What is the best table top rpg for a beginner?

god, no. we don't need even more D&D players. if anything, we need LESS.

I'd go ahead and say Pathfinder, though it's really confusing to set up characters without someone who's already played the game or is well versed in it.

Pathfinder is terrible for new players.

D&D is good for beginners because it's a TRPG lingua franca and it continues to be the most popular choice everywhere. 5e is pretty beginners-friendly but it's still got a lot of crunch. Still, I ran it for people who didn't care much about the more complex options and it went fine.

I support , clear structure is generally more important for beginners. D&D has that structure implied right from the get-go, mechanically and thematically ("you are adventurers, you do adventure stuff, here's a dungeon, knock yourself out")

That said, there are tons of other options. I would still recommend a game without toolkit approach, geared for something specific. Barbarians of Lemuria, for example: really simple mechanics, flavourful, does fantasy well, is mostly for short games, not long campaigns.

With new players, I prefer either Old-School Hack, B/X (an old version of D&D), or something along the lines of Lady Blackbird.

My fear of "story games" stem from the fact that i've tried games such as Technoir or Mutant City Blues (that I absolutely love) but they fall flat. I don't know, maybe I'm not a good referee.

D&D 5E Starter Set.

Here, have a helpful PDF.

Eh, B/X is only halfway decent even with the Rules Cyclopedia. I think it's better to run a retro clone for new players.

Again, D&D is still not the best for new players. Not everyone gets into rpgs looking for dungeon crawls. The best options are universal and the initial structure is not needed for new players to have fun.

Risus, Deendee 5, erryone's jonny, fantasycraft maybe

Initial structure is pretty essential for a new GM, I think. OP didn't specify "beginning player" so I assumed all sides matter in this.

D&D is not for "just" Dungeon Crawling, that idea died with Dragonlance waaaaay ago.

Look at Curse of Strahd: whilst the original Ravenloft was mostly a dungeon crawl, the 5e version is more of a sandbox-style adventure, with a lot more cities and small NPC interactions happening than just a series of dungeons. Out of the Abyss too is really far from standard-fare dungeon crawling, being more of a survival challenge in the Underdark.

Reading how to guides for new GMs is more important than forcing a GM to remember all of the countless rules:
risusiverse.com/home/rule-elucidation/risus-gm-guide

A simple premise like a dungeon crawl may make things easier, but only when the rules are light as well. That makes B/X the only applicable D&D game.

That only makes newer editions worse for new GMs/players as you threw out the simple premise out the window.

A beginner GM's "campaign" for beginner players is basically going to be "you go somewhere for some reason and fight a few monsters from the monster book".

Regardless of what the ultra-rules-light wankers think, something like 5E is going to easiest by far. There's no burden of generating an interesting game conflict on your first swing.

"Dungeon crawling" wasn't really the original premise, it was more something akin to "exploring a fantasy world". The "dungeon" was just an excuse. Even in OD&D, the third booklet dealt with Wilderness Adventures.

Of course, you could say D&D was wrong from the start. Hell, maybe Creation itself was wrong from the start...

>Harnmaster, Runequest 6 or Rolemaster because you don't really want a bland, homogenised, cookie cutter game for noobs you want something with true grit.

The One Ring.
>Everyone knows Tolkien and knows what to expect from it.
>It is reasonably simple without being vague
>It is a brilliant example of how game mechanics can be used to highlight the setting's themes and atmosphere
>It has many gamey mechanics that make "gaming" part of the game more fun, BUT WITHOUT negatively influencing the storytelling sphere. Literally, I was staunch anti-gamist before encountering this game, but it showed me that more gamey elements in RPGs can be actually fun if done right.
>It's gamey elements are also simple to grasp and have low entry barrier. They compare more to boardgames, when most other gamey RPGs have more in common with miniature wargames.
>Lots of published adventures and setting material of superb quality. Again, before I encountered that I was generally against using too much pre-made material, TOR changed my mind in this matter too

any DnD Hack, 1974 style for example

a simple D6 pool based system like Atomic Highway

Warhammer Fantasy 2es Character generation and dice mechanic are easy to grasp, the setting might be a little too dark and deadly for beginners

That's what I come up with from the top of my head

G*U*R*P*S

I second this, reading that mod they made for 5e really made me want to get into the original system for TOR, is there any trove or thread for that?

memeing aside, if you only use the light rules and don't get too deep into character gen (maybe create characters for them as they want it) it's good.

