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It seems somewhat common for D&D and D&D-derived settings to have three main elven branches: wood, high, and elf. 4e has "elves" (wood), eladrin (high), and drow (dark). 5e has wood, high, and dark. 13th Age has wood, high, and silver/dark. Draw Steel has wode, high, and shadow. Sometimes, the divisions are a little different, like in Eberron, and sometimes, they are downplayed, as in Golarion.

A good deal of these settings have these super-cool, super-mystical, super-mysterious (and often, to some degree, closed-off, stagnant, or both) elven polities. Examples include the Forgotten Realms' Evereska and Evermeet; Birthright's elven forests; 4e's Feywild cities; Eberron's Aereni, Tairnadal, and feyspires; Pathfinder's Kyonin and Sovyrian; ENWorld's War of the Burning Sky's Shahalesti; ENWorld's Zeitgeist's Elfaivar; 13th Age's Court of Stars; and Draw Steel's wode elf wodes and high elf cities.

Sometimes, the writers play up how longevity, magic, discipline, ancestral guidance, etc. make the people of these elven polities super-strong and super-competent. Eberron's Keith Baker mentions that "There’s a reason we present the Tairnadal as the being pound-for-pound the most dangerous people on the planet."

Then there are "casual elves." Often, in setting writeups and adventures, one or more NPCs in a mostly human place will coincidentally be elves, without it being a major part of the character. They are not super-competent or super-noteworthy just for being elves. Sometimes, demographics back this up; the spotlight nation of Eberron, Breland, is canonically 8% elves (or 7% in Sharn, the big megacity), and they are surely not Tairnadal-tier.

I get why it is this way. Writers want to have both super-lofty elven ethnostates, and the freedom to have "just so happens to be an elf" NPCs and PCs.

In Eberron alone, I have played a "regular" everyday elf, a House Phiarlan elf, an Aereni elf, and a Tairnadal elf all as separate PCs. In Eberron and in a variety of other settings, I have depicted a large assortment of elves as NPCs.

There is a bit of cognitive dissonance. Players are expected to meet some "casual elves" in a small town or a big city in an "Oh, those are Bobeth and Maryel. They just so happen to be elves. Normal people, if a little quirky" manner. Those same players are also expected to encounter "hardcore elves" in a "You stand before Borithanaeth and Maralaruelle of the super-cool, super-mystical, super-mysterious elven ethnostate of High Pothelshapareia. Fear them. Their longevity, magic, discipline, and ancestral guidance make them super-strong and super-competent. They are beings far above you" context. It can be hard to reconcile both in the same setting, you know?

It also creates this odd sense that if everyday Bobeth and Maryel were instead born and raised in that hypothetical elven ethnostate, then they would have been lofty superhumans instead.

Eberron was close to solving this by playing up half-elves as a people of their own (the "Khoravar"), but Eberron ultimately did not commit to this. In the megacity of Sharn, for example, elves are more common (7% of population) than half-elves (5%).

The "hardcore elf" vs. "casual elf" divide, I think, is a far more significant distinction than anything about "wood elves" and "high elves" and whatnot.

What do you think on the subject?

Looking to Eberron as an example, according to Keith Baker:

https://keith-baker.com/eberron-flashback-aereni-and-tairnadal/

Looking to what that means: There’s a reason we present the Tairnadal as the being pound-for-pound the most dangerous people on the planet. It’s because their lives are intensely structured and devoted to emulating their greatest champions. Tairnadal children undego decades of intense training in the path of their ancestor. If the typical human soldier is a first level warrior and the typical Tairnadal soldier is a fourth level ranger, it’s because that Tairnadal has spent a decades mastering those skills… and, as noted above, because they are further being guided and inspired by their patron ancestor.

Given Keith's background in D&D 3.5, he is probably referring to warrior, the NPC class versus ranger, the PC class.

So in this example, being an everyday soldier in an everyday nation results in being a 1st-level warrior with an NPC class, whereas being an everyday soldier born and raised among the Tairnadal elves results in being a 4th-level ranger with a PC class due to overwhelmingly superior discipline and training (and ancestral guidance).

As a follow up to this question, what are some modern trends you like in ttrpgs. I do like more games making fail forward a core part, pbta, daggerheart. I also like the recent move away from d20 and the ogl scandal fallout.

I know there are many RPGs out there that don't use classic classes or levels, but most of these seem to be very narrative i.e. little crunch or rules.

I've always loved GURPS and the D100 Basic Roleplaying system (Runequest and similar) precisely because they don't have levels or even strict classes. So I'm wondering what's your favourite RPG that doesn't use "levels" but still has a good amount of crunch.

The game could still include XP and advancment or something similar, but anything that describes a Level 5 Mechanic for example would be out.

Nominees were announced! (I do not work with IGDN nor do I have any games nominated, just sharing the news)

I recently glanced over a copy of His Majesty the Worm and didn’t realize there were systems just for megadungeons. Is HMW any good, and are there others you like? Any regular systems you feel play very well in megadungeons?

2 years ago I played the Knave-based rogue-lite A Rasp of Sand by Monday Cox, which was a transformative experience. In a quest to reimagine that template, I've made and playtested my own rogue-lite, Castle Noth, which I tossed onto itch back in February. I've been hesitant to self-promote, but I'm really proud of it, so here goes! Also, I've made it free today in hopes of fostering discussion rather than commerce. The player half of the rules are always free on itch.

What is it?

