What's the best system to start normies off on?

Fate

this

D&D 5e

IDK

I would probably recommend the latest D&D.

I personally use GURPS to introduce players to the hobby, but only because it was my first RPG too... 15 years and a couple editions ago. I know it well enough that as long as I know what my players are "into," vampires, ninja, Knights vs dragons, space mecha, school drama, whatever, I can drum up a game real quick and slip them into the hobby quickly and smoothly, getting them addicted/indoctrinated before they realize what's going on.

[Internal cackling intensifies]

RISUS

D&D 3.5

Avoid D&D at all costs.

First, avoid "universal" systems. Those come later. You want something targeted to the style of game you're gonna play so they don't have to focus on other stuff as much. YMMV but I've found most rookie players do better starting this way and branching out to more generalized systems.

D&D 5E works pretty well, but honestly just avoid something that masturbates to subsystems on top of subsystems. Most of the simpler d% systems would probably do the trick too.

>he hasn't played a more streamlined AD&D, microlites, 3.5 with Bo9S/Psionics only + E6 and the revised skill ranks rule, 5e, or a few of the better sister-games like FantasyCraft

The meme gets old, user.

If it needs that many fixes it's not really D&D.

FantasyCraft is not D&D and is actually good.

5e needs no fixes. and is probably the best thing to start normies off with.

This. 5e is simple enough for anyone not completely retarded, has enough character freedom and lots of opportunity to roleplay. Depending on how much the players are willing to invest their time, both are possible in this system:

>You are Fal'Dul, the level 1 Elf Ranger. Go raid a dungeon, now.
>You created a deep backstory and made a character who is complex and lifelike.

Dungeon World

Everyone is John

This. Super simple roleplaying games that barely look like one are the best to introduce normies to the hobby, since you can pretend they belong to categories with less social stigma.

Everyone is John

>If it needs that many fixes it's not really D&D.

This is why you don't have any friends, captain autism.

depends on the normies.
if they can handle horror and dying (rare), then CoC. if they don't mind funny dice, FFG Star Wars. if they hate character sheets, Fiasco. if they insist on a brand D&D (or DSA in Germany). if they want LOTR, TOR.

that presumes gamism is best for normies. may be right but can also be horribly wrong

Pathfinder is a terrible system, and I will remember to this day that the first sessions when our DM introduced us to it took about 4 hours of character design, including 2 whole hours of crunch.
I will also remember the class-based frustration we experienced (one of us played a monk) and I will remember the ridiculous gap in powerlevel between the characters starting lvl 9-10.
The inquisitor fucking 3-shoted a demon prince ffs.
And don't start throwing "muh gm was shit," he was competent, and when I took the mantle I could be gaze at the horror this game was about.
Pathfinder is shit. 3.5 is shit. They are daunting, obtuse systems riddled with trap options and classes, rife with incoherencies and a ridiculous amount of additions.

5E is alright.

Pathfinder or 3.5

>it took about 4 hours of character design

Pathfinder character creation should NEVER take this long. Maybe pathfinder is too advanced for newbies.

There was 2 hours spent introducing us to Greyhawk. That I didn't mind.

What I did mind was the needless intricacies of save mods, wrestling stats, the different types of actions, what kind of movement did and did not trigger an attack of opportunity, and figuring out which class needed which stat and in which order. Then we had a mock battle and holy fuck was it long.
Point is, it DOES take this long when this is your first TTRPG.

"Advanced" isn't the right term. Byzantine is. 3.PF is the fucking Red Tape of Tabletop system.

This is a fat load of bullshit, I started 3.5 when I was 16, it took me less than an hour the first day I ever played to have a character ready to play. It did require a bit of play to understand some of the concepts but it's not that fucking hard, if it took you 4 hours either

>you have mental disability
Which is fine, I have no problem helping out retards (we actually had someone with downs play one week)
>you guys were fucking around most of the time
Most likely scenario
>someone was purposely being obtuse
Always one got to be one shitter