Most of the books are in the Veeky Forums pdf archive.
As for threads, I saw a TOR thread reaching more than few posts once or twice here, unfortunately.

5e
>easy to find players/dms right now
>easy to play
>introduction to most popular rpg in general

Just dont stick with it and ignore everything else.

I think picking the best RPG for a beginner is an impossible task, but Barbarians of Lemuria is pretty decent, and a damn spot simpler than something like D&D 5e, which often gets touted as a newbie game.

>Barbarians of Lemuria,Mythic Edition (current edition) -- mediafire.com/folder/7llc83r2xf8bg/Barbarians_of_Lemuria_-_Mythic_Edition

>Barbarians of Lemuria, Legendary Edition (earlier edition, fewer details & more minimalist presentation makes it even easier to learn, but the rules aren't as refined) --mediafire.com/download/p5w885sa9a869ma/Barbarians Of Lemuria - Legendary Edition.pdf

>Barbarians of Lemuria, House Rules / Patches for Legendary Edition (if you want the bare bones minimalism of Legendary, but with the rules tightened up a bit) -- mega.co.nz/#F!CtQR2bST!y_awB-GHCiL3CdK4iLCV7A

>D&D is not for "just" Dungeon Crawling, that idea died with Dragonlance waaaaay ago.
But it's only really well designed for dungeon crawling (well, that and wilderness stuff with a similar aesthetic--dungeon crawling outdoors). The biggest problem with D&D is that it's a niche game that people (and sometimes even the designers of its editions) try to use outside that niche.

The one your friends are playing. I've only seen people have a hard time figuring out a game when they don't give a shit or nobody bothers to give them a basic rundown. Proximity to someone willing to explain things counts for a lot more than system complexity outside extreme cases

FATAL.

There are random tables for everything at the chargen so you don't have to do anything but role some dice! Also everybody knows already what kind of character is his perfect fit, because everyone knows his own fetish!

Gonna plug for Savage Worlds here. The game is designed for a minimum of crunch while still having meaningful mechanics.

GURPS Lite
It does more than any version of D&D, with much simpler rules than 5E

D02

Ryuutama.
It even has a tutorial of sorts for GMs built in.

>The biggest problem with D&D is that it's a niche game that people (and sometimes even the designers of its editions) try to use outside that niche.

How so?
The fact that there isn't a social combat system doesn't mean there's no possibility for roleplaying and social interaction. I just don't see your point. Hell, I could even try running a dungeon-crawling game with Dark Ages WoD and it'd work. Unless what you're trying to say is that only generic games (such as GURPS) can work outside their "niche", I'd see your point, but right now I can't.

Things like Vancian magic are geared towards extended expeditions where resources have to be spread out over time so they aren't depleted all at once. If run adventures with few encounters between rests, casters will be dramatically more powerful.

Past beginning levels, D&D is not good for more down-to-earth games where a single sword stroke poses real danger. D&D is rather abstract when it comes to things like hit points and armor class which makes it a less than ideal choice for a down-to-earth game.

D&D characters have strong roles within the party, outside of which they're often very limited. A wizard not only has much shittier hit points than a fighter, but he also is much, much easier to hit, is restricted to much shittier weapons, and has a much shittier attack progression. So if you're looking for a game with more character flexibility, D&D is probably not what you want.

Spells tend to be valued and leveled according to their usefulness in a dungeon setting. Magic treasure tends to be a pretty important part of the game, and the distribution of different magic items can play an important role in class balance in some editions (for instance, the prevalence and power of magic (long) swords, which provides a significant boost for fighters over other classes, like clerics.

D&D just isn't a flexible, loosey-goosey system. Even its skill systems heavily favor dungeon-based play.

