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If there was ever a day to check out my pal JP Coovert's Star Borg RPG, today would be it!.

I was lucky enough to play this with him at GaryCon and had an absolute blast. If you're looking for a Star Wars experience, you'd be doing yourself a disservice by not giving it a once-over.

I have been a sucker for Mage: The Awakening since the 2000s. Its setting, cosmology (e.g. the Supernal Realms), factions (particularly the Seers as antagonists), and magic (the ten Arcana) appeal to me far more than Ascension's.

However, I am not a fan of its mechanics, whether 1e or 2e.

I have tried GMing some fan-made conversions, such as an Urban Shadows (PbtA) hack, and a Fate Core/Accelerated hack. They were... okay, though the Arcana felt a little same-y (as expected from a rules-lite narrative conversion, for good or for ill). For example, both times, there were few ways of capturing how the Fate Arcanum is a jack-of-all-trades that can do a little bit of anything (especially mundane actions), but nowhere as effectively as other Arcana in their specialty.

Eric Zawadzki's Black Vans for Deviant: The Renegades has a full chapter for conversion rules. They let someone play a Beast, a changeling, a demon, a Sin-Eater, a hunter, a mummy, a Promethean, a vampire, a werewolf, or, yes, a mage using only the Deviant: The Renegade rules. This includes spellcasting using the ten Arcana. In theory, it would be possible to run a Mage: The Awakening game using these Deviant rules.

Have any other alternatives presented themselves by this point, in the big '26? Ideally, I would want something that can capture the five Paths and the ten Arcana.

Major Update: I have gotten in touch with someone who is working on a total conversion of Mage: The Awakening to Pathfinder 2e, including the five Paths, all ten Arcana, and all of the Practices. They have already shared a few pages (not for public viewing quite yet), and I think it looks promising. They say they will be ready to present a first draft by some time next week.

I've heard it's better than all other such systems

Having recently gone back to the drawing board on an original RPG design, I've decided to start testing the setting as a hack of Cortex Prime, to begin fleshing it out in play.

It's clearly not the best supported system, and it's not playable out-of-the-book, and I imagine most GMs running it use it for original settings and concepts, so I'm curious: if any of you out there play Cortex, what software tools and workflows do you employ when fleshing out a hack? Custom interactive software character sheet resources would be handy for example, and I imagine there are pitfalls and important points that might not be made fully clear in the core rules book. It would also be handy to know what online communities are actively involved in doing cortex hacks these days, if any.

Thanks for your intel!

I know there are Game of Thrones TTRPGs. I know there is The Sword, the Crown, the Unspeakable Power.

I've been homebrewing a world with my table, and we have a way to do it in D&D with many homebrew modifications... but we are still seeking other TTRPGs that work.

What we want: low magic (think half or 3rd casters) where doing magic publicly influences a character's standing. The general world is low-mid-borns surviving a civil war and having to side with certain leaders.

Dragons/monsters exist but are rare. Mostly humans fighting humans and navigating political tension. I'd say 70% roleplay, 30% combat.

I've been GMing for a while now and the thing I've gotten wrong the longest is treating post-session as dead time.

For years I'd close my laptop after a session, maybe write a couple of bullet points, and then try to reconstruct everything a week later when I sat down to prep. Half the stuff that actually mattered, the NPC moment that resonated, the player decision that changed where the story was going, the thing I said offhand that I now need to make real... all got fuzzy by then.

What changed things for me was treating the debrief as its own dedicated step right after the session, not as part of prep. It was also a good wind down from the table. Spending 20 minutes while it was fresh asking specific questions: what changed in the world, which character backstory could I use next session, what do players think is true that isn't, what hooks are now live?

Prep week got a lot easier once I stopped reconstructing.

Curious what other GMs do between sessions. Do you debrief right after, or let it sit? Do you write long notes or keep it minimal? Has anything specific changed how you approach it?

Happy Star Wars Day!

