How to Start Playing Tabletop RPGs

Throw the Dice is a series exploring tabletop RPGs offering up GM tips, tricks and advice on various tabletop roleplaying game related topics. Each week this show will look at individual aspects of the tabletop RPG hobby and will break them down into understandable and easy to follow video guides, tutorials and discussions.

In this video ways to gather a party, choose a system, find friends to play with, set up online or physical play and finally get started with a tabletop RPG game will be covered.

This is aimed at new players/GMs who are entering the hobby and offers up some options to help get you started!

Music Credits:

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Streams Mentioned:

Virtual Tabletops Mentioned:

Systems Discussed:

Savage Worlds
Unhallowed Metropolis
Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition
Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition
Pathfinder
Call of Cthulhu
World of Darkness - Vampire, Werewolf, Hunter
Starfinder
Star Wars RPG

Cover art for the RPGs featured in this video are owned by their respective owners.

The Plague Knight fan art used within this video was not produced by myself, however, I could not locate the artist for credit. If you know of the artist or of them please let me know so I can reach out to them and give the appropriate credit!

Once again, thank you for watching!

[Validus]

This just appeared on my YouTube feed. I didn’t realize how badly I needed a video like this. Many, many thanks!

[luckycat]

Me and my friends will play next week for the first time. I'm so excited! I'm pretty lucky that my friends like Fantasy and the Idea of starting RPGs ^^ I wish we could have a larger Party, right now we're just 3 Girls..

[juliii]

I started seeing that RPG games got more recognized again, I wanted to try it out so here I am investigating how to play with my 3 best friends!

[catgath]

Putting your dice in a cup for rolling helps keep them from flying. I started bringing a large plastic bow because someone always rolls wildly.

[rhedinrage]

And Pathfinder is very rich in Lore. Golarion has a very relatable world to easily make a character backstory with. I'm glad you mentioned it. I think bringing Pathfinder forward is important. A lot or people over look it.

[elizataylor]

Omg this is extremely useful as I've been thinking of getting int d&d or something similar for awhile

[samsolitaryroll]

4 years late to the party...
From my experience, because I live in a place where tabletop faming is a rarity the 1st thing I searched for is online community, and 2nd I learned what most people plays in that community, which is D&D. I've been playing for 3 years and now I'm entering my 3rd step, playing other system... solo. I found out that I cant fit my time to most people's schedule, so solo run is pretty interesting for me to try. I've dived into Ironsworn and I really enjoyed it.

[Tectonix]

Even as someone who has been playing for a few years, this was awesome for learning about a few new systems :)

[lorelio]

Damn, that was an awesome introduction for beginners~!!
I'm glad I've found your awesome video, so I can send to new player for them to see a short, but very well build introduction to our hobby~!!

[artemiswyrm]

Important thing to know: Do not look to critical role to see how RPGs are actually played. Its an improv theater act played over an rpg system. It's kinda like porn. They are doing the same things mechanically but the emotions are overblown.

[chrstfer]

That was awesome, so many tools I didn't even know existed. Subscribed.

[graczunl]

I watched full 18 minutes of this and still have no clue of how this works. I didn't need an instruction to tell me to buy snacks, I need one to tell me how to actually play those. Can players just come up with their own moves or do you get them a list? Do the characters move around the map like in board games (1 point on a die = 1 square)?

[calvinhayman]

Star finder is really good because it feels very much like a d&d game. There’s a lot of different machanics becuse lazer guns but it’s still a grate game. There’s a massive amount of customization and interesting races to play

[veramMar]

What category do you use in ROLE GENERATOR?

[miki]

Haha great vid to pickup on this genre! well done please more :)
And your voice is really fun to listen to

[cintulator]

In my opinion the Chaosium and Cyberpunk mechanics work, but at least the total RQ mechanics are very complex.

[alison]

What about finding groups for more obscure rpgs like fudge? It's a system i really love but it's niche enough that there's nowhere i can think of to go for players.

[BlackJar]

BECMI D&D is still awesome ... now if I could find some players interested in it, or even Basic Fantasy. I suppose I could take-up 5e, if I could find a group, but wouldn't want to run it. (If I was rich I'd consider Torg: Eternity as an option.)

[AnthonyNekro]

Is there a tabletop rpg with psionics as a playable option

[rhedinrage]

And just as I was watching more. I've been searching for a local group for around 3 years with no luck. Looking to host rise of the runelords in Pathfinder.