I'm New to Tabletop Role-Playing

Welcome! This section will assume you know basically nothing.

What is a Tabletop Role-Playing Game (TTRPG)

Anybody can play pretend (role-play), but without any structure, things tend to fall apart. TTRPGs seek to create a foundation for you to make stories with your friends (game). They are designed to be played with pen, paper and dice (hence tabletop), but such things can also be substituted for dice rolling programs and sharing your screen over discord.

For a game like Nick Nacks, the idea is to let you pretend to be in a living breathing fantasy world where strange creatures like elves and goblins are the norm. It assumes you are playing a small group of people with specialized training and high ambitions. This could mean preventing world ending catastrophes from ancient powerful forces like dragons, or it could mean trying to start up a business in a cutthroat world of magic and mayhem.

The moment to moment gameplay typically involves the Game Master (GM) describing environments, mannerisms of people in the world and how the world reacts to the players actions. The GM plays the role of referee and author, writing the framework for the story and arbitrating how events unfold. Players are typically presented with problems, quests and enemies to overcome with clever solutions or overwhelming force. A very simple interaction could involve the following sequence.

Game Master - Describes details about a scenario, say an unsavory bar at a coastal town. Player - I want to talk to the unsavory pirates. Player 2 - I'll watch from the sides to make sure nobody gets up to any funny business Game Master - Describes how they react, what they say and how they brandish their weapons when someone unfamiliar approaches. Player 2 - I don't like that. I'll get ready to sneak attack them. Player - Hold on, maybe they're friendly. Game Master - They are most certainly not friendly. Player 2 roll stealth and see if you surprise...Unfortunately they see you coming, roll initiative.

Combat is how you will be spending a good amount of your time. Many classes (like fighter) are designed almost exclusively to excel in combat. More details on that below.

What is combat?

In fantasy, you will encounter a wide variety of problems: Magical rituals that need to be stopped, infestations of giant rats and shapeshifters weaved amongst political allies. Combat is not always necessary, as some players may enjoy trying to solve problems with their wits over their weapons. But combat is inevitable in some situations, where ideals clash and lives are on the line. Some players only really care about the combat. It takes a bit of playing the game yourself to figure out where you fall on the spectrum.

Nick Nacks, and games like it, are turn based. The way initiative works guarantees a back and forth battle between the party of players and their foes. One player decides what they want to do, then an enemy, then an ally and so on. You fill your turns with spells and attacks until you complete your goal, none of your enemies remain, they surrender, or you need to make a hasty retreat.

Do I have to do a funny voice?

The role-playing aspect of Nick Nacks is what sets it apart from many other games like World of Warcraft or Skyrim. These games might advertise themselves as role-playing, but the choices you get to make are usually pretty slim. In skyrim when you approach a locked door, you can either pick it or use a key. Some doors don't even let you pick them for story reasons. Nice thief character!

In tabletop when you approach a locked door, you can pick it, you can break it down with raw strength, explosives. You can use magical abilities to circumvent it by shrinking to fit into the key hole. You can dig under or over it. Your ability to solve problems has limitations, but your options are typically only limited to your ability to imagine a solution. Not to mention, this is just a simple problem. Imagine the kinds of creative solutions you'll need to employ during a prison break or finding who is spying on the king!

The funny voice is short hand for speaking in character with an accent, and you do it as much as you want. Once upon a time, GMs may have not even allowed people to speak in character. You can use your voice, some other voice, or you can choose to only describe what your character wants to say. You could also just decide to be mute! I'm no voice actor, and I focus more on trying to stay in character more than trying to get any voice right.

You are playing a game after all, your main priority should be to have fun!