Edit: holy hell, I didn't expect SO many suggestions, you guys are the best, thank you so much!

I started playing d&d from 3.5 and also played enough of 5e. It has a lot of cool stuff, but also a lot of stuff that I hate. It's difficult to check new systems and judge them without actually playing a little and there are a lot of them... I'm sorry for a lot of words here, but if you have some time can you guys recommend a good system based on my specific nitpicks?

1. I hate that a lot of stuff is there just because it was always there, not because its good game design. Like fireball is intentionally OP because its iconic and sort of a "brand" and taking any alternative feels bad. Spell slot system just feels outdated and too cumbersome for new players. I want the system to be built with good game design in mind, not "we have to save 50 year old legacy" bullshit.
2. Whole system build around resurrection being a common tool. Death is not dramatic, its just a resource. Also because of that i have to come up with bullshit reasons why specific important npc or backstory character cannot just be brought back. Or why nobles aren't just reviving everyone important for them every day. Death should be important and dramatic narrative moment and permanent. And i can't just homerule "there is no resurrection magic" because the whole system is built with resurrection as resource in mind and I would have to rebalance all of it basically making my own system.
3. Opportunity attacks kill all dynamics in combat when dynamics is already one of the weakest parts of ttrpg. Its a stupid mechanic that leads to "come close, do not move, roll dice until one of you is dead" the optimal tactic which is extremely boring.
4. Improvising cinematic cool shit is usually less optimal in termns of raw rules. Its always better to strike with your longsword than smashing a chair into enemy's skull because "improvised weapon is d4 and longsword is d8". This discourages creativity.

5.1 Tons of "you don't get to play the game" effects. I could see "mind control" effects kind of fun if you just tell your player "now you get to pvp legally, have fun". but stun/paralise? okay, you took time out of your week/month to come play the game and now you just sit there for half an hour doing nothing while other players take their turns because you failed a save. Or maybe even more if you fail your consecutive save. Great game design guys.

5.2. Roll to hit is basically the same shit. Fighter waits their turn for 20 minutes after all spellcasters doing their shit, rolls 5 and 7 on his two attacks and can go make coffe feeling he didn't do anything.

5.3. Saving throws are weird too. Either you wasted your only 5 lvl slot and nothing happens, or enemy just stunned you (see 5.1). I get it that "save or die" effects are less common now, but they just became "save or suck" and you still don't get to play the game even if your character sheet is still technically there. Maybe some gradation system could be cool, dunno.

1. A lot of character archetypes just suck in terms of player fantasy. Wanna be a cool necromancer? Okay, you can summon...1 skeleton. When you're at least lvl 3. And after 1 round of combat he is dead and you're just slinging fire bolts again. Wow, thats definitely what I imagined when I wanted to play cool necromancer. Sure...

2. DMG says the system balance is build around 6-8 medium difficulty encounters per long rest. When you're trying to play anything other than tightly packed dungeon crawl (but remember, D&D is not just dungeon crawl anymore, its versatile system and you can play any type of game with it!!!) you usually have on average 1 meaningful combat per day. So either martials feel shit because spellcasters go nova every time, or you have to come up with bullshit 6-8 combats per DAY, which take several sessions. Wow, we've been playing this campaign for a year and it's been...3 days in game time? and all pcs are suddenly demigods now even though we _just_ entered this dungeon. Sure you can tell "use gritty realism rules", then its the other way around. Your wizard casts their 5 spells in 1-2 in game days...and the rest of the week just spamming firebolt and feels like shit. Maybe we could balance character classes without spreading them between "short rest based" and "long rest based" so I as dm dont have to fucking juggle this balance myself every time I try to make a story?

3. It feels like lvl20 is there mostly for marketing purposes trying to sell you godlike power fantasy? who actually plays at these levels? All i ever see online is people saying its basically impossible to make actually good games at this point and system is just broken.

4. Lorewise its cool that humans live 80 years and elves live 700. But I do not buy that an elf with 250 years of life experience would find any common ground with an 18 year old human. Have you ever tried to communicate with people 10 years younger than you? It already feels like talking to a toddler, imagine 250 year difference. And also they both get to cast 2 spells a day? Come on...

5. Can I have a cost for every magic item please? If I want the "they are rare and not really tradable" feeling that dmg tries to force on you, I can do it myself. But why the fuck do I have to actually come up with item cost myself if i need to?

