My wife notoriously HATES board games and D&D. In the past, she's had bad experiences with them, she thinks they're boring, and a long time ago when we sat down to play stuff like D&D or pathfinder, the other players acted like... to put it bluntly, they acted like the smelly stereotypical autistic nerds, and it put her off of tabletop gaming as a whole. It's been this way for a decade!Well, my wife just came to me and asked me, "Can we play that D&D game you like? But this time just play it for two people instead of a whole group?"I only have this one chance to show her that tabletop RPGs aren't fucking awful. How do I do it, bros? Please, I understand that this isn't a request board or and advice board, and I understand this situation is likely to coax some of you into wanting to give me shitposts and troll responses, but I need your help...
>>93165823take some TV show or movie she likes and base your game on it, like if she likes Supernatural or some other shit ape the plot of episode you think is coolkeep the rules light
>>93165823* Write a one-shot based on a general theme she likes. Maybe if she watches Bridgerton you can do something in a Regency style. If she likes Star Wars you can do something in that vein. If at all possible, give yourself some breathing room so you can't rub her up the wrong way (Star Wars but not IN her favourite film or series, etc.)* Use the simplest ruleset you can get away with. Risus is not a bad pick here, but if she liked mechanical tinkering at all I'd be willing to go as heavy as Mini Six.* Hold to the OSR tradition: rulings not rules, narrated actions over character sheet options, etc. Not so much the dungeon time tracking shit, that may not be relevant. Basically, keep to the format of collaborative storytelling/conversation and away from grid movement.* Keep it short and sweet. Four hours is a long time by most leisure activity standards, and that's a short session.* Newbies like open-ended problems and dialogue a lot more than they like combat, 9 times out of 10. "Trying to throw an awesome banquet" or "unpicking a ghostly haunting" are much more likely to land than "trying to outflank an ogre while goblins throw shit at you."
>>93165823If playing dnd I recommend you look up at some resources for dnd 1on1 play, since dnd is heavily based on teamplay. Status effects are death sentences during 1on1 games.What I personally recommend (if you are playing 5e) is having her start off with paladin, It is a strong class where anything you do ends up right and allows you to learn all parts of the game.Provide her with lackeys, weaker yet loyal NPCs who help her.Personally i would recommend focusing on giving her a one clear quest that has her be forced to travel (like attempting to find and collect all the pieces of a legendary magical item) and have her do stuff as she wants to reach that
>>93165823You have to understand that many women, and a lot of people, have brains wired a certain way and are unable to use imagination or put themselves in other peoples shoes.My wife is a writer, but when presented with an obvious trap, she says ''I guess I have to go through it so I just step on it and take whatever it is'' without any kind of thought process or problem solving.These people are incapable of having fun with TTRPG's and board games and therefore it's a waste of time to even try.The closest I came to getting her involved was forcing some romantic gay bullshit romance.
>>93165881>>93165902>>93165879I'm thinking of using Scarlet Heroes, because I'm very familiar with the mechanics of that system, and it's designed for 1on1 play. She really likes Phantom of the Opera and horror from that era, so I might do a sort of "Bloodborne-esque", Edwardian era, Call of Cthulhu-ish shit, but keeping it realtively light.
>>93165948Sounds dope. Good luck, anon.
>>93165928>My wife is a writer, but when presented with an obvious trap, she says ''I guess I have to go through it so I just step on it and take whatever it is''I've watched my wife while playing video games, and in the past when attempting RPGs, her response is to basically do EVERYTHING in her power to never face the problems in the first place. If she knows that there is a trap, she'll do anything and everything to just not go that way, even if it means never progressing the story. When she plays video games, she has to play these gay-ass "Cozy games" and even then, when those present conflict, she just stops progressing. I think it's Stardew Valley or Pahlia, or something... But one game she plays, about halfway through, you unlock the ability to do dungeon exploration and you have to do it to progress and unlock more stuff for your house, and she continues to play the game for weeks without doing that mission because she is so afraid of conflict and the possibility of "losing".
>>93165823you don't have a wife and if you did then it means your a fake fan
>>93165998R9KGYG!
>>93166021its true though. I called this out during the yu-gi-oh thread and it still remains true now
>>93165948Sounds good. You seem to be on top of things. Good luck.
>>93165928>>93165986that's just two different flavors of autism
>>93165998Gygax and Arneson were both married and played with their children you retard
>>93165823Get a divorce.
>>93166089Gygax also used his daughters as "booth babes" to promote his game at cons.
