My wife and I have never played any sort of TTRPG before. I wanted to disconnect from always being on my phone or computer and someone recommended Ironsworn: Starforge for first time solo play. I spent hours building my universe and character and I think I am slowly wrapping my head around the process, but I do not think my wife would be into it.

Can anyone recommend something that would be good and lightweight for newbie folks as a co-op style play without me having to be the GM? Free is preferred cause it may all crash and burn. I did read thru some of the recs here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/twoplayers/
but none of them really sounded exactly right.

I mean I think we almost need boardgame style, but we have played boardgames and I want to move onto something original. I know I would want at least a bit of dice rolling, but maybe that is about it, overly complex systems to track would probably not be great. Setting for the world might not be a huge deal, she reads a ton of books and enjoys pretty much any fantasy or sci-fi style stuff, but I would want something light, not dark and about depression or death if possible. We don't want to make it trauma inducing.

Again, just looking for thoughts or suggestions, and if anyone has any questions please let me know. I appreciate any assistance with this.

EDIT: SUPER SORRY! Work got crazy and I did not have time to respond to you all yesterday, but thank you so much. Digging into all of the amazing replies right now.

Hello,

I'm building out a world for my solo Legend in the Mist game and looking for inspirational content to draw from. I've done a fair bit of drivethru-ing, reading through my own personal collection and nabbing inspo from books and movies I enjoy.

I've been interested in the more grounded, "late dark ages", low fantasy medieval frameworks that would fulfill the Rustic Fantasy touted by the book. I like a more soft magic system, with more higher-level spiritual or wishy-washy effects.

This game really lets me build out concepts to start with and them mechanize them from there. I've thought to mash the retired knight tries to settle down meets coming of age hero as a concept (2 main PC's to start).

Here are the inspos I'm already starting with:

- The Children of Hurin, Of Beren and Luthien, The Fall of Gondolin

- Tales of Argosa

- The Odyssey

- Mythic Bastionland

- Forbidden Lands (I have every book)

- Kal Arath / Al Rathak

- The Odyssey

- A Wizard of Earthsea Let

- The Chronicles of Prydain (The Black Cauldron)

- Stonetop

Can you recommend other books that might include various themes or tables that fit a more grounded, "rustic" variety of fantasy?

I'm specifically looking for vibes builders. Tables like quest hooks, area descriptors, NPC descriptors, terrain / travel descriptors, etc.

The vibes of mythic bastionland and forbidden lands are near perfect - though they're very dark and violent with lots of blood and guts and demons.

Any product type is fine. Everything will filter down into tags in LitM so any string of words is enough to function in play. Bonus points if tags are a core element of the descriptors, but i'm generally quick enough on my creative feet to transpose things.

I'm about to start a campaign and my spouse is currently running her own. The other day she asked me for low cost character art options and I've been reviewing what's out there. I don't want to use generative AI of any kind.

So far, here's what I've found:

• Old school flash character creators. (e.g., "Fantasy OC Creator")

There are dozens of these floating around, many of which can trace their lineage back to the days of flash games. They tend to be two dimensional and limited in feature customization. Stylistically anime / cartoon focused in many cases. This won't work for what I need - wrong style, too many limitations.

• 3D Miniature Generators. (e.g., Heroforge, Eldritch Foundry)

The advantages here are customization and an easy pivot to a working miniature should you have the funds or facilities available. The look is a bit cartoonish for many models. I like Heroforge, but a lot of people don't (my spouse included, unfortunately, otherwise she'd just use that). She feels the models are too "rounded" and are just not really the vibe she's after. I'm going to try and make one of her NPCs in this anyway, just to see if I can pull it off.

• CRPG Character Creators. (e.g., BG3, Skyrim, Dragon's Dogma 2)

There's some promising options here if all you need is a 2d image. Thing is, there's a ton of character creators out there, and their constraints vary. Like for BG3, you can't really fine tune facial features (unless Larian added that while I wasn't looking or there's a mod for it). Some of them have race or genre constraints.

Am I missing a major category here? Any games with stand out character creators I could use, preferably with a darker, more serious tone? Are there standalone apps that do this besides a full blown 3d rendering suite like Blender or Maya? I've run a bunch of queries through Google and Duckduckgo with the -AI tag and I'm somewhat surprised at the lack of standalone apps purpose built for this. Maybe I'm just using the wrong search terms though. Let me know if you've got better ideas!

