#discworld starters

[rpmemes-galore]

Discworld ... sentence starters

“I'm your worst nightmare!“

“And if the truth is terrible?“

“I'm not a lady. I'm a witch.“

“Cake is not the issue here.”

“I assure you I will not kill you.”

“Good. No preconceived ideas.“

“I am so fed up with being young.”

“Is this a dagger I see before me?“

“The money should be on the inside.“

“It’s a sword! It’s not meant to be safe!”

“I hope you're not going to kill anyone.”

“History needs shepherds, not butchers.“

“I’ve heard of them. Bloody dangerous things.”

“Open your eyes and then open your eyes again.“

“When you break rules, break 'em good and hard.“

“People don't want to see what can't possibly exist.“

“The answer is that, terrible or not, it is still the truth.”

“It's like chess, you know. The Queen saves the King.“

“I just think the world ought to be more sort of organized.“

“We walk out of here unharmed or the girl gets it, all right?“

“Don't put your faith in gods. But you can believe in turtles.“

“You’re saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable.“

“Oh, all true. Most of them. A bit of exaggeration, but mostly true.“

“It would seem that you have no useful skill or talent whatsoever.”

“You've haven't really been anywhere until you've got back home.“

“You cannot fool me anymore. Or touch me. Or anything that is mine.”

“You had to find the truth for yourself. That is how we all find the truth.“

“I'm the one where this man comes out of nowhere and kills you, stone dead.“

“It seems that you have managed to retain this even though you are authority.”

“It's not gambling to play against someone who's no good. It's common sense.“

“You mean... the one with the giant cabbage and the sort of whirring knife thing?“

“I always used to consider that you had a definite anti-authoritarian streak in you.“

“She doesn't stand there and scream helplessly. She makes other people do that.”

“Ye mustn't be afraid to ask for help. Pride is a good thing, my girl, but it will kill you in time.“

“You can sort of tell the difference if you look closely. It doesn't have as many sharp edges.“

“You forced the world to give it to you, no matter the price, and the price is and always will be high...“

“Sometimes the moon is light and sometimes it's in shadow, but you should always remember it's the same moon.“

“What we're going to do is keep the peace. That's our job. We're not going to be heroes, we're just going to be... normal.”

“But you've found it, even if at the time you didn't know what it was you were finding, and you grabbed it by its scrawny neck and made it work for you.“

“No-one likes being told it's their lucky day. That sort of thing does not bode well. When someone tells you it's your lucky day, something bad is about to happen.“

“You think there are the good people and the bad people. You are wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides.“

“Odd thing, ain't it... you meet people one at a time, they seem decent, they got brains that work, and then they get together and you hear the voice of the people. And it snarls.”

[xylophone888]

i like to headcanon that rincewind dated trymon briefly when they were both still students at the uu and that's at least part of the reason why he fought the guy with such uncharacteristic determination

like, imagine your absolute dickhead of an ex not only actively tries to destroy the entire world with their absurdly powerful magic abilities but also directly puts in danger your current greatly beloved, you'd probably be at least mildly annoyed too

[thydungeongal]

What are some of your favorite OSR / BX dungeons and modules?

Oh this is a fun question! First of all, there's Necrotic Gnome's first two Old-School Essentials modules, The Incandescent Grottoes and The Hole in the Oak. These two dungeon crawls actually connect to form one big starter level dungeon which has enough to explore for dozens of sessions. They also demonstrate a lot of the best practices of a good dungeon crawl: there's intelligent creatures living in these dungeons with actual interests and desires, and they don't mindlessly attack player characters unprompted. The group I've been running this for instantly went and negotiated with some kobolds they ran into, despite the language barrier!

The Stygian Library and The Gardens of Ynn by @cavegirlpoems are "depth-crawls" that are broadly compatible with pretty much every OSR game under the sun. The former features an infinite library that is not unlike L-space from Discworld (an infinite space connecting all libraries in existence) where one can theoretically find any book in existence, while the latter features an infinite garden that seems to operate on fairy tale logic. The Stygian Library has an easier "hook" for inserting it into a campaign, since it has a mechanic for tracking the party's progress in finding a piece of information they're looking for, so whenever a party is without some piece of information the GM can simply hint at the existence of the library, while The Gardens of Ynn doesn't have such an easy hook, but simply the idea of exploring the garden is often enough to draw in characters. Both use a procedure for basically making a randomly generated point-crawl where mapping out the exact space doesn't matter as much as the rough relationships of places of importance to each other. Eventually results on the tables will lead to "deeper" locations having secret shortcuts back to earlier locations, and with enough time spent exploring them the map will end up looking very strange and convoluted.

Barkeep on the Borderlands is an event-based "pub crawl" where player characters must look for a missing antidote for a local ruler amid an almost Mardi Gras-like festival. While the module uses a lot of procedures from the Errant RPG, as written it is actually more immediately compatible with B/X. It adds dynamic rules for drinking into the mix and has a huge bunch of cool locations and fun NPCs to encounter.

