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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.

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

So I recently had to take a little break from this sub, for entirely valid reasons. And over that time, I realized, how much I'm letting the constant negativity, both in RPG spaces and in a lot of other places in my life, get to me in ways that are not super Duper healthy, and I don't like that so much. I know how to seek out and engage with the negativity, I have no problem doing that, but where do I find the people who aren't getting into that mud, who focus on positivity, on uplifting people? Who's making fun good faith reviews, who's telling uplifting stories, who's just living and breathing the joy of this hobby? Because I need those folks and I don't know where they are

My mate spends 10 minutes after every session reflecting on how the game went and what he can do better next time round. He makes notes and makes sure to incorporate the ideas next time.

I love his approach to becoming a better DM and believe it can work as a player too. AS such I have started doing some reflection myself.

My question is, do any of you do anything similar, and if so how do you structure this reflection?

A few months ago I asked here for advice on if people would be upset with me (I have anxiety what can I say) if I made my goofy 1990's cyberpunk zines Dead Halt and Grum Hall free, when lots of people had already bought them.

My main thought was that making them free would feel crappy for those folks that purchased the pdf. The comments were mostly "You're overthinking it"

You all were very right!

I made all the PDF's from my now almost 7 years of content free, and the only thing I got back was positivity, and outpouring support, and ironically, more sales. (On Itch.io's pay what you want). Another huge boon is I don't have to worry about it anymore. I get to focus on making the physical books pretty and selling those, and if someone wants to play the game I don't have to tell them to buy it, they can grab it and print and play if needed. That feels really good.

I got into all this because I wanted to make things that my friends wanted to play, and I wanted more friends to play with. After making the games free I started getting lots more folks joining our Discord to try and find games, chatting, and even helping making adventures for other people to play in their games. It's really felt special and I have no regrets from the decision.

Not only that, but I was able to get lots of feedback on Grum Hall and used it as a playtest to develop the game further and make changes without feeling too stressed about sending out new PDF codes, or sending codes with the physical book. It's free right on the website for anyone.

Lastly, I was printing out Grum Hall at home and binding it and all that, and so many people (lots who got the game for free) wanted pretty physical copies that I decided to launch a Zinequest project for pretty physical copies. Its funded well over in the first few days, even with the free pdf there right on the top of the page.

Thats it, thank you all in this sub for your insight, and maybe this helps as a point for others that are tiny creators like me in the future. I don't think everyone should give away everything they work hard on for free, but it worked for me to lessen my stress and build the community I wanted more than anything.

Long story short; if you're a nervous-nelly like me maybe make your digital work free, it may both build your community and paradoxically fund your project.

Daniel Estes 1971 - 2025

Daniel Estes was different. He had learning challenges that no one understood or knew how to address. By the time he reached fourth grade he had mastered few of the requisite skills of reading, writing or mathematics and there were behavioral issues. It was obvious that his needs were not being met. It had become apparent that some drastic intervention was needed in order to turn the situation around.

I had written “Return to Brookmere,” the first of what would become the Endless Quest series for TSR (the company that created Dungeons and Dragons) on my own time. I traded the rights to the book to TSR in return for them endowing a scholarship for Daniel so that he could attend a school that would address his educational needs. I chose the Hillside School in Marlborough, MA and it would shape the person Daniel would become. Aside from class room sizes of 6-7 students, which provided a great deal of individual attention, his life was given structure. Hillside’s values were those of “compassion, determination, honesty, respect and empathy. Boys were taught to look beyond themselves and to recognize excellence in others. These qualities took root firmly and would come to define him.

By the time he returned to Lake Geneva and entered high school, he was greatly changed. He was focused and had become outgoing, confident and a leader. His learning challenges still existed but he fought through them graduated from high school and enrolled in the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. He powered through his learning difficulties and ultimately graduated from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville with a teaching certificate. Throughout his career he focused on and specialized in working with those who had learning challenges of their own. He learned Braille and taught and mentored a blind student from middle school through graduation and even beyond.

Several years ago, Daniel created an Instagram account called Return to Brookmere. A celebration of me, his mother and my books where he read the books aloud with group participation and created books and art with his followers. Following his death in September of 2025 from an incurable liver cancer, I was contacted by a great many people who told me that he had been their friend during a crisis in their lives and helped them weather the storm. I also heard from a great many of his followers who told me of being encouraged and mentored by Daniel as they struggled to bring their words, art and game designs to fruition. This was done quietly, privately.

If Daniel believed in something, someone, he committed his whole being into supporting those efforts. Hillside’s core values had become his own, compassion, determination, honesty, respect and empathy were words that defined him. He is greatly missed by those whose lives he touched.