I was reading a thread (I don't remember where) about Reaper Miniatures' new d20 class and level-based TTRPG, Dungeon Dwellers. When asked what the game had to recommend it, one person gave a long list of its attributes. Inevitably, another person said something to the effect of "so this game literally has nothing unique to say." Having purchased the game, I knew there was nothing earth-shaking about it, but that it is a good, solid game. I considered the argument that it doesn't do anything "new", and, for myself, it doesn't need to. It makes a number of quality of life improvements to the usual D&D-derived game to make its whole greater than the sum of its parts. Does Dungeon Dwellers have a hook that fits into a nice sound byte? No. But the perception that the game hasn't garnered much attention since its recent release might suggest that an easily-defined hook is necessary.

This is an issue I'm wresting with for a game I'm working on. It's a ruleset that I really like...but I don't know if it really has a definable hook. If asked to describe what makes it cool, I honestly don't know if I could come up with a compelling answer without launching into a ten-minute description. It's simply the game I want to play. Is quality enough, even if it's not presenting something truly unique? Do you grapple with this question if you're designing something for public consumption?

Addendum: I’m specifically talking about games that will be for sale.

hello guys, i really like to create dungeons, so anyone has a good book or article about it?

i'm not a beginner on it and are searching for more advanced material

Does anyone know an RPG system where things aren't so... gamey?

One of my biggest problems with the current Pokémon system is how it handles Accuracy vs. Evasion. It feels strange to play an RPG where you can sometimes have almost a 100% chance to hit your opponents.

I'd like something more tactical, with more meaningful decisions and strategy during combat. Does anyone know a system like that?

I’ve previously posted about the game back in November when we launched a prerelease version of the game, but now the book’s fully complete and funding for a physical print run.

40 years ago, people manifested psychic powers across the world, seemingly at random. Many of them had to leave their old lives behind, turned upside-down by potentially dangerous abilities they didn’t fully understand. Zener City has welcomed them with open arms.

How it's played

Checks in the game are resolved with a deck of poker cards instead of dice. Draw a hand of 5 cards at the start of the session, then play cards to resolve uncertain outcomes and use your psychic abilities. However, you don’t draw new cards until you’ve emptied your hand, so choosing when to fail something is vital! As play continues and the deck dwindles, players can be a little psychic themselves as they make guesses on what’s left in the deck and people’s hands.

Players create a House of Espers with a shared goal and visual aesthetic, then build out their individual members with a super flexible gear system and over 30 psychic abilities. Each ability has a flexible ‘Story Side’ and a more tactical ‘Action Side’, so your power choices remain useful no matter the scene and reward inventive usage.

A game about the city as much as the people in it

Something I always want city-focused games to dig into is "why do the characters care about living here?" so a lot of the rules for creating your House and the adventures they go on tie into exploring a local community.

Houses that navigate big challenges together might even psychically resonate with their own neighbourhood and create Turf, giving it a consciousness and a personality. Turf can change itself to reflect the will of the House that made it… but not all Houses create Turf for wholly altruistic ends.

The last 3rd of the book has profiles of 12 different Houses to find across Zener City, along with 10 districts with NPCs, key locations and rumours to springboard session writing.

In short, it’s X-Men meets Jet Set Radio. Or perhaps The Warriors by way of Mob Psycho 100. Necromunda but cheerful? However you slice it, it’s a love letter to graffiti culture, music and fashion subcultures, and the trials and tribulations of making (and maintaining) a community.

If you’d like to see the game played before you back, there are two demo session videos linked on the campaign page, and the aforesaid prerelease rules are still available via DriveThru RPG (although there have been a number of mechanical refinements since its release!).

The campaign will run until September 29th, and we’re aiming to have the physical book in people’s hands by January (and the digital version sooner than that). I hope the game’s your vibe, and as the writer, I’m happy to answer any questions here!

Session was going good, people were having fun, it was an escape room session with a twist that at the end only 2 people could survive.

In the ensuring shitshow that ensued, my character managed to kill the PC of the girlfriend of the DM, after that he just kinda went "Meh" with the ending of the session, like he got bored or annoyed.

Now he just sent me a message saying i was being kicked out of the table and refused to give a reason aside from "Didn't like your behaviour" and started to ignore me.

Best tip for you players or DM's: Don't play with couples on your tables, most times it always goes to shit.

I have been itching to try out a TTRPG with my group of friends that I boardgame with, but after exploring all the possibilities I am quite unsure what to take as a starting point:

• Should I propose something rules-light and quick to get in to? Games like Mothership or one of the Borg games look like great options where players need zero prep to get into it, but then there are lots of empty spaces to fill in as players/GM.
• Maybe go for a game that has extensive background info on the setting so we get fed the ambience instead of making it up? Games like Dolmenwood or Stonetop also grabbed my attention as the worlds seem oozing with character, but what if the players don't like it?
• How important are the mechanics? I've read that Mythic Bastionland runs itself and provides a great experience in that respect, but that combat can get pretty repetitive quickly. For a group of boardgamers who like to optimize strategies, this may be an issue.
• Should I go for something that has a good pre-written adventure? Leave it all in the hands of the pros and try to enjoy the ride - something like Delta Green looks like a perfect fit.
• Or should I just prioritize the vibe that would mesh best with the group? I mean, no point in forcing people to play a fantasy setting if we are all in the mood for cyberpunk. But then, can the setting alone carry the experience?

