Getting back into the hobby after 5 years?

Haven't played an RPG since High School, way back in 2011 in a friend's D&D 3.5 campaign. Not sure how to get back into things. I've heard good things about Fifth Edition, but lurking on here for a few days, I've heard as many things for it as against. Of course, I'm open to trying new games, provided there's reasonable evidence that they're a better option.

Also, could someone give me a crash - course on the last 5 years in tabletop? Was it good? Bad? How so?

4E was an absolute disaster, stay clear.

5E is great for newer players and makes for decent gameplay that doesn't get bogged down under books of rules bloat, but character options are a bit sparser than you were used to in 3.5.

3.5E diehards have mostly flocked over to Pathfinder which shares 3.5's rules-heavy system. Loads of character options, but falls victim to its own version of 3.5 rules bloat.

Has anyone made you aware that there is more than one RPG on the market?

> Of course, I'm open to trying new games, provided there's reasonable evidence that they're a better option.

Yeah, he is.

Good luck with that. I've been trying to "get back into the hobby" for 4 years now. If you dont already have a dedicated set of friends that want to play it will never happen.

Run a game of Risus to get back into the hobby.

The last 5 years saw the dead-stop of content for 4e, two years of playtesting for 5e while Pathfinder (a 3.5e derivative) controlled the upper end of the market, and then 5e rocketing to the top basically from the word go after its release.

Apocalypse World and its derivatives gained prominence, especially Dungeon World, becoming a big player in the story game area of the hobby.

Shadowrun got a 5th edition.

Varg Vikernes (famous murderer and church burner) released an RPG he designed in prison called Myfarog. It's about as shit as could be expected.

A virtual tabletop site called Roll20.net had a small but successful Kickstarter and then blew up big time, especially in the last few years. It's now basically the go-to platform for playing TTRPGs online.

Your best bet for getting back in is grabbing a few people you know online already and throwing them into Roll20 with you, pick a system, come up with some shit, and just play.

You're like me. And it makes me sad.

Its not like I'm not looking either most random groups fall apart. The most common reason is we all start talking then find out we all have different off days. Then there are the times that a group is trying to find a new member to replace someone who left. Those never work out. You dont know any of their jokes and they are ALWAYS cautious. They handle you like your a bomb.

I've tried online too but at this point I think its a meme. Every single online group has fallen apart for all for pretty much the same reason. No one wants to DM or the guy that was going to DM fucked off and just stopped responding. I dont doubt that online games happen but I;m sure its between people who know each other.

Don't forget Earthdawn! It recently got a new edition too. It's sort of nobledark? And it's built around a specific setting. But it's a really awesome setting. It's also more rule-heavy, in the same vein as PF but without a million expansions and not to the same degree.

Every edition of D&D has problems, I'd avoid 4th ed for the 'sameness' problems and 3.PF because of bloat, esp. if you're just getting back into the hobby. 5th has problems, sure, but its problems are less of a problem for someone in your situation.

My best advice to you is to find a group of friends that would be interested in this hobby to begin with. Online gaming has gained miles in terms of the platforms on which to game, but lost Leagues in terms of quality. Your best bet is playing irl with friends.

And personally, I would recommend 5e if you want to stick specifically with D&D, but otherwise feel free to check out Dungeon World.

>Every single online group has fallen apart for all for pretty much the same reason. No one wants to DM or the guy that was going to DM fucked off and just stopped responding.
That isn't true! Once a left a game because I wasn't having any fun.

Your telling me you got to the point where you were actually playing?

It appears hipster faggot #6285837 has arrived. Oh look, he's mad someone mentioned d&d, how predictable

Yeah, a handful of sessions. Some guys I used to hang out with in a chatroom played, but it wasn't my style, they were mostly "lol random!" when it came to playing, I want a bit more serious with some humor.

That image never fails to make me laugh.

>Haven't played an RPG since High School, way back in 2011.

5 years feels like a long ass time until you hit 30, man.

>No one wants to DM or the guy that was going to DM fucked off and just stopped responding.

Wish that was the case here. I have weakest, most unstable of groups available.
Already being forever GM, I am left alone to plan sessions and ask players whenether they'll even find time.
This shit feels like I'm dragging them through bother of a session, without any enjoyment left to be had.

So, I just dropped it and stopped calling them to plan ahead.

When spoken to individually on occassion, I was told that they'd happily play some PnP, but didn't want to bother me since I seemed busy.

I gave up completly afterwards.

Damn thats harsh. But I know that feeling well. There are a ton of times I want to talk to people about something but hold back because I think their busy. It all just kinda self perpetuates until I rationalize it out to "If they want to talk they will message me."

Wish I woulda met you before I got 24/7 of no obligations since my work can be done at any time. I can make any meeting or any timeslot.

I was in the exact same boat - down to the time and edition of my last game - until two days ago.
Went to the TTG society at my uni, there were several groups already together but none with enough room for me and my friend.
I told the guy running the society that I was going to run a 5e game and that I had 3-4 slots open.
Over the next half hour or so 3 new players showed up and were pointed towards me.
We rolled up characters and played through the starter set for 5 hours.
tl;dr 5e is great for getting back into the game get a group together and try the starter set

If what you're used to is 3.5, just pick up 3.PF (from the SRD, don't actually give Paizo any money) because nothing else will scratch that character building itch.

Your opinions are shit, and so are you.

People like love to spout their hipster dipshit "NEthing but D&D LEL" attitudes, but honestly is right, if you're used to 3.5 then pathfinder's probably going to be pretty comfy for getting back into TG.

Oh look, it's a triggered fag.

>way back in 2011
Hahaha, please kill me.

This seems like an appropriate thread to ask this question. I recently discovered the amazing piece of software Tabletop Simulator and see the workshop has pretttttty much every single table top.

Where might I find groups of people to play with? What are some 1 player table top rpgs I could play?

>tableflip memeulator
Don't.

I wouldn't use Tabletop Simulator to actually play games over Maptools, Roll20, or even just IRC. That said you will want to use the same sites that you would normally use for listings. Mythweavers, this site's gamefinder threads, among others.

5e as a whole seems fairly good but it does have flaws. Still, people enjoy it enough.

4e took some time for it to grow on me but I like it a lot. It takes a 'heavy combat rules, lite non-combat rules' approach which is a different philosophy than 3e's 'rules for everything' and 5e's streamlined. It is worth a look.

For other tabletop games, the new World of Darkness 2e, or Chronicles of Darkness, seems an improvement if you want to do urban fantasy or urban horror. I am not familiar enough with other games to really say much about them.

I don't think anyone's mentioned it yet--starting around 2010, the OSR (old school revival/renaissance) took off.

Basically a loose community took up playing, reprinting, and modding the TSR editions of D&D.

While it remains a small blip in the RPG world, I don't think it'd be controversial to say that some of the most creative new development in PnP has been in the OSR--and a huge amount of it is available for free.

Overall, there's just been a huge proliferation of high quality indie games, covering just about every genre and niche you can think of. Compared to what I was exposed to when I started looking through the RPG shelf at a little suburban mal in the 90s (AD&D, Vampire the Masquerade, and maybe Rifts), it's sort of an embarrassment of riches.