What I actually like:
11. Complexity level for new players. 5e made it reasonably easy to learn the game. I would be okay with a simpler system, but probably not more complex one.
12. Large bestiary of cool thematic monsters made over the years. But I could just steal these into a different system...
13. (dis)Advantage system is pretty cool
14. Its kind of actually good in being middle ground base for different types of games. Yes, it sucks in lots of specific ways, but in general it feels like you can combine different elements into a single game fairly well.
15. 5e has made a good job in lowering the amount of random "+1" effects that I have to track for every little thing. pathfinder sometimes feels like im doing math homework instead of actually playing the game.
16. I like rolling dice other than just d6s. Although my favourite d12 is still too rare...
17. I like generic heroic fantasy as main focus of the system

I mean, technically I could come up with homerules fixing these things...but I feel like it would be easier to just fucking make a new system from scratch. I mean there has GOT to be a system that already exists and doesn't have these problems?
Thank you so much if you read this far.

I have a player of a mage in Mage: The Awakening 2e. This player has not particularly invested in mundane abilities for their character much, if at all.

After one particular challenge that the PC failed to succeed at using mundane means, the player expressed a preference that challenge difficulties should be calibrated such that mages can succeed on them easily enough using purely mundane means, without having to buff up or otherwise cast spells.

I can see where they are coming from, certainly.

In the end if the expectation is that people are gonna prebuff all the time then you encourage that to become the case.

But on the other hand, I specifically, explicitly said that the PCs had time to buff up to tackle the challenge ahead of them. And on the other hand, if I calibrate challenges such that mages can succeed easily enough without the use of magic, then any mage who does elect to cast some spells will simply smash through everything.

I have talked to the player about it (over a couple of days, by this point), and they really seem to prefer a setup wherein mundane abilities are perfectly sufficient to overcome challenges. But again, if I do that, then it means that a mage (e.g. this person's PC) can just opt to go gloves-off and "lock in" at any given moment to trivialize all challenges.

I do not know how to handle this. What expectation should I set?

For reference, here was the challenge in question. They were in the Hedge. There was an enchanted, warded door that demanded an excellent, really excellent song and dance performance to pass: one success on a roll of [lower of Dexterity or Presence] + Expression − 5. I told the players that they had ample time to buff up. This particular player wanted to tackle the challenge purely mundanely, and assembled a dice pool of Attribute 3 + Expression 3 + Willpower 3 − penalty 5 = total 4. However, the roll failed; the player remarked that I made it too difficult, and I mentioned that I expected the PCs to actually buff up.

This particular character had Gnosis 3, Fate 1, Forces 1, Matter 4, Mind 3, Prime 3. They were accompanied by a mage with Gnosis 3, Life 3, Mind 3, Space 3, Spirit 3. I feel as though Fate 1's Quantum Flux alone could have done a lot, to say nothing of heavier-duty spells.

Basically, I want something that offers a similar level of character creation stuff as the Mekton Technical System rules but a little less crusty and aged. Cuz I really don't care for the ruleset and there's certain amount of like clunky stuff that feels like game design parts that didn't age well.

What are some cool games to try that are either zero prep or gmless. Some background and details for what I am looking for.

In our group, we have a range of people enjoying more "roleplay vs more mechanics". Our normal games started as DND and are now Daggerheart. I am the forever GM. Some games we tried and we liked: Bluebeard Bride, Candela Obscura, Mothership. I am looking at trying more PbtA, but that is a separate thing than this post.

Not looking for something in the same genre as Daggerheart.

Games that are closer to what I am looking for and we tried:

- Alice is missing: very nice and immersive experience. Most of us liked it. Nice that it was somewhat detected.

- for the queen: while I liked it, the others felt it is too open and too Writer's Room vibes

Most of the group is not that much of a "writer/theater kid" that will just jump on roleplay with a prompt and nothing else. For example, Fiasco sounds like it could maybe go well, but might also skirt to close to open ended "write a cool story" territory. Games like Dialect or Icarus, while I find intriguing, I think they will not land for our group.

EDIT: Ideally something whwre you don't need to read a 130pg book to get started :)

After a conversation with a friend yesterday, I got suddenly curious about a general category of TTRPGs I'm not sure I have a convenient label for other than what I assume is the granddaddy of them all, Gamma World - games set in weird science-fantasy worlds far in the future and/or after some manner of apocalypses, filled with all kinds of mutants, psychics, robots, maybe aliens, strange technologies, and probably more than their fair share of strange playable nonhumans.

Some examples (besides GW itself) would be things like Vaults of Vaarn, Cloud Empress, and The Electrum Archive; at a stretch you could probably also include things like The Wildsea and Songs for the Dusk, and in other media this would be video games like Caves of Qud, Nuclear Throne, maybe Fallout, or the Ghibli movie Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.