A rogue-lite OSR dungeon crawl where players try to reach the top of a morphing castle and disrupt a ritual of eternal night. Every item, room, and monster is hand-crafted. There are sub-plots to discover throughout the castle, and a bunch of ways to disrupt the ritual or deal with Count Starost Noth, the vampire warlord cloistered at the castle's apex. Players descend from ancient clans, whose secrets can be unlocked to aid them in their runs through the castle's rooms.

How does it work?

The rules are derived from Mausritter's, making it a Mark of the Odd game. I wanted combat to be a viable option and not a trap, so I added stunts based on Mythic Bastionland's brilliant gambit system. The OSR promise of rapid death and unbalanced fights is still there, but players get plenty of tools to exploit or avoid combat.

The GM gets 80 rooms across 5 floors and 89 illustrated monsters/NPCs to work with, plus tons of relics, magical flowers, and spell-infused skulls to dole out.

Anything else?

I've run 2 full playtests of the game to battle test it. I'm proud of it and would love to share it, hence the sale. I would absolutely love to discuss the game or hear feedback!

I recommend not reading the GM rules if you ever intend to be a player, since discovery is the primary goal of gameplay!

This is something I'm sure a lot of us are guilty of. We're in a long multi-roomed dungeon and every new door we find, the party spend like 5 minutes trying to look into the room without getting caught.

Or maybe this is a my group thing lol

I want to be able to semi quickly just get into the next room, no need to set up an ambush, no need to peak around every possible corner, just go through the door and begin exploring. Anyone else experience this issue?

It turns out jumping in a game where actors hijack a Shakespearean play with their own ideas and twist the narrative for zany fun and shenanigans is not the best idea when you basically spent the time another one of session that was cancelled would have went for by reading Hamlet for the first time. Heck. It turns out it is one of the worst ideas anyone can have.

That said, this is one of the best narrative games I have ever played. In fact, it has just become my absolute favourite comedic game. (Yeah. I am bolding this and I would write it in caps if I were not to be accused of yelling in text). I just cannot gush about how fun it absolutely is. I cannot believe that this is not heralded as a classic with the likes of Paranoia, Honey Heist and Fiasco. The playbooks and mechanics just slap and both know when to enter the scene and stay out of the player's improvisation so that the flow runs super smoothly. (If only it wasn't for me being very confused and playing this after midnight because I am very good at making life decisions/s).

Anyhow. I have a new yearly resolution. I wanna run this next year and by then, I need to up my roleplaying really hard (also read and watch a fuckton of Shakespeare). My problem is that I feel like a baby making her first steps.

I used to think I was good at improv, but when put in the spot with all the bells and whistles, I couldn't find my voice and while I had a lot of ideas (some fucking great, some terrible!) they were disjointed and I had no good plan. I wanna think like my character better, I wanna find their voice, I wanna sound befitting of a setting, whether this is spouting the perfect technobabble in Star Trek Adventures or pulling up Shakespearean sounding quotes on the fly. I wanna feel that my character is more alive and three dimensional.

I've had fun characters before. I gave them quirks, hobbies, personalities and goals. But the people I played with last night were on another level. I'm more of a solid DnD roleplayer (but like with a preference for other games than DnD), if you get my gist. The other players had me really impressed in that perfect way where it makes you want to be a better self and work on your shortcomings.

I feel that despite starting playing ttrpgs almost three years ago, I have been complacent for too long and they were a stark remainder of what you can be if you really push yourself and put in effort and hone actual skills rather than assume extroversion and a lack of social anxiety will carry you over.

Where do I start?

Hey everyone! I recently ran a one-on-one session for my girlfriend using the Discworld RPG Quickstart scenario "Up in Smoke." We’re currently reading the City Watch books together, and this felt like the perfect way to live in that world for a few hours. It went incredibly well, and I attribute a lot of it to the scenario's excellent presentation:

• The module gave a good overview of the mystery.
• Each location stated plainly what clues are available.
• The clues connected the locations and gave good reasons to go from place to place organically.
• The adventure had 2 "failsafe" locations (the cop bar and the Times) in case the players get really lost.
• The NPCs were easy to portray and very characterful.

I have little experience with mystery RPGs, coming from mostly a Pathfinder background, so I don't know how common this standard is in mystery RPGs. I would like recommendations from the lovely people of the subreddit for good modules and game systems that have this standard of presentation. Also, if there are any more scenarios written by the same people responsible for the Discworld RPG, I was impressed by their work and would like to check them out.

In particular, I am not looking for modern-day/noir/horror stories, but for something more rooted in fantasy. Bonus points if the game works well for one-on-one (1 GM, 1 Player) play!

Like many GMs, I started with 5e in Phandalin. I've been running about 4 games a week for about 3 years now. Mostly still D&D with an occasional Blades, Fallout, Ten Candles, and (my fave) Degenesis. And I too have given this advice, because it's good and easy: Run the Starter Set before moving on to other more epic stuff.

However (and yes this is totally biased and possibly wishful thinking) I now want to run a Delta Green campaign. I've never GMed it (or Cthulhu) and I've only been a player in a Last Things Last one-shot, which is the most commonly advised "start here" adventure.

I want to run Impossible Landscapes. I don't want to run LTL or other simpler, shorter modules first, I want to go straight for the epic thing. So yes, clearly I'm biased because I want to hit the ground running.

My question is: If you're a relatively experienced GM, how necessary are those "starter" modules? Of course this would depend on the game, but in general, at what point can you confidently jump in the deep end?

There's a hundred and one pirate games (let alone games that can be 'hacked' to support games on ships). Cyberpunk, space, let alone the various flavors of fantasy, we've all seen them again and again.

So what are some of the lesser-known genres? And the games that support them?