I was in the cast and did the music post-production for a playthrough of Last Train to Bremen with the One Shot Podcast, which is now nominated for an Ennie.
It's the story of a band who sold their souls to the devil for fame and are now trying to outrun the consequences. We improvised songs "from the band" as part of the game, and a lot of them slap. Here's one of the songs:
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Just a tiny ttrpg hot take. I see a lot of folks trying to recommend systems and using mechanical simplicity as the only criteria for beginner friendliness. I think we can be more helpful to anyone trying to break into this rather intimidating hobby by being a little bit more specific.
I got into ttrpgs as someone who loves math and logic and puzzles, but was terrified of role play and improv. For me, a crunchy system was WAY easier to break into. I had more scaffolding, more preset ways to interact with the world, and honestly sometimes I used the rules of the system, calling for a roll or asking a rules question or something, to kind of hide behind and give myself a break from long role play scenes. From there I was able to get comfortable and now I love both crunchy games and looser ones.
I think newcomers are often scared of both the "figuring out the rules" part of ttrpgs AND the "roleplaying and improvising" part. But while there are infinite resources to figure out the mechanics and rules, improv skills REQUIRE practice, and are much harder to help someone with through a reddit post. A newby willing to put in time can eventually figure out any rules system with maybe a book and the internet, but they won't get comfortably roleplaying before doing it.
I'm sure LOTS of people are more scared of math than acting even if they are scared of both. But this is something to keep in mind if you're trying to help a beginner. If you're talking to an experienced theater kid who hates math, point 'em towards a rules light system, but a video game nerd who never talks to anyone may find more complex rules to be less intimidating. Maybe link them to this post, to help them figure out themself where they want to start on the spectrum of super crunchy to super loose games.
(Even in my less math-savvy friends, I've seen lots of players use rules questions or calling on a game mechanic to "break out" of moments when they get overwhelmed in roleplay. IE, in a dnd game, when I give someone an intense line of dialogue and they aren't quickly sure how to respond, they might go "uhhhh, can I roll insight?" or something similar. I think this is a really really useful type of interaction that lets a player slow down play. It falls somewhere on the hierarchy of "tools for helping players establish boundaries and stay comfortable" because let's face it, no amount of healthy table dynamic will fully alleviate feeling of "I don't want to bother others by asking for x thing that would make me more comfortable". But also make sure new (and old) players know they can ALWAYS call for a break directly!)
As it says. Bonus question: what are some trends you'd like to see?