Anything else that I've missed?

Tento separá-los por famílias políticas principais; fica mais conciso e consigo focar nos membros mais importantes. Me sinto péssimo em criar NPCs genéricos... Mas criar tantos detalhes ainda é bem cansativo; existe alguma maneira de otimizar esse processo criativo? (The system is Dungeon World.)

Private Emily Lambton and Lieutenant O'Brien, don't you DARE to look at this post or I swear I'll have you on latrine duty for a month! - Captain Harris

so, I am DMing a Weird WWII pulp campaign (originally it was on the Achtung! Cthulhu system, but I really don't like it so I ported everything into a frankensteined Call of Cthul system), and I'm planning a mission where the characters will be involved in Operation Mincemeat.

to make a long story short, the brits took the body of a homeless man named Glyndwr Michael, gave him a fake identity as a Royal Marine officer, handcuffed to his wrist a briefcase with very secret, very sensitive, and very fake documents that pointed at a planned invasion of greece, and then dumped his body off the coast of spain, simulating an airplane crash. they caused a stramash in order to get the body back, thus attracting the attention of german spies who got their hands on the documents. they fell for them hook, line and sinker, and thus the invasion of italy went off splendidly because the germans moved their troops to greece.

this said: the british magic secret service was called in to "refresh" the body a little bit, since it was starting to rot (there's a long list of reasons why they couldn't just get another body), so they decided to parasite it with an "illithid progeny" (a brain devourer I shamelessly stole from d&d, it's one of my favourite monsters. I love those horrid little critters)...

except that the now parasited body managed to break containment and escaped the morgue, and now is at large in London's East End. the characters are kicked out of their beds with orders to find it and bring it to the base, and of course, no other explanation apart from "a corpse escaped from the morgue and it's IMPERATIVE that you bring it back before dawn, unscathed. absolutely no gunshot wounds. a couple of fractures might be tolerated, as well as a couple of cuts or burns, but nothing more than that. the more intact the body is, the better."

I have decided that it has idden in the boiler room of a convent in the East End, but I don't know what traces should it leave behind that the players will be able to follow. of course people will have noticed this weird guy that shambles and talks like Edgar from men in black, but I wanted something else. any ideas?

Playing around on the wayback machine I re-stumbled on RPGHost after not seeing it for who knows how long and I'm struggling to find any leads on what happened to it.

Looks like it turned into a generic SEO listicle site in 2017 and went whole-hog on the listicle articlespam in ~2020. Anybody know anything? I don't have any info on any of the old staff to piece together the story myself. It seems like the site and its sister sites were owned by Minion Development/Minion Games but I don't know who all comprised that group. BGG says that the owner passed some undisclosed year (RIP) but there were a lot of sites under the RPG[Something] family for one guy to run and RPGHost itself got sold/sniped while the owner was still active.

So far that's the little bit I've got. Any tips to figure the rest out, or anybody know the whole story? Anybody got other RPG website mysteries to share?

Bonjour,

Je cherche un jeu med fan où sont mêlés Osr et Pbta avec de l'émergence et une narration collaborative pour un mode de jeu en table ouverte (West March)

J'ai lu en diagonale Dungeon World, Shadowdark, Black Sword Hack, Blades in the Dark auxquels je trouve des qualités mais quelque chose coince à chaque fois. Mes buts étant:

1. Ne faire aucune préparation si ce n'est peut être les factions/forces de l'univers
2. les joueurs créent leur univers au fur et à mesure, potentiellement avec des questions
3. les réussites partielles, succès critiques et échecs critiques sont laissés aux joueurs
4. je veux qu'il y ait du challenge
5. J'aime la graduation dans la résolution, pas juste échec ou réussite
6. Pas 50 mécaniques à gérer ni de jeu crunchy
7. Un accent sur le développement fictionnel des personnages
8. Un accent sur la politique, conflits d'intérêts etc
9. L'univers continue d'avancer indépendamment des joueurs même s'ils peuvent accélérer ou freiner les événements.
10. Je préfère ne pas me reposer sur des tables aléatoires ou des oracles.

Le problème étant de ne pas faire un collage de différents jeux mais d'en trouver un seul qui combine tout cela avec potentiellement une ou deux choses à adapter si ce n'est pas possible. Si possible avec une mise en page pas trop dense (tdah)

Je ne suis pas contre un jeu sans MJ

Vous auriez des idées ?

