New to RPGs

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>>51722773
Hello.

Always good to see another fellow giving RPGs a go. For a first go at RPGs, they don;t come much simpler than old D&D or a similar variant like Labyrinth Lord or Backswords and Bucklers if you're up for Elizabethan stuff. Its generally simple with the rules, heavy on the imagination.

>>51722792

Thanks a lot m8, I'll have a look at those. But by old D&D, which edition do you mean? I know the latest is 5e, and I have the 3.5e books sitting on my shelf from years ago.

CoC was the first RPG I ever played, I would recommend it if you're a beginner and like the setting.

>>51722773
I'd say you should go with 5e on the basis it has one of the largest communities of active players.

Also how rules heavy a game is, is more down to the GM than the book.
The other day one of my players had a hostage on their knees bound and begging for mercy.
My player:
>I want to behead him, do I need to roll an attack for that.
He asked because they were technically in initiative with ongoing combat around them. I let him have it as a bonus action.

If it fits your characters skill set, the narrative and the theme I often don't care what you roll. We had a moment where my group was trying to get an item off an npc, the npc was meant to give them the item either for 50gp or a good cause. One of the PC's came out with a line that made everyone laugh hard, I asked them to roll charisma, they rolled shit but I let them have the item anyway.

The dice are there to decide risky/uncertain things.

>>51722967
>>51722792
Only issue with D&D is that OP said his games will be with one other person; with one of the two DMing, that will leave a party of one to go adventuring, and D&D assumes you have multiple party members spread across a variety of classes to handle most typical adventuring scenarios. While a good DM can easily tailor an adventure for a single fighter or cleric or rogue or wizard or whatever, that may be too tall of an order for someone still learning the system on top of never having DMed before.

>>51722773
The best advice in my opinion is to plan as little as possible for your first session an to just do it. I always overdid the planning got stressed and never did it.
Honestly I don't think you can learn how to DM from a book. This may be defeatist but going to events to play in a few games or even playing in a Roll20 game or two is essentially mandatory in my opinion.

You MIGHT be able to pick up the trade from watching Youtube games but I wouldn't be able to.

The 5th Edition starter box is the perfect place to start. It's a party game though and it'll be tough keeping one player interested. One of my players died in an early encounter and there was 3 of them. Mines of Phandelver might need some reworking before one player can survive until the town.

>>51722773
>Any recommendations for something short and sweet?

If you haven't played pen and paper games before DnD is a good way to get started.

5E takes the best parts of ADnD to the next level, more importantly though it's widely played and available. You shouldn't have any real difficulty finding a group of experienced players to help you ease into things. Finally with 5E you shouldn't have any real trouble borrowing the books from someone so you won't have to invest in the game before you even start.

Basic Fantasy is another good alternative, you can grab it for free at www.basicfantasy.org

It's fairly simple and straight forward and it's close enough to ADnD that you also shouldn't have any difficulty finding an experienced group of players to ease you into it.

>Any tips for new DMs?

Run an adventure module for your first few sessions or even an entire campaign.

Your first few sessions are going to be a shit-show, even with an adventure module, don't worry about it this happens to everyone.

Ask your players after each session what they think went wrong and what they think went right then apply what you learn to the next session.

Same as
>>51722924

If you dont know much about it your in for some fun.

I also tried Dark Heresy early. Its a good way to get into 40k RP games. Theres one in the gamefinder at the moment, dont know if its still recruiting.
>>51698728
Otherwise try Roll20.

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>>51723105
As much as I'd like to write my own adventures someday, I definitely want to start with something pre-written. I'll have a look at what there is on YT.

>>51723108
I bookmarked basicfantasy for later, thanks a lot. I'll consider DnD 5e some other time, but I'll probably have to find a group online through Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds, whatever it is that people use.

As for other posts, thanks bunches. I'm still open for recommendations though, I'm writing down pretty much everything ITT.

>>51723188

Oh shit, I forgot 40k had RPGs written for it, I'm so grabbing those for later.

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>>51722862
Older still. Like, basic non-advanced D&D of which there are several variants.

Look, that aside, give Tunnels and Trolls a go. Simple and very fun. Good for one player and one DM. And simple enough that you can run multiple characters at once with little difficulty. Pic related is the edition I own, i can't speak to later ones but I do reccomend using the rule for Spite hits where a roll of six on a die causes a hit no matter what becasue battles with skilled opponents in armour turn into eternal Hogan/Andre bearhug spots.

>>51723072
Well I dunno, really. A city campaign for a rogue trying to get up in ranks of the Thieves' / Assassins' Guild would probably be pretty easy to run, even for a beginner.

The good thing is that with these, the encounters would rarely be multiple people, and Rogues are really good at escaping when things get sticky.

>>51726072
True. I was thinking more long the lines of
>New guy plays fighter because big strong man
>GM sends him in to a combat-heavy dungoencrawl because that's what D&D fighters handle best
>No healing magic or support from other PCs making most fights 2d6 orcs:1 PC with steadily diminishing HP.
>BAD END
or
>New guy plays wizard because PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER
>No one to defend them and no one to rely on when they're out of spell slots.
>BAD END

Specialized games would be fine, as would rounding out the party with a few NPCs, but both those things make it harder on new DMs since they a) cannot use published adventures that assume a somewhat rounded party of 3-5 individuals and b) now have to handle the setting, the plot, the monsters, and the majority of the party.

Does gestalt exist in 5e? Maybe a gestalt PC at level 3 or 4 with a gestalt cohort would be more doable for both parties.

>>51726266
>No healing magic or support from other PCs making most fights 2d6 orcs:1 PC with steadily diminishing HP.

Hit dice fixes that, but yeah, it's kind of a waste playing D&D with only 1 player.