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.

I think that "JRPG" as an intended genre for a system sounds silly. For example, if someone were to say, "I want a tabletop system based on HoYoverse gacha games," that would rightfully be met with "That is too broad. Narrow down it down to Honkai Impact 3rd, Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, or Zenless Zone Zero first." But people seem to think that there can be such a thing as a "JRPG"-themed tabletop system, where "JRPG" here actually means "half-remembered ideas from turn-based Final Fantasy games played over a decade and a half ago, and the art is anime-ish."

I think that Fabula Ultima, for example, is okay-ish after having played it several times, but the whole "JRPG" theming does not hold much water to me. I must be an outlier, because my primary JRPG exposure is actually Tales, which is action.

A while back, I had a look at Last Arc: Tactics Analogue. It is a hodgepodge of D&D 3.5, Pathfinder 1e, Saga Edition, and D&D 4e. I thought that the rules were decent enough, and I would happily play them. I did, however, find it strange that the author was repeatedly marketing the game as having "JRPG mechanics."

Well, it is out on full on DriveThruRPG, now. The game seems to be selling well. It is still aggressively marketing itself as a "JRPG" system with "JRPG mechanics." Again, I have no problem with the actual mechanics, but it really strikes me as odd that we are repackaging d20 systems from the 2000s as "JRPG" just by attaching vaguely anime-inspired artwork.

I am saying this as someone who runs virtually all of their campaigns with anime-aesthetic art and heavy "You actually do get strong enough to fight gods and change the world" theming, whether it is in 13th Age 2e's Dragon Empire, D&D 4e Eberron, Mage: The Awakening, or something else entirely.

What do you think?

I'm reading through both versions and thinking through the way gameplay reinforces the themes, as that seems to be what many love DitV for.

During a Conflict, the dice pools once rolled become public information. To borrow the poker analogy used by both games, you're playing with all your cards down on the table. You know who still has an ace up their sleeve and who is sitting on a two and a prayer. In effect, each character is completely aware of how much wherewithal everyone else has left to continue the encounter, and can probably make very well-educated guesses about when NPCs will choose to Escalate.

What does this information openness model in a thematic/characterful sense? Does it reflect something about how the characters are approaching the situation? Does every Dog have impeccable situational intuition for a thematic reason? Is it simply a gameplay convenience to prevent anyone from cheating their roll results?

I assume the game would be worse if the dice pools were secret (otherwise it would be designed that way), but I can't reason out why just from reading the systems.

I'm **not** saying this decision is good or bad. I'm just trying to understand the design intention.

Ever since I've started GMing I've avoided running pre made stuff and I'm not 100% sure why. I think its because deep down in my forever gm heart I want to play in a game before exposing myself to all the content of a pre made adventure. But sometimes its easy to get burnt out having to constantly make stuff on the fly. Do you guys do this too and how did you deal with it?

For quite some time, I've been thinking about buying an e-reader to read "regular" books. I thought I could also use it during my TTRPG sessions, since e-readers are lighter and smaller than regular RPG manuals.
Do you use e-readers or tablets during your sessions, or just for reading TTRPG books? If so, do you have any recommendations, or would you advise me to just get a regular tablet?

For me it's got to be:

• Red Dwarf the Roleplaying Game - Yes, based off of the Scifi Britcom of the 80s, 90s, and 2000s, and 2020s. Out of print obviously. It plays a bit like Paranoia + Call of Cthulhu. The players need to maintain their Cool against monsters' Fear Factor.
• Men in Black: The Roleplaying Game - A guilty pleasure of mine, I think it uses the old West End d6 system. It was really fun and great for a one shot I ran where the players had to deal with a 4 armed gorilla alien trying to blow up the Bronx Botanical Garden where a bunch of plant like alien ambassadors reside.

I recently ran Old Gods of Appalachia for the first time, playing "The Luthier's Folly" from the core rulebook. Below are my take-aways and thoughts about the game for anyone curious or considering running it themselves. I have not listened to the podcast.

The best thing about this game is the setting. The wonderfully creepy and colorful world of this alternative Appalachia is just dripping with flavor. The book does a fantastic job of bringing this world to life with some of my favorite art work from a TTRPG, detailed descriptions of locales and people, and even a poster-size map that comes with the game. It's a version of Appalachia where every dark wood, holler, and church could be haunted by some of the scariest horrors you can't wait to meet. Through detailed investigation, exploration of unique locations (the noir-Appalachian city of Paradise is 10/10 cool), and utilization of weird folk magic, the game promises a tense and creepy horror investigation experience.

Unfortunately, I found that the Cypher system betrays that promise. Regardless of the "bloat" that is often the main criticism of this game (with which I agree), the mechanics of the Cypher system and powerful character abilities undercut the horror. Why should I be afraid of the things that go bump in the night when I have a weird little trinket (Cypher) that will tip the scales significantly in my favor every time? Even once I've exhausted its one-time use, the GM has been instructed to give me a new one soon, since that's the core underlying premise of the Cypher system. Horror, at least the form promised by the setting, depends on the PCs encountering adversaries and situations so deeply out of their small-town comfort zone that peeing your pants and running is as legitimate an approach as fighting the horror. In Old Gods of Appalachia, however, PCs feel like Dungeons & Dragons characters that inexplicably wandered into Appalachia to rid the mountains of their horrors. The result is a version of Appalachia that feels more mystical than scary, which is not what I wanted and not what the setting promises.

