If someone was interested in understanding as much as possible what the world of TTRPGs and story games had to offer, which 5 games would you suggest they play first, and why?
Ideally this would include a broad array of mechanics, themes and settings.
Inspired by a discussion over at !rpgmemes@ttrpg.network : https://lemmy.world/post/33918016/18604654
That’s a tricky question, but let’s try-it
A D20, level based, high fantasy game, so let’s say D&D/Pathfinder or one of the many clones
A prompt based, narrative immersive game with a lot of bleed potential let’s say Alice is missing
A horror games, I would say Call of Chtulhu because it’s the classic one, but also to show player a percent-based skill mechanic
Iron-sworn in GM-less mode, as it ticks both the narrative consequence driven game (PBTA) and the GM-less box
A sci-fi game, in order to get a recent design, and a sample of dice pool I would say Coriolis
Only 5 games is actually quite restrictive, especially to show different game type and mechanics. I am a bit annoyed that I didn’t found any slot for Vampire/World-of-Darkness (considering how popular is the franchise) and that Iron sworn is the only PBTA (especially considering it’s not the classical PBTA) I would also love to add a Cyberpunk game (Shadowrun or Red) as it’s also a popular franchise, extend the D&D clones with OSR, and add Blade in the Dark considering it’s massive influence on the recent RPG scene
Good to see a GM-less option in the comments. Not everyone has the time to get a group of people together.
Excellent list but Call of Cthulhu is tapping the same old vein of horror since the 80s and it doesn’t carry the same weight. Delta Green is a very good update on the genre that has some really weird stuff to shock and amaze.
Indeed, I am old enough to remember the time when delta green was just a COC sourcebook but it’s a great take on COC. There is also a couple of modernized Chtulhu games, let alone non mythos horror games (Kult 😍😍😍)
Cool answer, thanks. I like the way you explore and combine attributes.
What do you mean by “bleed potential”?
Bleed is that moment where your in-game emotion starts to mix with your IRL emotional system. A non RPG example would be crying while reading a book/wathcing a movie. The same can happen in RPG where you’re feeling angry, sad, happy because your character feels so. It’s something that some RPG player (Mostly narrative games and nordic LARP) players look for.
The word actually comes from nordic larp but is also commonly used in tabletop https://nordiclarp.org/wiki/Bleed
Ah, cool! I reckon I’m into that, though it wouldn’t be my primary aim. Thanks!
I’d never heard of “Bleed” until one player got very in-real-life upset about their character having a moderately bad time. The rest of us were like “this is some great drama and storytelling! And good job {upset-player} roleplaying!”, but then they were like actually mad at us. Kind of unsettling. Not a good experience.
Their character was a musician and had been cursed, in a recent session, so if they played music then unknown bad things to the tune of a demonic incursion would happen. The other players didn’t like this, and the bleed player didn’t really believe it. They’d tried to play a song anyway, and when I described how the lights in the room became thin they physically stopped the player from continuing, and put their instruments in their locked chest. The bleed-player didn’t like this. They secretly went and broke into the chest to get their stuff back. The other players were then mad, in-character, that this had happened. Like, they put the group at risk by fucking with their curse, and also broke into their personal belongings. It was good drama. Good interpersonal conflict. Big argument and juicy scene. Both sides had good points.
Except the bleed-player was actually, genuinely, real-life, upset about all of this. We had to pause the game.
To me it just felt messy and, I don’t know, like poor emotional regulation. You can feel a thing but why are you lashing out at the other players?
Maybe that’s not a typical usage of bleed, but that’s what they said was happening.
Yeah no that sounds like a messy person being messy, at least in my circles “bleed” is more like when your character grieves and you feel a pang along with them, or when they’re moved by an event or angry at a character and you get the same physiologic responses, not throwing a tantrum at the players for their in game actions.
Then again you did say they physically stopped the player so maybe they’re not the only person whose lines are a bit blurred.
I communicated poorly! In-game they stopped the player character by saying their characters physically took the instruments away. We were playing remotely, so no one was physically interacting.
I got it, it was just a funny slip in a conversation about mixing up player and character roles/feelings.