Over the last decade the tabletop gaming hobby has boomed. Thousands of board games are released every year, flooding our tables with delights. Despite this, it is not the success of board games that has been the top story from this period of stratospheric growth. That honour belongs to the world of Tabletop Role-Playing Games (TTRPG or RPG. I’m going to use the latter).

In 2014 publisher Wizards of the Coast put out the latest edition of the RPG that everyone has heard of, Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). It was a commercial hit. In 2015 a group of voiceover artists and actors started streaming their Dungeons & Dragons game. They called themselves Critical Role. It quickly became the most successful channel on streaming service Twitch. Countless books, miniatures, merchandise and even an Amazon Prime TV show have been made in the image of the characters they portray during these games. As Critical Role gained momentum it contributed to the rise in popularity of Dungeons & Dragons.

As Dungeons & Dragons grew the size of its player base, it also increased the diversity of that base. D&D Beyond arrived, an online portal making it easier than ever to store, upgrade, and play your character. Stranger Things hit our screens featuring the main characters playing the game. Dungeons & Dragons had never been more popular.

If you want to try RPGs out then it is very likely you will be able to find Dungeons & Dragons groups near you. You’ll find the books easy to come by and advice readily available from a myriad of sources. You don’t even need to burden yourself with physical books if you embrace D&D Beyond. There you can find all the books available in digital form, character creators, and lots of adventures and supplements. In terms of sheer availability, and accesibility, Dungeons & Dragons is hard to beat.

However you don’t just want me to tell you ‘go play Dungeons & Dragons’ and drop the mic. Dungeons & Dragons is not the only RPG any more than Monopoly is the only board game. The world of RPGs is filled with the weird and the wonderful. You’ll commit great crimes in Blades in the Dark. Become Greek Heroes in Agon. Fly through space in Star Trek Adventures. Solve strange mysteries in Tales from the Loop and Brindlewood Bay. Face cosmic horror in Call of Cthulhu. Put on the Spandex in the Marvel Universe RPG, or any number of other superhero titles for that matter. 

How do you get involved?

Hopefully I’ve whetted your interest a bit and you want to give Role-Playing gamess a go. Let’s look at some easy, and cheap, ways to sample RPGs before I give you some equipment to navigate a longer journey into RPG land. 

Start Local

The best way to sample RPGs for as little financial outlay as possible is to get involved at your local games group/shop. Most cities, and large towns, will have meetups and shops you can go to. 

We circle back around to Dungeons & Dragons here. If you do have a local shop it is very likely that D&D is the most represented game on their shelves and amongst the games run at the shop. They will likely run all sorts of games of D&D allowing you to experience just a single session or a series of linked games, often referred to as a campaign. You can even download the basic rules for D&D for free! Wizards of the Coast even have an organised play program called Adventurers League and you can find stores near you that are running it. 

I wouldn’t worry too much about any equipment you might need like dice etc. Just let the place you are playing know that you are just starting out and they will help you out with what you need.

Of course shops are likely to run some other types of games and I urge you to give them a try. It will show you different styles of play, settings, and themes.  

Go Online

Now if you don’t have a local group you might also be able to find games online. Many RPG publishing companies run Discord servers where you can find people willing to show you the ropes of those games. 

Commonly games are played using a Virtual Tabletop (VTT). These are usually browser based apps that allow the GM to show maps, character sheets, and make dice rolls. They vary in quality and accessibility. While Roll20 is probably the biggest of these, there are alternatives out there. 

One of the other ways you could figure out if roleplaying is for you is to watch some other folks do it. These shows are called Actual Play, and tend to show the whole of a session, warts and all. Critical Role that we mentioned earlier is an Actual Play group. You may find Actual Plays a good way to work out whether or not a system is for you. You can watch them live sometimes, or after the fact. This idea comes with a major caveat. 

The players in these games are often professional voice actors, actors, or at least spend a lot of time doing precisely this kind of work. They tend to spend a lot of time on the characters and their interactions, over the rules of the game. What you see in some of these sessions is unlikely to reflect the reality of most RPG sessions.  

What are RPGs?