Now I've been playing for 7 years, I have gotten at least 10 other people into the hobby and although we do play other systems, I always start them off on 3.pf, none of them have had an issue, I talk with them about powerlevels and helped them optimize or deoptimize as needed so that everyone has fun, I tailor encounters around my party, people make it seem like this is impossible or that the GM shouldn't have to do this kind of work but 3.5 honestly is the easy to dm than a lot of other systems

Is the system perfect? Hell fucking no, but we play to have fun and we always do

Oh and before you ask, I've played and/or ran M&M, GURPS, Maid, CoC, Shadowrun, and savage world, and honestly the most annoying is GURPS, you want to talk about long ass character creation, probably took 2 hours which still isn't that bad but worse than before, we had fun after but honestly only rolling d6's feels before after a bit

Maid is easily the best game to fuck around drunk to, I don't think we've ever laughed so hard at the table as the day master got caught by Amazonians, long story short he was to be a Virgin sacrifice and they decided the best way to save him was to convince them he was actually a warrior princess who got transformed into a weak boy by an evil sorcerer

Sorry about the incoherence, I haven't slept in like 35 hours because finals getting ready to fuck me up the asshole

Such a hotty. Would lick his body all day long.

>getting a tattoo so that you're always wearing a polo, even if you're not
total frat move

>Sorry about the incoherence, I haven't slept in like 35 hours because finals getting ready to fuck me up the asshole
And yet, here you are, defending your waifu system rather then sleeping.

Really puts into perspective just how fucking stupid you are.

Oh my god, democracy is shit. People get addicted to it and doesn't try REAL systems like Monarchy that all the hardcore guys used before.
All those pesky rules to make things easier for a beginer.
If a guy is entering board culture he has to go through everything our ansestors played if he wants to become a REAL player

Except I'm not you sub human sack of shit, I'm writing lab reports and studying, I was browsing Veeky Forums while taking a shit and had to enlighten you on how fucking stupid you are, it's not even my pet system, we play games on whatever system we think is best for what we're looking for but we fall back on 3.pf or 5th edition for introducing new players, it's the best litmus test to see if they will enjoy the hobby or not

Go fucking cry to your mom how your stupid fucking pet system thats "better in every single way than d&d" isn't the face of the traditional gaming, it is and forever will be the most influential and most known tabletop game

Sure, sure. Whatever helps you (not)sleep at night, faggot.

This, 5e specifically.
>Generic baked in setting is easy to introduce.
>Simplest/newb friendliest edition.
>Everyone knows what D&D is.
>If they can't understand/see the appeal of D&D as a total novice they aren't going to be interested in any other esoteric system people keep spouting off.

I knew it. The second I saw someone suggest PF I knew some butthurt PF hater would come along and rag on it.

Honestly, I'd go with either OSR or 5e but PF or 3.5 is fine too.

Seconded. I ran an entire crew of first-time gamers through a campaign with it, and it worked swimmingly. The problems they had were doing silly things like unanimously deciding the ooze I threw at them logically had to be immune to weapons, and so their only option was to run away.

Any dungeon crawler board. HeroQuest and cie.
If the game keeps their interest move on to DnD

Never played Cie. How's it run?

Nechronica. If they stay, they're good. If they normie out, they're shit.

>If they can't understand/see the appeal of D&D as a total novice they aren't going to be interested in any other esoteric system people keep spouting off.
>esoteric
this is something that some people here unironically believe

D&D because normies basically know what that is, so it's got the name recognition and they're likely to know pretty much what they're in for.

D&D 5th edition, I call it "D&D For Dummies" cause everything is simplified for vets and new players without taking away any of the fun.

When they're not normies to TGing then upgrade them to 3.5/Pathfinder.

Why would you downgrade to a worse edition?

D&D 3.5. It's the last good version of D&D and there's no real reason to start them off on anything but D&D. Also anyone who's played any RPG video game ever knows at least vaguely how things work. If you start them off on some obscure game no one's heard of you're doing a disservice to your players.

seconding this hivemind

This
Not this. Everyone is john is really bad for starters. It's very different to most other games out there

GURPS

Please don't tempt the guys who made FATAL to make something worse.

One-page RPGs. You can get wasted, and start off from afar, something like "what if we were the crew of a spaceship" and then drag them into Lasers and Feelings. If something goes wrong, pretend it's drunken bullshit. If not, suggest to do this shit sober.

