How hard is learning a new TTRPG system?

[Wolfpack48]

I prefer systems that sit quietly in the background as opposed to those that shout for attention.

 

[GMMichael]

Practicum:

Follow these steps to make a level 2 character and jump right into Modos RPG. Refer to the rulebook or Rules Catalog for the complete rules. You can use this character sheet to get started.

1 Concept. Write down your character’s name, description, and a goal and a flaw.

2 Attributes. Assign scores, 14, 10, and 8, to the three attributes: physical (P), mental (M), and metaphysical (MP). The related bonus for 14 is +2, for 10 is 0, and for 8 is -1.

3 Skills. Choose a skill that your character does well, and give it 2 skill points. Skill points are reusable bonuses that you add to contests involving that skill.

4 Perks. Choose two perks from the perk list. Perks give you an edge beyond your attributes and skills.

5 Hero Points. You can add d6, called a Hero Point, to your contests when doing something heroic. Your character starts each day with 2 hero points to spend, and earns more from the GM for role-playing your flaw in spite of your goal (or just for being a great player). What your heroic effort means is up to you!

6 Gear. Use a gear list to equip your character, or assign a d8 to any weapons or armor you have. This is your damage die and protection die.

7 Role-Play. Describe or act out what your character does and says. If the GM asks for a die roll, help the GM describe the outcome.

8 Contests. If your character does something that might have an unfavorable result, the GM will ask you to roll a contest related to an attribute. This is a d20 roll to which you add that attribute’s bonus. Add skill points if you have a skill that might help. If your total is higher than the GM’s total, it is a Pro: a favorable outcome. If lower, it is a Con: an unfavorable outcome. A Tie can be a neutral result, a re-roll, or a Pro if the GM thinks you’ve been role-playing well. Use this information to role-play the outcome.

9 Initiate. To determine when your turn occurs in combat, roll a d20 and add the attribute bonus of your choice. This is your initiative contest.

10 Actions. In each round of combat, you get three actions to use during your turn or as reactions to other actions. On your turn, your actions happen first. On other turns, your actions happen a moment after characters with higher initiative contests.

11 Attack. To attack an opponent, use an action to roll a physical contest (d20 + physical bonus) and add the skill points from a fighting skill if you have one. Roll your weapon’s damage die separately. You add the damage roll to your opponent’s damage pool if your contest is a Pro or if your opponent doesn’t react by defending.

12 Defend. To defend against an attack, use an action to roll a physical contest and add Parry skill points if you have them. On a Pro, you take no damage. On a Con, you must take at least 1 damage.

13 Damage. Whenever you take damage, you reduce it by your protection against that type of damage. Add the difference to the damage pool of the corresponding attribute. If you have no protection, you take the full amount damage rolled. If you collect more damage than your attribute score, you are disabled and cannot take actions until you and the GM resolve your condition.

14 Healing. Each day, you remove one point of physical and mental damage. Each hour, you remove one point of metaphysical damage. If you are disabled, you cannot remove damage.

15 Magic. If you have a magic skill, you can use a magic power. Roll a metaphysical contest and add your magic skill points for that power, adding the power’s difficulty (D) as well. You must spend one action per power level to use the power. Add 4 + (power level) to your metaphysical damage pool. Then the power’s effect happens.

16 Magic Defense. To defend against magic, use an action to roll a defense contest the power’s magic contest. Against 1st level powers, one defense Pro saves you. Against higher level powers, one defense reduces the effect, and you must make additional defense contests to fully escape the power’s effect.

17 Take Half. For any roll, you can skip the roll and say that you rolled half of the highest number on the die.

How hard was that? Oh wait, there's one table too, although the numbers are just suggestions:

Bonus	Difficulty
0	Easy
4	Challenging
8	Difficult
12	Arduous
16	Impossible
20	Divine

 

[John Dallman]

Learning new systems isn't usually hard, but bad decisions at the editing stage can be a real problem. The last new-to-me system I learned was Unknown Armies, where a lot of the character sheet is about the mental wear and tear the characters suffer. What would be a SAN number in CoC has as much detail as everything else on the character sheet. However, the terminology about the categories of boxes that you mark off as you deteriorate is somewhat confusing, and we found that we were constantly asking the GM "Which column? Which row?" If there was an underlying logic, it remained opaque to us after 10+ sessions.

When there are a lot of terms-of-art that have closely related meanings in everyday language, they need to be categorised Very Clearly Indeed if people who use them a few hours a week for relaxation are to find that easy.

 

[MGibster]

I guess D&D might take a little longer? But most games don’t. And Pathfinder is obviously comparable to D&D in complexity. But 99% of RPGs take a few minutes to learn.

In my experience, it's not typically the complexity of the rules that's the problem it's getting people to try something new that's the barrier. I've been extremly fortunate to have a solid group of people willing to try new games even if it doesn't always work out. In the last twenty years, there have only been two games I can think of that I opted out of due to the perceived difficulty of learning new rules.

Exalted: I was invited to participate in a campaign and I was looking forward to it until I read the rules. I don't remember it being different from White Wolf's other games until I got to the section on Charms (I think). I went all googly eyed, put the book down, and told my friends I would not be participating in the game.

Shadowrun 5th edition: I read the rules, I understood the rules, but I had no desire to actually try getting my players to learn them. So I opted out very quickly.

 

[Willie the Duck]

I have two main groups. One that tries a different game system nearly every time (sometimes circling back to one or picking up another genre in the same system or family of systems, but oftentimes not). The other almost completely sticks to current edition D&D. To me, the noticeable thing is that in all other respects neither group seems specifically more... anything really... than the other. They are equally as bright, equally diverse backgrounds, equally nerdy (so neither group is a 'D&D is our own activity in the nerdosphere'), and so on.

