So, I have a hankering to play some roleplaying games again - the Pen & Paper type, and have asked my kids and GF to join me. I was considering D&D (Basic D&D, not AD&D set) which I used to play a lot, and which is pretty easy for players as I remember, but was curious if there were any alternatives. Free or otherwise if they are interested to try it again.
I’d say it have to be easy to pick up for the players - the GM it doesnt need to be. I’ve played a ton of the oldschool RPG’s like AD&D, Shadowrun, Warhammer Fantasy, Children of the Sun (Hi !) and so on…so I have some grasp on how to learn rules - I just know the ones I play with, have little patience :-)
Thanks in advance!
oh - and any cool tools that have emerged over the last few years, Ipad or PC would be greatly appriciated as well (Dice rolls, random encounters, map creations and so on)
Well…if it weren’t for the kids I’d be recommending things like Apocalypse World and Fiasco, but those are not really kid-friendly games. Like, at all.
So I’ll just post what was in the family-friendly RPG bundle Bundle of Holding did a while back. I figure those guys know their stuff:
Adventures in Oz - Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road (F. Douglas Wall)
Camp Myth: The RPG and Mermaid Adventures (Third Eye Games)
Happy Birthday, Robot! (Evil Hat Productions)
Hero Kids (Hero Forge Games)
Project Ninja Panda Taco (Jennisodes)
School Daze (Sand & Steam Productions)
The Princes’ Kingdom (CRN Games)
The Zorcerer of Zo (Atomic Sock Monkey Press)
(Actually, Dungeon World is probably fine for kids and shares much (though not all) of what makes Apocalypse World so cool. And is certainly far more widely supported. You could maybe look at Feng Shui (or, better yet, the upcoming second edition), too - fairly simple as these things go, and good for wild cinematic action. A lot of the movies that inspired it are a bit too violent for little ones, but I bet you could get some mileage out of it by pitching things a little more Jackie Chan than John Woo.)
The kids aren’t that small anymore, but aged 15 and 18 so some violence is probably not out of order - Excellent suggestions though! I’m mostly a fantasy type of gamer, but perhaps something is actually a great idea, since my GF is a lot more into modern / sci fi settings in games.
Edit: okay, Apocalypse world seems VERY grim…maybe even too much for me ;-)
edit2: Okayy, Dungeon world seems very interesting actually!
I play a fair amount of RPG’s these days and I think 5e is one of the simpler ones out there. Plus the PDF is free and plenty to get you started for a few sessions. The other one I would suggest would be Dungeon World. Though I actually found DW a bit more difficult to learn from reading the rules than 5e, DW plays really smoothly.
If you’re looking for something not too rule heavy, Call of Cthulhu’s D100 system is very simple and it’s great for one evening sessions that end with everyone dead or insane.
Anyone have any suggestions for a 2-player RPG? Just the wife and me, she enjoys board games but prefers the more social kind as opposed to say Twilight Struggle so I thought maybe she would enjoy a more story focused experience.
I like Beyond the Wall to introduce beginners. The Playbooks make it very easy for a player to grasp what their character is about, and it is designed to enable you to create characters, the starting village, the adventure and then run it all in 4 hours total.
I have also had great success with Numenera for new players as the systems are really simple to grasp and there is nothing complicated about it. the setting is way weird though.
If they are into Star Wars I would recommend the new Star Wars RPG beginner sets, they are fantastic for new players and gives everyone a great frame of reference.
The newest edition of D&D is probably my favorite ever, and the rules are available for free online. Also, I’d second the recommendation of Dungeon World, which had the potential to be an awesome experience, assuming that the DM is willing to commit to the approach and the players are willing to participate in story creation.
Apocalypse World is harder. I appreciate what it is going for, and the mechanics are brilliant, but I was not comfortable with some of the content. I don’t think of myself as a prude, but I’m not comfortable running games with a heavy dose of sex or relationships in my gaming groups. I’d imagine it would be awkward for 15 to 18 year olds as well.
I also love fate. If you are willing to create your own setting (not hard) or hack someone else’s (even easier), then you can do a lot with relatively simple mechanics. I’m putting together a 30s pulp/Indiana Jones inspired game for my group now, and its been super fun.
Fate seems like a good system for total novices. There’s even an “Accelerated” version of the rules that simplifies the system down to 50 pages. Best of all, there is free/try before you buy option. You can check out the full pdf of either the Accelerated or Core rules and if you like it, you can send the authors some money via PayPal.
