Hey all, I'm watt, creator of the Ennie-award-winning, Nausicaa-inspired Mothership setting Cloud Empress. I'll be launching a Castle in the Sky/Arcane-inspired TTRPG called Rust Wings for Mausritter next week.

I'll be checking and responding to this post synchronously until about 6 PM CST US.

Happy to answer any questions about indie tabletop roleplaying game publishing, crowdfunding, my designs/design process, worldbuilding, writing literary adventures, Ghibli, etc.

Update: Closing the AMA down. Thanks for all the awesome questions and appreciation for my work!

**Come here and talk about anything!**

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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.

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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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This submission is generated automatically each Saturday at 00:00 UTC.

What are the greatest picks?

So I was reading about the various subsystems that enable settlement building and development in The World Below and the one from the manuscripts in their new crowdfund.

I originally picked the system up to see how freeform magic could work in fellow Storypath Ultra title Curseborne, for a player of mine that likes that kind of thing in mage. But lately I've been getting hooked on reading the system for its own sake and I'm stumbling across some stuff ive really never done in my 16 years of RPGs.

They have a system of "Kalm" where a natural part of the play loop between exploring is building settlements and there's activities for establishing trade, buildings that offer you bonuses to downtime activities anf perks for when you go back to exploring, there's an activity to subvert politics in an area and lots of instability and boons.

Then there's stuff about generation play, passing things down families, playing each other's descendents, and problens that can't be solved in a single generation.

Now I know these are things, I'd heard of Pendragon for Generational play and about early DND domain level play, though I also heard most tables just stopped playing before their game could transition to that.

But reading this stuff, the fantasy really appeals to me, and while my players (and myself) wouldn't go for OSRish worlds normally, World Below is magical and weird and dark enough to both be different enough from our beloved pf2e to justify bothering with, but still appeal.

This part is completely different, its capturing my imagination. Does anyone gave cool stories about domain/generational play I can use to fuel my hype to possibly do some in this system when the books come out? Or has anyone done any settlement stuff in World Below, to tell me about that?

hi, im wanting to run a game where the players are paranormal investigators, set in the 1870s, but I have no idea what a good system would be. I looked into call of cthulu and I dont think the whole lovecraftian thing is for us. looking for a system that would work well for something low combat with rules that aren't too complicated.

I've got some kind of RPG brain parasite.

I love GMing, and I really want to give my friends cool, unique experiences. I keep finding incredible settings, systems, scenarios, and all these different kinds of games I could run for them.

The problem is that there are just too many good options, so instead of calmly picking one like a normal person, my brain just keeps collecting more and more RPG ideas that may never actually hit the table.

I just have so much enthusiasm for this new hobby. On the outside, I try to keep it nonchalant and not force it on my friends, just suggesting the occasional one-shot here and there. But inside? I yearn. I yearn for the Lost Mines of Phandelver. I want to show them the world.

And it's not like they're not enjoying it. They are. Hell, we even did a whole getaway weekend to play the Blade Runner RPG. But every time I suggest doing even the shortest of campaign regularly, like 5-10 sessions, they start hesitating.

The good news is that I found a Discord server for people in my city who are into TTRPGs, and I've already set up a date for a short campaign!

I'm a bit older, and I used to play D&D back in the '80s (yes I'm that old!) I'm looking to get involved in RPGs again at my local game cafe but I don't want to start something that has a huge commitment.

Any suggestions for something slightly more casual, and easier/faster to jump into?

First thing I don't dislike OSR games but those are not my type of game, I'm mostly looking for games that have room to make long stories but that are also light on rules. I have played some games, including Dragonbane but that one ain't really for me because of how lethal it can be.

So what I'm looking for is something like this:

-Not extremely lethal

-Light on the rules, although a small learning curve is not a bad thing.

-Works for campaign play, not interested on one-offs

-Maybe a bit faster than 5e in terms of combat but cause I'll be playing this Solo I don't see it as a big problem.

-Allows me to make a tiger character🐯(Not a required one but it adds points to the game)

-Is a medieval game but not dark fantasy.

Kinda specific, just kinda.

Hey everyone!

I recently acquired moderation privileges to r/PowerRangersRPG

It has been fairly inactive based on posting history, and I am aiming to revitalizing it and the interest in Power Rangers: The RPG. Power Rangers: The RPG is an Essence20 game. Some may be aware of the litany of issues with this system, haha. However, I think many if the criticisms are not of the actual system and rather the published materials being poorly written.

As such, I am to collaborate and develop through r/PowerRangersRPG the means to make materials, rules, and mechanics more sensible and accessible. I hope you will consider joining if you are interested Power Rangers, Big Bad Beetleborgs, Kame Rider, Super Sentai, and other tokusatsu media. These are perfect for Power Rangers: The RPG.