For more information write: [DanielEstesFoundation@gmail.com](mailto:DanielEstesFoundation@gmail.com)

I never got much chance to actually play in them, but I've always thought that the "Living" organized play campaigns that were in vogue in the 2000s and 2010s were theoretically interesting. I'm thinking here of campaigns like the RPGA's Living Greyhawk and Living Force campaigns, which attempted to create a consistent campaign setting that was shared by many players participating in games at conventions, game stores, and at home. This sometimes led to issues with record-keeping - I know that Living Greyhawk was sometimes nicknamed "Living Accounting" - and it seems like organized play in general has gone out of fashion except for some holdouts like the Pathfinder Society.

If anyone has links to some interesting blog posts or other writing about this style of campaign, how it influenced game design or play culture or anything like that, I'd love to see them!

Been in a couple of situations lately where people have used either Google's AI search or ChatGPT to try to reference RPG rules. These summaries can sound very convincing and even seem to provide page numbers or other citations, but in reality they're just as liable to hallucinations as any other AI (and in my own recent anecdotal experience, got things significantly wrong in each case).

If you're trying to play or quote things as-written, please refer to the original text, not AI summaries.

Preferably something lightweight that's snappy but fun. Even if not from an RPG, board games work too, I'm willing to rework mechanics.

I want to run a campaign that involves base building and combat that takes place on that base (invasions), so how the players actually build the base will determine the tactics they can employ.

Ideally something that would give a similar vibe to Dwarf Fortress, Minecraft, DQB, or Ratopia.

How do you guys prep for upcoming sessions? Is it a focus task over 10 minutes to four hours? Do you note snippets of inspiration that strike you between sessions? Do you have a fixed day in the week set aside for this?

For my part, sessions tend to last into late hours, so I'm usually too exhausted to start prepping close to my last session. I usually take the opportunity and reflect shortly before the next session to refresh my memory and try to note down bigger background events when inspiration strikes.

My players like having the classic ‘GM PC’ type characters — NPCs who accompany them on adventures and are a part of the party, drifting in and out of the group depending on the adventure in question. In previous campaigns I have maintained stat blocks for each NPC and had them join combat, but when there are often half a dozen or more NPCs filling this role this can get problematic fast. In order to solve this problem I adapted (i.e. shamelessly ripped off) a mechanic from a board game called Aeon Trespass: Odyssey, and its in-the-works sequel “Sins of Heracles”: Ally Abilities (AAs). I'm posting this to share the idea as a resource for other GMs to use in their own games.

AAs are a subsystem which can be included in almost any sufficiently crunchy RPG. I will be using Pathfinder 1e language in my examples because that is the campaign I’m currently using them in, but they would honestly be a much better fit in a system like 4e or Lancer which has a greater emphasis on tactical combat.

What is an AA in fiction?

In fiction, the Ally is typically helping the party in combat, doing damage, fighting enemies, healing, tanking, whatever their role is. But this would slow down combat, especially factoring in the need for additional enemies to compensate for the additional ally characters. Instead we assume that most of the ally’s time and resources are spent fighting abstracted enemies which don’t appear on the battle map, succeeding or failing against them at about the same margin at the same time the ‘spotlight fight’ does. AAs represent the moment where those NPCs spare a moment to help the players in their portion of combat. Alternatively some allies might be too weak to fight continuously, but good at stealth, long ranged, or otherwise able to offer brief moments of support before slipping back to safety, or might have provided the party tools like alchemical extracts, triggered buffs, or advice before combat which then activate later.

What is an AA Mechanically?

At its most simple an “AA” is a party-wide special resource that represents the assistance of a specific NPC, typically but not necessarily in combat, through a mechanical effect that can be triggered by any player character as a free action during their turn. Each AA comes with a usage limit (which is usually daily for my Pathfinder game and should generally share a refresh rate with the typical system mechanics). Each AA lists the NPC providing it, the ability name, the daily uses, then gives a short bit of flavor and the mechanical effect. Let’s look at a simple example from my campaign, representing the help of a druid traveling with the party while they were level 3:

Holly-and-Oak — Crisis Medicine:
Uses: 2/day
Holly-and-Oak rushes to your side to provide emergency healing. The activating character is the recipient of a CLW of a caster level equal to their level.

Here the effect is simple. While Holly-and-Oak is in the party, they have access to two free-action casts of CLW across the adventuring day. While the healing isn't much even at that level, the value of being able to gain some emergency hit points without sacrificing action economy was appreciated. Because AAs are not actions taken by player characters they are not subject to the character’s action restrictions (like CC effects), nor benefit from player characters’ abilities or buffs.

