Woah! Thanks for the detailed intro. I have checked out some of them right after seeing your original comments.
I have tried some of the listed myself. Pathfinder, CoC, Everyone is John, inSANE, Cypher System, and Ten Candles.
Cypher System’s premise is that character creation is just 3 sentences. You pick a class, a descriptor, and a purpose and you are done. Each of them might offer some skills, advantages or disadvantages for your characters. Another key feature is their character arcs, you get to pick your short term goals and you earn experience by attempting to achieve the goals, and you need to explain to the GM what you have done to achieve them at the end of each session. Experience will only be granted if the GM agrees.
I am looking into some systems that are easy to create characters. As it is often the first blocker for new players. No way someone new is gonna read through every possible class, subclass and feats. I am looking for a system that could drag my friends into the trpg world.
Goblin Quest and the Quest RPG are what I would try next.
Goblin Quest is about stupid goblins who die trying to accomplish silly goals. Chaotic, fun and maybe gruesome. Players will be creating five similar goblins at once and will be switching between (after each of them dies). Dying/failure is inevitable in this game and and should be fun. The quests will be silly and small in scale (like trying to make a cake, host a party, or steal a pumpkin).
Quest RPG is similar to Cypher in terms of character creation and skill picking, whilst having a little more depth in it. Its major perks are having Skill Trees that requires players to learn the skills in defined order, locking powerful skills at later levels without level systems. Characters will always have 10 max HP, at all times. When 6-10 are rolled from a D20, tough choices will be laid out to players, instead of the GM deciding exactly what happens, two equally bad situations are presented for the players. Let’s say Jon is trying to attack this red dragon with a dagger, he is rashing in and attempting a cut. He rolled a 7, so he needs to choose between dealing less damage or suffering some damage himself.
If you’re still looking for systems to bring in new players, Chronicles of Darkness is almost objectively the best option. The mechanics are very simple (no moving goals, success are always 7 and higher on a dice, you just roll more dice), character creation is the easiest I’ve ever seen it (the rules for it literally fit on the bottom of the character sheet, no classes or anything to bog people down), the setting is fundamentally familiar to every human alive (the default setting is literally your irl home town with some weird hidden magic shit thrown in), and it’s cheap (you only need a single book for whatever it is [think fairies, vampires, werewolves, etc ] you’ll be playing).
Woah! Thanks for the detailed intro. I have checked out some of them right after seeing your original comments.
I have tried some of the listed myself. Pathfinder, CoC, Everyone is John, inSANE, Cypher System, and Ten Candles.
Cypher System’s premise is that character creation is just 3 sentences. You pick a class, a descriptor, and a purpose and you are done. Each of them might offer some skills, advantages or disadvantages for your characters. Another key feature is their character arcs, you get to pick your short term goals and you earn experience by attempting to achieve the goals, and you need to explain to the GM what you have done to achieve them at the end of each session. Experience will only be granted if the GM agrees.
I am looking into some systems that are easy to create characters. As it is often the first blocker for new players. No way someone new is gonna read through every possible class, subclass and feats. I am looking for a system that could drag my friends into the trpg world.
Goblin Quest and the Quest RPG are what I would try next.
Goblin Quest is about stupid goblins who die trying to accomplish silly goals. Chaotic, fun and maybe gruesome. Players will be creating five similar goblins at once and will be switching between (after each of them dies). Dying/failure is inevitable in this game and and should be fun. The quests will be silly and small in scale (like trying to make a cake, host a party, or steal a pumpkin).
Quest RPG is similar to Cypher in terms of character creation and skill picking, whilst having a little more depth in it. Its major perks are having Skill Trees that requires players to learn the skills in defined order, locking powerful skills at later levels without level systems. Characters will always have 10 max HP, at all times. When 6-10 are rolled from a D20, tough choices will be laid out to players, instead of the GM deciding exactly what happens, two equally bad situations are presented for the players. Let’s say Jon is trying to attack this red dragon with a dagger, he is rashing in and attempting a cut. He rolled a 7, so he needs to choose between dealing less damage or suffering some damage himself.
If you’re still looking for systems to bring in new players, Chronicles of Darkness is almost objectively the best option. The mechanics are very simple (no moving goals, success are always 7 and higher on a dice, you just roll more dice), character creation is the easiest I’ve ever seen it (the rules for it literally fit on the bottom of the character sheet, no classes or anything to bog people down), the setting is fundamentally familiar to every human alive (the default setting is literally your irl home town with some weird hidden magic shit thrown in), and it’s cheap (you only need a single book for whatever it is [think fairies, vampires, werewolves, etc ] you’ll be playing).