This post is a part of the #RPGaDAY series for 2024. For more information, see this post at AUTOCRATIK.
"RPG that is easy to use" covers a pretty broad spectrum! I think I've got a strong top two, though, that are easy in two different directions.
For a particular kind of introductory game, my go-to for a long time has been PSI*RUN (Meguey Baker/Chris Moore and Michael Lingner/Lumpley Games). I say a particular kind of introductory, because it's what I like to use for either new players or for players experienced in trad gaming to bring folks into the kind of gaming I like, which is kind of low-prep, high-improv, high-abstraction, but still strongly reactive to randomized outcomes. The core mechanics of PSI*RUN involve rolling a handful of dice where each die represents the result of something, and it's the player's job to dish out these results to some number of facets of the game. (Like, if I spend this "good" result on the power I used, I might have to spend a "bad" result on the consequences of it, sort of thing.) Characters start out pretty sparse and get filled out during play, so if the GM is already familiar with the game, then it's easy for everyone to just sit down and jump right in. The core mechanic maintains the die-rolling and random outcomes that I like, and the game makes good use of all die results (not just successes) being germane to the fiction and isn't about initiative and turn-by-turn combat. Pretty great game. It's an all-timer for me for sure. Plus I love games that have you churning out a bunch of index cards during play.
That one does involve a certain amount of facilitator...not rules mastery, per se, but familiarity and comfort with the structure of play, anyway. For a more "pick up and play" experience, for my money, it's tough to beat For the Queen (Alex Roberts/Darrington Press, with an extra nod from me to the original version put out by Evil Hat). This is 100% a game that you can never have heard of before, open up for the first time, and just sit down and play. It's a card-driven narrative game, GMless, super easy to get into and play, and the game teaches you how to play as soon as you crack it open and start reading the cards. There's no dice, no character sheets, no points or counters or anything like that. It's a pure storygame, so I don't lean on it as, like, an "intro to RPGs" or anything like that, but it's undeniably easy to play, and it's also gotta be one of my all-timers.
Today's alternate theme is "Portal." I'm gonna be real with you. I first rolled a 6, which would be my third random table in 6 days, so I wasn't feeling that. Then I rolled a 10 for "Draw!" which I have zero capacity to do. Then I rolled a 9, eavesdroppable dialogue, which I just did yesterday and which I also find so tough, and then finally a 5 for "Write a legend or rumor," so...I think I can handle that.
| They say there's a gate on the castle grounds that a person can only ever pass through once. It's not that it won't let you go through a second time. It's that if you go in a second time, the gate makes sure you come out the other side as someone else. |