I am supervising a D&D club. A member with very little experience wanted to be DM, and I allowed it (with the support of the rest of the club). The problem is that DM is setting up high difficulty challenges, which one experienced player and I are enjoying overcoming, but which the rest of the club seems overwhelmed by.

DM did tell us to powergame and give permission for generally overpowered characters. The issue is that two party members (one other and I) are very experienced and capable of figuring out how to navigate the impossible challenges, while the other three are less experienced. Other experienced party member made a barbarian (using some flying race, and a very unbalanced "roll for stats method"; again, this overpowered character was actively encouraged by DM). I'm playing a reworked Ranger (a popular homebrew that makes the ranger a purely martial class), that is honestly probably the least powerful objectively, but I am thriving on stealth and manipulating the environment to my advantage. The three inexperienced players all made custom classes that are probably completely OP (probably even moreso than barbarian), but they are glass cannon types. Part of the issue is that barbarian "Leeroy Jenkins-es" in while I try to find positional advantages (ie trying to kite melee enemies back to the treeline, or creating confusion among guards with social play so I can get shots off without being targeted), but the glass cannon players replicate the style of the barbarian (with much poorer results).

Last session, DM had to add in an in-universe way for other party members to get rushed to a hospital, while barbarian and I managed a fight with over ten guards. We survived while completing our objective (which is why I don't think the problem is necessarily that the fight was too hard; just two of us actually playing strategically and focused on the objective instead of trying to kill all of the guards were successful, with neither of us even dropping below half health).

DM seems to feel really good about how the scene went, and I and other experienced player loved it, but I worry about the fact that 2 club members (the third was not present) were quickly knocked out and not really involved in most of the session. As stated, I think it was more their fault and DM did nothing wrong (basically they were wizards with no defenses who rushed forward to cast a damage spell, killing one enemy but then were immediately cut down because we were all aware beforehand that there were like 16 guards present), but I'm still looking for advice on how I can ensure that this club remains fun for everyone involved.

My little brother (13yo) started playing RPGs at his school with some friends at lunchtime, but they are struggling with D&D and I think that they would be better off with another fantasy game.

I am thinking probably some rules-lite (preferrably only with D6s) OSR game that can be played in short sessions with an open table, so that the other kids can also join in easily ane play with no compromise (I put a link to an Alexandrian article about that).

It doesn't have to be made specifically for children though. I think that they'll prefer some good-old hacking and slashing dungeon crawler over fairytale adventures.

Title says it all- had a paperback-sized RPG that I picked up in the 90's at a B. Dalton. I think it had a pale blue cover and might have been called "Adventures in..." or ".... (something) Adventures." I don't recall a whole lot about it except it was a predominantly fantasy setting and had multiple spheres of magic, including TIME MAGIC. (I remember that one being exceptionally rare)

I wished I had more to go on, but out of the blue I remembered having it and now it's driving me muts!

So the dnd campaign I'm currently playing in has like maybe 6 weeks left maximum before it ends, and usually in my group at around this point, everyone submits a campaign idea that they had and then we all vote on which one we want to play. We were talking about the vote which will probably start after the next session and I started talking about this one idea I had (not for the vote this time, just in general) about a campaign set in modern-day real-life where the PCs are scientists who can't use magic and where the US government hires them to go to this island to try to clone dinosaurs, and everyone in the group seemed to be REALLY into that idea and they all told me they'd vote for it if I put it in for the vote, and it sounds like a super fun campaign to run and I have all these cool plot ideas. However, I don't really know enough about any other systems to run besides dnd 5e, and also with the way my brain works, I can't really learn a new one on my own. Like if all I have to go off of is some youtube videos and the manual, I'm not gonna get any of it. I didn't know dnd 5e well enough to run it (i've run two campaigns of it) until I had already played like 50 session of it, and the only other system I've played any of at all is Edge of the Empire, and neither of those would work at all for this campaign idea. So, this is probably a long shot, but are there any ttrpg systems that have like the same mechanics as dnd 5e (like with the d20 system and skill proficiencies being the same and ability scores also being the same and what not) but it works for a real-life modern day setting where the PCs aren't able to use magic?