For this day I wanted to talk about my very favorite Star Wars RPG (and one of my favorite RPGs in general): Edge of the Empire. (The Wikipedia entry is pretty good!))

Those interested in more resources are best served by checking This (SWRPG Community) out as a vibrant haven of resources, intro materials and the rest.

I'd also recommend checking Table Top Empire on youtube for an intro series and how-to series. It's excellently done and Nate seems like a great guy!

Why should you strongly consider Edge of the Empire, Age of Rebellion and/or Force and Destiny?

The game is the first in FFG's introduction of the "Narrative Dice System". I posted an overview of this system in a different thread which I'm shamelessly copying here:

"Narrative dice are incredible. It's core resolution mechanic is so good that it will ruin other games you play. In fact, if you don't want to get into it for this reason? I understand.

First, Edge of the Empire (and the genre-neutral version Genesys) uses proprietary custom dice (this is where 1/2 the people that bounce, bounce. They don't wanna buy special dice. I get it). There's good dice (attribute d8, proficiency d12, boost d6) and bad dice (difficulty d8, challenge d12, setback d6). The good dice have two symbols on them "Success" and "Advantage". The bad dice have "Failure" and "Threat" (all my homies just call it "disadvantage"). You make your dice pool up by taking your attributes (in attribute dice) and upgrading (substituting) a number of those dice into proficiency dice based on your skill ranks. If there's some positive complication (maybe you had some kind of favorable situational modifier or talent) you might add boost. The rules are very explicit when. The dice roll is player facing. So the GM then tells you how hard that thing is. Depending on how hard it is you add a number of Difficulty dice to your pool. If it's super hard, you might upgrade those difficulty dice to Challenge dice. If you have some situational modifier (enemy has cover, weather is bad, whatever...) you add some number of setback dice.

Then you roll them and compare the symbols.

Failure cancels success. Threat/disadvantage cancels advantage. And you're left with some combination of succeed or fail (you need at least one success to succeed) and with some positive complication (rolled one or more advantages than threat) or negative complication (rolled one or more threat than advantages).

So you get really interesting outcomes. You can absolutely roll a straight succeed or fail, that's possible. But more frequently you get something like "Succeed with advantage" and now your advantage can do something cool- often open to narrative flexibility- but with good guidance on what 2 advantage might get you compared to... 4, for instance.

Now to add even more spice to the mix, the really important dice you can add: Proficiency and Challenge dice, have one facing with a special symbol. Those symbols are "Triumph" and "Despair", respectively. These serve as your "Critical Success" and "Critical Fail" results. But usually this is to introduce a major narrative complication as opposed to subverting the outcome of the total roll. So you can "Succeed with a Despair" which basically means you complete the task but something really bad happens ("I hacked open the spaceship airlock, but just learned that Boba Fett is on the ship I just docked with" Stuff like that).

The "interpreting the dice" part is the part that the other 1/2 of people bounce off of. But I'll die on the hill that they just need to keep trying. I've run so many games of this with so many players that I've yet to see a group say they actually don't like it once they get more comfortable with it (the inverse is always true for me, "Hey I didn't like this at first but now I love the results"). To be fair it does take a GM that is encouraging players to think of ways to interpret their advantage/ disadvantage and get creative with it. I wonder if some people get bored because they just default to "Oh you rolled 2 advantage? Take two boost dice on your next test" which is boring.

It's a skill-based game with a generic list of skills. However, there are "talent trees" that exist for each "class" which grant interesting and flavorful bonuses much like a class based game (very much a best of both worlds situation, in my experience) and it does things like multiclassing well. It's XP-to-buy improvements over time, so there's no levelling. Only a gradual but steady improvement in skills, talents, etc."

