The Core Worlds

WISH 59: Games for Non-Gamers

Name three games you might use to get someone who has never roleplayed before into roleplaying.

I see two approaches for introducing someone to roleplaying.

The first is to enter via a known story. For fans of Star Wars, dig out the Star Wars RPG (preferably the d6 version from West End Games) or for fans of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, dig out the BtVS RPG (as suggested by Jack Gulick).

This isn't a very good approach if you have a group of potential players who all like different series, or if you have fans of a show for which the RPG is fearsomely complex (as Decipher's Star Trek game appears to be).

Another entry point is via board games. There is a lot of choice out there and you can keep switching games which are progressively more like roleplaying. A starting point might be Monopoly, then moving on to Settlers of Catan, followed by Hero Quest and then on to D&D.

I almost didn't come up with a third entry, becuase I couldn't find my copy of Signs & Portents 1, for some reason I had actually put it with the rest of my Mongoose books -- how silly is that? Lone Wolf d20 is, according to the preview in said magazine, going to have a `d20 Lite' effect -- a simplified variant of d20 sounds like an excellent introduction to roleplaying for newcomers. Unfortunately, it isn't due out until next year.

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