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I run narrative-driven games — atmosphere, choices, light mechanics. My group said they wanted exploration and freedom. So I built large locations by hand, wrote out the lore, gave each player a private notebook so I could follow their thinking.

Result: notebooks empty. The one who wanted exploration the most was convinced we had to follow the plot. Another buried me in lore questions unrelated to anything happening. A third just couldn't be bothered to think.

Is this a common thing, or did I set it up wrong? And if you've run into it — what did you actually do about it?

UPDATE:

Thanks everyone — didn't expect this many responses. A few points keep coming up, so putting them here so people don't have to repeat them:

Too much lore up front draws invisible borders. The "restaurant menu" analogy nailed it: hand someone a menu and say "or anything you like," they'll order off the menu.

Open-ended questions cause paralysis. Concrete A/B choices with the GM breaking ties works better. Set session times yourself instead of trying to accommodate everyone.

A deadline means nothing until it actually bites. Mine hasn't yet, so the players had no reason to treat it as real. Running a timed obligation alongside "you're free to explore" pulls in two directions at once. That one's on me.

Some groups just can't do sandboxes, regardless of what they say in session zero. That's not a failure on either side.

Still reading everything, just not replying to all of it. Appreciate the time people put into this.

Recently saw a post on another subreddit warning about a company not delivering kickstarter projects so thought I'd do the same for a TTRPG company.

I backed Call of the Sea from Shadowland Games and Delivery was supposed to be in April. They have gone completely silent, with one update 6 months ago and the last one 30 days ago. But the last update just talks about more PDF releases and then they announce "They will soon update on print and delivery progress", while not actually giving any real updates.
While all this is going on they are releasing more new kickstarter projects, and from the looks of their old ones they have yet to actually fully deliver a kickstarter to all backers.
So beware when backing any of their kickstarters.

I love stories where monsters are the heroes, but are forced to live "underground" because society sees them as monsters and reacts with fear or violence, no matter how much good the monsters do. Stuff like Hellboy. Stories where the "monsters" are just humans at heart, trying to fit in, and their mutations or paranormal abilities are just a metaphor for traits that are "othered" by society.

Ergo, I love the "secret society" aspect of Vampire: the Masquerade. But, the worldbuilding of that game takes a very different direction than "misunderstood monsters". The average Vampire in VtM is very much evil (even if they don't see if that way). You treat people like herd animals and kill them and drink their blood.

To be clear, this is not a moral qualm. It can be FUN to be evil! But, I AM curious: are there any good RPGs out there where the PCs are monsters, but it's a little less "Sopranos" and a little more "Nimona"??

I'm developing an RPG in this vein myself, but it hasn't occurred to me to ask and see what (if anything) in this vein might already exist.

So I'm a 52 yr old long time gamer. I have a ton of dice like most do, and I love collecting sets just for their own sake. Generally I pass on overly novelty style dice (extra small, extra big, overly decorated, etc), I like just standard dice that are both pleasant to look at and easy to read. I player in my group earlier this year brought a set of dice he bought that he labeled "his old man dice". Great contrast, slightly bigger than standard dice, and easy AF to read! I checked em out and instantly liked them.

I went online that night and bought a set for myself to give a shot. I've been playing with them for a few months now and have to say my old eyes LOVE THEM. I've picked up about 4 different sets since then to use on a regular basis. They don't feel like novelty dice at all, even though they are bigger than standard dice (16mm vs around 20-22mm I think). They look and feel great though without being obnoxious, and more importantly - EASY TO READ lol...

I honestly wish this would become a standard size alongside the normal 16mm dice, especially by indie dice makers. Anyway, that's all. Just wanted to tell anyone squinting at dice to check them out and give them a shot. I've made them my primaries.

Anyone else finding love for these?

What is your favourite rpg system?

List two or three things you love and one thing you hate.

I’ll offer Pendragon. The stuff I love about it are the deeply thematic rules, traits and passions, and the GPC.

What I don’t like about it is the (imo) overly complex battle rules.

What say you?

How do you feel about an NPC making the final blow? We had game night last night and on my players turn (level 7 druid, circle of the shepard. This matters) I cast till of the dead and the dm failed the check, but my damage was booty. 4pts.

Next up in the initiative was my summoned creature, a large constrictor. This is why my class mattered. My whole PCs thing is to summon beasts to fight for me.

I rolled to attack with its bite attack and it lands. It ends up being the final blow.

Im excited, we beat the big bad, finished up and I said hell yeah.

The DM and another guy both stated they hate when an NPC makes the final blow. The DM even saying he wished he let me double damage with toll of the dead because he crit failed and him making up the rule on the spot for double damage there wouldve made him feel better than my snake landing the blow. Really?

I was happy with the results 🤷‍♂️

Is this a regular feeling amongst people though?

Am I supposed to try to do bad if I know my creatures gonna finish things up?

