So like I said. I had to end a campaign early because one of my players is about to have a baby soon. The other players and me agreed that it would be cool for her to complete the campaign since it was her first time playing TTRPGs but we were nowhere near the end.

That had me thinking how to accomplish a satisfying end of a campaign in a single 4 hour session. I asked for inspiration in the Sly Flourish Discord and the ShadowDark Discord and got some really cool feedback. I had some really elaborate story for each player but they had to split up to achieve all of that in a short time span and forcing them to didn’t feel right. So I scrapped all of that and doubled down. I decided to go for one last epic fight at the highest level a character could achieve (Level 10 for ShadowDark). The ranger got a pet he wanted for so long, the mage got the staff of ord that he wanted for so long. Everyone got some really cool stuff.

Beforehand I asked one of my players “What is your sickest terrain and what are your 4 most awesome and terrifying minis?” since I knew he loves collecting and painting both. And then we went to town and had an absolutely amazing and memorable BBEG end fight. All of the players barely survived.

After that two hour battle I pulled out some index cards, some markers, my copy of Microscope RPG and we filled the time gap together. How did they get the magic items? How did they get to the location of the final battle? We answered all of those questions together. And we actually achieved a satisfying end for our campaign.

Would it have been more satisfying to play through it to finish it? Probably. But I learned a valuable lesson: Don’t postpone the cool stuff. Get right into it. I had read that advice a few times but never acted on it. In the next campaign I definitely will.

TLDR: Player about to have baby. Ended campaign in one session with boss fight. Filled the time gap using Microscope RPG.

By long term I just mean no one-shot games. Also, I know most games are low prep if you're brave enough, but I'm interested in games that actively encourage and help you come up with ideas, conflicts, characters, etc., on the spot, or unload part of the burden onto the players. Games that don't require the GM to prep a lot (or at all) in between sessions of play.

I'm specially a fan of games that require no stat blocks (ugh), and use very simple systems to track and solve conflict. Coop or gmless games also count. I don't care about genre, and I prefer if you can name specific games and why you like them (instead of naming general design philosophies like PbtA or FitD).

Lastly, it's possible some of the games you may mention are games I already know of, but there's a lot of games I know by name but haven't actually read, so any commentary about the systems you suggest is greatly appreciated. It may help me find something cool I didn't notice before.

Thanks!

As per title, I made what I feel like as a very big step in my career as game designer.

Until now I only worked as free lancer or made small personal passion projects on itch.io , never have been the cover author of a game.

I'm thrilled, my mind is ticking between "I'm sure they'll like it" and "oh God, what have I done".

I had to tell someone about it and celebrate.

Maybe they'll accept the piece, maybe they won't, but now I can proudly say I moved a very important baby step.

Thank you for listening/reading my ramblings, I hope your work will have all the acknowledgement they deserve.

Apparently a 3rd edition of Apocalypse World Burned Over is crowdfunding soon. Thought that'd be of interest to a few of y'all. Check the link to sign up for a go-live notification for the campaign.

Disclaimer: I have zero affiliation with the creators of this project. I just saw it on social media and thought others might be interested.

TL:DR – I made a 100-page Horror RPG demo, the bulk of which is 3 ready-to-run modules. It is highly hackable and customizable. The system is fluid and easy to run for the GM while maintaining high stakes and interesting decisions for players.

Free Demo, Character Sheet, & Tutorial Video
www.StrangeTimesRPG.com

Intro

Hello everyone! I will cut to the chase: I made an RPG system that I am very proud of and wanted to share. I have been seeing a lot of people in our community recently looking for horror games that can deliver specific experiences, and I believe my game can accommodate most of them with minimal effort. There is absolutely no cost to downloading the game other than time. Three modules included, just in time for spooky season.

What is Strange Times?

Strange Times is a setting agnostic investigative horror RPG. Using a d100 “roll low” system, it combines the competency of detective narratives with the powerlessness of horror stories. Players will be taking the role of those who became obsessed with learning about the dark forces hiding in their world--be they monsters, aliens, or ghosts. Every dive into the dark unknown will wear them down until they need to claw their way back into the light. 

Why Play Strange Times?

Strange Times was created to try and make a single system that can handle multiple forms of horror. I really enjoy games such as Mothership, Death in Space, Call of Cthulhu, Delta Green, Liminal Horror, Vaesen, Alien, Old Gods of Appalachia, etc. However, my group and I grew tired of needing to learn a new system every time we wanted to play in a new setting. Not to mention, I often would feel the systems in these games bumbling themselves in the way of the horror stories being told. I wanted something sleeker; a system that felt like it disappeared in play and only amplified the feelings of terror when it was called upon. Enter Strange Times.

