I was really into TTRPGs in college, but it’s been about ten years since I’ve had a stable group to play with. I’ve run a bunch of one-shots since then, mostly using systems I was already familiar with, and I’ve also played a D&D 5e campaign through Discord, but playing online just isn’t my jam.
Now my wife says a couple of people from her work would like to try the whole RPG thing. The safe bet would probably be a 5e one-shot, but I don’t like D&D or D&D-clones all that much. My usual go-to is Chronicles of Darkness, but I enjoy getting into new games, so I decided to ask what the new hot stuff is that everyone is talking about.
About ten years ago, people wouldn’t stop talking about Powered by the Apocalypse and Forged in the Dark, but that stuff didn’t really gel with my group at the time. Maybe I should give those games another try, though I’m not sure they’d work all that well with new players. I generally prefer urban fantasy or weirdo high-concept stuff.
Do you have any suggestions?
D&D is always a safe bet because it’s by far the most normie and famous. With newbies, it’s tough to go wrong because they kind of “get” what’s supposed to happen with it.
But if you do want to branch out, one system I like is Monster of the Week, which has a sort of base ruleset that have been then put into a variety of settings. The base Monster of the Week is modeled a bit after Buffy the Vampire and various urban fantasy works that have followed, you don’t really have a class so much so as a character archetype. There’s a Slayer, like Buffy, but there’s also a Meddling Kid, like Scooby-Doo, and a bunch of other things like that. Part of character creation is to go around the table and decide how everyone knows each other and that’s based on the character’s archetype.
The actual mechanics are pretty straightforward. You basically have like half a dozen things you can do on your turn called “Basic Moves” and then some archetypes get a few more. So, your players can have a cheat sheet in front of them of what they can “do” and it helps keep things streamlined. The dice is just 2d6, so might be less intimidating than having to figure out the odds on a d20 versus a d4 kind of thing.
And the Monster of the Week setting specifically is pretty light hearted. So you don’t have to worry about asking for some ultra-serious engagement from some people just getting their feet wet. One of the main actions is literally called “Kick Some Ass” and that’s just how you say I’m going to do a combat action. Everyone can kind of treat it as extreme camp of a CW show or if they want to get a bit more serious, take it all the way to something like Supernatural or whatever.