And when you finally trick them into playing, you can scream NUUUUUUUUUUUURDS in their faces when you're done, show the rules, show the dice, show everything, and drink their tears.

I believe there's a ted-talk about how democracy requires a strong middle class and is doomed to fail in countries that do not already have them.
Person in question argued that the chinese system might be preferable for developing countries, as they develop the middle class required for a functioning democracy.

>3.5
>good
2E was the last good edition.

>If they can't understand/see the appeal of D&D as a total novice they aren't going to be interested in any other esoteric system people keep spouting off.
I was entirely bored with my first few games because they were DnD, and only went to group because I had friends dragging me. When we did a political game in GURPS though, I was totally hooked. So while anecdotal, I'm pretty sure that not everyone finds murderhobo generic fantasy with no interesting world-building or drama, appealing.

Lasers and feelings.

I want to debate this sort of logic, but I can't.

I have a group that began after playing mafia (the werewolf version) a few times while drinking. It led to a conversation about role playing games and next thing they know we're playing D&D 5e.

>upgrade them to 3.5/Pathfinder.
why would you do this

>Maybe pathfinder is too advanced for newbies.
Honestly d20 is not good to jump into with people entirely new to the hobby, doubly so if none of them are kind of nerdy already since then there's not even the incentive of being an awesome dwarf hero or something to help them stick through.

I have introduced a ton of normies with CoC. Investigation is a very simple, easy to understand concept, and as long as you keep the mystery very surface level, it's great. Eventually, they get used to being in character, and then fear is introduced, right along the interest curve. Fear is such a basic emotion, combined with a good DM, that most anyone can experience it. Normies can be introduced to many many systems if the DM is good. But DMs, especially new DMs that want to introduce their other friends to gaming, often aren't good enough of experienced enough to get to the core of what makes these games fun fast enough to keep normies' attentions. I'm dealing with this right now actually. I'm the only player in a group of 4 who has played tabletop rpgs before. The DM has only ever DMed anything 3 times. He's doing a shit job of keeping anyone engaged, myself included. I've been doing my best to help explain and show by example what you're supposed to do to have fun, but when a DM can't give a fun session, it leaves normies feeling cold.

My brother usually introduces people through L5R.

No issues thus far.

May as well start right.

>level 1

I'd still argue for starting level 2-5 just for not dying's sake. Why no I'm not bitter we had a quadruple TPK of level 1 characters in a level 1 module I'M FINE

>a quadruple TPK
You had four TPKs, or you had a regular TPK with four people that you wanted to make sound more egregious than just "TPK"? This is different from a regular TPK how?

Why are people talking about PF and 3.5 as if they were something to "graduate into". The only reason to play 3.PF is if your group likes 3.PF. 5e makes it a lot easier to roleplay without getting lost in the character building game, so if that's what you're after, just use 5e. If you're talking graduation in the sense that they're switching to a crunchier system, then there are plenty of other crunchy systems out there to choose from. Teaching them how to build viable characters in 3.PF will just teach them how to build viable characters in 3.PF. That skill isn't going to be very useful in the long run unless they join a 3.PF group and play lots and lots of 3.PF. Knowing which feats to pick is useful iff you play 3.PF. On the other hand, you could teach them a system that is more versatile than 3.PF and prepare them to have all kinds of fun. The amount of study that you have to put into 3.PF is quite a lot even when isn't weighed against its incredibly small range of what you can do with the system.

Even something like CoC, which is almost exclusively geared towards one or two types of campaign, is a better choice, because it teaches roleplaying skills, which are useful anywhere, no matter the system. And if you want to introduce them to another level of crunch, there's always GURPS. GURPS can simulate fucking anything. And you don't even need to go into the deep end of GURPS with all the heavy math, because, AS ANYBODY WHO KNOWS HOW TO PLAY GURPS CAN TELL YOU, you don't use the rules you don't like.

