RPG Primer and Old School Playbook

[BDMarvel]

What I really need is someone who just very recently learned to play... someone who remembers a bit more clearly than I what was hardest to understand when they first played. That's who I need reading this.

Or better yet, someone who has not yet begun. My actual target audience.

I think that might be me (late to the party I know).

I recently purchased a couple paperback copies of the core book and the field guide on amazon and have been looking over the pdfs while I wait for them to arrive. I have no real experience with tabletop roleplaying (despite numerous attempts over the years to find a group) and after finding this website I determined this was exactly the type of system I was looking for. Not just to play, but to GM, most likely with players who have limited experience in the hobby as well.

After finding this post, I've spend the past couple hours reading everything in this thread and following (and reading the contents of) all the links provided. I now feel like I must read this book! I expect it will help me immensely, but I was a little saddened to reach the end of this thread and find that the pdf is no longer available for free. I intended to read over the pdf now and buy the book in a few weeks when I can.

I will definitely be purchasing a copy as soon as possible. If you're still looking for feedback from that "target audience" (which I suspect includes myself) I will be happy to provide feedback after I get my hands on it.

Note that I do have at least a passing understanding already of AD&D, D&D3E and D&D3.5E rules from computer game implementations (eg. Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter Nights) so perhaps I'm not quite the target audience afterall...

[MythusRPG]

EDIT: I've made this a proper project. This first post will contain the most current downloadable PDF of the book; for the moment, I'm keeping this one personal, so I'm not planning to release any ODT format versions. I may change my mind later... still thinking about it.

For the sake of posterity I'm retaining the original first post below:

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Before we get started on this discussion, go read this:

http://angrydm.com/2014/09/dear-wotc-wh ... ing-games/

If you're old like me and can't read that page because the text is too small, use CTRL + (hold Control and press the plus sign) to make it bigger. Do it repeatedly and it just keeps getting bigger. Eventually, like me, you'll be able to read it.

Go ahead, I'll wait here.

Done? Good. Now, tell me your opinions on this. Is this something we could do? Should do?

On a related note I started a thread over at RPG net forum about new games that don't have any adventures offered for them. I think it's called New Unsupported Games: Why? It started a much more lively debate than I had imagined or intended.
Just FYI
I look forward to reading through (getting up to speed) on these forums. Seems lively so far.

[BDMarvel]

It's time to make good on the promise I made in my previous post, to provide feedback on the RPG Primer now that I've read through it. I did already give Solomoriah some preliminary feedback via PM after reading it through once, but since then I've actually GMed a couple sessions (my first ever, and I have very little experience as a player also).

1. Initial Thoughts:
I mentioned some of this already to Solomoriah via PM, but mention it here for sake of completeness. I've been looking to get into tabletop roleplaying for the last 18 years or so, with no real success at finding a group. I bought a copy of FUDGE years ago (1999 I think?) with hopes of becoming a GM myself, but as much as I loved the system in theory, I love my numbers too much to give them up. So recently, I began looking for a rules light system that would let me buy a single book and hopefully find some players and start GMing. That search led me to BFRPG, which I purchased immediately. I was excited to finally have the opportunity I've been waiting nearly 2 decades for, but also extremely anxious since I had very little experience as a player and none as a GM.

So I found this thread (see my previous post), read the Primer, and the Core Rules. The most important piece of feedback I have is that reading the Primer took away my anxiety. I was still excited, but no longer worried (borderline stressed) and started to work on my own dungeon immediately. After reading it, I felt prepared and had the confidence I needed to get started without second guessing myself. So, in short, I think the Primer works.

2. My First Sessions
I spent a week writing up a dungeon to prepare for an adventure with one of my neighbors. He's my only player right now (an experienced player, but only on D20 games), but we hope to find more soon. In the mean time, he's playing a Thief and a Fighter and I'm playing a Cleric and Magic User (all Human) in addition to my duties as GM. (Thanks to Solomoriah for the suggestion of allowing the player to play 2 characters in this situation. That was a very good call.)

I decided to allow Raise Dead and Save vs. Death as a way to mitigate character death (at least for now, since I have no experience balancing the difficulty of a dungeon). I won't recap the 16 or so hours we played so far, but that's about how long it took to complete the dungeon and retrieve the quest item. During this time we were lucky in our Saves vs Death, failing only 1 of 5, and with Raise Dead managed to avoid losing any characters permanently.

