There are five new release for this quarter's HârnQuest.

1. Parios Keep - Parios Keep is held by the Earl of Elorin, with Sir Molkin Ematha as constable. The settlement is on the east bank of the Horka River along the Genin Trail between Laket and Harden in northern Melderyn. The rugged and densely forested Anadel Highlands to the west are rich in minerals and home to tribes of the Bujoc nation. To the east and north lie the fertile plains of the Horka Valley, the heart of Elorinshire.
2. Miners Guild - This article describes the organization and activities of the Miners' Guild and its place in Hârnic society. Includes information about mining as an occupation, legal and financial matters, and topics related to the establishment and operation of surface and underground mines.
3. Huxuth Colony - Huxuth is a colony of Gargu-hyeka (Common or Brown Orcs) situated in a pass between the Rayesha and Felsha mountain ranges in north-central Hârn. 
4. Atlas Hârnica Map K7: Chybisa and Setha Heath
5. Atlas Hârnica Map M7: Northeastern Melderyn

Of course, all subscribers to this RPG content get 50% off all PDFs.

http://columbiagames.com/harnworld/harnquest/

I'am just going to spill out some frustrations I had today.
Hello! I know you guys do not have any more context than the ones I am gonna come up with here, but I wanted to hear from your experiences.
So, let's begin today's episode that is the third one after the hiatus, and I already start the session with THREE plot hooks, one of the pc's dad is a gangster and comes with info, one of the Pc's has a strange dream with literal god telling him where the Serial killer of the town is (wich for some reason doesn't tell anyone about and instantly forgets right after) and a letter from the Serial Killer sharing his location, and yes, the villain of the campain himself wich puts an intire city and the npcs they care in danger.
Yet, for some reason, the pcs starts to open the treasure from last mission and spend 2 WHOLE HOURS trying to perform a unkown ritual that happend before with them under very especific conditions that they simply coundn't do 'cuz no one had the requiriments for it (yet they did the ritual that buffs them without even knowing how that worked. So I let crystal clear they wouldn't be able to perform the ritual because they where spending already too much time on it .
And yes ,I am going to be honest, the three plot hooks pointed for the same dungeon because that's was everything I had prepped. Then they start to lookout for some weapons, (Knowing damn well the focus of the RPG was never ending on battle, but getting info, because the motif was always "knowledge is power"). And guess what, there wasn't any big or powerful sword just laying anywhere in the city, though there was an industrial park they could explore to find something. Yeah, I know I could just prep easier loot spots, but the thing is there the campaing setting is a normal and tiny city, it is an investigation campaign with dangerous and smart battles with underpower characters where the whole fun was "what are they going to do with such dangerous power" and "they can die" but they were also supposed to be the heroes because they knew somethings no one else could.
After getting clear that the ritual coundn't happen they go the desired location and I give them 3 visual hooks, The forest, the Gang Mansion and the tower to explore. They separate to the forest and the mansion. The heroes from the florest find a henchman worried about a creature with various hints of danger and then... they just start... chasing the man that had a gun while they had slingshot. Like really? He scapes and hides himself in the creature's den. They find him and start a battle, wich one pc alone tryed to slingshot the man to death, and obviously fails, lol. The other pc that didn't chased the man starts to hear the gang fighting with the creature and he starts to notice that the thing is actually right by him, I don't show the creature (for suspence) but it just cuts a tree on half and make him run, the creature was like an small dragon (10 feet) and flew to kill some man in the other side of the forest.
And... the climax was that the chase of the man were interruped by the dragon, and one of the pc's were actually a gang member that had power to contain it (since it was imortal cuz it does need a puzzle to kill it). He has some few options, using an special power, an special rope and more allies, and... the thing is... the player really want to feel powerful, and I get it, he can help killing the creature but instead keeps insisting to "intimidate" the dragon and to tame it... knowing damn well that I made it very clear since the begining in the character creation that it couldn't happen out of nowhere. Well, he helps to "kill" it, the other players simply start to flee from the objective, and the ones I didn't mentioned where exploring the mansion properly... though I don't think they had any engagement.
So my fellows DMs, I really wanted some feedback of what you guys would do and wanted to know if I am the asshole, If I did something wrong. Thank you.

Something with visceral action, high intrigue, and a distinctly western feel. What do you think would work best?