OD&D

If setting or story limitations isn't an issue, World of Darkness is pretty easy. Character creation is just filling in bubbles for easy to understand terms, merits are pretty straightforward, and rolls are basic addition with only one type of die.

I favor 13th Age due to differing class complexities. Barbarians are nearly impossible to fuck up

For players, GURPS. Strip it down to the base rules, and you have an intuitive rolling system (roll UNDER your character's skill) that doesn't change all that much. Rolling to hit with a sword and rolling to lockpick a door both require the player to roll under their skill.

For the GM, I'm not sure. GURPS is easy to pull off generating random characters since the "average" is established pretty well (10). So for your bandit you would give 10 in all stats. There's also plenty of sources online for different creatures.

>. The biggest problem with D&D is that it's a niche game that people (and sometimes even the designers of its editions) try to use outside that niche.

>these dumb lies

The more you repeat them, the dumber you look, especially because only a retard who's had their head in the sand for the last forty years would even conceive of saying something so fucking stupid.

He's right, though. The best, tightest, most well-focused edition of D&D is Moldvay Basic. It does dungeon crawling, and nothing but. After that the game became increasingly mushy and loose, mechanically speaking.

>The best,

Agreed, Pathfinder is a pain in the ass. Personally, I think Star Wars Saga is easy as hell to generate a competent character.

Something really rules lite, such as FATE.
FATE is trash though, so you'll want to move away from it after a short while.
If you already have a bunch of friends that play tabletop, you can just ask them to teach you their game and play as you grow to understand things.

BFRPG

It's so simple and so easy to play

Depth comes from the story and the easy rules help the game flow

Plus it's got a ludicrous amount of optional content for such a straightforward system, which could really help extend its lifespan with a group.

Deal with it, nerd.

No, FATE, and the Apocalypse World Hacks, are terrible for new players because their lack of rules lies on common assumptions that everyone understands how to play rpgs.

Risus does not make that assumption, it only lacks rules simple because it wants to be as simple as possible.

Seconding. 5e is a successful, popular, easy-to-pick up, and flexible system. Plenty of DMs, plenty of players, and plenty of future support via slow-burn release.

Let me reiterate it: the world, the RPG world in particular, does NOT need more D&D players. If anything, it needs LESS gamers playing this game.

Nah mate, new people getting into the hobby is a good thing, D&D or otherwise.

Suggest an alternative, then.

...

Lemme do it for him.
>OSR fantasy heartbreaker filled with nostalgia no new players will care about while they wonder why you're not just playing Dungeons & Dragons
>universal system that is a bitch and a half to learn and run and ultimately produces a hollow experience compared to specialized systems
>a system so light that you might as well not include the G in "RPG" when you talk about it
>a rules-heavy system with huge assumptions about the world that the players might not be on-board for when you talk about pen-and-paper RPGs
>Call of Cthulhu
>4e
>FATAL

>people need to not play the game I personally don't like

Star Wars if they need a known IP. The One Ring for fantasy IP. Call of Cthulhu if they do not mind weird horror. WFRP 2E for Dark Fantasy.

You're right about CoC, faggot.

No, that's not the issue. The issue is that D&D promotes a hack-and-slash play style which is really one niche of roleplaying. The biggest niche by far but still a niche.

The whole hobby would benefit from
a) more non-gamers knowing more than one household name RPG
b) more non-gamers being aware that killing monsters and taking their stuff, then leveling up is only one of many play styles and RPGs have much, much more to offer

> more non-gamers being aware that killing monsters and taking their stuff, then leveling up is only one of many play styles and RPGs have much, much more to offer

This.
Thousand times this.
The worst cancer about rpgs it is that common perception of rpgs in layman spheres is that they are exclusively silly games about killing monsters in the dungeons, which discourages many people who could potentially enjoy rpgs about other things but discard them because of wrong associations, and instead encourages more shitters that just want to kill shit and lvl up their chars, and the problem grows like a fucking snowball.

gee, i wonder which game might be to blame for this...

Into the Odd.

Here are more proof that ItO is made to be noob-friendly in a thought-out and clever way instead of just thinking through a roleplayer's mindset like "ah, we'll have only 16 skills" which isn't helpful to people never exposed to RPGs.