Ultraviolet Grasslands and the Black City is an absolutely massive point-crawl module that comes with a system attached so it is technically a stand-alone product. It is an absolutely fantastic adventure of leading a caravan through a massive science fantasy sandbox inspired by prog rock covers and the art of Jean Giraud, aka Mœbius.

Tomb of the Serpent Kings by skerples is an absolutely fantastic starter adventure. The purpose of the adventure is to provide something akin to a "Super Mario Bros level 1-1" of old-school play, where players will learn the principles of the old-school playstyle through actually playing the module. It is a fantastic module and completely free!

[potato-lord-but-not]

I was thinking of starting to read discworld books, and since you're a fan of them, i was wondering if you have a recommendation as to which book to start with? (so far online I've seen that it doesn't really matter where you start, but nothing more)

you’re talking to the moist von lipwig guy himself, so naturally I need to recommend going postal as a starter book. Really good intro to discworld as a whole and also just. the best book hands down.

[snippit-crickit]

In what books from discworld does Angua appear?? Your fanarts are amazing and I really want to know more about her ;;

AY!! sorry for the late response but im happy to hear:DDD!!! Her character gets introduced in Men at arms but i actually liked her most in Feet of Clay, its where she gets to hang around with another character, Cheery and their interactions are super cute imo!!!! So maybe id read Feet of Clay for angua? Also no angua involved but general tip for anyone to read Guards!Guards! if they havent already because its a starter id say,,, also regadring werewolves in media i gotta admit i am biased, i was the wolf kid in school and some of it is still prominent i think people should be allowed to walk on all fours and howl to the moonlight from time to time

[betterthanapokeintheeye]

[News - Discworld RPG is Fully Funded]

Congratulations to MODIPHIUS for getting fully funded status on their Kickstarter by smashing their target 25 times* more than their initial target.

They ended their Kickstarter with over £2,250,000 pledged by over 16,000 backers.  That's a whole lot of dice !

If you didn't pledge, you can still do so on Kickstarter right up until they move to their Pledge Manager.  

Don't forget, their retail products will be different to the Kickstarter products.

As Chris Birch of Modiphius told us last month with regards to the retail offering ...

"It will be a starter set designed to play the moment you open the box with everything you need, with a new adventure, expand alone supplements with new content, new dice and a smaller digest size version of the core book. This won't include any content available in the Kickstarter so anything you buy in retail will be new (except rules). This supports stores so they get something unique as well"

Modiphius plans to get Terry Pratchett's Discworld RPG: Adventures in Ankh Morpork out to their backers in August 2025. 

* Not quite but its a nice number to report!

[tabletopgayventures]

My current list of Tabletop Roleplaying Games.

13th Age

1879

A Grim Hack

Aberrant 

Absolute Power

Abyss

Accursed 

After The War

Anima Beyond Fantasy

Animal Adventures:  The Faraway Sea

Apocalypse World

Arkham Horror The Roleplaying Game Starter Set

Ars Magica 4th Edition

Arzium

Avatar Legends Starter Set

Babes in the Wood

Badger + Coyote and their Daring Adventures 2E

BattleTech:  A Time of War

Beacon Tabletop RPG

Beam Saber

Blades in the Dark

Bulldogs

Bunkers & Badasses

Cairn

Call of Cthulhu

Candela Obscura

Cantrip

Cats of Cathulhu

Chaos 6010

Champions Now

Collateral Damage

Contagion 2e

Cortex Prime Game Handbook

Cosmic Patrol

Cowboy Bebop Roleplaying Game

Coyote and Crow

Cthulhu Awakens

Cthulhutech

Cypher System 

Daisy Chainsaw

Deathmatch Island

Defiant Role Playing Game

Denial & Yearning

Dialect

Dinocar

Dinosaur Princesses

Discworld RPG

Dragon Age Roleplaying Game

Dragonbane

Dread

Dream Machines

Dresden Files Accelerated RPG

Dungeon Crawl Classics

Dungeons and Dragons 3.5

Dungeons and Dragons 5e

Durance

Dwelling

Epitaph

Epoch

Essence 20

Fabula Ultima

Fantasy Age

Fate Core System

Fever Nights Role-Playing Game

Flabbergasted

Fragged Empire

Fratboys Vs

Girl By Moonlight

Glitter Hearts

Goblin Quest

Goblin Slayer TRPG

Gods of Metal:  Ragnarock

Hannukkah Goblins

Have Axe, Will Travel

Hellfrost

Here, There, Be Monsters!

Hero Kids Fantasy RPG

Heroes Against the Darkness

Hopes and Dreams

Hounds 

I’m the Badguy?!?