>>93166067Yeah female autism presents differently and is under-diagnosed since they are usually better socialized.
>>93165928>My wife is a writer, but when presented with an obvious trap, she says ''I guess I have to go through it so I just step on it and take whatever it is'' without any kind of thought process or problem solving.A good way to avoid this issue is to provide a number of options for whatever situation she's in. Multiple choice questions are way easier than open-ended ones.
>>93165823If she just came out of the blue and said that after hating it for years she must've sucked a dick at work.
>>93166342this man gets it, there's something else she's not telling youor it's your birthday and she wants to do something nice for you
>>93165823Play HeroQuest. That's DND for babies.
>>93165823Don't use D&D, unless that is the specific thing she is interested in (you should ask her). I'd suggest using World of Darkness, because 1) minimal setting lore for a starting character, 2. simple and flexible rules, 3. women tend to like urban fantasyIf you do have to use D&D, minimize the combat and, for that matter, as many of the rules as you can. Focus on the adventure, the fantasy.
>>93165948>Scarlet HeroesDidn't see this before, but good choice if you're set on D&D
>>93165948>She really likes Phantom of the Opera and horror from that eraFucking hell you're just plain describing Ravenloft. Either the original adventures or the 2e setting.
Make sure you're generous with dice odds. I would say she should succeed over 80% of the time. People really don't like repeated failure on dice rolls and this even worse for new players.
>>93165823I had some luck with a middle school group using the cancelled adventure time system. 5 " yes and no" d6 dice, lowest is marked with only 1 yes, highest is marked with only 1 "no"-- yes means you succeed an action, no you fail. color coded for each, ( i bought blanks and wrote y and n on sides, you could also put stickers on old die maybe) and i used their dnd stat modifiers to assign different dice to constitution, dex, etc. 1 additional d6 has 2 sides marked AND, 2 sides Marked BUT, and two blank sides. causes fun left turns and encourages there to always be some little problem to solve moment tomoment. You roll this with whatever dice your stats let you use, AND adds a positive boon to the action, BUT adds a negative effect, and the blanks add nothing. easy to pick up, and i has uncreative students escaping a fairy ring , killing one fairy on accident by putting it in a lantern, and cstching another and forcing it to share the lantern pridon with the corpse of it's friend, as a means of getting it to do what they wanted/torture the little fucker. no math, flowed fast, and they were sad we only had 50 minutes to play. legitimately fun, and with first timers getting em hooked on the rpg loop and having fun is more important than preparing legal research on how you should be able to throw a torch to set the goblin captain on fire a mile away because " my character has 9 strength"
>>93165823You may find this thread (which is itself a copy an older thread) useful. I did when I introduced my gf to gaming.https://www.enworld.org/threads/lessons-from-dming-with-my-gf-oakspar77777.471393/
>>93165823>My wife notoriously HATES board games and D&D.It sounds like she doesn't want to play, and just wants to do something with you.
>>93165823https://dndduet.com/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDuCRok6n8temSx9auWbzmwThese folks specialize in one-on-one D&D.
>>93165928>>93165986I'm somehow married to both of your wives at once, it seems.
>>93166226Based Gygax
>>93165928>You have to understand that many women, and a lot of people, have brains wired a certain way and are unable to use imagination or put themselves in other peoples shoes.I did a college class where we had to do a group presentation explaining how the South won the American Civil War. I'm sure it was intended to get people thinking about scenarios like Lee winning big at Gettysburg or the British intervening in the war but 3 of our 5 person group just couldn't parse the concept of an alt-history or roleplaying. Normoids also think that apathy is cool and are totally addicted to quick dopamine hits which is inimical to nerd hobbies like RPGs. I don't even bother to try to teach someone games unless they're obsessed with history, theology, futurism, reading, or something else that shows a level of abstract thinking, concentration, and willingness to remove themselves from the equation.
>>93165823I hope you do not skip session 0. It can be as simple as asking 3 questions about what kind of adventure she wants to experience. Unless you're one of these psychic husbands and you already know the answer, then of course you can safely skip this.
>>93165823If she likes Game of Thrones then make it about rape, killing and incest
>>93172128This. If you don't have intellectual hobbies and interests that are adjacent to ttrpgs, I am not running a game for you.
Your wife kinda sounds like an anti-social weirdo.
