I’m sure there are a bunch of people who love the Tome of Adventure Design. I definitely do but it can be tiresome to use and well, damn. I’m loving the small demo shown. It will come to Steam with workshop support too.

https://youtu.be/xBkzNi_ijtc?si=PJoMnzExZ2bFo8hf

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/adventuredesigntome/tome-of-adventure-design-fantasy-adventure-builder-for-pc?ref=4wvady

Hello fellow humans!

It's been a while since I posted here, but I got some really good feedback the last time, so I'm here once again to let you know about my new project.

I've been making royalty free music for almost 10 years now, and received some solid traction in the RPG community (mainly because of most of my musical inspiration comes from there).

Just today I went live with a new website, that makes it a lot easier for everyone to find music suitable for whatever project.

It's all completely free, and the only requirement is attribution if the project is commercialized.

For personal use, there are absolutely nothing you have to do other than heading to the website to download the music.

Some of you have probably used www.serpentsoundstudios.com in the past.

This website is now taken down, and replaced with www.creatorchords.com, which is, if I may say so myself, a million times better.

Stay epic out there, and I'll be here if you have any questions.

Recently picked up the game, looks great and can't wait to run it! Is there a place that's NOT dead to discuss the game (besides here)? The subreddit is pretty quiet, and other dedicated forums seem pretty silent as well.

I remember seeing this rpg system where all adventures have to be one shot and every player has to say a sentence that will be true in the game’s universe. Things as genre and location are also determined at the moment.

I’ve been working on a world/campaign heavily inspired by Mononoke Hime. I don’t think I have the perseverance to create and play test my own system to go with it though. What system would you recommend that you feel would be good for the tone and feel of that world (deep forests, spirits, balance between “progress” and “tradition” and such)?

Preferably not anything 5e based, extremely crunchy or extremely rules light, like one page rpgs.

Like, everyone knows the jenga tower for Dread, and I personally love how Cthulu Live gives instructions for how to build the creatures, but what's your favorite interesting thing?

Hey folks! You've probably seen me post about FIST over the years - it's a four year passion project we've been working on, and it's finally coming to its finale! TL;DR - we're Kickstarting a hefty box set full of every FIST thing we've ever done, spit-shined and revised for a big commercial release. We also want to do some all-new full-color jumbo-sized campaign books, and you can help us fund them here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/frogappreciator/fist-paranormal-mercenary-rpg-box-set

If you're not familiar with FIST, it's a rules-lite but content-rich game about paranormal Cold War mercenaries doing high-stakes, deadly missions. It takes equal inspiration from the OSR movement and the PbtA school of design - we tried to cut out everything people are tired of about these two styles, and merge them into something new, the best of both worlds (we couldn't have done this without John Harper's World of Dungeons, so if you're familiar with that - you know how it plays). You'll have to lie, cheat, and steal to survive - death is cheap, and gear is hard to come by - but you'll also play into your character's personal beliefs and goals to advance. There are no classes, and - not trying to exaggerate here - you can make almost any character with the system in a few minutes. Go ahead, comment a popular character from something - I'll try to build them, or at least a tacticool mercenary version of them.

You can get the whole game for free right here, along with all the supplements we've released for it. All the rules you need to play fit on two pages, but there's also loads of player/referee advice and 80 pages of random inspiration tables. Beyond that, you can check out 150+ community-made supplements - the game has become something of a cult classic, which feels lovely and absolutely surreal!

We funded in 84 minutes, but we're not done - our stretch goals are all about making new campaigns for the game! Here's what our plans look like:

• CRY HAVOC ($25K to go) - An open-world pointcrawl campaign on a hidden archipelago where ancient, magical megafauna are tended to by alien refugees who touched down before history began. The world became aware of these beings when IKARA, QUEEN OF THE SEA laid waste to a coastal city which dared dump toxic waste into her ocean. Since then, a villainous defense contractor has set their sights on the island, hoping to weaponize the kaiju, oust the aliens, and pawn the project off to the highest bidder. Instead of getting their own hands dirty, they've hired a PMC called the DOGS OF WAR, led by a mysterious cyborg warrior known only as HOWLING HOUND. It's up to FIST - that's you, the players - to liberate island outposts, defeat the enemy mercs, and learn the hidden history of Earth's kaiju gods.

