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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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I’m going to be completely honest: I’ve been GMing since I was 14. I started back in 2014 with Werewolf: The Apocalypse 3rd Edition and Pathfinder 1e/D&D 3.5.

Back then, I could only play in person. Sure, we were kind of at the mercy of whoever owned the books, because that person usually became the GM. But games actually happened. As long as you didn’t end up with a tyrannical GM, groups could grow and stick together.

Since 2020, because of the pandemic, I moved mostly to online games. And to this day, I’ve only managed to form one stable online group. That group only exists because we became actual friends outside of RPGs too. We play online games together, we hang out in person, and so on.

Recently, though, scheduling became harder. On top of that, my group has been hyperfocused on World of Darkness. For context, the group has around six people total, and two of us are GMs. I was getting burned out on running WoD, so a friend took over as GM. I love being a player, but I also love GMing, and lately I’ve really wanted to run medieval fantasy again.

My main group didn’t want to play. That’s fine. Scheduling conflicts, WoD hyperfocus, I get it. So I thought: okay, I’ll find another group to GM for while I keep playing with my regular group on weekends.

But man, the lack of commitment online is brutal. And the D&D phenomenon is also rough to deal with.

First, nobody seems to want to actually form a group. Everyone wants to play exactly what they already want to play, and that’s fair, but it becomes frustrating. If I post a game with a specific premise and three people show interest, usually none of them seem genuinely invested. The game just dissolves.

But if I post the exact same premise and slap “D&D 5e” on it, or even “custom system,” suddenly I get flooded with replies asking if there are spots open. I’ve literally had application forms get around 50 responses in two days. And that makes it feel like a lot of people are there 100% for the system, not for the actual premise. They’ll play anything as long as it’s in that system.

I swear I’m past my “angry at 5e” phase, but the difference is just brutal.

And then there are the weird, stubborn players. When I say weird, I don’t just mean “quirky character concept.” I mean stuff like posting a Curse of Strahd game and having someone insist that I should let them play a homebrew race and class they created based on magical paintings and sculptures. And no, they won’t accept playing an Artificer with reflavoring. It has to be their thing.

And even if, by some miracle, I do find committed and reasonable people and we finish a campaign, they usually don’t want to keep the group going afterward. The group just dissolves anyway.

The only real alternative I’ve seen is paid campaigns. With paid games, I usually get the best of both worlds: players are more committed, more respectful of my time, and more invested. But I feel bad charging. The effort I put into a free game and a paid game is the same. The quality is the same. The difference is that in one, people respect my time and enjoyment, and in the other, it often feels like they don’t care about me or the commitment at all.

This isn’t really a criticism of D&D, online play, or paid games. It’s just a vent about my own frustrating experience.

I guess I wanted to ask: do other online GMs go through this too? Because whenever I play with random people instead of my regular group, I always try to respect the GM religiously. I show up on time, I pay attention, I take the game seriously.

But it feels like players like that are rare. Most people just don’t seem to care.

Anyway, sorry for the long rant. I’m just frustrated at this point. I’m almost considering giving up GMing, something I’ve been doing for 12 years, because lately it has felt incredibly unrewarding. Either that, or I only run paid games from now on, which I also don’t really want to do, because I like the idea of keeping access to RPGs more open and democratic.

As a fan of TTRPG from first exposure, I’ve curious what folks’ favorite books are from a lore standpoint, regardless of system/setting. What (any why) stands out as material that really immersed you in its respective world and vision?

I've noticed this with almost everyone I've played with, including myself. The nicest, most calm person in the world becomes more bloodthirsty when they play; while the amount differs between players, everyone seems to be more prone to violence. Why is this?

So when I'm about to start a session 0 for a game, I usually go one of two routes: a premade module that I adapt OR collaborative world building in session 0 that everyone creates together so there's a lot of buy in.

I'd love to know more about how y'all do session 0 world building. Typically I'm looking for something that will give me a nice combination of: factions, important characters, locations, lore, and some central conflict.

In the past I've used The Quiet Year and I've also been interested in Grasping Nettles. Id love to hear what you do! I'm also checking out Microscope.

hi everyone! i wanted to know if there’s a good ttrpg for a campaign on the shorter side - maybe 15-20 sessions or so? my dm is looking to take a break between our current campaign and the next, and id like to get some more dming experience. i don’t want to run an entire long campaign, however, and don’t want to do a bunch of one shots.

we currently play dnd 5e, and we LOVE rp and character creation. a few of us also play VTM if that helps with our likes. i could just run a shorter dnd campaign but i think we’re interested in trying something new out!

thank you for the help!