In Nomine

In the Ashes

Inevitable A Doomed Arthurian Western

Ink

Interns In The Dark

Into the Dungeon

Jiangshi:  Blood in the Banquet Hall

Jordenheim

Katana-Ra

Kids on Bikes 2nd Edition

Killshot an Assassin’s Journal

Konosuba TRPG

Leverage The Quickstart Job

Lilliputian Adventure on the Open Seas

Little Fears Nightmare Edition

Lost Roads

Marvel Multiverse RPG

Mermaid Adventures

Micro rpg book

Modern Age

Monster of the Week

Moonlight On Roseville Beach

Mork Borg

Motel Spooky Nine

Musketeers vs. Cthulhu

Mutant Year Zero

My Mother’s Kitchen

Necrobiotic

Never Going Home

Night Shift:  Veterans of the Supernatural Wars

Night Wolves

Numenera

Odyssey Black Tales

OneDice Pirates & Dragons

One More Quest

Ork! The RPG

Our Woodland Gods

Outcast Silver Raiders 

Outgunned

Over the Edge

Overlight

Pasion De Las Pasiones

Pathfinder 1st Edition

Pathfinder 2nd Edition

Pathfinder Savage Worlds

Perils & Princesses

Pirate Borg

Power Rangers RPG

Prism

Psychic Trash Detectives

Punk’s Been Dead Since ‘79

Queerz!

Raccoon Sky Pirates

Raven

Rebels of the Outlaw Wastes

Reign

Rhapsody of Blood

Rivers of London

Ryuu Tama natural fantasy role play

Samurai Goths of the Apocalypse

Scum and Villainy

Shadowrun 5e

Shadows Of The Past

Shield Maidens

Shiver

Someone in this Tavern is a fucking mimic!

Spell The RPG

Squeeze

Star Trek Adventures Captain’s Log 

Star Trek Adventures The Roleplaying Game

Star Trek Adventures Second Edition

Star Wars 

Starfinder 1st Edition

Starfinder 2nd Edition

Stoneburner

Syma

Tangled

Temples and Tombs

The Bleackness

The Dark West

The Dread of Night

The Play’s the Thing

The Quiet Year

The Revenant Society

The Void

The Watch

Thirsty Sword Lesbians

This Discord has Ghosts in It

This house is Fucking Haunted

Thousand Year Old Vampire

Tomorrow City

Troika!

Unisystem

Urban Decay

Utopia

Vaesen

Vagabond

Valiant Universe

Variations On Your Body

Venture and Dungeon

Waffles For Esther

Wanderhome

Warcraft The Roleplaying Game

Werewolf the Apocalypse

What Lurks Above

What Lurks Beneath

What Lurks Beyond

World Ending Game

Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast

Xianta Cyber Wuxia

Xoe Microplayer

Zweihander

I'll update this list as I get more. Feel free to send me ideas and also reblog this!

[fandomsandfeminism]

I think you’ve posted about this before but as we all know there is no strict reading order for the Discworld books but where would you personally recommend someone start? (For people who have decision paralysis when it comes to picking a starting point… >_> def not me)

[chiakery]

To all my TTRPG and/or Discworld enjoyers: Hey, did you know there's a project to combine both of those things? Not only that but there's a hilarious ONE SHOT on Youtube where you can see some incredible performers play through a starter adventure set in Ankh-Morpork! People who follow me for Critical Role stuff will definitely recognise one of the players - Abubakar Salim - and some of you probably know Josephine McAdam (Battle for Beyond, LA by Night, Graveyards of Arkham) or Liv Kennedy (Three Black Halflings).

You don't have to know much about Discworld to enjoy it! And, conversely, you don't need experience with TTRPGs! If you have free 2 hours, just tune in and enjoy the madness. I promise it'll be worth it.

[sluttypatrickstar]

i have seen a lot of people on the post about not reading exclusively children’s books express that they don’t know where to start with adult fiction and/or are worried about it containing dark and graphic content. i was exactly the same as a teenager and i would like to list some beginner Grown Up book recommendations!

first, though, to help you look for yourself – what do you like and want in books? if you like fantasy and dragons in children’s lit, there’s more of that in adult fantasy! if you like mythology stuff, there’s more of that in adult fantasy as well as mythology retellings! if you know what you like, just keep looking for it, and if you’re worried about the content, storygraph has user-added content warnings for books. 👍

now for some specific recs:

sarah gailey (though check the TWs). i really enjoyed american hippo + magic for liars was super readable!

starter villain by john scalzi. read this last month, super easy read, very fun and silly

black water sister or spirits abroad by zen cho. i always feel transported to another world by these two books

discworld by terry pratchett. i fucking love discworld. so easy to read. if you don’t know where to start there are whole guides to help you! i personally started with going postal. it’s getting close to december which is also the perfect time for hogfather

dial a for aunties and/or vera wong’s unsolicited advice for murderers by jesse sutanto. absolutely breezed through these, funny and silly crime capers

anything by becky chambers. cozy and thoughtful sci-fi, very character-driven. if you like found family go here

the murderbot diaries by martha wells. action romps about a robot bodyguard. very relatable if you are socially awkward

legends and lattes by travis baldree. if you want cozy fantasy this is what you want

there’s so much more than this but i tried to keep it to lighter stuff that i think is easy to read and would be a good starting place. it can be kinda scary to go from one corner of the bookstore (children’s lit) to The Whole Place, but there is genuinely so much waiting for you and it does not have to be dark or scary

[facetsofthecloset]

What order would you suggest reading Discworld in? :0

Oh my friend you have opened an entire Amazon warehouse of a can of worms, which is going under a cut because I'm so sorry, you've activated my trap card

1: Preamble

First, a caveat: I have not read ALL of the Discworld books yet. There's a bunch of the short stories and sort of "bonus content"-y stuff that I haven't got round to, and the last two books he wrote before he passed, (I Shall Wear Midnight and Shepherd's Crown) but I have read everything else!

