**Come here and talk about anything!**

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

**Come here and talk about anything!**

​

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.

​

----------

​

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

Nothing that several games still do, like "rolling a D20". Prefer design elements that were hot for a year or two, then vanished.

Tone might be an odd word for it, maybe feel. And it might not be specific to this sub, there is a lot happening in the world, but..

My peak of engaging with this sub was likely about a year ago, and I was lurkin' for a few years before that. This may sound naive to some folks, but genuinely I considered this corner of the Internet to be THE nicest online space I'd ever seen. No joke. It felt like people were safe to bounce ideas around, share enthusiasm or passion, there was a lot of discussion surrounding ethics and harm reduction both related to culture of play and then ai etc. Sometimes there would be a blunt tone used in instances where someone asked a VERY common question without either going in to detail or searching the sub first, but I swear that to ME (subjective ofc) it felt warm and engaging.

I post this strongly suspecting that I am going to receive snark. That is not a feeling I would have had making a post here a couple of years ago. Scroll down and look at the posts here, about half of them get down voted when they are clearly relevant to the sub? People asking questions about rules, or for recommendations, or talking about a game etc. I see WAAAY more snark here. Everyone has bad days, and these experiences can be more "sticky" on the mind than more pleasant ones, making them feel more prominent.

But that's all I have to say really. I really value the people in this hobby. And I really value this space. I see emotionally intelligent people here with passion and experience. However, it feels off as heck to me these days. I don't know if people are more suspicious online as ai accounts rise etc, idk if people need to shut down strangers because things in their life are hard to the point where they need to feel that control somewhere. I don't have any answers, or even data. It's speculation. But again, scroll down and see.

Just pause and think about how you're engaging with this sub. It IS a special place. It's hard for it to not sound condescending, but before you go and teach someone a lesson, just go and have a tall glass of water, look outside, stretch a little bit, and then see if that's what you still want to do.

Edit: whether you resonate with my experiences and perspectives or not, I want to thank you for caring anyways! I did receive some condescending digs in response to this, but that only made it all the more affirming to see people resonate with what I've said. And I also value the folks coming through to explain why they disagree in a respectful or kind way.

This post was informed by my care for the hobby, the creators that make it what it is, this sub, and the community as a whole and the incredible insights, analysis, and just STUFF that make up the broader ttrpg dialogue. I hope my words didn't bring any discomfort. Remember to talk about what's inspiring you, bringing you joy, or intriguing you!

Edit 2: does Pathfinder 2E fix this?

As the title says, what is the best generic system in your opinion and could you give a small review of it and why you like it so much?

Just to be clear: when I say generic ttrpg, I mean one that was designed to do so, to play any genre of RPG you want. 5e for example has been adapted to many different genres over the years, but the 5e core is a high fantasy RPG and not a generic one.

I can't help but enjoy a slightly melodramatic title now and then. But I'm also not being entirely facetious here, the latest edition of this game is seriously up there and is increasingly becoming my go-to for games I run.

A little bit of backstory to explain what I mean. I got into RPGs back during my high school years with Pathfinder. 5e was out at the time I started, but in my area it didn't really take off in popularity until a few years later, so that and 3.5e were what you'd mostly find if people were running RPGs. It was my first exposure to the hobby, and I found the depth and breadth of what you could do utterly fascinating to me; at the time I was a hobbyist writer, and I was already into the video game style of RPGs, so perhaps the interest was inevitable. It was only a few months into my first campaign that I began exploring other options, and funnily enough the first game I ran was a Maid RPG oneshot, which was entirely silly. Fun game, that.

It was also roughly around that period that I met the group of people that would become my main playgroup for the next decade. We met online and made a few failed attempts at a Dungeon World campaign. I can't remember now why they failed, but they sure did. Not a single one ran to completion even though we all enjoyed the game itself. After that, thanks to one of the guys having a somewhat struggling wireless connection, I proposed an idea: why don't we run our live games through text? I had no idea that this would come to define our entire style or that it would shunt us down into more simplified games.