As your journey into RPGs continues you might want to have a bit of knowledge about what this hobby is all about and some of the specialist language that accompanies it. First of all let us have a look at what separates an RPG from something like a dungeon crawler board game. What makes an RPG an RPG?

For most of their history RPG books have had a section that describes what they are. These vary from game to game. I’m going to go for a wide definition. As we talk about types of games we will refine this in the context of those types.

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A tabletop RPG allows you to create and describe events in an imagined setting, contributing to a Shared Imagined Space (SIS) between all the participants. This is most commonly structured as the majority of participants in the group (Players) each controlling a single character that exists in that imagined setting. Most games see one participant take on the role of the Games Master (GM) who controls all remaining elements of the imagined setting including any non-player controlled characters.  

By describing the actions of the character they control to the group, each player can interact with the characters controlled by the other players, and the imagined setting.  Whenever there is doubt over the outcome of a given action, a formal set of rules allows the group to adjudicate.

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One of my favourite RPG writers, John Harper, describes RPGs as ‘Fiction first’ games. What he means by that is the narrative comes first, then the mechanisms come in to determine the outcome of that narrative. In most board games the mechanisms come first and the narrative emerges, if that is the intention, from the results of those mechanisms. 

Here is another way to think about this. When you sit down to play an RPG you are going to have a conversation with the other players around the table. That is all RPGs really come down to. A conversation, with some rules to determine the outcomes of those conversations. You will have some authority over different elements of that conversation depending on the role you take on in the game. 

Those conversations are some of the most fun I have had around a table and across a screen. I love board games, but with RPGs you get an opportunity to inhabit a different persona, explore a different world, and create a narrative with your friends. These stories don’t need to be complex or the best tale ever, but they are uniquely yours. You’ll remember them for a long time.

Learning the Language

Like any hobby, RPGs have their own particular language and it can be helpful to understand some of that to find the right game(s) for you. 

Styles of Play

There are a few different styles an RPG can take. It is helpful to be aware of these so you know what to expect from a given RPG.

Games Master Led

For most of their history, the majority of role playing games have been in this format. It was established by the progenitor of RPGs, Dungeons & Dragons. This style is also sometimes referred to as Guided Play. In this style of role-playing, a single individual is responsible for bringing a session together.

This individual is often referred to as the Games Master (GM), or Dungeon Master (DM) in the original D&D rules. I am going to use Games Master throughout this to distinguish that role from others around the table. It is the term most commonly used to describe this role. Despite the gendered nature of the word ‘master’, I am making no assumptions about the gender of the person taking on that role.

In this style of game, the GM prepares, or writes, a scenario. This is the narrative the players, everyone else around the table, are going to make their way through. The GM is responsible for describing the world and all the non-player characters, NPCs, that inhabit the world. The GM drives the narrative forward, often describing not only the actions and reactions of the world, but also the consequences of the players’ actions.

In this style of RPG the other players are only responsible for portraying their characters. Players contribute to the narrative through their characters. There is no expectation to push or drive the narrative outside of that responsibility. 

This was the style of play in most RPGs until the early 2000s and is still the most prevalent. Dungeons & Dragons still has this style of play at its core. Games of this era, and the style of play they pushed, are often called Traditional or Trad. 

Collaborative Play

In this type of game there is still a GM who describes the world and the NPCs. However, in these games players are encouraged to collaborate with the GM to drive the narrative forward, often at the detriment to their characters. Players will often be encouraged to contribute to the story outside of the limitations of simply portraying their character. The mechanisms of the game often help the players to contribute to, and build on, the ongoing narrative. 

This sort of play is seen in two of my favourite games Blades in the Dark and Agon. It is my preferred style of play.

GM-less Play

A subset of collaborative play, GMless play removes the role of the Games Master and relies on the players to take that role on as a group. This style of play is also sometimes referred to as GM-full as every player takes on some of the responsibility of that role.

Fiasco is probably the most well known example of this type of game.  

Troupe Play

In troupe play the roles of GM and player move around the group. Most commonly this is from session to session. 

