When my daughter was five I used Faerys Tale from Green Ronin as her introduction to RPGs. It went very well and eventually we moved on to Basic D&D, 1e AD&D, 6e Call of Cthulhu and Classic Traveller.

https://greenroninstore.com/products/faerys-tale-deluxe-pdf

@ForgottenF

Aside from not having D&D- or OSR-style stats and game mechanics, would you consider Ironsworn? It hits all of the other parameters you mentioned and, due to the way content is generated, using published adventures is not unnecessary. It's also incredibly easy to hack if you want to incorporate non-human PCs.

Quote from: Klava on April 21, 2023, 10:21:19 AM
I'm looking for something reasonably uncomplicated and easy to get into. Also not very brutal to start with. I have my own setting in mind (it's more or less your general fantasy), so I just need a system to build upon.

I found Scarlet Heroes, which seems to me designed exactly for my situation here and I like it a lot, but I would like some more options before I start hacking at stuff. Any advise?

Easy - Swords & Wizardry White Box, an absolutely terrific clone of the original D&D box set from 1974. Extremely simple and, being a clone of the game that started it all, also the perfect introduction to fantasy RPGs. The best version available now is the Fantasy Medieval Adventure Game edition (FMAG). As my good friend capitalbill summarized:

"The impetus of WB:FMAG was to take the last printing of Swords & Wizardry: Whitebox that had been released to the fans/put out to pasture- clean up the formatting, correct some errata, add some illustrations, and some art.

In my opinion, I think Charlie Mason did a good job. And buy in is inexpensive as there are three different covers available on the cheap on Amazon, Drivethru, and Lulu."

Quote from: ronwisegamgee on April 23, 2023, 08:07:33 AM
@ForgottenF

Aside from not having D&D- or OSR-style stats and game mechanics, would you consider Ironsworn? It hits all of the other parameters you mentioned and, due to the way content is generated, using published adventures is not unnecessary. It's also incredibly easy to hack if you want to incorporate non-human PCs.

I was not familiar to Ironsworn, but I do have some experience with Dungeon World, and from a cursory read of the Ironsworn rulebook pdf, it seems that the two games are very similar in design sensibility and structure.

I considered mentioning Dungeon World in my previous post, because it does meet some of the criteria I mentioned. Here's why I didn't: The unique selling point of tabletop RPGs, as opposed to similar mediums like videogames or choose-your-own-adventure books, is the idea that your options are limited only by the game scenario and your own imagination. That's more or less true in different games, depending on both the system and the GM.

The thing about "Powered-by-the-Apocalypse" games (including Ironsworn from what I can see) is that they're at the far end of that spectrum. The "moves" system presents itself as a menu of options you browse through and pick from, rather than as in-character choices which then have dice rolls to game-ify them. They also frequently want to commodify your character's goals and motivations, which restricts roleplay. A good GM can flex the game around that to allow for more creative play, but they'll be fighting the system to do so.

All of that is a long way around to go to say that I don't think PBTA games do a good job representing the RPG medium and it's strengths to a new player, and run the risk of giving them an inaccurate idea of how RPGs are meant to be played.

As far as Ironsworn particularly goes, the Move descriptions do seem to be a little more open-ended than what I've seen in some other PBTA games, but there's still a lot of individual actions and jargon to learn. I'll try and use an example from the book:

Let's say the player wants to convince a tribal chief to do something: Either the player or the GM has to recognize that as a "Compel" move, go to the appropriate page, and work out which attribute to roll it with. Then, the player has to roll both their "Challenge" and "Action" dice, compare the results, and then compare the result of that comparison back to the results table for the "Compel" move. And that result probably means they roll another test. So let's say they got a miss. The player now flips to the "Pay the Price" table, and chooses a result, possibly having to roll more dice to get it. Only then does the GM decide what that result means in the fiction of the game

By comparison: if the player wants to take that action in Index Card RPG, the GM just says "Ok, that's going to be a hard charisma roll", the player rolls one die, and the GM tells them what happens.

On the other hand, as you can probably guess, I have a pretty low opinion of the whole design ethos behind PBTA, so if you like it, my opinion probably isn't worth much to you.

Quote from: ForgottenF on April 23, 2023, 12:18:08 PM

Quote from: ronwisegamgee on April 23, 2023, 08:07:33 AM
@ForgottenF

Aside from not having D&D- or OSR-style stats and game mechanics, would you consider Ironsworn? It hits all of the other parameters you mentioned and, due to the way content is generated, using published adventures is not unnecessary. It's also incredibly easy to hack if you want to incorporate non-human PCs.

Let's say the player wants to convince a tribal chief to do something: Either the player or the GM has to recognize that as a "Compel" move, go to the appropriate page, and work out which attribute to roll it with. Then, the player has to roll both their "Challenge" and "Action" dice, compare the results, and then compare the result of that comparison back to the results table for the "Compel" move. And that result probably means they roll another test. So let's say they got a miss. The player now flips to the "Pay the Price" table, and chooses a result, possibly having to roll more dice to get it. Only then does the GM decide what that result means in the fiction of the game

By comparison: if the player wants to take that action in Index Card RPG, the GM just says "Ok, that's going to be a hard charisma roll", the player rolls one die, and the GM tells them what happens.