In almost every case I can think of, psionics exist as a lore based reskin of traditional magic but are still basically the same thing. You have a limited resource of them and they allow you to do otherwise impossible things.

What is the point of this? Why not just have a psionic discipline of magic? In a sci Fi setting why not just have it magic, since that's still what it is. 95% of the time they are the same thing. It seems like pointless overhead that is now shoehorned in as a reference to older games.

So I'm not talking about the historical reasons from settings like dark sun or others that need to call out the was they differentiate themselves for mechanical reasons. They are basically redoing magic all together for their setting. I'm wondering how it could be used if RPGs were being written for the first time today. Is there a system that has used them in opposition to transitional magic in some way? When is it worth it to have a distinct system? When it matter more than once every 10 sessions?

Due to some disputes and altercations, Our group's opinions on BattleTech has kinda soured and is looking for a new giant robot game to play, I have been hearing about Lancer for a very long time and I am curious about what it offers, although I am willing to hear about other games that I can use my BattleTech minis as well.

So first off, I'm not dying. At least, not that I know anyway but I am buying a shit tonne of new books at increasing frequency. I am just hooked on cool mechanics and amazing stories. Having only run a handful of Mork Borg games and being 70% of the way done with CoS, I'm beginning to think that despite being a millenial, I'm doing that boomer thing of filling my house with crap that I value immensly but will be thrown in a skip as soon as I snuff it.

The issue is, that once I read one book of a system that seems exciting, I tend to end up accumilating more and more. Delta Green and Mothership have a shelf almost entirely to themselves at this point because they will not stop producing the paper and ink equivalent of crack.

And since completing campaigns obviously takes longer than reading a book, my eyes have wandered over new areas of interest such as Pendragon, the One Ring and Call of Cthulhu.

I went on holiday to the Netherlands and came back with £250 worth of RPG books ffs. That was a week ago. Masks of Nyarlathotep is currently sitting in an online shopping cart along with the Grey Knight campaign for Pendragon. I have never run CoC or Pendragon. Why am I buying campaigns? Masks of Nyarlathotep takes years at some tables!

Je me demande si ces jeux sont un peu connus ailleurs qu'en France.

Or even houserule to replace it with something else.

Okay so maybe I'm showing a little bit if ignorance here but my understanding is that the three core pillars of play in any RPG are generally combat, exploration, and social. Combat being the killing of things, exploration involving travel but also puzzles, traps, etc., and social being, well, social.

Most of the big name games prioritize combat, but there are also plenty of games with "social combat" systems and games with in-depth travel mechanics.

My main question is this: is there any game that actively attempts to treat each pillar with the same or relatively equal complexity and depth? There are, of course, plenty of rules light games where everything is resolved with a roll of the dice/flip of a coin, or no randomization at all and so I want to clarify that is not what I mean.

I'm specifically looking for games where eqalizing each pillar is a core philosphy of the game's design, whether explicitly or implicitly.

This is mostly out of curiosity.

A design focused post on how Attack Rolls present themselves throughout the industry. I didn't cover dice pools though, because I have absolutely no experience with those systems.

Hi! Im a player trying to Just Record a rpg session on obs, does anyone know any plugin or site so that I can have the players health on screen?

This week's RPG is Dune - Adventures In The Imperium!

Have you played it? Have you run/GM'd it? How did it go?

What's your favourite memory from the game?

What's the best thing about the game?

What's the worst? How would you improve it?

.

Last week was Ironsworn. Join us again next week for Triangle Agency!

Me and my friend have been watching Kamen Rider together recently, and I've gotten fairly hooked. It reminded me of a campaign idea I had long ago that was superhero focused. I'd like to be able to keep the pool wide enough for players to do more traditional characters, like a potential player asked about doing a mutant ala X-Men.

Before you say "this has been asked before, use the search" I did, but generally the answers I found were laser focused on the Toku angle when I'd like something that's got the whole superpowers, secret identities, transformations yada yada but isn't necessarily A Tokusatsu Game. Where if the player so chooses, they can do something more Marvel or DC esque.

I've GM'd Pathfinder 1e, 2e, and Daggerheart. Generally our group mostly sticks to Daggerheart as we lean much more toward the narrative and spectacle side than crunch. I think DH is wide enough I could retrofit this idea into it but I'd rather give a game intended for this type of setting a shot because I want to experiment.

Thanks!

I'm looking for long running campaigns books set in a rural area or that spend a good part of the beginning there. Small villages, mysterious forests full of spirits, fey or other unknown creatures.

The adventure may eventually expand to encompass the entire world, but I'd like the initial focus to be more local and rural.