The most famous game that encourages troupe play is called Ars Magica. In it players take on the roles of powerful mages and their followers. You could also check out Remember Tomorrow from my friend Gregor Hutton. This is a Cyberpunk RPG that has troupe play. 

Solo

A style of play that became extremely popular during lockdown. Solo RPGs have had a huge boom. Often they take the form of a journaling exercise with prompts and mechanisms to drive the narrative forward. By the definition I wrote earlier these aren’t strictly RPGs. However many people enjoy these games so they can’t be ignored. 

A couple of well known examples of this type of game are A Thousand Year Old Vampire and Ironsworn (a game that can also be played in some of the other styles we’ve covered). I’ve experimented with this type of game myself.

Forms of game

I want to send you out to look for the right type of game for you. Maybe one or more of the styles we discussed above interests you. What form do these games take once you are sat at the table? When you go along to an RPG session what can you expect? To my mind there are only really two distinct differences. 

One Shots

These are the most common forms of game at conventions. One Shots can take any style we have discussed above depending on the game. Generally in a One Shot a player will take the lead in having prepped the session: teaching rules, giving you pre-generated character sheets, and pushing the session forwards. A good one shot will have an arc to it that will wrap up nicely, with maybe the potential for more play. 

Campaigns 

This is the most common form of game and of course originated in the beginning with D&D. Campaign play tends to come from games that are GM led or collaborative play. In this type of play the Players will keep the same characters between sessions, and frequently be able to improve their character through some sort of levelling up system. 

It is the time commitment from campaign games that often puts new players and GMs off RPGs all together. RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons tend to ask for a larger time commitment from the players. People play for years and hundreds of hours. That could be you, but it doesn’t have to be. Officially published D&D campaigns can be short affairs lasting only a few sessions or epic multi-session experiences.

You’ll find a lot of modern RPGs have short campaigns in mind, lending themselves to one-shot play. They may have a time limit actually baked into the structure of the game. These often fit into people’s lives a lot easier than epic years-long campaigns. Choose the right game for you.

What should I play?

We’ve covered some cheap ways to get a taste for RPGs and armed you with some useful lexicon. Let’s now take a moment to look at some of the titles you are most likely to come across in your RPG journey and some of my own recommendations. Before we do so, one piece of advice. Play, and run, what you want. I would recommend having a think about the genres and settings that you’ve enjoyed in other media, and seek those out in RPGs. You’ll be more invested, and the flavour will be more familiar as you learn about RPGs. I started out with a game called Deadlands. The version I ran I wouldn’t recommend to anyone in a million years these days, but it drew me in with the setting and allowed me to feel comfortable as I learnt to GM.

Common Titles

Below are the titles I think you are most likely to come across as you set out on your RPG journey. It is worth noticing that sometimes an RPG will use the mechanisms of another game, perhaps adapted for the purposes of the setting and theme. These mechanisms are referred to as Systems in the RPG hobby. So for instance someone might tell you that the Beowulf RPG from Handiwork Games uses the Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition system, whilst not being set in that world.

Dungeons & Dragons

Of course we kick off these common titles with Dungeons and Dragons again. It’s the big kahuna of the roleplaying world and honestly the best way to get a taste for the hobby. Despite its ubiquity it is actually a relatively fiddly game, but there are loads of tools to help you get your head around it. You will very likely play some D&D, or very similar, at some point in your RPG journey. As we’ve mentioned earlier Dungeons & Dragons is a GM-led game.

Pathfinder/Starfinder

Pathfinder is the other big fantasy RPG, though it has seen a downturn in its fortunes as 5th edition D&D became popular. I’ve never played it but I know that it is a more mechanically complex game than D&D, which might be what you want! It’s a GM-led game. 

Paizo also has a sci-fi version of Pathfinder called Starfinder. 

Call of Cthulhu

Let’s step away from fantasy and sci-fi now and look at the world of horror. Call of Cthulhu has a long history in the hobby. It was first published in 1981 by publisher Chaosium and is inspired by the works of HP Lovecraft. The core of the game is based on a system called Basic Roleplaying (BRP) which you may encounter in other products. It’s a GM-led game.