• CONTROL GROUP ($125K to go) - The location of an enormous megadungeon has been revealed to FIST. This is the headquarters of CYCLOPS, a mysterious organization which steers world politics from the shadows, suppressing and containing all paranormal occurrences in a bid to "protect" humanity (since you're very paranormal people, that makes CYCLOPS FIST's archenemy). Taking down CYCLOPS once and for all won't be easy - their multi-level HQ is enormous, crawling with guards, traps, strange experiments, and cagey NPCs. To make matters worse, FIST will need to go deep undercover, exposing themselves to the psionic hierarchy-enforcement technology which keeps the whole operation running. CONTROL GROUP will be the end of FIST, a grand finale about fighting the ultimate evil, for both our development journey and your campaign (high level operatives only!).

We've got some other plans for luxury upgrades (and maybe even an AP podcast) beyond our current stretch goals, too, but reaching $200,000 would be pretty damn incredible, and will ensure that all the ideas, drafts, and outlines we've built up over the last half-decade see the light of day as playable products!

You can back the box set here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/frogappreciator/fist-paranormal-mercenary-rpg-box-set/

In addition to the stuff we want to make, you'll also be getting a lot of things that are already locked in, like a multiverse exclusion zone hexcrawl, a collection of expansion pamphlets, and a companion book full of bite-sized contributions from well-known authors like Brian Yaksha (Rakehell) and Jess Levine (going rogue 2e)! We've also got some cool KS-exclusives like a special hardcover version of the game, a homebrew storage binder, and a referee screen.

Thank you for reading - the kind words and interest in the game over the years have made the difference, have made this endeavor worthwhile and possible. I usually end these posts with an offer to give anyone a copy of the game for free, but since everything is already free, I'll instead say - hit me with your toughest questions! Tell me if you hate this kind of game and I'll try to pitch it to you! Tell me if there's a better game that does the same genre, and I'll tell you why this one is unique... etc. etc., and so on and so forth ;)

All the best,

CLAYMORE

Half of the group couldn't make it this week, so our GM decided to use ChatGPT to run a one-shot of Into the Odd. He had the tool generate a backstory, plot-hook, and NPC or two. Then, as much as possible, he just input our questions to NPCs directly in and read its responses.

It was an interesting experiment, but there was one obvious thing that just doesn't work about that strategy: AI is too agreeable. These chatbots are designed to be friendly and helpful in a way that a good GM just isn't.

A GM's role is largely to create challenges and put obstacles in the way of the players and to be actively an antagonistic force, but chatGPT was basically "yes, and..."ing everything that we did.

Within two hours of play time, we had: saved a village from an existential threat; prevented ecological disaster; been awarded a plot of land, a massive keep, a ludicrous amount of gold, multiple heroic titles, and several magic items; and leveled up. All this was done with a single, voluntary social dice roll (which I failed). And most of the game time was us riffing on the movie Hook while our GM scoured paragraphs of flavor text.

So yeah, unless LLMs can learn to be bigger a-holes to the players, they're gonna struggle to be compelling GMs without a lot of editing from a human.

My gang and I used to play a lot of SWSE and part of the joy of it all was how many things the system allowed you to simulate and build. After many years, I have to say we tapped it out. Any other games like that out there? Deep in lore and mechanics as well? With plenty of character options and tinkering one might do?

Hello just joined a 4 person 5e group where I'll be playing a fighter but the DM tried to persuade at least one of the other players to be another martial at least a paladin which no one wanted to be (they playing wizard, sorcerer, and warlock) to which the DM turned to me and said "sorry but you the lone martial here than." The game will start in a wk but should I be worried? Is it really that bad to be the only martial?

TLDR: I don't think rules knowledge as a GM is as important as it may seem.

(But before I try to justify that statement, here are my credentials. If you don't care, skip to the next paragraph) I have been GMing different games non stop for nearly 40 years. I feel very confident in saying I've long since passed the 10K hours thing in the time I've spent preparing and running games. I've always strived to remain a humble student of story telling, writing, human psychology, group dynamics, conflict resolution, productive communication, game systems, event planning, improvisation, acting and every other aspect that effects my ability to run the best game I can. I run two games a week, and have had a wait list to get into my campaigns for a long time. I was even a Dungeon Master in an actual factual Guinness Book of World records record or the largest D&D game ever played.

In all of that time, and with all of those skills that I've tried to cultivate in myself, the one which I value least is... brevity (just kidding, but I've proved I don't have that skill in this post.) the GM skill that I value least is knowledge of rules. I simply don't think that an encyclopedic knowledge of the ins and outs of whatever system you're running is nearly as important as almost every other skill that I mentioned above.

