Friends want to try DnD

so since i dont want 5e and pathfinder is not suggested. what would you do for fantasy?

>I have the best adventures, no one does dungeons like me. Let me tell you, no one.
>Complaining about the roll? You're fired. Get out.
>Boy back in the day, if you were that guy you'd get roughed up. Get 'em out of here. Get 'em out. Take his character sheet!

Shadow of the demon lord is really fun. Its probably the simplest pen and paper rpg ever. Like im not joking a fucking ape could easily learn the system in one session. But its also very punishing and unforgiving

Pathfinder is okay for new players in my experience but it has needless complexities and an endless amount of modifiers that have made me weary of it. I didn't think I'd like 5e's simplification into advantage and disadvantages but I prefer that now as well as the fact 5e spells and abilities scale better. The thing I don't like about 5e is no skill ranks each level so characters dont feel like they are improving at things much, and a much smaller list of classes/archetypes. That isn't enough to sway me back to pathfinder for new players though

Play dungeon world instead. Good for one shots. Super easy to pick up. Everything they have to know is on the character sheet. Promotes roleplaying.
Literally made for people who want to do cool shit but have zero knowledge of what to roll.

>OP falling for the lies of contrarian trolls

I can't wait till he comes back after looking at the shit games these guys recommended.

>Mayor Drumpf

>This poor deluded user thinks 5e and Pathfinder are good.

Pathfinder is just 3.5 with a coating of baby shit colored paint.

>contrarians going all out

What's the matter? Feel like you're losing grip? Like you're being swallowed up? You better shitpost some more, because that's clearly helping you out.

Oh wait. Shit, looks like all your shitposting on this anime image board isn't doing anything.

>Everyone who doesn't like my favorite game is shitposting.
Ok user. The scary anti D&D Illuminati is going to get you one day.

>I'll pretend people haven't noticed my rampant shitposting

You and your friends would have been banned ages ago if you just put on trips.

I would start off with a one shot, rather than launching them straight into a campaign. If the one shot works well you can continue it on into a campaign later but for first timers you need to bait the hook a little bit. Do your players have any roleplay experience at all, or are they getting their info from podcasts and youtube? Are they the type that are into acting and character-based roleplay or do they want to smash shit and get gold?

5E is really great for newbies, the starter pack even comes with pregenerated characters and a simple adventure module. If they've listened to TAZ at all though they've had that module spoiled for them.

Dungeon World is a (mediocre) possibility.

Savage Worlds is relatively easy to understand and run, could work well with newbies.

You might even want to try a role-playing game in a box like Edge of the Empire as a first session.

>Being so triggered people don't like D&D he's deluded himself into thinking there's this grand plot against him and the RPG he likes.
user you might want to check out /x/. Check out some flat earth conspiracy threads, maybe check out /pol/ for the truth on the Jews, seems up your ally.

No user, no matter how much you autisticly bleat that it's only 2 people who hate the D20 system, it just makes you look like a retard, and as I've mentioned to you spergs in the past, you're allowed to like 5e and Pathfinder, just like you're allowed to watch Transformers and eat McDonalds, but you don't get to claim it's a well made game, a well directed movie, or fucking health food.

So there you go, play your D20 system all you want, and try to tardrage a little less at the inconceivable notion that not everyone likes your game.

Pathfinder is the same shit as 3.5. Literally, half of it's just their houserules on top of the 3.5 OGL.

Fantasy Craft, Savage Worlds (NOT Dungeon World), or start with something easy and generic, like FATE.

I'm not going to pretend I read your post, but if you're really convinced you wouldn't be banned, start wearing a trip right now.

Yes it is bad, it's million classes, feats, gear and rulings for every little thing makes people focused on making perfect mechanical characters instead of a role playing character.

Its myriad of 1000 little rules makes learning annoying and slows the game when the gm has to look for the appropriate table or rule.

Learning role playing for the first time is best done in a simple system.

Please heed the words of this user. Avoid 3.5 and Pathfinder, they are absolutely terrible for new players, and the 'optimization/RAW-focused' culture around them has caused untold damage to the roleplaying community. Your newbies deserve better than this.

For another suggestion: You could also try out one of the One Roll Engine games. The core mechanic is quite easy, while still maintaining far more detail than you'd expect. I've only tried wild talents, and I love it so far.

good to know.

would pre-made chracters resolve a good deal of the issues you have?

I did not dig 5e when I tried it, right now Fate and Savage worlds are looking good.

If you're in the mood for something lighter on the rules, both of those are pretty solid options.

>If you're in the mood for something lighter on the rules, both of those are pretty solid options.
dont mean to be dense but do you mean that those would be good for rules light options?

Yes. Most of Fate's rulebook is just roleplaying advice, examples of play, etc. The actual rules could fit in 10-20 pages. Playable with d6es, though they sell the fudge dice as well.

Savage Worlds is similarly simple and fits together well. Don't confuse it with the dozens of other -World games, though most run off of the same engine. Playable with d6 only.

I'm personally more of a crunch kind of guy, but those two run pretty well. I'd avoid Dungeon World due to its schizophrenic design philosophy.

right on. to run fantasy would you just need the core rules and a fantasy generic book too or something?

Just the core book and some idea of the fantasy setting you're using. A setting book is fine if you're gonna do that.

>would pre-made chracters resolve a good deal of the issues you have?
No. Premades introduce about as many problems as they might address. 3.5/PF are basically the same bad system, no matter how you dress it up. The devs have already made their fixes in the form of 5e.