Call of Cthulhu sees players taking on the role of investigators looking into strange goings on across the world. The challenge of the game lies in unravelling mysteries while ensuring that your character stays sane as they face unknowable cosmic horrors. You should be aware the game deals with elements of mental health, and not always in the most sensitive of ways. 

Apocalypse World

Apocalypse World by designers Vincent and Meguey Baker, burst onto the scene in 2010 and quickly established itself as an important title. It is a game in the collaborative style of play. 

Characters are defined by a simple playbook with a series of ‘moves’ specific to that character. The setting was a vague post-apocalyptic world, and filled out by players during character creation, investing the players in the world before the game began. The system allowed for “failing forward” where players would often get what they wanted to achieve, but with a narrative cost attached. 

If you get into playing RPGs you will definitely come across Apocalypse World or one of its many progeny along the way. The games that use the system at the core of the game are called “Powered by the Apocalypse” or “PBTA”.

Blades in The Dark

Blades in the Dark is a more recent addition to the “Indie” scene of role-playing games. Although inspired by Apocalypse World it is not a PBTA game. It is a game in the collaborative style of play.

Blades in the Dark allows you to portray characters in a sort of victorian-esque city that you cannot leave. You are playing the bad guys: thieves, smugglers, assassins, and cultists. The game rewards players for getting their characters into trouble and pushes them to climb the ranks of the underworld. It has a great system for making the world seem alive, and all actions come with an interesting narrative cost. 

Much like Apocalypse World, the core system of Blades in the Dark has been used in other games. These titles are called Forged in the Dark (FitD), and it is very likely you will come across one or more of them. 

If you would like to learn more about the game I have written two reviews of it and a guide on how to run and play it. It’s one of my favourite titles. 

GM Review

Players Review

How to play, and run, Blades in the Dark

Free League

Free League are a Swedish publishing company that has been getting a lot of attention over the last few years. One of the elements they have gained a lot of attention for are their games inspired by well known franchises. All of their games are in the GM-Led style of play. 

They have RPGs based on Alien, Blade Runner, and Lord of the Rings. All of these are well regarded and have starter sets to get you on your way. They also have a game called Vaesen about hunting monsters in turn of the industrial age Sweden which I have enjoyed playing. 

Free League was brought to the attention of the world by a game called Tales from the Loop. This is a game of kids investigating strange goings on in Sweden near a weird facility called ‘The Loop’. This had an Amazon TV series made of it and has the feel of Steven Spielberg films like ET or the Netflix show Stranger Things. 

Modiphius Entertainment

The other big franchise focused publisher on the block is Modiphius Entertainment, a UK based publisher. They are the folk behind the Star Trek Adventures, Dune, and Fallout RPGs. Slightly confusingly they also are the distributor for Free League titles in the UK so you will find all their work on the Modiphius site.

The system that runs through the Modiphius games is called 2d20 but it is yet to appear in any games outside of the Modiphius stable. I would think it very likely you will come across their games early on in your RPG journey.

Personal Recommendations

Outside of the games above that I am certain you will come across at some point I have two other recommendations you may want to check out. 

Agon

John Harper is my favourite RPG designer and this work with Sean Nittner has fast become one of my go to games to just run very easily. Agon is a game in the collaborative style of play.

Agon sees the players taking on the roles of Greek Heroes on the way home from war. They are waylaid by the capricious Greek Gods, and end up landing on a series of islands. Each island has its own set of problems to solve, making each session feel distinct and contained. It’s a great way to do an episodic game and you can read more about it below.

Player’s Review

GM’s Review

Although not as ubiquitous as PBTA or Forged in the Dark has become, the Agon system does feature in other games. It is called the Paragon system. I recently wrote a player’s review about Odyssey Aquatica that features this. A game I am very excited for in 2024, Deathmatch Island, also features this system. 

King Arthur’s Pendragon 

This is a game I’ve run a lot of and had huge amounts of fun with. If you long for a time more chivalrous and like the idea of being Knights in a mystical Britain then Pendragon is for you. It is a game in the GM led style of play. 

