So You Want To Get Started with TTRPGs

October 29, 2020

One of my favorite parts of being part of the wider RPG community is witnessing new people join the hobby, spend time with their friends and brighten their lives. This post is intended as the beginnings of a flexible, living document that can hopefully help make the transition for people into the hobby a slight bit easier.

Why Play a TTRPG?

I think that the value from playing tabletop RPGs with your friends is pretty much endless but I'll highlight a few here:

It's personal. The main thing you're going to do while playing a game is talking with your group. I think TTRPGs are a wonderful way to become closer to people. You will end up with great stories to reminisce on in the future.

It's creative. There are no fully scripted plotlines or pre-destined stories. Your table will get to craft its own personal story. Unlike anything out there. There’s a certain kind of magic when a story is yours.

It's limitless. A single game can give you hundreds of hours of entertainment and limitless potential. You’ll have infinite stories and adventures on your hands.

The game rules direct your creativity and challenge you in surprising ways. All TTRPGs have unique rules that define how to address challenges and resolve conflict. These can create unique experiences in a way that collaborative writing never can. It’s surprising and delightful.

What's different from other kinds of games?

TTRPGs are usually about the group. With no intent to disparage video games, lots of video games give a singular player a personalized, sometimes selfish experience. It can be fun to cause disasters when playing alone, running through people’s houses and taking their stuff or just screwing around. With TTRPGs, when you’re playing with a group, you have to consider the whole groups’ feelings. Taking the spotlight means someone else doesn’t have it.

TTRPGs acknowledge your choices.When you’re the main characters of a game with no rewind, no save points and no guide rails, what you choose to do is everything.

TTRPGs delight in uncertainty. Spontaneous players' decisions, unexpected dice rolls and in the moment improvisation can change the entire direction of your game. RPGs have the capacity to defy expectations of everyone involved.

TTRPGs are personalized, handcrafted and rough cut. Once the game is running, it’s up to the players to figure out what’s happening. There are no focus groups or teams of writers that don’t understand you or your fellow players. You get to focus on your issues, confront your villains and focus on people like you. Sometimes there will be rough edges, plots that don’t work or sessions that don’t go as intended, but that’s part of the nature of something customized and imperfect.

Group dynamics and how to choose them

RPGs are a social hobby, but getting ready to play is also more structured than activities like just playing a board game with your friends on a whim. You have to plan ahead, set group ground rules, and get ready.

There are two major types of players for most tabletop RPGs: Players and game masters (GMs). Players tend to operate single characters, focusing on narrating their behaviors, telling everyone what they say and being a protagonist in general.

Game masters are a particular kind of player that tends to narrate the other things that players don’t have control over. The rest of the case, the random events in the game world or your players’ foes and rivals. How exactly this role works varies wildly from game to game. Generally speaking, the game master is expected to do work to prepare a rough story, situation or plot, handle rules disagreements or clarifications, and help with the flow of the session.

Setting Your Ground Rules

Many of these questions traditionally point to a single answer of "The GM is responsible for everything" but I do not believe this should be true. Game Mastering can be a tough job and in a social setting where we care for each other, we should work to share the burden. All these questions here hopefully help distribute the group responsibility and keep the group helpful and communicative for everyone.

Will the same person always GM? GMing is not only a lot of fun, but it’s a lot of work. Consider swapping out roles at the end of every campaign or arc to share the burden of play. Much of tabletop gaming has people who only play and people who only GM, but I don’t believe things have to stay that way.

Who will host the game or set up the online space to play? When it comes to choosing where to play, consider your groups’ access to transportation, ability to clean up after folks and general stress levels. If your players can’t commute or you prefer not to, consider playing online. There are just about infinite tools and procedures for playing online these days, from Discord to Roll20 to Role to Foundry.

Who is responsible for scheduling? It’s often traditional and unspoken that it is the game master’s job to schedule games, but I don’t believe that should be. Being a GM is intimidating and a lot of work. Share the burden!

How regularly will we play? The most common group schedule is to play weekly, but playing every other week can help leave room in the schedule for busy folks. There are many scheduling tools out there that you can use to help figure out when people are available.

How long do we want to play for? How often will we take breaks? Most groups play for 3-6 hours. The time spent playing often varies wildly by the stage of life your group is in. Parents, students, and people working inconsistent jobs may have a tougher time playing for a long time or regularly.

Attendance requirements: How many players need to be available in order to still play? How will you confirm availability? Scheduling is one of the hardest problems with modern gaming. Obligations like school, inconsistent work hours and family make it even harder, so set down clear, consistent guidelines on scheduling. I recommend building a system that is flexible enough to handle periodic absences. Play even if there’s one or two players missing and find a way to catch them up the next session. If the GM isn’t available, do you play board games or watch a movie?

