It's my second time Dming ever; I did a dread one-shot previously that had a culty cannibal vibe.

This time I want to do some kind of murdery vibe. Thinking one of the players is secretly the murderer, but I don't know how to bring it all together. This, so far is the only thing I am certain of. After that I can't seem to stick to any particular idea or theme. Anybody have any ideas or advice?

T

My friens loved my cyberpunk red one shot, and i wanted to sprinkle a bit of metal gear themes (specially MGS2). Some tips, books or yt channel recommendations? My writing skills are not the best but i try.

I plan on presenting the plot with a prologue where the players will do some VR training. as the training goes it gets progressively more realistic to the point where theyre doing some messed up things thinking its training. The netrunner may beat the black ice in a netrun or some fairly high perception check makes them realize the reality but, Even with the players escaping, the private milliary organization already proved that they can contidion even the toughest soldiers to do their bidding with the right tools.

I thought on making the Players objective to dismantle the PMO by tracing their deeds or something. But i dont know how to make this objective sound less like "hey lets beat the big bad evil company"

Hello!
Me and my friends like to play a lot of homebrew RPGs, and yesterday one of our DMs came up with the synopsis of his new table. It's situated in a world we have already played, our last characters have impact in the lore and etc.
Thing is, we have to create one "hatsu" for our characters. It's pretty much what we have in HxH, but we have some minor restrictions here and there. I decided that my character would be a roulette-based buffer, since in his background he is the son of a well known gambler and owner of casinos.
Since in HxH we have Kite's hatsu, I thought it would be fine. But my friend (the DM) told me that a power like this would be somewhat frustrating, for me and for the other players (he pictured a situation where I would be useless because of the roulette not doing what we need and etc). But he told me that I could send him an abstract describing why my power would be fine and how I could effectvely help the party with it, to convince him.
So, I really need help with this one hahaha, I really only remember Kite as an example of a power like this, and I don't have much arguments in its favor, but I really wanna try it. My ideia is a buffer, that manifests his power through a roullete that amplifies his allies in many different ways, depending on the result. I thought of something like a "rigged result", that I could use in extreme situations to get what I want in the roulette, in exchange for some disadvantage in posterior fights, but I need more to convince him :)
Ty in advance!

Essentially, exactly what the title says. I am fascinated by Bronze Age Greece, and I'm looking for stuff I can crib from in order to capture that feel.

Any tips for running Alien by Free League? I grabbed the rulebook and want to take a walk through terror

Some setting books, and some tabletop RPGs with built-in settings, have a "secrets of the setting" chapter. This happens even to this day, as in the upcoming Trinity Continuum: Steam Wars.

In theory, the GM reads the chapter, and the players never do... but is this actually feasible? Some GMs could eventually become players, and vice versa. Some players might deliberately spoil themselves. Some people may have read the chapter simply because they were curious about the product, and never originally planned on being a player. There are all kinds of reasons why someone could have already read the "secrets of the setting" chapter.

I am a greater fan of, say, the Eberron approach. Some major "secrets" of the setting, such as King Kaius III being a vampire or the lich Lady Illmarrow being Erandis Vol, are hardly supposed to be "secrets" to the players out-of-character; plus, there is also author-supported wiggle room for the GM to change things up, like having Kaius not be a vampire after all. Actual mysteries, like the true cause of the Mourning, are left purely for the GM to decide and unveil, and the author never locks down a canonical answer to them.

My two groups really only play RPGs long term. For us a quick, one-off mini-campaign is about 6 months. Our average campaign length is around 2 years (playing weekly or bi-weekly). However, as we have aged, we have drifted towards the lighter end of the spectrum. That leads to the tension that many (even most) lighter games don't support long term play that well, primarily when it comes to advancement. Freeform Universal has a number of features that would appeal to my group, but I wonder how it holds up to long term play.

Anyone run FU for 6+ months? Say at least 20 sessions? How does the system hold up? Do your players seem satisfied with the advancement?

If your Daggerheart table includes Naaro Shinebite, turn back. I don't want you getting any sneak peaks!

What's the most badass one liners or threats you've heard at your table?

I have a couple banked for future sessions.

"You'd better give me five feet before I give you six!"

"Be careful with whom you choose to stand. There are no bunk beds in the graveyard."

Finally, I have a thief concept fir a future campaign and I had an epiphany for his catchphrase, "I'm quick to turn your coin into a question!"

