**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.

I love Dungeon Crawl Classics. But the very oldschool layout, while dope as fuck, and fitting, can make it quite hard to find and parse information sometimes, especially compared to something like Old School Essentials. Same goes for every Borg game to a certain extent, but punk instead of oldschool.

While like a lot of people here, I'm not a huge fan of Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition, and I generally prefer when race in games have more impact (be it mechanically like DCC or in-world like Symbaroum), for a "generic fantasy setting", I think it's races are fantastic!

Also, while not inventing it, popularizing the fantastic Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic I'm thankful for, is great. Popularizing roleplaying in general I guess, alot of us wouldn't be here if it weren't for Fifth Edition.

So let's hear yours!

Hello fine scholars of the TTRPG scene. This is sort of a long one, TLDR at the end.

I've been a DM/GM for about seven years consistently. I've run tons of systems, from DnD derivatives to PbtA and BitD derivatives, and everything in between. But lately, I just... Don't feel like doing it anymore.

Have it hit some sort of "DM/GM Plateau"? Nothing excites me about running Pathfinder First Edition (our current home game). Nothing excites me about 5e/5.5e, Shadows of the Weird Wizard, Monster of the Week, Vaesen, DnD ADND/2e, 3e, 4e, Sentinels of the Multiverse, and any other one I've ran in the last half decade.

And honestly your buns me out. Where's that spark? I used to love riffing with the gang, improvising scenes and encounters. I thought it was burn out, so I tried printed modules to ease the tax on my brain. Then that got stale. I tried to go back to homebrew, but as a 37 yr old with a full time job (not to mention ADHD), I can barely focus on running a game in general.

It's not because I work so much (I work from home, take a few zoom meetings a day, and generally chill). It's not because I've run out of material (I have a sizable book and PDF collection). There's absolutely no shortage of games to run!

I've tried rules light. I've tried rules heavy. I've tried narrative systems. I've tried action packed combat oriented systems. I've tried fantasy, sci fi, anime, JRPG, you name it. And I loved every single one!!

But lately I'm just feeling sort of out of it. April 18th was my last home game, and for other reasons I have been unable to run another. Then, last week, I tried again and it fell through due to life reasons. Whatever, no biggy.

But I found myself relishing the fact I didn't have to run it! I had everything ready to go: mini's, maps, printed out stuff, the whole thing, I was going to start up again! Then it got canceled and I just sighed. I got to sit at my computer and play vidya. I got to -STOP- for a change.

The workload might be the issue but honestly I've tried more and less workload when running stuff and, this is still the end result.

I don't know, I genuinely hope I'm not falling out of love with TTRPGs. I hope I'm not losing interest in the social side of it either because I love my group. I've played week after week, I tried every other week, I tried two weeks between...

Is this a common feeling? Does this happen to everyone? It's genuinely depressing me man.

TLDR: Been a DM and GM for seven years, tons of systems ran, feeling worried I may be quitting for good for some reason I can't figure out. Is this typical for DM/GMs?

I am gearing up to run either Miseries & Misfortunes or HarnMaster online because finding people IRL has proven impossible.

What’s your white whale game?

Has this happened to anyone else? It has happened to me in the past with other content in English, apparently since they find it hard to get they just decide they can have you pay for what you think is the actual thing but then they ship a super low quality, printed-on-demand copy, and they don't even disclose that on the product page. I'm stuck with it tho because it's the only way I can get a physical copy (it's so low quality they didn't even align the printheads and there are obvious streaks of white and darker columns). I'm not even sure they pay the publisher or ask permission to do this?! Did the author even see a dime?

June is around the corner and I'm looking to expand my horizons and potentially give some gems a signal boost. What are some of your favourite games, adventures, scenarios and modules by queer and especially trans creators?

RN the biggest I've played is Thirsty Sword Lesbians which is fun!

A few notes:

• recommendations don't need to focus on queer themes necessarily

• by a similar token, games by cishet creators with queer/trans themes and fanbases, while awesome, are not what I'm looking for

• "but ANY game can be queer" Yes I know, no need to comment this, cheers

I want to lead a group of board gaming friends through an RPG one night at a cabin retreat. Based on group interest, I bought Eat the Reich and Moonlight on Roseville Beach. Which one would you recommend starting with? Any tips outside of the awesome Beginner Guide on preparing to host our first game. For context, my gaming crew have played quite a few complex board games and enjoyed the light role-playing in King's Dilemma. Thanks for your help and insight!

TLDR: Does anyone else feel a disconnect in pre-written RPG modules where the gameplay is fun but the story doesn’t feel personally meaningful or tied to the characters?

I’m currently playing the Delian Tomb pre-written module for Draw Steel. The combat system is great and the abilities are fun to use. Draw Steel is a very fun game to play and our GM is great too.

