My now 14 yo nephew has recently dabbeled a bit with perplexity.ai and roleplaying. Now he has expressed a desire to play TTRPGs. He lives to far away for me to show him a one-shot. Anything online would soon end with a huge time commitment of time I just don’t have. Plus we don’t have the same “primary” language.
Here’s a list of ideas I already proposed:
computer RPGs: it is most definitely not computer RPGs he wants to try. I checked that. When I recommended Baldur’s Gate 1,2,3, my sister said he had looked at that and that wasn’t what he wanted (he plays enough computer games, that I believe he has an idea what he rejected).
standard chat AI: whatever Perplexity already did only served to make him more keen on “the real thing”. so that is not enough. I don’t know of any chat AIs specialized on RPGs
Online communities (forums or mmo rpg servers): I doubt he is old/mature/socially adept enough to join any online community.
With his friends: Kids his age would normally try this with friends but for various reasons that is not an option.
Boardgames: I recommended some of the big modern boardgame campaigns. Most of those are solo-able but I am not sure if any of them have enough story elements to warrant doubling as a TTRPG simulation.
Choose your own adventure books: might be the best option to explore the space? Anyone know any particularly good ones that might be available in French?
Anything I am overlooking? Variants? Know of online communities designed for teenagers?
He’s not currently going to school due to a very complicated history of events that unfolded over the last few years. That he now expresses a desire to do play TTRPGs is special enough to warrant our attention.
I can’t say whether they’re available in French, but the “Fighting Fantasy” books (basically Choose Your Own Adventures but with RPG elements folded in) were formative for me when I wasn’t allowed to play TTRPGs in my youth (because Satan, as we all know).
They were really good experiences, even if they’re more limited in scope… I don’t know if there are new versions of the old FF books, but that’s where I’d start.
There are also a million and ten “Solo RPG” games available on DrivethruRPG. I know Tom (from SUSD) did a review of Thousand Year Old Vampire and… at least one other one… during the pandemic. They’d be worth a look. Usually they’re more like journaling exercises than pure RPGs, but there are a lot of them, so he can probably find one he’s interested in.
Failing all that, just grab a few RPG books that he’s interested in and let him read them. Again, during the Satanic Panic that’s all I was allowed to do, and even imagining running an RPG can be its own kind of fun.
@MichaelCule didn’t you do something like this with Masks?
I would definitely favour an investigative, interpersonal game over a game of killing everything that’s Not Like Us, but that’s my taste in general. More seriously something I’ve observed: if modern D&D is someone’s first RPG, they tend to assume that all other RPGs will be that hard to learn to play, so when they get bored with D&D they often stop roleplaying completely rather than try something else.
First step might be to identify a genre he likes and try to find something that fits that. It does no good for people to recommend things if they end up being genres your nephew has no interest in.
D&D can be hard to play. In my last session, there was a brief discussion on the difference between actions, bonus actions (you cannot forgo your action to do something listed as a bonus action), and stuff that just happens as a consequence of something else.
But there are many D&D-lite games that capture the same feel without being as rules-intense as D&D.
Current D&D is very hard to learn, although D&D5.5 is trying to make it more approachable.
It’s 172+ pages of rules divided over 3 books. And sure, you can ignore a lot of them eventually, but you have to learn them in order to know which to ignore.
It’s kinda tragic that it is the system that almost everyone is introduced to the genre through. When I learned, there were about 35 pages of rules and THAT was a lot.
Moving between the solo and multiplayer experience is pretty much seamless and does not require learning different systems. The French edition has been around for about a dozen years at this stage, so it is thoroughly tested.
The specific thing I’m getting at is not oveeall complexity but player-facing complexity. GURPS is complex, but I can teach someone to play it in a few minutes, because the basic loop is “what do you do”, then mechanics happen to resolve it, and mostly you’ll roll 3d6 against a skill. With D&D the player has to engage directly with the mechanics, to think in terms of the game’s own rules rsther than the world everyone is looking into: no “I hit him, but cautiously”, but rsther “I use feat X to do game effect Y so that next round I can use feat Z”.
Yeah maybe I just streamline stuff too much and find it easy! But I only really play D&D with my family - my inlaws and my kids aren’t too fussed about all that. Maybe I should try use another system for them but thats what I had!
On the other hand, this is exactly why some players love it and it might resonate really well with a teenager who might have experience with card games that have a similar rules engagement. Paradoxically, it can sometimes be easier for a player to engage with the mechanics and approach the game from a purely mechanical point of view than have an open-ended, freestyle form of roleplaying where they don’t feel as grounded and/or get stymied by the plethora of choices.
For example, GURPS has specific disadvantages for “negative” character traits with a specific mechanical effect whereas D&D does not. So, a player might engage directly with the GURPS mechanics rather than just play their character and have the GM adjudicate what that might mean.
It might be worth seeing if any nearby games shops/cafes have something like the place near me does: regular games where you just pay a fee and play in a one-shot game. Gives a chance to play without having to provide/organise anything but yourself. Usually welcoming to new players as it’s a way to acquire new customers
Yeh, one of the few strengths of D&D over other systems is that (unless you’re homebrewing a lot) it can be quite predictable. You push a button on your character sheet and stuff does what it says it does.
That sounds like a really good website. I will send it on. Thank you.
Based on his interests I already offered my sister my copies of Exalted, Avatar (AtlA based) and Blue Planet although they are all in English. I think he might enjoy Avatar. I am sure he has seen the show and he really likes anime so I feel like a system that is for dramatic combat like Exalted would do nicely. I also found the D10 based systems pretty easy to learn in the past.
I only know D&D in the form of Baldur’s Gate and that took some getting used to. The German D&D offspring Das Schwarze Auge became so complicated in its 5th edition that I refused to learn the new fighting systems. That came out just before our game fizzled out anyway… DSA turned too simulationist and that broke the system for me especially after having had a taste of games like Exalted or Feng Shui …
They live away from any big cities. I doubt there is anything nearby he could access. There is another reason (I didn’t mention yet) that makes a social setting difficult: due to the stressful events I mentioned his autism has manifested so strongly these days he has a difficult time interacting with anyone he doesn’t already know. It used to be a little easier for him.
The company that publishes Shadows of Esteren RPG is French, so perhaps have a look at their games and see if any are suitable.
This is their website for English speakers: https://shadowsofesteren.blogspot.com/
Funny you should mention that. We had a player join our face-to-face group, but he had only ever played online. It was novel for him to roll physical dice. He struggled a bit with the mechanics because (I’m paraphrasing) he was used to just pushing a button and having the VTT figure it all out.
They are available under the French range “Defis Fantasiques”. Maybe find a genre or theme he likes and start there: fantasy, sci-fi, superhero, horror, post-apocalypse etc.