We tried several systems over the years. Silhouette CORE was amusingly our first attempt at a text game, which in the end fizzled out for perhaps obvious reasons. The next was OVA; it worked just fine, but after some time, one member of the group grew frustrated with how odd the probability distribution is for the resolution method, so that too was largely removed a few years ago. We also toyed with using WaRP, the SRD of Over the Edge 2e, and that's remained a mainstay for any simple game using a unique setting that happens to need just that kind of lethality. Oh, and we tried BESM once and ultimately weren't too big on it.

All of that eventually led us to Questworlds. I happened across the SRD about two years ago, and honestly the idea of conflict-based resolution was something that completely wowed me, since I truly hadn't seen it put in such a way before at all. We'd long struggled with combat and other high granularity conflicts taking hours in the format we played. Even in simpler games such as OVA, it was such that a combat would all but take up the entirety of a session, slowing the pacing of a campaign down to a crawl no matter what we tried to do to make it work. So when we shifted to Questworlds just last year, it was a complete game changer for myself and my players. Suddenly, we could have a high action game where a combat with your average group of mooks doesn't take half a session to resolve. The way the resolution method works, it was as easy as ending a combat scene in one roll if it wasn't that important, or even no roll at all if the players were meant to be tearing through threats until a real challenge that could change things were to arise.

I still love tactical combat and crunchy games, but in the current play environment I've got, using a tool that really fits the medium is just perfect. Aside from most conflicts being able to be resolved in a single roll, or being able to zoom in just enough to resolve phases of a conflict if you want things to feel grand and epic, the sequence rules make for a fantastic counterpart. For those events where you really need each action to have weight, or various twists and turns, it's an excellent tool to have in your pocket as a task-based resolution method, rather than the only tool that you have at your disposal. Not to mention that the system is just simple enough where the setting can instead be the guideline for how those rules are applied. All of these things and more just really clicked exactly the right way for me. To be honest, I'm enamored!

In any case, if you've made it to the end of this long, rambling post, I just happened to fall in love with a system that provided exactly what I needed for the kinds of games I personally tend to run. It's simple enough to not bog down in a text session. It's adaptable enough that, as long as it's heroic enough, I can run basically any and every setting I've made in it. It just encourages running and playing a campaign in the way that I've increasingly wanted to, and for that I've hardly been able to stop imagining how I'll use it next.

So, how about you? Have you found a game that happened to hit just right for you? What was it, and why was it that way? Whether it's crunchy and tactical, procedure heavy yet rules light, a storytelling game where you're like a coauthor, or anything and everything in-between. Let's share a little bit of positivity about this ridiculously varied hobby!

TLDR: Questworlds cool, what games do you like?

I’ve reached a breaking point with technology at the table. After years of running in-person games by casting a VTT to a TV, I’ve realized that having my face buried in a laptop during my hobby time—the same thing I do for 40 hours a week at work—is killing the vibe.

I’m moving back to a purely tactile table: paper sheets, notebooks, and physical dice. However, I’ve grown to appreciate the tactical clarity that a map provides. The "Theater of the Mind" purism I grew up with in 1984 is great, but I want a middle ground.

The Challenge: I’m not a "minis guy." I lack the artistic patience for painting, I’m a perfectionist (a recipe for frustration), and I don't want to deal with the cost, storage, or transport logistics of a massive terrain collection.

The Solution: The "Lo-Fi" Kit My plan is to lean into a high-utility, low-fidelity aesthetic:

• Maps: Using Dungeon Scrawl, Dyson Logos, and Paratime Design layouts printed on standard paper or cardstock.
• Tokens: Using extra sets of dice to represent players and monsters.

I’m looking for advice from anyone who runs "Lo-Fi" or Low-Def games:

1. Dice-as-Minis Logistics: What’s the best way to track "Which d6 is the Orc Captain?" vs. "Which d6 is the Goblin?" Do you use specific colors, or do you use the numbers on the face to track HP or individual IDs?
2. The Map Setup: If you print maps, do you use a plexiglass sheet over them to draw on, or just keep them raw?
3. The Transition: For those who ditched the VTT/Screen for in-person play, what was the biggest hurdle in getting players to "re-adjust" to the lack of dynamic lighting and automation?

I’m not attacking VTTs or high-end minis (I loved my Mordheim days back in the late 90s!), but I’m looking for that sweet spot where the "game" feels like a game again, not a software suite.

What works for you in this style? What should I avoid?

