New Beginnings

Looking at where to start

There are many ways to get started in tabletop gaming, and the most difficult hurtle can be knowing what you need or even understanding the rules. I remember when I picked up the 5e Player’s Handbook for the first time, nothing made sense. It took a few months before I was comfortable filling out character sheets, and now, DnD Beyond and other sources have streamlined making characters. It’s still a worthwhile endeavor to learn how to fill out a character sheet by hand…just in case your internet is out and there’s an emergency game.

What if you’re not playing 5e but another more obscure system? Some newer systems have tried to make character creation easy, and then you have other systems that character creation is literally the most difficult part of the game (cough Mutants and Masterminds cough cough). In times like this, I recommend finding friends or a community of players online who may be able to clarify rules or even have guides to help you figure out how to get through the convoluted process of character creation.

Ok, you figured out making a character, maybe even figured out how to roll for skills. What about abilities? We’ve all seen memes making fun of spellcasters taking forever to figure out their abilities in the middle of combat, and if you haven’t, you soon will. Martial classes without spells are just as bad, in my opinion. I once had a battlemaster take 15 minutes to figure out which maneuver he wanted to use. One thing I recommend regardless of system, make yourself a cheat sheet of your abilities. When playing a paladin for the first time, I made a word document (you can handwrite or use whatever method you’d like) that had all of my abilities and spells laid out for me.

So we got abilities down, now the most important question. Who’s running the game? That one is the hardest question to answer, and it’s the most vital. There’s been a recent push to have AI GMs. I’ve heard rumors that WotC is going to implement AI in its upcoming VTT. Whether or not it’ll replace human GMs remains to be seen. We can’t rely on AI to GM for us just yet, so either you or a friend will have to run the game. It can seem intimidating, but I promise it’s not that bad.

Do you need to know every rule in the core rulebook? NO!!!!

I hear this a lot from people who say they want to run a game. You honestly don’t need to know every rule. I’ve run systems and barely understood the basic systems. Why? Shouldn’t I have every rule in my head just in case? No. You really don’t need them all. You need the basics. That’s it. You, the GM, are the final say. If you don’t know, make something up. If someone gives you some crap for it, ask them to run the game. Ok don’t actually do that last one. Look into it after the game. The biggest downer on a session is when everything stops to check a minuscule rule on if your armor has pointy bits or not.

Where to start any tabletop game is hard, but you can simplify it so you can hop right and worry about the nitty gritty later. I’ll list some starter sets that will help you jump into their respective RPGs and make sure you’re not buried in rules!

• Alien RPG Starter Set

  • Includes: dice, character sheets, cards, a simplified rule book, and the Chariot of the Gods cinematic adventure

  • Ease of Use: While it may take the GM a little bit to get comfortable with the rules for combat, players may find the system easily explainable and quick to pick up.

• Fallout RPG Starter Set

  • Includes: 56 page rulebook, 60 page quest book, 6 characters, 2 twenty-sided dice, 1 twenty-sides hit location die, 4 six-sided Fallout game dice, 56 Nuka-Cola Cap Tokens

  • Ease of Use: The Fallout RPG is a 2d20 system which very different to what many players are used to, but it’s not too difficult to pick up. Here’s a video that explains how the game works.

• Call of Cthulhu Starter Set

  • Includes: a solo introductory adventure, Call of Cthulhu Starter Rules, three starter adventures, Ready to Play Investigators, Blank Investigator Sheets, a set of six polyhedral dice, a set of ready to use props, and four classic adventures.

  • Ease of Use: Call of Cthulhu is a fantastic system that can be a bit confusing to start but once you pick it up, it’s a great time! This start set is crammed full of goodies for GMs (Keepers for CoC) and players. Fair warning, CoC is a “golf” game. The lower you roll, the better!

Animal Adventures RPG Starter Set Review

I saw this set in my local game shop and couldn’t say no. Upon opening the box I got a lovely little set of character sheets, minis and tokens, a GM Screen, and a starter rule book with a little adventure! You play as awakened animals in the setting and the adventures can range from whimsical to serious, just depends on the players. With the help of Dalton, Mark, and Michael, we playtested the adventure and have some thoughts.

