by people who never played DnD" so it might be a superb fit for the problem :P
In various comments on this site, DW was mentioned as
[Dungeon world/Apocalypse World] is really more required reading for any designer today working on innovation in mechanics
Having read the ruleset, I do not (yet?) see why some posters feel this is such a major step forward.
A few exa...
@MikeQ Have you considered a narrative-focused approach. You could just create NPC statblocks for the characters (make them go up in CR milestone by milestone; gaining abilities based on new items/narrative reasons/fun things they discussed with you) and have them describe the story. They don't need to see the numbers; just roll dice and roleplay.
@DavidCoffron Yes, that is more or less what I was trying to describe. That, in addition to handwaving mechanics that require them to look things up, although that depends on the players (age, attention span, etc.)
@kviiri I am in that cult unwittingly. I would love to try new RPGs but can't find people who also do (and I don't want to try to learn it in an online group as I find they tend to be unwelcoming to my style of game-learning where I want to dive into everything at once)
@MikeQ My brothers and I play a game called MvM (monsters vs monsters) which is basically the same thing and balance actually works out much better IMO. It can be difficult to figure out how to make encounters without as much guidance, but not impossible.
I tended to steer newer roleplayers toward D&D, simply because it has rails to follow, which is useful starting out. You really need some experience under your belt before you go diving into narrative games, especially as GM.
Eg. when played as a rather straightforward combat+exploration game, DnD is tremendously easy for people who are shy with roleplaying
No need to improvise stuff when you don't want to, just look at your powers and cast lance of faith. 4e even included a ready bit of flavor text to use if you felt like it :P
I seem to recall the devs behind 5e have commented or indirectly commented they'd like to see more resolutions at the table and not drawn out debate online getting into legalese level dissections of what a word in a rule means.
@kviiri There needs to be a happy medium between "here is the exclusive list of things you do, do one of these things until enemy = dead" and "do literally anything and then figure out what to roll"
New groups need a foundation to build on. You don't need overbearing, comprehensive rules, you just need a few solid ones to get you moving in the right direction. Which is also why I usually suggest a new GM pick up a published adventure to either use or study as a guideline for their own creation.
@kviiri I still recommend 4e to new players/GMs sometimes (although I personally prefer 5e) especially when they come from a video game background and are just getting into roleplay. The mechanics feel video-game-eqsue to me and it is not as roleplay involved. Some players will naturally gravitate towards the roleplay and might seek other systems down the line but 4e does the combat thing very well
@SPavel I think Apocalypse World 1e used to have a rather good medium. I don't recall if you know the rules, but the basic idea is that you just tell what your character does and the group as a whole (or led by the GM) checks whether it matches the description of one of the moves in the game. The move tells what to roll and what happens.
@kviiri I've played all from IV to XI. I don't think they've aged particularly well, you have to have a soft spot for that style of goofy dungeon-crawly RPGs to tolerate them today, imo
As the books for 4E continued to come out and feature-creep and class-creep continued though, it got a little much to handle. Here's my power, here's the 9 keywords on it, wind is blowing east, it is a Wednesday so there's a +2, also it is equinox, +3/2sqrt[i] where i is my wisdom bonus minus my int bonus times charisma.....
I specify 1e because AW1e has few enough moves to learn during one session. 2e has way more, and I think this is its only major downside compared to 1e.
For example, you can decompose a typical 4e power "I want to kill that guy so I use my magic to cast the damage dealing spell" into Goal (kill the guy), power source (do the magic), and specific action (deal the damage)
@kviiri Well, there's basically IV+V, which can be fused into one giant game, and the loosely connected VI+Vii+VIII which work with entirely different mechanics/graphics. VI is probably the best of the latter three, but World of Xeen (IV+V) has a different feeling entirely
Or, I want to bamboozle the guardsman so he doesn't notice that my friend is pickpocketing his soul, doesn't matter if I use magic or extremely awkward erotic roleplay or just a "hey look there" move
And if you want to keep it vague, there's some default modifier to tie the description you come up with to mechanics, if you want precise, the mechanics are more spelled out
In Apocalypse World, I'd run pickpocketing the guard as a single under fire roll if it wasn't particularly important. Hard hit, you got whatever you went looking for. Soft hit, you got it, but the guard notices it's gone later and knows it's you. Miss, you find yourself grabbed by the wrist and looking up the barrel of the fellow's revolver and he very calmly demands to know why your hand was in his pocket.