Obviously, expecting there to be a straight forward way to convert stuff is mental but I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts on converting MTG cards into 5e Spells?

My characters just landed themselves some exotic spell books and I thought it might be neat to have them draw from my box of a billion excess cards to reveal what these books contain.

Would you take mana cost or rarity into consideration when deciding spell level? Do you think specific colors are tied to specific schools of magic? How would you treat creature cards? Or just wing everything based on card text? Interested to hear people's opinions.

Hello! I’m currently running a game of The Sprawl, and for the most part, it’s going great. However, the game’s reliance on clocks and a rigid mission structure chafe with my style of GMing, so I’m hoping for some alternative system suggestions. Here’s what I kinda need:

1). Simple, and SUPER fast resolution. My players and myself rather choke on math and complex systems.

2). Narrativist based. It’s how our brains work. Preferably PbtA, but not necessary.

3). More of a ‘create your own world’ system. We have a setting we’re using of our own design and love it.

I’m just curious to see what you guys got to suggest. I’ve seen a lot of stuff out there, and would love to see your pitches for stuff.

Hello there, I am a novice ttrpg player and I am thinking about becoming a DM for a group of friends, I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on good resources that I can use to learn how to become a DM (I've never played before, as a player or DM) I am thinking about doing a campaign within the fallout world or some other post-apocalyptic realm, so I would gladly accept suggestions for possible systems I should use as well

Just curious about how do you all feel about GM Screens and if you like when they have extra booklets/supplements/maps with them or not.

I started wondering this when I got the Dreams and Machines GM Screen and it comes with two nice booklets, one is a mission generator and the other are rules for hex crawling which you can't get outside the GM Screen. As another example, I've also read that the booklet that comes with the Night's Black Agents GM Screen also has some great GMing advice for the game.

I mostly like GM Screens, and I like when they come with some nice supplements because it feels you are getting more bang for your buck, but I totally understand that people can get frustrated if they don't want the screen, but would like to have the supplement that comes with it.

Hello!

So, I'm totally and complete NEW to roleplaying games, so this is why I'm here.

I'm looking for a superhero RPG with really good combat. I will NOT be roleplaying at all. I'm strictly going to use the rules for combat only. I'm wanting to do a skirmish game with Marvel and DC characters,

I've played Heroclix and Marvel Crisis Protocol, and I dislike both games, so here I am!

I've looked at Champions. The combat looks incredibly crunchy and detailed, but I'm thinking it might be too much work. There are a TON of Marvel and DC writeups, but most are from older editions and would need tweaking and me not knowing the system, I foresee a long, long journey.

I've been researching the newer-ish Marvel Multiverse game and from what I've been reading the combat isn't very balanced. A group of thugs can take down Dormammu? Yea, that really turned me off to this game, but I was impressed with the power/skill sets and the character sheet and stats.

I've read up on the Marvel FASERIP set, mainly the tactics version out there, and from what I read, it seems a little too basic. Maybe I need to actually try it out, but it didn't grab me from my initial reading.

I've read a little about Mutants and Masterminds, but nothing overwhelming positive.

One MAJOR caveat for me is I need a set of rules that has player made content....Marvel and DC character write ups. I don't mind creating some of my own, but time isn't a luxury I have these days.

I really appreciate any suggestions and experiences you might be able to share.

I feel that every system I play has a little “flaw” in it, só I’m always wondering if I should simply drop systems and go full “play pretend”, or maybe there’s something out there that will tick all my needs.

I like customization! Profession, skills, feats. All that, I like when you can express a character’s story and personality through mechanics. I liked Mythras and Pathfinder on that aspect, DnD and OSR games not so much.

I like low fantasy feeling, gruel and dangerous encounters and when magic feels magical (I really like Conan the Barbarian). So OSR and Mythras click that button for me.

I like dynamic combat (ADND is really great on that aspect after we got used to it) and I wanna reward creative ideas that go beyond the “I stand my ground here and attack every single turn that the good Lord gave me”. I liked how Mythras combat had different HP for everybody part, but I felt kinda clunky. I dislike dnd 5e combat like the plague. I like ADnD combat.