I was assembling a short three shot for some tabletop acquaintances and one of me said something odd. She told me that her always DMs designs her characters for her, and she expected me to do the same. This struck me as odd. Has any of your players asked you to do this? She seemed to treat it as a pretty common thing, but I've never heard of anyone doing this? Is this just a thing some players prefer?

I have not played 5e much at all. Maybe I gave it a spin a few times when it first came out. And I've mostly only given Critical Role and what goes on there a slight glance. I get most of my rpg news from EnWorld newsletter, a couple other indie newsletters. R/rpg, and fees other subs, plus a couple YouTube channels and game designer colleagues on social media (mostly Facebook).

But when these huge Kickstarters happen in the D&D sphere, I start to wonder how such things get past me. Shouldn't I know that people play sci-fi with D&D to the tune of 16 million dollars? It seems so absurd.

Does 5e really play space well? Would you say it works better than combat fantasy?

I am looking for any campaign or adventure for first time GMs:

* Genre: Sci-fi (Space sci fi is preferable)

* System agnostic is preferable

* Something that is meant for not more than four pcs is preferable

* Not 5e based is preferable

* Players are new to rpgs too

Anything I need to add here to make it easy to give suggestions?

TIA

Hey all! I’ve been a GM for a few years now, whether that’s DMing D&D or running Call of Cthulhu, with some homebrew and side content here and there, too. I’d love to do some sci-fi games, but I frankly don’t know where to start.

I love the idea of a somewhat-grounded sci-fi approach, but still with fantastical elements. Think something like Xenoblade Chronicles X or Armored Core, or maybe even a more social/light-on-combat game that feels like Project Hail Mary, rather than gritty/dark sci-fi like Alien or, from my understanding of the series, The Expanse. I’d love to have alien races involved, and plenty of fantastical sci-fi elements (power armor, mechs, lasers, the like), and I’m even okay with some “magic” if it still feels sci-fi (biotics from Mass Effect are okay in my book for what I’m looking for, but I don’t really want to play Spelljammer, which I find is just D&D in space).

I’ve heard Lancer is good for mech games, and I’ve also heard Stars Without Number(?) thrown around a few times. I know there are some Star Wars games, too, which I’ve considered giving a try. I’ve also seen a very competent Mass Effect D&D 5e conversion, so I know there are a lot of sci-fi games out there. But everything I’ve seen mentioned has been from threads 5+ years old, so I just wanted to check: are there any others I should look out for? Anything else that’s new that I should keep an eye on to try?

I’m okay with some slightly crunchy rules if they make sense. But I’d rather not go full Warhammer, either.

Any suggestions are appreciated, though! I’m all ears!

I am subscribed at the free level to Chris Handforth's Patreon, and I just received the following message:

If you didn’t catch it today, we are working on Scion Third Edition! I say we, because your’s truly has wrangled his way into writing the Antagonists and Monsters - so yeah, that pretty freaking cool.

Not much in the way of details yet, but it will be a Storypath Ultra game, core will combine Origin and Hero, into one book, and it will feature ten Pantheons: Æsir, Bogovi, Deva, Loa, Kami, Netjer, Shen, Teotl, Theoi, Tuatha.

More than that, we are Fatebound not to say. But keep your eyes peeled and we hope to see you for crowdfunding in 2027!

So we are to receive Scion 3e some time in 2028 or 2029, using Storypath Ultra?

In light of the other thread about missing D&D, what things do you sometimes miss between different games (not D&D, because just no)?

• When I'm running or playing FitD games, I sometimes miss rolling for NPCs. It's a minor thing, and overall, the strength of the player rolls resolving the action means I don't miss it too much (at least I still get to roll dice sometimes when running FitD games, using fortune rolls).
• In Cortex, I sometimes miss the more freeform nature of Fate aspects. There are a lot of parallels between the two systems despite having somewhat different goals, but the dice and labels nature of creating assets hits a little different than Create Advantage.

Luckily, neither of those would cause me to change anything about those games. If I want to roll buckets of dice, I'll just play Cortex. If I want a whole bunch of narrative descriptors without having dice attached, I'll play Fate.