Strange Times is a rules light game with minimal crunch. It can be taught in less than 10 minutes and character creation is easy and fun. Its systems are evocative but flexible enough to be bent to any horror idea you care to mention. Horrific injuries from a psycho killer? Easy! Alien infection? We got it. Ghostly possession? Not even a problem. It runs smoothly and GMs are never left wondering how something is supposed to function in the games systems.

Hacking is easy and encouraged. With minimal self-referential rules, GMs can be fast and loose with modifications leading to a feeling of plug-and-play rules. In fact, there are 4 pages in the demo dedicated to optional rules to consider for your game. Just a few tweaks can alter Stranges Times into a completely different experience.

Meanwhile, players will always be in interesting situations with flexible solutions. Because of the system’s minimalist nature, creativity is expected, and the rules seldom demand a set way to play. In addition, players are constantly being placed into positions of choice as most failure is optional IF the player is willing to pay a cost. This, along with a dice mechanic that immediately communicates success and failure, leads to exciting and dramatic gameplay.

Unique Systems In Strange Times?

Pushing Rolls: Players have 3 Saves which each have 2 corresponding Traits. When a player attempts a Trait Roll and fails by rolling a number higher than their Trait value, they can choose to succeed instead by Pushing the roll. All they need to do is reduce the relevant Save by the difference between the roll and the target number. For example, if a character was trying to use Empathy to lie to the cops about the alien they have stashed in their trunk and they roll a 68 when they needed a 60, they can lose 8 from their Spirit Save to pass. This puts immense power in the hands of the players, but it is not without any punishments. Saves are the character’s health. If anyone of them reaches zero, the character is removed from play. However, this is not the only issue with having lower Saves.

Dynamic Save Consequences: When a player fails a Save Roll, the severity of their consequence is based on the number rolled. The lower the number rolled, the worse the outcome. A 95 would cause a Minor consequence while a 35 would cause a Severe consequence. This might seem counterintuitive in a “roll low” system at first, but keep in mind that, so long as players keep their Saves high, there is little chance for a Severe outcome. This means that, as the game goes on and players Saves get lower either naturally or through Pushing rolls, the game gets more dangerous.

Flexible Condition System: While there are several numerical consequences a GM can inflict upon their players for failing rolls, Conditions allow for more creative expressions of the specific horror the characters are encountering. Conditions are marks on the character that can last for varying amounts of time. While these can be numerical (e.g. a slash to the leg giving a -10 to Speed Rolls), they can also be formed into unique mechanical effects. For example, if a player was indeed suffering from an alien infection, they could receive a Condition that counts down to their demise. Meanwhile, a ghostly possession might see the player occasionally needing to make a spirit save to maintain control of their character. Conditions are how the GM can breathe life into the horror they create.

Obsession: One of the struggles with horror games is the question “why would the characters constantly put themselves in danger?” In Strange Times, the answer is defined: the characters are obsessed. Each character has had a brush with dark forces and now has a need to know more. This is baked into character creation but also works mechanically. Characters have an Obsession stat that will rise over the course of play. This is a tool that lets the GM be the impulsive voice inside the characters, nudging them into more and more dangerous situations. Players can always resist this “call of the void” but doing so removes some of the players Resilience and makes future resists more costly. In play, this is largely a mechanical excuse for players to do the scary things everyone wants them to do but are technically “bad decisions.”

Weapons Don’t Deal Damage: Not so much of a mechanic as it is a lack of one. Weapons don’t deal damage. In fact, there are no rules for combat at all. I found that if I gave rules for how weapons worked and how players could fight things, they would only try and fight things. Instead, players enter into Hostile Encounters that are much more dangerous and force players to be creative to avoid harm. This has led to gameplay speeding up and becoming more intense during the most dramatic moments.

And that is it! I hope you enjoy checking out Strange Times. I will be answering any questions in the comments the best I can.

Our group has been playing EABA (End All Be All), both the v2.01 and v1.1 versions for a couple of years now and we love it, but we are looking for other systems and the mainstream ones (GURPS, BRP, SWADE, FATE, Genesys, Cortex Prime, PbtA, etc) have not caught much of a fancy for us.

So we're on the lookout for interesting generic and universal systems that are less talked about.

Edit: We strongly prefer something leaning into a realistic portrayal of skill, damage and everything in general (even if it has supernatural elements, as long as they feel realistic compared to mundane stuff).