So!

Ok, there are lots of “recommended reading order” lists out there for Discworld, and what they generally do is group books into subcategories based on the protagonists.

These are fine as a base structural framework to work from, but if you're asking me I'm guessing you want a more personalized recommendation, SO

It really depends on your interests! When I started Discworld I'd already been pilled on tumblr, seeing posts cross my dash every now and then (probably due to the Glorious 25th of May actually, which I'm spamming right now) about how great it was and how many books there were.

So I picked up the first book (The Color of Magic) even though everyone said don't start there, and I stuck to it because I'd kind of already decided to like the series, or at least be incredibly open-minded about it.

Listen. The Color of Magic was published in 1983, it was one of his earliest novels, and it's definitely a bit rough. But! Full of personality and chaos, from which stars will be born later on.

You can think of it as the primordial ooze, full of nutrients and ideas and things that could evolve, but kind of formless and a bit confused at the moment

2: The List

So if you're not a bit naive and desperate for a new fantasy series to be obsessed with as an adult and trusting wholeheartedly a lot of strangers online that things get really really good, and you want some proof upfront, this is my list of potential starters:

Reaper Man (Death subseries #2)

Witches Abroad (Witches subseries #3)

Feet of Clay (City Watch subseries #3)

The Truth (Industrial Revolution subseries #2)

The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents (YA standalone that takes place in the Discworld)

Going Postal (Industrial Revolution #4 or Moist von Lipwig subseries #1)

You'll notice that I've picked almost none of the "first book" in a subseries and I have good reasons for that! I'll talk about each book individually, but my main reason for starting you off a little ways into each subseries is that the Vibes(tm) of the very first book in a subseries are very different to the actual overall Vibes(tm) of the subseries generally, once it's had time to fill out and ripen a bit.

The books I've picked are the "early but recognizable" stages of most of the series', because I think you can go back to read the first ones as a sort of prequel treat for yourself later once you've started to run out of books in the series, which happens faster than you think given there's 41 of them.

But I'll go into more detail about that with the individual books! Again, I am so sorry this is so bloody long. I'm having coffee as we speak

3: List Breakdown

Reaper Man (Death subseries #2):

“What can the harvest hope for, if not for the care of the Reaper Man?”

Protagonist: Death (the anthropomorphic personification)

Summary: Death is fired from his job for caring too much, and has to go live as a farmhand. In his absence, things start to get weird, leading to zombie wizards and sentient shopping carts.

Why start here: Death as a character shows up all over the place in Discworld, and he's wonderful. This is the 11th book in publishing order, and one of the first that had me almost crying at the end. A lot of the earlier books had me kinda going "ok that was fun but I feel like I'm missing something, why is it people keep going on about this series?" and while this book doesn't quite yet answer that question, it gave me a hell of a lot of motivation to keep going.

The Death subseries book before this, Mort, is also good! If you want to start there, that's fine. But to me, it's a prologue, and doesn't give you an accurate picture of what the Overall Vibes of the series are. Reaper Man is still also kind of a prologue in that sense, seeing as Death is not even the protagonist for all of the Death books, but I still say it's a good place to start. It sets the groundwork for future books but also...

...man that quote about the harvest, and yes the summary sounds absurd and it is because it's not just fantasy, it's parody and comedy, but in the same book you'll have moments where you just have to stare at the wall for a bit unsure if you're going to reach enlightenment or burst into tears.

Reaper Man is a very wholesome, funny, and casually profound place to start your Discworld journey. It's early in the timeline of the Disc, you get a taste of the Wizards subseries as well, and you can see how important settings like Ankh-Morpork, the main city, start out. One thing I love about Discworld is how it grows, so starting out earlier in the in-universe timeline can be nice to get the full effect of seeing that.

A later Death book, Hogfather, is one I would recommend someone read if they were under some kind of curse where they could only ever read 3 Discworld books ever, and of course you could jump right to that one.

But if you want a bit of build up and additional context, you can start with Reaper Man.

Witches Abroad (Witches subseries #3):

Lily: You'd have done the same. Granny: No. I'd have thought the same, but I wouldn't have done it. Lily: What difference does that make, deep down? Nanny Ogg: You mean you don't know?

Protagonist: The Witches/Granny Weatherwax

Summary: Magrat Garlick, youngest of Lancre's witch coven trio, inherits a fairy godmother's wand, and thus also a fairy goddaughter, named Emberella. Unfortunately, Emberella lives very far away in Genua, and none of the witches really know how to make the wand work, and hardly any of them have left Lancre much at all before, let alone gone all the way to fantasy New Orleans. And Magrat's the one who got the wand, so she really should be the one taking point on this, but Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax can hardly let the youngest, soppiest, and wettest-behind-the-ears witch of their coven go off and make fairy tales on her own, can they? They've got a happy ending to make, and a bad witch to find...

Why start here: More into witches and fairy tales? Like a good Cinderella parody? Want to know how to stop spelling bananananana daquiri? Well, Nanny Ogg actually can't help you there, but you can get the other stuff.