Looking for games with a Norse code of paint, specially ones that can go beyond the stereopes of "savage vikings in fur coats, horned helms and big double-sided axes"

I had an idea for a rules light TTRPG system about a week ago, and since then I have been working on fleshing it out and writing up the core mechanics so that I could get some feedback on it. I have searched and I have not found a game like this yet, but I know there are a lot of people that have spent more time looking at different systems then I have. My main goals for this game is for it to be good for mass combat, rules light, and be good for one shots and short campaigns.

About:

This game is a d6 system where in order to succeed you need to roll the required number or higher. Instead of giving you modifiers to roll higher like in other systems, this system lets you use your abilities to lower the number you need to beat, to a minimum of 2.

Instead of having a class system, or even skill trees, this TTRPG operates off of skills, of which you can pick any one that you want when making your character or when you get new skill points. Some skills are for using weapons, others are for general skills like sneaking and performing, and some are for magic.

To make combat run as fast as possible, the attacker makes an ability check, and if they hit, they do one damage. There is Armor Class or Saving throws to worry about. This, combined with the fact that everybody in the same group goes at the same time (removing the need to keep track of initiative) makes it easy and fast to run mass combat. Range is also measured in squares instead of feet  (squares represent 5 feet each) to help keep things moving fast. 

The other thing that helps make this unique is the fact that the only expendable resource you have (besides items and gold) is your health. Because of this, to keep magic balanced since there is no mana system, more powerful spells take multiple turns to cast.

To help encourage teamwork, people are allowed to use their actions to help cast the spell, as long as they are within 20 feet of the person casting said spell.

More Info

I have more stuff written down in this google doc if you want to take a look, (it is about 5 pages, but it is a quick read)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MwCyADcOBhhwzgvsNn7E9xtOVLOvQIqDgmJJpWsnqco/edit?usp=sharing

Anyways, I would love to hear any feedback that you have, and hopefully I wrote down enough for you to get a good idea of what I want the game to be. I didn't want to spend a couple months writing up the rules only to find out that the core idea is bad or someone else already made it.

I was reading Play Dirty a while ago, I enjoyed it but after re-reading it and hearing several serious problems and accusations towards John Wick, I decided that I need to read other things.

This is not a thread to talk about the John Wick scandal, I'm just asking for recommendations for reading material and advice on how to be a DM.

I was cleaning some book shelves and realized i had the first edition of one ring, i have never read it, hell i havent even opened it yet. im curious about it, but i been hearing a lot about second ed, should i stick to first ed or do the jump to second ed from the go?

As a DnD player with a few years under my belt, and an avid lover of ATLA and LoK I'm currently looking into purchasing a copy of this game so i can run it with my friends. My main question, to anyone whose played the game themselves, would the adventures span across multiple sessions or are the pre-written adventures like one-shots?

Just asking as I've had an experience where I bought the Lancer book from an LGS and in the copy they had a QR code for them. Kind of the same with delta green but I had to email them.

Was wondering I have the Diablo 2nd edition Dungeons & Dragons box set but the corresponding modules that follow are 3rd edition d20 Dungeons & Dragons. Is there a reason as to why and a chart to make it all work to either make the modules work woth the box set of visa versa?

Hi. I finally managed to finish running "Scent of a Killer" - took longer than most Vaesen scenarios I ran - and I wrote a short review:

https://nyorlandhotep.blogspot.com/2024/12/vaesen-review-scent-of-killer.html

Includes GM advice.

I hope you like it.

So you're about to play another game of pretend elves. You sit down with your group and get ready to discuss the premise. You have all sorts of grand plans: more dragons, fewer dungeons, maybe some spaceships. And then you hear the dreaded question.

“What's the lore about the gods and religion in this campaign?”

Mythology is one of the things I most love about RPGs. And many times, I've tried to run it and failed miserably to accomplish what I had in mind. So, I want to conduct a little research here and ask you all about your experience with it.

More specifically, as a GM or player,

• Do you usually like or care at all for mythology in your game?
• What's the best mythology or religion you've seen in a campaign?
• What's the worst, most frustrating example instead?

#####Do specify if you were GMing or playing a PC.

I heard about the One rings rpg system recentlty, and how its use stances to create positioning for theater of the mind combat. What other systems are out there that have interesting combat but don't rely on a grid to convey position and distance?

so i use a program called obsidian to store and index my campaign notes for the games I run, and I'm starting up a new campaign soon that I'm working out the prep for, including setting up a map. with some plugins and some computer stuff, I can now click and drag on my map to get accurate distance measurements between any two points, which makes me wonder if I still even need hexes.

pros of hexes

• ease of management
• loads of support
• osr tradition

pros of abandoning hexes and measuring it myself

• finer control over distance travelled (no more weird half-hex movements, or moving within a hex
• sense of verisimilitude (even though i'd be using hexes as an entirely gm-facing tool, players can intuit that a given hex has been completely explored and move on)

interested in peoples' thoughts

I'm looking for a system to adapt mirror's edge. An old comment here recomended one infinity rpg. I just heard of this new system called slugblaster. Has anyone played any of those and can share their opinions for the setting? Any other rrcomendations? Do you think it needs a vombat system, or you can consider the different strikes as a kind of trick?