System thinks it's spam, for god's sake.
Go to Soogagames, type "Some Difficult Truths" part 1 to 3.

i disagree with the goals of this approach. i don't want to draw people who aren't interested in RPGs, dice-rolling and shit into the hobby. i don't want to dumb down my hobby to appeal to them. and I am confident enough that there will always be a nerdish niche in each generation that will be interested in pen & paper.

But the design of Into the Odd isn't "dumbed down", it's actually pretty brilliant. I don't think approaching a bare-bones ethos necessarily means only newbies can like it. I honestly don't care about whether my players have had experience before : I've been DMing for 8 years, with my group having people with 0 to 7 years of experience, and everyone's having fun. And it's not "casual" fun. People die if they suck at the game, I don't fudge dice, and I never had any issues with that approach.

On the other hand, if rules-light games don't appeal to you, I can't convince you, and it's ok. Plenty of great games in the sea.

The main reason I like Into the Odd is because it's one of those rare games that I feel really *got* what D&D (and I'm talking about the original, 1974 D&D) was all about, that is, imagination, rolling funky dices and having fun, all of this supported by a simple system and a lot of trust put in the hands of a good referee and good players.

Anyways, what game would you recommend?

Who cares about who could potentially enjoy RPGs? If you need to be encouraged or "introduced" into a hobby, you're a faggot and not interested in the hobby anyway. If you ake up your mind so staunchly that RPGs are all about killing monsters (which 75% actuall are about) that giving a counter example does not move your opinion, why would you be a valuable addition to the RPG scene?

Don't be mad that people play fun systems just because your snobby "high brow" "it's much better than DnD guuuize" bullshit"has no audience besides your unwashed ass.

DnD 3 and up, or if you and your players have some imagination, fate

I don't really understand this. When you say people are faggots if they need to be introduced to the hobby, do you mean that every players and DMs you know just discovered it magically without any form of teaching or something? Because that would be pretty awesome, but I'm pretty sure it's not how shit works in real life.

Tell me, how did you get into RPGs? Tell me about your first game. Tell me about how you turned out to be a good DM, or player or both.

And don't forget, if other people got you into it, or if they told you how to play, then you're a huge faggot.

Contrarion faggot.

The only people that don't enjoy D&D are those who have to have some special system tailored to their special snowflake needs. And those who have had bad experiences with the system, because if there's one thing that Veeky Forums has taught me, it's that most people don't know how to build upon a system to make it more accessible and enjoyable for their group.

that game report.was high grade fart sniffing Nu Gaymes Jurnlism faggotry hth

How is that exclusively derivative from D&D, and not from the type of person a player is? If you started them with another game do you really think that the player who treats TRPGs as MMOs is going to change?

Look I'm all for playing non-D&D games. God fucking knows I've had my share from years of Pathfinder. But I can't say that it's detrimental to the hobby because from what I've seen and heard it's a great gateway RPG. I know this is pure anecdotes but I rarely meet players who had this pre-conceived notion that all RPGs were "silly powergaming hack and slash shenanigans and roleplaying is for nerdes", and were open to the ideas of playing different kinds of campaigns and systems. The few players that DID think like that were all in one group, and actually didn't have their beginnings in D&D, but the Warhammer 40k RPG. I don't blame WH40k RPG for that, it's because the players were fucking idiots.

I tend to introduce new players with D&D and move on to other systems if they stick around and like what they see. It's what got my current group together and we ditched D&D a while ago.

Sure. Any recommendations?

You're a terrible person. D&D 3.x is terrible if you're just starting out. 5e is okay but I still don't know if it's best for beginners.
I'd suggest something like Savage Worlds or hell, even Cypher System as starting points because they're military simpler at their core.

A group of friends and me, who had all never played before, had heard about RPGs by cultural osmosis (played one on the PC, saw it in a movie/series, etc), were interested, googled what the biggest system is (3.5), pirated the books and just started up.

Making characters took about 3 hours with 6 people, mostly since we only had one lap top to look up feats and equipment.

We're still playing 4 years later, have one long running campaign.