Darn you! It has been years since I have played any PnP rpg. I tried to look through the newest D&D rule book when that came out but was frankly overwhelmed to a degree. Dungeon World looks much more my style at this point in my life. If anyone ever wants to run a forum game of it I would be interested.
5th Ed D&D manages to capture a lot of the flavor and charm of older editions while rolling in some more modern touches (something akin to 3E’s skills, something like storygame’s character hooks, etc.). You will still inevitably run into weird rule corner-cases as you play and abilities begin to interact (Wait, can I Sneak Attack a target an ally is beside of if I’m Blind? What if the Ally is Petrified? Or even Incapacitated? What is a Sneak Attack, anyway?), but this is much reduced from more complicated systems like D&D 4E and Pathfinder (D&D 3.75). It’s got all that classic flavor, the awesome worlds of D&D, and is bound to get lots of support, so you’ll always have new material to play with.
Dungeon World gets a lot of love, but it’s sort of an odd step for someone steeped in early d20 paraphenalia, but makes for some fun and exciting sessions if you can get everyone on the same page. The premise is essentially applying some very modern game design principles (mostly borrowed from Apocalypse World) and applying them to the sort of nostalgia-tinted vision of oldschool D&D dungeoncrawling. I’d say it’s not great for long-running campaigns (there’s only so many moves you can learn and levels you can earn before the system just stops having much to advance with), but if you wanted to play a 1-2 month-long intro game to get the family into the concept, it’s great :)
Fate is an awesome system that can really go in any direction with as much or little tweaking as you’d like. Like DW, it’s got some “new” elements to it (e.g., everyone writes sentences–Aspects–to describe their character that become True-with-a-capital-T and can be tapped for mechanical benefits, re-rolls, or even to make minor changes to the gameworld itself), but is–in the end–still about rolling dice, adding modifiers, and overcoming challenges. It’s great for collaborative storytelling, so if you have a group of creative, invested people, you can go some really crazy and amazing places without having to worry too much about not doing something “right,” but I will say that if you’re DMing for people who are still new to the idea, you can experience some creative fatigue yourself as you push forward all that stuff on your own.
Advancement is pretty good for playing something longer-running, but it also does episodic very well. I’m currently running a scifi-comedy game (Star Control-inspired) and loving it, but recently ran horror (Alien-inspired) and steampunk one-shots for acquaintances–several who’d never played the system before–and had great success. There’s pre-made Fantasy roll-ups for it if you want, but if you’re the kind of DM who likes tinkering and futzing, there’s a lot of room to roll your own thing, and the character creation chapter also encourages the players to influence the sort of game and world they play in, working with the DM to decide on things like the outstanding problems that need solving and some of the places and NPCs they’ll visit.
It’s really cool, and I absolutely love it. I’d wholeheartedly recommend you at least give it a read-through, or search the forums for my other posts on the topic, which go into a little more detail, IIRC :)
Oh, and Lasers & Feelings is a goofy, hilarious, awesome system to run a 1- or 2-session game with to introduce people to some of the basic ideas of roleplaying with a one-page ruleset. There are fantasy hacks for it (Swords and Scrolls comes to mind), if you prefer.
It doesn’t seem like the Apocalypse Engine (the mechanics behind Apocalypse World, and tweaked for use in Dungeon World, Monster of the Week, Monsterhearts, etc) is really designed for the sort of multi-year epic campaigns that some people associate with roleplaying, no matter what flavor of it you use. At least, not without the cast of characters rotating regularly. For me that’s fine. I have no hope of ever getting through a major campaign, but something that inherently tends to build to a natural conclusion after X many sessions? Much more viable.
Yeah. I’m lucky to be about 1.75 years in on what I’d ideally like to make a 2.5 year campaign, and right now, Pathfinder’s mechanics are buckling hard under the strain. I’m honestly not sure which games do do it well. Maybe Adventurer Conqueror King, insofar as it’s the central conceit of the game. . .
Thanks everyone for the great suggestions. We ended up playing my basic (Red) D&D oldschool game, and interestingly enough, my eldest daugther picked up on some sore spots immediately, asking why having to choose class, some of them were races and not classes and of course why when AC is lower its better. It was easy for me to remember how to gamemaster though, and its not the rules that were important this first time, but just the idea of how to play this kind of game. Needless to say, everyone had a blast and wants to keep on playing some other time - Great fun! I’ll be looking into your suggestions for next playrun, when I have time to prepare and purchase and peruse the books needed.
As for longer campaigns - I remember back in the day, I DID use D&D for longer campaigns. We played for years, actually, and never got to the Black Set as far as I can remember. There’s a lot of longevity in the game I find.