On the other hand, as you can probably guess, I have a pretty low opinion of the whole design ethos behind PBTA, so if you like it, my opinion probably isn't worth much to you.

You're honestly doing the same thing in both games: you come across a situation that mandates a dice roll, you roll the dice, and then the GM interprets the results in accordance with the fiction. Ironsworn and PbtA simply provide more guidelines on how to deal with failed dice rolls than ICRPG.

But like you said, you have a low opinion of that style of game, so we'll just move on with our lives

D&D was being played one-in-one and for small groups from the start.

Sacrifice - An Incense & Iron RPG is billed as ideal for one-on-one play. Moreover, it is human-centric and has no magic to keep track of. However, it might be too brutal for a younger player unless your nephew is a fan of the manga Berserk.

this a bit of a necro-post, but i wanted to thank everybody for the help and let you know how it went, guys.

it took a lot longer than i expected, because computer games got there first with my nephew (who'd have thought). and so i went the way i got into the hobby myself in the past - we played some computer games with the dude at first: Dragon Age, Divinity Original Sin, Solasta. at some point i explained what all of that is ultimately originates from, and how the table top version of the same stuff is different from playing within the scripted constrains in CRPGs.
eventually we got to play my little home brew game based on Scarlet Heroes rule-set (shout out to Kevin Crawford and Sine Nomine Publishing). i used some of the advice given at this thread - special thanks to Brad, i basically took his advice from the first reply in this whole, and it worked very well - though, as they all want to play fucking Harry Potters, i gave health potions and a wand of magic missiles, instead of plate . i even got the missus to role-play a magical possessed flying broom that had to be persuaded to carry the PC over a chasm.
generally, it didn't go the way i expected at all - which is mostly my fault for being a terrible GM - but, surprisingly, i'm now looking at more players joining my table, which is fucking terrifying >_<

still, thanks all. this was great fun, even though i did shit a bunch of bricks in the process

Call of Cthulhu works pretty well for this.  You could rune the Alone Against with 1 player and a GM easily.  Paper Chase is also written for 1-2 players.

If it's just one player and the GM, I'd probably say find a solo RPG and use that instead but just curate the random roles into something you can work with for both your enjoyment and come up with the story beats mostly yourself instead of having the player do the heavy lifting.

Quote from: Klava on December 20, 2024, 03:37:58 AMgenerally, it didn't go the way i expected at all - which is mostly my fault for being a terrible GM - but, surprisingly, i'm now looking at more players joining my table, which is fucking terrifying >_<

The game not going the way you expect is half the fun! IME more players actually makes the DM's job easier (up to a point of course). More people talking is less "airtime" you need to fill as DM and more ideas being thrown out for you to riff off of. It's less pressure on each individual player to always be involved, too. They can speak up or pipe down as their interest/inspiration in what's going on waxes and wanes. Maybe it's just different experience, but I'd be way more nervous about running a game for 1 or 2 players than I would for 5 or 6.

If you're running a game with two players, just rock on with whatever game you want.  Every game I've run works well with 2 players.  With your wife in tow as a player, then something like XDM or ICRPG would be perfect.

If you are going to do a one on one game and you're not locked into a genre, then I recommend Traveller.  Here you have the opportunity to really get the most out of a system and every boy loves the gear porn.  It's not as complex as it seems at first blush either and you can drop the ship operations stuff to simplify it even more.  In my experience, young boys prefer a tighter system rather than a rules light system if the math is straight forward. 

A piece of advice to give you running for a youngster is to give them a clear goal from the out set.  "You've been hired by worried parents to find their missing daughter and bring her home."  Once they figure out the concept of they are on a job then you can introduce the idea that they can pick jobs after a couple of adventures.

(If you're wondering how to drop the ship ops Traveller, then just treat the ship like a bus where there's no combat and a pilot that does the driving for you.  I also did a Stargate type game where the PCs would jump to a world with no gate with a portable gate and it was their job to connect to the network and open up travel.)

Some of my best memories from this hobby come from a D&D 5th ed game I ran for two friends for the better part of a year. There really wasn't anything that needed changing other than having a decent idea of what challenges two players could handle. Im sure the same would go for most other games.

So this is where I'm doing a shameless plug for a couple of friends of mine who run 5E adventures with just a DM and a single player. Worth checking out if you want to feel inspired. It's called 'In Two the Dungeon'. See link below:
https://open.spotify.com/show/3Bu4IF4D2REG3FepbhX9ms?si=X1SUOCbeTB6pdX5Zo8d3XQ

White Box Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game, is $5 in paperback on Amazon.  A complete game, that presents original D&D plus the Thief class, for $5.  That's a deal.