GMing for First Time Roleplayers

>>48682635
*experience with it....

Not experience with me. That's weird. Sorry for the typo.

Call of Cthulhu

>>48682635
I will have to second Call of Cthulhu. It's the first TRPG me and my friends ever played because it's pretty easy to understand (and is good fun) for those new to the tabletop roleplaying scene.

>>48683925
>>48684656
>>48684656
I kinda dismissed Call of Cthulu because I thought that would be very setting depend with the mythos baked into the system. But I could look into it anyway.

>>48682635
Call of Cthulhu if you want a heavy focus on investigation and high lethality.
World of Darkness as humans if you want to get the feeling of gathering together with friends and trying to battle the unknowable (think the main heroes of the original Dracula, It Follows, or Stephen King's It)
Delta Green if you want Call of Cthulhu with more combat ability. Also, has a slice of X-files and Men in Black, though more grim dark.

>>48685777
CoC can be a very basic investigation that goes dark within a known universe. I don't know the english version of Delta Green, but I always make the same scenario from the CoC Delta Green book (Groversville? Grovercity ? can't remember the name anymore).

It's an investigation about a man that acquired super-strength, and the inspectors are supposed to discover an alien conspiracy in Groversville.

I think it's great because no special character is needed, no developed background from the PC is required, they can be as simple as they want to be (James J. Jameson, FBI...). The investigation is not very challenging (for newcomers who don't watch TV-shows) but require a little flair and preparation. It's not a difficult one to master, and the players shall ask themselves a great deal of question.

But I got out of the subject.

I warmly recommend Delta Green. Characters RPs that they should know (it seems that it is our world, after all...), a greater impact (after 5 years playing CoC, i'm not as suprised as I was my first game), intraparty relationship that appears organically (in my games we never had problems)

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>>48682635
Nemesis is a powerful engine, but I don't think a newbie Roll20 game is a good place for it. Too detailed.

If you want to focus on horror, and that will be hard through a webcam with poor sound and occasionally disconnected players, then use something fast and simple. I'd say Dread but Jenga would be an issue in itself. Dead of Night should work great though.

It is much simpler than Nemesis and it concentrates on tension. HP, san, Fate points, it's all one stat: Survival Points. It ramps up tension until basically everyone dies in the third act. It's fun. And it supports tension mechanically.

CoC7 is great, but it has nothing you'd miss in Nemesis mechanically. And the Madness Meter is a more character and less story centered sanity mechanism which I really like. Either works great, just for different facets of sanity. For a Roll20 session the free quickstart is plenty to work with.

Immersion is key for a horror atmosphere. Try and establish some discipline from the get-go. Crosstalk should not be disruptive. Players should try and speak in character, not to make voices, but to avoid third person explanarration. Have a separate soundtrack channel or suggest a YT loop to the players. Don't hurry, horror takes time to settle in. Silence is powerful. The less explained the better. And everything is about tension. You'll figure it out.

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>>48685777
>the mythos baked into the system
This is a misconception. There is one skill, and it hardly ever comes into play because the only way to even get 1% in it is to take san damage.

BRP is a generic engine. Switch out the skill list and you can play any setting. Boost HP or allow luck spending for superhuman feats and you can shift genres. From the knight simulator Pendragon over the Fantasy work horse Runequest to Scifi and cave men, BRP does it all easily. And CoC is nothing but a fine tuned BRP.

Something like DG is rather settled in its setting, with specialist skills all over, sanity and bonds, it's pretty much made for mission structure in a modern conspiracy world with personal tragedy. UA uses chargen to pervert the world as we know it and is pretty much limited to playing mad cultists. CoC is much more flexible than that.

>>48688634
>66.6 KB saved
UNEASE

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>>48688775
Wait, is this all you need to play Cthulhu?

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>>48689560
The quickstart may be more accessible. That is just the summary of the full core rules.

http://www.chaosium.com/content/FreePDFs/CoC/CHA23131%20Call%20of%20Cthulhu%207th%20Edition%20Quick-Start%20Rules.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgLUVc3W9U0

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There's also a CYOA that includes chargen.

http://www.chaosium.com/content/FreePDFs/CoC/Adventures/CHA23145%20-%20Alone%20Against%20the%20Flames.pdf

>>48682635
The guys saying Call of Cthulhu are very correct, it's a great start to horror.

World of Darkness can also be scary in the right contexts.

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What do you guys think about this?

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For a plot heavy game try Cthulhu Dark.

Again, the name does not imply you need to include horrors from beyond.

I really like "the end of the world" it's also really easy for first time players.

File: Cthulhu Dark - Dark Depths.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

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>>48693507

File: Cthulhu Dark - Dark Tales.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

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>>48695543

>>48682635
FATE Core. Its free and it's character creation system helps shape an easily RP'able character, for both Players and DM. Furthermore it lets a player make a PC that isnt all fight all the time which helps ease new players into TRPG. It has both a mental and physical health pool and is flexible for modding.