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Just out of a curiosity.

I've started asking players a slightly different question during character creation, and it's produced some of my favorite NPCs.

Not "Who would mourn your character if they died?"

Who would be genuinely inconvenienced if they just failed to show up tomorrow?

The distinction sounds silly, but I've found that it gets people thinking about their characters differently.

I was preparing a small-town mystery campaign and asked everyone this before our first session.

One player said his character helped an elderly neighbor carry firewood every few days. Another said she was supposed to cover the evening shift at her uncle's shop. The third had borrowed a horse and promised to return it by Thursday.

Nothing dramatic. No murdered parents, secret enemies, ancient prophecies or elaborate personal quests.

Just three people who had something to do next week.

A few sessions later, the party was considering staying another night in a dangerous area to investigate something.

The player with the horse suddenly said, "Shit, I told him I'd bring it back."

Everyone laughed, but then they actually started discussing whether they should send word back to town.

That was a completely unplanned bit of roleplaying, and I loved it.

I've noticed that characters with enormous tragic backstories can sometimes feel weirdly disconnected from the world they're actually adventuring in. Their entire past is important, but nobody in the present seems to expect anything from them.

Meanwhile, giving a character an ordinary obligation immediately suggests that they existed before session one and will continue to exist between adventures.

I don't use these obligations as surprise punishments. If someone says their character promised to help repair a roof, I'm not going to burn down the village because they missed an afternoon.

It's more about making the world feel like it has a place for them that isn't reserved exclusively for heroic deeds.

And honestly, "Who is expecting you on Thursday?" has given me more usable material than several pages of backstory ever did.

I'm curious whether other GMs deliberately create these kinds of mundane connections, or whether you prefer to let them emerge naturally during play.

So, as a preface, I usually really strongly dislike prewritten adventure modules - I struggle reading through and prepping them, and get a lot of anxiety around keeping things 'on track', so I've generally shied away from the big, linear adventures you see for games like Pathfinder.

There is however, one format that seems to mentally work a lot better for me, which is what the OSR game Mausritter uses for its boxed sets like The Estate or the upcoming Junk City, along with some 3rd party offerings that follow the same formula - a central campaign booklet (8-36 pages in Mausritter's cases) outlining the main premise and overarching location, its factions, and the like, with various smaller adventures keyed to specific locations throughout the area, each basically a three-panel pamphlet.

That feels a lot more digestible and flexible to me, without feeling like there's any one prescribed way for things to unfold. I want more of that!

(I know the key word here is 'sandbox', but I've struggled trying to read some ...traditionally-written sandboxes before - I'm not particularly eager to try running Kingmaker).

The question is - do any other games structure their modules in a comparable way? I'd love to know of anything similar - it doesn't have to be the same form factor of booklets and pamphlets, but a clear framework for short adventures that add up to a larger narrative sounds really enticing!

I suck at running heists. I've even tried to run blades in the dark but I just suck at designing heists and they often devolve into unexciting skill checks. Clearly I'm missing some structure or template for them.

Are there any GM books that talk about that. For example, I love the way the mothership GM manual talks about designing horror adventures.

I'm about to run a heist session in nimble (arasaka raid cyberpunk iykwim)

Hi guys,

I'm looking for a roll20 map of New York City (the single citys parts or a complete map, both would be fine). Does anyone has something like this already?

Hey all. I'm looking for systems that suit a particular playstyle. Specifically I'd like a system that could support fantasy adventures, like questing and monster slaying and such, but without forcing a power curve that ends in "fight god" like 5e does. Some suggestions I've heard include 7th Sea and Ryuutama, but I'd like to get some more options to look into as 7th Sea looks a bit more pulp than I'd like and Ryuutama is a bit too cutesy.

To preface this I should explain that I am more looking for a system that would need absolutely no computers or tech at the table, but still be crunchy enough for that to be fun. I have no issue with making things for my table and I am hoping for any input to find some streamlined system that is easy to play and run, but has some crunch for the players.

I make a lot of things for my games, so I absolutely wouldn't be against making things like a player sheet booklet like I’ve done for D&D, Nimble and 2D20 Fallout.