Seeing the Monster Kingdoms post earlier today and being a life long dragon fangirl, I was wondering if there were games out there that do actually let you play as one of those fantastic, scaly beasts. So far, I've only hacked existing games in order to kind of work (not really) with the premise of having dragons be playable. But I'd be interested in exploring a system that is actually built for that particular fantasy. Does anyone have any leads?

In contrast to everyones favourite high powered combat spells blasting opponents with fireballs or polymorphing into a Owlbear, I have a soft spot for those small utilitarian spells and cantrips that provide background colour, flavour, and atmosphere, often without even adding any mechanical effects to a game. I think they provide interesting ways for inventive players to utilise and find creative uses for.

Some of my favourites (from Mythras) include:

Babble mangles anything spoken by its target into an unintelligible gibberish.

Incognito alters the facial features of the recipient to a bland, unmemorable countenance so that they are easily overlooked.

Pathway enables the recipient to more easily travel through heavy vegetation, safe from being scratched, snagged or otherwise hindered.

Preserve prevents organic matter, both vegetable and animal, from bacterial decay and putrefaction for 1d3 months, by sterilising it.

Dishevel is the reverse of the Cleanse spell. Objects affected are immediately covered in grime, dust, cobwebs, and so forth.

What are your favourites?

I am interested in finding similar automatic skill scalings, because I find it very satisfying and heroic.

I have been a fan of Tom Abbadon's ICON for years. I have been keeping track of the ICON 2.0 previews and eagerly await the full game. But even 1.5 fascinates me as a grid-based tactical RPG.

I like the way ICON scales noncombat skills. Yes, characters gain both vertical and horizontal increases to them as they increase in level, but they also acquire more narrative scaling as well. ICON has a tier system for levels much like D&D 4e, 13th Age, D&D 5e, Draw Steel, and Daggerheart: chapter 1 (local heroes, levels 0 to 4), chapter 2 (regional heroes, levels 5 to 8), and chapter 3 (global heroes, levels 9 to 12). As characters rise in chapter, the definition of what they do with skill rolls is recalibrated. For example:

Typically, characters are unable to tackle challenges or tasks above their chapter without taking multiple steps, bringing in help, or having reduced effect (or no effect at all). Conversely, characters tackling threats and challenges under their chapter probably don’t even have to roll.

Chapter 1

• Fighting a small band of bandits or an average monster

• Scaling a high manor wall

• Swimming across a river

• Surviving in the wilderness

• Sneaking into a camp undetected

• Charming a merchant into better prices

• Commanding a few lackeys

• Deciphering odd runes from a ruin

Chapter 2

• Fighting a large group of well trained soldiers or a tough, intelligent, or powerful monster

• Scaling a huge castle wall

• Sneaking into a guarded castle

• Riding a monster without a saddle

• Forging a new set of armor in just a few days

• Creating a new powerful alchemical formula

• Enduring a fall off a high peak

• Splitting a boulder in half with a single blow

• Riling up a crowd into revolution

Chapter 3

• Fighting or commanding an entire army

• Building a castle in a single night, or destroying it with all your might

• Traveling across the entire continent in a few hours

• Battling an ancient or legendary monster

• Scaling an epic peak with your bare hands

• Swimming across an ocean channel

• Stealing the crown off the king’s head while he holds court

• Surviving being hurled into a hostile dimension for a few weeks

• Charming an ancient sorcerer into aiding you

• Making ground-breaking discoveries in magic. Forging new spells

Individual skills list their own examples. For instance, here is Sense:

• Chapter I: Spot or detect traps, hidden doors, or hidden objects. Look for entrances into an ancient ruin. Sense an ambush. Track or hunt over ground. Detect magic or the presence of nearby mundane beings.

• Chapter II: Sense a master assassin. Track someone through new snow or in days-old mud. Detect subtle or hidden magic. Spy a moving caravan hours before it arrives. Predict the weather days in advance.

• Chapter III: Determine the exact location of an invisible creature. Track someone in a busy town by the smell of their tobacco. Visualize the ambient connections of magic around you.

And here is Study:

• Chapter I: Figure out how to open a door. Decipher a text in a foreign language. Find a path through a maze. Solve a riddle. Untangle a puzzle. Do light detective work. Determine whether the local barkeep is charging too much money.

• Chapter II: Decipher an ancient text. Research forbidden lore. Find the weak heart scale on a wyrm. Figure out where someone has been by looking at their clothing. Determine whether the master thief is going to let you leave her den alive.

• Chapter III: Surmise exactly what happened in a room last week from two hairs and a splotch of blood. Decipher an ancient inscription by intuition alone. Solve a mystery right away that would have stumped an entire team of local heroes. Guess the archwyrm’s riddle in one go.

