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Where do we stand on reminding players versus letting notes decide during puzzles?

I was running Sailor of the Starless Sea for a group of newbies. Due to scheduling and how they chose to go through the dungeon, we had 4 weeks between raiding the temple at the top of the dungeon and getting the censer, incense, and candles... And finding the menhir where they were meant to use them.

The players weren't sure what to do. As they investigated, I added details to help remind them of the candle by saying they found ash and wax residue. One said "do we have candles?" When no one remembered, I reminded them they did get some in the temple.

In my mind, 4 weeks passed for the players, but only an hour or so for the characters. It is reasonable to remind people something their characters should remember that the players forgot.

In a similar vein, yesterday, the players in a different game I run fought off a person who was trapped in a mega dungeon so long they became "Queen of the Giant Ants" and planned to sacrifice someone in a bit of acid. They saved the man and he rewarded them with a bag of medicine from a small god, which can cure any disease.

When the party found the gift strange, I asked them if they remembered anyone in town who'd want it. One member then pipped up and remembered that a merchant was willing to trade a priceless artifact that turns lesser undead for medicine to take back to his village, as they were suffering from a plague.

Where do y'all fall on this? It's hard for me to watch people fumble, especially when it feels like the only reason the player doesn't remember is the passage of time and the characters themselves should remember.

So today, I was wanting to ask about Traveller 2022-in part due to my search to own a physical book from a different publisher, and I may not have access to my FFG Star Wars book anymore, but that's something I can find for reviews, and figuring out how simple/complex the system is. But a while back, I did ask what some false assumptions were about your favorite systems.

Today I want to ask the opposite, what are some inaccurate or downright false assumptions about a system you dislike? It can be a system you just kinda dislike, or one you really hate. But I want to ask if there's a false assumption about it you've seen online, but that you know is just inaccurate.

I GM'ed dnd for a year, really enjoyed the complexiry and learning experience of it all but in the end felt like the mechanics held the game back.

I played a lot of the Arkham Horror LCG, and while it barely has any narrative and is not an RPG, the complexity and depth and tension and difficulty resulted in some of the most immersive shared moments I've had with people.

I've already tried Nimble as well, and while I love every change it makes, it is not enough.

I want to bridge the gap between complex deicison making and strategic depth in board games like AH lcg or even twilight imperium, dune etc, and the narrative and worldbuilding of RPGs.

I theorize that by making combat weightier, it will actually become rarer in my games as people try to avoid it and pick their battles more carefully, and also result in more grounded, meaningful consequences and make the narrative hit that much harder.

Boy if Arkham Horror had narrative choices that changed your cards and encounters you faced with a GM running the show it would go hard.

Surely others have had this train of thought and someone out there has already made what I'm looking for.

Ofc I consulted Astra, Fable and Opus all - their consesus ended up on some more niche stuff I haven't heard of.

All this to say, I'm considering exploring the below options with a Fewshot in each, let me know which you think I would like best.

- Call of Cthulu (maybe?)

- Kingdom Death Monster (completely diff ik)

- Pathfinder 2e (skeptical)

- Torchbearer (looks interesting, seems limited to survival in dungeons tho I can probably expand its scope)

- ACK2 (no idea what this is)

- Phoenix Dawn Command (blurb sounds inteteresting but so does every rpg to me)

- Burning Wheel (LLM's top pick again not sure what it is)

- and finally just use Nimble and get better at GM-ing for the kind of grounded vibe I want and design my own systems around it.

Edit: seeing as there is a tag for this post I suspect Im not the first to ask a question like this, and hopefully this sub has answered prepared to hipfire at me.

I LOVVEE the beginner’s guide Choose Your Own Adventure books Chaosium includes in their starter sets. That, and their “Alone Against The…” are such a good way to scratch the itch without a whole group. Does anyone know of any other books like that? Even if they are from third parties, I’m interested!

Let me try to explain myself. In your basic RPG, weapons normally works in that they say HOW your attack works.

For example, in D&D 5e, a basic Longsword says that it does 1d8 + your Strength Modifier (or 1d10 + STR if used with two hands), it uses STR to try and hit something and can't reach anything more than 1.5m away. This always changes depending on the weapon you choose.

Another way that damage might work is that all weapons in a given category (like Light, 1-Hand, 2-Hands, Ranged) deal the same damage every time you hit something.

But then, I got curious on a time of mechanic in if it exists already. It would go as:

1. Your character has a "Basic Attack" of sorts. It deal always the same damage based upon choices like your Class, Skill choices or however the character creation goes.
2. When you choose a weapon, instead of change how much damage you deal, you change the properties of you attack beyond damage.
3. For example, a Soldier character with always deal 2d10 damage at its current level, while a Thief only deals 2d6 in comparison. The Soldier has a Rifle while the Thief has a Handgun. The Rifle could have the stats of Range 5 & Burst Fire, that not only means it has a big reach but also that it can more bullets at once, so they could possibly hit more than one enemy at a time. Meanwhile, the Thief's Handgun has Range 2 & Concealable, meaning it has a shorter reach but trades that to be able of being hidden more easily.