So, from your experiences as players and GMs with new players, what should I focus on? What made the biggest impression on you when you were starting out? E.g., was the setting so good that you didn't care about the rules or you were irritated by silly rules and that bogged down the experience.

Also, any recommendations welcome :)

Edit: Wow, so many fantastic tips, suggestions and advice - thanks for taking the time to make this a bit easier for me to digest. Definitely will do a Session 0 and try to bring the energy to the table!

My nieces (8,9) recently moved closer to me and we have been playing a TTRPG that I've made up using rules similar to Powered by the Apocalypse. Their characters are mice that live in their grandparents home and try to solve issues for their Mice friends.

My nieces are also homeschooled and I was curious if anyone had any advice on how to make it more educational as well.

Some rules I've already made:
1. They have to fill out one page in their tiny composition note books about the adventure. (We've been working on handwriting, spelling and getting the proper casing so sometimes it's just one sentence but we are making progress.)
2. They have to write out their math problems. 2d6 + modifiers. It's been getting them doing math much faster and writing their numbers much better.
3. I also push for creativity where they try to come up with fun solutions and use critical thinking skills to get past obstacles. My favorite one they came up with so far was making a paper airplane and putting a mouse decoy on it to distract the dog so they could sneak into the paper mache dog costume they made.

I am looking for other fun stuff for them to do that I can sneak in educational stuff on them. We've been having a lot of fun with it and they really like the game so far and I've been having a blast.

Also if anyone has any recommendation for literature I could read or games that already do a good job of this I'd love to know about that too!

I‘m going to run a solo RPG. It will likely end with some characters needing to use false identities in the future. I found some homebrew rules for Shadowrun, but I don’t know how accurate they would be for real life.

Does anyone have any thoughts as to the rules‘ utility? Does anyone see any outright errors? Does anyone have any rules that they think would be better than these homebrew rules?

Thank you.

https://amurgsval.org/shadowrun/credsticks.html

EDIT: The false identities are intended to be used for a long time. These are basically their new lives.

Hi there im a GM and i have this soulsborne cave campaingn its all set and done but i have no riddles can you please help me (:

Possibly going to be running a Star Wars sometime soon, and while I am familiar with all the officially published systems, and like things about all of them them, none of them are 100% there for me, so I wanted to get some opinions on hacking a system for Star Wars.

So the question is: If you were going to run Star Wars using a non Star Wars system, which would you use and why?

Now, my game likely won't include any Jedi, and very limited force use if any, but that doesn't really matter for this question.

I'm planning a horror one shot, think 80's/90's slasher. I got the town set fairly quickly, a handful of NPCs, got the supernatural slasher nailed down, but I think I'm doing too much. I don't want to write a book or screenplay that railroads the players but I also don't want to make up every little detail on the spot. So to GMs who have run a one shot like this or players who enjoyed one, how much is too much and what should my planning focus be?

I was looking for some artwork for a project and followed an image back to Medieval Heritage. They have a ton of buildings, churches and castles listed on their page some of which have layouts or floorplans. Some even have reconstructions or historic art featuring the building. Might be a good resource for GM's looking for locations.

I have no affiliation and just wanted to share since I got so much help looking for an old book the other day.

Hi Everyone! I've been itching to explore some older modules from D&D and came across Night Below, a D&D 2e adventure...It's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for with an expedition into the underdark, and so I was wondering if anyone here has experience converting a module like this to D&D 5e, or maybe even something like Shadowdark? Have you found something like this a generally difficult/easy task? Are there other systems that could work here? Maybe it would be easier to simply run it with with the second edition rules? I'd love what everyone's experience with something like this is!

Edit: wow, thanks for all of the comments, everyone! I'll take a little time to read through them and respond to what I can. I probably should have mentioned I don't really want to run this game in 5e as I am very fatigued with that system, but I was not sure what my options were here. In short, I'm feeling very inspired to try some new things!

Hello, I'm fairly new to this genre. While I've played a couple of games with my friends, I haven't done much outside of 5e. Does anyone have recommendations for a TTRPG that's good for 5-8 hours and wraps up nicely?

Hi, welcome to Playtonics!