In addition to breaking the horror, the Cypher system also introduces a difficult challenge for the players: reconciling PC abilities with the setting. Putatively, the PCs live in a version of 1920s Appalachia that, on its surface, is mostly indistinguishable from the real world. Sure, there's a fictional location or organization here or there, but the world and general population look more-or-less how you would expect to have experienced them 100 years ago. That's what makes the horror of the game so appealing: in the dark recesses of this otherwise recognizable place lurk creatures that scoop up West Virginians in the night like boiled peanuts from an Appalachian gas station. How, then, do the GM and players explain the magic and seemingly unlimited supply of Cyphers sprinkled around the world? And how do they come equipped with a intuitive understanding of how to use said Cyphers? We might understand how a recluse that practices witchcraft deep in the woods could understand this magic. But what about our lawyer, our police man, or our school teacher? How have they arrived at their intuitive understanding and use of magic that isn't supposed to exist? While I managed to suspend my disbelief for a one-shot of this game, its not something I would want to maintain for more than a single session. Which is a shame, because this setting would really shine in a campaign.

All-in-all, while Old Gods of Appalachia introduces us to one of my favorite settings in the horror TTRPG genre, the Cypher system betrays it immediately. The result is a confusing experience that favors mysticism over horror and PC heroism over helplessness, opposites of the experience I expected and hoped for. If my group and I ever wanted to experience the horror of this deeply flavorful Appalachia setting again, they would probably be doing so with Call of Cthulhu characters.

We just got kids on bikes and are very excited to play it. We are going for a Steven king / stranger things feeling and vibe, which means a lot of danger, horror, and harm as well as potentially death even for our kid characters. But the book seems very heasitant in having any real physical conflict? or it doesn't give much guidance. Like it says an adult cannot harm a child in the game and all i can think is, "Have you SEEN any 80's movie?" Even in the light hearted ones kids got hurt. a lot.

Especially if anything closer to King shows up, how do we deal with intense danger and harm? The guidance in the book was a bit sparse.

I recently read Will Wight's Cradle series, and got the impression that DMing something along those lines (progression fantasy/ wuxia) might be fun.

If you could share with me games that might fit that bill, I'd be immensely grateful :D

Hey everyone, we're several days into our campaign for One Thousand Rats Devour a City! Thanks to everyone who has supported us so far 😊.

In case you've missed what this is about:

• It's a GMless roleplaying game-boardgame hybrid for 1–4 players about a colony of rats conquering a gothic city.
• It's based on our award-winning one-page RPG, One Hundred Rats Devour a Tavern, but... Much larger and with a broader design scope.

We're a small, 4-person indie team in Australia called The Ravensridge Emporium, and we've been working on this game for over a year now. Blending the feeling of a boardgame with the feeling of an rpg has been a real challenge but I think we found a good balance whether you play solo or GMless with a group.

Here's what you can expect from the game:

• A round structure to frame your roleplay. In the event step, you'll be seeing how the city reacts to your colony of rats and follow a story thread you build on over rounds, then you'll send your swarms of rats and your horde of alpha rats on missions in the action step where you'll set scenes, describe your rat actions, and roll some dice. Then, you'll conclude each round in the colony step, ensuring all your rats are fed and gaining resources from the parts of the city your colony has claimed.
• Resource management and territory control. To help elicit the more boardgame feel, we wanted to include some tough, consistent choices throughout play that feed into the decisions of where you next send your rats next. If you don't feed your rats, they might perish which means you can't control as much territory but sometimes you might not be able to take the time to gather the food you need.
• A different story each time you play. It's a roleplaying game, so we wanted to make sure you have the freedom to tell the story you want. Though, the story is always about rats taking over the city of Ravensridge (please be kind to us ravens), there's a lot of freedom in how you frame this takeover. Do your rats just burn and plunder as they go or are they instead dominating the Ravensridge fashion scene and changing how the citizens think about rats? You'll describe a colony goal at the start that helps frame your campaign, and the events that you draw every round will drastically flavour the story you tell too.

We've worked a lot into this game to make sure it delivers on a satisfying rpg experience while introducing some more boardgame concepts and feelings into it. If you have questions, let me know! An early draft of the rulebook, a how to play video, and some actual plays are all on the Kickstarter page.

Check out the Kickstarter!

Shadowrun Anarchy 2.0 is by a long shot the best, most agile and fun version of the classic cyberpunk fantasy. Their recent Kickstarter for the supplement books allows you to pick the Corebook too, and it's absolutely worth it.

If you want a quick rundown and peek of the system basics, you mays check the Quick Reference / cheat sheets on DriveThruRPG, linked above and here.

Enjoy!

He-yo! I was hoping to run a game of cyberpunk with my friends however one of them is not a big fan of Red. I played it once and understood why he disliked it and was wondering what edition or system you guys use and why.

The campaign would be set in the 2077 world, so I was looking for something along those lines for the setting.