Taking the Plunge

[Faster Master St. Pastor]

I've decided that I want to start playing RPGs, and to start a group, so, any suggestions on books or publishers to take a look at? Also any that would be good for a beginner, and also some books or publishers to keep the heck away from. Anything really would be nice, and don't pretend you don't know anything; I've seen those articles.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

well, what kind of setting do you want? RPG's run the gambit from sword and sorcery to hard sci-fi. to somewhere in between. What are your interests?

[Faster Master St. Pastor]

Swords and sorcery with a little sci-fi every once in a while.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

Weeeeell. It may be a little heretical of me, but look into D&D the core rules. I personally like d20 Modern more (all the rules you need in one book) but others hate it even though the rules arent really that different from D&D. Also GURPS is good for flexablility.

[Faster Master St. Pastor]

Define flexability please.

[Entsuropi]

Get a group. Play the games they play for a while. It's really not worth buying books until your certain you want to run something, and that you will be able to run that something (with the groups schedule, your spare time, etc). Spending money on RPG's is silly otherwise.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

Flexability? How about Universal, GURPS does just about everything from hard sci-fi to generic fantasy to superheros. Most of it could be done with the base books. But Ent is right, search around for groups first.

You may find that one persons favored game is another persons nightmare.

[MsFish]

I can't imagine trying to play in a game with no one who's ever played before.  There's enough confusion with experienced players.  Find an existing group and join them.  

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

thats funny because back in the day thats just what us old groganards did. We'd buy the D&D books and pour over them, learning the rules and experiment making character after character...

Then finally we'd run a game.

Its how I learned just about every game I ever played.

[Entsuropi]

That's how my very first roleplaying experience went. I bought the D&D PHB and tried running a game for a couple friends. Of course, it was a dismal failure and it took me another year odd to get another group.

[Fellfrosch]

That's also how I learned, but she has a really good point: it's so prevalent now, you really don't have to do that anymore. Finding a group and joining or sitting in is a great way to ease into it.

[MsFish]

It just seems silly to reinvent the wheel and try to run your own game from scratch your first time when you could learn from people who already know and save yourself the headache.

[42]

It does matter if you can find a group to join. Preferably one that meets regularly and at a time when you can be there. I would suggest asking around at the local game stores.

If you really want to form a group with existing friends, the D&D starter set is a good way to go.

Also I support your interest in learning to play pen-and-paper RPGs. I attribute my years of gaming to the completion and passing of my Statistics class after having not taken any math for many, many years.

[Faster Master St. Pastor]

It does matter if you can find a group to join. Preferably one that meets regularly and at a time when you can be there. I would suggest asking around at the local game stores.

See the problem with that is that I only know about one nearby, and I don't really like it all that much. I guess it's time to bring out the old phone book.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

yeah, you'll have to get over those issues.
I couldn't stand the Dragon's Keep when I lived out in Provo. Maybe it's improved, but back then it was dingy and the nerd factor was very high. HOwever, I still went there. Had to if I wanted to preserve my game and comic habits.