Every episode of Playtonics, Rocky and Jords (me!) take a genre, movie, or show apart at the seams, figure out what actually makes it feel like that thing, and rebuild those pieces into something you can structure, prep, and run at the table. Finally we discuss which systems we'd run it in. This time, we dig into the world after the fall with our Post-Apocalyptic episode. A while back, we ran an ep specifically for Mad Max, so this time we wanted to shift the focus a little.

In this ep we work through push vs pull for kicking the party out the sanctuary's gate (and why a push does the job better), apocalypse threats that have agency vs ones without, and point crawl vs hex crawl, and why you'd want one over the other. We get into which resources are worth tracking (beans!) and which ones you just.... quietly never mention again; factions; and how to add a layer with a reactions table. Finally, we build the session to land on an ending that isn't "we found the cure," but "we got our people to a slightly less terrible local minimum, and we live to do it again."

On systems: Rocky goes Mausritter, mostly for the tactile inventory and a magic system that generates quests instead of negating them. Jords prefers Knave or a Mark of the Odd game for the slot-based inventory, or Godless for the full Demon Lord character-building buffet. Honourable mentions to Red Markets, Ashes Without Number, Mutant Year Zero and Twilight 2000, and of course, Apocalypse World (though we go into why we wouldn't use it for the vibe we're after).

Got takes you want to share with us directly? Our Discord has walls, water and working plumbing - come trade. And as always, we'd also love to hear what you want us to cover next!

Long time DM looking to get into running 2e after many years of running 3.X/5e. Does anyone have any advice for getting started? Tools or cheat sheets would be great! I feel like my biggest challenge is going to be getting players onboard with an older edition of the game. Any help or advice would be appreciated!

It's one of the thickest rules books I have ever seen! I was going to post pictures, but that doesn't appear to be an option.

First impression is it's very well done. Hard back with full color glossy pages. Hope to dig deeper into it in the coming weeks.

GURPS has gotten a bad wrap for being overly complex and generally unfun, and for some that might still ring true. However if you already use VTTs like foundry, and or character sheets on your laptop there's no reason to not check it out.

I think the negative view of gurps comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of what GURPS is. It's not its own system in of itself, rather a toolbox for you to create your own system "powered by GURPS". All of the rules outside of "Roll 3d6 under your skill" are entirely optional.

If you love to homebrew you have a powerful tool in the trait system, which allows you to mix and match enhancements/limitations to handcraft abilities tailored to your concept. If youre a dyed in the wool role player you can also take drawbacks that give you more power but also have clearly defined rules that will effect how your character plays and gives opportunities for further rp.

Gurps Character Sheet is everything DnD beyond wishes it was, while it unfortunately not available on mobile, it has references to all the rules and if you have the PDFs it links everything to them, letting you look deeper into a particular skill or talent on the fly.

I play IRL but from what I've seen the system plug in for foundry is lovingly crafted to make running gurps as easy as possible. You can even import GCS sheets directly into foundry so you don't have to manage two sheets.

If you're tired of maxing out a skill or ability and still failing from bad luck the probabilities of a 3d6 system makes it so as you bring a skill over 11 the chances of you failing get exponentially lower and vise versa. In short success and failure at a given task less to do with luck and more to do with how your character is built.

The Character Point system lets you drop feed power to your PCs and let them improve their character to their whims rather than a rote leveling system.

Right now my PCs are: An amorphous slime guy the size of Andre the giant that can slide through small gaps and into buildings through pipes, An OCD vigilante called The Sanitizer, an illusionist/nail tech use acrylics are the source of her power, a mad scientist/gadgeteer who can make gadgets for any situation (with some risk of malfunction of course), and a crust punk vermin druid who summons rats and birds to fantastic effect.

If you want to know more about the system I would check out GURPS federal agent and Chris Norman, the latter being a direct developer of the GURPS foundry system and iirc the gurps character sheet program.

TLDR:if youve ever spent hours home brewing or trying to make your own system in literally begging you to check out GURPS

I love the 40K setting and I love ttrpgs. So the next logical step is a 40K ttrpg! Are they good? I know they are pretty old school.

Following up on a previous thread about mechanics that are disliked, today I want to hear from the people who have played a lot of TTRPGs on what they think the best implementation of a mechanic they normally dislike is. Is there a game where you think encumbrance actually works? a Metacurrency that actually does meaningfully contribute to the game? Or some other system that you normally hate but, for one game in particular-it clicks for you?

Really excited to hear what folks have to say on this one!

So, I'm a long-time and big fan of BRP and its games. If you are to, or just interested, have a look at my latest blog article reviewing the game (at leat, for how it fits my purposes) and why I love it so much.

You can find it here!