As for why these noncombat skills include fighting, that is because:

By default, ICON assumes GMs and other players will be using the tactical combat system in the second half of this book. This system is only for when the stakes or the tension are high and must be resolved through combat. In tactical combat, characters can actually be hurt or killed, and they are going to use the full extent of their might - all their destructive magical and physical power. If the scene doesn’t warrant that, or the characters don’t have the ability to go all out, it’s not worth tactical combat. For most situations involving violence, assess whether it’s important enough to dip into tactical combat. If you get into other situations, it might be better to play it out as a narrative scene, using clocks. This is a way you can set the tone and pacing for your game.

A clock is "multiple steps," so a chapter 1 party trying to "[fight] a large group of well trained soldiers or a tough, intelligent, or powerful monster" in relatively low-stakes circumstances would most likely use a clock. Meanwhile, a chapter 2 PC could simply eliminate those soldiers or that monster in a single successful roll.

Someone with exceptionally vivid mental imagery is said to have hyperphantasia, while someone with no mental imagery is said to have aphantasia. A hyperphantasic person can experience mental images as vivid as reality, while an aphantasic person cannot visualize anything in their mind's eye. Exceedingly good visualization (Hyperphantasia)

• Term: Hyperphantasia. 
• Description: The condition of having extremely vivid and detailed mental imagery, often described as being "as vivid as real seeing" or "cinematic". 
• Characteristics: People with hyperphantasia can have mental imagery across all five senses, though it is often discussed in terms of visual imagery. 

The opposite (Aphantasia)

• Term: Aphantasia. 
• Description: The condition where an individual lacks the ability to form mental visual imagery, meaning they cannot picture things in their mind's eye. 
• Characteristics: People with aphantasia are sometimes called aphantasics or phants, and it is considered the opposite of hyperphantasia. 

It is important for you as a GM to be aware that not everyone may visualize the way you do. In fact some people do not visualize at all. This came to my attention the hard way, as my GF was struggling to grasp the game as a whole. It wasn't until I asked another player, picture an apple, tell me about it. When thier description was unlike my own, I realized my GF literally could not visualize at all. Instead she deals in concepts, while I watch everything like it is a full on movie, but take it a step forward, I can move, take apart add what ever I want, like in the first iron man, when he was designing the MRK2 suit. My other two gamers at the time, only picture in a comic like way, snap shots or frames.

To circumvent my GF's way of seeing, I started using a board, in particular one with a flat, tv screen so I could get detailed maps and show them quickly. Ever since I ask the apple question, and then press on about an action scene, this way I know where the player to be will stand.

With the board my GF can participate and even better her conceptual viewpoint has let to more than one idea that was completely awesome and more importantly, ones I didn't see. I write this post to bring awareness, not to point at one and say it is better. Instead I want other people out there to know and understand this is a thing, and I am interested in knowing if anyone has other methods for navigating this?

I have tried Draw Steel for the first time over the weekend and it was so fun that I feel compelled to post this write up. I haven't been this impressed with a game in a long time. Also, I often complain in this sub about people having opinions on games (or talking about them) without actually having played them, and the least I can do is set the example of what I would like to see more of: discussion of actual play experience.

I'll just start by saying that Draw Steel is a game that, on paper, shouldn't really be my jam. I started with AD&D 2E in the late 1990s/early 2000s and I am fundamentally more of an OSR kind of guy. In the early 2000s I switched to D&D 3.0/3.5 and I ended up playing it for several years because it was incredibly popular back then. I used to have grid and minis, but I wasn't a huge fan of the crunchy tactical combat. I was okay with it, I guess; I thought it was a core part of the system so you were meant to play with a grid. But in hindsight I would say that I was having fun despite of it rather than because of it. I also struggled with the system since I wanted to run more low magic, gritty types of games - which isn't a type of game that D&D 3.5 by default tends to produce. I skipped D&D 4E - the people I played with back then didn't like it. In recent years I have tended to steer away from tactical combat games, playing mostly OSR games or storygames (PbtAs and forged in the dark mainly), or Call of Cthulhu/Delta Green. I have run D&D 5E as well, and while I do enjoy the occasional combat encounter, my D&D games haven't been combat centric, and I have tended to avoid high level play. I find the cognitive load associated with combat too intense and I get bored by the lengthy encounters. Just to be clear, it's not that I don't enjoy combat, but I prefer the gritty visceral combat of Mythras to the drawn out tactical combat encounters you often see in D&D. Honestly, I did not think I would enjoy again a proper grid-and-minis tactical combat at my age.