ETA: I will say I agree with what most said, I consider it an extension of my character. I called it an NPC because they called it one. Before the game ever started at session Zero, the DM was surprised I didnt choose Moon Druid as thats the best class to him. I think he wanted to choose that so I'd come to him with questions or something. Since thing everything has been an uphill battle. This is actually my first campaign ever. Since then weve had little one shots and mini games as breaks for the DM but this game was my first. My character I kind of built to be more like me. I thought a Steve Irwin type would be badass for a fellow animal lover. Being a summoner who relies on concentration, ive yet to get to use Mask of the Wild, a natural class feat. He doesn't understand why I want to hide. ......so I dont get hit? Like, i don't get it. I took War Caster, so at least now I get to roll with advantage.

Not really asking for advice because the situation resolved itself but curious to see how others might approach it.

So lets say you're playing a game with a very established setting and lore. Think Vampire the Masquerade, or Lancer, or Exalted.

Lets say there is a clear intended interpretation of one or more elements of that setting that while presented as complex, have a common core interpretation that most of the people who play in it will agree with. Like 'The Camarilla is stable but very Evil and therefore not well liked' or 'The Union is Utopian but Limited and is hampered by their inability to be everywhere at once' or 'The wide-scale persecution of Solars in the modern age is doing more harm than good on several levels and the Siderials should probably swallow their pride and apologize for the genocide.'

Then lets say you're setting up a new game, you recruit a bunch of people, and you have session zero to lay out expectations for what the game's going to be about, and then you get started and have a couple sessions. And then you realize one or more players has Wildly different ideas about what 'correct' view of the situation is.

Like they say something like "Well because the Camarilla is Stable that must mean they're Right. If they weren't Right they wouldn't be so Stable. Ergo the Evil is exaggerated propaganda and I'm going to get mad at every NPC who tries to say that the ends don't justify the means or that they're blatantly corrupt. And then I'm also going to get mad at the GM for having bad opinions."

Obviously I'm being kind of hyperbolic with the example, but it's that feeling of going 'hang on did we read the same book here' that always throws me. Me having NPCs who don't like the Camarilla should not be shocking nor is it signposting that they're secretly a villain. A lot of people don't like them. They're divisive. Intentionally written to be divisive! So are all the other factions. We're all monsters that's the point.

Normally what happens is the dissonant player ends up leaving the table. I don't think I've ever had more than one in four who disagrees with me that vehemently which makes me feel like my read of a given setting is generally correct? Or at least statistically average. I suppose if I had the entire table going wtf I'd be more likely to assume I was the one who'd misread something.

Curious if anyone else has encountered this and what the resolution was. I don't want to imply this happens a lot, it's come up maybe twice in the last three years, but insert 2 nickels meme here.

I’ve fallen into the rabbit hole of light-weight PbtA adjacent, lightweight games.

It all began for me with Cthulhu Dark, which really surprised me with how much game you can squeeze out of two pages of mechanics.

Feeling the itch of find a fantasy Cthulhu-dark-like I discovered the Trophy games (Dark and Gold), who look amazing but are quite limited in the kind of stories you can tell and also ask quite a lot of the GM if you want to adapt an existing scenario.

Then the skies opened up when I discovered Jason Tocci’s 24xx modular engine: more than enough to ran a short game in a very small package. Both 2400 Legends and the 1400 game line look pretty cool and you can literally mix and match to homebrew whatever you need depending on the scenario or setting you want to run.

I also recently discovered Joseph R. Lewis’s Dragon Age Harthbreaker, very related to 24xx but with a Sword & Sorcery heart. The rules are 10 pages long, but I’m sure you could cram them in a single sheet if you made an effort. (I wish the author would expand the game options to cover more classic fantasy, so I could easily use this system with his more recent forays into ShadowDark.)

But now I just realized there is a world of lightweight designs, all influenced by the venerable World of Dungeons, and maybe I haven’t found some obvious gems.

TL;DR What are the best lightweight PbtA, FiTD and adjacent systems? What are your favorites?

As the title says I'm looking for a ttrp that I can use to run a campaign inspired by the worlds of ark survival and herizon. I really want a ttrpg that makes ancient tech seem like magic while keeping a human feel to the players.

I haven't played 5e for years and have no plans to go back to it, but I keep hearing praises for Shadowdark and I can't help but feel it's 5e-lite. What makes Shadowdark better than 5e?

Hey y’all. I’ve been smashing my head against post after post about superhero RPGs, and I figured I’d just make my own and see if anything comes up. I want to run a superhero RPG, but I’m struggling to choose a system. I know Masks is good, but I want the characters to be adults. Mutants and Masterminds is an ok fit, but not amazing.

Some rules preferences. My group doesn’t like rules lite systems or d20 systems. Our favorite games rn are Draw Steel and Delta Green, if that offers any insight.

Thematically I want to be solidly street level. Some of my favorite superhero media includes the older Daredevil show and the Watchmen. I currently intend to write my own setting, but if a system had a cool enough setting I could definitely be swayed. I just know stuff like the Marvel RPGs are solidly made to only really work in their setting, so I don’t want that.

I know these are a lot of criteria. It’s possible I’m just throwing this into the void, but I figured it can’t hurt.