But I’ve been struggling with a narrative disconnect with the story.

The stakes exist in the fiction, but they don’t feel personally connected to my character or even the group as a whole. Because of that, even though the fights are mechanically fun and we know why we're fighting plot-wise, the fights sometimes feel more like completing encounters than the characters actually living through a meaningful story.

We still roleplay, have scenes, downtime, and character interactions, so it’s not that those moments don't exist at all. They do and we have fun doing them, but those moments feel detached from the actual module stuff.

What I’m missing is a sense of personal investment, something that makes the events feel emotionally tied to the characters rather than just the next encounter hook.

I realize this is a preference thing for me, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with an encounter-focused game like this Draw Steel module. But the longer we play the module, the more I notice a sense of detachment between me and the story we're being told.

It’s made me wonder how common this feeling actually is in RPGs that run on pre-written modules since I don't play too many of them.

Does this kind of disconnect happen to other players too?

Is this a game system issue, or a pre-written module issue, or a GM style issue, or a player expectation issue?

What I mean by this is, many of us have a lot going on. And at times, a company will release a source book and for whatever reason, you weren't able to get it fast enough... and now - obtaining a legit physical copy is expensive. For this discussion, we will have to omit those books that are available physically through services like DriveThruRpg print to demand.

An example for me would be the sourcebook for the translated rpg "Double Cross" localized from Ver Blue Amusement. The source book being Infinity Code. A second example from me would be "Legend of the Five Rings: The Book of Void" for 4th edition AEG L5R.

I'm aware a lot of people don't like video games in their TTRPGs around here. If that's you, this post isn't for you.

I'm also aware that TTRPGs lack a lot of the limits video games have, but I don't see why we can't have it both ways.

I'm looking to compile a list of TTRPGs that emulate a style of video game in terms of the feel of that kind of game. I'm not looking for games that are set in the world of a video game but don't emulate its feel. I'm moreso looking for those that mimic the gameplay loop and feel of a video game genre, specific game, or specific game series.

This could be the feel of sneaking around in dishonored, the fast paced skill expression of a boomer shooter and the lack of explicit storytelling, the challenge and skill expression of a souls-like, the tactical combat and party interactions of a CRPG, etc. It's also worth noting that for a game to fit, it should probably check multiple boxes of a given kind of game, not just one.

Of course, we don't neccesarily want the limitations of a video game. Translating to a dififerent medium will never be 1:1.

Some TTRPGs I've found that emulate video game feel:

- RUNE by Gila RPGs (lots of their games seem to fit here) seems to mimic Souls-like video games

- This Fan-made Skyrim TTRPG

- Fabula Ultima mimics JRPGs

- Courage mimics Zelda games

- MOURN mimics Boomer Shooters

- Riftbreakers and its second edition mimic MMORPGs

- ANGELSPAWN appears to be inspired by Diablo

- Arx ObsKura mimics Arx Fatalis

- Ascii Delve mimics old school ASCII based roguelikes and seems to be especially inspired by Caves of Qud

- Fallout 2D20 by Modiphius seems to actually put some effort into emulating Fallout, especially Fallout 4, even if it is very much its own experience

- Fallout by XP to Level 3 may largely use 5e as a base, and while I normally don't like how much people hack it to bits, it actually seems to stand on its own quite well and mimic the feel that playing fallout gives you

- Dragon AGE by Green Ronin is one I was pretty hesitant to include since it seems a lot less tactical than the video game, but it does seem to have a lot of Origins's spirit still intact, even if it has a lot of cinematic elements too

I want something that still has the vibe of D&D, fantasy (not necessarily heroic) but is WAY easier on the DM (and maybe on the players too) regarding prep and system mastery (learning curve).

We're going to play digitally, not face to face, and would be 3 players (max 4). System needs to support longer play (something like level 12 in Baldur's Gate 3, which is something my players would be familiar with) and not just dungeon crawling, although I can work with just that. Sessions should fit in 2-3hours, definitely less than 4, with combat being fast when it happens.

I did some research and ended up with this shortlist:

- Dragonbane

- Shadowdark

- Cairn 2e

- Index Card RPG

- Vagabond

(bonus option, Vaesen Mythic Carpathia simply because the Eastern Europe setting would be a big draw)

Can you sell me on (or off) one of these, considering my criteria? I don't own any of them currently, so I would need to purchase it (except Cairn 2e which is free), so value enters consideration.

Extra things that would be nice to have:

- Theater of mind friendly

- GM doesn't roll

- initiative is not rolled, but also not spotlight based

- preferably no metacurrency

Anyone created any online resources / forums for the Laundry Files 2e yet or know of any VTT packages?