Hello r/rpg! I’m Meric Moir, RPG director on the Plotweaver Roleplaying Game.

I’ve been in writing, marketing, and publishing for 14 years, and I’ve been working directly in TTRPGs for the last 6 years. I’ve been a podcast host and actual play GM (shout out Massive Damage Adventures and Sky Hammer Press!), a freelance writer, and very recently the lead writer on the Cosmere RPG. On Massive Damage Adventures we played one-shots for over 80 unique games in four years!

My freelance writing has included work on The Expanse RPG, Achtung! Cthulhu, Star Trek Adventures, Fantasy AGE, indie projects, the Cosmere RPG, and now, Plotweaver!

As the Plotweaver RPG Director, I’m leading the development of three brand-new setting books using Plotweaver, the game system that powers the Cosmere RPG. I have two cats, four kids, and I play two instruments.

I’m also not alone! For your questions today, I’m joined by our intrepid lead designer!

Hello r/rpg! I’m Andrew Fischer (u/ethereal_fish), lead designer on the Plotweaver Roleplaying Game.

I’ve worked on RPGs and other tabletop games for 17 years. I’ve led development on tabletop games such as the Cosmere RPG, the Star Wars RPG, the Warhammer 40k RPG, and Fallout.

I also worked for many years to pioneer a genre of app-integrated board games that combine physical and digital game systems in products like Mansions of Madness 2nd edition, Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth, and Descent: Legends of the Dark.

When I’m not designing for Plotweaver, I work as the game design director at Earthborne Games, a studio focused on creating conscientious and sustainable games such as our critically-acclaimed debut title Earthborne Rangers.

The Plotweaver RPG

The Plotweaver RPG is a brand new tabletop roleplaying system using the same rules as the Cosmere RPG. While the core mechanic is familiar to lots of gamers (d20 + modifier), the game is full of twists like the plot die, freeform leveling, skill-based magic, meaningful systems for non-combat scenes, and more! Plotweaver is coming to crowdfunding in 2027, but the open alpha starts on August 5th!

Plotweaver isn’t just another game to play, it’s also an open-source system where writers, designers, developers, and studios can take the rules and make their own games. We want Plotweaver to be the game designer’s RPG system. If you’re interested in using Plotweaver for your next project, you should check out Plotweaver Academy, our Patreon that shares sneak peaks, design guidance, and tools for developers and TTRPG aficionados.

Bring on the Questions!

Now, let’s answer your questions! Feel free to ask anything, though we won’t be able to answer everything. We can talk about design, development, writing, and our plans for the future.

Thanks for having us! Let’s go =D

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Alright so I'm not always on the hunt for new games, I'm very fine with my main game (it's the 5th iteration of the D-word that will get me downvoted to oblivion if I dare say it, you can figure it out). But from time to time I'll see other games that seems nice.

Recently I've been especially seeing ads for Wildsea. The art style is really appealing to me, and the themes sound like something I'd enjoy. But would I really? That's the question I'm asking.

Have any of you played Wildsea? Would you recommend it? What are its strength? Its weaknesses? Before I put any money into it I wanna know what I'm getting into.

What is your favorite genre? Even if you don't play it currently?

Mine is Science-Fantasy. Like Shadowrun, Star Wars, Torg Eternity and so on. It is more versatile than standard fantasy.

Currently I play only fantasy because there is a lack of decent science-fantasy games around or players playing them.

Hello everyone,

I am contemplating running some one shots locally or west march style games. I stepped away from fantasy games/setting several years back. But I have everything for dragonsbanes and dolemwood and they have been at the top of my list to play and peaked my interest in fantasy ttrpgs again.

I know the basics of both systems but between the two of them which is easier to run and prep for? My time is more limited as I get older and spending several hours to prep for just a handful of play hours is not realistic anymore. For those of you that have gm these systems what was your experience with them pros and cons. Thanks

Wildsea is a setting hard to grasp because it is so unique. But as I grappled with the system to determine what stories I can tell with it outside of relying on players to push the narrative. I found my footing on leaning into the weirdness of it. As I quote from the book, with underlined words that got my imagination going, "It’s a Weird, Weird World The Wildsea setting is designed to be low-magic, high-weirdness. It’s a world of unusual creatures, woken spirits, and unbelievable abilities, but they’re mostly tangibly connected to the waves themselves - there’s very little in the way of wands and spellbooks, or magical study. The practice of twisting the world in mysterious ways is referred to as arconautics, literally a delving into the unknown and uncanny".

The second thing that spurred this is the aspect of whispers in the game. Whispers are basically words of power. The effects of which change depending on how loud you speak these "whispers".

