TTRPG intro
What is a TTRPG
A TTRPG is a game where one person describes a world, and everyone else plays characters within that world. Rules determine what your players can do, and dice* determine whether you succeed on certain actions.
An example game might look like this:
The game master says “you find yourself near the peak of a snowy mountain. You’re injured, but think you can press on forward, make it to the top, and plant your flag. Do you go forward, or do you fall back and try to make it to safety”
The player might then push forward, in which case the rules would tell them what dice to roll. If they roll a high enough number, they succeed. Otherwise, they fail and either the rules or the game master tells them what injuries befall their character.
*Not all TTRPGs use dice, or even have a game-master, but most do
What TTRPG should I play first?
The “standard answer” is Dungeons and Dragons with the Perils in Pinebrook adventure (60-90 minutes) or the Dragons of Stormwreck Isle starter kit (9-16 hours, split into a few sessions).
You could also save a bit of money by pirating the DnD rulebooks and buying cheap adventures on Drive Through RPG.
That said…
I don’t recommend DnD for a newbie. DnD’s complexity is medium-high; you’ll spend a lot of time just learning the rules in preparation for play, you’ll be bogged down looking up rules as you play, and the stories you tell will be constrained by DnD’s style.
Alternatively, you could…
- Keep it streamlined by playing a short, simple, and self-contained game like Butter Princess
- See also the looser games Honey Heist and The Witch is Dead. For an emotionally devastating experience, try Alice is Missing
- Use a simple ruleset like NTMO and make up your own story.
- You can rip off the plot of your favorite movie, or just create a simple adventure structure and set of obstacles that your players have to overcome. It can be simpler than you anticipate, a lot of time will be filled with bullshit and banter, and a lot of the chaos, complexity, and fun will come from how your players interact with each other and the world you’ve set them in.
- Use someone else’s written adventure. Search “system agnostic TTRPG adventures” and adapt one of those.
- See also the system Fate.
- Pick a genre that fits your style like Call of Cthulhu which is horror themed and much more grounded than DnD.
- See also Vampire the Masquerade for political intrigue, Blades in the Dark for crime and heist, or one of the many Powered by the Apocalypse games for specific franchises (there’s one set in Avatar: The Last Airbender universe, for example).