First of all, it’s extremely easy to pick up! We were all veteran 5e players so a lot of the character sheets had familiar terms for us, but everything was simplified to help new players get into the game. No spell slots, no short/long rests, and the only limitations one the character sheets was 1 per Adventure or the pre-gen paladin’s Lay on Hands (or Paws) with check boxes for its use. We had Chantilly, Molly, and Whisper on the field. When I said there’s no spell slots, Whisper can cast Magic Missile infinitely. Everything is very clear for players to understand. Characters have a little blurb explaining their personality.

Second, you’ll want to have four to five players. While the adventure is easy to run, it can be difficult for a party of three, especially when we accidentally chose no characters with healing abilities. The combat encounters probably would have gone faster with four players, but the biggest issue we saw was damage done. Damage done by enemies is static. It does four or five points of damage, and that’s it. This did hurt us in the long run of the game. I hid more healing potions around. Maybe it could have been avoided if we had healers.

Finally, the little adventure isn’t very replayable. What it does offer is a cliffhanger and a call to adventure. The main baddie does get away but players are encouraged to pursue him in a later adventure. If your players enjoy the game, I’d definitely recommend continue the quest to stop Doktor Krankensteen and his wild experiments. It’s very short, we finished it in about 3 hours, and if we were more focused, we might have finished in 2 hours, but please remember that our party was mainly veteran players of 5e. For brand new players and GMs, we’d recommend splitting up each section into its own adventure to make things a little easier for some abilities to recharge and have shorter sessions.

We overall agreed it was a great module and had a lot of fun playing it. For players it’s quick to pick up. For first time GMs, it’s a good module that you may need to tweak a little during the game. You can purchase the set here or at your local game shop if available.

As an addendum, I recently got Steamforged Games’ Secrets of Gullet Cove source book. The actual setting is based on 5e, but the Start Set has a simplified version of 5e for new players to learn at an easier pace.

In Other News!

Shadow of the Conqueror Book Review

Greetings I’m Shad! is not how the book opens, but the energy is there within the novel. Shadow of the Conqueror looks at a tyrant who is forced to atone for his sins committed while he was in power. As this is Shad Brooks first novel, you can see he’s still refining his craft, but its still a very enjoyable book. Set in a strange world where the earth is a floating continent and falling off of it sees you transported back to the top to keep plummeting (think infinite portals). The technology is a sort of magical steampunk relying on two different stones, sun and dark stones. These stones have physics defying properties and are used to create flying ships, vehicles, and magic weapons.

You follow Daylen, a former tyrant who escaped his execution and lived for twenty years in hiding. The book starts with Daylen deciding to end it all, but fate has something else in mind. We’re introduced to Lightbringer Ahrek, Archknights Lyrah and Cueseg, and more, but those three and Daylen are our main protagonists. Daylen struggles with his new life sentence to atone for his past misdeeds along with discovering new abilities.

Upon initial reading, there was some chunky dialogue and some heavy-handed messages and themes. One of the drags for me was a few pages describing how magic/powers worked, but if you enjoy that kind of thing, it may help you get into the setting. Shad makes several comments regarding communist ideals and seems to compare Daylen’s reign to Stalin in the USSR, at least that’s what I interpreted from it. Sometimes it can take you out of it, but Shad is trying to hammer home how horrible Daylen was. He also makes poignant examples of what victims of sexual assault experience after the fact and how one may cope with the experience. Shad has made a very multicultural society with very distinct peoples. Not everyone gets along, but that’s to be expected. With Shad’s background in HEMA, the fight scenes are very well written.

Even with it’s flaws, Shadow of the Conqueror is a good first novel, and supposedly Shad is working on another one. Hopefully we’ll see some improvements in writing and some more swords! If you’re interested in reading the book yourself, you can find it here.

May Book Club: Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

This one was selected in our Discord for our next read. According to the Amazon description, it should be around the same length as Shadow of the Conqueror. Join us for our next book club meeting on the last Sunday of May!

Upcoming Events

• Adventures in Fantasy Book Club, May 28 3:30pm to 4:30pm | Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, discussion on Discord.

• TN Renaissance Fair | a group is getting together to go on May 14. You can pre-order your tickets online!

• Nashville Comicon | Join your fellow nerds for the Nashville Comicon on Jun 3-4! Comics, games, and pop culture.