Buying and reading the book. Are all players expected to read the book? Having more players buy and read the rulebook can make it less stressful for the GM, who’s often looked to for all information. Depending on what sorts of games you play, there might be pressure for the GM to buy the infinite bits and bobs that come with gaming. Make sure they’re not left out in the cold feeling obligated to be the sole provider.

Paying for game materials and snacks. Is the person hosting, running, or GMing the game expected to buy everything? Will every session be a miniature potluck? Is everyone responsible for themselves? Talk about expectations so someone doesn’t show up expecting the group to order pizza and ending up hungry.

Getting on the Same Page

There’s an infamous process in RPGs known as the Same Page Tool that is designed to help all the people at the table understand why they’re at the table, what sort of game culture the group is going to engage in and why everyone is here. I do not believe this is particularly useful for new players.

Still, there are questions for the group to work together to answer:

Is the game primarily an excuse to hang out? Or is there interest in focusing on a story? If your players just want to have fun or tell stories about fighting monsters, that’s fine. Many people focus on gaming as a method of hanging out, not unlike playing video games or watching a movie with your friends. Agree out your priorities and focus on them.

What sort of tone are we aiming for? Some games work hard to establish tone in their rules, so being aware of what your group is looking for before starting to play can sometimes be important.

How much do we care about adherence to the rules? Some groups prefer to adhere to the rules as carefully as possible, enjoying the moments of challenge or the genre themes that the rules push, but others like to wing it, just go with the conversational flow and do whatever. I personally believe that it’s an important first step to consider the rules and why the author wrote them, but it’s always up to you and your group on what you want to do with the system you’re using.

Will there be interpersonal drama between the players? Lots of games have a group dynamic: think something like The Hobbit, where all the party members are brought together by a larger goal. Even if they disagree with each other, they’re all going to head the same direction.

Other games focus on a cast of characters who don’t always agree with each other. They might fight gossip, go their separate ways or fight (physically or verbally). These games can often be more emotionally draining on the players. Sometimes the feelings of the characters can bleed through into our own feelings and make us feel bad. Not all players want to risk feeling this way, so talk about it when you choose what game to play.

Safety tools

Where video games and movies have ratings systems and books are often sorted by age group, tabletop RPGs are different. Since your group is responsible for making the content, setting the tone, and making sure you all have a good time, you need to find ways to make sure nobody is hurt. Games succeed because of mutual respect from all of the people at the table.

Common tools for this include Lines and Veils, the X-Card, and more

There are endless methods of making sure that all the players in your group feel welcome, respected, and safe. This below list isn’t exhaustive, but it ought to help you find the tools that are right for your group. I do feel that it’s important to bring up no matter how close you are with the people you’re gaming with. Games are the unedited personal improvisational experiences of the group and so we can’t always guarantee that nobody will be hurt. Use safety tools.

Finding Players

It can be intimidating to find people to play RPGs with but it’s easier than ever. People play in so many formats, settings and locations. Players are the essential ingredient to a tabletop game and the search for good people can be discouraging. Persist in your search for good folks! Do not give up. Do not settle for people who are disrespectful, rude or unpleasant. You deserve the best. When you find people who play well with you, hold on, communicate well, and do your best to cultivate an environment that lasts.

Don’t hesitate to include new players on a trial basis. Sometimes finding new folks can be a matter of trial and error. Set boundaries, make sure all players understand your group’s ground rules.

Play with your friends, play with your family. The hardest part about finding people to play with is usually finding people whose personalities work well together. You can dodge this problem by playing with people that you already get along with.

It can be awkward to convince people to start a hobby, but knowing them personally can go a long way. Do not listen to anyone who tells you that you have to play video games, board games, like fantasy books or have any level of participation in nerd culture to start on RPGs. Anyone can play.

Find players at a local game store, gaming groups, clubs and associations. If you live in a city or town, there are probably a few local stores or clubs, you can search these organizations for players. Check for any codes of conduct or positive play cultures within these organizations.

Find players online. Lots of folks lament searching for players online because it can be much easier to join a game than stick with a game. There are essentially infinite stories of folks dropping out of games. It can be frustrating and a lot of work, but do not give up. Keep your standards high. Sites like reddit and Roll20 have support for searching for groups (although I can’t vouch for them). My own personal discord community has an LFG section.