I do caveat all of this by acknowledging that some people love the minutia of rules, and I don't feel they're wrong for wanting to play the way they want to play. But in my time, I've found more often than not, the rules lawyer isn't a rules lawyer for the love of rules, but rather they are trying to fill some other need that they have by use of the rules. In many cases I've actually converted a rules lawyer into a chillax player by figuring out what their deeper need was and helping to provide that without necessarily having a doctorate in the rules of 5e (or whatever).

I'm curious to hear what your thoughts are. I realize I just expressed some bold and potentially unpopular opinions, but I humbly ask that you not kill me while you discuss. I'm a person with feelings, and am not trying to hurt any of yours with the above overly long post. Cheers!

First, unrelated background. You can skip to the line to get to the good stuff immediately 😄

Me and 3 friends started a campaign of DnD 5e after years of interest. One of us would DM and the rest would be the players, one of the three would start DMing with the remaining two (bf and gf) and me as players, now in hindsight i can tell our styles were very different.

I loved playing by the rules and finding cool ways to work around them or alter them slightly if necessary (as a DM), our first DM was more into the grandiose rp wich manifested itself as him revealing to a player they were becoming a god after like 2 sessions. The bf likes to be aware of the world dynamics so that he can rp his character better and the gf is as new as it gets.

After say 5 sessions we all had agreed as players that the grandiose rp was too much, it felt like we were kids making up reasons why our character was stronger than the other (a city that had magical defenses wich didnt make sense, a powerful creature that could force your pc to take whatever action they desired, etc.) So we told him, we said "hey, great job so far but can you tone it back a bit with the godhood and have us start the campaign as regular adventurers? Eventually we might get there but not yet" It did not land well.

That resulted in the campaign being put on hold when we were all wanting to continue playing, so i offered myself up as the next DM, i told the bf and gf that i had an interest in it and that i wanted to try it out so i aptly named our campaign "Humble beginnings"

We invited the previous DM as he is a friend of ours and he was surprised (and pissed) to hear we were starting a new campaign, we guaranteed we weren't abandoning the previous one but i just had an interest to DM aswell. Regardless the result was that the previous DM was nitpicking my DMing style untill he eventually left.

Then we continued playing just the three of us, me as the DM and the bf and gf as players. Our campaign has lasted for 2 years now and is technically on a break for Baldur's gate 3 (wich we are also playing together) but i am wondering if i want to continue.

The gf still has little knowledge about most things DnD related (after two years of playing) and has put little to no effort into learning (we still need to explain basic functions of roll20 that we've already explained 5 times before) But i learned from koibu and whenever someone doesnt understand something i adopt his helpfull attitude and tone when explaining something no matter if it is the first or 7th time you ask.

The bf has knowledge on DnD (in specific 3.5e), enjoys focusing more on rp rather than having to micromanage like in 2e and likes to be up to date on everything in the world regardless on if his pc is aware of it or not, he claims this helps him rp.

I learned DnD through 2e campaigns and loved the hard realism of it compared to 5e wich we are playing, i like to stick by the rules as previously stated and sometimes homebrew slightly to surprise the veteran player and give the campaign a unique spin, but not too much.

Our campaign is set in a world of my creation, the only things i took from 5e are the rules(mostly), creatures(mostly) and pantheon(mostly).

The result of our different perspectives on DnD in our campaign lead to this;

1. Whenever there is a disagreement or argument about rules, abilities, statblocks, encounters or worldbuilding it is between me and the bf seeing as the gf has little input but to support her bf.
2. Rping usually happens between me and the bf aswell as the gf is still shy.
3. it feels as if the bf questions every encounter and is convinced i am making them too hard
4. The second guessing has lead to me having to show alot of things behind the scenes as i feel i have to explain myself to demonstrate i am not trying to fuck them.
5. The journey a soul takes after death is something that has interested me in DnD 5e (Kelemvor, the hells, lemures, petitioners, soul larvae, soul coins, etc.) I havent been able to make sense of it much but i figured the PC's wouldnt be aware of the inner workings of the after-life anyways so no damage, after i introduced a devil and they entered a devil deal the nf wanted to know what happens to souls after they die and i just answered with the generic "if you're good you go to your favourite deity and if you're bad you go to hell" this led to a conflict as i didnt want to go into detail saying "your pc doesnt know why should you?"
6. The gf as a result of her lack of knowledge always agrees with her bf in any argument wich results in it seeming/feeling like i am in the wrong or unreasonable.
7. I have had a serious sitdown with the players and told them i cannot continue like this, they said that they would try to watch it but now their attitude and third-wheeling has translated to our Baldur's gate 3 run
8. Everytime i explain why i did something the way i did, if it is in any way disadvantageous (idk if thats a word) to the player it feels like they weaponize "this will make the game unfun/less fun" because i have stressed in the past that my goal is for everyone (including me) to have fun.
9. I feel like i have put so much effort into the world (wich i loved doing) that giving up on it now would feel like putting down my living child.
10. Last but not least, i have been asking for advice in some DM discords and from a couple DM friends about specific scenarios and i have gotten very polarizing advice "I wouldn't discuss any of that with my players" and "they should try speaking to me like that" but also "if the players aren't enjoying your content you should change it"