Pendragon has a really interesting system at its core that sees you not only playing a Knight but their lineage. Your Knight will eventually die or retire and then you play one of their progeny. That progeny takes on some of the aspects of their parents of course meaning you pass on traits, passions, and more to your children. It’s a game of knightly action, courtly romance, and political intrigue. 

At time of writing a new edition is on the horizon and there is a rather nice starter box out that will give you a taste for it.

Where do I buy RPGs?

Whether you need games as a player for reference and levelling, or as a GM to run, there are many ways to get your hands on RPG books. 

Online of course has numerous stores you can buy physical copies from, but I would encourage you to use your local games store if possible and practical. If you do buy from a physical shop you should check if the RPG you are buying is part of the Bits & Mortar initiative. This is a scheme some RPG publishers have signed up to which allows you to buy a physical copy in your local games shop, and get a digital version for free. 

The two main websites for digital versions of roleplaying games are Drivethrurpg and itch.io. Drivethrurpg is the site for all the big titles of the RPG world, alongside a load of smaller titles. Itch.io is definitely the place for weirder indie titles but also contains some big hitters.

Many RPG publishers are quite small outfits and will encourage you to buy from them directly. It is also possible to find free, or very cheap, quickstarts for many RPGs on publishers’ sites. An example of this is the one you can find on the site for Fabula Ultima (it does redirect to Drivethrurpg for the actual download) . These will give you a taste of the game for minimum effort often containing a starter adventure and pre-generated characters.

The Bundle of Holding is a site that frequently offers bundles of games for a very good price. It is definitely worth checking out as you can get some excellent deals.  

If you really get into Dungeons & Dragons then D&D Beyond is your one stop shop for digital versions of the rules, digital tools, and loads of other resources. At time of writing, January 2024, you do not get a digital version of any of the D&D books for buying the physical copy. 

A lot of RPGs will have a starter set you can buy that will give you a taste of the game without having to fork out as much. Free League do some excellent products for their lines and Dungeons & Dragons now has two or three different starter sets you can pick up. If you want to try a game out these are often a great way of getting an idea of how it is meant to work.

We can’t talk about purchasing RPGs without looking at crowdfunding. If you get into this hobby you are going to come across lots of companies funding their projects through various crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter. You may want to support those companies by backing their projects. RPGs are a unique proposition in this space as you can often back for very little outlay and get immediate access to an in-work PDF. That doesn’t mean you will ever get a finished product. Such is the nature of crowdfunding. 

Other sources of Advice

As I have alluded to a few times in this piece, there is a wealth of RPG advice out there. These are some sources I trust and respect to send you in a positive direction. Most of these places have a patreon or some sort as a way of supporting them financially. If you use their wisdom and resources then please consider chucking them a buck or two. 

Burn after Running – Guy Milner who runs this is a friend of mine

The Smart Party – Gaz and Ben who run this are friends of mine. Interviews and GM/Player advice

The Gauntlet – Loads of player/GM aids for indie RPGs. Publishers of Brindlewood Bay amongst other games. 

Unconventional GMs – Actual play in two hours (Both Guy and Gaz, from the recommendations above, that run this are friends of mine and I’ve been in some games on the channel)

Venture Out

I love all tabletop gaming but I believe that RPGs are where the truly interesting design work is happening at the moment. Designers are pushing boundaries, engaging with different themes, settings, and mechanisms and really making RPGs require less of your time to make into a truly wonderful experience. 

I hope I have given you a taste of what RPGs can be and given you the knowledge you need to decide how you want to explore this type of game. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me, comment on this piece, or come and chat to me in our Discord (invite at the bottom of the piece).  I wish you many happy adventures.

Some of the links in this piece are affiliate links to Drivethrurpg. If you use them I will receive a small cut of any of the money you spend at that site. 

Thanks

I’d like to thank Gaz, Guy, Alex, and Matt for all their help and feedback. Additionally I would like to thank Adam Richards from Punchboard for giving the piece a read for me with an eye to its intended audience. Also my home group who have played so many games with me over the years and gave me feedback on this piece.