Getting into the hobby is as difficult as about 15 minutes research and having friends. You probably struggle with the last part as you want random people to get into your niche games.

>D&D 3.x is terrible if you're just starting out
Why?

Fiasco, Fate, Paranoia, A Quiet Year

All games I have run with new players without disappearing up my own arse into.a cloud of pretension

I think it's a bit sad that you think Pathfinder is representative of how D&D is played all around the world, especially now that the DIY and OSR currents have hit the market. I do understand your position, as I used to feel the same way back when I came out of AD&D 2 (which is meh). I think there's a phase at some point where we, as gamers, HAVE to go away from D&D. But it musn't become misinformed biais, because there's still a lot of good I think you missed from D&D. Try reading, say, the OSR Primer and maybe the LotFP Tutorial book, and you'll see that it's a completely different way of playing D&D than what Pathfinder teaches.

Of course, if you're currently satisfied with whatever game you're playing, by all means, keep doing that. The point is : RPGs are there to be enjoyed.

>making characters too about 3 hours with 6 people
I did that when I started. I started with AD&D, not D&D 3, but I can relate to your experience. I'm still playing with some of my old friends from back then, too. I'm not saying getting into the hobby is hard, I'm saying there's no shame or badwrongfun in making things quick and easy for people who might not see the interest firsthand by being told "we're gonna spend 3 hours rolling for characters".

I don't struggle with anything, I'm just curious about your views, and still skeptic about why you would come to be so defensive about it.

Another reason why I enjoy "niche games" as you call 'em, is that I'm currently studying for a Master's Degree, that is working on exams, working on my memoire, and having a part-time job on the side to pay for that. AND DMing three games a week on the side, with veterans and noobs alike, because RPGs are one of my most loved Hobbies. I don't necessarily enjoy making character sheets for more than 10 minutes because I want the game sessions to be about stuff happening.
Cont.

I think all this arguing stems from a lack of specificity OP, how much of a 'beginner' are we talking here? Is this person into sci-fi/fantasy media and wants to explore RPGs? Is this person literally an entry level nerd and has no concept of role-playing?

For someone who played Skyrim/Witcher/fantasyRPG of your choice and wants to expand to RPGs I would wholeheartedly recommend DnD, probably 5e because while I have never played it it seems like a better game in terms of developing player/dm habits than 3.pf.

For someone who has no concept of what an experience point is, or say, has never consumed any form of fantasy media ever I would suggest Dread as a starting point. The horror theme can be as fantastical as you want it (hell, you could run it as a base suspense game with no supernatural elements) and introduces players to the concept of roleplaying and skill checks without getting bogged down in having to learn a setting or start grokking RPG vernacular.

Those are all very cool games. I'm sorry if I come off as a pretentious cunt, maybe it's the language barrier, but in any case, if you play such games, why do you think ItO's design ethos is "dumbed down"? I mean, both Paranoia and A Quiet Year are easy as fuck, anyone can get into it in 5 minutes, and I think it's a great thing. So what's the matter here?

Another exemple for When DMing AD&D, or SR 2E, I had fights that took the better part of an hour. Nowadays, I run 3-hours sessions. I like to get shit done in three hours, so there's an incompatibility here between crunch-heavy and my group's fun. Again, YMMV, and I'm not saying it's badwrongfun to play crunch-heavy games. I'm just trying to get you to acknowledge that it's indeed OK too if you don't happen to have the time for this and still enjoy RPGs.

>I don't struggle with anything, I'm just curious about your views, and still skeptic about why you would come to be so defensive about it.

I'm incredibly defensice about it because "including" people and "making the entry easier" has led to the death of niveau in mainstream music, video games, cinema and literature. Catering to people who do not want to expend effort to enter a hobby is a sure way to ruin the audience, which only leads to more dumbing down, until you're ultimately left with and incredibly mediocre product that does nothing good (like most rules light systems).