Choosing Your Game

Choosing which exact game to play can be intimidating. The options are nearly endless and no matter how long you play games, you will likely never be able to play them all. The good news is that choosing a game is not a permanent thing. You can choose a new game with ease. Delight in the nuances of the various games and experience their strengths and weaknesses. The more games you try, the more exciting stories you will experience. It can be a pleasant surprise to realize how different rules and settings affect the stories your group creates.

I firmly believe that recommending games is a difficult, fraught process that usually requires thoughtful conversation and empathy. What people want to play and what they need out of a game can vary wildly. I think that these prompts below will help you gather recommendations from folks who have already played a few games:

What genre? The most popular tabletop RPG out there is fantasy, but that doesn't mean you have to be limited to it. There's a thriving indie scene out there with games for just about every genre or theme imaginable.

What do you need to get out of your game? Will the GM need tools to help prepare? Does your group mostly want to improvise? Do you want a game that comes with a plot, adventure, or setting for you to follow?

Do you need guidance on how to run your game? Lots of traditional games leave gaps in their text regarding how to run the game and assume that you’ll be learning from someone else or already know how to play. Examples of play in the text, advice, and troubleshooting sessions can help with this.

How long does your group want to play? Some games have stereotypes or expectations that you play for a very long time with even years of real-time and hundreds of sessions. This isn’t necessarily the norm. Many games are designed for 5 to 15 sessions. These shorter periods make it easier to adapt as you learn.

How familiar are you with the genre tropes of what you're playing? If you're unfamiliar with the genre you're going to play, consider a game with playbooks or classes (pre-planned character archetypes) that can help everyone at the table understand what's expected of them.

How much do you like complex or deep rules and interactions? Some games have complex rules that mean creating characters, combat encounters, scenes, or stories can be involved, deep processes. This isn’t for everyone. Consider how much your group likes math, reading long texts, or complexity when considering which game to play.

Some games I think might be good anyway

I’m going to sprinkle some biased titles here that I think people might want to play, with a quick one-sentence descriptor. This list isn’t exhaustive or intended to be perfect in any way.

I want to play the big one that everyone is playing: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
I want to play a big fantasy game but I don’t want to deal with the big rules: Quest
I want my fantasy grim and dark: Shadow of the Demon Lord
I want to play something post-apocalyptic: Apocalypse World
I want some good Coen Brothers-style drama/disasters:Fiasco
I want drama or messy social interactions: Monsterhearts
I want some horror: Alien Cinematic Play or Dread
I want to hunt those monsters, every week: Monster of the Week
I want to play some kids going on adventures like Stranger Things: Tales from the Loop
I want to be a criminal on the edge of society: Blades in the Dark, The Sprawl
I want to play superheroes: Masks
I want to play something like Star Wars: Scum & Villainy
I want to learn a generic toolkit for playing whatever: Fate Accelerated, Savage Worlds

Session Zero, the session before your game

A first session in a tabletop RPG is often referred to as a “session zero.” Session zeroes are not about jumping in and starting playing as much as they are about preparing to play. You’ll figure out what you care about, what stories you want to tell, build your characters, and maybe work on putting together your game world.

Have your materials ready

If you’re playing online, have your digital tabletop setup. If you’re playing in person, print all of the sheets you’ll need. Have dice, cards, or whatever you might need, available.

Find a campaign premise

If you have before you start making characters, talk with each other about general themes. Discuss the kinds of books, video games, shows, and movies that you might want to use as primary inspiration.

Make sure everyone understands the game's rules

It can be hard for everyone to create characters or be ready to play if they don’t understand the rules. Be ready to do some practice tests with the rules, talk over common aspects, walk through reference sheets, or pause during the session to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Create your characters together

Especially when first starting out, avoid situations where one person comes to the tabletop with a character made but nobody else does. Try to focus on learning and experiencing this together. I believe that groups should always create characters together. This keeps everyone on the same page about tone, theme, backstory expectations, plans for group cohesion, and understanding the rules.

When you’re making characters together, talk with each other a lot. Talk about the choices you make and what looks interesting. Like everything with the hobby, careful, thoughtful communication is the key here

Doing Your First Session

For everyone

Be on time. Tabletop gaming can be a time-intensive, difficult hobby. Avoid showing up late, communicate in advance if you have schedule issues and do your best to not waste anyone’s time.

Have your materials ready. Whatever you need to play your game, books, character sheets, dice, or pencils, have it ready at the start of the session.

Be ready to listen. Since tabletop gaming is a conversational activity, paying attention to what everyone else says is very important. If you have known issues with focus, fight a way to stay on track. Consider turning off or putting away your phone, taking notes, closing chat programs, skimming the rules to stay on topic, or doodling pictures of what’s happening.

