And on Day 6 of the RPGaDAY 2024 Challenge we get to talk about an RPG that is easy to use. The question that came to my mind when I saw this topic is “easy to use for the player or for the GM?” So I’m going to answer this both ways.
In my RPG “career” there was Dungeons and Dragons and then there was Star Trek The Role Playing Game by FASA. Soon afterwards came the Star Wars RPG by West End Games. It used a D6 system they had previously created for Ghostbusters and it ran very quickly. Since we were playing with a lot of fans that were primarily Star Wars more than RPG, it was very easy to explain the system to them. Even to this day I have fond memories of those sessions. I used this system in the first year of the Character Creation Challenge and I’m looking forward to the new Kickstarter for the D6 second edition. The new Planet of the Apes RPG will also be using a variant of this D6 system. I’ve also thought that the D6 system would be good for a classic Battlestar Galactica RPG or a Buck Rodgers in the 25th Century RPG.
As for the easiest RPG for a GM, that is currently up in the air. I’ve ran Dungeons and Dragons, Basic Fantasy, the FASA Star Trek RPG, the Doctor Who RPG by FASA, the Decipher Star Trek RPG, Star Trek Adventures and a few others. I’ve GMed at SaltCON and for friends. But I couldn’t really point to one and say “this was easier than that one”. Monte Cook Games brags that their system, Cypher System, is the easiest to GM (and homebrew/port items into the game). But I’d have to take a deeper dive into that before deciding if that statement it true or not. I think a good GM that can think on their feet can use just about any system to it’s strengths and advantages.
What systems have you found is easiest as a player or a GM? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.