My question to you now is, this whole process has worn me down and i've already discussed this with them but i dont want to give up, what can i do to save my campaign?

Ps. A recent addition (last 10 sessions or so) has been a new player wich has been a breath of fresh air because they are brand new but sometimes side with me and sometimes with the bf depending, but its better than the previous dynamic, we have refrained from adding new players over the years of playing because the gf was too shy to rp around strangers

I've been GMing for a couple decades now and have learned a lot of skills along the way. However, one thing I've never really gotten down is building up villains and letting them share plot information. Without fail, as soon as the party sees someone they know as enemy, they immediately attack. This has made it very hard to make villains feel like an actual part of the campaign. They're more of a shadow the party chases.

​

Of course I've come up with ways around this. Villains talking to the party remotely such as a hologram or in their dreams, having times of villain invulnerability, and other things that basically remove the party's ability to attack them. My problem is that these still don't allow for as much interaction and integration for the villain as well as they've just gotten stale.

​

What suggestions do you have for helping a villain feel like an actual character in the story and not just the target at the end? Any ideas on how to have a villain show up and not immediately be attacked by the party?

What prompted me to ask for this question is the sale going on Drivethru.rpg. Particularly I had my eye on either Sentinel Comics or Icons, would either of these fit the bill? Or should I look somewhere else?

Hello! Looking for a history driven system for a future campaign I've found Delta Green. The idea is to make a Star Wars campaign based on this system. We won't be dwelling a bunch in Force use so that shouldn't be a problem, but I was wondering if any of you have any recommendations or ideas to make this work. Thanks!

The Action Week sale has ended and the Supers Week sale has launched.

Feature PDFs - https://www.drivethrurpg.com/featured.php?promotion_id=RPGSupers_23

Big sale list - https://www.drivethrurpg.com/sale.php?src=SupersWeekFeature

What are you getting?

I'll explain something I perceive as a phenomenon between multiple groups and different DMs I've been playing with. The setting this has been relevant for is fantasy-style games with traditional adventuring groups.

It's at the beginning of a campaign and the DM is working with establishing some of the core components with NPCs, locations and plot. Ingredients that the players need to make decisions for what direction they want to head out in. But, all the NPC's are borderline token and avoids handing out knowledge. No NPCs want to elaborate with the players on what's going on, everything becomes shrouded and a bit confusing as any information about local affairs, recent events, history and general information about the main NPC's motivations and affinities are so hard-earned.

My thought is that DM's often fall in the "trap" of playing their cards much to close to their chest in an attempt to create a mysterious feeling where a main-plot is going to be rolled out gradually. But in their attempt to do this the world becomes unrealistically shrouded as no one want to share information.

A second thought is that it's based in some dogmatic idea that meta-gaming needs to be avoided at all cost. To a level where there's barely any information handed out about the broad strokes of the campaign world as "this is something the characters will learn about as we go".

It might also be a situation of low preparation from DM's as roleplaying around this sort of thing where NPC's hand out local history, rumors and nuggets of information requires a solid preparation and overall knowledge of the scenario (we're playing pre-written adventures, no homebrew).

It would be fun to hear other experiences in this vein. How do you face this in a constructive way? It can always be brought up as a discussion with the DM ofc, but as a character in a world that is just over the top mysterious and all the NPC's are clamming up - what do you do?

Hello! I started playing ttrpg with some friends last year, but sadly our GM had to move for college. We tried online, I actually liked it and it worked for me, but my friends didn't like it as much so we stopped. We played a original rpg that our GM created, so I never played D&D or any other type of RPG. I wanted to try out new things, specially now that I started playing baldur's gate and I'm absolutely obsessed with it, but I don't know anyone besides them that plays 😢. Do you guys know where can I find online RPG tables to join?

