Pen-and-Paper Virgin: HELP!

[Dorkandproudofit]

I've never played a tabletop RPG. Ever. Not once. Don't even know how exactly they are played. And yet I find myself intrigued by them. They call to me, beckoning my inner geek. I want to know what I should start with, how to generally play them etc. Can anyone help me?

[destoo]

We all have our own path.
For me, it started with the 'choose your own adventure' books.

Most paper&pen rpgs have good introductions themselves, but I think the Gurps series is the one we preferred for new players in the gaming club I was in a few years ago.

[Smoof]

Just picking up a 4th Edition D&D Players Handbook and reading it cover to cover should pretty much give you all the information you might need. Then you need a group, of course. Which, if you go to your local gaming shop (anywhere that sells board games/PnP RPG's), you can typically post an ad on their bulletin board that you're a new player and seeking a group to play with.

[Mr. Murphy]

I think listening to the Penny-Arcade/PvP D&D game that they recorded last year as a podcast will help. You get to hear Gabe as a new player learning some of the rules, and hear what a game can be like, without any sort of pressure. Also, it's fairly funny, and the game they are partway through right now (with Wil Wheaton) is even better.

Episode 1, (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4pod/20080530) 2, (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4pod/20080606) 3, (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4pod/20080613) 4, (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4pod/20080620) 5, (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4pod/20080627) 6, (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4pod/20080704) 7, (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4pod/20080715) 8 (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4pod/20080718)

The second game is on episode 3 right now.
Game 2, episode 1, (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4pod/20090218) 2, (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4pod/20090225) and 3. (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4pod/20090304)

If you throw those on while you're cleaning the house or playing a game with no good music, you'll get a great idea of what a game is like and how different people play it.

[Hotcod]

4th edition D&D is far far easier to get in to than any others. Like smoof said, if you are interested pick up the players hand book and have a read over it and should get a good idea of what's going on. In essence it's all about rolling checks with a d20. To do something, like hit a person, you have to see if you roll with your added bounces (taken from stats, level, skills ext) will pass a given number which in this case would be the tragets armour class. It's simple once you get the hang off it really. The only other thing to note is that it tends to be best played with miniatures on grid based maps.

In fact a good place to start with out having to buy anything is the D&D pod casts with penny arcade. The first "season" has a number of the players like gabe who have never played the game before. So things get explained and you get a general idea of how a game might go

[Karak]

I've never played a tabletop RPG. Ever. Not once. Don't even know how exactly they are played. And yet I find myself intrigued by them. They call to me, beckoning my inner geek. I want to know what I should start with, how to generally play them etc. Can anyone help me?

I would have to say, that I honestly disagree with pretty much anyone who says read the 4th edition as a start. Its a meta nightmare and is filled with things that will even make a new person wonder what the hell is up.
However, as another person suggested you could try something like Lone Wolf from Mongoose Publishing. The character is made for you, the rolling is generally easy, the world is very cool and it gives you an idea.
I have yet to see anyone who follows that kind of route have any issues. I would say maybe over 100 of the roleplayers I know cut their teeth on Lone Wolf.
If you MUST check out an RPG I would say to go with a rules light not rules heavy game system. World of Darkness 2nd edition D10 rules is way easy. Warhammer 2nd edition(not the brand new one) is also beyond simple. Same dice for almost all roles and very little confusion as to how to proceed.
Pretty much all I do is set people on the road for roleplaying. In fact it was an actual paying job I had a couple years back at the local roleplaying shop. And I never had success with general DND 2.5 or 3rd edition and 4th is far worse for newbies.
Sorry thats just the experience I have had while doing the very thing your asking.

[OrangePulp]

Yeah, New World of Darkness is great. The only thing about a system with less rules is that, I think, sometimes it's harder to make the transition from videogamer to roleplayer. I suppose it also depends on what kind of gamer you are. We had a new guy in a vampire game I've been playing in, and he really min/maxed a combat character, which doesn't work out so well for him. Of course, that's also because vampire can get pretty heavy on the social/mental side, and so if you're only combat, you have jack shit to do most of the time.