I started a 5e Lost Mine of Phandelver game for my kid and three others, ranging in age from 7-12. They tend to struggle with the rules and end up needing to be told what to do or given heavy guidance. Only about half of them engage with role-playing their characters. One of them only ever casts a cantrip. Another is a caster but wants to fight in melee. One barely engages at all. But they're more interested in snacks and running around than playing.

I've tried talking to them about what they like or if they want to change classes or what, but they don't really know what they want. So I'm looking for advice on how to keep them engaged or maybe if a change in system is a better idea. Ideally I'd like to continue the story but at this point I'm open to anything.

Appreciate any advice. I don't want to end the game.

Edit: Just to emphasize, looking for something that I can convert our current game to. They're into the story when it happens, I'm just trying to find a way to streamline it and keep their attention.

My personal favorite is The Dungeon Alphabet! It's a treasure trove of ideas and really gets the imagination going for what can be discovered in a fantasy adventure, especially Y is for Yellow!

The simple fact that it's 26 tables means there's obviously missing categories, and when I start thinking of those categories, I start having ideas about how to populate them. For instance, they have H is for Hallways, but no Horrors, Havens, Haunts, or Hammers.

It's great for making dungeons with a theme by choosing multiple entries from the same one or two tables, or for making a very intricate and complex dungeon by rolling on all of them and putting those ideas together.

What gets your imagination going?

I've been thinking about trying to add some more structure to my world building - normally it's pretty open-ended and led by what interests me at the time.

I've been seeing various workbooks advertised but the reviews are fairly cursory from that I've seen so far.

Has anyone tried any of these and of so what did you think of them?

Examples include this one and this one, but I'm open to further suggestions.

I like the idea of physically giving items to players instead of simply telling them what to write on their inventory sheet. I was wondering if anyone here has tried it and how well it went.
Also, do you have any tips how how to best implement it?

This is probably best for simple systems, but I wonder if anyone has had success on more complicated systems with more inventory.

Edit. Also, what do you put the items on? Sticky notes, strips of paper, cardboard, ect...?

I want to run a game for my 2nd and 6th-grade brothers who don't know english. translating spells and items is very time-consuming. any simple but fun and expressive RPG recommendations?

I have an idea for a campaign I want to run. Essentially, it would be a dungeon crawl/tower climb as a contest between the players and various NPCs. Sort of like Dungeon Crawler Carl mixed with that “show me what you got” episode of Rick & Morty. My question is how can I ”automate” the speed at which NPC teams are progressing? I could obviously not automate it and just respond to whatever my players are doing, but I’d rather have them really be able to make decisions to go faster or slower (for xp, gear) and deal with the consequences. Has anyone ever done a campaign as a race before? Open to any and all suggestions.

Hey all!

I want to get into some Tabletop RPG adventures with my girlfriend but neither of us really have any experience. I've been doing some research and "Ironsworn" comes to the top of the results each time, but I think we'd struggle a bit on the fly without a bit of guidance.

• Any other suggestions for newbies to do a co-op adventure.
• Any suggestions for games with "prompts" - something in-between "You can do whatever you want - just make it up" and "Here is the rigid story you follow"
• Are there any supplemental tools for Tabletop adventures that could be used to help us along - such as AI tools, suggestion cards, or something that adds in randomness to an adventure that isn't just our imaginations?
• Any other suggestions, thoughts, or guidance is appreciated!

Thank you!

I'm at my best running long-form campaigns (15-20 sessions at least), often sandbox, and I love generic systems (not sure why).

My impression is most generic systems don't hold up very well for long-term campaigns w/out making "niche" assumptions about what kind of advancement people enjoy. By "niche" assumptions I mean things that people say they find satisfying, but that I don't and people I play with don't. (doesn't mean it's not valid), like:

• your character doesn't any more effective, they just get "narrative" things (Fate Conan advancement example)
• you get all of the fun from system X of a long-term campaign in 5 sessions of this system because it's not procedural but based on important narrative beats
• you play a series of PCs, retiring them as you go

Again, to clarify if the above points apply to you, that's awesome!

