Come here and talk about anything!

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.

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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Just downloaded the Easy Mode version for this weekend's oneshot. I don't see the netrunner option or rule in it, so i think it's the developer's way of saying "yeah, netrunning is complicated, don't worry about that for now". I haven't read the original rulebook, so i must ask: Is netrunning/playing a netrunner really that bad/complicate? Is there a hack to simplify it?

As the title reads, what’s your favorite convention that you’ve attended?

I’m looking to expand my horizons and travel to a gaming convention this coming year. I’d love to hear the opinions of the sub on what conventions they found were worthwhile.

Specifically conventions that have some amount of their focus, dedicated to role-play games.

Any I should avoid? I considered GenCon but it seems quite massive and very… I don’t know… corporate? (tell me if this impression is not a fair critique.)

As in title. I ran "If looks could kill" for WFRP with somewhat doubtful attitude, since it's written as railroad and I didn't really have time to tinker with it... But it turned out fine! Players bought the premise and made it very memorable and fun session.

What would be your similar experiences?

Anyone know conventions, pickup games and more in Toronto? Looking to meet new friends, lots of systems I can GM as well!

All the events and cons discussed here seem to be in the states which I don't have a tourist visa to attend.

I'm a big fan of the book. And, while like most people, I was introduced to it through the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, I do like the approach of the book more than Stalker and the games that followed, inspired by it. Less violence. The anomalies are the danger, rather than it being a big all-out war zone like in every game inspired by them. I want to run an RPG like that.

However, as a GM, I don't know how to run anomalies. How to make them a fun and interesting challenge and roleplaying effort, facilitate the mystery of the unknown, help guide players to the typically nonsensical solutions that are common to bypassing anomalies like how stalkers do it in the book, and just generally making it not a chore for players.

I can run mysteries and combats all day but I need help and advice on how to run, essentially these mini puzzles but in an organic way that doesn't just feel like I'm saying "stop everyone! Time to puzzle. You cannot go around"

It's rare - but not impossible! - to find tabletop RPGs that have had music be specially made for them, whether for at-the-table listening or just as general mood-setting and inspiration.

• The D&D world of Eberron had a full soundtrack included on CD with the Sharn, City of Towers sourcebook back in the day.

• Heart: The City Beneath had an ambient soundtrack composed for it.

• The Wildsea has three different music albums by two different artists, (two albums being more folk-like and acoustic, one being more electronic and moody)

• Orbital had an electronic soundtrack composed for it, including theme songs for the different character playbooks and the setting aspects

• The Dark Sun-inspired RPG Dragon Kings was both a tabletop game and a music project, with the designers also being their own musicians.

There's probably more - I'd love to hear (about) them!

I run a game where we change systems every few months, typically playing 2-3 systems each year. I have a large list of games I want to try, but I also like the idea of "palate cleanser" system(s) in between new games to return to, as something familiar (traditional d20 fantasy) to the players, and lately I've been thinking of having that system share a setting to give more familiarity. The players will ideally be interacting with different nations in each campaign, and impacting their borders and leadership, in addition to dealing with typical fantasy monster threats. I'm just having a hard time picking a system for this.

Setting goals:

• Low power: I want the players involved in politics and troop movement, and I feel like if the players are superheroes they can solve a lot of problems themselves too easily. NPCs should still be dangerous and competent, both allies and enemies. Monsters should be dangerous and shouldn't become completely trivial as players get stronger.
• Many fantasy races: My players think its boring to play humans and give me a lot of grief when I restrict them, so I am hoping for the palate cleanser game to give some options. Even if it is just easy to homebrew new races. Bonus points (for me) for 'monstrous' races like Centaurs or Undead, but the classics need to be there.
• Post-apocalyptic: I feel like this is easy enough to homebrew with most systems overall, but the idea is that the population is recovering from the dissolution of a great civilization such as the Roman Empire. There are a lot of small nations struggling to survive and with few resources, causing conflict. Monsters are a threat because the governments are too small to completely remove them.

Mechanical goals:

• I want there to be enough variety in character creation/customization that players never feel like they are making the same choices when we return to the setting with a different character.
• I want the players to engage in politics/court and military operations beyond just being adventurers. Systems with rules that support this are welcome but I am confident I can run this with small amounts of homebrew if the rest of the game is not too complicated.
• Ideally the system won't require too much prep on my end or learning from the players. I know having a lot of character options can make a game more complicated, but I think the base rules can still be simple enough that teaching the game to players and adding some homebrew can be easy.

Some games I have already been considering, although I am open to more suggestions:

1. Pathfinder 2e - I've thought about this game over the past year as my palate cleanser because one of my players is really into the character building in it. On the GM end however I find the game to have a pretty steep cognitive load to run, and not all of my players have the same eagerness to play it. It also clashes with my low-power goals as the characters easily overpower old monsters as they level up. I'm aware it has alternative rules to lower player power but I'm not convinced it is enough.
2. Shadow of the Demon Lord - One of my favorite systems overall, it offers simple rules and a lot of character options, and the profession system would make it easy to tack on political or military leadership checks. It also has sanity and corruption rules which I think I could have a lot of fun with. I'm not sure if players get to be too strong as the game progresses, I've only played to around level 7 but one player had a spell that trivialized nearly every fight by forcing the enemy to take its own damage when it made an attack. The player who loves PF2e character creation also is pretty critical of SotDL in comparison.
3. Shadow of the Weird Wizard - This is Demon Lord with higher power, I think most of my players would enjoy it but it clashes with my goals.
4. Dragonbane - I almost got to run this a few months ago but it ended up being cancelled, so I don't have hands-on experience here. The power level seems perfect, and there are a variety of races and it seems like it would be easy to homebrew more. I think it would also be easy to add skills for politics and military leadership. My biggest concern here is character variety if we return to the system enough times, there aren't that many heroic skills and I think martial characters in particular might end up feeling very similar.
5. Legend of the Five Rings (5e) - This one is not a serious contender because it is almost completely about human characters and is also mechanically too 'weird' for me to use as the palate cleanser. However it has a lot of systems that lean into the kind of game I am looking for, with a strong focus on political and military drama, with rules for social conflict and massive battles. A lot of the homebrew I plan on doing is inspired by this game.

Open to any other suggestions or thoughts about the games I've already mentioned, especially people who have first-hand experience with Dragonbane.

A bad combination of fomo and a lack of enjoyment from my hobbies made me realize a simple fact: I have tried a lot of RPGs and played a lot of campaigns, but I really did enjoy only a few of them. Now, I don't have unlimited time, so I can't play everything (as much as I wish I could), so to solve this problem I thought about cutting the number of games, maybe join long campaigns instead of one shots and games I truly like or I want to try. Also, I'm mostly a GM, so here comes the second and most vexing problem: I put a level of effort in my games that a lot of people simply don't put and I've been told to. Now, this would be a good thing, but as a player I think I have too high of a standard, but I don't know what to do. Take my favourite game of all time, Vampire the Masquerade; I joined two short chronicles and I haven't enjoyed the first and I'm not enjoying the second because I don't like the way the GM does things. They're absolutely decent, but it's not my thing. I like a different style of VtM, a nice balance of intrigue, personal horror and combat, nothing too particular. I kinda feel guilty about it cause the GM is a nice person and is trying, but what can I do if it's not my style?

Hey, I have been in a few Cyberpunk Red servers and one of the had a "lc-ad", where living communities can advertise themselves. I am new to ttrpgs, especially the Online ones(never played online only irl), which is why this question cam to mind.

Mwah and Thanks for anybody who answers!

The tabletop industry was hit with some shocking news recently: Games Workshop completely cancelled its highly anticipated Necromunda Roleplay boxed set just weeks after its massive Autumn Preview marketing reveal.

I’m a satellite engineer who has been heavily invested in the hobby for decades, and this sudden reversal strikes me as an incredibly short-sighted blunder with real repercussions for both creative and financial reasons. I’ve sent a detailed breakdown of this to Games Workshop, and I wanted to get the perspective of the wider r/rpg community on some of the key points that I believe the issues boil down to.

From an industry perspective, GW is walking away from two massive opportunities:

1. Bridging the Wargaming/TTRPG Divide via First-Party Design: Historically, Games Workshop licenses their IPs out to third parties like Cubicle 7. While those games are excellent, they provide minimal incentive for players to buy and paint miniatures because they do not provide a direct link to physical models. Necromunda Roleplay was going to be a unique, first-party RPG with physical miniatures included directly in the box, pointing players to models tied to specific campaign modules, characters, and NPCs. It was a brilliant strategy to reach out to and onboard traditional roleplayers into the massive, physical modeling aspect of the hobby.
2. Cultivating a More Diverse Community: Games Workshop has been successful at capturing the core wargaming market, but continuing that momentum requires reaching out to new audiences. Tabletop wargaming by its nature carries a high barrier to entry that limits its demographic reach, whereas tabletop RPGs traditionally enjoy a much more diverse and balanced player base when it comes to gender and background. An official Necromunda Roleplay system would have served as the perfect cultural bridge—introducing a vast, diverse population of roleplayers to the physical hobby of collecting and painting miniatures, ultimately creating a more vibrant and varied global community. This would only fuel healthier, greater growth over the years to come.

Beyond the millions in wasted manufacturing and years of discarded creative labor, this cancellation sends a deeply frustrating message to the community: that the physical models are all that matter, while our actual means of engagement in the hobby are disposable. If Games Workshop sticks to this cancellation but simply repurposes and releases the Necromunda Roleplay miniatures as standalone skirmish kits, it will feel incredibly cynical. It signals to its employees that GW would sooner jarringly crush a project their hearts and souls were poured into in front of the entire world rather than take on the smallest of costs or risks. For many hobbyists who were eager for a supported, structural system, seeing a fully realized project stripped down for its plastic parts damages the trust required to invest in their future game systems, and sets a toxic precedent for a company that has never done this before. Moreover, sudden cancellations of fully realized, publicly announced products signal internal corporate instability to shareholders, and risk furthering long-term audience stagnation by catering exclusively to a wargamer demographic. I firmly believe they should undo this cancellation for all these reasons and more.

For those who follow industry trends, how often do you see a massive publisher pull a product this late in the pipeline? Do you agree that they should reconsider the cancellation, or what other course would you recommend?

They funded the new cypher system and while the main books are out the stretch goal books aren't. Since then, they have kickstarted 4 whole projects for cypher since then, each grabbing less money each time. The last one feels egregious because unlike the other setting books it is a stand alone book, something that alienated some people when the had the Numenera backerkit going. It feels like they are becoming Onyx path with so much promised material stacking up.