Ive been trying for three weeks to get into contact with someone over my order. I ordered the Magnus Archives ttrpg on backerkit back in 2023 and when it switched over to MonteCook games to finalize it changed me again and more! Ive tried everything i could to try and contact anyone on their team to help me before it shipped. Has anyone else had issues with their support?? I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall and just have to accept but i really cant. Does anyone know what I can do? Ive already called and thrown in a ticket but again I'm not going to spam their tickets, that isnt nice or fair on them. Is there anything i can do 😭

What are people's thoughts on Marvel Multiverse RPG? I am familiar with FASERIP and a few other superhero RPGs, but I am curious about this exact book. How crunchy is it compared to say, 5e and Pathfinder? What was your experience on running or playing it? The one thing I'm pleasantly surprised is that this book has tons of superheroes already ready-made to go.

I just finished watching the first two seasons of the anime and started thinking that it would be cool to DM a Mafia campaign in that setting.

KHR setting is a high school mafia comedy with a lot of weird stuff, but the main thing is the "magic" power called the "Dying Will Flames" that have 7 kinds of flames, and each flame does a specific effect. For example, there's a flame that buffs people and accelerates things called the "Sun Flame," and the "Rain Flame" is its opposite that slows things and debuffs.

I've been DM and player for several different D&D 5th edition campaigns, as well as 4th. I'm trying to break away from D&D, both out of dislike for Hasbro, and the fact that, no matter what you do, D&D combat just takes too damn long. After researching several different games, I landed on Wildsea. As I'm reading the book, and descriptions from other players, the term "shared storytelling" comes up a lot, and especially online, it's described as more shared-story-focused than D&D. And I've also seen the term come up a lot researching other books, like Blades in the Dark and Mothership.

In a D&D campaign, when players came up with their backstories, I would do my best to incorporate them into the game's world. I would give them a "main story hook", that was usually the reason they were all together, but if they wanted to do their own thing, I would put more and more content into whatever detail they homed in on until I could create a story arc around whatever they were interested in.

In my mind, the GM sets the world, the players do things in that world, the GM tells them how the world reacts to what the players do. Is the "shared storytelling" experience any more than that? Like do players have input into the consequences of their actions, instead of just their actions?

Hey folks! I was wondering..are there any TTRPGs with set and objective(ish) winning (or losing) conditions other than purely narrative success and failure..?

If my friend twinflower sees this, LOOK ELSEWHERE!

So after a long time of not really getting where we wanted in Scion 2e, me and my group decided to do a reboot. Bump the players up to Hero-tier (equivalent of DnD lvl 3 when you get yor subclass) and start fresh with new characters (new characters were their suggestion, not mine). However, we're still on the same campaign, just slightly further into the plot.

Now, in Scion 2e, you play as children of gods and goddesses, Son of Thor, Daughter of Hades and so on. I've been considering if I should put the actual reboot into the narrative, that some god interferred and led the first heroes astray, but fate played a role and put three new heroes on the same path. Not as a major plotpoint, but as a fun/interesting plottwist to be revealed later.

I've also considered having the BBEG being the one pulling those strings but for the same reason will still have to face off against heroes in the end. The BBEG is not a god however.

Does anyone have any experience doing anything even slightly similar to this or have opinions on whether this is good or not?

I'm looking into Barebones Fantasy, Art of Wuxia, and the other DwD d100lite games. Does anyone have experience with these systems? Did you enjoy them? What kind of games does it handle well?

I'm liking what I've seen thus far, it strikes me as a much simpler take on BRP and I like that it uses Professions vs exhaustive skill lists.

hii i need some help with character concepts for women set in london in the 1880s. my birthday party is going to be a murder mystery rpg about jack the ripper. everyone is gonna have their own character and i have most of them but my sisters friend just got invited and i can’t think of anything for her. this sub already has a character concept post for the 1880s but it’s set in america and they don’t seem to fit the person very well. I’m basically going to be myself but rich in 1888, gothic, whimsical, life of the party, a socialite if you will, my sister is gonna be a prostitute, my mom a black widow, my sisters boyfriend a pimp, my best friend a gay immigrant from italy hiding her true love, another friend is a steampunk inventor, and my sisters best friend is a hermit author. does anyone have any ideas for another woman at the time? edit: i would also like to say that google sucks at helping with characters in this time period and i don’t wanna use ai

Ive never had real friends, i dont really enjoy online, and dont even get me started with family.

Im looking for small ttrpg or print and play that is simple, free, fun, has a community, isint the size of the bible.

Ive considered irownsworn but its alot of pages which overwhelms me at this moment, because of all the content to study.

So this is partially a vent/rant, and partially a legitimate question.

Where in the hell did the absurd, mindboggling, and (IMO) stupid idea come from, that as a DM- newbie DM, at that, I'm required- no, demanded, utterly, to be a 'Yes, and', DM?

Look. I'm a newbie DM, learning Savage Worlds after my last attempt to DM something fell apart.

