Alright, if NOT 5e, what should be babby's first tabletop in 2025+1?
>>97205876GURPS
>>97205904sorry, forgot to put "serious answers only" in the OP
>>97205876Whatever the fuck you like. The idea of beginner ttrpgs does more harm than good.Pick a theme or setting you like and whatever gameplay elements tickle your fancy then choose based on those.
>>97205950It's hard enough to convince newbies to read a bunch of books, learn rules, get them in the same place at a specific time and actually run the game. The least I could do is make the books approachable, given the alternative is having no game at all.
>>97205940It is the ONLY answer. There is no alternative.
>>97205987This is a literate-only hobby. If you can't fucking read or focus for more than fifteen minutes at a time, TTRPGs aren't for you.
>>97205987If you're a GM you have to read the rules. There are no shortcuts. Best pick something that only needs one book to get started and has decent formatting.As a player you just follow the steps to create a PC and then learn by playing.
>>97205987You run a one shot with pre generated characters that introduces both the rules and the setting at the same time. How do people still not understand this shit?
>>97205876Dungeons & Dragons: Fifth Edition>But the rules are bad!Rules should be like 5% of the experience.D&D is easy to understand, and has massive support, making it highly accessible to new players. You can also change the rules, if they make you sperg out.
Basic D&DIt's in the name innitI prefer Moldvay '81 but go ahead and give Mentzer a look, it's fine too
>>97206053You can teach a system by SHOWING instead of EXPLAINING how it works. You usually don't need to read more than your class to play; the rest I can explain in less than a minute during the session. Bookkeeping is light (to not say non-existent). If you want to go deeper, there are good suplements out there and it's easy as fuck to homebrew. >>97206071Reading the rules as a GM is fine, making sure the players get it is the problem. The only answer so far was GURPS. Imagine explaining magic in GURPS to someone who's playing for the first time vs magic in 5e.>>97206152There really isn't ANYTHING better? That's the point of this stupid thread....
>>97206152Ask me how I know you're a no gamesWould you eat a soup that was only 5% human shit?Would you choose it when a bowl of no-shiy soup is on the table right next to it? Why?
>>97205876>>97205987Really I'd just suggest any fairly light system that's easy for running a one-shot. My preference there has been Call of Cthulhu, just because I tend to find new players have an easier time with a modern setting.But really the only reason to avoid 5e is for a few of the bad habits it can cause. Namely, trying to solve every problem with violence, and refusing to try out anything except D&D. That's also a reason CoC is my preference for that sort of thing. Firearms aren't that good against eldritch horrors, but CoC is also clearly specific enough that someone isn't going to try to run Star Wars with it.
>>97206181>There really isn't ANYTHING better?Nope!Don't worry, new players won't care about the system, as long as they can understand what's going on.>>97206188>Would you eat a soup that was only 5% human shit?You're so right anon.Playing D&D is totally like eating human feces.Thank goodness you're here, to give us such a rational and balanced take.
>>97206181>You can teach a system by SHOWING instead of EXPLAINING how it worksA non-insignificant amount of people learn much better by experiencing it than just reading. Some people even have trouble learning from single page rulesets so just do what >>97206133 said and either make level 1 characters or use the pre-gens that most systems will give you and run a handholdy oneshot where you teach your players the basics and see if they like it. You can do that with literally any system and if the players end up liking it then even the most dyslexic fuck will do anything to learn more than the basics.
>>97205876The problems that not even retards who played 5e for a decade and grew to hate it will fully be able to articulate is that 5e is a bad game to learn as your first game because it will cement in you a large number of bad habits, misconceptions about the hobby, and an unnameable anxiety about other roleplaying games because you will subconsciously perceive them as being like 5e: a bloated mess of incomprehensible sacred cow mechanics and obtuse proper nouns far removed from their original purpose. 3 or more fairly long books that you'll never read because you don't think you're supposed to. A set of rules that seem to follow some kind of internal logic, but never quite feel right and always feel like you're playing wrong.And it will takes months of effort to get a D&D game going and have it keep going and you will be floundering that entire time, because the game is written in a way that just assumes you already perfectly understand the exact way the designers want you to play and do not need anyone to really explain how you even really play the fucking game. Eventually you will be sunk-cost'd into trying to play more, or someone else will offer to run a game and maybe it will feel a little better with someone being more permissive and more strict about the rules, and before you know it, years will go by and you'll never really be sure if you understand the fucking hobby, but everyone around you keeps insisting on playing 5e because they are also terrified of learning a new system, believing they will be starting the learning process all over again, and they may as well because they never actually learned 5e anyways.So my advice is to start with anything but 5e. Older editions aren't out of the question, but I'd sooner recommend that you find a system that piques your interest thematically. Like cyberpunk? Go on itch and find some shitty cyberpunk games. Want space? Stars without number. Want a fantasy game? There's a billion of them.