Granny Weatherwax, along with Samuel Vimes of the City Watch subseries, is the beating heart and deeply, calmly furious soul of Discworld.

She is THE Witch. Witches don't have leaders, but Granny is the First among equals.

You can meet her earlier in the series, in Equal Rites or Wyrd Sisters, but Witches Abroad are when things start to come together in terms of tone and style for the Witches subseries, at least for me. Like Reaper Man, Witches Abroad is fairly early in the in-universe timeline as well as #12 in the publishing order, right after Reaper Man. Between the two, you can get a decent idea of the early form of the Disc, though I'd add in Guards! Guards! to complete that picture.

On its own, it's a fun romp full of recognizable parodies and interesting twists, a good old fashioned road trip. And it punches you in the face later about the nature of morality and how people think, about identity and choosing who you're going to be.

It won't make sense unless you've read it, but I think about a scene towards the end and the line "This one," all the time. Start here, read the other Witches books, have a Granny Weatherwax permanently etched into the back of your mind, reminding you about the difference between thinking and doing.

Feet of Clay (City Watch subseries #3):

“You couldn't say 'I had orders.' You couldn't say 'It's not fair.' No one was listening. There were no Words. You owned yourself. [...] Not 'Thou Shalt Not'. Say 'I Will Not'.”

Protagonist: Samuel Vimes

Summary: Commander of the City Watch, Samuel Vimes, now officially a Sir and married into the ranks of Ankh-Morporks elite, must have a coat of arms made. Thank gods there's been a murder for him to focus on instead. Someone's poisoning the Patrician--Lord Vetinari--too, and something strange is happening with the city's golems...

Why start here: This is it. For me, this was the book that made me go "Oh. That's why everyone loves this series." Every book up to this point had been interesting, funny, engaging, but as yet a little underbaked compared to the hype--until here.

Feet of Clay was the point of no return for me as a Discworld fan. This is the start of Sam Vimes, the man who IS Ankh-Morpork in many ways, the character you think of first when someone says "Discworld" (or boots. The "Sam Vimes Boots Theory of Economics" seems to travel outside of Discworld circles sometimes, from what I've heard.)

The City Watch books prior to this are all important to the formation of Sam Vimes as we know him mainly, which is why most people tend to start you off with Guards! Guards!. Totally legitimate place to start, but if you're going into it after being stuffed full of hype on tumblr and elsewhere, you're going to go "Hm. Is that it?"

Feet of Clay is #19 in publishing order, around midway through the series and part of what I've seen referred to as the "golden age" of Discworld books. As far as in-universe time goes, it's a bit farther along than Reaper Man or Witches Abroad, but not hugely. Things are established and the swing has been grasped, and Sam Vimes in freshly fully baked. (I keep using the word because it's relevant to the story lol) He'll go on from here to even greater heights, but this is a damn good start into Vimes being Vimes.

Now I will caveat this with a warning that if you are so ACAB that even seeing the word "cop" makes you break out in hives, then you probably shouldn't read City Watch books.

But I will say, policing as Sam Vimes does it is different from the modern American police. Obviously. This is fiction, it's based more on older English policing, it's a fantasy world, and Sam Vimes would be the first person to tell you that a cop who isn't a bastard is a liar, which is just another type of bastard.

It isn't pure uncritical copaganda, it's closer to Brooklyn 99, not CSI Miami, but if your stance is that making the protagonist a police officer we are meant to relate to at all is irredeemable, then yeah, this isn't going to work for you.

But so much of the Watch series--arguably all of it-- is about asking the question How do you be a good copper? What is a good copper? What is good? How do you be 'good' when you know that inside your head you're a messy, problematic bastard who thinks he knows better than everyone and has authority to abuse?

Who watches the watchmen? Sam Vimes. He watches himself, all the time. Maybe you won't agree with his conclusions, and I've heard people say the later Watch books where Terry's Alzheimers was progressing were too White Savior, but that's something you'd have to decide for yourself if you decide to keep reading.

For me, the City Watch books are the heart of Discworld, and they are absolutely worth engaging with.

Feet of Clay is a pretty classic and fun murder mystery, coupled with serious discussions of personhood and slavery, and has a plotline dealing with a lot of gender stuff that is expanded on in later books. It's far enough along in the series that the basics are established, and early enough that there is a lot of interesting development to look forward to.

I haven't reread it in a while, but it will always hold a special place in my heart for being the book where Discworld clicked home and became a permanent part of my psyche.

The Truth (Industrial Revolution subseries #2):

“The truth has got its boots on,” he said. “It’s going to start kicking.”

Protagonist: William de Worde, standalone

Summary: Printing presses were not allowed in Ankh-Morpork. Alas, times were moving on, and brought with them The Times, Ankh-Morpork's very first newspaper. William de Worde finds himself falling into the role of the Disc's first journalist. It starts with innocent stories of humorous vegetables and debates over when the coldest winter was, and ends with an attempted assassination (several, in fact), a shadowy conspiracy, a dog's testimony, and daddy issues (doesn't it always).