But one thing that's been driving me absolutely insane, and has been sucking the joy out of DMing for me, is that one of my players is one of those 'You should say yes to your players' types.

Not only that, but they also tend to get absolutely pedantic (good lord, I was trying to narrate and they went on a tangent about the semantics of 'mist vs fog').

I want to know where in the world this stupid idea came from. What knuckleheads, bizarrely, for some alien reason, decided that DMs are supposed to be practically a slave to their players?
Why am I not allowed to say 'No'? Where did the bizarre assumption of 'automatic yes' come from?

Oh, no no, I'm sorry, let me rephrase;
They said that my entire identity as a DM is supposed to be "adaptibility".
I'm not allowed to say 'No'. 'Yes, and', is the only thing I'm apparently legally allowed to say or else I'm a bad DM, apparently.

I'm losing my eagerness to DM already. Why should I bother setting things up if I'm just gonna have semantics argued at me or get told 'No, you're wrong, you have to be flexible as a DM'. It's driving me insane because last I checked,

'Cooperative storytelling' should not translate to 'DM cannot refuse player expectations/demands'.

Me and my friends are playing The Curse of Strahd, but we're just like a special EP of Konosuba, We can't take any of the NPCs or the lore seriously. I'm not complaining, this might be the best campaign I've ever played, and the DM said He's having a lot of fun as well, I just think it's funny when someone says "The curse of Strahd is a really serious/dark adventure" bc I aways remember my friends interactions and start laughting

So a lot of GMs do this thing where they decide what the basic plot beats will be, and then improvise such that no matter what the players do, those plot beats always happen. For example, maybe the GM decides to structure the adventure as the hero's journey, but improvises the specific events such that PCs experience the hero's journey regardless of what specific actions they take.

I know this style of GMing is super common but does it have a name? I've always called it "road trip" style

Edit: I'm always blown away by how little agreement there is on any subject

I looked at the app Compass. Looks very cool. But sadly it's Windows only. And my household is all Mac and Linux.

If there a self-hosted tool I can dump my PDFs into and then browse, download and read on my various devices?

Hi folks !

Sorry for my english I'm a snail-eater frog

I am looking for an introduction music but I struggle. What I have in mind is simply some drums like we used to have 20 years ago at the beginning of a lot of medieval movies. You know just some :

• drums / voiceover / drums again / voiceover / epic drums / movie start

In my memory it was like this for movies like braveheart, dragonheart, Lancelot, etc... but I can't find something. Do you know some songs I could use to do that ?

My setting is in 6th century scandinavia (french ttrpg Yggdrasill)

Thank you !

Hello people!

I search for a system, or an engine, for my new campaign. The core story is inspired by the video game Half-Life. But we switch out the aliens with robots controlled by an AI:

It's 2040 AD, no magic. My players are employees at a huge private science lab, as scientists, engineers, janitors, etc. They all work on the lowest basement level of the building complex. The campaign starts with them going to work as usual, but then a disaster happens, the building is evacuated, only they are left behind. The world thinks that everyone is outside. The in-house AI, which also controls all doors, gates and guard robots, therefore sees all people in the building as threats. Now the players have to survive and eventually make it to the outside.

I read through "Year Zero Engine" and it's a potential candidate. It has a robust core and I don't have to homebrew too much. Which other systems could also work?

I watched the intro video and it wasn’t super clear to me how much of the game is collaborative storytelling, and how much agency a player really has.

I love the visuals and the idea of playing it, but the combat doesn’t seem to have much decision making to it.

It’s fine if that’s the case, just trying to understand.

Hi all,

I’m going to run a 12 session (2-3 hrs each) campaign. I’m trying to determine what adventure to run.

I was going to run Raven’s Purge (using Dragonbane rules), but I’m starting to think (based on feedback) that 12 sessions isn’t enough time for Raven’s Purge.

My wife has offered to play 12 or so sessions, so I’m very excited. The other players will be my cousin, his wife, and my teen son. All in person.

I want a fantasy adventure that feels exciting and that will fit in roughly 12 or so sessions. One night a week for 4 months or so. I imagine, if they’re having a good time, it could be longer.

Do you have any suggestions on adventures that fit that category?

I’m looking at Secret of the Dragon Emperor in the DB core box, but it doesn’t seem overly exciting.

Here’s what I’m thinking of but want others suggestions or ideas:

Secret of the Dragon Emperor

Cult of the Reptile God

Even a general idea that I could use would be nice.

Thank you!!

I'm looking for a TTRPG that would be about Sea battles, sailing mechanics, treasure maps for buried treasure, political intrigue and swashbuckling action.

I don't want to have playable magic or races or classes.