I can't quite explain why I decided to try Draw Steel. It's just not the kind of game I'd normally be interested in. On paper, it's a tactical combat game about fantasy superheroes, and it's not the type of stuff I normally go for. It's a very 'gamist' RPG, almost 'videogame-y'; the core of the game is the combat, and Draw Steel doesn't really beat around the bush with this. The game tells you very clearly that it's about combat. And it's a crunchy game, the type of game I'd normally avoid because I know at my age, after a tiring day at work, I would find it too complicated and too cognitively demanding to run a game like this. But I guess something about it must've resonated with me. In any case, I bought the Delian Tomb Starter Adventure and I've run it with some friends over the weekend when our main game was cancelled. I think a big factor in me managing to actually try Draw Steel is that the starter adventure is really well done. It comes with pregens, encounter sheets with suggestions about tactics, and it introduces the rules gradually, so it made the crunch more digestible and approachable. In terms of making the game approachable and lowering the barrier of entry, this is a great product. I wouldn't say it's a particularly interesting or notable module in itself - it's extremely linear, simple, and very vanilla - but it's excellent at what it wants to do: introducing the rules gradually and allowing you to play the game as soon as possible. It feels and it plays like a videogame tutorial, in a good kind of way. I would say it's very very good value for the money.

The takeaway from the session is that yes, it's a crunchy game and it is quite intense cognitively - BUT I actually had so much fun. The PCs felt like fantasy Avengers or Dragonball characters, in a very satisfying way. Combat seems very dynamic, and forced movement around the battlefield is a big component of the fun: you can slam enemies into walls, squash them into the ground, punch them into the sky, slam enemies into each other. The combat felt dynamic and interesting, and while there are quite a few rules to remember and 'process' during the game, it felt manageable. I played with Owlbear Rodeo which is pretty barebones. I think it would've been surprisingly easy with a more sophisticated VTT. My players seemed engaged during the combat. I was impressed by the way abilities are written. They are very mechanically concise and terse, yet they have evocative (and sometimes funny) names that manage to somehow convey a lot.

I have seen criticism about the game labelling itself as "cinematic", mainly the fact that it's a buzzword that doesn't really mean anything or that it means very different things for different people. While I don't disagree with this, I have to say that I see what they were going for when they used the term cinematic. The crunchy rules can feel clunky (which for some people go against the idea of the game being cinematic, as in: in a cinematic game you simply narrate a cool move and the rules don't get in the way), but they produce the kind of outcomes you might see in action movie or some kind of over-the-top anime like Dragonball. Seeing monsters being pinballed around the battlefield as an intended mechanical effect of the rules (instead of this being a description) was surprisingly fun.

This is just one session, and I might well change my mind over this game as time goes on. The combat encounters seem quite long - probably no more than the average 5e combat, but more than I'd prefer. Obviously having to explain rules and triple check rules and stack blocks, lack of familiarity with the system, having to consult multiple PDFs etc. has slowed the combat down significantly, but I do worry about length of combat in this game, especially at higher levels. I have the impression that the range of potential options in terms of moves and powers increase significantly at higher level and I can imagine combats being drawn out. I can see this getting tiring with time. However, my first impression after this one session was very positive and the experience was, in a way, mindblowing (similar, in a different way, to what I felt years ago when I tried Blades in the Dark for the first time and it clicked). I think it's fair to say that I wasn't expecting to like this game nearly as much as I did. I haven't been this excited about a game in a long time and I'm honestly tempted to just pause my ongoing campaign and start a Draw Steel game. James Introcaso and the MCDM team did a really impressive job.

In summary, I would recommend people to buy The Delian Tomb starter adventure and give this game a go, even if you think it's not the kind of game you'd run.

I'd be interested to hear other people's experience with the game!

Hey everyone, I’ve been thinking about different approaches to combat systems and I’d love to hear your thoughts.

In games that aren’t pure dungeon crawlers (but still have combat as a feature, not just a narrative aside), what do you prefer:

• Grid-based combat (squares/feet, tactical movement, fixed positioning)?
• Contextual combat using theater of the mind, but with set ranges like Close / Far / Very Far, and movement within those bands?

For those who lean toward contextual/range systems: if you want to represent it at the table, how do you usually do it? Tokens, sketches, verbal tracking?

Personally, if combat isn’t the main focus of the game, I’d rather skip grids and tactical maps. I prefer theater of the mind with a little something extra (like ranges) to keep it from turning into just trading blows until someone drops.

Also curious: what games have you found with combat systems that are fun and unique, without being the entire focus of play?