I used to love miniature combat, hyper tactic and shit. Now I kinda hate it, since I play mostly online.

So, yeah, ADnD is nice but little customization

Mythras is cool but combat can be clunky

5e is easy but after lvl 3 you don’t customize much anything

PF2e is cool, nice customization, the three actions make combat more dynamic, but I miss the OSR feeling.

Hey guys I’m trying to get into DnD, I’ve only played once with a few friends and we didn’t get very far into a game together before we all kinda just stopped playing. We are trying to start another game again, but I was just curious about other popular rpg games that are going around. I’d like to scout out options and see because I’ve only ever heard of DnD any help is appreciated and thank you for any recommendations!

Quick edit: Apologies for not including what I enjoy super sorry about that! Anything that ranges from medieval fantasy to dark cyperpunk-like future to adventures in space or even a love craftian horror story. Again so sorry for not including this. Those are the three things from the tip of my head that I would enjoy. There’s not really much that I’d dislike so once again thank you for your suggestions!

Last edit: I’ve seen something called Pericle RPG would like to hear thoughts on that if possible as well. If it’s worth getting or not, whatever your opinions are on it I’m all ears

There is a system that I have not yet played, but looked at a few times, but now I have forgotten it.

The game takes place in a kind of broken world where the creator god haveleft the world. In heaven there is macbines that keep reality going, but they are kind of failing. Stuff are building artificial gods and stuff.

Players play divine godling characters that are super powerfull. You do not roll to kill normal humans and soldiers.

Does anyone have any experience in organizing and managing a public ttrpg event? I'm kinda getting payed for organizing ttrpg games at a local youth centre, but it's kinda difficult to form and maintain consistent groups, and even more difficult to integrate new people into them, so I thought it might make more sense to organize a weekly or bi-weekly open table where people can just show up and play a one-shot, maybe find people to start actual campaigns with.

Problem is, I have no idea how to pull something like that off. How much content should I prepare? Should I already be looking for other GMs? How do I include new and inexperienced people, and how can I prevent/fix bad newbie behaviours (murderhoboing, hogging loot and spotlight, etc)?

Any experiences or resources? Advice? Opinions? Also, in case anyone asks, there is nothing like this is the local area so far, so I can't hijack any pre-existing structures.

Hi! I recently run a session of Lord Scurlock (one of Lady Blackbird's sequels) with some friends and it was a blast. I'm looking for things that are similar, specifically:

• Narrative
• Pregen characters
• Interesting starting situation
• Zero/low prep
• Rules lite (10-15 pages)
• Can be finished in a single session

I've read the recent one-shots posts and looked for older posts, but besides Havoc Brigade I have not found anything that fits in that mold.

Hi guys. I'm looking to pick up Knave but I don't quite understand how the OSR compatibility is envisioned? First of all, what is exactly meant by OSR - does that extend to old DnD adventures and such? How exactly is this supposed to work together, is it the idea that you just take the story/setting etc. and then just remove/simplify the other content (e.g. monster stats) to fit into Knave?

Hello there,

I am a forever DM, running DND 5e since it came out. There is a lot I like about the game and even more I hate. I eventually hacked more and more of the system and realized my games don't really stand near usual dnd experience. This sadly often results in miscommunication with players who even after hearing a long and detailed pitch of my campaigns imagine standard dnd.

I think my tastes changed in all these years and I am looking for a place to switch. However, there are few things I am looking for in a replacement.

1. I would like slow linear progression instead of big levels that basically double character power. My campaigns are about 80 sessions so the game lasts a while. Same with rewarding players which is a problem for my in DND. Other than levels and powerful magic items there is little to give to the players.
2. I would like a game that is bordering on low fantasy, where magic is not as common and maybe goes into heroic fantasy later, but doesn't allow players to become demi gods that annihilate all the problems.
3. I would like softer magic. The effects of magic might be still detailed in the system, but I want magic to be mysterious and powerful. That being said I heavily dislike the weave in DND that has devolved into tasteless "random crap happens". I like when there is a flavor to magic.
4. I would like a system that has combat but doesn't focus on it like dnd. Where other abilities like that are not strictly combat might be as important.
5. Bonus points if the system is setting agnostic or easy to transfer into homebrew setting.
6. Bonus points x 2 if the system is easy to homebrew/adapt to my preferences.