I want a variety of sword styles.

Any suggestions for a good system? 7th Seas setting seems nice, but the actions and system seems really strange to me. I've not ruled it out.
Traveller seems ok.. just keep it in the world theme and low tech.

I've been reading through various AD&D 2e modules and I've come across a few scenarios that are explicitly presented as "no-win situations", where nothing the players do can actually change the outcome (tbf, these are Ravenloft modules).

In one, the PCs are on a ship caught in a storm - the situation goes from bad to worse until the ship runs aground and everyone wakes up later on an island where the adventure happens. Nothing the players do can stop the wreck, but this still feels logical and dramatic to me.

Then there's the "uncatchable assassin" - The players are sneak attacked, the attacker runs away to avoid a stand-up fight, and the module says explicitly that the attacker "cannot be caught". It offers some good explanations for how the assassin can escape, but it just... feels wrong?

I don't know... maybe I'm being too precious about my notion of player agency, and/or too willing to let my players derail an adventure and force me into improv mode. I would probably modify the situation to make it possible, but extremely difficult to catch the assassin.

GMs: Do you run these kinds of no-win scenarios? How do your players feel about it if they catch you tipping the scales like this?

Players: How do you feel when your best tricks and clever solutions "should" work, but don't for some reason? Even for good reasons!

EDIT: It's overwhelming my little lurker heart to see so many responses! My thoughts on the conversation -

1. I'm kind of surprised to see folks who are totally cool with this. I would completely check out if nothing I did made any difference. The point of the game, for me, is to answer the question "What do you do?", and if the answer doesn't matter then why bother?

2. The Shipwreck scenario is also fine with me, as it is for many of you, because it just isn't plausible that the PCs could prevent running aground (barring some high level chicanery, but this is level 1-4 adventure), given the amount of damage that the ship sustains. I also agree that the PCs need to get SOMETHING for their efforts, such as rescued sailors to be followers, or salvaged supplies to help with the coming adventure. The module addresses this a little, but could do better.

3. The uncatchable assassin is, as many have said, bull crap. "You can't kill him, I need him later" is a terrible excuse for this kind of thing. u/LichoOrganico made a great point about gaining something useful, like intel, while failing to catch the assassin, which makes the encounter feel worth doing. I really hate the idea of watching my players go through the motions of playing the game, and then get nothing for their effort but a "nope". On top of that, I'd modify the situation to make it very challenging (the assassin knows the terrain, is very skilled, has help, and so on), but definitely honor any player successes that happen despite the poor odds, and even if it's unlikely I'd be prepared for them succeed without letting that ruin the ending of the adventure.

4. As I mentioned, these two examples come from Ravenloft, which taps into some similar themes found in Cthulu-mythos stuff, so I can understand that a measure of "futility is the point" plays in here, but in order to really drive that point home it should be used sparingly, and in those moments of greatest dramatic impact.

A take so hot, it borders on the ridiculous, if you please. The completely absurd hill you'll die on w regard to TTRPGs.

Here's mine: I think starting from the very beginning, Shadowrun should have had two totally different magic systems for mages and shamans. Is that absurd? Needlessly complex? Do I understand why no sane game designer would ever do such a thing? Yes to all those. BUT STILL I think it would have been so cool to have these two separate magical traditions existing side-by-side but completely distinct from one another. Would have really played up the two different approaches to the Sixth World.

Anywho, how about you?

Hey,

My parents are well into their 60s and never showed interest in my hobby this far, but recently they told me they were interested in testing it because they saw it on a tv show i think ?

So i digged about what they expect from the game. It's the usual i guess : probably fantasy, adventure style, nothing complex, a bit of action. At this point i had a few candidates in mind (cairn, tiny dungeon ...).
Brindlewood bay is not option because "if we wanted old people solving mysteries we we would do it ourselves"
Then they dropped the bomb "well we dont like playing with dices".

So what would be your go to for an adventuring fantasy one shot, without dices (apparently they prefer playing cards if possible) ?

If that helps they are familiar with tolkien lore to some extent, and sci-fi is on the menu too althought as a second choice. Horror is a big nono.

i intend to get them to try a diceless game and if they enjoy it it might convince them to give simple dice rpgs a try.

thanks

Hi, I've got an opportunity to run a one-shot event for a High School gaming club. I have played in a couple of Pathfinder Specials that involved a large number of tables in one cohesive story line. I don't need anything that big, but I wonder if anyone has experience creating an adventure that 2 or 3 groups could be involved in one adventure. Each table under a separate GM, but where the events at each table synergistically fold into a larger story line.

Any ideas? Probably two tables will be what I'll be working with.

Thanks in advance.