Im assuming since this flair exists, I can ask this.

I know of Delta green btw

Hello guys,

I'd like to read about your experiences with worst subsystems in very good RPGs.

That subsystem that you think “Dude, if this game didn't have that, it would be perfect”.

So, what do you say? What was the worst subsystem that (almost) ruined everything?

Can anyone suggest a good TTRPG that's stealth/espionage in a modern setting that isn't suited for short campaigns? Most of the ones I've found are those that don't last very long or lack content when playing after a certain amount of development, and I'd love something without that issue.

As for setting, I'm definitely leaning away from Bond and more towards Metal Gear in my search for "espionage." Gritty, behind enemy lines, and maybe some space for goofiness or 'super soldier' sci fi stuff.

It would help if the game has a large online community (or just any at all), since my friends aren't too keen on straying away from dnd so I might need to meet people for the purpose of playing this game.

Because no matter how much you dislike a system there's always a defender of it.

I was playing a Spell-User in an OSR game with a GM that was a friend of a friend. On the first combat encounter, I cast Sleep (one of my 2 spells per day) against a group of 4 goblins, and inform the GM that it puts to sleep 3 Hit Dice worth of creatures. I ask him how many HD the goblins have, since if they all have 1, I can put 3 of them to sleep. After a pause and some paper shuffling, he tells me they actually have 3 HD and that only one of them was affected. I find it weird, since I've run this game before and know that standard goblins have a single HD, but I just assume these goblins are more powerful than normal and leave it at that.

The fight continues, one of them hits me, I get reduced to 2 Hit Points, and spent the rest of the combat hiding. We loot the goblins, and I was expecting some good loot or XP, since they were stronger, but it was just the regular stuff.

After the session, I messaged the GM asking if those goblins were meant to be stronger, or if he increased their HD on the fly because he thought my spell was too powerful. In case of the latter, I explained that I feel like the balance of this game is that Spell-Users are meant to have powerful spells, since they get so few of them. The Fighting Man has armor, better weapons, and more HP; the Thief has their skills and backstab; but all a Magic User has is what's basically a revolver a with (at least at our current level) two bullets on the barrel and nothing else.

Guess what? It was the latter. He admitted he overreacted a little, and that he was afraid that my character was about to trivialize all the following challenges and encounters, which ended up not happening.

Actually, I'm not really surprised by this outcome. I only posted this to say:

Just talk to your GM, folks.

I want to create a TTRPG where Bonds characters make with others (NPCs or not) highly impact the narrative and even some mechanics, and i want some suggestions to get some inspiration on how should i do it.

What TTRPGs that you know that have such a kind of mechanic? How is it implemented in the system?
(btw, please don't just post the name of the system and leave it at that, at least give a brief explanation of the bond mechanic)

The World Below RPG was very well received over on this subreddit over a year ago, so I wanted to draw your attention to Monster Kingdoms, an RPG where evil won and you play as the monsters. It has a firm "fall of the Roman Empire" feel to it in that the tyrannical evil empire is falling and the constituent Monster Kingdoms are about to descend on it.

To me, Monster Kingdoms feels a lot like playing the Sabbat (from Vampire) in a fantasy setting. None of your characters are drooling beasts - they all have their own classes (Mantles), powers, and philosophies that stop constant PvP and disruptive play. The game consists of a lot of monster wrangling (and slaying), dungeon building (and crawling), exploration (and exploitation), and empowering yourselves as conquerors.

If you're interested, please check it out right here: Monster Kingdoms BackerKit

And if you have any questions, please ask!

Our table got the chance to play in Boylei Studio’s Wild Imaginary West the other day, and i wanted to put my two cents in! Take with a heap of salt, since ive only started branching out into other systems a year or so ago after starting off with pathfinder2e.

First off, the official guidebook is pretty amazing. from the little i looked at it, its packed with concept art and story settings, like factions and towns, notable people and their motivations, and even some fluff like mechwagons, upgrade parts, monster hunting material and survival equipment. I did find its lack of worldbuilding a little bit sad, but im wondering if its because i properly interacted with already established worldbuilding due to the lack of any adventure paths at the time of play. (Our table was playing a homebrew adventure using the material available.)

Onto the system! Wild Imaginary West is primarily about hunting, killing things and making buck. I felt, though, that the combat system lacked some of the pazaaz necessary to bring a squad of monster-killing hunters to life. For one, I think some of the classes need a lot of extra flavor to highlight what monsterhunting in the west is like. Particularly the Hunter and Trapper seemed to lack much distinction to justify their different classes, just two different ways of doing the same things, neither of which seemed to highlight what hunting can be like here in any notable way. There was also a lack of clear wording when it came to some abilities - its written that “all abilities cost 1 grit to use during combat unless specified otherwise”, but for abilities i thought definitely need more specification, i found none. (actually, i think all abilities should just tell you how much grit it costs to avoid confusion.)

