How long does a game take? Can you sensibly chop one up into hour long sessions?

The problem with doing it at the Cottage is that it will take a loooong time.

I imagine I'll have exactly the same conversation apart from the bit about the Mac and it'll be my wife instead of yours.

My wife seems susceptible, maybe you should just ask her?

I've just told my wife that I'm going to get the mac fixed and start playing D&D online and she's given me her blessing with minimal eye rolling and I'm sure only a half second where she wondered how she'd ended up married to such a huge nerd.

I imagine I'll have exactly the same conversation apart from the bit about the Mac and it'll be my wife instead of yours.

Ask your wife? Well, I could... but I don't really know her to be honest.

I think I'll stick with asking my wife if it's all the same.

Seriously though, yeah.. my wife puts up with my nerdy activities. I've seen her roll her eyes several times but I still carry on.

Mac??

D&D would be a start but I do wonder if you'd do better with a more basic game to begin with to see how ironing out the technical bits would work (so a tabletop game instead ?)

Also D&D is really dull, both mechanically and in terms of setting.

Only if you think D&D means Forgotten Realms.

Forgotten Realms is AD&D. As are the fun settings like Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Planescape, and Spelljammer.

I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how technically correct I am.

D&D would be a start but I do wonder if you'd do better with a more basic game to begin with to see how ironing out the technical bits would work (so a tabletop game instead ?)

For campaign stuff there have been a few humble bundles which included RPG books plus campaign maps (if your quick you have 2 hours left for this weeks one : https://www.humblebundle.com/books/fict ... ook-bundle )

What we used to play a long time ago was MERP which was a slightly scaled down version of Rolemaster but set in middle earth (MERP = Middle Earth Role Playing) - they produced around 30 or so campaign packs which basically were all based around areas of middle earth and gave you flaura / fauna and notable NPC's in the area (the ones that i instantly remember are Mirkwood and Shelobs lair - http://www.icewebring.com/ice-products/ ... d%20Shelob - http://www.icewebring.com/ice-products/ ... ood%202700 )

A while ago I grabbed a torrent which was just PDF's created from these which i could dig out if you (or anyone else) was interested in them - the advantage of that is you start with a lot of the background data filled in already - most people know of the different creatures / races / etc and have a rough idea of how the politics and racial tensions fit

Also D&D is really dull, both mechanically and in terms of setting.

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Spelljammer was part of FR, FFS.

Spelljammer overarched most of the other settings in the official canon. You could fly from Forgotten Realms to Dark Sun to Ravenloft.

You to cast 'comprehend languages'

You to cast 'comprehend languages'

Anyway.

I tend to prefer dicepool systems rather than D&D style 'single dice with modifiers' style. Just because it's usually easier to grasp "you want to punch him? Add up the number of points you have in Dexterity and Brawl, and roll that many dice. Count up the number of dice that are higher than 7." Rather than "roll 1d20 add and take away a bunch of modifiers that you don't really understand yet."

For new players the dicepool tends to be a lot less complex to understand, but tends to require a little more effort on the DMs part (working out what skills are required when you do something obtuse and setting target numbers and what varying numbers of success actually mean).