Author Topic: Completely new to "Pen and Paper" rpg's. Can someone help me?  (Read 2452 times)

Offline xebo

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Completely new to "Pen and Paper" rpg's. Can someone help me?
« on: November 15, 2013, 04:01:20 PM »
Hey guys, I just found out Dresden Files had an RPG! I went to the website looking for some kind of video game to download or buy, but couldn't find one. Apparently this is done through a book or something? I guess it's like the old dungeons and dragons game where people sit around a table and roll dice? I know NOTHING about this method of playing an RPG, and I don't know how to specifically get into The Dresden Files game, or how to find people to play with.

Ok, I could ramble on but let's make this succinct:

-I love the dresden files, and have read all the books.
-I want to play the dresden files RPG
-I've heard about "Pen and Paper" RPG's before, but know NOTHING ABOUT HOW THEY WORK OR HOW TO PLAY THEM
-I don't know how to go about finding people to play with
-I don't know how or what to read or learn to "break into" the dresden files RPG world

I'm very susceptible to getting overwhelmed and walking away from games that are too difficult to pick up, but I REALLY want to get into this. Could someone make this process easy and streamlined for me, so I can start playing with people ASAP?

Ideally, I'd love it if I could just hop onto teamspeak or some kind of voice server with one or more of you and talk about this stuff. If anyone has the time for that, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks guys!


« Last Edit: November 15, 2013, 04:05:12 PM by xebo »

Offline Stirge

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Re: Completely new to "Pen and Paper" rpg's. Can someone help me?
« Reply #1 on: November 15, 2013, 04:33:18 PM »
Hello! The Dresden Files RPG is a tabletop (pen & paper) game, meaning to play it in person you need the rules (a book), some character sheets (the pen/paper part), Fudge dice (six-sided dice with 2 +'s, 2 blank sides, and 2 -'s) and a group of people (typically 1-6 players, 1 GM or Game Master to run the game).

Pen and paper games are essentially a big game of make-believe - shared story telling between a group of people.  You begin by creating a character to play (a Wizard like Harry, a cop like Murphy or almost whatever you could imagine).  The rules are there so you can emulate the world you're playing in better and also to give you a framework for what's fair for all the PC's (Player Characters) and NPC's (Non-Player Characters, run by the GM).

For example, when kids play, one of them might say, "I shoot you with my laser" and another will say "Well, I have bounce-back power" and the first responds back "Well, I have SUPER bounce-back power!" and so forth.

The Dresden Files (or another RPG) might have the above powers, but they'll have a cost and your character would have to buy them with limited amount of points (the DFRPG) or your character would have to be a specific type of character to use it (like the Wizard class in D&D).

After you decide what abilities/traits you have and what your character's background is, the character sheet collects all this information.

http://www.evilhat.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/City-and-Character-Sheets.pdf

And then comes the actual playing of the game.  The GM comes up with a story, and the characters run through it like a maze.  This is where the dice come in.  Anytime you try to do something significant, you usually have to make a roll.

(click to show/hide)

I think the best way to get started would be to go to the above sub-board (DFRPG Play by Post) and look at the games people are playing online.  Here's a link to an example game:
http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,39160.0.html

By this point, we've already finished the character creation process outlined in the books and the GM (bobjob) is running the story.  Play-by-post games are a little bit different than how the game would run online, particularly the pacing, but it'll give you an idea of what the RPG is like.

Feel free to post with any more specific questions and I'll try to answer them the best I can.
« Last Edit: November 15, 2013, 04:42:48 PM by Stirge »

Offline xebo

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Re: Completely new to "Pen and Paper" rpg's. Can someone help me?
« Reply #2 on: November 15, 2013, 04:58:07 PM »
I actually just discovered the first book. I'm reading through it now, and it's answering a lot of my questions.

Two questions so far:

1. Why aren't online games played over voice? Seems closer to the way these types of games were originally played than "Play by post".
2. Are there any Tutorial games for players who have read the book but don't have experience with this type of game? Like a "Training wheels" game type?
« Last Edit: November 15, 2013, 05:02:53 PM by xebo »

Offline Stirge

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Re: Completely new to "Pen and Paper" rpg's. Can someone help me?
« Reply #3 on: November 15, 2013, 05:24:31 PM »
Some people do play by voice chat/IRC!  But Play by post games are nice for others because the pace is much more laid back (people live in different time zones, work odd hours and such and scheduling a group of 4-5 people is a pain even when they live in the same city!).  On the plus side, it allows players and the GM to be more descriptive. 

The wiki has a few example combats:
http://dfrpg-resources.wikispaces.com/Examples

Offline Haru

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Re: Completely new to "Pen and Paper" rpg's. Can someone help me?
« Reply #4 on: November 15, 2013, 05:24:59 PM »
1. Some online games are played over voice, but not all of them. Different formats are better qualified for different styles of games.

For me, I like to play pbp, because english is not my native language. I am quite fluent when writing, but I still have some troubles when it comes to speaking it. As the gamemaster, that's going to be quite troublesome. When I write, I can look up words, I have time to go over what I wrote again to make sure that it makes sense and so on. It also gives me more time to think about the content of what I write, and I feel that you can explore characters a bit better by pbp than face to face. But that might just be me.
Another thing, of course, is time difference. If the rest of my players are 6-10 hours behind me, it's going to be hard to find a time where all of us can get together. With a pbp, time difference doesn't really matter.