Of course, since we're talking about a soul here, Augury might be needed to set it up.
@Yuuki Wouldn't be too bad of a setting, play as a highlander throughout the ages dodging various empires trying to conquer your region, grow some grapes, make some wine
JRPGs are largely cookie-cutter. Spiky haired heroes, going about their business, OH NO BAD THING. Look into bad thing. BAD THINGS STILL HAPPENING. Now we need to deal with a tangent plot while the main one is still going. Someone has died/changed/flipped sides/turned into a robot! OH NO THE BAD THING IS STILL BAD. Here is a really /elaborate/ dungeon with a different play mechanic or unique trait. Here is big bad boss/a god/boss god/some kind of voltron of lesser bosses.
@Maximillian Don't forget about the advertised 60+ hours play time, a.k.a. 2 hours of story about killing god, and 58 hours of grinding and excessively long hallways
@Maximillian Also, take advantage of items that increase in power without requiring level ups and become a SL1 invader with a fully ascended pyromancy flame and grief newbies.
@Yuuki This reminds me of a classic NetHack trick where you try to reach a temple with little level but a lot of money, because you can buy semi-permanent AC blessings with a cost that scales by your level
@Yuuki I never want to have to grind 99 humanity for chaos fireball ever again. I'm done with that game. I won't go back! Noooooo. I don't have to beat Artorias!
Though thankfully, tabletop RPGs don't really allow for video game adventure cheese techniques such as "I exploit the terrain inconsistencies outside the arena of Great Wolf Sif and use 600 arrows to slay him from outside aggro."
I haven't bought 5E. Not because I don't want to, I could never drum up interest for it. My former group had a death-grip on d20/3.5 derivatives like PF
@Maximillian I generally go the exact opposite direction of the 3rd-party stuff: had a session 0 last night at which only 4 races (human, dwarf, elf, halfling) and 5 classes (barbarian, fighter, rogue, sorcerer, wizard) were allowed. And I've got to say it doesn't seem to constrict creativity at all.
(If anything, I feel like having three of the same class actually pushes up the incentive to be creative.)
> "I'm a Wizard." > "You don't look like a wizard." > "I graduated from wizard college." > "I'm telling you, you don't look the type." > "It was a sports scholarship."
@SPavel It's unfortunate that wizard colleges are steering Fighters towards paper classes like Introduction to Goblin Language instead of giving them a proper education.
@nitsua60 yeah. That answer led to edit storm as I was wrong at first. Then got new advice. Then got new info. Then took it further to help OP more. All on mobile too. My fingers are tired.
@DavidCoffron No worries. I just saw that you were actively editing and getting helpful comments so didn't want to wade into the edit-stream. Figured you'd get to it at some point =)
@Yuuki hedge wizards are traditionally those who practiced magic informally. I think sorcerer (and maube warlock depending on the pact) is hedgier than druid. Druids are very formal in their practice (albeit not studied like wizards) in so far as they have specific spells they study and are fairly orderly in their behavior (they have there own language after all)
@ACuriousMind i want a hedge wizard subclass now. We have many studious wizards (including a necromancer) and a couple battle wizards. Giff me my peasant mage
@DavidCoffron Not D&D, but TDE has a "Charlatan" full mage class which does exactly that, mostly focusing on illusions and small magic tricks. I love playing Charlatans because everyone underestimates them until they start using their illusions creatively
In various comments on this site, DW was mentioned as
[Dungeon world/Apocalypse World] is really more required reading for any designer today working on innovation in mechanics
Having read the ruleset, I do not (yet?) see why some posters feel this is such a major step forward.
A few exa...
