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

You read a game, it sound amazing. You bring it to the table, it all falls apart.

What was that game for you and why did it failed? Do you think it was a misunderstanding, a mismatch in playstyle, bad design, wrong group or something else?

For me it was 7th Sea 2e. I really liked reading it and I was excited. But I think the design was weird and cumbersome to run, and I also didn't quite understand the pacing that the game was trying to do. I think it has good ideas, but a very bad execution in communicating how it should work. I also saw the actual play with the designer and I understood even less, so there's also that.

What was for you?

Lets say for the sake of argument that you travel back in time and show our modern ttrpg games to those players, would they enjoy how ttrpgs have evolved and been refined or would thiere be more push back with a feeling of how these ttrpgs would have been way to streamlined?

Im mostly curious over what drove the earliest players of ttrpgs players

obviously diffrent pepole diffrent tastes but just humour me

Public Service Announcement:

The purpose of kickstarter, and other crowdfunding sites like it, are to give creators enough money (and therefore time) to design their product, as well as fund other costs such as art and layout.

It is unreasonable to expect a designer to design the product for free, and to use Kickstarter only to pay for art, layout, or other logistical costs. Design is work. It deserves payment. If someone is on Kickstarter trying to sell a product, they're trying to go professional (by definition). It is unreasonable to expect them to create simply as a labor of love.

Big companies (like MCDM, Darrington Press, etc) have warped the public perception of what Kickstarter is by putting forward nearly finished products. This raises people's expectations for how far a Kickstarter project should be developed, which warps the perception of Kickstarter into just another storefront where people post their finished products.

This raises the bar so high that it alienates the very designers that Kickstarter was designed to help out: small creators.

Please support your small creators. If the idea sounds good and they have put fourth enough info to let you know that they are likely competent, they shouldn't be required to show any more than that.

It's called Kickstarter, not Kickfinisher.

Yes, that's risky. But it's supposed to be. This is the place for the brave to fund the future. Without us willing to take the risk, thousands of small creators will never share their new ideas with us. We're taking the risk for our own benefit, and that of the entire hobby.

If that's not for you, that's okay. But let's keep Kickstarter/crowdfunding serving its intended purpose: to fund projects from the beginning.

Thank you.

- Matthias

I got some special responses in my other thread. The questions are what are psionic/psychic powers and what are the differences between them and magic or super powers?

For me it depends on the setting but most of the time they have one or more of these abilities:

Telekinesis

Teleportation

Mind reading

Self augmentation

Self manipulation

Self healing

Telepathy

Mind strike

Mind manipulation

Empathy reading

Empathy manipulation

Mind shield

Extra sensory power (ESP)

The application of these powers is either passive (ex: ESP or Mind shield) or straight out of the mind (ex: Telekinesis). There is no need to use speaking words, gestures, and/or material components.

Psionics can be weak or strong depending on the setting. And some settings can even expand the self only abilities to other creatures.

I very much like them conceptually, and I’m a
fan of their video game counterparts (particularly JRPGs). But most of the few times I’ve played them I’ve felt a little lost and unsure if I want to continue. To be fair, I’ve never had someone properly “introduce” me to them, since the GM or whatever was rightfully always a bit busy setting things up and shepherding the other players. Most of my playing experiences have also been with groups I don’t know especially well (there were a few with actively difficult people, too). I want to like them, I especially want to get into them because I think I’d have a lot of fun designing my own ttrpgs or doing other homebrew stuff, I already like game design quite a bit.

I think part of my problem is that I’m not the best with group conversations, so I’m never quite sure when to speak up. I find it a little hard to manage the boundary between what’s said and done for the game and what’s said and done for one’s character. I also just feel a little bit lost or like I’m just going with the flow and have no control over anything- again probably because I never have time to get super acquainted with the actual workings of the game. I watch other people do absolutely crazy and stupid and fun stuff and I’m a little too in my head about using the ideal strategy (I know that the purpose probably is to make an entertaining story, not play a game well, though. Maybe it’s balanced?).