There are stories here in our world, myths, folklore, legends that speak of weird creatures, tales that explain and warn the power of words. I am speaking of fey in particular the unseelie. Since I have started to view Wildsea as a world where fey, unseelie, and nature spirits dominate though not completely lost to or behold to "Fey" physics and sensibilities. I have found it easier to wrap my head around the setting. Words have power, there are sentient nature spirits or beings who trade in whispers. And that's ammunition I can use.

Thank you for reading.

I might just end up with a PbtA, and I'll take suggestions on them as well, but taking a quick look at Legend in The Mist made me realize a couple things that I desperately want.

Some background on what I know most;

-While i haven't played anything in a few years, I've played D&D 3.5, Stars Without Number(1e), Runequest 6, Dungeon World, and to a lesser degree some of its oldest offshoots. I have played very little and/or read or listened to D&D5e, Pathfinder, Blades in The Dark, and a bunch of really lite(less than 50 page) systems.

-I have really limited time DMing, but have "co-homebrewed" a lot both world and mechanics wise.

The things I want most;

-High fantasy, pulp fantasy, or sword & sorcery. I tend to be attracted to low magic, but in practice to high magic. I was a sucker for Runequest6's ability to have low magic PC's in a mid magic world and have it still feel good.

-setting agnostic or close enough that I can rip it out of there to put my own in.

-rules light enough that combat can be common but quick. I don't want to spend an entire session in a single combat. Hell,

-The big one I realized tonight is that I adore the way enemies work in a lot of PbTA games. If I want to make a monster or even an interesting human combatant I can throw together with 3 numbers, 1-3 tags, and then give it 'abilities' that are really short descriptions. With basic inspiration, I can throw together a really interesting monster really quickly. This doesn't always have to be combat-focused either.

There's other things too, but I think those are the most core requirements that might be able to narrow things down. If I commit to PbtA I figure I'll be able to get a decent list that retain last bullet point above and pretty quickly go from there. A really brief look at Legend in The Mist has this, but attaches numbers to each 'threats & consequences' which I'm not sure i like but it might end up being my go-to system anyway. I'm open to other PbtA systems but I'm most curious about any other sorts of systems having the above wants.

Out of curiosity, I got interested in the title's topic because of the fact that I don't really know any RPGs like that.

Requirements:

• The supernatural elements are rare, hard to use, subtle, and/or not all that grand. Ideally, supernatural abilities would be restricted to NPCs, but this isn't a hard requirement.
• The PCs start as highly capable people who might even be able to perform physically impossible feats simply because they are Just That Good. Most PCs should be powerful primarily due to their mundane expertise or social position, rather than anything supernatural.
• Dark fantasy, science fantasy, and urban fantasy are allowed, so long as they're also low fantasy.
• Universal systems can be suggested if they work well for that kind of a campaign (I am aware of GURPS), but I'd like you to also suggest pre-made settings or adventures for these systems (fanmade or official) that are built for such a premise.

I'm looking for ideas for mysteries to add to my campaign. The setting is low to no magic, and similar to Regency England. One of my players is a detective, and I want to give her some mysteries to solve which point to a larger conspiracy.

The conspiracy is kind of simple, a corrupt mayor doing corrupt things.

I need ideas for some corrupt actions he takes which have both direct and indirect victims.

An example that I have going is:

The PC was hired by a gem mining company who thinks someone is skimming their products. The product is being skimmed by a dock worker at a shipping company, who sees that his employers are being driven out of business and he's building a nest egg for when he's inevitably out of work.

If the PC keeps digging past there, she'd find that the shipping business is going under because they're being priced out by a competitor. That competitor can do so because they're bringing the corrupt mayor to not have to pay taxes. Around that someone tried to blow the whistle and was driven to ruin, and is now our door blood, so I can set up a Murder on the Orient Express some mystery much later on in the campaign.

I'm struggling for ideas for more cases to give the detective that both hint at the mayor, and give more conspirators for the MotOE scenario.

Help?

p.s. I john this subreddit to ask this question, and am hoping this is the right space and given the right flair.

so I started playing CoC with my dnd group and they loved the little starter campaign I ran for them, and now im working on a more complex one. I had the idea of a 'time loop' caused by a being who was attracted to the turmoil within the town, but ive never ran a time loop campaign or anything similar. I know how I'll do it rp wise, but does anyone know of any fun mechanics or gameplay that would make sense for a time loop?

also trying to figure out how to end the timeloop is a pain in my ass, I was thinking a ritual but the mini campaign ended in a ritual, and it just seems repetitive to do two in a row

any info/feedback/discussion helps!!!

Hullo, I was looking into getting the Game masters apprentice deck as a solo oracle, but as they're only in Drivethru and shipping from the US, the shipping cost is more than the deck itself.

I was wondering if anyone has any UK or EU alternatives that do the same job?

Cheers.