[Hotcod]

I've always felt that a rule heavy system is much better for people just getting in to the game since there is a meaty game there to be played. Jumping in and just rollplaying can be an odd thing to do and what we found when we played D&D (what little of 4th ed we played even more so) was that having the solid game there gave us something to build off of when we try and roll play. None of us are that good at it but it was still fun. The penny arcade pod casts are good examples of this i think a lot of the rules act as hooks for them to get in to playing the roll.

[Shrinn]

The easiest system to get involved in is one who's universe you love.

I played DnD 4.0 first, Swords and Sorcery were just too boring for Firefox el Scorcho. I thought I was done with tabletop forever. Then I saw Serenity RPG, absorbed the rules and fell in love.

[Karak]

Yeah, New World of Darkness is great. The only thing about a system with less rules is that, I think, sometimes it's harder to make the transition from videogamer to roleplayer.

I think then, you are actually getting back into what type of player you have and FAR more importantly the time frame.
I can honestly say I have never experienced nor heard of a success that is timely when it comes to entering roleplaying with a heavy rules gameset versus a light weight one.
Its possible, I am sure. And if you have say a couple days to a week sure you could without a doubt study up and understand the basics and the in's and outs of most of the heavyweight rules out there. Especially with no actual experience with a particular game world. However, again I feel that, just like a detailed game on a system, it would take considerable time to come to grips with the rules. And more rules means more min-max means more problems for a new person.

I have heard of game players who want to play being attracted to 4th edition purely due to its archaic structure and heavy rules sets(reminds them of a video game). And if thats the original attraction, basically roleplaying but maybe with a tiny bit more freedom, then perhaps that would work. At that point however, I would be intersted in if the person might want to do one of the roleplaying boardgames out there like Decent, or even Heroscape. If someone's attraction to roleplaying is nothing more than playing a videogame without the board, then DND 4th or other heavy rules sets are a good option if a bit limited in what they can offer.

[Tayaya]

I have heard of game players who want to play being attracted to 4th edition purely due to its archaic structure and heavy rules sets(reminds them of a video game). And if thats the original attraction, basically roleplaying but maybe with a tiny bit more freedom, then perhaps that would work. At that point however, I would be intersted in if the person might want to do one of the roleplaying boardgames out there like Decent, or even Heroscape. If someone's attraction to roleplaying is nothing more than playing a videogame without the board, then DND 4th or other heavy rules sets are a good option if a bit limited in what they can offer.

Descent IS a lot of fun, and is a good "gateway" for someone that plays D&D to use to get other people interested in also playing something like D&D. In many ways it's like a D&D lite, and the Overlord player can choose to play it that way if he wants to, even if the official game rules say it's the overlords objective to obliterate the party of adventurers. I played a game where I deliberately held back on my party, making things challenging for them, but taking into account that they are new and are going to make some dumb moves and choosing not to capitalize on the opportunities to kill them all. In the end, they did lose the battle to the dungeon boss, but they liked enough to give it another go the next night and won, and look forward to the next quest.

Descent has its own rules, and there are a lot of them, but not as many as D&D throws at you, and the combat is really streamlined thanks to some clever dice designs. The games can run 3-4 hours, like a typical D&D session, but the game is spent more in-the-dungeon than in roleplay, though opportunities for roleplay are still there. It's nice for those new players that want to get straight to the killin', though, as most new D&D players do.

I say snag a copy of Descent (the core game, of course, though there are a wealth of expansions). The price of entry is high, $79 for the full-priced game (though you can get it a lot cheaper at online vendors like Thoughthammer), but for that money you get a lot of high-quality game bits, a small army of minis that actually look pretty good painted if you want to go that route, a nice rulebook, and a quest book with a whole bunch of scenarios, if you don't feel like writing your own. I enjoy this game a bunch.