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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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I mainly GM 5e and while I do actually enjoy the system a lot, combat as we all know can slow to a crawl rather easily. The thing is that I enjoy the kinds of characters 5e lets you make and I generally enjoy the sorts of things characters can do in combat, I just don't think a D20 system with a bunch of positive/negative addition is the quickest way to go about actually resolving combat.

I say "still a full-on combat system" in my title because I know that some systems exist that basically boil combat down to rules-lite or rules-absent cinematic experiences and I want to emphasize that this is *not* what I'm looking for. I've played systems like that before and they were fun enough, but that's not the goal here.

tl;dr I think 5e combat has good ideas but turns take too long; looking for suggestions on systems that accomplish similar feeling combat but change how it's resolved.

Brief rant: I just checked out a game's preview on DriveThruRPG. Here's what I got: a cover, a copyright page, 3 pages of table of contents, a full-page art page with "Introduction" at the bottom followed by another full-page art page.

That's it.

I won't buy your product without some inkling of what I'm getting, especially since I can't return the product if I don't like it. If I'm looking at your book on the shelf at a store I'm going to flip through it before I buy. For a digital sale you can at least give us a couple of random pages of rules, setting, something so we know how the book is laid out and whether we'd want to buy it.

So, came across this and it looks like fantasy Into the Odd. Have y’all played? Looks like it could be good for short- or long-term games depending on the group.

“Diegetic advancement” is kind of breaking and fixing my brain simultaneously lol

I'm a long-time fan of Mouseguard, and I'm considering running it again, but I've never been in love with the rock-paper-scissors conflict system. I love a universal conflict resolution mechanic though.

Has anyone come up with an alternative that still feels plugged into the Mouseguard setting and ruleset?

Does anyone love the conflict system? If so, help me to appreciate it?

I heard these three are similar and have been interested in trying them out. Can anyone tell me about their experiences with these games and which one they think is best.

I want to start a game in my own custom homebrew setting, but I don't know how to make it actually playable for people who don't have all the information about the world.

The setting is heavily customized, with an universe that doesn't seem too similar to most things you can see out there - think, an alien ecosystem with its own rules, plants, animals, creatures, etc, with hundreds of custom names for custom entities everywhere. Plants work weird, animals work weird, magic works weird, everything is different than the most common settings you see in rpgs. You can't just go in and assume that humans are doing typical human jobs, lifestock is cows and pigs, pets are dogs, etc. Everything is different, but it's common different to characters in-universe.

The issue is the fact that my players simply won't know things that are common in the setting unless they read the 100 page encyclopedia of all most common things in the world, which isn't fun. Literally no one wants to read pages upon pages of entries of alien creatures that they should commonly know just so that their peasant character will recognize the creature, as people in-universe would.

So their characters end up not knowing a lot of things that should be common in-universe, and no one likes constantly hearing "actually, that's not how it works-" or "any peasant out there knows this" every time they try to do or say something, which complicates things.

How could I tackle making a campaign in the setting without making the players feel stupid for not knowing the universe?

What could I do to make learning of the custom alien ecosystem interesting, rather than have it feel like infodumping / sharing a hundred names that are homework to remember?

I love my setting, but I just need help with making it feel good to play for those who didn't spend the past five years creating the world and don't know every detail about living there.

I was vaguely considering going the "isekai" path - they are beings from a different world placed in this one, so that their characters can learn how everything works alongside the players, but then it could end up feeling unfair when a common alien plant eats them or something.

Either that, or maybe have them all be very sheltered people who recently escaped imprisonment, but then once again, the lack of knowledge could doom them.

How could I make it work?

A (really interesting thread)[https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/1urwke2/publishers\_give\_us\_better\_previews\_on\_dtrpg/\] yesterday about the need for better previews on rpg storefronts got me thinking about what makes for a compelling (free) intro to a system.

If a system is big enough, a free adventure that showcases a bunch of system content is a great idea, but if it's a smaller system, maybe that's not feasible? In that case perhaps it's core mechanics, some art and lore, and some miscellaneous content so people can get a sense of things?

Hello! I enjoy trying new systems and thus I’m asking here for more recommendations as I’m on a big dark fantasy kick, thus far I’ve played the Dark Souls rpg (though it’s just knock off 5E tbh) SOTDL and Ker Nethalas, if this helps show the vibe I’m going for, I’m looking to try new systems so I’m not too strict on what exactly it is outside of wanting it to be dark and gritty and my great dislike of PBTA games. Thanks in advance

If you were DM’ing a table with the lore being inspired by Longlegs (the movie) and Lovecraftian horror, how would you make it?

Hello, I'm working on a personal project, a custom ttrpg, and I want to have playable planes in it (as it involves vehicles). Having planes involve some additional stuff compared to things like tanks, helicopters, boats, etc. They can't stop in a place, their movement works differently, where they are facing is important...

I could add specific rules for facing, turning and speed, but adding too many rules for a specific thing can create problems in the long run.

What games could I look for inspiration? What

Hi, welcome to Playtonics! Wait. Haven't we posted this before?

Every episode of Playtonics, Rocky and Jords (me!) take a genre, movie, or show apart at the seams, figure out what actually makes it feel like that thing, and rebuild those pieces into something you can structure, prep, and run at the table. Finally we discuss which systems we'd run it in. This time: loops.

Turns out the genre's rules pretty simple:

1. A reset you don't control.
2. Memory that survives even when your body doesn't.
3. The one behavioural thing that every loop story, in every medium, actually runs on: fuck around, find out.

In this ep, we work through the logistical aspects of running a time loop at the table: how many loops we expect to play, how long to spend per loop, how many sessions in total (turns out we don't agree on this!). Through it all, we discuss what prep each of us would do to make this time loop tick along smoothly.

This type of structure is actually pretty easy to overlay onto many different types of system: Rocky prefers something with ultra-fast resolution, like Risus or Laser & Feelings; I would choose almost any trad game that doesn't make combat a crawl.

Got some takes you'd like to share with us directly? When you finish this loop, break into our Discord and drop them! Also, we'd love to hear what other topics you'd like us to cover!

PS. Last month I asked for some feedback on what you guys would like to see in an episode post - how am I doing?