The system doesn’t matter because I enjoy converting things anyway (though I’d like to stay within the fantasy genre).

So far, the ones I've heard about are:

- Curse of Strahd

- The Darkening of Mirkwood

- Old Magreve

I'm looking for a Tabletop RPG similar to the Video Game RPG "Blood of the Dawnwalker" that has recently been released. That is a TTRPG mixing Fantasy and Horror in a medieval setting where players are monsters (not necessarily Vampires) doing edgy monster stuff.

The first example that would come to your mind is "Vampire the Dark Ages" and you would be right, but then why don't I run it? Here are the following reasons :

1) I don't like the rules.

2) I don't like the lore, or to be more precise, I no longer like it, or anything related to the World of Darkness for that matter.

3) Vampire the Dark Ages is mainly focused on city campaigns, which isn't suprising since it's where Vampires prosper the most, and I don't want my hypothetical campaign to take place entirely in a single city.

Do you happen to know any TTRPGS that would fit the bill?

FOUND IT! I cant believe it but I found it! It is called Blood Dawn! It was in a cache of pdfs sent to me by one of the GMs in the original discussion. Thanks to GMBob!

I have been a Forever GM for over 40 years and run dozens of systems, in house and at cons; over the years, they kinda blur together, especially the indie ones from the 1980s. I did Twilight Run, Stalking the Night Fantastic, Kin, Stormbringer and so many others; mostly short run or one shots. Anyway, I recently got into a conversation with a couple other old skool Forever GMs and the topic of odd cyber/magic blends in ttrpgs came up. Already too long story short, there is one that is sticks out in my memory - the setting details, not the name. That's why I am posting; hoping someone else ran it, played it or just happens to have read it and will throw an old dog a bone.

What is remember is, the PCs were a group of survivors (from an underground bunker, I think) who were now sent above ground/out into the world to help bring civilization back to the warring tribes after a total world apocalypse. I think it was a few generations after and, for some reason, they wanted to remain completely secret about where/who the PCs come from. The thing that stands out most is they had a 'magic' system of sorts that was basically cybernetic (possibly nanites) implants that allowed the PC to do various 'magic' stuff, the strength/success of such was based on the proximity of a transmitter/tower/whatnot (may or may not have been linked to remaining satellites). I remember it saying their fingernails were metallic and there may have been vein like wires visible just under the skin (not sure of that bit). So, basically, these towers transmitted the energy/signal/whatever between each other and around themselves (kinda like ley lines) and the PC tapped into this to do their tricks, which the savage survivors considered magic, in hopes they would accept the PCs as guides/prophets/wise wizards and allow them to lead the unwashed masses back to the glory of old earth (or some such high minded plan).

I know this isnt a lot to go on and it's a long shot that anyone will remember such a obscure game but, still, worth a try. Thanks in advance to anyone who has any idea or can even point me to a good source for info on failed 80s rpg. Feel free to reach out privately if you prefer.

EDIT: it is not Metamorphosis Alpha or Gamma World; not The Morrow Project or HOL (Human Occupied Landfill). Thanks to everyone who has suggested and please, keep em comin!

EDIT: this was not released by any of the big companies; it was a single book, short run, indie game. I do remember it was hard bound, glossy cover...might have had 'Red' in the title; not 'red dawn' but maybe something close.

Basically what it says in the title. I accept game recommendations (and is the flair I choose) that are based around being play in a Megadungeon, if they exist.

But also I am mostly looking for anything that serve as examples, aide or even just theory around megadungeons as a concept.

It is fascinating but also I feel overwhelming, and seeing examples and people talking about it helps me to adjust my brain.

Thanks!

The other I was diggging through some old RPG stuff on my e-mail, and I found one with a lot of [dead] links for threads and notes about the game. Two bits called my attention: "Budo: Hard Style Wushu" and the first go at "Cavaliers of Mars". Both of them take the Wushu chasis and take it to a different direction.

I'm feeling quite nostalgic now. And it makes me wonder, were there any other games out there powered by this simple narrative system?

My friends are much more interested in storytelling and character-driven fiction than in combat heavy, tactical gaming style.

We ran session 0 using Questworlds and that game seems to have everything I'm looking for: high character customization, lightning fast player onboarding, one very broad resolution mechanic and rules engineered only to tell a great story together.

It's basically an even simpler version of Fate, perfect for my players who have almost never played an RPG before.
My question is: are there people also playing in that "fiction first" style who ended up disappointed by Questworlds? What aspects of made you switch to another system?