Hi, for quite a while, I had a certain idea for a campaign brewing in my head, one set in Alastair Reynolds world of "Revelation Space" book series. Now that im actually trying to write it, I need a system to play it in.

Im looking for something not very combat focused, the campaign is intended to be focused on exploration and doing "imaginary science", maybe with a little bit of on-board politics intrigue. I wanna drop the players into an expedition to an alien, extinct world where they will have to explore a world of ancient curiosities from which they will have to try and piece together the story of that civilization whilst also potentially dealing with some sabotage and managing relations with diffrent crew members that may represent diffrent interests of factions back from the system of mission's origin.

So far, I was considering using Alien rpg az a basis, maybe canibalizing some parts of Cyberpunk, as there are some cybernetic implants and other modifications in the world, altho of a fairly diffrent nature. Obviously neither of these systems are quite suited to the type of story and world Im going for, so it will take quite a bit of homebrewing for it to work.

If anyone has any suggestions for alternatives to what I meantioned, maybe worked on a similar idea at some point. Im also happy to read any tips or ideas unrelated to the system issue so please share if u have anything on mind!

Hi, I am in Malta for a few days. Anyone can suggest a good ttrog shop?

I am looking into the topic for the purposes of informing my own design principles on combat. I am someone who really enjoys engaging tactical combat, though I feel that as a component it can often feel tiring in the medium of TTRPGs. The purpose of this post is to spark a conversation on what exactly makes people like or dislike tactical combat, as well as an exploration of if it would be possible to bridge the gap between those looking for deep tactics and those who do not get any enjoyment out of it.

I think an obvious issue with many popular "tactical" systems is that they get lost in the crunch of combat, making the experience tiresome for everyone no matter their preference on tactics. This is something that is barely even debatable, so I think it would be safe to exclude it from this conversation. When we discuss possible ways to make tactics more approachable, we should assume the system is not a mess to actually run in a timely manner.

What are your specific pain points with tactical combat? Does it have to do with its prevalence and expectation in games where other parts are more enjoyable? Do you enjoy similar combat systems in videogames or other board games? If you dislike tactical combat, do you have any positive experiences with it or is it always a slog? Do you prefer another "minigame" system of handling combat, and if you do, what makes it more enjoyable for you?

Tell me about the very best and worst of the experiences you've had with tactical combat and your best guesses as to what made them so. Every response is appreciated!

Hey r/rpg! I have a question I'm curious about. I feel like I'm in the minority when I see how games are discussed, but I wonder if that's because I'm also a GM and designer or if it's just me being me. I have 4 things I think are key for TTRPG manuals: Worldbuilding, Presentation, Layout, and Mechanics.

I find Worldbuilding to be the least interesting and useful. If the author just wrote a list of a few items that gives me the idea of the vibe they're going for I would be satisfied. There are a few exceptions to this, but overall, I'm unlikely to use anything they wrote when I GM my own game, so it just gets in the way.

Presentation I feel torn on. As someone who is mid-at-best at art and layout design, and designs/illustrates their own games, it is something I'm most envious of. Does it actually make a game *better*? I don't think it does... and sometimes, I wish I had a text-only version of the rules that was more compact without all the big spreads scattered throughout. But it definitely makes it more popular and I think this puts me in the super minority.

Layout is important, but I feel there's no way to win it, so I almost always unsatisifed, but give it a pass on games. Deciding on where to put what piece of text is always going to just depend on what you are trying to achieve at the time and it's always going to be a compromise. Maybe it's the best place for when you're running a game, maybe it's the best place for when you're learning the game. It's rare that is the same location. Regardless, it has to work for at least one of these two situations for it to be good. Some games fail at this altogether and it bothers me a lot!

Mechanics is by-far the most important thing for me. When a mechanic matches the vibe the game is going for, that's when I take notice. When a mechanic makes the game come-to-life. Yes, please!

What do you think? What aspects did I miss? How do you rank them? Also, are you a player, a GM, an artist, and/or a designer?

Hi all,

I'm working on a research project concerning TTRPG mechanisms, and am looking to see if there's an existing catalog of rpgs/systems that have been inspired by Vince Baker's now out of print game, 'Dogs in the Vineyard' (published in 2004 iirc).

I have a few written out, but I'm hoping to expand on the list of games that I have listed for it if possible.

Thanks all in advance!