They say a lie can run around the world before the truth has got its boots on, but William's got a shoehorn and is prepared to tie some laces.

Why start here: Drop into an almost fully-established and stabilized Ankh-Morpork, watch a new technology drop into it and see the ripples. The Truth is categorized as an Industrial Revolution book, but it's also a standalone. You can know nothing about the Discworld and still have a damn good time.

It's honestly one of my favorites, possibly the favorite, owing to the presence of Otto Chriek, vampire photographer (called iconographers on the Disc) to The Times and also my favorite Discworld character ever number 1 no contest hands down don't talk to me. (Are there "better" and "more important" Discworld characters? Of course. Doesn't mean jack when it comes to personal favorites though, does it. Otto Chriek my beloved my darling my heart and soul this is his first appearance and after this he only gets mentioned in passing in the background of other books although he occasionally does get a whole scene and some dialogue I'm Normal About Him)

Ahem. Anyway.

If you want a good taste of what Terry Pratchett's writing is like overall, just one good sampler, this is a pretty decent choice. It's neat and contained but also has a lot of ties to the rest of the series that you could easily pull on if you wanted to. It's sometime after Feet of Clay, timeline-wise, but is really the start of the Industrial Revolution of Discworld proper, and you can make an argument for it starting off a second stage (maybe a silver era?) of Discworld books, in terms of publication order. There's Ankh-Morpork pre-newspaper, then there's Ankh-Morpork post-newspaper, and this is obviously the dividing line.

Because of that, it's possible that it would be slightly disorienting to read this first and then go back to an older pre-newspaper Discworld, because the dynamics are different. But that's one aspect of the series that I love, how it has its own historical eras. "Ah, this story is still in the Century of the Fruitbat, before the introduction of printing presses in Ankh-Morpork" or "Oh, this is from the post-clacks society," stuff like that.

It's a huge part of what makes Discworld feel like a real, entire universe, and how different books in the series feel like snapshots of their history. And history can be funny, profound, horrific, ironic, fascinating, and above all, human.

Even if "human" in the Disc doesn't cover nearly everyone. Barley anyone, you could argue. They have a lot of different species.

The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents (YA standalone):

“People were people, even if they had four legs and had called themselves names like Dangerous Beans, which is the kind of name you gave yourself if you learned to read before you understood what all the words actually meant.”

Protagonist: debatable but I'll say Maurice (a cat. standalone)

Summary: The trouble with magic is that you never know what it'll do. Sometimes, it turns a bunch of rats (and one cat) from dumb animals into The Clan and Maurice, who work together with a human boy named Keith to run a Pied Piper scam.

Keith is human, and talks to other humans, offering to rid them of their town's rats, and The Clan pretend to be charmed by his flute and make a show of leaving town. Maurice--well, he's the brains of the outfit and makes sure no one grows too much of a conscience over the grift, and that he they get paid properly. And everyone likes cats.

One of the towns they come across, though...something is wrong here. There are no rats, or...are there? What is a rat, anyway? What's the difference between a rat and a Clan rat? What's the difference between a Clan rat and a human? Or a Maurice?

That was the problem with thinking. Once you started, you went on doing it.

Why start here: Similar to The Truth, a good way to get a decent, well-rounded sampling of Prachettian writing. You've got the parodic element in the Pied Pier story, some genuine horror in the antagonist of the story, existential questions on the nature of sentience and personhood, puns that you won't even realize are puns until you come across an explanatory post on tumblr, as well as the puns that hit you in the face and kick you in the fork and make you go "Fucking hell. More please!" Just because it's YA doesn't mean it's any lesser, it's just a slightly different tone of voice.

I don't remember exactly what era of Discworld it takes place in, but it's later in the publication order and I think timeline-wise, definitely after The Truth? I'm pretty sure newspapers exist at this point. It doesn't matter as much, since most of the story takes place outside of Ankh-Morpork. Either way, it's very accessible, a decent one-and-done. There's a rat named Dangerous Beans, who was voiced by David Tenant in the recent animated film. (Not a good adaptation but you could watch it. It's. Well not the worst, as Discworld adaptations go, but it's like. Fine. Kinda weird. Kinda boring. Read the book.)

Going Postal (Industrial Revolution #4, or Moist von Lipwig #1):

“Raise the stakes! Always push your luck because no one else would push it for you.”

Protagonist: Moist von Lipwig

Summary: Professional conman Albert Spangler is hanged for his crimes, and reborn as Moist von Lipwig--his actual birth name. His new lease on life comes with the caveat of resurrecting the long-defunct Ankh-Morpork Post Office as Postmaster General. As a consummate liar and career criminal, he's a perfect fit for government service.

And he's just in time--The Grand Trunk clacks company, under its newest management, has been plagued by enshittification. Once able to relay messages across the continent "at the speed of light," now it's expensive, breaks down constantly, and runs on the blood of its workers. But messages still have to get through, and you can't send a package by semaphore. The world needs the Post, and the Post needs Moist von Lipwig.

Him? He needs a new name. And a way to get rid of his golem parole officer...