>>93173679IOnly men are called weirdos, autists, losers etc. No one cares if a woman wants to quit school, refuses to work, doesn't have any goals beyond having kids, etc. They can binge-watch the same shit on repeat, stay inside all day, and refuse to try new foods without anyone wondering if they're autistic.
>>93174123>if they're autisticThey are though, it's underdiagnosed in women
>>93165823>Wife wants to play two player DnD>Set up the table>Get some appropriate mood lighting and music >a bottle of champagne and her favorite dinnerWe didn't get very far in the campaign but a lot of dice were rolled if you get me
>>93165928>many women, and a lot of peopleLol
>>93174123>No one cares if a woman wants to quit school, refuses to work, doesn't have any goals beyond having kids, etc. They can binge-watch the same shit on repeat, stay inside all day, and refuse to try new foods without anyone wondering if they're autistic.I mean, I don't mind the first part, but no on the second part, like fine if a woman doesn't want to work a soulless wagecuck job, fine, but you have to do shit around the home, like keep a garden and make clothes and like part of having kids and being a wife is arranging all your family's social shit because you're really the only one that can. I don't mind when a girl is a picky weird eater and doesn't eat my stuff, that's fine, I guess, I wouldn't call a girl a sperg for that. TV watching, however, is really fucking cringe, sis.
>>93174461>arranging all your family's social shit because you're really the only one that canFucking hell, men are less apt at social shit, true, but we're not ALL completely hopeless, lady
>>93174327>Undiagnosed femalesJust an excuse for being a shitty girl.
>>93174530>Fucking hell, men are less apt at social shit, true, but we're not ALL completely hopeless, ladyIt's more of a time issue than a social ineptitude one, I just don't have the time to arrange a bunch of social outings and gatherings, I rely ont he various women in my life to handle all that and drag me along for the ride. Work takes up like a 3rd of my day most days and another 1/3 is more or less taken by sleep.
>>93174549
>>93174393wow you managed to have sex with your wife... congrats playa
>>93174393same bro, we just ended up playing Yahtzee again
>>93165928>unable to use imagination or put themselves in other peoples shoes.But I *did* have breakfast this morning!
>>93165948I did this. I ran pic related with the Scarlet Heroes ruleset. The only modifications I made were I wrote up an "intro" where her character's friend had wandered into the enchanted forest and she was looking for them, then I just made some notes about where they went in the grottoes so that her character could track them (I decided that their friend had ended up trapped in the Prismist's Crystal in the second level of the dungeon).Other than that I pretty much ran it out of the book. She had a blast; she'd never played a TTRPG before. So yeah, consider me one vote for Scarlet Heroes. Great system, and the way it's designed to enable you to just run regular OSR stuff in it is genius.
>>93169173>the cancelled adventure time systemSource? The delays are not a good sign but everything else I've read, which is a Dicebreaker page and the kickstarter faqs, says it's still on the way.Dicebreaker says the developers>would prioritise its 5E versions and shelve Forever Stoked’s more storytelling-focused rompThey link to the faq for the November 2023 card game kickstarter>That doesn’t mean the game shown at Gen Con earlier this year won’t be released too, but the main offering in the upcoming Kickstarter will be the 5e RPG.The April 2024 rpg kickstarter faq says>It’s still being developed! We have been hard at work on two Adventure Time RPGs: the 5E one (this Kickstarter) and the Yes/And game (that one developed in collaboration with Forever Stoked). ... we'll make more announcements about it in the near future.Adventure Time doesn't look like it's something I would have enjoyed watching and DND5 is something I don't like, and Done&Done looks worse, but the idea of a Yes And system seems like it'd be interesting to learn about especially for kids.
>>93165823Rape that retarded bitch. You shouldn't have married her if she doesn't like rpgs
>>93176316>So yeah, consider me one vote for Scarlet Heroes. Great system, and the way it's designed to enable you to just run regular OSR stuff in it is genius.Buy a fuckin ad.
>>93165823Tabletop RPGs ARE awful. They players ARE smelly autistic nerds, and the games ARE boring. Teach her a simple and fun wargame that you can adapt and make scenarios for, like Fistful of Lead. Let her run a whole dungeon crawling party, or a Star Trek away mission, or some British commandos in WWII. Something actually fun. And you can still roleplay to determine scenarios and variables! Who have ever thought of such a thing?
>>93174123The slopfag is an incel, go figure.
>>93165823To me it sounds like she loves you a lot and wants to participate in your interests even if she didn't enjoy them, so I second what >>93165879>>93165881>>93165902said and make it about something aligned with her interests. I bet she'll appreciate the gesture too.Also do what >>93172915 said, she might enjoy the process too and you can tailor the experience based on what she's built with you.
