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This post will stay stickied for (at least) the week-end. Please enjoy this space where you can talk about anything: your last game, your current project, your patreon, etc. You can even talk about video games, ask for a group, or post a survey or share a new meme you've just found. This is the place for small talk on r/rpg.

The off-topic rules may not apply here, but the other rules still do. This is less the Wild West and more the Mild West. Don't be a jerk.

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When I was like 11, I was gifted The Pocket Dangerous Book for Boys: Things to Know. Unnecessary gender dichotomy aside, I'll always be thankful for the effect this book had on me. Specifically because one of its chapters is on role-playing games. It's something I carried with me for the next ~5 years until I got to play D&D for the first time, and even now, more than a decade later playing mostly CfB stuff, it still resonates as a seed that pushed me toward what I love. Thought people might appreciate the look into the specifics of someone's love for RPGs. The chapter is just a few paragraphs:

This is not a chapter telling you how to do something --- you'll see why as you read. It's a short essay on role-playing games: what they are and how to get started. There are few inventions of the twentieth century that can combine entertainment with imagination so well.
Dungeons and Dragons was put together in 1972. It is still available from online bookshops or game stores. To get started you'll need the player's handbook, the dungeon master's handbook, some dice, and, eventually, an adventure to play. It isn't inexpensive to start, but after the initial outlay, costs are minimal---it's all imagination and the occasional pencil.
In essence, you buy the books, read them, and choose a character for yourself. There are basic classes like Fighter, Thief, and Magic-user. The character will start out with certain qualities such as dexterity and strength, decided by the roll of a die. With experience, the character grows in power, endurance, and knowledge. The game also grows more and more complex. Fighters win more powerful weapons, Wizards gain access to greater spells. When we were children, we progressed from Basic to Advanced to Expert to Immortal levels, before moving on to battling at a national level and building an empire. You never forget the first time you were exiled from a country you raised from nothing.
You do need a few people for this---it is a social game, which is a good thing. In a very real sense, it is a training ground for the imagination and, in particular a school for plot and character. It may even be a training ground for tactics. If you want to be a writer, try D&D. For that matter, if you want to be a mathematician, try D&D.
The Dungeon Master (or DM) is the one who runs the game. He will either collect or write adventures---literally set in dungeons or just about anywhere. The characters battle the monsters he chooses and either solve his traps or fall prey to them, suffering horrible deaths. The players will develop characters with extraordinarily detailed histories, equipment, and skills.
For us, D&D meant hundreds of hours at school and at home playing with pencils, charts, dice, and laughter. If elves don't grab you, there are many other forms of role-playing---from Judge Dredd, to superheroes, to Warhammer, to a hundred more... but Dungeons and Dragons is still the original and the best.

The line "you never forget the first time you were exiled from a country you raised from nothing" has always stuck in my brain. Recently rediscovering this after finding the book in a trunk, "it is a social game, which is a good thing" sticks out more. A lot of it doesn't really apply to me anymore, but it definitely had an effect on my start.

For the first time ever, this TTRPG from Japan is finally being officially translated into English. It’s been refined over decades, and after spending most of this year giving us sneak peaks here it is.

I'm looking for maps that are more than geographical or political boundaries. What are some examples of interesting maps that include more types of information, such as current events, or major threats. Things like, descriptions of goods and services. Or important characters.

I'm interested in seeing what is possible in a map. I'm analyzing and taking a novel series apart to figure out ways to translate it into game terms. It's fantasy. But this map technology/ ways of mapping stuff does not have to be genre specific.

So what maps from splat or modules are just incredible tools?

Been looking into getting into some type of Racing TTRPG like Fast and the Furious/ Speed Racer type. Seeing that there were several, but haven't had clearer opinions or comparisons in my search.

For context, I'm trying to find a system that isn't too crunchy and is easy to learn. Since my dad has Grade 4 brain cancer, he hasn't been able to even stare at his own phone screen or play chess as he gets a severe headache/dizziness. Even tried a 50 count puzzles, but it hurts his head.