Why start here: Moist von Lipwig is a late addition to the canon and only stars in 3 books (one of which is distinctly different in style, owing to the advancement of Pratchett's Alzheimer's at time of writing), but he is just about as crucial to Discworld as Granny Weatherwax, Sam Vimes, and Lord Vetinari. He's a grifter who's all about style, and holy shit is he good at it.

To me, Going Postal is a perfect book, and the sequel Making Money is somehow even better. I got my friend hooked on Discworld by reading a passage out of the sequel to her and subsequently read her the entire book and Going Postal after. Get past his name, and Moist von Lipwig is all you've ever dreamed of in terms of entertainment.

The Moist books (lol) are formatted a little bit differently to the others, as it's one of the only Discworld books to have formal chapters and sort of chapter summaries? I'm not sure why this is but I think it has to do with Moist being, well, Moist. Everything in his life is a show and so his books also have a bit of extra set dressing.

I think if you read Going Postal and Making Money and those were the only Discworld books you ever knew about you'd still be obsessed madly in love and fanatic about the whole series. Moist comes into things when Ankh-Morpork is already pretty much fully-fledged, and he could have been the beginning to a new era. As his presence inclusion in the Industrial Revolution series implies, he brings about a lot of huge structural/technological changes to the Disc and it's amazing to watch it unfold.

Going Postal also has the distinction of having one of the only decent Discworld screen adaptations (look I haven't watched all of them and I'm really sorry if there's a BBC version or something that you really love, but the ones that I've seen so far are mostly...either really low-budget and weird or just boring). I'd say if you watched the movie version and liked it, you'd like the book even more but not in spite of the movie, you know? Charles Dance is in it as Lord Vetinari and aside from his hair not being black he's fucking perfect. You cannot go wrong here.

4: Conclusions

I'm sorry this got so LONG AHH

But! What you choose to read as your first Discworld book imo depends hugely on what your interests are and why you're interested in the series to begin with.

If you just want a quick way to see what all the fuss is about, I'd say any of the standalones or Moist books.

If you want a sample of how it unfolds and grows and are willing to put some time into it, start with Reaper Man and maybe read down the list I made, then go back and read the other books in their respective subseries. Or pick one that you liked a lot and follow that subseries first!

If you're really willing to put in the time and want to understand the series as a whole, do what I did and start with The Color of Magic and go by publication order. You're going to need a bit of patience and be generous at first, wait for things to develop, but for me it's been worth it. Again, if you have the time though. I mean, it is 41 books.

Or, if you're into a bit more chaos than that...use a random number generator and read whatever it tells you. Honestly, even books in longer subseries's are self-contained and pretty readable on their own, you just get more context if you read it "in order." The roulette approach is perfectly viable.

I mean, I do have Discworld books that I'm not as fond of, but none where I'd say you should never read it.

Even my least favorite (Interesting Times, part of the Wizards series) has a lot of redeeming qualities and I reread it a couple times before I decided maybe I didn't like it as much. (It's mostly because they go to fantasy East Asia and it's a bit Asian Monolith-y. Look I love Pratchett but he was a white British man who started writing in the late 70s/early 80s y'know? He's good but not perfect. The Wizards series has a lot of traveling around the Disc and a lot of like, racial stereotypes involved. Which is a shame because I do love the main protagonist of the series (Rincewind), it just personally makes me a little uncomfortable.)

That said, I don't hate it.

There are no Discworld books I regret reading. There's just ones I enjoyed even more than the others, and ones that have been permanently absorbed into my soul. You really can't go wrong.

This concludes my Starter Discworld dissertation I'm so sorry but you did ask 💦

[bookandcantina]

The Official Reading Guide To Terry Pratchett’s Discworld (designed by Maggie Searcy, from Epic Reads/Harper)

This is so great, and I love that the chart is on the disc itself! I think this can really help people who don't know where to start in this 40+ book series (hint, it doesn't have to be at the beginning!) If you’re new to Discworld, below are some thoughts on where to start in the series:

The are several "schools of thought" about the proper way to read Discworld books: you can read them in publication order, you can pick each sub-series to read entirely and separately (i.e. read all the Wizards books in order, then all the Death books, then the Watch etc.) or you can just read whatever ones sound best to you, or whichever you can get your hands on from the library. Truly, it's up to you. (I started with Hogfather, the 20th novel in the series and the 4th Death book, and it's great.) That being said, let's continue...

The Colour of Magic is the first Discworld book published, but many view it as "not-the-strongest", either in the series or as a starter. Pratchett himself said that Sourcery is a better starter, for both the "Wizards" books and the series as a whole! (Don't get me wrong though, they are good books. The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic are also the only two novels that directly relate to each others' storylines, so if you do start with TCOM, then you must read TLF next as they are like part 1/part 2.)

Death is one of my favorite characters, so Mort is also a great first-read. Death is a recurring character in almost the whole series, so getting familiar with him before diving into other sub-series might be a good idea.

Though I've only read two of the "Watch" books, it might be favorite sub-series so far, I always recommend Guards! Guards! as a great starter for first-timers. You get a good sense of city politics and its' machinations, as well as the kind of magic you can expect throughout the Disc. (and who doesn't love Carrot?)