If your game is online, make sure your audio/video setup is good to go before the session starts. Computers can really throw a wrench in your plans. If you're playing online, take extra care to make sure things work out before the session starts.

If you’re a player…

During a game, it’s typical that a player will have much less work to do than a GM. Most of what you’ll want to focus on is being supportive of your group, not having too many expectations, and being ready to improvise.

Respect other people’s ideas and choices. Since gaming is a social, group activity, it’s very important to consider everyone’s ideas, interests, and boundaries carefully. Share the spotlight, and ask other people what they’re thinking. Put in the effort to make sure things are satisfying for everyone at the table.

Be ready to improvise. Nothing is set in stone until it happens at the table. Embrace both the story and your character going in unexpected directions.

If you’re a GM...

Traditionally, being a GM regarded as more work -- and it is -- but I think that it’s rewarding, satisfying, fun work.

You’re not an adversary. The game master tends to have a lot of control over the story. If this were a competitive game, the GM would win every time, but it’s not. The GM will often have to make the players feel challenged, under pressure or have their character endure hardship. There might even be moments where beloved characters die as a result of what you narrate. You should do this as someone who’s delighting in the story and being a fan of all the player characters in the same way you might be when you watch a favorite TV series.

Don’t worry so much about your ideas being unique. There is a lot of pressure in creative hobbies to create things that are unique. First, your brain works differently from everyone else’s, so what’s obvious to you won’t be obvious to anyone else. You can rely on intuition, kneejerk ideas, and earnest interests to fuel your ideas.

Beyond that, I think appealing to your group’s interests, being earnest and being enthusiastic matters far more than uniqueness.

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Just to be casual about it, you’ll probably remember your mistakes far more than your players will. Focus on moving forward, not dwelling on errors. Don’t be afraid to pause, correct mistakes, or talk through things with your players.

That said, especially dealing with rules confusion, if you are unsure of something or have problems in the middle of a session, focus on keeping the session flowing. You can look up the rules later.

Hold on to your assumptions loosely. As a GM, you will likely have inspired plots, prep characters and have ideas on the way that things should go at your table. Having ideas and plans is good. Embrace and enjoy and push towards these things, but realize that your players deserve agency in your game’s story, since they’re the main characters. Your ideas will not always apply or will sometimes fall apart like a house of cards, but so long as that’s happening in the service of the game, this is good! Embrace it.

Your players will sometimes outpace you. Trying to prepare for your players’ actions in the time between sessions can be daunting. It’s hard to imagine every single thing that they might do in a session, so it’s tempting to prepare every possible thing or push your players to stay on track so that you’re always ready. Don’t sweat it. Prep the broad strokes and prep for what comes to mind. Preparing in ways that leave you room to improvise and play to your strengths as an improviser, then your players doing things that you aren’t prepared for will be more than just fine, it will be delightful.

Your players will probably accomplish less than you’d think. Your players will probably take longer to advance through your prepared materials than you’d think. Things like conversations with non-player characters, group roleplay and narration will take more time than you’d think. Trying to prepare too much for your players can exhaust or overwhelm you.

Don’t be afraid to pause the session. The constant press of a session moving forward can be overwhelming, especially for a first time GM. Don’t be afraid to ask for a quick break to catch up in prep or take a moment to get new ideas. Everyone at the table wants you to succeed, so communicate your needs to the table and they will help you out.

Experiment with your process. There are as many game master prep techniques or running styles as there are GMs themselves. There is a lot of advice on how to prep or run games online, including this and other things I’ve written. Realize that just because a technique doesn’t work for you, doesn’t mean you can’t GM. Experiment to find prep techniques that help keep you enthusiastic, having fun and avoid burn-out. GMing is often more work than being a player, but that doesn’t mean it should be a burden. Seek out new techniques that maximize your fun at the table and minimize the tiring work.

Don’t be afraid to stop, halt or rework the game. There are no rules saying you should play forever. If you’ve tried to work through problems and it’s still not enjoyable, realize that stopping is a valid choice. There’s a common phrase in gaming that “No RPG is better than a bad RPG.” It’s true. If things aren’t working out, you should move on. That might be to a new game or to a new group. Realize that this hobby is immeasurably broad and one game, game session, or group not working for you doesn’t spell doom for this hobby for you. Experiment!

Enjoy yourself. There is a common adage that you’ll hear: “The GM is a player, too.” That means that as the GM, you deserve to have fun and experience the best TTRPGs have to offer just like anyone else at the table. Work with your group, talk with your players, find your favorite parts of the hobby to delight in. Part of the fun of being a GM is the way that you get to delight in helping your friends and yourself create something that’s genuinely your group.