On a more systemic note, we really enjoyed the crisp damage/defense system. WiW’s weapons cost less action to use the more advanced they get, rather than dealing more damage. Damage is always challenged by whatever defense or cover dice whoever is taking damage might have, and this meant there was often a roll of dice from the DM to contest whatever damage was incoming, leading combat to feel more responsive and fast-paced. We also definitely liked the death system WiW employed - once someone is ‘down’, they roll death saves at the end of each ally’s turn . You can only try this 4 times, and if they fail any of these rolls even once, they will immediately die. The only way for a character to get back up from being down is for someone to help them. Obv a more responsive and desperate way to play out death rolls, than say, DnD.

That’s it! i’d recommend WiW for anybody who wants to try out a gritty wild west scenario, esp tables that want to try out its new dice system.

I have talked about the sheer power of forced movement more generally.

But now, I would like to focus on the object destruction side of such mechanics.

Draw Steel has fairly generous rules for object destruction, seen here and here.

It is 3 damage or 3 remaining squares of forced movement to destroy a 5-by-5-by-5-foot cube of wood. It is 6 for stone, or 9 for metal.

I have noticed that this results in dungeon walls often feeling like cardboard. For example, a level 1 PC with the Rapid-Fire kit can use Two Shot to, on a tier 2+ result, destroy two 5-by-5-by-5-foot cubes of stone dungeon wall. A level 1 NPC human scoundrel has a 100% chance of using their Rapier and Dagger action to destroy a 5-by-5-by-5-foot cube of stone, and so does a level 1 NPC human trickshot with their Trick Crossbow action.

Then there is forced movement. A level 1 hakaan fury (berserker or reaver) or null (metakinetic) availing of their 2-ferocity or 2-discipline benefit can push or slide a size 1M creature (e.g. a human) 6 squares with a tier 2 result on a Knockback maneuver, which is not even a main action. If the target is next to a stone wall, that stone wall is getting burst right open. NPCs have their own forced movement too, of course.

How do you adapt to dungeon walls being so fragile for both PCs and NPCs?

Also, it is possible for abilities like Kinetic Grip to pick up an object and apply forced movement onto it.

Kinetic Grip and similar abilities have some strong potential outside of combat, too. For example, right from level 1, Kinetic Grip can pick up a watchtower, even one made of stone or iron, and transport it around. What is the limit to the kind of objects and structures that Kinetic Grip can pick up and lift around, and other abilities like it, can pick up and lift around?

Afternoon all,

I am lifetime ttrpg player and have been with the same GM for 20+ years. I have a story I would like to GM and i am doing a lot of research in the GM techniques, styles, and systems. When you have played and grown with one GM like I have- the internet is an incredible store of knowledge.

My GM is hypercreative and has been running complete homebrews for the past decade or more. Ive been picking his brain and he has been an incredible resource. I have realized though that our brains work very differently and I could not do what he does in terms of world creation. I also recognize I dont want to comp his style or settings.

So I am coming to this community for some other player and GM perspectives and I am at point where i would love feedback on a question I am stuck on.

I am a roleplay forward style player and most of player pool for this game is also roleplaying forward. One of the things I would like to add to my game is tacitical combat as so much of our play in the established games have been theater of the mind and very little tactics- which works great in those games. Combat often turns into pretty simply rolls and the tactics aren't really needed.

So my question is sort of 3 fold.

1. How do you find the sweet spot of roleplaying and system crunch or complexity? I want a system that creates enough rules to be tactical but without turning into a tactical simulator. I still want to be roleplaying primariy but want more "thinking" in combat and problem solving.

2. What systems have been best for you to allow meaningful engaging combat without bogging down play?

3. if you have had a player or players who are pretty resistant to complexity in systems how have to handle it and any suggestions to make that a win-win for both you and the player.

Thanks all!

"The Tyranny of Distance; impotent to act as your system is bombarded by unknown alien assailants, you hard burn from the destroyed system slip gate to the planet side RV.

Prepare for combat drop."

Mechanically, Railgun XXV is a rules light system with player facing rolls, d20 roll under resolution that focusses on combat.

Thematically? Shooting bad things.

Complete with short campaign and Deathmatch mode.