Here's some examples I've found from my own experience or internet posts:

• Savage Worlds has worked fine for me w/ long term play. This might be because players ALREADY start as incredibly effective (66% success rate for a wild card w/ a d6). Also exploding die means that the opposition can still succeed randomly.
• Gumshoe gets kind of janky, as the PC's accumulate more Investigative Points but there's isn't that much to do w/ them per session, and I'm very good at house ruling stuff to do with Investigative points
• I like Fate a great deal, but personally (and the people I play with) wouldn't find renaming aspects particularly satisfying for new advancements, given how vague they are in the first place. See famous Conan example
• I like Barbarians of Lemuria (Everywhen, Honor and Intrigue), but w/ 2d6 (or even 2d10) you max out pretty quickly w/ advancements.
• I've never played or run a long-term Genesis campaign, but it's pretty easy to find threads that suggest that beyond 300xp it gets hard to run
• I'm not sure I could even run Cortex given how much I'd have to build myself, but again it's easy to find threads where people suggest it's much better for shorter-form campaigns. This is where the "it's just as fun as a long campaign" comments come from.
• BRP-like systems have done well for me, since advancement is much more granular and, realistically, it feels like you're advancing but nothing dramatic is happening most of the time.
• I'd guess that QuestWorlds sort of works, because even though you have + increments to a D20 as the core mechanic, you also gain additional "auto win" levels of masteries.

With some of the above you could manage them by restricting how advancement happens, but that restricts your ability to run a Sandbox-style campaign, since you don't know in advance how many sessions you'll have.

If you have a generic system that works great for you for long term, often sandbox style campaigns w/out the assumptions above I'd love to hear about it!

Hi people, me and couple of friends been thinking to start ttrpg and we are all down to go for dnd but since none of use had ever experienced it we are having a cold feet. Been encouraging them to start it, now they are down for it. We have been thinking to start with dragons of stormwreck isle. Since none of us are experienced is it okay to start with it, i know its a starter set but still seems a bit advanced for us. Also some of them having issue with englis so is it possible to translate the stuff that comes with the set, and move forward with our native language?

Hello. So I've read a lot about the game - even got the basic rules and read most of them... The setting looks nice but for the love of gof I can't get excited for the game and cannot imagine it in play... Usually I love most rpgs I read and love to play them. Blades somehow goes around my head... How would you sell me the game? Excite me for it?

Thank you!

Hello, recently I started writing an rpg based on the Percy Jacksons books, I am thinking of using a kids on bikes setting and I want to put a little puzzle for my players.

For context my players will be under a library where Morpheus lives and will have to try to find a way to open a door leading to his place and I want this door to have a puzzle or something like that.

So if you have advice on creating a puzzle or some that you know i can use

Do you ever get frustrated at the glacial pace of story with RPGs? Do you have solutions?

I just got out of a 4 hour session. During the session we; Woke up from cryo sleep. Hacked the computer to get out of the room. Came to a t junction, went left. Defeated an autoturret. Entered a room and searched it.

Title says it all, thanks for listening, and good day to y´all

Hey, everyone!

I'm currently worldbuilding for our RPG group, and am a bit stuck on what systems I should be looking at. I'm hoping, you can give me some pointers here. It will be custom world, custom magic theory, custom races, so anything that allows for that would be greatly appreciated.
We've been playing shadowrun 5E for a couple of years now and enjoyed many of its aspects that we really would like to keep for our next campaign, namely: A system that's not class based but allows maximum flexibility in character-building, progress that's not limited by pathways (levels) but more constant, and something that allows for nuances in ability rather than painting in broad strokes. While Shadowrun has way too many rules overall and feels really clunky, oftentimes making people calculate way too much around dice rolls and killing the tension/atmosphere with that, we were able to deal with that with a couple of housrules (mostly switching to rough GM-fiat estimates of modifiers rather than checking all tables for the accurate number).

While I'd love to find a system that runs more smoothly than Shadowrun, I'd love to have something that allows for very diverse characters without many limitations. I like systems based on "skill + attribute" for its rolls, and a palpable influence of the equipment/weapons used would be kinda nice as well.
It also should cover the possibilities of flavourful magic, and if there's a bestiary available that makes crafting monsters easy, I'm all ears.

Possible languages are german and english, if that makes a difference.

So, guys, are there any systems that you can recommend, and if so: Why?

Thanks in advance for your ideas!

Any tips on how to start building a TTRPG? I want to start building a scifi themed ttrpg.