One common reason folks choose not to play a different game to the one they’re used to is that they say they don’t have time to learn a new system. 99% of the time that’s about trying a game other than D&D 5E.

I think there are a few fundamental issues going on, but the first is that it isn't really the time to learn the game (at least the picking up the primary play loop) that is the real concern (IMO, of course).

1. Firstly, beyond the basics of what dice to roll when and which resources to check off, there are nuances and rhythms and cadences to games, well beyond how you do things in them. It takes moments to learn how to play a character in B/X D&D. It takes a session to realize that it is not a game to leap headlong into danger. It takes multiple sessions to learn how to prepare successfully for an adventure or to fill out your caster's spell loadout. More session to learn what issues are nonstarters/hard/easy at what level*, and maybe ongoing strategies (like gp=xp and finding ways to get treasure without confronting the owners). It might take a season to figure out which risks are worth taking and which are cost sinks, and a whole year or more (depending on how often you play/quickly you advance) to get a bead on a reasonable smattering of the monsters you are likely to meet. *Ex: climbing spells and thief percentiles reach reasonable expenditure by level 3, anything requiring flight can be done at level 5 but is costly, going through a solid wall is past that, etc.
2. Secondly, not only is that extended time above, well, time; but it also is time where you the player are more vulnerable than when you are on top of a game system. Vulnerable to failure, loss, and most importantly sudden loss where they might feel like they didn't have the knowledge required to have made the correct decision that would have prevented the loss. That's part of the learning process, and if you're looking to learn, you generally don't mind a few 'oh, okay. Well, learning experience I guess' fubar moments. However, in general when I see people unhappy with changing up the game, it's because they weren't the one who suggested the change (so it isn't specifically what they were looking for).
3. That's the third point. Oftentimes when I see a group contemplate a shift in games after a long time of not doing so (particularly from D&D to anything else). It is often at the insistence of one member saying that some other game system does ________ better. Oftentimes that ________ is something that one person is already passionate about, and others are kinda dragged along with the promise that the experience will improve. So not only is the sell that people have to be vulnerable to starting over and risk embarrassing loss and feeling less in control of their gaming experience, it's often done for the benefit of someone else in the group (which reasonably people should accommodate upon occasion, but point being it's part of the burden section of the pitch, with a reward section that often is very nebulous).

If someone says they don't want to learn a different system, I say that is cool and let it ride. Often the statement has baggage which doesn't need to be unpacked, and much of it being they are in their happy spot, which is cool.

I mean, I think that's a lot of it. They are still enjoying playing the game, and no one has really convinced them that they should change.

Relatedly, maybe its the way things are slotted in ones head. If it is a D&D group or a bridge foursome or a chess club or... (pick one thing) then there is psychological momentum for that one thing. If it is a board game playing club or a card playing group or (pick a general type of thing) then there is a push to learning the new ones.

This is the another major issue. Some people are going to their D&D group, not their RPG group; and it is just like going to Chess Club instead of Board Game Club -- which is to say they aren't necessarily looking to change what they are doing or feel they are losing out by not doing so. No, it doesn't feel stagnant, because Joe over there has perfected his Réti opening and trying to get around that is proving challenging. And Jane over at D&D has an illusionist who is trying to actually stick to illusions most of the time. And so on.

 

[Thomas Shey]

And figuring out what to get their character every time they level up, be it an ASI, a feat, or a spell. How will getting one of these benefit my character? How will one of these help out the rest of my party?

There's always the question whether character building and development and enjoyment therein is part of exactly the same game as actually playing, but its certainly adjacent and hard to argue some people at least don't enjoy the process. (Oddly enough this can be a limiting factor with some game systems too; if I've got a pretty specific concept I'm working with, struggling with the system to realize it in creation and advancement can be a downside, though how critical a one depends on the system and how specific it is).

 

[Thomas Shey]

I prefer systems that sit quietly in the background as opposed to those that shout for attention.

And in the same vein of statement, I prefer ones I can actually engage with over ones that lay there like a limp noodle.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Practicum:



How hard was that? Oh wait, there's one table too, although the numbers are just suggestions:

I not only didn't consider it hard, it seems perhaps excessively simplified by my standards (certainly the character definition part was).

 

[Thomas Shey]

In my experience, it's not typically the complexity of the rules that's the problem it's getting people to try something new that's the barrier. I've been extremly fortunate to have a solid group of people willing to try new games even if it doesn't always work out. In the last twenty years, there have only been two games I can think of that I opted out of due to the perceived difficulty of learning new rules.

Exalted: I was invited to participate in a campaign and I was looking forward to it until I read the rules. I don't remember it being different from White Wolf's other games until I got to the section on Charms (I think). I went all googly eyed, put the book down, and told my friends I would not be participating in the game.

Shadowrun 5th edition: I read the rules, I understood the rules, but I had no desire to actually try getting my players to learn them. So I opted out very quickly.

Interestingly, even though I'm fairly fond of relatively complex systems, I felt the same way about Exalted and largely because of the Charms; I've noted before I don't consider heavy duty exception based design a virtue, and Charms are that taken to 11.

Oddly, I didn't find any real issues with the SR5e when I read it (though I suspect I'd need to engage with the hacking rules more to utilize it properly, but they seemed more manageable than any prior edition I'd read, so...) and nothing much put me off on my one read and one-off session.

 

[Wolfpack48]

And in the same vein of statement, I prefer ones I can actually engage with over ones that lay there like a limp noodle.

Just make sure it introduces at least 20 new terms for doing stuff that no one has heard of before.