2. There's an example combat that I usually direct people towards, so they can see the mechanics in action. Otherwise, the best thing to do is probably to play with people that know the game to get into it. I learned DFRPG by jumping into the cold water and just taking the GM hat on a pbp that was forming. But I had experience with other RPGs, so you should probably start as a player first, to see what's going on.
“Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

Offline Taran

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Re: Completely new to "Pen and Paper" rpg's. Can someone help me?
« Reply #5 on: November 15, 2013, 05:28:50 PM »
Voice games require everyone to be around at the same time.  This is hard to do when people live in different time-zones.

PbP lets people post at their convenience.  PbP is potentially less time-consuming...although, I'm finding it takes up almost as much time as my regular gaming.

I have a PbP Montreal Side-Quests thread.  The two players in it are just about to meet up with the main story arc so their "side-quest" is almost done.

I made a "side-quest" thread specifically for stuff like this: so people could try new character ideas, mock combats etc..  If you'd like, I can help you make a character and run a short little pbp adventure in my side-quest thread.  We'd go really slow so you don't get overwhelmed and we could do all the character creation via PM.
« Last Edit: November 15, 2013, 05:35:06 PM by Taran »

Offline Sanctaphrax

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Re: Completely new to "Pen and Paper" rpg's. Can someone help me?
« Reply #6 on: November 15, 2013, 09:58:57 PM »
I play PbP because I don't have to schedule anything. I don't like being on a schedule.

Also, it's nice to be able to write up a full character between combat rounds if need be.

We seem to have a lot of new people looking for games right now. A tutorial game of sorts might be in order. But who would GM?

Offline Taran

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Re: Completely new to "Pen and Paper" rpg's. Can someone help me?
« Reply #7 on: November 15, 2013, 10:08:44 PM »
I've already offered and have a thread set up for it.  I can take a few more.

It'll be pretty short.  A session at most.  some RP and a combat, at least.

If I have more wanting to join, I'll have to set up a separate OOC thread.

Offline Sanctaphrax

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Re: Completely new to "Pen and Paper" rpg's. Can someone help me?
« Reply #8 on: November 15, 2013, 10:14:58 PM »
Cool. I wasn't really expecting you to be willing to take on a whole group of people with the game-load you have already.

I'll let people know.

Thanks, Taran.

Offline Taran

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Re: Completely new to "Pen and Paper" rpg's. Can someone help me?
« Reply #9 on: November 15, 2013, 10:17:48 PM »
Cool. I wasn't really expecting you to be willing to take on a whole group of people with the game-load you have already.

I'll let people know.

Thanks, Taran.

Yeah, no problem.  As I said, it'll be short.  Just to show people the ropes.

Ways and Means is starting a PbP game, so I'd recommend people ALSO join that one.

Offline g33k

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Re: Completely new to "Pen and Paper" rpg's. Can someone help me?
« Reply #10 on: November 16, 2013, 01:13:22 AM »
As others have noted, this is indeed a Role-Playing-Game in the vein of "Dungeons&Dragons" (which still exists, btw!) .   This is typically called "f2f" (face to face) or PnP (Pencil&Paper) or just "tabletop" role-playing, to distinguish it from various videogame RPG-ish things, whether solo-against-computer or online "massively multiplayer" games.

There are many (MANY!) tabletop rpg's today, with many different rule-sets.  Some, like Dresden Files RPG (DFRPG) are based upon some popular fictional universe (the short-lived "Firefly" TV show is about to get its second RPG (I believe the first company folded (or just sold/lost the license?); Star Wars and Star Trek have had a multiple each; "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" has a RPG; Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" has had... 2?  3?  Zelazny's "Amber" has one; etc etc etc.  D&D created its own setting, "The Forgotten Realms" (D&D actually had several settings) -- many rpgs do this, too.).   Other games are just "game mechanics" without any intrinsic setting.  FATE is such a game... and DFRPG is based on FATE.  So, FATE + the "Dresdenverse" = DFRPG.

The big difference between DFRPG and "old-school" RPG's such as D&D isn't so much a matter of game mechanics as it is the intent/design infusing those mechanics:
  • D&D et al are built, at their core, from a wargaming ancestry:  military-simulation / miniatures etc (think "Napoleonic Battles" done in miniature, on large tabletops... these sorts of games are popular with history buffs, taught in military academies as part of tactics/strategy courses, etc); the combat-centricity & "simulationism" of these games is strong.
  • FATE, in sharp contrast, is explicitly POOR at "simulation" (a good GM/group supplies all the "simulation" needed via imagination, but the game-mechanics are poor-ish at this) and instead explicity is more about "telling stories," with game-mechanics about drama, & character-involvement & motivation, etc.


For YOUR particular case:

Play-by-post, as noted, is very popular as a way to allow games where the different players simply cannot gather all at one time.  If they are dispersed, but available at the same time then various "chat" (either voice or TXT) media are also popular.  It sounds like this may be a good option for you (specially since you've got an open offer to join right now!) .

Another good option might be to find your nearest "FLGS" (Friendly Local Game Store) and see if they have play in-store, or maybe a corkboard/etc where "player seeking game" ad's (and "game with empty slots, seeking players" ads) get posted.  I think the DFRPG boards here at Jim-Butcher.com have a "seeking game / seeking players" thread serving such a purpose?  "Meetup.com" is also a likely venue -- I recently got my first actual f2f play via a local Meetup group !   ;D

Meetup, like your FLGS, has the advantage of being local-centric.
The board HERE has the advantage of being all-Dresden, without any of the annoying D&D dross...  ;)


- Steve, the g33k