Friends,
I've been thinking. Its a great time in roleplaying. Truly, I have great gratitude for all the creators of these games.

But I was also wondering. So many games exist that corral a player into a concept, right from the get go. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing. Its great for new players, quick upstart games and one-shots.

But what are the RPGS that allow a player to have A LOT of agency in bringing a character concept to light?

Hi everyone! I recently read Fourth Wing and it rekindled my long-ago desire to run a game where the PCs are dragon riders. Of course, giving the players giant, flying, fire-breathing lizards is . . . messy . . . from a balance standpoint, and none of the systems I'm currently familiar with have good mechanics for it (at least as far as I know). Here are the details of what I'm looking for:

• A system with sound mechanics for riding and fighting on the backs of dragons. Ideally, there would be some kind of similarly powered antagonist - other mythical creatures or something else - but I can always homebrew that based off the dragon mechanics if they're solid.
• Skill growth and development. Ideally, characters will progress and get noticeably stronger as the game goes on. The story will be set at an academy, so being able to show the characters progressing and learning will be important.
• Some kind of magic system. Soft or hard is fine, as long as the rules for using it in combat are clear.
• Crunch. My play group is not a fan of rules-lite systems like Fate; they want the things they do in the game to be backed up by clear mechanics. However I, as a GM, don't need as much crunch as Pathfinder or Shadowrun. My favorite system to run is the old World of Darkness games; I feel like that is a nice balance of mechanical clarity and GM freedom.
• Risk. I'm not a terribly harsh GM, and I don't like killing PCs, but if a character falls out of the sky or takes a blast of fire straight to the face, they shouldn't survive without magical intervention.
• Room for tactics and strategy would be ideal, preferably with some sort of mechanical backing (i.e. a tactics check - if that's a thing?) so that players aren't required to rely solely on their own intellect to represent their character's training in the war room.
• Mechanical backing for teamwork would be amazing but I don't have any idea what that would look like from a mechanical perspective.

Really, all I have to have are solid dragon mechanics; I can rip them out of whatever system and shove them into something else if I need to, or add other mechanics to whatever game they're in. However, the less I'm building from the ground up, the better, in my experience. Thanks for any suggestions you have!

I tried to make a post about this topic but it ended up with a lot of unecessary information about why i can't find the right system and setting for a campaign i was trying to run for one of my players. So i deleted the post and now i'm trying to just keep it short and simple. I am trying to find a RPG to run for one player and i have been searching for a good week or two but without success. The RPG should have a phyisical book since i like to play with books instead of pdfs. Additionally, my group and i have only played the Blade Runner RPG & Things From The Flood from Free League and we very much like the system and the adventures.

There are a few criterias that i like the rpg to fit, so here's a short and simple list:

1. Me and my player are very open to whatever setting
2. We like to run a short or longer campaign with it, so content for 6 sessions should be minimum, longer is very much appreciated
3. I want to run prewritten adventures, i dont have the time right now to make my own adventures. (adventures like in Forbidden Lands are also okay, so even if the rpg just offers locations, hooks, npcs and encounters thats also fine, though i would prefer fleshed out stories)
4. It should, of course, be compatible for duet campaings, so running it with one player should be doable. But its also okay if i need to tweak it A LITTLE to make it possible for one player
5. I would like my player to develop their character over the span of the campaign, either in the form of their characters story ark or simply their stats. I want my player to flesh out his character the more we play
6. I would prefer a rules-light system, nothing too crunchy. But thats not a dealbreaker for me. I'm interested in PBTA or OSR systems. But i'm open for everything else of course. Just a preference

I'm starting to accept that there probably wont be a system that would perfectly fit what we are trying to run, so i'm okay with compromising and just trying a rpg, even if some aspects of it dont quite fit perfectly on paper. I already had a look at the Alien rpg, The One Ring 2e, Forbidden Lands, Mothership, Mörk Borg, Vaesen, City of Mist, Apocalypse World & Blades in the Dark. The setting of all of those games are very cool to me, but something always turns me away, even if its just one aspect of the game. But i'm open to all of those if you think they would fit nevertheless. Maybe i just need more encouragement to try them. I also very much like if the book just looks cool and is nicely designed. Thats always a plus for me personally.

Every suggestion will be greatly appreciated, even if it doesnt tick every box. So if you have suggestions or experience with great campaigns and adventures, please let me know and why you like them so much! Thanks very much in advance!

I'm in the process of building a d20 system for me and my friends to use but I've run into a speed bump that I'm struggling to get over.

