**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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For example, I keep finding myself coming back to the random tables in Ironsworn for things like generating NPCs.

Are there any games that you find yourself coming back to for the GM tools regardless of the game you're actually playing?

Other than the usual initial enthusiasm and curiosity, and beyond the usual small but dedicated groups that end up as long term players, have any of the alternative-to-d20 systems shown promise as a hobby mainstay? Despite the age of the hobby, I still think there is plenty of room for innovation. Just waiting for the planets to align, so to speak. Is anything emerging as more than just "niche"??

Hello, I know this is has likely been asked as a general question, but I feel this is a little different. Is there anything the captures the feeling Twin Peaks? For this I do not mean murder mystery in a strange town, I'm talking about the series themes of oppressive mystical forces imposing themselves on humanity and struggling to remain human in the face of evil. The spiritual side of Twin Peaks, if you will.

This new edition looks significantly more structured than the last, in a good way.

• Special enemy attacks aside, characters usually no longer take damage directly to pools. Generally, they take minor, moderate, or major wounds.

• Skills are significantly more codified.

• All descriptors are heavily, heavily simplified to just +2 to one pool, and training in one skill.

• Character creation is vastly more structured and step-by-step. Genres and subgenres play a huge role; they determine some baseline rules (e.g. wound treatment), available PC types, and the genre-based abilities a character gets from tier advancement.

• The superhero genre is divided into five "ranks," completely independent from tiers. These dictate the overall tone and power level of the campaign, and generally do not change. Rank grants a number of benefits and opens up some exclusive types. Rank 1 is a campaign of street-level crimefighters and vigilantes, while rank 5 is a campaign of "living gods" like Thor and Superman. (Rank 5, incidentally, is also where characters from the old Gods of the Fall setting get adapted to.)

• Foci are much more elaborate, and structured as talent trees. Two characters of the same focus might have entirely different abilities.

• Each cypher is given more flavor examples. Manifest cyphers are more formally codified into power levels.

• Some actions have unique initiative timing: First actions, Follow-up actions, and Last actions.

• Defending against (physical) attacks is either blocking with Might, or dodging with Speed. Armor makes it easier to block but harder to dodge. Blocking merely reduces wound severity by a step, though, and it is harder to dodge area attacks.

I am reasonably satisfied with these changes, and more. We do not have the bestiary yet, but I am very eager to see what enemies are like in this new edition.

I am reasonably satisfied with these changes, and more. We do not have the bestiary yet, but I am very eager to see what enemies are like in this new edition.

I'm playing with a table of very inexperienced players who haven't quite groked exactly how to be proactive. We're playing monsterhearts, which is pretty much entirely reliant on players deciding to do things and me figuring it out. Are there aby good resources for teaching players to do things? Structures or scaffolds they can fall back on a la GM moves?

Good morning, everyone. I have a somewhat crazy idea for a campaign, and I’d like some system recommendations that could work for it.

In short:

-The story takes place in a modern world, similar to ours, but with magic.

-There are portals that lead to dungeons. Things from inside can come out, and people from outside can go in. These dungeons could be very different from each other: some more medieval, others more sci-fi, weird, or completely unique. Kinda like Solo Leveling.

-Some creatures come back to life after dying, like zombies or undead monsters.

Ideally, I’m looking for a system with solid rules that lets me create and customize powers and magic fairly easily, while also working well for roleplay, exploration, and combat.

I’m not looking for something as slow or crunchy as D&D 5e combat, but I still want combat to feel fun and meaningful.

What systems do you think could work for this kind of campaign?

Also, sorry if my English sounds weird. I’m using Google Translate.

I am new to this community and I just found out about free RPG day, so off I went to look for an event in the closest city nearby here in my country that will host it. I found out there is one shop that will do it, but I also found out they require to get a ticket (not sure if that costs or not) and buy 10€ minimum of food. Is this considered the norm or is it bad etiquette on the shop's part? I understand that everyone has to get by in this economy (and also that otherwise they'd probably get people walking in and out of the shop just for the freebies) but it feels like the original freeRPGday creators intended for it to be actually free, then again, I'm new and I don't know much about how this works.