From what i have seen it is actually about playing people powered by godly beings, but not at all gods themselves

Years ago I played an OSR game where magic was a little different. You had words for spells and more words, made the spell more powerful. Like for example stop would be a week spell, and stop this instant would be more powerful. Sadly neither the GM nor the other players can remember that game.

Does someone here recognize that magic?

Dear all,

I have been DMing a campaign set in the Fallout Universe for about 1,5 years. For the last months we unfortunately had to take a hiatus but I am planning to restart the campaign coming August.

However, I have been struggling with some dynamics and I wanted to ask some advise so I might be able to manage them better once we pick up again.

When we started, I gave each of the player characters a personal motivation to travel through the Wasteland. These were intended to be a good reason for the characters to remain in the area and have a personal goal to pursue for a while. However, I am now in the situation that we are still quiet early one (despite having started a while ago we missed a lot of sessions), but one of my players is adamant on twisting everything to their personal goal. Which I partially get, it includes a family member, but he randomly interprets statements about certain locations that they HAVE to go their NOW as this will DEFINITELY pertain to their goal. Leaving actual connections that might help them on the side.

The problem is, I have design these goals as a slow burn, that will provide motivation for a bit longer and if they now rush through they will face areas of the world they are not equipped to survive yet. Also, while I am aiming to make the campaign more sandboxy as we proceed, the rest of the group is not so comfortable with that yet (their feedback to me) and actually preferred some more guidance.

So this leave me now unsure, if I should try to reign that player in (and how? Nothing I tried worked so far). Should I let him rush them to their doom? Should I nerf his personal quest to make it attainable already at their current state (thus making it potentially less memorable and rewarding)? How can I convince him, that somebody name dropping a settlement name some where on the other side of Oregon does NOT mean that this is a definite hint that they have to go there right now!

Hi everyone,

as I got the one or other pack at Humble Bundle and consider trying the one or other out, propably starting with one shots, and have a lot of reading ahead I wondered what is the best way to start off and how others do it. Depending on the system reading from A to Z means reading up to 700 pages (hello M20) of rules, lore and stuff. Not neccessarily (sp?) the thing you keep in mind if you didn't get "eidetic memory" at birth.

Then the modern day PDF doesn't allow Post-Its and notes on pages, flipping back and forth, with fingers at the important points for the moment, which can stall things. I noted that when creating characters with two players for Tales from the Floating Vagabond. Questions arised and I had to scroll all the way back to where we were before, to scroll back down to where the adventure was. Avatar Legends comes with nice handouts that contain the basic rules, IIRC FIST also does, but rule heavy systems can't easily do that.

After reading through Avatar Legends, FIST, Doctor Who, most of M20 (here I had basic knowledge from teh Rev. 2nd edition time as a player, so I just had to check for changes) and now Cyberpunk Red I notice basic stuff (like how to roll) sticks around, but loads of details and fine print gets lost, even more of the system specific themes, as you tend to overwrite it with the general stuff and RP experience. In Tales from the Floating Vagabond I asked the players what they wanted to play beforehand, so I could skip stuff that wouldn't be needed and concentrate on their rule needs, but that's easier by far with only two players.

So how do you tackle new systems? Read from A to Z then fo into details? Scan and skim and stop at interesting parts? Take notes? Print outs of summaries? How to you keep the flow, even if you have to look up stuff, even more with PDFs? Especially with rule heavy systems. Any pointers, hints, techniques are welcome and hopefully others will find usefull stuff here, too.

Thanks in advance

So all the information I can remember; it was like a wargame where you managed a small troupe of soldiers (maybe ~25 to start?) where the players could control roles such as quartermaster, strategist, ect. The players travelled with the avatar of a deity in a world that was being corrupted by a mad sorcerer king who had corrupted several of the gods, the DM can pick which of these gods is corrupted and that determines what enemies the players may encounter in their journeys. It's a shorter game that can be ran in 6-12 sessions total easily, assuming they don't die.

