Help me out of my Table-Top rut?

[wander]

I'll second the setting for Numenera, though I've never got far in a game. It is inspiration in a book when it comes to games though, I'd love to really get my teeth into it someday. :)

My favourite system I find fairly easy to get people into is used in Dungeon World. The corebook is fairly cheap on drivethru, it's like a simplified D&D, but in a good way. To explain a little more, it has a system of rolling 2d6 where 10+ is a pass, 7-9 are a pass but something happens and 6- is a fail but get 1xp for the trouble. It really does promote you into proactivity as even if you fail, you get xp.

You get the six D&D stats and the numbers are set, though you get to choose where they go and they give modifiers or penalties to your character's actions. Generally Str helps melee, Dex helps ranged attacks, Con helps when you defend something (not yourself), Intellect helps knowledge rolls, Wisdom helps perception rolls and Charisma helps in using leverage over people met. Each can help in a defence roll depending on what you're defending against and how you narrate your character does it.

Damage is decided by class, rather than weapon and each class gets different starting weapons with a bit of crossover, some get bows where others don't for example. Acting out the stated action your alignment gives you nets an xp in doing it and you have Bonds with each other character in the party, resolving it gives you an xp too. Levelling up is simple to figure out, simply get your current level in xp +7 to have enough to level up, then simply announce in downtime your character is reflecting on their experiences to bump up. :)

Lots more to it, but it's best to check it out yourself. :)

Oh and there's a heck of a massive amount of absolutely free stuff for it at drivethru to download too, from character classes, to pregen adventures and loads more. Not as crunchy as what some people may like, but great for putting the fun back in the hobby and makes for a great beer and pretzels one-shot that can maybe develop into more. :)

[ReijiTabibito]

Zek?  Here's a question for you.  (Well, less a question, but still technically an inquiry.)  Tell us about your table.  One of the things I've noted on this thread is that when people mention systems, you say that 'my table's not up to that.'  Tell us about the table so that we can make good suggestions.  I personally own a ton of RPGs, but I wouldn't play half of them with my table simply because I don't see them fitting well with my particular group dynamic.

[Zekromnomnom]

Haven't been on here in quite a while.

Anyway, to answer the question about my table, my table is full of overly cynical, kinda shitty people because I'm a beggar in this case and can't be choosy. The type of people I might not hang out with at all if they didn't happen to play some of the kinds of games I like. All of them are kind of fair weather nerds that actively make fun of other people for being too exhuberant in their love of their hobbies and think of themselves as "cool nerds". One of them actually used to ask me if I'd given up on pussy back in high school whenever I would try to talk about D&D or try to see if he wouldn't mind playing it with my group. The current GM is a guy I've mentioned on E before who constantly praises AD&D and retroclones because he hates/is scared of any kind of crunch or optimization, but at the same time has never really played any of the older stuff and doesn't realize his girlfriend, younger brother, and best friend would all hate playing an older game because they wouldn't like all the lack of class features because they cut their teeth on 4E and Pathfinder. And he's bad at story focused games or being descriptive or thinking on his feet.

So the group is always thinking "Do I have an ability that can help with this?" instead of "Well, a real person in this situation might think to try this?" which wouldn't work anyway because if they think outside of the box, the GM won't know what to do with it anyway. And I'm sitting there like "I know my character doesn't know these zombies resist everything but slashing damage, but I as a player know. He wouldn't let me figure it out by rolling a knowledge religion check. Do I have a slashing weapon that I can try using on it? Will he tell me the damn information then?". I guess by and large my feelings are if it's anything that someone might find dorky or cheesy, they won't want to play it because they're image obsessed people that need to feel like they're cool when pretending to fight dragons.

That being said, I get to move to Colorado in two-ish months and there I'll live with two friends who were part of my first and best group and who are honestly some of my best friends. We plan to play 5th Edition when I'm finally out there.

[ReijiTabibito]

Oh boy.  The casual gamer table.  Sorry if your table does not actually contain them.  As well as the phrase itself, but it just happens to be the short phrase I use for what you've described.

