Which DnD eddition to choose for starters
Hey,
It has been a long time, but finally i have found four other people who seem to be interested in table top DnD game. They more or less understand the commitment and the roleplay involved in it. So thats cool.
Im now thinking which eddition would be the best to start with. Neither of us 5 have any experience with DnD tabletop games. I have played a lot of pc games like Bg, Iwd, PST, NWN etc. But I guess that is a completely different story.
The best would be if we could set the game relatively easy and start playing easily. I don't think anyone is super excited about reading 300 pages of rules for setting up their character (I hope that you don't have to go trough that in neither of versions).
So yeah, what would be the most turnkey edition?
Thanks!
It has been a long time, but finally i have found four other people who seem to be interested in table top DnD game. They more or less understand the commitment and the roleplay involved in it. So thats cool.
Im now thinking which eddition would be the best to start with. Neither of us 5 have any experience with DnD tabletop games. I have played a lot of pc games like Bg, Iwd, PST, NWN etc. But I guess that is a completely different story.
The best would be if we could set the game relatively easy and start playing easily. I don't think anyone is super excited about reading 300 pages of rules for setting up their character (I hope that you don't have to go trough that in neither of versions).
So yeah, what would be the most turnkey edition?
Thanks!
1
Comments
And sorry to say, players should still read through the Player’s Handbook, and DM should read through the Dungeon’s Master Guide. (Or at least the race and class choice section)
I said 5e because, out of all the versions, it is more streamlined in the character creation and rules, while still adding some flexibility. 2e has restrictions on race/class combos and 3e can get a bit min/max and can get confusing when you have a player character that is 5 fighter/ 2 monk/ 1 cleric/1 thief running around.
5e allows you to pick a class and race and just play. Stats are more or less predetermined (no rolling) to prevent imbalance and has guidelines on how a person can role play their character with background options.
You don't want to be teaching a system to new people that you are still trying to learn yourself or that you don't feel inspired by.
I've had good DM's make Rifts feel easy to build a character and play in, and I have had bad DM's make Maid feel overly complex and difficult.
So I would recommend flicking through the books and picking the one that interests the DM the most. Learning that forwards and backwards, then bringing in your group to learn the system and create characters. They shouldn't have to read 300 pages to build a character because the DM should already know the rules and be able to guide them through the process. And as a DM that is going to be much easier if you are excited by the system.
I, myself, am most familiar with 2e. I am also very familiar with 1e/1.5e (which is Players Handbook *plus* Unearthed Arcana). I am somewhat familiar with 3e/3.5e. I am currently in a Pathfinder game (which some jokingly call 3.75e). I have never played 4e or 5e, but I hear 5e is good.
So, that's my advice. Use what everyone (or most everyone) is familiar with/has spent some time playing. Absent that, start new.
If you need Pathfinder stuff, you can go here: https://www.d20pfsrd.com
www.dmsguild.com is great place to find old versions of books in digital.
Don't get me wrong, D&D is great but there are a litany of other systems out there which serve different wants and needs.
As @LadyRhian has mentioned Pathfinder is a very refined and polished version of 3.5e D&D and was written as a direct challenge to 4e D&D. It cuts out much of the fat of 3rd edition and changes many systems to be more balanced and easier to understand.
Mutants and Masterminds plays out like high magic D&D but with superheroes. The rules for character creation are a little more complex due to having to craft all of your powers. But the actual gameplay is more streamlined and action doesn't get bogged down as it prefers to focus on broad strokes rather than minutia.
Call of Cthulhu is something entirely different from D&D. Nothing will be familiar from playing computer RPG's as it uses its own systems for attributes, skills, magic... everything. However, it's one of the few truly good horror RPG's and does a wonderful job adapting HP Lovecrafts world into something you can explore.
Traveller boasts the only character creation system where you can die before the game even starts. But if you die in character creation you get to roll a new character and making characters in Traveller is half the fun. The game system itself seems a little daunting at first but that's only because the books are ever so slightly badly written (as its very old) and make the game seem far more than it actually is. Basically, for every action, you roll a couple of d6 and either add your skill bonus or look on a chart.
Traveller bares the distinction for being the inspiration for Firefly and the Elite series of video games.
Stars Without Number is to Traveller what Pathfinder is to D&D. It fills in the gaps, smooths out the rough edges. It keeps a lot of the procedural generation fun but adds a dash of much-needed 3.5e structure. It's really well laid out and explained so despite being more high concept than 3/3.5/4/5e it's a lot more intuitive. There is actually an official free version of the core book that contains almost everything the paid version contains.
World of Darkness is without a doubt the easiest system to create a character and play. You get dots on a character sheet, each dot represents a d10. DM tell you how difficult the task is and you roll your pool of dice. How many successes you get equals how successful you were. There, you just learned Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocolypse, Mage: The Ascension, Demon: The Fallen, and Hunter: The Reckoning. Now the world setting and lore reads like bad Ann Rice fanfiction but I also DM'ed a mini-campaign on a 2 day road trip while driving. So you take the good with the bad.
Big Eyes Small Mouth. Anime inspired role-playing game that lets you bring your favorite tropes to life. BESM takes the kitchen sink approach to role-playing and as such it's rules are a little threadbare in certain places so you have to be willing to go with it and make things up on the spot.