I'm working on an attack on titan inspired world for a ttrpg for my friends where floating wooden giants called Idols are attempting to destroy all of humanity. The only way to fight these entities is to slice through the exposed muscles that are very slightly visible through their joints. This is accomplished with swords and other slashing weapons while flying with a large beetle strapped to your back.

The destruction of their limbs severs the Idols from the psychic winds and causes them to fall to the ground where the sands consume them whole. The sands are strange themselves. Their consistency is like tar; near thick enough to stand upon, yet consistently swallowing anything that crosses it. People need to traverse from the oases by airship to avoid falling in.

While they have their many hands, the Idols can use psychic magic against the humans to do as little as sense the presence of humans and other living creatures to as much as erasing entire cities by blasting them with a vorpal sandstorm.

The point of the mini-campaign would be to hunt down one of these Idols and destroy it. It would be a minor entity and hopefully if the gane goes okay it'll open an opportunity for a longer campaign.

I'm thinking of using either a mork borg style system or maybe a blades in the dark system. Not really sure which would be better honestly or if either would really work.

I guess my question is what would be a good system for something like this? I can't find any Attack on Titan good systems so that's a dead end. I'm more looking for something that can be used for large enemies and maybe has limb targeting. Horror theming might be cool too, but that may be secondary.

I have been looking for a good spy rpg ever since watching Andor and was lucky enough to find several The Spy Game books in a charity shop. It's great but very action hero-y and I was looking for something a bit darker.
Heard someone mention Delta Green in a different thread (which would actually be perfect for running a The Secret World based game) but I'm looking for something that isn't supernatural based.

I'm not sure if I'm actually looking for an RPG in this case or if what I want is closer to a board game, but I figured I'd ask here anyway.

Do you guys know of any RPGs or dungeon crawlers where progression comes from learning more about the dungeon or the game itself as you play, rather than through character leveling?

I did something similar in one of my campaigns once. I created my own script for an ancient language, and my players had to decipher it using context clues they discovered throughout the campaign. By piecing everything together, they were eventually able to figure out what was really going on and how to defeat the final boss.

I know this kind of thing isn't for everyone, since it essentially shifts the mystery-solving aspect from the characters to the players themselves. It doesn't really matter how intelligent their characters are if the players can't figure things out on their own. However, my players absolutely loved it, so now I'm looking for something similar.

Are there any prewritten dungeons or modules that use this kind of knowledge-based, meta-progression? Alternatively, are there any RPGs built around this concept?

Forever GM by choice here. My current long term campaign is on break and nearing the final levels, so I'm looking towards my next. I've always been more in to SciFi than Fantasy, so that's where I'm looking. If I'm pouring my energy in to another long term campaign, I want the perfect system. But that's where I'm running in to problems.

The main things I'm looking for are:
1. Interesting combat, something deeper than "roll to shoot" then end turn.
2. Character building with meaningful choices every level, that doesn't kill you before Level 1.
3. Weapon customisation like suppressors, holographic sights and extended mags.
4. Decent variety of conventional weapons rather than wall to wall energy weapons.
5. Not strictly tied to a single setting. I'm a chronic worldbuilder and like to run my own settings.

My current main option is Star/Pathfinder. This hits the first 2 points dead on and I have some experience with the system. I have issues with point 3 and especially 4, but with system knowledge and a lot of time to prepare I'd look in to homebrewing some new weapons and customisation options. Point 5 is easy enough outside of the minor effort to pick a Deity list.

Another game I've played is Fallout2d20. The combat is interesting with Called Shots and Action Points, the character building is solid for a classless system and the gear customisation is fantastic. But running anything other than Fallout requires reskinning the entire game from top to bottom, without mentioning the range system. So this one isn't an option but might give some context, hopefully.

Many of the games I've found with solid weapons have puddle deep combat disguised by being "hyper lethal". But I want to run something combat heavy, with planet hopping mercenaries/adventurers, not a game where combat must be avoided at all costs. I've looked through the suggestion list and from the rules I've managed to find nothing has jumped out. Which is really the main problem, there are many good and highly recommended SciFi RPGs out there that don't fit my awkward preferences.

I'm fully prepared to be told there's nothing out there that fits 100% and Starfinder is close enough to my ideal system. But I have to ask, am I missing something?

Thanks for any help.