Feedback welcomed, it's my second project. Apple seems to give issues with the background, all other PDF readers seem fine. PWYW.

https://spaceman77.itch.io/railgun-xxv

What rpg books do you think are worth snatching up right now because you foresee them going out of print soon?

I was thinking about this as I was looking at how Nobilis 2002 is only available in PDF, and some people report it was a beautiful book. I actually bought Impossible Landscapes because I feared that if I waited another year to buy it it may go out of print, and I’d kick myself for not getting it when I could.

I really like physical books. I’ll play a game from a PDF of Foundry module. But part of the enjoyment of the game is the aesthetic of physical books.

I've been running a Cyberpunk Red campaign for the past month or two with a friend as to get them more comfortable with the act of roleplaying a character, learning game, and more importantly just to have fun introducing a friend into a hobby I've enjoyed since middle school.

Overall, it's been quite a blast. However, whenever I'm running sessions, there's been this feeling that's permeated throughout my decision making lately, and I'm starting to feel like it's bothersome enough that I at least want to make sure I'm not being unfair towards my player, their character, or just my thought process in general. For context, the player is playing a Solo that used to be a gunrunner for the Tyger Claws in Kabuki, and now is basically on a vendetta to get back at them for using them as a scapegoat in a gig gone wrong, ultimately resulting in the destruction of the character's motorcycle that they inherited from family.

This backstory works and feels entirely fine to me, and to some extent I've loved bouncing off of it. However, as the story has continued on and I've let them slowly piece together the how of the gig gone wrong, I've slowly come to realize that the who and why of this might just not be satisfying for them. Because in truth, my player fell into the crack most players do of making their first character(s) quite self-inserty. Which mind you, isn't a bad thing in my eyes even if some consider it cliche, uninspired, or trope-y. However, I've felt that their own cynicism, and real world beliefs are just starting to bleed into their character and future plans for them in a way I just don't know if I'm entirely okay with.

They're more than likely sold on this narrative that the gang they were apart of, must be colluding with or be paid off in part by the NCPD, which isn't really unrealistic for them to do. However, what this segues into is them ultimately wanting to wage in what's effectively guerilla warfare across all of Night City in an attempt to demilitarize if not entirely destroy the NCPD in Night City as they know it.

While it's a typical tale in NC given the historical account of a ton of different personalities throwing their lives at trying to knock corporations down as a peg such as Johnny Silverhand, this just wasn't the narrative that I had plotted out for them. I was far more invested in their choice of local area and helping them fill out their lifepath to ultimately establish their neck of the woods. Not just to make it feel more personal, but to in a sense make it feel lived. Be it having local fixers who are capable of bringing things in for the locals that they could have access to, to other mercs in the area that'd be willing to tag along for gigs, to just everyday people, people who need gigwork done, or local authority that wouldn't just be any of the big megacorporations.

And while they've enjoyed the ability to just interact with some NPC's, they have a fixer they like. I feel like outside of this they often seem far more ecstatic for the future prospect of mowing down what they view to be ontologically evil stormtroopers rather than actually doing many gigs or working with Edgerunning crews, and it makes me feel like if I have hesitance of letting them just try and gun it for a big fish I ultimately think they'd struggle to kill if at all, or grant them a far more smaller scale fish for the respective local narrative and stakes right now, that I'd be robbing them of the thing they want to do.

More importantly, I just find the prospect kind of vain? Cyberpunk to me can be a lot of things, however it feels like the outlier stories such as the ones shown in 2077 and other supporting media, has resulted in more than one occasion at my tables where the player fantasy of wanting to play a character with that kind of 'gravitas' just ends up feeling like a tragedy-written ball of angst that ultimately has their entire life story, friends, allies, and enemies centralized around some form of corporation or value they throw all their chips down on before actually letting themselves, or their character truly get to know the world of Night City.

I've been getting my player into Cyberpunk media outside of the IP made by R Talsorian to implicitly show the different facets of this genre that I love, however I'll admit that other than that I genuinely don't know how to go forward with this problem. As talking seems like a very personal phenomenon in this case that would likely just cause more of an upset than there already is. However, I haven't really seen anyone else online with this problem for Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, Cy_Borg or systems like it. Part of it I reckon is just because it technically does fit the punk-y nature of well, Cyberpunk. However, it feels like there's just a certain layer of humanity/vulnerability and those intimate "in the moment" character interactions that just get lost in cranking the scale up that far just to play "punk"

It sounds fun as a oneshot to me, but for a longer term campaign it's something which I'd struggle to truly feel engaged with for a prolonged period of time, and with the growing amount of tables be they online or physical that feel engaged with it, it's made me question honestly if I'm going into this system with the right mentality.