The setting we're playing in (and by extension, the system) is Low - mid magic; powerful but extremely dangerous and extremely rare.

I've found arcane style spells that I've managed to rework into that style, but I'm struggling to find nature or druidic style spells that fit that vibe. Everything I've found so far appears to centre around shapeshifting style druids, which I don't want. Just nature themed spells that can be dangerous and powerful (some can be mundane like the one spell I have created which is basically calling on spores to send enemies to sleep).

Does anyone have any suggestions or resources where I may find some spells I can rework? Thanks in advance everyone!

Hi everyone!

First of all, since English is not my first language, I want to apologize for any mistakes in the text

I'm playing a system similar to DnD and approaching the final session of the campaign I created, and finally, the players will have the opportunity to face the villains. The problem is that I don't know exactly how to create their sheets.

The villains were created by two players who thought of them to be part of the background story. The idea is to have 4 spellcasters (a Minotaur, a Medusa, a Kliren [half-gnome], and a Human), each with a different core ability:

• Minotaur (can sense players' presence by their scent when they are nearby)

• Medusa (can briefly see where the players are located by concentrating, regardless of the distance)

• Kliren (can briefly hear what the players are saying by concentrating, regardless of the distance)

• Human (can control the actions and movements of players marked by an arcane tattoo of his order)

When these abilities were narrative, it was a bit easier to handle, but now that they are heading into direct combat, I'm not exactly sure of the best approach.

Any suggestions on how to do this are welcome!

Hi there, Im trying to understand where do creators find publishers when they want to release their product, I dont have anything made, I just want to know.

I'm currently running my group through a Heart game and it's going relatively smoothly, but tonight one of my players had a question about Knacks.

He feels like a Knack should provide a flat extra die to ALL checks for a given skill. My take is that a Knack only provides the extra mastery die for a specific check within that skill.

I'm other words, as I understand it, you might have a Knack for the Kill skill when you, say, fight a specific enemy race, or maybe you have a Knack for sniping with your rifle, or knife fighter in close quarters.

My player believes, if an ability gives him a skill for a second time he should have a Knack that covers every use of the skill. So in all of the examples I give above he would have the extra die.

The one other random forum post I was able to find on the subject seemed to side with me, as do the examples I've seen in actual play vids. But I'm looking for other opinions and/or a place I can read an official rules clarification.

Thanks for any and all help.

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I won the fight against my social anxiety to play ttrpg!!! Im not a social butterfly but still Im being able to enjoy this new hobbie!! Thanks to all of you who encouraged me 💜 And im looking for a D&D one shot!!! If there is any available, text me!! Im still new so I will need patience and a bit of help!!

Yes yes, I am well aware of the contrarian nature of the question, plz don't flame me. But the situation is, I've got a wife who is not a gamer and two teenage sons who are gamers, but might be too "technology saturated" to be interested in the roleplay aspect of a TTRPG.

So trying to find a game that has meaty rules we can follow, without needing to perform the theatrics of roleplay. Absolutely want to avoid "theatre of the mind" shenanigans.

I have been contemplating the Pathfinder or Starfinder Beginner boxes, as these come with the necessary visual aids to hook them in. Also considering Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion. I know it's not technically an RPG, but it's definitely more involved than a vanilla board game and doesn't require any RP.

Edit : just to add some further context, given my target audience of wife and teens, I'm trying to find a gaming experience that keeps the things engaging and flowing. My concern about a D&D or Pathfinder game is that I'm gonna ask them "What would you like to do?" and they will be kinda stumped. And me, as a novice GM, will not have the experience to guide them accordingly and the entire thing will fizzle out. So that's why I was looking at more structured options like Gloomhaven.

I remember playing a TTRPG like Microscope but it was just telling the life story of one character, we were taking turns telling different parts of that character's life, out of order. I don't remember if it was a homebrew hack of Microscope, a different game altogether, or just Microscope.

If anyone knows what this game might be, that would be fantastic. I played it before 2016, that much I know.

Long time lurker and CRPG player here, now thinking about experiencing tabletop RPG how they're meant to be played and searching for appropriate system/setting.
Of course, easiest will be to find some players for one of DnD settings or even Pathmaker, but... I've sourced some materials on Tekumel setting and, frankly, I mesmerized by it's lore, magic with an addition of a psionic and a bit of an old technologies.
So... is it popular now and is it being played online?
Also I've heard that despite reach and an interesting lore it is somewhat shunned because of a... problematic... author?