What does this system do very WELL:

• The Narrative dice, as above
• It delivers on the flavor of Star Wars. It's very "cinematic". For instance, falling to 0 Wounds (hit points) doesn't result in death immediately. Instead, you roll a d100 to determine a Critical Injury. Astute readers note that you need to roll above 100 in order to die. Certain weapons (e.g. Lightsabers), talents, and previous (unhealed) critical injuries will add to the d100 roll. This makes the system feel lethal, but actual character death is extremely rare
• Intuitive "minion" rules that keep combat moving fast
• Theater of the mind combat support to encourage freedom of descriptions and movement during combat (range bands)
• It's a sort of middle-ground between "class-based" and "skill-based". There's a list of skills available to all characters. In addition to this, players pick a class called "career" (and subclass, called a specialization). So you might be an Ace and have a choice to specialize in Pilot (Ace Pilot), Gunner, or Driver (land vehicles).
• Each specialization unlocks a talent tree with a list of talents that provide thematic flavor and strong mechanical benefits fitting of your ... talents. The fan made ReSpecialized Project is currently ongoing by passionate SWRPG fans and updating the older talent trees!
• Gain and spend XP in a gradual fashion to slowly advance your character as the story proceeds.
• Multi-classing is easy. Simply spend XP
• Phenomenal sourcebooks and lore support. There are excellent adventures (Jewel of Yavin is among one of the best adventures for ANY RPG I've read) and sourcebooks available for every career (providing additional subclasses) as well as bonus sourcebooks for things like Corellia, Hutt Space, and Rebel Base Building
• There's also a robust community as noted and ALL rules are available on the SRD and Star Wars FFG wiki_Wiki). There's also a small but healthy community of folks here on reddit at r/swrpg!

What does the game do POORLY? (and my shameless excuse making)

• Some folks won't love the Narrative Dice system. (I say, keep checking it out! Keep trying! It takes a few sessions to really let it sing). But I get it. Proprietary dice don't feel good. But my trusty 3-4 sets I got all the way back in late 2012 will stay with me until I die!.
• Official Support: FFG sold the license to Asmodee/Edge Studios back in 2019(?) and, since then, theres been no new major material or releases on the horizon. This means two things: the books are often out of print and hard to find and any new material will be fan-made. (I will say this, though, I ran a LONG campaign off of the core book when it first released and all of the rule supplements and adventures, fan adventures, would fill a table with decades of playtime)
• Three core rulebooks: I see the intent here- Edge of the Empire is for outer rim smuggler style adventures. Age of Rebellion is for rebel adventures. Force and Destiny explore all things the force. The fundamental rules remain the same, but the flavor, careers, and are different. They also introduce a unique rule for each. Edge has an "obligation" mechanic meant to represent your debts that accumulate and come back to bite you in the back. "Duty" serves as a track in AoR to measure your increasing standing with the Rebellion and resources you can count on. "Conflict" in Force and Destiny refers to the inner moral struggle of a Force user and the risk of falling to the dark side.
• You want a different extreme... which segues to:

What other Star Wars options do you have!
Well I can only recommend what I've played.

- WEG's D6 system is a good alternative for those wanting a more "traditional" experience and is the "OG" star wars RPG. It relies on D6 dice pools and is relatively easy to learn and play. It's a little bit more "OSR" in the sense that it shares similar design sensibilities as well as being a more lethal experience than Edge. At a certain dice pool size the system does break, but most folks lean into this and enjoy it- stating it satisfies the Star Wars feel. One particular advantage of WEG is that it was made pre-Prequels so much of the material is very Extended Universe (Legacy) content. Many of the community supplements have borrowed heavily from WEG. The rules do get heavier than Edge in my opinion (especially 2e content). So if you are looking for more crunch, this might satisfy that craving.

- Scum and Villainy - a Forged in the Dark system. If you like more rules light play this could be up your alley. It focuses more on fewer rolls providing more information. Say more, roll less, but with sufficient mechanical support to satisfy many players. It's well designed and balanced and I enjoyed it. However, while it definitely delivered on the feeling of Star Wars, it didn't quite have the lore support of FFG's product line. So if you want to get into the nitty gritty of modifying starships, buying and selling spice (or what each spice does to you), or running a rebel base with a little more granularity, this might not be the system for you.