He's been a car guy as long as I could remember and loves Fast & Furious series. He can pretty much process things well if he is able to do more verbal instruction and simpler diagrams due to his condition. So trying to do something for him as an activity for him.

What's a racing TTRPG that you have played or experienced? I'm open to any opinions and systems.

Looking for a setting, not a system!

I love the vibes of the surrealist/New Weird stories set in the American southwest: Nightvale, Paris Texas (the movie), these music videos. Something between Fear and Loathing (the book) and David Lynch. I really want to run a game in that genre, but as you can imagine, a setting like that would be extremely hard to write; and I'm a busy adult that doesn't have the time.

Is there anything out there that's already published like this for a RPG setting? All the locations and characters, maybe some overall story/plot? Any system/system agnostic is good. I've got enough universal systems in my back pocket there.

Link to content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tFgRCu0qbA

Bounded accuracy is a phrase that gets touted a lot in discussions of D&D and adjacent games, and is honestly quite misunderstood overall imo. In this video, I use the original design goals of bounded accuracy and use them as a benchmark to evaluate how D&D 5E did with them. I then contrast this with Pathfinder 2E as an example of vertically scaling math, and Draw Steel as an example of (a successful implementation of) flattened math.

Timestamps

• 0:00:00 Intro
• 0:01:45 Bounded Accuracy Discourse
• 0:05:44 D&D’s Design Goals
• 0:09:40 Goal I
• 0:17:58 Goal II
• 0:23:50 Goal III
• 0:31:02 Goal IV
• 0:38:36 Goal V
• 0:42:33 Goal VI
• 0:48:29 Goal VII
• 0:53:28 Verdict on D&D
• 0:57:41 Pathfinder’s Worldbuilding
• 1:04:35 Draw Steel’s Flat Math
• 1:09:46 Draw Steel Verdict
• 1:16:52 Verisimilitude?
• 1:22:03 Outro

https://shurebis.itch.io/through-black-ichor

A fully playable adventure with 177 words and 14 paintings.

I’ve had this idea for a really long time but I haven’t had the right system to put it in. I could do dnd and home brew it to death but, square peg, round hole. I’d rather just have a system that lends itself to the genre of a murder mystery. Any suggestions?

Just interested to hear the thoughts of anyone who's grabbed the story engine deck, deck of worlds, or loremasters deck and actually used it for your games. How do you feel about it? Is it a solid tool that helps you out? For people with multiple do you find you like one more than the others? How do you feel about the expansions you got for them if any?

Are there any other products that do anything similar or are they in sort of a unique niche? I know about axebanes and the game masters apprentice decks but they didn't seem geared towards exactly the same things? Maybe I'm wrong there though.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts, just trying to decide which deck or bundle I may actually want to settle on trying first.

ETA: I GM for my group mainly so all of them are at least somewhat relevant to me I think. I'm interested in tools that take some of the burden off me to be able to come up with things because I'm lousy at improvising and brainstorming ideas with no starting point but if I can use something like this as an initial springboard I tend to have much better results. I've already compiled a bit of a collection of randomization tools and things to sort of help act as a crutch when I'm fumbling and give me a chance to build out my capabilities without taking on 100% of the pressure which I think would just make me go back to running prewritten modules strictly as written, I just think this could be a great addition to that especially in the planning stages.

Hello Adventurers,

I'm interested in recommendations for systems that have similar character customization options to 5e. I think a lot of people at my table really enjoy the the whole class, subclass, feat schtick. Based on my research the following candidates have surfaced, but I'm looking for more options to consider:

- 13th Age 2e
- Pathfinder 2e
- Draw Steel
- Daggerheart

The most important factor is deep character customization using classes or class-like mechanics.

UPDATE:

Thanks for the feedback from everyone, I appreciate when people take the time to respond to a thread like this.

(I am not involved in the creation of this game, just excited about it)

To Feel Your Warmth is a game about two people in love, one of which has been cursed with vampirism, and the final hours before sunrise. Played on opposite sides of an open doorway, an invisible threshold that cannot be crossed until the game has ended.

It's the spiritual successor to The Time We Have, where two players play brothers in the zombie apocalypse. One has been infected, and you play on opposite sides of a closed door.