Here's a thing.  RPGs are big.  Really, really big.  Some of the biggest things out there.  They can be just as big as basketball or working on cars or other really big, more mainstream pastimes.  The problem, quite simply, is that if you are discovered to be a fan of tabletop RPGs, that almost automatically labels you as a NERD.  (For some inexplicable reason, people who like video game RPGs do not suffer this same stigma).  This is absolutely wrong.  Vin Diesel - he of the I AM GROOT/Richard B. Riddick - is a D&D player!  Matt Damon, too, if you believe that.  And Judi Dench.  JUDI DENCH, Dame of the British Empire.  You can absolutely be a nerd, be a stolid fan, and not be some quote-unquote asmthatic pimpled geek.  From your description - and I am sorry if this offends anyone - they sound like the gay guys who are trying to desperately convince people that they are not gay.  They're ashamed of what they are...which destroys their ability to cope.

And the fact that your GM seems to be stuck about a quarter century in the past doesn't help, either.  There are lots of good, exciting, new RPGs out there that are worth owning...but if the guy leading the table is constantly worried about players trying to game the system, then either he's not all that trusting of his players - he looks at every player and all he sees is a potential munchkin, or he's the sort of narcissist that knows he would take the opportunity to optimize/crunch a character in a hearbeat, and therefore everyone is just like him.  It's a very flat perception of who players at a table can be...though given your players, I might see why.

Honestly, for me?  The thing you're doing is the best thing that you can do to break the rut.  Leave the group - that you are moving gives you an excellent reason to - and don't go back.

Your table is not a table.  It is a collection of persons who are interested and yet not interested in RPGs who are led by a guy who is potentially narcissistic or paranoid.

!

Hey!  Your table should totally try Paranoia! 

No, but seriously.  Get yourself out of there.  Tables are more than just dice and books and character sheets and adventures.  They're social gatherings, and the people who go to them need to be comfortable in their skins as players.

[Thorne]

You could always try them on X-Crawl. There was a Kickstarter a while back, and I was a little surprised not to see more people here jumping all over it.

At risk of dating myself - X-Crawl is .. hm. Licensed Dungeon Crawling teams, doing dungeons, fighting monsters and being awesome for pay. Fortune, fame and fans - what more could anyone ask?
I suppose it's not unlike WWF, only there is a higher risk of a team getting pasted on screen. >.>

[Tuxedocat]

I am in the same camp as suggesting you should get away from this group, the way you described them. They are not healthy for you.

Here's my thinking, and maybe it isn't for you, but it is worth a shot.

Check out Roll20 or a similar service. Roll20 is the one I know of. People play a lot of d20 games there but they play other things too. I am playing Stars Without Number and Edge of the Empire there right now and I also played Dungeon World through it for a number of months before this. Adam Koebel, the guy who co-wrote Dungeon World and now runs 4 games streaming each week (if schedule holds) runs his games through Roll20, doing Stars Without Number, Shadowrun, Burning Wheel, and Apocalypse World through Roll20. (These names won't mean much to you if you only know d20, as such, but suffice to say these deviate in small or large amounts from 3.5/Pathfinder.) So there is a range of possibilities.

Basically what Roll20 or a similar service does is present a map with grid if you want it, some dice rolling online (you can do single dice, dice pools, and so forth), a place to keep character sheets, a place to leave documents containing relevant notes for the game, and if you want to use it, built in teleconferencing for the group you play with. This last point means you should at least have something like a headset with microphone so you can hear and speak.

Check that site out and if you think it's worth using, go there and ask for people who want to play a game you want to try or find other people looking for players for a game you want to try.

I currently play with 2 people from my old offline group and 2 people we met through Roll20 who turned out to be good fits for us. You aren't guaranteed you'll be successful this route, but I don't see it can be worse with the people you currently game with.

[Zekromnomnom]

Thorne, I'm going to have to google that. I'm not one hundred percent sure what you mean about it.

Tuxedocat, I'm familiar with roll20 a little. I signed up for it a long time ago when it was first open to people while they were still testing and adding things. I'm perfectly fine with the idea, but unfortunately my computer at this time is a crappy tablet and the mobile version is only available to paying members of roll20. But yeah, it's definitely something I've thought a lot about. I was going to join a game a few weeks ago before I discovered that it wouldn't work on my tablet unless I paid. It's just not something available to me right this moment, but maybe when I move.

[wander]

I think I'm going to look at Roll20... That pretty much sold me on it and I love my system games.