Essence20 (E20) also has source materials for G.I. Joe, Transformers, and My Little Pony. If these franchises or settings intrigue for mechanics that may apply to your own creations, feel free to join as a means to learn more of how E20 addresses unique interactions in these settings.

Hello everyone,

I’m about to be a player in a Deadlands: The Weird West campaign, and I’m a bit concerned about the quality of the story we’re going to have.

To explain : a friend of mine who loves the whole zombie cowboy vibe of Deadlands ran an introductory scenario for our group. It lasted two 3 hour sessions, and our characters already went from Novice to Seasoned.

After the game, I spoke with the GM and he told me that the scenario was meant to lead into Horror at Headstone Hill. He also plans to run a huge mega-campaign afterward, chaining together The Flood, The Last Sons, Good Intentions, and Stone and a Hard Place with the same group of characters.

I told him that sounded like it would take quite a long time, especially since other friends who have run Horror at Headstone Hill say it usually lasts around 10 to 20 sessions. But my GM says we’ll finish it in four 3 hour sessions, and that running the four Reckoners campaigns will take about a year with one session per week.

When he told me that, it honestly cooled my enthusiasm quite a bit. I get the feeling he just wants to cram in as much official content as possible, and I’m worried we might miss interesting story elements by rushing through the plots.

I would have preferred to take our time, and maybe even change characters for each Reckoner campaign. Keeping the same group throughout might also create major balance issues.

What do you think ?

I have found the idea of a Reset in a TTRPG to be

Very...
Very...
Interesting...

Well, jokes aside - I recently found myself with the idea of making a simple, Solo/GM-less TTRPG with a similar concept to Undertale. Of course, Undertale covers a lot of concepts - What i am most interested in is the idea of "Resets" and the constant theme of actions and consequences.

For those uninitiated, A "Reset" is a mechanic from Undertale which many others game have - The ability to Save and Load. The thing that makes Undertale's "Resets" so special that they are a part of the story - Whenever you Load your save, the timeline itself is being modified by you. It is indeed a pretty meta game - And the theme of consequences is a big one in it.

You see, this game also gives you the ability to Fight or Spare monsters. You choose if you want to kill them or spare them - And the game is extremely reactive to your actions. To the point there are around 96 endings in the game depending on who you kill or spare, with special endings for sparing everyone and killing everyone (Granted you won't see most of them - With at least 80 of them being slight variations of the other 16, but you get the point.)

Undertale, however, is still a pretty "Social" game, per say. It is mostly dialogue, and even if you do the route where you kill everyone, it isn't really designed for combat. Without getting too much into spoilers - It is pretty much designed to make you not want to play. This is a part I find very compelling in the original game - But i don't really want (Or wouldn't know how) to replicate it in this Homebrew/TTRPG/Ruleset/Whatever it ends up being.

It is much more complex than that - But it'll take like a 10 hour youtube analysis to explain everything. But you get the gist of it (I hope!)

Onto what i'm trying to accomplish:

In general, I want to make is a "Reset" mechanic that at least vaguely complies with the following "Requisites"

- It should be unique. I personally find the idea of a "Reset" metacurrency to be kind of bland and not fitting of the idea. There is also the possibility of being able to Reset at any moment.

- It should have consequences. It shouldn't be limited to an "Oops, I messed up - I guess i'll go back to last session before I took that quest!" (although it can certainly have some of that) Also, I believe these consequences should affect the characters (Maybe even the Player Character) similar to Undertale characters experiencing Deja Vu from past timelines.

I do have some ideas of how to get to this, but i want to hear other people's opinion on this.

An idea i've got (Mostly related to the "Solo TTRPG" idea) is that Consequences could be randomly generated with an Action + Theme oracle (Similar to games like Ironsworn) where you interpret how characters act and react to Resets with a roll or two.

Another thing i was thinking was that of giving NPCs a sort of "Awareness" stat, where the higher it is the more aware they are of the "Time Traveller" similar to Sans and, to a certain extent, Asgore as well.

Alternatively, The "Awareness" meter could be replaced by character roles (PbtA style) where each character has a role, or covers a role in a list, or something like that, and a role could be the "Aware" or "Judge" (Like Sans)

Other roles could be like; "Soulless," "Leader," "Caretaker," Etc. Filling roles similar to characters in Undertale, Possibly adding additional roles as well. I do have a problem with this idea, and it is that it could be difficult to make characters feel different from each other (At least mechanically) - Not impossible with some "Variants" or "Sub-role" type stuff, but it'd still be a bit difficult.

Again, Another alternative to the Role system is for characters to be Pregenerated. Which could be interesting - Something like a set of standard characters and possibly the ability to make additional ones or new sets with a quick guide.

Though these are all vague ideas, and as i said - I'm looking for other people's opinions on this - Mixing, Adding and Rewriting concepts is my main goal right now.

Sorry for the long read! Thanks for sticking to the end!