Choosing your game, and why it matters.

Tabletop gaming isn't exactly serious business, it's about having fun. However that doesn't mean we can't try to squeeze out as much entertainment out of the precious time you spending playing these games. Obviously, having an incredible and fulfilling game in a system that is perfect for your players is much more rewarding than having a pretty good game with something that didn't quite fit. So how do you go about doing that? Let's start with what aspects we should be looking at.

What to ask yourself

What are your 'player types'? I find that one of the best places to start is with is the players at the table. You might not really know much about them, but it's not a bad idea to ask. If they aren't familiar with tabletop games, don't sweat it! Find out what their favorite genres are in any medium. Video games, film, TV shows, books, music; anything. Do they like movies with complex narratives, or are they more the type to binge watch cheesy action films? Do they enjoy the adventurous style of The Hobbit or prefer the grand, larger than life scenes from Lord of the Rings? These sorts of answers can help inform you about what kind of player types each one falls into. I won't go into detail here about what each player type is, but they really boil down to what the person wants or likes. The 'optimizer' is generally going to gravitate towards games that give them the ability to customize and fine-tune their characters, while the 'actor' wants to play out a character in a story.

Tabletop Experience. This one is essentially just asking yourself, and everyone at the table if they've played tabletop games before and what have they played. This can help you a lot, as if you have a whole table full of people who are all familiar with D&D, then it can be a huge relief. If you fall back on playing D&D again, they're familiar with it and will likely have an easier time focusing on enjoying the game. If you switch to another system they will probably have no problem learning some new rules. It also matters for the GM, as lack of tabletop experience can make things difficult. It's hard learning a whole new game while you're still learning the basic concepts of being a game master.

What level of complexity are you looking for? There isn't really a handy chart for this, so it's going to be a generalized 'level' of complexity. This comes down to:

• How many factors will be influencing the average die roll?
• Per action, how many rolls have to be made to determine the outcome?
• How extensive is the list of actions and skills that I have to keep track of?
• How many mini-games inside of my tabletop game are present? (I'm looking at you, Shadowrun)

The lower each of those are, the lower the complexity; the higher they are, the higher the complexity. It's pretty simple and for newer tabletop players I often will recommend going with something that is low to medium. It's one of the reasons I frequently recommend D&D 5E, Pathfinder, Exalted or even older editions of D&D to start out with. Once players are more familiar with these kinds of games (or if they ever want to move beyond them), I fully encourage people to check out other systems such as Vampire: The Masquerade, Shadowrun, Cyberpunk 2020, GURPs, Burning Wheel, etc. They may be harder to run, but once you get the hang of it they can be incredibly rewarding.

What are YOUR skills? As a game master, it's important to know what you're good at. Tackling a complex political game with a heavy emphasis on writing and roleplaying isn't exactly a great idea if you think politics and story are your worst areas. It's good to improve those by practicing but it's not exactly fun for the players if they're expecting one type of game and get a half-baked version of it instead. In my humble opinion, it's better to slowly introduce those elements until you feel comfortable diving head first into it. However let's get away from what you're bad at and focus what you're good at. Are you good at number-crunching and encounter designs? Pathfinder will likely be able to let you take advantage of those skills. Are you more the type to write intricate plot lines with a dark and gritty atmosphere? Well I think you'll like Cyberpunk ... You see what I'm getting at? Additionally, you may want to take your non-gaming skills such as art, coding, architecture, game design, etc, into consideration; these may be able to influence your decision as well. I really like creating old-looking fantasy maps, and so D&D is a natural go to for me; not only am I interested in it, I'm good at it. The players definitely notice and appreciate when the GM goes just that extra little mile with the map.

Setting. This one kind of goes without saying, and is sort of in the 'player types' paragraph, however this is more about taste and set pieces. If your players are absolutely in love with Star Wars, it wouldn't be a bad idea to look into the Star Wars RPG. However this also extends to things not directly linked to an intellectual property. Seriously, if all your players talk about is Ghost in the Shell, Akira, Fifth Element, Deus Ex, and the future of humanity with the oncoming of rapidly advancing human augmentations ... then you might want to ask if they're interested in Cyberpunk 2020 or Shadowrun. Or tell them to shut up and stop worrying about the coming dystopian future.

Not sure how to find a new game to run?

Don't worry the internet has got you covered ...

Google. Yep, I said it. I know you probably hate me now, but I had to add this one. There are plenty of websites out there with lists such as Top 100 Tabletop Roleplaying Games, and honestly, the lists usually aren't all that bad of resources. It's not going to tell you what you should play, but it may give you some leads to follow up on.

Reddit. If you hang around the tabletop subreddits enough you'll hear people mentioning all kinds of games, hell I learned that Eclipse Phase was a thing through seeing it in comments. Additionally, you can just ask, most of the subreddits are nice enough as long as you follow their rules.

Ask your players. They actually might have a suggestion, or they might even know exactly what game they want to play. If you have a more experienced player at the table, they might even be able to give you a list of recommendations so you don't have to do the digging yourself.

Just wing it! Don't be afraid to try a game. Dip your toes in a bit, try a ready-to-play module, skim through some rules online. You may find that simply reading the rules will get you interested, I know that happens to me way too often.

Altering your game ...

When all else fails and you're not quite sure, sometimes it's a safe bet to go back to what you know, and alter it a little bit to fit your needs. Here are some suggestions as to how you could go about doing that.

Thematic Changes. You're philosophically obsessed players are ready to go, you dropped the mention of cyberpunk and they're already calling you up to find out when they can start rolling up character sheets; but there's one problem, Cyberpunk 2020's rules are just too clunky. Someone is going to disagree with me on that I'm sure, but honestly, the mechanics might not sink in with everyone. My approach here would be to find another game with decent mechanics, D20 Modern, Shadowrun, Eclipse Phase, and strip out what you don't like. Strip out SR's magic rules, put Eclipse Phase on pre-fall earth, try to make D20 Modern not a god-awful mess ... Okay that last one I really can't recommend, it's gonna be a pain to do.

If you want something that's not sci-fi as an example, you could turn D&D into a low-fantasy game by simply disallowing any magic items and all the caster classes.

Change Rules. You might want to only change a rule or two, maybe you're altering the armor system in D&D to make characters more fragile, or your simply house ruling a few changes to make it more enjoyable for yourselves.

New Content. This doesn't necessarily mean to make new content, but to add new content. Add firearms to D&D, add extra classes to fit the campaign setting you're in, throw in some different races to spice up the mix. You can do a lot with almost any game by adding new content, and it can really change the tone of your game as well. For some systems you will likely be on your own, but for popular ones such as D&D and Pathfinder, you can find TONS of content online for use, and it's all user made. I can't guarantee that they will be quality posts either, so you'll have to at least skim through stuff before you add it, and I'd really recommend doing more than 'skimming' through class additions. If you do end up making your own content, I wish you luck, and hopefully I'll be making that into it's own post as well (or series of posts, it's a huge topic).

Well with that, I'd love to hear from you about any game systems you'd recommend. Preferably something you took a dive on and ended up loving.