Your wife should start fucking other, more masculine men, and then all her problems will be solved, OP.
>>93165823>>93167184Heroquest still needs a GM right, she probably wants to play co-op. I recommend the D&D Adventure system board games, (Castle Ravenloft, Wrath of Ashardalon). They are no-gm games that are lighter than D&D while still giving you a dungeon crawly feel.If she just wants you to GM a game where she is solo then just plan a campaign that is easy enough for one person to do alone.
>>93179697lol do you think I'm Kevin Crawford. Are you jaded to the point where anyone wholeheartedly recommending a system in a thread where the OP's asking people to recommend systems to them must be the developer?
>>93165823I've just accepted that women and men are wired differently at this point. I mean, even if your group is blessed by a token tomboy girl gamer, they tend to be interested in different things than the guys are. EG some women like the lore and painting of Warhammer but good luck setting up a multi-hour deeply tactical match with one.
>>93177224misspoke, I meant delayed in favor of launching with 5e, though i'm not really optimistic it will be too timely.
>>93165823Find some better friends for one.Or invite mutual friends of you both to play.
>>93181858Thanks man.
>>93165823Ask her what changed her mind, and what about what changed her mind she wants to see in the game. And, from what she says, ask her about how what she does want to see might relate to things she doesn't want to be part of the game.
>>93165823You are retarded. You should have played a game with friends of you two, this way, even if the game wasn't that interesting at times, no one would be bored.Also, the hobby isn't for everyone, there are people who simply don't find the romantic idea of adventures interesting.From my own experience, women are much more interested in relationship and drama between the characters.She will enjoy the game 1000x more if you put some characters having some relationship drama, like a love triangle, or some forbidden love type of shit.
>>93165823Should have gotten a better wife. Met mine through a mutual friend's game actually.
>>93181331Buddy I don't even know who that is. But your "recommendation" sounded worse than a paid poojeet shill review on Amazon.
>>93191700Well thanks for the review of my post Anon, I appreciate your contribution to the thread.
>>93193981Anytime, glad to help.
>>93165823Women generally don't like D&D. Gygax said this years ago, and it's still true now. If they didn't like the smelly autists playing it then they simply won't like it unless you twist it into something it is not.t. Played public games with women in the group and the regulars were barely distinguishable from the men, playstyle wise
>>93191561>From my own experience, women are much more interested in relationship and drama between the charactersFrom my own experience, they weren't. Guess people can be different.
>>93165823How'd it go anon?
>>93204773I'm not even joking, she absolutely hated it.
>>93204849Kek, what did you do and what did you fuck up OP
>>93204849I told you to do this>>93173562
>>93191661She's fat right?
>>93165823Prepare a few NPC companions using the humanoid opponents rules from MM, remove the one your wife's character will fill the role for from the party. That way you can have a full party without having to run full DMPCs yourself.
>>93165928>>93165902>>93165986It’s funny. Experience with my wife is somehow the opposite of you people but still oddly similar.My wife is a theatre kid. It’s her childhood, her hobby and her job. She lives and breathes theatre.However, when playing TTRPGs with her, which was a 1:1 session btw. So no awkwardness with other people, She can’t roleplay, she doesn’t want to it’s awful for her.Which is strange because she never has issues expressing herself to me.Instead. She likes violently beating up goblins.When she plays RPGs like Witcher or Conan Exiles she will not bother with magic, ranged combat, blocking , dodging or any other mechanic. She will attack viciously until everything in front of her or she herself is dead.Now in TTRPGs she actually engages in tactics, she likes gloomhaven and treating encounters as puzzles.But she absolutely will not roleplay.It’s so bizarre
>>93166545>>93166342Fucking Americans not everything is cuckoldry
>>93207596She won't act like she's at work while playing her escapist hobby? I'm shocked!
>>93165879I always have a fucking blast when my friend runs me through the CoC oneshots. I don't even like lovecraft, but I'm a sucker for those shitty monster hunting shows like Supernatural, buffy, sleepy hollow, and kolchak.He's done The Haunting and Paper Chase, and both were fun as hell.
>>93197362I guess there is something wrong with your women.
>>93197362one of the players in my group is a woman, and she's the minmaxing Roll player, who can and has dismissed inter-character drama in favour of being the aloof asshole who doesn't need friends.