If you must play Dungeons and Dragons(tm), then I must recommend 5th edition. It is the most recent version, representing the culmination of 14 years of lessons learned since third edition came out, fixing most of the worst evils while bringing a lot of badly-needed innovation to the franchise. It is several times faster in every way, has much better balancing, has less cumbersome rules, is more palatable for new players, and maintains basically everything we actually want from dnd. I have played 3rd, PF, and 5e each for several years and delved deep into them all, and I can assure you that 5e is without any doubt the best edition of D&D on the market.

So I say this: Just move on to a better game. You might need to overcome your inertia to learn a better game, but if you do, you and your players will be rewarded with opportunities for more satisfying and less painful roleplaying experiences.

But 5e doesn't have martial adepts in it

The tome of battle classes were the best thing about 3.5, and the reason why I still sometimes get an overwhelming urge to get a group together and play it again

Also 5e is really bland optimization-wise, the best options are obvious and easy

unironically start with gurps

lol surprised I didnt see gurps earlier here.

has anyone here tried original dnd with rpg newbie friends? some user mentioned that was a decent option.

i really think that 5e is a better way to not scare beginners out of RPG and a good stepping stone if you want to go into pathfinder.
pathfinder, just like 3.5, is full of crunch and rules and powergaming options and terrible options for beginners.

That's a good thing for someones first rpg, simplified character building and easy options so there's less focus on building a character and optimisation and more on actual role playing,

Which you want them to learn roleplaying and not learning to be murder hobo, min maxing munchkins

5e isn't the best system not by a long shot, but its a helluva better option for a first rpg than rules heavy 3.5 or pathfinder

>Also 5e is really bland optimization-wise, the best options are obvious and easy

WHAT.A.SHAME.

true, although I'd generally recommend FATE or something similar for a first RPG, not any edition of D&D

It was my first game (Damn Spoony when he still made content, recommending Pathfinder for a first game), and boy, have I learned to dislike it.

It's probably also formed some of my distastes for certain kinds of mechanics, such as hard numbers and complex character builds. Like, I'm writing a fantasy game soon (after I get my current one out) and it has more similarities to classic games than most of the stuff I work on, but jeez, it probably still does at least half of the mechanics completely reversed from the Pathfinder mindset.

I really learned to dislike hard numbers especially. I much prefer working around with dice or other floating numbers instead.

>5e didn't need a gigantic ugly patch over the bullet-wounds in its core melee combat system
>5e doesn't force you through a multi-week character creation minigame just to produce a relevant character
>5e doesn't have as many character-crippling trap options
These are good things, user.

I didn't recommend 5e as the best first rpg period, since better games do exist. I recommend it with the pretext "if you must play dnd".

5e is by far the best edition of dungeons and dragons(tm), but it is not the best roleplaying game by any stretch of the imagination.

I agree on your first and third points, but strongly disagree on your second

Why shouldn't character creation be a minigame? The great weakness of 5e is that it isn't, 5e character building is boring, I've never been excited to try out any new 5e character I made.

>Why shouldn't character creation be a minigame
Any roleplaying game will have a character creation or selection process -that is unavoidable in my opinion. I'm trying to say that they should never be anywhere near as grueling, time-consuming, or trap-laden as they are in games like 3.5/PF or shadowrun.

Overly-burdensome mechanical chargen processes have the potential to distract our limited cognitive resources from more important things. When I have to spend 2 weeks ironing out the exact manner in which my character will battle monsters, that is time which I am not spending on his temperament, appearance, backstory, or thinking about how to fit him into the campaign setting.

In three years after the campaign is over, no-one will care about my meticulously crafted trip-stab-groin-lightning combo or how it inflicts on average four and one quarter damage over the usual attack routine. They will however care about what actually happened in the game's lore at the table, what kind of characters developed, how they interacted with each other and with the setting, and other things which the chargen minigame has little to do with. Roleplaying game rules need to support these vital memory-building experiences instead of creating time-wasting distractions from them.

You're treating how a character fights and his temperament, appearance, and backstory as separate things

Don't do that. What a character does mechanically should tie into everything they are as a person. Or do you do that weird thing where you come up with a personality first and try to build mechanics around that?

If so, don't play 3.5 ever, it is not the game for you

>What a character does mechanically should tie into everything they are as a person

This is absolutely correct. All parts of each character should be afforded the time they need. That is why the mechanical aspects should not take up too much time or be too burdensome. Players need to be free to make everything work. If the only

>don't play 3.5 ever
I played it for years, I dove fully into those mechanics aspects as a shameless munchkin like all the rest, I had discovered a few exploits myself and at the time was even a minor name in the optimization community. I know exactly what it takes and why that game is as bad as it is. One of the greatest disservices is the elitism of 'optimizers' or those with 'system-mastery', and the sheer acidity with which they treat anyone who hasn't poured years of their time into an outdated broken game. (How dare anyone not remember the difference between an AoO and an Immediate Action! What kind of fool doesn't know off the top of his head the exact difference between Spells, (Sp)ell-like abilities, (Su)pernatural abilities, and (Ex)traordinary! and so on and so on). It's all such waste.

My tastes have changed in the years since then; I have less time for it, and I realized there's much more to roleplaying than number-crunching, or assembling character-levels like building blocks, or rules-lawyering, or clinging to a sense of superiority at having "mastered' an inferior, obsolete game by reading wikis and forum posts. To be clear, those things have their own little pleasures, and are not antithetical to the true joys of roleplaying, but they have little to do with it and often serve as more of a distraction than anything else.

>dungeon world
why is this so polarizing on /tg?

how does dnd work on Veeky Forums?