What's important is that I had an absolute blast in both sessions, and so did the player (who was actually quite impressed with the dungeon I'd created). We're planning to continue to play once a week, adding more players if we can find them (we have some friends in mind but transportation and scheduling don't make these things easy). I'm also looking to try my hand at GMing online as well, since I already have many friends online all over the world who are interested. I don't know how well that endeavor will work out just yet, but I feel that reading the Primer (along with the BFRPG rules) prepared me for my first sessions, and in that way helped create another GM. I think that's its purpose, and in that I think it succeeds.

3. Unanswered Question
The preliminary feedback I gave Solomoriah included a couple questions I still had after reading the Primer, but before I had GMed a session. I thank him for his prompt answers and won't bother repeating those here. However, after having put the Primer's advice into practice I'm left with a couple more. I'm not saying they should be answered in the Primer, or in the BFRPG rules, or elsewhere. I'm happy with the content of both products. These are simply questions from a brand new GM who's looking to improve.

1. How should I create and/or balance an economy? The rules for treasure generation are simple enough, except that I don't really know what items are worth. I don't know if this is usually left up to the GM and the campaign world to price things according to the level of magic present in the world, but any general advice would be very helpful. I'm confident GMing an adventure now, but when it comes to buying/selling/bartering, I simply don't have any idea what things are worth (aside from the starting equipment new characters can purchase).
2. Why is Intelligence important for a Magic User? I was discussing BFRPG with a friend (who was reading over the pdf of the rules) and since he prefers to play wizards, he looked more closely than I did at Magic Users (I prefer Thieves). He asked me why intelligence was important and I didn't have an answer for him. He seemed to think the intelligence bonus should give a bonus to the number of spells available per day, but the only thing we could find in the rules was that the bonus allowed more languages. Did we overlook something about intelligence? Is allowing more spells per day a common house rule? Would using it as a house rule unbalance the classes? He actually said Intelligence in it's current form was a dump stat, which makes me think we must be overlooking something.

I may have more questions later, but for now these are the two I'm struggling with.

[Solomoriah]

The idea of bonus spells for high Intelligence is a common house rule; the classic games on which BFRPG is based don't do that, so neither does BFRPG. More "advanced" game systems from the early days used Intelligence to limit Magic-Users; the number of spells and maximum level were keyed to Intelligence, so that a Magic-User with a lower Int would suffer at higher levels.

As to the economy question... there was an Equipment supplement in production, but just now I can't find it. Perhaps someone else might know what happened to it.

[BDMarvel]

Ah, thank you. I was actually looking for such a supplement, but couldn't find one. I hope you found my feedback helpful, though I guess I didn't have too much of it since I'm pretty happy with the Primer as is.

[Dimirag]

I think solo talks about the Equipment Emporium

The Magic User Supplement gives the option of extra spells based on Intelligence.

With the exception of the Fighter no other class gains a class ability related benefit based on his required ability, it's a matter of character concept rather than one of game mechanics. If you go with the INT spell bonus I recommend you to lets clerics to add their WIS bonus to Turning attempts and give a +5% bonus per DEX bonus to Thieves Skills.

[BDMarvel]

Those help a lot. Thank you Dimirag! I'm still curious as to how to value magic items. Any ideas?

[Dimirag]

Well, they are invaluable, so, forget about selling them to the players although +1 weapons could be sold at 10 times the standard cost.

Unless you want to put magic items for sale (making them a "common" thing), don't worry for that, it won't be for sale and not many people will want to buy one, and at that point just roleplay the cost with the players.

[Solomoriah]

Seriously, do not start out with a magic store.

Just don't.

Once one exists, the "magic" is gone from the magic items.

[The Angry Monk]

Just finished the primer (preye-mer or prim-er). Despite having played and DM'ed D&D for decades, I realized that one is never too old to learn. I really enjoyed Chris's suggestions for making piles of treasure less even, for dungeon building, and not worrying about the history of the game world. That last piece of advice is great. Every time I think about designing a new campaign world, my mind begins to swim and I wonder how I would ever have time to create it. However, after the primer, I'm not going to sweat it any longer.

Thanks, Chris. This should be required reading for all RPG'ers.