>>97205876RisusOnly because if they whine about not understanding how to play a single page rpg, then they can fuck off because they're not worth your time
>>97206367Just don't pick up 5e. The people telling you to just jump in and start playing and have someone handhold you are people who fear other systems and never fully learned 5e anyways, and that's only partially their fault because 5e is a game that pretends to be the everything system, but at the same time is strictly about combat and practically nothing else. It's a wargame where you're only opponent is a guy who can just do whatever he wants whenever he wants, and you're all supposed to pretend that this experience is some kind of rigidly balanced, thoughtfully designed experience.So, instead, find yourself some PDFs. Maybe Ryuutama if you just want some fantasy adventure. KILL SECTOR if you want some stupid bloody fun where you and your friends try to make powerful characters with ridiculous gimmicks. Maybe try Monster of the Week if you want something easy to wrap your head around. Try MAID RPG or one of the translated japanese games that people keep making. There's a lot of Mork Borg clones out there and maybe one of them will scratch that itch while not being a 300+ page pile of pretentious bullshit that doesn't respect you or your time.If you want to get into the hobby, you just need to be able to throw yourself at something that isn't steeped in decades of inbred design and corporate "lifestyle brand" identity which only really exists to make a paypig out of you. Many other RPGs on the market are nothing like that, mostly because they never made any money anyways, and you can only find them as PDFs. So when you flip through them and focus on actually learning how to play and run the game, instead of trying to play 5e because everyone told you that starting with 5e is just what every does.
>>97206431>>97206367lol fucking schizo logic on full display
>>97206456Next you're going to cry "troll"
>>97205876Shadowdark QSDungeon Crawler ClassicsEveryone Is John a Game for three or more Terrible PeopleD&D 3.5 or 4EGURPSBRPMouseguardL5RB/XLots of options, really.
>>97206181Basic Dungeons &Dragons is not a bad choice. 13 year old Americans figured it out on the 80s. Get a quick reference sheet for the players so they can look at it for rules as needed. Read the smart play section with them. Run B1, B2 or B4.
>>97206367Imagine getting this histrionic about "roll a d20, add your bonus, compare it to target number".
>>97205876Classic fantasy romps:d6 Fantasy / WEG d6Old Conan d20 if you really want D&D adjacentSwashbuckling: 7th Sea 1st editionHonor & IntrigueMagic Heavy:Ars MagicaScience-Fiction/Fantasy:WEG d6 Star WarsCyberpunk 2020Heavy Gear RPG 2nd editionAnd for turly universal option RISUS that goes in all fields.
>>97206556So what did they print on the other 900 pages that make up the core book, retard?
>>97205876Eh, I don't think 5e is an awful first game *as a player* and *with a half decent gm*The bigger problems with 5e are that the GM book is dogshit that basically just tells you to buy a Dungeons and Dragons©™ campaign, and then all the campaigns are dogshit railroads that need a complete teardown to be useful.Honestly, if you're a first time GM, you should snag So You Want To Be A Dungeon Master, its the only book I'm aware of that actually has concrete, fundamental advice on how to prep and run a game, regardless of system.
>>972058765e is the iPhone of TTRPGs. Dominates the space, tons of support, but is mediocre at best, and is a form of consumer therapy that certain target demographics are attracted to: women, browns of all hues and homosexuals (all the leftist victim classes). If you have an iPhone (or any other Apple product, really), you will find anything other than 5e is problematic and icky.
It’s Dungeon Crawl Classics. teaches players right away that this isn’t just a narrative thing, that there are roleplay elements as well as mechanical elements, the starting dungeons always give a good mix of puzzles, traps, and battles, and the mechanics are the most basic fundamental stat stuff you’ll see in other ttrpgs.
>>97206635Apple products do foster a sort of cult-like fandom around them, but a lot of that is the mistaken value attached to Apple products. They're expensive, so they must be good, and if you buy one that makes you cool and important, thinks they retarded subhuman. 5e doesn't quite have the same problem. There is a lifestyle brand attachment to it, but people see that 5e is popular, so therefore it must be good, but also, that all other systems must not be as good or are somehow worse, more complicated, or less fun than 5e (after all, why would everyone play it if it were a bad system, right?). However, it is not wrapped in the same sort of status-seeking consumerism, because even the most loyal 5e players will tell you that you can just pirate the PDFs or use the online SRDs other other resources to get around needing to pay for anything.
>>97205876Here's your answer OP >>97206556Don't even use a system. Just pick your favorite dice resolution method and throw out everything else.
