Experienced GM, Players new to RPG - Which system is recommended?

[Cikomyr]

As a GM, I like social situations and players using smarts and knowledge, but I throw the occasional gritty, violent fights. I was wondering what's the best system to get players to play for the first time?

The setting would be some sort of fantasy world with twists. Conan-level magic (powerful, but not extremely accessible).

I was thinking Storyteller, at it provides a good balance between Social-Physical-Intellectual. But I also like the grittiness of WFRP 2nd.

I heard D&D 5th is cool, but haven't seen anything about it.

Finally, I heard FATE is an easy system for new players to pick up.


Any suggestions?

[DeTess]

I heard D&D 5th is cool, but haven't seen anything about it.

Finally, I heard FATE is an easy system for new players to pick up.

DnD 5th is cool, but you need to be playing DnD, or something fairly similar, to get the most out of it. FATE is nice and rules-light, but it does expect a decent dose of initiative and creativity from your players, especially because it expects/demands what is essentially a small communal mostly freeform creative writing exercise during character creation.

[oxybe]

play whatever you're familiar with and hyped to run.

for newbies you don't need a big character creation session: a handful of pregens they can slightly customize does the trick and you can run them through the mechanics as they occur or are needed.

what's important is that you play a system you're familiar with, so you can more easily adjudicate scenarios and issues as they happen.

yes FATE is easier to run then D&D4, but i'll be darned if the former doesn't do much to excite me and the latter is very much my jam.

If you can get hyped, it'll likely overflow onto the rest of the table.

[Telok]

In order of best to worst:

What you're excited to run. Make a selection of pre-gen characters that appeal to the players and some how-to sheets.

What you're best at.

Not D&D unless it fits one of the above.

AD&D

Other D&Ds

[Spore]

e: Geez, I should READ before I WRITE.

I would go for Warhammer Fantasy or 5e honestly.

[Jay R]

If the players aren't used to rpgs, and don't know the system, then the GM needs to know the system cold.

Pick the game you know best.

[I was torn between saying this or the one you love best, but the systems I love best quickly become the systems I know best, so it's probably the same thing.]

[Martin Greywolf]

I've run FATE game for a guy who never played a TTRPG before and wanted to give it a try - it's probably the best system I've seen to do that in, if you play your cards right.

The thing is, you want to introduce rules slowly - with FATE specifically, start with aspects give +2 with FP and skills and how to roll them. Introduce contests and combat as you go. With new players, I would probably hold off on introducing stunts for the entirety of first session, unless someone is really excited about them and really wants to have them. Same for creating aspects and free invokes.

The nice part of aspects is that if you remember to comple them often, they give you a tool to encourage roleplaying by your players, which other systems can't handle in mechanics.

Oh, and you definitely want to have a concession and taking out by NPCs at least, with taking out not resulting in death, purely to demonstrate to the players how things work.

Lastly as a more general point, FATE is cool in that it allows you to build your own magic/tech/politics systems really quickly, but it's also a bit of a pitfall, you need to tinker with the mechanics and your players have to understand you can and will make changes as you go to bring things more in line with how you want them to function.

[geppetto]

Id use storyteller.

You can basically run it as a player just off the character sheet and its reasonably intuitive. Focus on rulings not rules and you can keep sessions rolling and fun without any stopping to look things up or worry about 1000 little details. As long as you keep the PCs regular humans its about as rules lite as it reasonably comes.

[thedanster7000]

Dungeon Fantasy RPG is good; not the simplest but it makes up for it in versatility. I think it's the easiest game to visualise and thus ideal for people new to the hobby who aren't 100% on the premise. Also has good social mechanics and gritty combat.

[Particle_Man]

I will throw in the Prose Descriptive Quality system (PDQ) with the Conan level fantasy book being Jaws of the Six Serpents. You write your stats so you can be "Captain of the Guard" which can serve for both social and combat situations.

[Malifice]

WHFRP isnt easy to pick up as a newb.

5E (of all the editions) is fastest to learn and play.

You can have a 1st level PC up and running in a few minutes, and action resolution at 1st level is generally 'roll a d20 and add a bonus from +0 to +5'.

It also has the advantage of being the biggest and most maintream game for a newb to get involved in. It always has been and remains a good starting ground for new players.

[Particle_Man]

5E (of all the editions) is fastest to learn and play.

You can have a 1st level PC up and running in a few minutes, and action resolution at 1st level is generally 'roll a d20 and add a bonus from +0 to +5'.

It also has the advantage of being the biggest and most maintream game for a newb to get involved in. It always has been and remains a good starting ground for new players.

Given your word choice, I am surprised you didn't say "roll one or two d20, choose the higher or lower as appropriate, and add a bonus from +0 to +5"