If your fights take too long, kick your players' butts. That is literally a problem of the player (or the DM), not the system. Quick combat is all about preparation, soif your players spend their time when it's not their turn on their phones or talking about their weekends, of course it's going to drag out. Alternatively, if the DM does not have the stats handy or has to look up special abilities constantly everything is gonna slow down massively. Throwing out the possibility of mechanically engaging combat because of lack of preparation just seems unnecessary to me, but Im a staunch quality-over-quantity guy.

Also, 3 hours is generally bad timing since you'll ususally have an attention low somewhere in there and not enough time to get up again. Try 4 hours, makes a big difference imho.

i was actually referring to the 3 blog posts you tried to link, not to the game itself. can't comment about a game i haven't played although the rules-light games i have played so far have never quite satisfied my RPG hunger.

people aren't even AWARE that RPGs can be more than that. didn't you get that?

well, that is just weak bait.

D&D's system is geared towards hack-and-slash gaming, that's where is excels. It is subpar at literally anything else. (I will make an exception for superhero gaming though, given M&M's relative success.)

Until you walk up and say "Hey let's play an RPG where we all are pulp detectives trying to find a stolen ruby from the Emir of Dubai in the Orient Express." or "Let's play an RPG where we are all magical anime maids trying to find a stolen ruby from the Emir of Dubai in the Tokyo Railway."

If they then react with "But all RPGs are DnD!" they are certified retards and I can not understand why you would want them in your game.

How's it sad? I recognize that people play different version of D&D and OSR retroclones. I was just saying that I'm completely burned out on d20 fantasy in general, which I suppose I should have clarified more.

>How is that exclusively derivative from D&D, and not from the type of person a player is? If you started them with another game do you really think that the player who treats TRPGs as MMOs is going to change?

people don't seem to get what i was pointing to: i want people who get introduced to RPGing be aware that very different games exist and how they differ in theme and nature from hack-and-slash fantasy.

it is a matter of AWARENESS. i don't want people get introduced to D&D, get their impression from that what ALL RPGing is supposedly about (killing monsters and taking their stuff) and then decide it is not for them.

Again, pure anecdote here, but I've never met people that were close-minded enough to genuinely believe D&D was the only way to go. If they end up really liking D&D and prefers to stick with it over any other system even after trying out a few other games, who cares? That's no different from people who just prefer different systems in general.

The thing is, I agree with you in some ways.
Here's what I do with new players : I ask them to inform me of their availabilities during each week where they want to play, and expect them to read a few pages of setting material depending on the game played. I expect them to have their character sheet and dices, and to remember what I tell them during the game and before it. To avoid having shitty players, we spend the first games as "test-sessions", so that they know we're not necessarily going to keep them in the group if they're bad at it.

It's not a matter of experience though, I kept newbies and thrown away bad gamers who had "years of experience". I'm not sure the issue you have has a basis in reality. Mediocre product, as in, most D&D 5E modules that nerds buy as much as newbies? The fact is, best-selling games also happen to be amazing shit. I'm talking Maze of the Blue Medusa-tier stuff here. Those cater to nobody, because the RPG industry isn't currently about breast-feeding the masses, it's about people writing what they want to write and doing better than the big WotC. >like most rules-light system.

Nah. Like most systems. If you take the huge majority of free and amateur content, and pro too, and read it all, sure, you'll mostly find poory designed stuff. It's not the product of a new generation of idiots, it's the product of years and years of people thinking they understand RPGs only basing their expectations on what they've experienced.

As for combat, again, I can relate. Again, I *used to* do it your way. I haven more fun nowadays. I think ItO (not all rules-light games, by any means) has mechanically engaging combat, in the idea that mechanics and fiction blend well. It's not fancy story-game thingy, it's raw trad' gaming, before 3.PF-era style of play. And it works better for me. I can also see how a lot of people might enjoy what you see as mechanically engaging combat, which, to me, isn't very fun. Tastes and colors, yadda yadda.

see but apparently you don't believe that RPG groups could form like that without ever looking closely beyond D&D's borders for a prolonged amount of time. apparently you don't believe that someone gets introduced to RPGs via D&D and dislikes killing monsters. will they be informed of other games before they walk away from RPGs forever.

no, I maintain it: the size of D&D is not healthy for the hobby. we need 2 more household names and i don't care which, as long as they represent very different games.
maybe CoC and... Shadowrun, (Savage) Rifts, A Song of Ice and Fire - I don't care which.