A good GM/DM that knows his system (AKA the rules) I seen new players take off with many systems over the years. A new GM and players (with what you can find in a store) 5ed D&D. It clearly made for new roleplayers. With a ok GM, World of Darkness, Iron Claw, Pathfinder off the top of my head. Love Hero system but it is a bitch to GM right (I tried and seen others fail at it) and NOT for new players. GURPS is the same way.

did not list some older stuff that be hard to find. Heroquest, traveler, palladium and runequest

Nechronica is the endgame, bro
It's what you subject them to after they've already sampled their healthy share of systems. Everything builds up to an eternity of bleak post-apocalyptic loli guro. Kind of poetic, don't you think -- a gamers endgame looks just like what the world's end is going to look like.

They won't appreciate hell unless they are cast into it at just the right moment in their life.

The problem isn't the meme here, it's the meme in the normie population. Tried to start a DnD group, total fizzle. Almost the exact same group with Rouge Trader, two metric boatloads of win.

3.5 is when you want to play a game of "Screw the players, there is no kind God." Thing is, if everyone knows that's gonna happen and is A-OK with it, it's actually kinda fun as long as you have an end condition, like everyone dies once. Did that once as the squishy, TONS of fun. Last guy out, and the final battle involved the party firing Commoner Railguns as counterbattery fire against a BBG who had stupidly godlike powers (think he was a Sorcerer/Wizard cross, Big Magic Guy.)

fair enough, my D&D group does have a fair bit of worldbuilding and drama, and not that much murderhoboing, thought that was pretty standard.

3.5/PF

If someone throws a fit, they have been tainted by Veeky Forums before playing and should never be allowed in your group.

You can work on other systems once you weed them out.

5e is simple enough for a monkey to learn, though it does require actually being invested enough to learn what little you need. I've been able to acclimatise normies to skill-based game like call of cthulu and traveller in the past because character gen can be done fairly simply and quickly in a group and your choice for actions is much more free-form and open. Obviously this doesn't work too well if they aren't terribly creative, but you've got options.

The same was argued for fairly well in Intelligence Squared, and famously by Marx.
Socrates also argued a similar point, that democracy doesn't work without an educated populace.

Playing with the weebiest of weebs that would totally work.

If you're playing with the weebiest of weebs then you want to start them out with Maid.

13th Age is a viable choice, especially if the newbies have differing preferences when it comes to class complexity.

A normie doesn't want to read an entire manual before game, he wants to play a short tutorial and then jump straight into the play, like in video games. That's why you want a system that fits on a single page and has little to no character creation mechanics. You probably want an ad hoc system where you roll a d6 and add a bonus based on description, and that's about it. Anything you yourself could come up on a single elevator journey is more than enough of a system for them, otherwise prepare them to be bored and have their eyes glaze over at the thought of reading even few pages of a book. Literacy just ain't a fashionable skill to have these days, and you know it.

I think it's less that they're weebs and more that he tends to start people off with one-player campaigns. L5R has always been better for one-player games than it has for groups.

Pathfinder beginner box is great.
The basic book, not so much for beginners.

Yeah, i've definitely grabbed people's attention with the "You know not all games of make believe have to be sword&sorcery fantasy"
>D&D because normies basically know what that is
No they don't. You've got a solid 50-50 shot of them knowing vaguely what it is. the other 50 is "What console is that on??"
At which point you're much better off just starting from zero and pitching escapist make believe games from the point of view of a well designed and clearly intentioned system.

Same philosophy goes for 4th edition.
If they come out the gates with some edition war horseshit then you REALLY know they're not welcome here.

>TEDtalks

Guys. If you want to weed out Those Guys, just have a conversation with them before you invite them to the table. Don't make a ridiculously complex, yet incredibly narrow system their first experience with roleplaying games just because you want to filter out people who throw a fit about edition war bullshit.

See
.

Interesting. What makes L5R so good for single-player?

It tends to create jack-of-all-trades characters, and the creating/advancing process for characters is both open-ended and heavily tied into character concept and setting.

Characters created in L5R come pre-packaged with a ton of hooks and alliances, will not have any obvious flaws that require a party structure to make up for, and advancement is gradual, organic, and often unpredictable.

Source books have always wrestled with how to even make the setting viable for party structure, considering the limitations it puts on a character creation system where 90% of your choices are going to pull your character in one or several directions.