Edit: thank you so much everyone for your replies, sorry if I can't individually thank you for it

Been running into an issue with some players, railroading might not be the right word but basically they disagree with my rulings on how the world should act? Idk I like collaborative stuff but it's a bit exhausting as these two players seem more interested in litigating their way to success rather than pplaying their characters to success.

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It's not quite rules lawyering and somehow more draining.

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I'm honestly considering a hard "do not argue with me mid session" rule as it can really slow the pace and REALLY exhaust me. I'm, of course, open to working with them but yeah idk, they seem to think I'm unfair to them. Honestly we're playing Shadowdark and I'd argue I'm pretty damn generous/forgiving given the system.

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Anyone have similar issues? Any tips? Anyone able to "AITA" this situation for a poor tired very autistic gm? Lmao?

Examples (cuz I was being vague):

Stuff like "it doesn't make sense that npc would have done x" or "why did that monster attack player A when player B had done x" or "that creature is way to strong why is it here" or "why did that creature have x ability that's fucked up that you didn't change it" (there was a few super weak and dumb scorpions and their only ability is a really strong poison which they had been warned about, player in question in this moment was a ranger w/ a longbow who chose to stay in melee and then rolled poorly on his con save and death timer)

World stuff. Narrative stuff. It's not rules, that's the thing here, it isn't RULES lawyering. The reason I framed it as "players railroading me" is cuz it lowkey feels like the inverse of when a gm does everything they can to ensure the players make the decisions/go to the places they want.

What I /want/ to do is go "Man I'm already prepping everything and hosting and scheduling, let me run the stuff in my world the way I want to run it."

Several systems include lore that only GMs are supposed to know, at least at the start. Some examples include:

• City in the Mist - Avatars of the Mythoi are in charge of the City, but are in a stalemate with the Gatekeepers of the Mist
• Eclipse Phase - The apocalyptic AIs called TITANs didn't go rogue on their own, but were corrupted by an alien virus from the hyper-advanced Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (ETI)
• Delta Green - I'm gonna be honest, it's been years since I've read this one, but I think the twist is that there are actually two Delta Green organizations since there was a schism?

What are some other examples you like?

Hi! I'm currently on Session 6 of our Public Access game. We're using the Skinny Jeans variant. It's me as GM and three players; two of them are loving it, one is on the fence (more on that later).

We like a lot of it, but I, as GM, I'm having a bit of an issue running 3 mysteries at a time. I can see why it's like that, and I really love that each of the players has something to do. When there was only 1 mystery in play, it felt like their investigations were redundant.

But the mental load is HUGE. There are so many clues, NPCs, hidden stories, situations, flavour text and the like that I feel like I'm juggling flaming chainsaws. I keep feeling like I'm dropping the ball even if my players can't see that and keep saying what an amazing job I'm doing. I know it's good and it's not like I need perfection, though, it's just exhausting.

On the other hand, one of them is not happy with it being 3 different games, so to speak. They know they can make a nostalgic move and have a moment, but since the 3 of them are apart most of the time, he feels like he's not really playing with his friends, but a 1-1 game with me that sometimes clashes with the rest.

So, folks, how do you do it? I know I can do whatever I want with the game and change the rules, but I would like to play it as Jason Cordova intended. I'm hoping for you to share some tips and ideas, and to tell me how it is when you run it.

Looking for a system that I could run that focuses on a magic school, but there is also a world beyond the school the players get to explore in small burgs. Also I’m looking for something as far away from being inspired by Harry Potter as possible.

My big inspirations are Final Fantasy 8, RF Kuang’s Poppy War trilogy, and the Persona series. Basically students being trained to fight and use magic but for more militaristic purposes (with things culminating in a “Hey maybe this whole school is a messed up situation and we should do something about” arc)

I want some of the inter personal/faction school elements, professors, acquisition of knowledge… but I also want to be able to send the players out on missions that break up the school life elements a bit.