- SAGA/D20- sort of a 3.5 D&D + Star Wars. I didn't really particularly enjoy this system, so I won't say much. It's class based and plays straight like D&D+Star Wars, in my experience.

As you can see, I've got my clear favorite.

Please AMA! I'm passionate about great system design and I can't stop coming back to this one after more than a decade of playing it. Some of my very favorite campaign moments and memories live in this system.

May the Force be With You!

In your humble opinion, has any enemy or antagonistic force ever disturbed you in a personal level? Not Homebrews but official creations.

personally, the whole concept of the Spectres in Wraith the oblivion makes my skin crawl.

I'm new to TTRPGs and I am in my first campaign of playing Pathfinder 2e over Discord. I am swelling with a lot of different emotions here. Like this is the first RPG I have ever played. I’m honestly just happy they invited me. Lucky for me, I have heard this is an awful game for inexperienced players.

I have the world's shittiest working memory and processing speed so I keep asking the GM to repeat themself and I am trying to write as much down as possible and keep a notebook on me during sessions but everyone moves so fast that I don’t have time to process it all. I am playing with very seasoned vets of like 3-10+ years of experience and I have no FUCKING CLUE WHAT I AM DOING so I am just nervously sweating and I'm honestly filled with anxiety every time before we play.

Every time I make a move I feel like it is the wrong one. I either have to have something explained to me or I get yelled at like "why would you do that?" and I'm just kind of like"BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING!"*

I have always been really into writing and creativity, but growing up I had to always be "on" and have struggled “escaping” into another world, but when I can it’s absolutely wonderful and so fun. I am trying so hard to participate. I am trying so hard to pretend I know what I am doing or ask questions. It's just embarrassing.

Being new at things is hard, especially being autistic and just like already having this core wound of never feeling like I fit in anywhere in the first place. I am really interested in but pretty new to a lot of the stuff many of my friends have enjoyed since their childhood. I'm just kind of happy they included me, even if I do keep fucking up. I do want to explore more but I just...I don't know? Feel...behind and left out?

I don’t know how to like…practice? Or even get better at this at all. Everyone I know has played before and I just feel weird not having any experience and not really knowing what to do.

I have no clue where I would even be able to find a campaign who would want someone so inexperienced or treat me with patience.

There is no more time-honoured tradition in our hobby than attempting to create a taxonomy of RPG systems and invariably failing. Anyway, we did exactly that!

I can't share images here, so check out the colour wheel model of RPG systems over on our blog.

The big insight is that games don't just have a hue, they also have a saturation. Games like D&D 5e are parchment-white in attempting to be all things to all people. The further you move into a specific intended experience, whether thats GURPS-level simulationism or PBTA-style storygaming, the more saturated the colour becomes.

Anyway, check out the images and then argue below about whether Blades in the Dark is banana yellow or merely lemon or whether things were better before we had colour TVs.

I'm currently reading up on the Baltic Crusades and the Teutonic Knights and it just screams TTRPG campaign. More specifically, I want to do a story about the PC's on a mission to apprehend a crusader who went rogue deep in enemy territory. The further they travel, the more violent and bizarre it gets, the more their faith and values are tested. Basically Apocalypse Now but set in a snowy medieval forest

I'm hitting in a wall in finding a system that fits with this idea though. The players will constantly be fighting, so the combat systems need to be really interesting. But most TTRPG's I know with deep combat systems assume a high fantasy setting and there weren't a lot of warlock halflings casting cantrips and drinking healing potions in 13th century Lithuania.

I know lots of good low magic systems, but they also tend to be rules light and high lethality. So players just end up saying "okay, I attack" and we roll dice until one side is dead. If a PC dies, you replace them. Simple but lethal combat is no problem whatsoever if your PC's are merchants peddling goods along trade routes and rarely ever fight anyway. But it's a big problem if they're elite warriors in the middle of a warzone, far from friendly bored adventures looking to replace dead party members.

Tl;dr: help me find a system for Kingdom of Heaven meets Apocalypse Now meets Name of the Rose meets icy winter forest