**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.

----------

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

Is the Ranger really this esoteric to make work? Is it that they try to put too much into it at once? It can't only be because "too few rules for exploration". So what is it? What even is a Ranger? Is it:

- Bow fighter?

- Nature explorer?

- Beast master?

- Dual wielder?

- Pseudo-druid/Druidic paladin?

- Expert hunter?

- Scouting captain?

- All of the above!?

Look, I love Rangers thanks to two things: the Ranger's Apprentice books + the Monster Hunter games, so I know what I want out of a Ranger, but even then it seems that NO ONE CAN AGREE ON A SINGLE STANDARD RANGER FANTASY IN D&D!!!

However, games like Pathfinder 2e, Daggerheart, Fabula Ultima, Tormenta20, amongst other seems to get it better, even if they aren't exactly what I want 100% (but they are 90% close). So why??????

I've been working on creating a Homebrew and realized suddenly that the old movie The Guns of Navarone is actually a quest set in WWII. An elite and varied group sets out to target a Nazi missile site on a Greek island.

Narrative and rules lite RPGs are as successful as always and there seems to be a new wave of tactical RPGs. However, I haven't heard anything about new simulationist RPGs. So, I am wondering what new and upcoming simulationist systems there is.

it seems like all the popular cosmic horror ttrpgs are in the Cthulhu mythos or single player journaling rpgs . I love kult but it doesn’t work for all kinds of stories I want to tell

I love the genre and I love the zone and have played it before but I’m looking for something more traditional. looked into delta green but mechanically it’s not my groups thing

Gary Gygax made Appendix N because he wanted to share all the books he loved as a kid.

Finding kids fantasy books to pull my kids into reading and RPGs was a fun and at times challenging journey, and I wanted to share. Here’s the full list of beloved fantasy books currently on my kids shelves:

In rough order of age, starting with 4-5 years and ending at age 10:

Nobody Likes a Goblin (and other books by Ben Hatke)
Dog Man series by Dav Pilkey.
Max and the Midknights by Pierce
Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey
Hamster Princess by Ursula Vernon (T. Kingfisher)
Dragon Masters
Kingdom of Wrenly
Notebook of Doom series
The Magical Unicorn Society
D'Aulaires Book of Norse Myths // Greek Myths
Mythical Beast and Magical Creatures (DK)
Dungeons & Dragons: Behold!
Agents of S.U.I.T
Hilo series
Dragon Kingdom (of Wrenly)
The Mouse Guard series
Cardboard Kingdom
Mighty Jack // Zita the Spacegirl series
Hilda series
Dreamjumper
My Big Fate Zombie Goldfish
Lightfall
Dragonbreath
Monsters Beware!
Dungeoneer Adventures
Rickety Stitch series
Avatar the Last Airbender (comic books)
Quest Kids
Greeking Out
Minecraft books (nonfiction and fiction)
Fart Quest (mixed words)
Lightning Thief (graphic novel)
Wings of Fire
Beasts and Behemoths (D&D gamebook)
Tomb of the Everstar Sisterhood (CYOA) by Sersa Victory
Complete the Quest series (CYOA)
Mystery Under Magi-Mart (CYOA)
Amulet series
Witches of Brooklyn
Hooky
Okay Witch

Books we read to them (at first, at least):

The Wizard of Oz (novels)
The Tale of Despereaux
Tuesdays at the Castle
My Neighbor Totoro (novel)
The Superpower Field Guide: Moles (nonfiction series)
Dragonsinger by A. McCaffery
Ms. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Howl’s Moving Castle
The Bartimaeus Trilogy
Impossible Creatures
Just So Stories
The Hobbit (illustrated novel)
Harry Potter series (illustrated novels): a gift from family.
The Rithmatist by B. Sanderson

if you want our family’s takes on each book (with pictures), check out the post on my (ad-free) homepage, linked below. there are no referral links to the books, this was a labor of love. if you can’t find them with google, please comment and I will post a link.

[https://dreamshrike.blogspot.com/2026/06/my-childrens-appendix-n-fantasy-book.html\](https://dreamshrike.blogspot.com/2026/06/my-childrens-appendix-n-fantasy-book.html)

If you have wonderful ones I have missed, or recommendations for ages 11-14, please comment—it would be awesome to make a living book list for RPG parents for years to come.

Not fantasy dressed up as history, an actual documented event, squeezed into one session.

Liudprand of Cremona’s disaster of an embassy to Constantinople in 968 is one I keep thinking about.

Guy gets humiliated by the Byzantine court, they even take his robes off him, and he goes home and writes this furious account of the whole trip. Could run it as pure court intrigue, nobody draws a weapon.

Dallas motorcade, Nov 22 1963, but not the shooting, it’s about the hour after. Everyone’s got half the story and there’s no way to check it.

Iranian Embassy siege, London 1980. Six days before the SAS finally went in. I remember being a kid annoyed that the John Wayne film got cut off for the newsflash. Could run the whole thing from the negotiator’s side, door stays shut the entire session.

Berlin Airlift too if anyone wants something slower. No fight at all, just whether the numbers add up before winter hits.

What’s your pick?

I’m looking to run a horror campaign for me and my friends (3 others) and really want to do something similar to the podcast “the white vault”, or the early episodes of “the Magnus archives”. I’m not a huge fan of space sci-fi or the more fantasy based horror games. I was hoping there’s something that feels like normal people trapped in a situation that is overwhelmingly out of their power, or more or less tap into that human fear of helplessness and the unknown while keeping it based largely in a non fantasy world. Lovecraftian is okay I just can’t find any that stick to being more realistic.
I’d really appreciate any recommendations or suggestions

HI, I'm interested in games with some influence from both of some people might call osr/nsr and storygame design trends.

By osr I'm thinking of mechanics like a focus on sandbox gameplay, player skill based problem solving and interesting situational abilities. While for storygames I'm thinking of stuff like group worldbuilding (or at least additions to the world), mechanics for character's relationships/goals, mixed successes (obviously these aren't really a comprehensive definition of either and they aren't exclusive to any, but they are the kind of things I'm trying to gesture towards).

Some good examples of what I'm thinking of are the Electrum Archive, His Majesty the Worm, Trophy Gold, Exile and Mythic Bastionland a bit (more ambiguous, but the myths and some of the knight abilities/passions are the kind of things I'm interested in) but I would love to hear about more if people have any other examples.

I’m looking for a rpg system for golden age style Batman stories. Something where Batman, Sandman, and the Shadow can vie with Clayface, Joker, etc. I want there to still be a chance a Tommy gun could take someone down

I've always been super intrigued by ttrpgs! I've been playing bg3 and listening to some d&d podcasts for a while(which I'm well aware greatly simplifies the actual work it takes to run/play a game). I recently bought a core set for Daggerheart because why not.

What are some super super basic tips? Obviously I have to read the guide but I want to know the basic things of playing a ttrpg in general. Like, how do you organize all this information you learn? I'm thinking of taking notes in the margins (with post its). Etcetera.

Sorry this is isnt very eloquent, I'm not so sure how to phrase my questions.

edit:

thank you guys for all the tips! this is honestly really stressing me out right now 😭. does anyone have any experience in a college environment playing ttrpgs?