I've only read one "Witches" book so far, and I started with Wyrd Sisters as I was 1. told it's the first the feature all three witches that carry on in the rest of the series, and 2. familiar with Macbeth, of which this book is a parody. Most of the "Witches" books are parodies and trope-twisters of famous stories, so if that's your thing start with Wyrd Sisters! (I personally can't wait to get to Carpe Jugulum...)

I didn't realize until this chart that the "Moist Von Lipwig" books are considered part of the "Industrial Revolution" sub-series, so I read Making Money after seeing the movie for Going Postal. I think starting with GP would be fine, but if you want a better sense of the world and how everything operates in it (like who the Patrician is, for example) starting with any of the books listed above might be best.

I've not yet read any "Ancient Civilizations" books (though I'm starting Pyramids soon!) the "Science" or the "Tiffany Aching" books so I can't judge how they are for starters.

Personally, I jump around the Disc for every novel I read. As I said, I started with Hogfather, then read TCOM & TLF. I think I read Mort after that, then Guards then Reaper Man then Wyrd Sisters and so on. So I'm kind of reading the sub-series in their order, but jumping between series after I finish a book. All I can recommend to anyone is to read the synopses of the starters, pick one, then go wherever you like from there. Happy reading!

[enchantress-emily]

We're all in emotional turmoil over Good Omens season 2 (and rightly so), but let's also take a moment to appreciate a couple of excellent Discworld Easter eggs that were included.

For starters, look whose name is on the label of that laudanum bottle in ep3:

None other than C. M. O. T. Dibbler, Ankh-Morpork's favorite dubious businessman!

Then in ep5, Mrs Sandwich tries to describe her profession and the Regency Ball Mind Control (not cool, Aziraphale!) makes her say she's a seamstress.

In the Discworld books, "seamstress" is a well-known slang/code word for... well, what Mrs Sandwich and her girls actually do for a living.

Neil may have written this part of the story on his own, but Terry is still there.

[potato-lord-but-not]

Hi helloo, I’m a huge fan of your art and its gotten me into a handful of podcasts that I now constantly obsess over.

I’ve seen your art of Moist and Discworld as a whole, but I’ve never seen anything else about this piece of media in my life. Obviously, I assumed it would be up my alley since I’ve enjoyed so many other things you have brought to my attention and with that in mind, I started doing some research on how to get into it.

After looking into it and finding that it is a 41 book series with no specific order, I am super overwhelmed lmao.

So! I wanted to know where you recommend starting?

I originally was going to just go for the 3 where Moist is the protag, but then I saw a graphic about how they all connect and now I’m unsure if I should do that or start with like Guards! Guards! Because it eventually connects with his?? And oh boy am I at a loss 😂 I even watched a video about where I could start and I’m still confused so I figured I’d just ask you 🥴

definitely start with going postal !!!! it’s super good and an easy intro to the series !!! guards! guards! is also a good one to read after that, as well as mort, wyrd sisters, the color of magic, and the wee free men, which are all starters for different plot lines :))

Also there are plenty of stand alone books !! like the truth and monstrous regiment !!!

[greenerteacups]

do you have recs for urban fantasies!!

Oh, depends what you're into. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman (and its spinoff, Anansi Boys) is generally my gold standard for good urban fantasy. Delicious worldbuilding, good plot, good character. Good Omens is also technically urban fantasy, mostly because of the witch stuff, but I'd sooner classify it as Bible fanfiction. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is urban fantasy for a Napoleonic-Wars-era definition of "urban," and is also excellent, but also a slow-burn book and it's not your average adventure story. Discworld is fucking immaculate.

Holly Black is a good author if you're segueing between Y/A and N/A or fantasy, because she starts writing solidly in the realm of paranormal romance (human world with fantasy LI) and ends up writing a really cool "urban fantasy" that takes place entirely in the fae realm, which is a straight-up high fantasy feudal system, except it coexists with the mundane world so the MC knows what an iPhone is. Great. Love that. The textbook "medieval fantasy" world is horrendously ahistorical anyway, so why not set it in the present? Drop your anachronistic quasi-British fantasy smorgasbord right in the middle of 2010's America.

I think everyone into urban fantasy has read or tried the Mortal Instruments series, which is a great starter drug if you like to read Y/A. In a similar vein, Artemis Fowl is an urban fantasy children's book series that fucks supremely hard, and growing up I adored it with the passion of one thousand suns.

[higgsbison]

is there any discworld book you'd reccoment to start with for someone who loved Good Omens but is intimidated by the amount of novels?

There's several sub-series in Discworld with their starter novels, which are normally the best place to start, depends what you want really. Mort (Death sub-series) and Wyrd Sisters (Witches sub-series) are probably a good start if you liked GO themes, or Guards!Guards! (Watch sub-series) which is a lot of people's favorite. They're all still early novels, so they're maybe not as tight as later ones, but you can experience the full character arc, if you start there. You can also say fuck it and Start with The Truth or Going Postal which are much later, or a stand alone like Small Gods.

I've seen people say they started from the very start (Color of Magic, which is generally seen as pretty weak) and enjoyed it, but I've seen many more say they started from the start and stopped reading because of it, so I'd personally suggest going with one of the above starters.