You’re interested in role playing games, but not sure where to get started? Ivan Van Norman and Mark Carroll join us to help you find a group, pick a first game, and introduce gaming to your friends. We also give many tips for starting gamers!
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Ivan Van Norman
Mark Carroll
What We’ve Been Playing
FATE Core (Mark)
TORG under Savage Worlds (Mark, Ross)
Pathfinder (Ross, Ivan)
Champions (Ross)
Shadowrun 4th Edition (Ross, Darryl)
Dark Heresy (Ivan)
Getting Started in Gaming
Before we get into the breakdown of the episode, I wanted to give you a quick shopping list.
Pathfinder Beginner’s Box – The single greatest tool for new players. The box has everything you need right away to not only start playing, but keep playing for several sessions before you even need to think about upgrading to the Pathfinder Core Rulebook
Drive Thru RPG Quickstarts – Free PDF downloads of some of the most popular roleplaying games on the market meant specifically to introduce new players to the game.
Pound of Dice – This product is one of my favorite recommendations for groups looking to get their own dice cheaply. You’ll only get one matched set and some of the dice may be odd (even for RPG dice), but there’s no cheaper way to make sure there’s plenty of dice for the entire group.
Now with that out of the way, here’s links to the things we mentioned on the show.
Community “Advanced Dungeons & Dragons”
Community “Advanced Advanced Dungeons & Dragons”
Big Bang Theory “The Santa Simulation”
Big Bang Theory “The Love Spell Potential”
Ross’s Blog Post on Being a Good Player
Giants in the Playground Finding Players
2 thoughts on “Episode 26: How to Get Started in Role Playing Games”
I know, I know I’m still listening to old episodes for the first time. But I don’t find anything wrong with commenting now, so there.
The biggest problem I have had introducing RPGs to non-gamers isn’t the lack of nerd cred, it isn’t the “weirdness” of fantasy tropes. The biggest problem I have is introducing the concept of an open ended game with no winners or losers. For many of my non-gamer friends there is no point in playing anything if there is no way to win. Magic the Gathering, they get. D&D they don’t. I’m 45 years old and I have never, ever been able to figure out how to overcome this perceived flaw in RPGs.