Thread #97902729
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So I have to hold a Workshop about "How to GM", as in introduce newcomers to the concept of being a GM, and how to best approach writing your own adventures.
I have also been reading Mothership. Took like an hour and I was confident in running it. Now I have had a decade or so of Game Mastering Experience, so of course that was easy enough for me to parse, but I feel like a total beginner could also easily pick up Mothership and run it. The rulebook is like 40 Pages, the GM Guide is 60 Pages and mostly important if you want to run a campaign, and there are a ton of pre written modules for it.
So I have been thinking of adding a recommendation section to my presentation on what systems I think are good beginner material.
They should be less than 200 Pages all included, preferably less then 100 Pages (because nothing scares off people more than seeing a 400 Page monolith in my experience), and you should be able to pick up a module for it to run your first session to make the barrier to entry even lower.
They should also be cheap or free. 30 bucks or less (start boxes excluded).
Exceptions may be made.
I will put Mothership on that list, along with games like Risus, though Risus has the issue of being entirely narrative. From my experience a bit of crunch helps new GMs grapple with the game as they have guide lines they can follow, in contrast to entirely narrative system where everything is made up and the rules don't exist.
>inb4 you say DnD, go fuck yourself.
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I'd check out some pre-made game demos. WoD did a whole series of them. Makes reading very short and using pre-written modules is easier. The players will get premade characters usually but can make their own.
Some examples
>Black Crusade https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/black-crusade/news/free -rpg-day/follow/Broken%20Chains%20L ow%20Res.pdf
>Vampire the Requiem https://pdfcoffee.com/vampire-the-requiem-demo-pdf-free.html
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>>97902729
Does anyone ever need to ask this question? you start with D&D 5e like everyone else. That's where you will find games to play it, that's where everyone is welcoming, that's where you'll learn the tent poles of RPG play.
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>>97902729
My current two favorites are Mythic Bastionland and Slugbluster. And I believe at least former is perfect both for running the game for the first time and playing the game for the first time. It has a random chargen, simple but still present rules, and basically a randomized campaign you can run with little to no prep. It also gas examples of play with ailuthor comments, a some sort of FAQ.
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>>97902729
Mothership is not really a full game in my opinion.
I feel like the most important metric is finding out what the GM and players like, usually some IP, and then making a game based around that. You do not need to specifically get a themed rpg book, but instead go for something that can fit that.
I feel the passion or drive to make something like that usually leads to a more interested GM and group. Failing all things else, I recommend BRP or a d100 system derivative and role with that. I am incredibly biased towards d100 systems though.
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>>97902729
Girl Frame sounds like right up your alley
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>>97902729
Ignore D&D and OSR shit. Grab Fabula Ultima. It's actually easy to learn and beginner friendly. When you've been playing and GMing for a while, it's easy to forget what it feels like to be completely clueless.
>>97903280
>Mythic Bastionland and Slugbluster
Both of these games rely heavily on players who are 100% bought into the mood/theme of the game, and a GM who is willing and able to pull endless amounts of shit out of his ass on a whim. Neither are ideal for new players, even if their mechanics are theoretically dead simple.
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>>97904409
Obviously, but it cannot be stressed enough that new players should not be started with 5e. It gives them an entirely incorrect and damaging perspective on TTRRPGs that will either drive them out of the hobby, or leave them as 5e players for the many years it will take them to experience the game enough to realize what a bad time they've been having.
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>>97902729
>No "DnD"
Nah, but I'm certainly not going to recommend any Hasbro editions.
OSE Classic if you want to teach your babby GMs to dungeon crawl and Savage Worlds for everything else. Both of them are a bit over your page limit and price point for hard copies at $40 and ~290 pages but they're also one-book systems and there's a ton of cheap and/or free content out there for them. Classic Traveler is also easy to play and run and the LBBs have everything you need but the hard copies are collectors' items and go for $100+ on ebay so you'd be stuck with PDFs.
>>97903442
>Grab Fabula Ultima.
Weebshit isn't a great flavor to start people on, regardless of how easy it is to play.
>When you've been playing and GMing for a while, it's easy to forget what it feels like to be completely clueless.
Yeah, and you have to LEARN. Presumably we're talking about adults who speak English as a first language here.
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>>97904770
>Weebshit isn't a great flavor to start people on
People generally love weebshit more than they love old editions of D&D. If you can't accept that an easy buy in is more important than your faux-grog signalling, you have no business telling other people what to play.
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>>97902729
I was going to recommend Knave for being the barest bones simple old school style game I can think of (that isnt Mothership) but thinking on it now I realize the only reason that game works is with a GM that knows what they are doing enough to build a full actual game around it. Hmm. Actually I think I'll recommend it anyway, just because its a very easy way to introduce GMs to running a dungeon crawl without overloading them with mechanics, and it also does a good job of showing the ropes on using random tables to come up with interesting situations in zero-prep scenarios.
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>>97904770
>Classic Traveler is also easy to play and run and the LBBs have everything you need but the hard copies are collectors' items
There is a replica single book version of the 81 lbbs with errata for 9 dollars on dtrpg. The traveller book is also only 20 bucks, if you want something with some dope art.
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>>97902729
The call of cthulhu started box is pretty fucking good, and even though call of cthulhu itself is slightly outside of your remit, the system is simple as hell and the single book really is enough to play games forever. Personally, I think that mysteries are one of the easiest-to-understand game structures, but I understand how a bad introduction to it can make newbie GMs end up railroading.
Not a game book, but Justin Alexander's "So You Want To Be a Dungeon Master," is full of excellent foundational advice, and if you don't want to spend money on a book, 90 percent of what's in the book is on his blog, the Alexandrian. He's one of the few gaming writers that focuses on actual game structures, and what the minute to minute running of a game actually looks like. I think the lack of game structure and procedural advice is what is fucking up most modern ttrpgs.