I should be reading up on the game I’m playing ahead of time, right? Not like other tabletop games where you read up on rules while playing for the first time.

Sorry for meandering wall of text.

Hi!

I love to play duet games (one player and GM). It's my favorite mode of play.

Some games, by their design, are harder to run with only one PC. All the D&D-related games that have an action economy tend to require a decent amount of tweaking to just not have the probabilities against you. There's ton of solutions.

But some games just naturally work as well if there's one PC or five. I've played a lot of Burning Wheel in duet.

Very recently, I bought Age of Vikings from Chaosium, which to my understanding is a BRP game. It is my first contact with both the publisher and the game system. I'm slowly reading through it, I'll probably be able to get a gut feeling for it by the end...

But I wanted to ask others! If anyone has experience specifically with Age of Vikings... do you see challenges or obstacles that would require tweaking so it'd run smoothly with only one PC? Is it easy to stat up companions NPC?

If not for Age of Vikings specifically, I'm also open to BRP testimonials!

Please advice! No fantastic elements — just a "real life" detective. Preferably set in Victorian England. And a good scenario (typical murder mystery) for it.

Someone will comment with something that's just silly or just absurd. I'm not looking for just absurd. I'm looking for full-on dada

If you're not sure what that is, here's a Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dada

UPDATE: I appreciate how many people in this thread truly understand dada

Hi folks! I'm a GM who has had alot of fun hosting fantasy and comedy rpgs. My girlfriend has always very sweetly supported me in the hobby, but has never had any interest in joining a session in part because she's not really comfortable in genre fiction (science fiction, fantasy, horror).

But then the other day I mentioned that there are historical RPGs with a much more grounded setting, and she's found a hint the idea intriguing, which makes me want to try out a more grounded/mundane game as a one-shot and she if she'd like to attend!

Thanks to this sub's Historical Game suggestions, I've got plenty of systems to read through for ideas, but I admit I'm a little in the dark about how to run a grounded TTRPG. I'm looking for any of the following:

• Tips for running a historical game.
• Stories for what your historical game was like.
• Recommendations for favorite systems or settings.

Any help is appreciated!

If it helps, my girlfriend's interests center around themes like exploration (think Darwin or the Corps of Discovery), women's stories, queer stories, and Victorian or Medieval settings. She'd probably be more tempted by games focused on relationships or discoveries, rather than combat, and I'm probably looking for very rules-light games that can make for easy one-shots.

​

Hey! I’m in a Fear & Hunger RPG session and my character is Ronn Chambara. I wanted some acting tips to better portray my character’s personality. Since I don’t have much information about him (from searching the wikis), I’d like someone else’s opinion/POV. I also think it would be interesting to compare his personality to a character from other, more well-known works to broaden my understanding!

I made up a simple tavern game. I'm wondering what you all think of it.

Princess and Dragon

Princess and Dragon is a two player dice rolling and betting, press your luck game. A denomination of coin to bet (cp, sp, gp, etc) is chosen. The players choose the roles of Princess and Dragon, and the game is played over two rounds with them swapping roles for the second round.

• Players ante 1 coin (2 coins in pot)
• The Princess rolls 1d4, the result sets the Spear Point
• The Dragon may then choose to Attack, and add another coin to the pot, (3 coins in the pot,) or fold and allow The Princess to claim the pot, ending the round
• If The Dragon chooses to Attack, The Princess may then choose to either Defend and call the bet (4 coins in the pot,) or fold.
• If The Princess folds, The Dragon claims the pot and the round ends.
• If The Princess Defends then the Dragon rolls 1d6
• Compare the result of The Dragon’s roll to the Spear Point, if the result is less than or equal to The Spear Point, The Princess wins the pot. If the result is higher than The Spear Point, the new roll becomes The Claw Point and play proceeds as above with the denomination of the die rolled increasing with each roll.
• Defending against higher level dice requires the defender to ante 2 coins, d10, d12, and d20. (Handy reminder double digit dice require 2 coins to defend)
• If the Dragon wants to Attack with the d20 they must bet 10 coins (The Princess can still Defend against this attack for 2 coins)