Pen and Paper RPG Nerds

A

AaronTheD

Veteran X
I'm pretty unfamiliar with this stuff outside of computer RPGs like Baldur's Gate and Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines

Was hoping to get into it with some friends but don't really know where to start.

Was looking at the D&D 4th Edition starter set:
Amazon.com: Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Roleplaying Game: An Essential D&D Starter (4th Edition D&D) (9780786956296): Wizards RPG Team: Books

The Pathfinder Beginner Box:
Pathfinder RPG Beginner Box : Toys & Games : Amazon.com

Thoughts on each? +'s and -'s of each game?

I'd also like to get into the World of Darkness stuff/Vampire because I loved the computer games and the universe/lore so much, but it seems waaaaay more complicated and newb unfriendly. I don't want to spend days coming up with campaigns, but if pre-made, easy to play ones exist I'd be down. From the few PDF's I've looked through it seems that there are waaay fewer premade campaigns and that the game mostly relies on the DM to come up with everything.

Does WoD have a similar beginner set like the other two games?
 
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yeah, I understand that there are core rulebooks, players handbooks and dungeon master guides for all 3 games but I'd rather get a beginner friendly set since I will be playing with people who have never been exposed to this stuff before.

Trying to make it as simple and all inclusive as possible.
 
I used to play Shadowrun when I was much younger. It was way cooler than WoD. Dunno if they have much in the way of pre-made missions/campaigns though - haven't looked into it in forever.

D&D has a new version coming out called D&D Next that you can play test a module for free apparently @ D&D Next Sign Up - Wizards of the Coast
 
for some reason the idea of playing d&d really sounds awesome

but when i try and visualize myself actually doing it, i feel like i'd rather just go get drunk at the bar
 
AaronTheD said:
yeah, I understand that there are core rulebooks, players handbooks and dungeon master guides for all 3 games but I'd rather get a beginner friendly set since I will be playing with people who have never been exposed to this stuff before.

Trying to make it as simple and all inclusive as possible.
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for people new to RPG's check out Mouse Guard. Its a great introduction and fun.
 
if you are going to be a dungeon master, then you really should read the dungeon master guide, and all of you should read the players handbook.

there's a lot of technical shit for numbers and dice rolls that you may miss if you don't. then again, if you don't care about getting technical, get some dice and start playing with bare bones shit.

just keep a players guide/dungeon master guide handy for reference i suppose.
 
Pathfinder is based on D&D v 3.5, which can be extremely number crunchy and complicated. 4th edition feels like World of Warcraft Offline (IMO that is not a good thing).
 
Yeah, pathfinder is 3.5++. There's very little balance and a lot of room to be creative.

4e is all based on very strict rules and numbers. everyone is given power cards to make tracking things in combat a bit easier.

Many of the recent D&D books are Essentials books. In those books, all the classes are paired down even more, severely limiting your choices to make during character creation and leveling, but enabling you to create something relatively quickly that will be reasonably effective.

If you're running a campaign, you'd probably want to start with dungeon masters guide, monster manual, and players handbook.

Then there's like 1, 2, and 3 of each of those which would immediately expand you to 9 books if you want more content.

To start things off easier, get DMG, MM, PHB, and heroes of forgotten lands and heroes of the fallen kingdoms. those are the two main essentials books. I'd also recommend getting heroes of shadow. it's a undead/vampire based essentials book, since you're interested in vampire stuff already. Just be warned: the vampire class is a relatively week striker class.
 
My d and d nerd friends strongly prefer the 3.5 rules and will not migrate to 4th. In other news the. Ew star wars pen paper system just went beta. Its a very interesting system
 
AaronTheD said:
I keep reading that WoW thing. I never played WoW, can you explain?
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3.5: things you need to track in combat are all over the place. Durations all vary.
4: Everything is either immediate, save ends (roll D20 and get 10+), end of your next turn, or until end of the encounter.

3.5: There's a list of like 100 skills to choose from. The amount of points you can dump in depends strictly on your int score.
4.0: There's like 15 skills to choose from. Aside from your base stats, you can train in them once (for +5 bonus) or gain a feat bonus by specializing. All your skills level up evenly according to your level / 2.

3.5: combat is mostly melee basic attacks or magic users using a certain number of spells per day. There's lots of ways to tweak things but that means there's a ton to keep track of. It's also horribly imbalanced from one class to another in terms of combat effectiveness
4: Everyone gets the same number of abilities. Your abilities are either Daily usage, encounter usage, or at will usage. You get playing cards to keep track of them. Gameplay is so focused on combat balance that people have taken to complaining that it lacks the flavor and customization they desire.
 
AaronTheD said:
Do these books also contain pre-made campaigns?
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Don't believe so. There are additional books that contain campaigns. DMG and MM contain enough information to piece together your own story though. Ruleset + guide on building an encounter + a list of monsters to use.
 
AaronTheD said:
I'm pretty unfamiliar with this stuff outside of computer RPGs like Baldur's Gate and Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines

Was hoping to get into it with some friends but don't really know where to start.

Was looking at the D&D 4th Edition starter set:
Amazon.com: Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Roleplaying Game: An Essential D&D Starter (4th Edition D&D) (9780786956296): Wizards RPG Team: Books

The Pathfinder Beginner Box:
Pathfinder RPG Beginner Box : Toys & Games : Amazon.com

Thoughts on each? +'s and -'s of each game?

I'd also like to get into the World of Darkness stuff/Vampire because I loved the computer games and the universe/lore so much, but it seems waaaaay more complicated and newb unfriendly. I don't want to spend days coming up with campaigns, but if pre-made, easy to play ones exist I'd be down. From the few PDF's I've looked through it seems that there are waaay fewer premade campaigns and that the game mostly relies on the DM to come up with everything.

Does WoD have a similar beginner set like the other two games?
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Skip 4e, 5e is coming out at some point in the near future. 4e was either loved or hated.

Better yet, find a Pathfinder group, it is basically DnD 3.75, it has a robust community and lots of support from Paizo the publisher.
 
Having played every version of DnD except for DnD Next, I recommend pathfinder, and all you'd really need there is the main book(the core rule book) and bestiary 1. However, once you get to playing you'll realize fights are generally one sided so you'll do a bit of tweaking which isn't hard. Probably the most balanced anything I ever played is this system focused around D6's as opposed to the D20 system. Started to call it GIMP but don't think that was it, just the photoshop spinoff. It's some hero based system though.


Once you and your player gets some experience under your belt, run Carnival of Tears, it's a favorite, though Temple of Elemental Evil is a classic.
 
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Whoop said:
for people new to RPG's check out Mouse Guard. Its a great introduction and fun.
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I've got mouseguard and it's older brother "The Burning Wheel" although I haven't played either yet.

I just got back into Pen and Paper playing within the last year. Playing a Warhammer 40k (Rogue Trader) Campaign. It's good fun although I had to meet some new people to do it. The group has varying degrees of nerdiness but it's a fun once a week thing...drink beer, barbecue, etc.
 
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if you can find a group of veteran players that you can tolerate (rare) that can introduce you to the game, or have someone in the game that's played, things will be much less confusing and probably set the group of to want to continue more than everyone just winging it.
 
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