I also recommend giving the party an AA limit which they can increase over time or via specific means up to the GM. If you do this, at the start of each day/whenever abilities refresh, the party selects which allies traveling with them will be providing AAs up to their AA limit. (in my case they have gained +1 AA limit every couple levels, and had a side quest to hone their party cohesion to gain +1 AA limit).

Here’s an example suite of AAs that my party might have taken with them during a battle during their campaign, showing some typical and less typical AA designs. Of special note is the Infusion Supply, which they actually upgraded by buying Ninnec scrolls to copy infusions from when they needed specific spells:

AA Limit 5:

Ember – Dazzling Display (Literal):
Uses: 3/day
Ember makes a LOT of fire happen. She always wondered why other people need a feat for this. Each visible enemy within line of sight is dazzled for one minute.

Ninnec – Infusion Supply:
Uses: Special
Ninnec provides you with infusions as a 5th level alchemist. He can offer two first level or one second level infusion for your use. Selecting this twice lets you select each option separately. The infusions Ninnec can supply are:
1st: Shield, Bomber’s Eye, Enlarge Person, Reduce Person, Long Arm, Cure Light Wounds, Crafter’s Fortune, Heightened Awareness, Anticipate Peril, Keen Senses
2nd: Vomit Swarm, Invisibility, Lesser Restoration (B), Delay Poison (B)
[Party picked this twice selecting a Shield and Anticipate Peril infusion, and an Invisibility infusion.]

Apollyon — Ancient Wisdom:
Static
Apollyon provides helpful, but slightly condescending, advice from its time of study under the Sher’tul. Whenever you attempt a monster knowledge check against enemies which can be identified by Knowledge: Arcana or Knowledge: Engineering, Apollyon answers an additional question on any creature you successfully identify. If you successfully identify attacks, defenses, and special abilities by yourself you may spend a spare question (your fourth) to have Apollyon instead identify a weak point, causing the first critical threat against each identified creature made by an ally to be automatically confirmed.

Wendy – Wind Beneath Your Wings:
Uses: 3/day
Wendy provides a well-timed rush of wind to help cushion a fall or spring a leap, granting a +10 circumstance bonus to an acrobatics check. Alternatively, in response to suffering falling damage, reduce the damage by half and you do not fall prone.

What are AAs good for?

AAs let NPCs ‘do their thing’ in combat without taking a turn each round. They make the party gain mechanical advantages from taking even lower level/weaker NPCs with them on adventures, and give the party a reason to be excited when a new NPC joins their cohort. An NPC’s AA can highlight character traits as well as their talents (a wizard NPC who is more interested in learning about the world than combat might grant additional information about enemies’ abilities instead of casting magic missile), and create heroic moments where they save the day with a clutch activation of their AA.

What are AAs bad at?

AAs are fundamentally an abstraction, and players who are focused on the rules maintaining exact models of the fiction will dislike them. They are also designed to let the NPC have a few seconds’ spotlight while keeping it mainly on the PCs, therefore arcs where an NPC is expected to be a prominent figure, consider having them actually fielded in combat. They add additional decisions and complexity to both the players’ turns in combat and their daily preparations, where the party will have to, as a group, decide which AAs they are ‘bringing with them’ each day. This means that players need to be interested in this additional complexity.

What makes for a well-designed AA?

A good AA should be simple to resolve. Try to avoid complicated ‘flow charts’ like saves for partial effects, and indeed try to avoid saving throws or attack rolls all together. AAs should be useful in a multitude of situations and strong enough to have an impact: Most NPCs will only have one or two AAs they can offer, and you want the party to be excited to have a cool moment where their friend helps them in combat. AAs should be useful for multiple characters: The entire party decides on an AA load out, and so they should all be a party resource to greater or lesser degree. (You will notice that the AAs used in this post don’t all follow these principles.)

What do people think? Let me know if you have any ideas to iterate upon the system or if you use something similar.

Got into doing a Gundam conversion for Mekton Zeta with some friends and while I really like it, the challenge of statting out a bunch of different mechs is incredibly daunting and I'm wanting to shoot for something that's not big on crunching or statting everything out, but flexible enough to let the players experience fighting a lot of different things or have a lot of freedom in how they want to play.

I'm looking for a system for a Trigun/Anime/Western type of campaign. My players will be legendary figures who have retired and they get the band back together. So I want them to feel powerful with some hiccups here and there, have guns and weapons. I don't want to do space travel or ships, it will be on one planet.

Looking for low crunch as well. Lower than DnD5e, we have been enjoying Dragonbane, if there are any systems with that OSR feel.