There were relics, waystations, battlegrounds ect for the players to meet in their travels. The gods I remember were a god of nature or mercy that the players could be travelling alongside, and I think a god of battle?

The enemy gods could include a god whose heart was ripped out and an alchemy goddess that had like "Thorn Sisters" or something as her enemy types while the god whose heart ripped out had like "heartless knights".

If anyone knows the name of this TTRPG I'd appreciate the help alot!

Hey guys! I'm hoping you guys could give me some advice- from people that know more systems than I do. I'm looking for a system that would work well with the setting of the "86" series of novels.

The setting is a very gritty and grounded mecha, with no humanoid mechs. The players would be playing as the 86, people who are forced to pilot under-powered shoddily built quadrupedal machines against an insurmountable autonomous enemy.

Initially, I was thinking of modifying Lancer for it, because i felt it had just the right level of simplicity/complexity with its combat for my style. I have a bit of TTRPG design experience- having been designing and play-testing my own system for a bit over a year now. But my system is built around shonen-esque individual powers and creativity, so I worry only surface-level design/balancing knowledge would transfer over.

Modifying Lancer would entail HEAVILY restricting the existing customization options, then making new mechs and customization options to better fit.

I wouldn't be removing any major systems due to conflicting with the lore (Things like hacking, lasers, and even just having more than the same 3 basic weapons would technically go against lore.), as I am totally fine with this being different than the explicit canon, and the plot would most likely see the party modifying their mechs outside of regulation for the slightest chance at surviving.

So I just wanna know- does there happen to be a system out there that does exactly what I want? Relatively simplistic, but tactical mech combat, but with more grounded customization options that can easily accommodate mechs that don't have hands.

Or should I just stop being an anxious weenie and get working on modifying Lancer?

Kinda like Batman’s Batmobile a little bit

As a preface, I am NOT playing your typical fantasy RPG. What I'm currently dming is a magical girl-themed game using a hack of the Magical Burst system intended to give the game a more thoroughly fleshed out character progression system that works better for long campaigns than the base game. The most impactful change it makes for the sake of this question is that instead of having a 5-space long 1-dimensional battle map, I instead added a second dimension and made it a 10x10 battle map consisting of 10 zones where multiple characters can inhabit a single zone. This was to allow for the creation of more granular battlefields.

Now for the meat of the question: In this campaign I plan on having only TWO dungeons, maybe three if you count area exploration as a dungeon. The first will be a short and sweet zelda-style puzzle focused dungeon with a multi-boss at the end that they should be able to beat a bit less than halfway through the campaign. This I do not need help with.

What I do need help with is the second one. A combat focused dungeon that will be at the climax of the campaign and essentially be on a mission where they have to storm the main villain's stronghold. Issue is, I have never made such a dungeon before, so I have no idea how to make consecutive short combat segments interesting or how to generally structure the dungeon. After all, I don't want it to just be a linear sequence of arenas, I want there to still be some big underlying puzzle. What immediately comes to mind is key hunting, due to my vast experience with Doom. However, I know that key hunting isn't something everyone finds fun. I've only ever designed zelda-style dungeons for other campaigns (and some for an RPG maker game) and like one doom map, so I have no idea what I'm doing here. Any help would be appreciated.

Question is in the title. It's for beta testing the game system I've been homebrewing.

This is a question I've seen floating around before, but I haven't found a solution for this.

I can't/won't pay like 20$ for a yearly plan on some online service I'll use ONCE.

I'm also not looking to make an excel sheet.

I don't know javascript so I can't just code it in.

​

I just want to be able to add a couple text boxes on a .pdf file that players can write their character info and press ctrl+s for the next game session. It'd be perfect if I could do that on illustrator, but I haven't found that option.

I'm trying to up my skills.

Look, people have lives and I try to accommodate people's very real life trouble, and work my game structure around things like "Sorry, my chronic illness flared up" and "Sorry, my grandmother is in hospice".

The concern I have is how to deal with when I have less than three players. I'm not a D&D person, haven't been since 3.5 which I also no longer play. (I can be convinced to run BECMI, but it hasn't come up.) So I don't have a big pool of players.

