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While I DM for my friend group and am trying to do some DMing on YouTube, I have read through more then a few campaign/adventures. I have found that I just truly enjoyed reading through a few adventure paths just as much as reading a novel/book, if I DM them for a group or not.

Which campaign/adventure (any system) was your favorite to just read through? Excluding how great it was to play, what was just enjoyable to read through?

Thanks.

Oh, Pendragon, how long I awaited for you, beloved. I think I got this starter set about a year and a half ago and I had a couple of unsuccessful attempts to put together a group in order to run the game. But, finally, a couple of weeks ago, the planets alligned and the Lady of the Lake smiled upon me and I was finally able to run the starter set!

And it was an absolute blast! I was always a big fan of the legends of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table and I constantly heard how Pendragon is one of the best TTRPGs out there. And finally, I can say that I see why that is the case. The system is elegant, fun, the mechanics flow together very nicely and manage to encourage roleplay in a very simple fashion - the more you describe how you do a certain thing, the easier it becomes (of course, up to a certain level).

The Starter Set is an amazing point to try out Pendragon and it more then makes up the value of its cost! Truth be told, I feel like it's somewhat of a steal, with dice, superbly illustrated characters, combat cards and of course the three booklets. But more about that in the actual review, now if you'll excuse me, I have to look for the corebooks!

This has been a question poking at me since I've started playing tabletop games, and has persisted even as I've run my own and continued to keep it secret. The only two reasons I can think of are to fudge health and to "keep immersion," the latter of which sounds like a flimsy excuse when players actively discuss their own HP levels. Is there a reason you do it? And if you don't, have you noticed a difference in how your players act?

This question is inspired by Zach the Bold's video on TPKs.

It can either be systems that have you roll multiple dice at once, systems that ask you to do a lot of dice rolls, or both.

I'm a father of two, and have very few time.

I'm a huge lore nerd, love reading and writing.

Have been getting bored of video games lately, and started looking into not so digital experiences. Eventually, RPGs came into my radar.

I played a one shot session once and really liked it. However, currently, it's hard for me to have time to play.

So, any suggestions for me to start getting into it? Not sure if this is silly, but are there alternatives? Lore books, litRPG for lonely sessions?

Thanks!

So I run an online D&D game on Thursdays. Last Thursday I got some terrible news(My cat was having surgery related complications and didn't have long.), notified my players and left. I am however worried that it will adversely affect me due to associating the game with what happened and get me a severe burnout. Honestly I don't even want to start up the server at the moment but we have a session scheduled this Thursday. The game has been going for months so I don't want it to die out. If anyone had something similar happen could you give me advise on how to get back to GM'ing that game?

Currently, I'm planning for a future campaign I wish to run for some friends, and the options I've given them are either traditional sci-fi or a mecha campaign. My plan is to create a custom setting that can feature both these genres depending on what they want to play. To help explain what I mean, my current plan is to run The Space Hack or The Mecha Hack depending on what they want, then if they wish to play the other system I'll use the same setting. Ideally, the systems should be able to have a custom setting and be of similar complexity.

The systems don't need to be identical like the above example. They just need to match the other criteria. Also, if one system exists that has what I'm looking for, I'll also check that out. However, I dont need a system that allows you to swap between them, I'd the campaign to stick to one genre. Supplements for one game that matches the other genre is fine.

I've looked into GURPs but wasn't sure about any specific supplement. So if you know of any go ahead and recommend those.

If this sounds strange, I'll try to explain what I mean better when I get the chance.

Tl;Dr looking for system(s) that are either mecha or traditional space fairing sci-fi that I can use the same custom setting for.

I love the BRP system (Call of Cthulhu, Of Hearth and the Harrowing, Delta Green and so on) but I’ve yet to really find a decent sci-fi game that uses it.

I have an idea of running a multi-arch campaign that spans from Dark Ages Cthulhu to Call of Cthulhu to Delta Green to… well… 2300ad or so. As far as I’m aware there isn’t a sci-fi BRP product so I’m curious if the BRP book can handle that sort of thing appropriately or at the very least well enough for maybe 3-4 sessions.

Any help is much appreciated and if there is something that utilizes BRP and is sci-fi that I’ve completely looked over, by all means let me know! Thanks!

Brennan Lee Mulligan’s Dungeons and Dragons push is part of a wider trend using tabletop games for political action

Just before their election day, six Los Angeles city council candidates stood on stage at Hollywood’s Fonda Theatre. But they weren’t there for a debate or a black-tie gala. They were there to play Dungeons and Dragons.

Comedian Brennan Lee Mulligan guided the politicians through a short D&D campaign to defeat corporate villains and an evil dragon. Hundreds of enthusiastic fans in the crowd pledged additional donations up to $150 each to give the candidates what is called an “auto crit” for maximum damage to the dragon.

If this sounds like a bizarre merging of politics and play, organizers say it is not. “Most people want to be tapped and told how to help,” said Mulligan, a longtime DSA member and the dungeon master of D&D-themed hit YouTube series Critical Role and Dropout’s Dimension 20. “Then, lo and behold, there’s this new way to participate, bringing the platform I have to bear.”

The DSA-LA show raised $30,000 for the city’s primary election in June; five of the candidates onstage that night either won re-election or advanced to the general in November. The event is just one in a wider resistance movement by players of D&D and other tabletop role playing games (TTRPGs) against the current political climate – ICE raids, attacks on transgender rights and the rise of artificial intelligence. Over the past few years, groups across the country have been playing TTRPGs online and in person to raise money to develop games that express their frustration with the federal government and instruct people on how to help those most affected by its policies.

I'm weighing the pros and cons of giving my players blank maps for sites at the table rather than making them map everything themselves. Anyone have useful takes on this?

(If you're just going to cite Gygax or some old-school platitude about having a mapper at the table, stop here. I'm familiar with that discourse and it's not particularly insightful. More interested in pros/cons based on your table experience, not traditionalist litanies).

For context, we're playing something OSR-adjacent that involves delving into unknown sites but isn't a grognard dungeon crawl. The rooms are irregular and don't map neatly to a 10' x 10' grid, which makes explaining the layout to players a pain. OTOH, I don't want to spoil things in advance and it's plausible that NPCs give them at least a vague understanding of the site before entering.

I’ve never played V:TM but I bought the 5th edition core book in hopes to. The 2004 V:TM - Bloodlines video game drew me into the setting. I have a lot of experience with TTRPGs, although mostly D20 systems.

Since this is something that I will be subjecting my friend group to, I will of course have to GM it. I don’t consider myself a good GM, but I’m trying to improve. I’m currently running a D&D 5th edition campaign (Curse of Strahd) every other week.

Do I need to read the core book front to back, or is there a sort of suggested reading list? It’s fine if I do; I’ve just never learned a game from scratch without the help of a group and I don’t know if the core book is organized in such a way that that’s how I’m meant to approach it.

Do you have recommendations for a module I could run? It feels intimidating to try to come up with a homebrew in a setting that I’m less familiar with, especially one centered around politicking and intrigue. For comparison, in D&D, you could come up with a MacGuffin and a BBEG and get moving. You can also rely on combat to take up a lot more of a session. For these reasons I think I’d feel a lot more comfortable running a module.

Anything else I should know as a newbie?