>Until you walk up and say "Hey let's play an RPG where we all are pulp detectives trying to find a stolen ruby from the Emir of Dubai in the Orient Express." or "Let's play an RPG where we are all magical anime maids trying to find a stolen ruby from the Emir of Dubai in the Tokyo Railway."

Actually, it looks more like this
>Hey guise, yyou like to play boardgames, you wathc game of thrones, would you like to play an rpg, which is a game of collaborative story creation, set in the theme of court int...
>Isn't rpg this silly thing where nerds play with action figures roll dice and kill monster slike in fucking world of warcraft but without computer
>Well, technically this is rpg also but this is diffre....
>LOLNOPENOTINTERESTED
>But...
>NOTEVENLISTENINGANYMORE

And that's only the case of convincing people to play.
In case of possibility of people finding out abouth RPG and trying in on their own, this is obviously much worse.

how many shots do you have at introducing normie noobs to the hobby?

i don't care about people liking D&D, I don't hate it at all. I strongly dislike however that we only have one recognizable game in the hobby. this is unhealthy.

Cont for But yeah, people have different ways of playing, and I think most of them are cool.
I'm not a "we just wanna have casual fun guyz pls accept us" type of guy. I have my share of nazi ideas when it comes down to who plays in my group, I have a screening process. But still, I think you might be missing out on potentially good players, that you'd enjoy playing with, by refusing to take in people who don't know *yet* what they like. I've been taught how to play AD&D when I was a kid. I had a hard time remembering all the stuff, but eventually it clicked in and at that time I could have played in your group and I think we would have had great fun together.

My bad then, apologies. I like this guy's writing style, but I can get how it would get on people's nerves. I don't mind people not walking on eggs in articles.

I'm sorry if that sounded agressive, and I did not understand it that way. Correction : I agree with you.

How is it not healthy for the hobby? Where are all those terrible players I've never met? Almost all the bad players I knew had prior experience (bad experience, in which they were taught bad shit, or just because they were not cool people)

this guy gets it

short answer, it engenders a lot of bad gaming habits (or at least habits that lots of experienced players despise).

It mostly boils down to a couple things

1) 3.X has obscene rules bloat trying to cover almost any situation while at the same time being unusably vague (there are..strange rules for drowning and side blurbs for determining how long you can tread water, but not rule for determining how much damage you deal when you throw something at someone). This arcane pile of rules is seen as encouraging rules-lawyering in addition to GM habits like 'if it's not allowed you can't do it' which directly contradicts rule 0

2) the game is "intentionally" unbalanced in a sense that there are superior character options (classes, feats, items, etc.) that cost the same amount of resources as inferior ones. While a completely balanced game would be somewhat boring, the gigantic divide in power means experienced players will be able to build mechanically superior characters that can walk all over a new player's unoptimized mess. A lot of grognards also took the "ivory tower" design mantra to mean they can be elitist assholes about knowing the system better than other people

3) This is more prevalent in PF but still very much exists in 3.X, but every classes adheres to their own interpretation of reality. Fighters become better and better at hitting things and not getting hit but for some reason are held back from doing fantastical shit because it's not 'realistic' while casters get to make reality their bitch by level 15 because magic. And it's not just the martial/caster debate. I believe there was a point in PF where if you gave a gun to a Gunslinger class he actually had a higher chance of jamming the gun when firing than someone who used it untrained.

You asked stupid people to play with you.
In my country, very few people even know RPGs exist. They don't have a picture coming up in their mind on what RPGs are, because they just don't know at all. When they look over my shoulder and see funky dices or a dungeon's plan, they go "hey, what's that?" and I explain to them nicely and they most often go "can I try sometime?" and some of them enjoy it, some of them don't.

Lots of first-timers doing shit I've seen where people who were "forced" into playing by their peers. A player's girlfriend that wasn't into it whom he had told "come on, just try it, it'll be fun". A bored cousin going "ok sure i'll play your stupid game" to one of my friend, et cetera.