I'm too girl to want to host people I'm not familiar with in my house, and the local library is literally a crater while the city tries to raise money for the new one. I'm not in an area with a comfortable climate. All the FLGS are booked solid with minis and CCGs. So if I want to game, I get to do things like... run at a restaurant or coffee shop, where the tables seat at most 4 people, and if people are missing, I'm going to need to learn to run at group sizes of two.

In past when I ran with a party of two players, they suddenly just went slack jawed and stared at me expecting me to provide all the interaction... it's exhausting and I have actual GM duties to deal with, I can't just Entertain Them like some high energy actress from a streaming show. I don't have the energy, especially when they no-sell my interactions, or they're just... in a damn cave or something I can't engage you in conversation there's nobody here to talk to and you're not doing anything what the heck.

Does anybody have any tips or tricks of how I can get people to interact with each other when there's not a large group of players?

The seem determined to overthrow the established order! What can I do to bring them happily into bourgeois society and the joys that come from becoming the ruling class?

(background: beginning of blood lords campaign. They are evil/and neutral in alignment, one noble, 2 soldiers and a rogue).

My group played seven sessions of Wicked Ones and recorded our thoughts in this video.

To summarize our thoughts from the video:

• Blades in the Dark and Scum and Villainy are the only FitD games most of us have previously played and can easily compare Wicked ones to.

• The game is overall excellent, and we enjoyed our time playing it.

• The game's structure is much stricter, with a much smaller 'fruitful void' to allow free play scenes. It feels a bit more like you have to push and jostle a bit to have the roleplay scenes that some of the end of session questions reward you for having.

• The game is structured around a 12-18 session campaign, with each group making a 6-step evil plan, and each step intending to take 2-3 sessions to complete.

• The three forms of advancement are each a bit slower to match. 'Wicked XP' is gained from most end of session questions and leads to more moves. 'Reckless XP' is only gained from a single question, but can increase your Action ratings that are already 1 or higher.

• The third method of advancement, 'Practice XP', is gained through using an action with a rating of zero. When you've used that action enough times you gain a dot in that action, but then can't benefit from Practice XP any longer. I really liked this final method of advancement and utilized it a lot to learn a few new actions.

• The dungeon creation system is very well done, with enough chaotic elements to make it feel dynamic and interesting, but not too many to feel out of your control.

• The dungeon raids felt odd, as our entire dungeon felt just like a 'prelude' to the final confrontation of the adventurers with us. It didn't really feel like we needed to hide behind our dungeon.

• The layout and art of the game is really good, however the information on a mechanic itself is usually split between 2 or 3 areas across the book and is often a few sentences short on details compared to what we'd prefer.

• The crafting system was very well done, with good example artifacts, consumables, and drawbacks.

• There are a few different magic systems, depending on the character but they were all decently interesting and flexible.

Overall, we recommend this game to anyone who wants to play an evil campaign.

The game was released under creative commons a while ago and can be found here for free.

Thanks for reading/watching. Next we'll be playing Masks: A New Generation!

I'm coming up with social power fantasies that I would like my WIP to enable, are there any major ones I've missed? I did a search but didn't come across any posts on this particular subject. So far I have:

Intimidating (Batman, Darth Vader, John Wick, Anton Chigurh) Whether by reputation or from the intensity of your presence, other people fear you or are at the very least wary of you.

Inspiring (Wonder Woman, Captain America, Jean-Luc Picard, Ted Lasso) Whether it is from wanting to be more like you, or from a desire to not disappoint you, you make other people want to be better than they are, to believe that they can make a difference.

Charismatic (Tony Stark, Eleanor Shellstrop, Han Solo, Princess Leia) People want to be around you, to be connected to you in some way. They like you and want you to like them.

Respect (Sherlock Holmes, Moiraine Damodred, The Wolf, Samantha Carter) Even when they don't like you people respect your opinions or judgment. Even your enemies respect and admire you. Your words always carry weight.

Those are the ones I could think of, are there any other major social power fantasies that I missed? Or do you knew of any games that specifically facilitate these fantasies? Thanks!