How do I get started with ttg

Noted, might go there as a progression but won't start there.

Depends on what sort of game you're looking to play. For sci-fi there's stuff like Traveler and Stars Without Number, and god knows how many swords-and-sorcery fantasy RPGs (I personally would recommend D&D 5e for that, much as some people on Veeky Forums will sperg about it)

I gotta say this to nip it in the bud.
You probably heard of Pathfinder right?

DONT PLAY OR START OFF ON PATHFINDER!

Got it? Good. I've been playing for five years and it was my first ttg. I enjoy it, but I would never recommend it to people who aren't experienced enough or have the specific mindset required to play.

Just keep this in mind when you decide what game to play.

This, Pathfinder has way too many players and way too much system support from the creators.

It's too popular.

No, GURPS is just shit. You can try it of you want to try it, but it's mostly a meme. People only reccomend it as a joke, or because of the meme.

What do you want to play? As in, what type of game? There are tons of RPGs out there, but not all of them are good for everything.
What theme are you interested in? High-Flying Fantasy? Hard SciFi? Dark and Gritty Fantasy, or Soft SciFi? Cyberpunk? Western? Mice Adventuring in Super Low Fantasy?
Throw us a theme first, then we can reccomend a good starting point.

Depending on the taste of your friends you could probably do something like MAID which is a really fun game to just sit down, roll up come characters and just see where the tables take you.

It's probably a hard sell at first if you and your friends aren't really into weebshit, but I would very much suggest at least giving it a shot as an introduction to the roleplaying side of roleplaying games.

Hell, you could even just play Everyone Is John

I mean, dnd seems to have the most material readily available so i'd be glad to start with that

I don't think Everyone is John is a good introduction to RPGs. It's fun, but it can really give the wrong impression.

Thing is, D&D is a clusterfuck in and itself. There are a ton of editions, you need a bunch of books to play it, which makes it expensive (yeah, PDFs, but having some sort of physical copy makes it a lot easier to play, and with D&D you are going to flip through books a lot) and the rules are less then stellar.
For your fantasy gaming needs there are better options. Playing D&D because of the material is like going to McD because they have more types of burgers, instead going to the burger shop next door that only offers three, but at a better price and higher quality.

Then I'm entirely open to suggestions.

I mainly suggest Maid because getting to control your own character in a wacky hijinks filled game is a great way to encourage roleplaying in new players. Everyone Is John could work as an introduction, but it lacks the distinct character doing their own things bit that I feel is an important part of the introduction.

You might not be into Fallout, but this PDF has a nice little guide about making a story and GMing in general near the end. It's no Dungeon Master's Guide or anything, but it's a start.

Well, we lost another one to Pathfinder

This one sounds like a great idea actually, could use the game's random events and similar to make scenarios, thank you very much for this.

Fantasy sci-fi? I would look towards the 40k RPGs you can get the books for free and skim them atleast from the general thread

That I'll definitely look into played a bunch of the rts games and like the setting.

I like to introduce people with Savage Worlds, since it's relatively quick, easy and open to experimentation. It's more of a universal pulp system, so you can try to run any theme you like with it. There are a bunch of premade settings and the core book is very cheap at ten bucks for the softcover, so every player can (and should) get his own book, which in turn makes playing a lot quicker.

If you feel like more in an eldritch horror and investigative mood, there's Call of Cthulhu. It's crunchier and very lethal. Since it's easy to get killed, it's pretty much expected to switch characters in some premade scenarios (and there are a metric shitton of premade campaigns for this.)

That's how we got into it me and my friends enjoyed the RTS read a couple of the books then one day our DnD DM was cruising tg and found the general thread with the books and went mah God we need this a week later we started a game of Rogue Trader (I wouldent start there I would suggest starting in Only War)

5e starter set

After reading through it a bit, it looks pretty simple to just go without much setup so that's nice.

Why hello there newfriend! So, you want to be a fa/tg/uy?

Well, lo and behold, these steps will set you on the righteous path!

>Regular exercise and healthy diet
Yes, you heard me newfriend! All of Veeky Forumss denizens are in fact fitizens, with lean and mean suntanned muscles rippling with pure joy
at a good lifestyle

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Have you ever seen a fa/tg/uy who looked like a hobo? I thought not! We here at Veeky Forums smell incredibly good, have extremely high hygiene, nice smooth skin, and glittering white pearly teeth.

>Dress for the job
Don't own a suit? No problem, just go to your upper class job and earn some money. We here at Veeky Forums are all highly educated, with high income, and none of us have ever worn a fedora, ever. Suit up, newfriend!

>Don't buy any minis, codices, handbooks or rulebooks
Yes you heard me! Traditional games is all about posting on Veeky Forums, and in fact, has nothing at all to do with playing tabletop games!

That's it! You are now ready to become the masterrace fa/tg/uy!

That was the intention behind the suggestion. It's something that is easy for everyone involved to just start up by rolling characters and seeing where all the random tables take the story and they can go from there. The fact that the random event tables are there and players can force rolls on them also helps since that allows them to make things more interesting or whatever should they feel like the desire to.

Savage Worlds is good. Love the exploding dice mechanic.

For silly one shots I would suggest Kobolds Ate My Baby.

Munchkin is an easy to learn board game and has a ridiculous amount of expansions. I found GOSU and Cthulu Gloom to be fun as well. I hear the original card game Cthulu Gloom is based off of is just called Gloom.

Also, a simple system to pick up is Dread's. It might not be the setting you want but instead of using dice you use a Jenga tower.

GURPS is only as rules-heavy as you make it. They literally tell you to not use every rule from every book.

Well, since you posted penguins, I suggest the official Club Penguin RPG.

Ignore this dumbass troll.
>hurph a durph games I don't like are memes

Basically this, you can try it, but be ready for severe disappointment if you have any expectations.

The joke about recommending Steve Jackson games is really old.