Launch HN: StartPlaying.Games (YC W20) – Tabletop RPGs run by pro game masters

You can play any system any way, and popularity of D&D (especially online and in English-speaking countries) means that you're more likely to find the 5% of D&D players that want narrative-focused D&D than the 50% of World of Darkness or Call of Cthulhu players who want narrative-focused games. But there's enough of both to find someone on the internet.

Also systems come with setting and genre - if you like medieval fantasy and political intrigue Call of Cthulhu might not be for you (because it takes place in more modern times in real-world+ universe and it's mostly focused on horror/mystery). World of Darkness has a culture of focusing on narrative and acting over mechanics in this system, but it can be a little too "emo"/"existential horror" for some people. Or maybe it's my prejudice, I've never personally played it, just watched some games in the 90s.

If you don't like crunchy mechanics there's a very simple d6 system:

1 = you failed AND something bad happened

2 = you failed

3 = you failed BUT something good happened

4 = you succeeded BUT something bad happened

5 = you succeeded

6 = you succeeded AND something good happened

Your character sheet is just a table with free-form description of what you're good at (you roll 2d6 and choose better result) and what you're bad at (you roll 2d6 and choose worse result). DM can also give you more/less dices depending on how hard something is to do.

That's pretty much it - you can play it now :). I don't remember what was the name of that system but it's commonly played late-night at conventions - almost no setup required. And it tends to create games with little focus on combat.

Voice-acting is a matter of personal preference I think. I don't usually do it and I've never had problems in games where some people did it and some didn't.

Anyway - the key to having fun is to set expectations on the first session. Better to talk about it in advance than to waste time playing with people who want to have fun differently than you. The system is secondary (and you can always houserule stuff away if it's too complex for you).

Your sentiment reminded me of a very niche game that I got once, but couldn't get people to actually play. You're supposed to just go about your day, observe the life around you and sorta daydream / imagine stuff on top of that and then write physical letters about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Profundis_(role-playing_gam...

Hey, great idea! I have always wanted to start playing, but I don't know anyone interested in DnD. Having some GMs willing to introduce new players to the game is fantastic!

There are some comments here suggesting that the service might not make much sense since it should be easy to find someone willing to be a GM in a group of friends. I just wanted to say that that is not always the case :)

Cool. Pricing looks looks great. Low enough to justify a few hours of fun. High enough to only get people who really want to be there. Hopefully its enough to keep DMs engaged. Looks like me and my boys are going to dive into a star wars story.

In addition to the recommendations for Powered by the Apocalypse games (specifically Monster of the Week) I'd also encourage you to look into the FATE system, especially FATE: Accelerated Edition[0] and its SRD [1]. It's designed to be fairly light on the mechanics, and to help the GM and the players focus on the development of a story within those mechanics. I've been running a homebrew-story FAE game with a group of 4 friends and I really like the flexibility it gives us to focus on the narrative and character development. Also it's designed to be a pretty minimal time commitment to learn the rules well enough to give it a try.

[0] https://www.evilhat.com/home/fae/

[1] https://fate-srd.com/fate-accelerated/get-started