Maid: The RPG. I picked this up as a joke for a one shot and I ended up loving this system to pieces. Everyone rolls completely random characters, all of whom serve the master or mistress of the house (DM). The master or mistress gets to boss everyone around and everyone else responds to this however they feel their character should. There are very few rules and it makes a wonderful one shot. I once DM'ed a game of this for 17 people at the same time. It was chaos but no one got left out, no one had to wait for an age to take their turn the entire experience was something they still talk about today.
I am never DM'ing for that large a group ever again but to give you some form of comparison, D&D starts slowing down after 3 players, is still manageable for 5 but things will slow down a fair bit, especially in large combats and at around 7 players you want to think about getting a co-DM if you plan on doing anything that will involve dice rolls.
If I were to personally rank them all on difficulty to pick up for a brand new group I would say:
In summary:
AD&D 2nd Edition is a dumpster fire. I still love it but I hold no delusions as to its many flaws.
D&D 3.5e is a great place to start but it's very poorly balanced past 7th level and this problem only gets worse with the 1001 splatbooks. It's honestly on the same difficulty to learn or easier than others in this list but for the same amount of effort you could learn anything else.
Mutants and Masterminds is based on the same d20 system as 3.5e but you have to be ready for a high powered campaign and all the imbalance that brings right off the bat.
Call of Cthulhu isn't any more difficult than learning D&D if you have never played before but your DM needs to be on point with their lovecraftian horror.
Pathfinder and Stars Without Number are great systems with well-written rules that follow a sense of logic and do not cut out any of the depth in their streamlining. Pathfinder offers the more traditional D&D style of fantasy but Stars Without Number is utterly different and free to start playing.
Big Eyes Small Mouth isn't like any other RPG on the list. The Tri-Stat system is a bit like GURPS in that it can be adapted to almost anything. But unlike GURPS, BESM's Tri-Stat system is fairly straightforward and doesn't require learning too many mechanics. Once you get the hang of it you can throw scenarios and genres together like a toddler with two toy trucks in hand. However, BESM is incredibly strong in its theme which depending on just how much you like anime could work for or against it.
Traveller is poorly written but rather simplistic once the penny drops. Character creation is brilliant but the game lacks any real form of a progression system.
D&D 5e is a much more streamlined and balanced version of 3.5 but it also lacks a great deal of it's texture and charm. That texture and charm is something Pathfinder managed to carry over with only a small increase in complexity.
World of Darkness is a really easy system to learn but the rules also lack any form of nuance as ultimately the game is designed for telling stories and not for dungeon crawling. You also have to be really into its setting or it's going to be a bad time.
Maid: The RPG. Very easy to play but your friends will either never speak to you again or refer to you as "That weirdo who wanted us to play maids."
I will add a little note to my post to make it less confusing. It was a lot of information to process and I don't think it was edited together all that well.
Basically, as a DM you need to know the system before you start and allow the players to learn it as they go along. So my advice would be start simple and start small and the 5e Starter Set sounds like it will allow you to do that.
And yes, 3e/3.5e had a ton of splatbooks, which I think can be directly tied to the OGL or Open Gaming License. In addition to the ton and a half of WOTC-released content, there are also tons of books released under the OGL I myself own several, including "The Book of Erotic Fantasy", "Sword and Sorcery Creature Collection", Legends and Lairs "Cityworks", "Mastercraft Anthology" and "Mythic Races".
So, it's kind of like an endless well for D&D 3e/3.5e. To quote an old joke, it's "Turtles all the way down".
Uhm.. don't you change DM's pretty much every other gathering? So that everyone can be part of the adventure?
Sounds good, I will check this out. Ah, I don't think that will be a problem. I am the only one who has played any of DnD games. Others are straight up fans of fantasy and games (both tabletop and digital).
I sort of agree with @LadyRhian that paper seems more fitting. But I guess I could look into digital versions and print them out. Or just compare them with what amazon has to offer. I will definetly look into this.
Thanks for the answers and discussion so far. Even though @voidofopinion made quite an extensive list of other games that are similair, I think we want to try out some of the WotC content.
I will look into the 5th eddition. And revert if we actually get to playing or have any additional issues
Basically we have a person DM a whole campaign before switching. You can cycle DMs more quickly by running smaller adventures in the form of one shots but I don't think I would recommend running a long campaign and cycling DMs.
That isnt quite such a problem if you are using pre-built modules in a pre-built world but it's quite a big problem if you want to run your own stuff.
However, DM'ing doesn't mean you don't get to play. It means you get to play an unlimited number of characters while everyone else gets only one.
I would strongly recommend having only one DM instead of trying to get an entirely new group of people to learn to play and DM at the same time. Your odds at making it through a successful campaign together without the player group falling apart after 3 game sessions will dramatically increase.
Also, the big question you have to answer before sticking with a system is what do you want out of it?
Do you want politics and intreague?
Solid dungeon crawling?
An open sandbox?
A structured series of pre-built adventures?
Because every system leans a little more in one direction or the other.
2nd edition is almost a straight up wargame still being an evolution of chainmail with some fluff.
3.5 is one giant sandbox of options.
5th streamlines things and takes lessons from the modern board gaming boom which tries to do a more of the work for you out of the box.
They are all great and you can make them all work for any campaign and playstyle but some are better simply suited than others for certain styles of game.
Even then 5e is probably best just from an accessibility standpoint.
Except for THAC0. THAC0 is always awful.