My question then is if there are any games that works like this?

Realised recently I run and play nothing but fantasy (D&D, PF2e, Dragonbane, Runequest) apart from a little Lancer.

I want to look at what else is out there. I’m aware of course of the big hitters like Call of Cthulhu, Blades in the Dark, Mothership, Vaesen, Cyberpunk, 7th Sea, Delta Green, Savage Worlds, Vampire the Masquerade, Deadlands etc.

But what systems do you recommend that aren’t fantasy, particularly any that are tied to introductory campaigns/campaigns you recommend?

I'm running a post-apocalyptic game (Rifts) in person with no battle mat or minis, just theater-of-the-mind. Players keep asking things like "how far away is the bad guy?" expecting answers in feet. I don't mind answering, but an answer can often lead to more follow-up questions, and the minutiae bogs down a system that's already hard to run.

My current fallback is "Tell me what you want to do and I'll tell you if you can do it." It works for some players, not all. A mat feels impractical with guns, vehicles, and long sight lines, but I'm open to leaning more tactical if there's a good way to do it.

For those of you running modern or gun-heavy games without a grid: how do you handle distance and positioning while keeping tactical-minded players happy and the pace moving?

My idea is to have a bit of a metacurrency called composure, which can go up if you do things that are relaxing or feel morally good, and go down if something humiliating happens or if you do something that makes you feel guilty.

I want to have a good sized list of these things to pick from, is there another rpg out there with a similar system that I can look at?

Hi, first time poster. I just need to figure out something.

I have noticed how I treat TTRPGs seems really different to my current play group, and I need to know how much an outlier I am. I been playing things since 2008, over PBP, YIM, AOL, Skype, Discord, and some IRL, though mostly online.

It has been my experience that talking at the player level about things like collaborating on backstory, steering scenes, sharing premise and backstory, what players know and what characters know is different, is common. Like, deciding at the player level, hey I think it might be cool for our characters to be in a Gimli and Legolas thing, you think we can do that? Or hey, you want to know more about my backstory? My character actually didn't finish wizard school and here's some nice art I got commissioned. I rather not play any bickering, can we avoid that? Sure. Oh, my guy is lying about the ambush. Right, my character trusts you and sadly he will walk into it.

It has also been my experience that some people decide to avoid meta knowledge or want to be more surprised, so they don't ask for a lot of specifics. Like they'd rather to keep it at the level of, oh you're guy lies, but if he has a secret or whatever, I rather be surprised, can you hold back. Oh, please don't read stat blocks or spell lists, let's not metagame. This is less common in my experience than the previous type of player table behavior.

I just recently learned that there is a step further, where people decide not to know about premises, class, backstory, or like that so to have a really genuine and sincere reaction. Avoid meta game knowledge, so don't say things like "I'm playing a Mastermind Rogue and going to lie a lot". Or don't pre-plan at all, just discover how things develop in the moment. Like, at most, just know what classes are so no double ups. Go in as unspoiled as possible so don't share like art inspiration or backstory. I am told this level has been the majority if not all the ways to run a TTRPG group. Which surprised me, because it felt on the level of method acting even though it is considered not.

What's the ratio of these things? It's all on a spectrum yes, but like I found the first way to be more common than the second, and the third is a bit new to me, but I think I can understand how it is fun? I am curious how uncommon the first table type is given that I am told that has not been encountered before.

Also, relatedly, do people play characters whose purposes are to die or suffer a bad fate? Like I play an unreasonable asshole, the party might leave them to die or whatever, and whether or not they survive is whatever, but I am here to have fun playing a mean bad guy and that bad guy gets their comeuppance because the NPCs or PCs had enough? I am told that is weird. Because to me, characters are playthings and they all have purposes when playing with them.

Does anyone know of any RPG-focused gaming conventions in the state of New York? I'm aware of the Central New York RPG Convention (https://cnyrpgcon.com/) but I'm having trouble finding other New York-based conventions. I'm also aware of conventions in neighboring New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, but I'm specifically interested in conventions throughout New York. When I was a kid I went to I-Con at Stonybrook in the 90's, but I hear it's different now and not really gaming focused, unless someone can confirm otherwise.

Thank you!

Hello, I came up with a setting idea for a game in wich an advanced alien race comes down to earth, infiltrates its institutions and eventually strands humanity to one last city. The main theme i was looking for is to give players a feeling of impotence and progression through sacrifices (like the deals with devils in Chainsaw Man or the cyberware that may lead you to cyberpsychosis in Cyberpunk) making levelling up more of a necessary evil than a reward.
I would like to keep the genre sci-fi (cyberpunk or mechas) and/or urban fantasy. However I am mainly looking for systems with a similar theme.
I have no problem about having to make heavy homebrew or system hacking, i like those aspects of GMing. So if you have any game suggestions please let me know