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So this is a bit of a complaint based on something I observed but also something that needs to be discussed in my opinion.

In a lot of TTRPG shorts I hear about a player overcoming an obstacle by doing something that is later revealed to be part of a master plan. The most classic example is wizard asking to make someone a magical sword and then casting polymorph but there are many examples like a player constantly putting glyphs of warding on something to create a mini nuke and surprising the GM or doing a wordplay with a fae or a devil that the GM fails to see.

These scenarios ignore the fact that the GM has to know a players intent to make their plan part of the game. Yes I the GM missed the cue about the sword but if your character was planning to do that then it would be a deception roll to avoid the NPC feeling something is off. As a GM I may not have realized you built a nuke but a wizard using detect magic definitely will. I as the GM am not well versed with word plays but the devil blocking the way definitely is.

The point here is this. The fact that I'm dumb does not make an NPC dumb and I am going to be pissed if you try to trick me as the person instead of the NPC. As such if you have a master plan then declare what you're going for.

I often have heard people dismissing D&D 4e by saying "its a MMO Tabletop RPG", a Videogame trying to be a TTRPG.

So I then bit the bullet and did a quick overlook through its pages, and I found some stuff that I can understand it turning people away:

• Mechanics with little flavor text
• Squares instead of Feets or Meters
• Classifications like "At-Will", "Per Encounter", "Daily" and other more gamey terms

But funnily enough, I also found some of these things in other games like 13th Age, so it isn't necessarily just a "Oops! Sorry, this will never happen again :3" and more so a "Its not everyones cup of tea, but other LOVE IT".

I for example, comming from a background of videogames & boardgames first, am very okay with most of these more gamefied mechanics, so long it makes for a good game, I'm okay! But even then, I prefer exact distances in Meters or abstract one like "Near/Far" or "behind the boulder/above the tree" over measuring everything in fictional quantities like Squares.

As a GM for 8+ years, I've grown to dislike D&D a lot. While I love running other TTRPG systems, D&D always feels like it's built against me having fun. It's like I have to take the system into my own hands and push against it in order to enjoy the system. That being said, this isn't just a venting post to spread D&D hate. I'm more interested in the GMs who really like or love D&D. I genuinely want to better understand what parts of the game keeps GMs coming back.

What do you love about the system specifically? Why do you run D&D over other systems? Do you ever get that "pushing against the system" feeling?

I’ve read Warlock! Traitor’s Edition and I really like its flavour, the alternative approach to professions, and its simplicity.

From reading the core rulebook, it seems to be an OSR game and, as far as I understand, it draws heavily on Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

However, it seems to me that the game doesn’t really provide any specific guidance on how it is meant to be played.

Since I particularly enjoy dungeon crawling, I was wondering whether the game could work well with this style of play, even though it doesn’t seem to have specific rules for resource management, dungeon encounters, and so on.

Do any of you have experience using the game this way?

Picked this up the other day and immediately fell in love - full of my kind of whimsy and fun. For those unaware it's a relatively small megadungeon that has the vibe of a french haunted halloween mansion castle. Think skeletons playing poker, talking portraits, ghostly bartenders, that kind of thing.

The one thing I can't figure out is what system to use. I'm looking for an OSR system that'll functionally be plug and play. However, my issue is the class fantasy. I'd want to run this in 17th century France, meaning no magic and humans only. It seems most OSR systems are set up in a more classical D&D-verse. Does anyone have any recommendations for something that'll fit the fantasy closer?

I want to lead with the fact that I know I must be doing something stupid or wrong.

The general idea (rumor, request, whatever) "hey, there's a mysterious animal over there, go find it." is a super common trope. But I can't find any good examples of published (small) adventures about it.

You know; "there's a unicorn in the woods", "there's a white stag over in Dunbar", "the irrigation canals have an alligator with a scorpion tail", "a poodle exhaling blue sparkles has been repeatedly reported in the Upper City".

I've tried adventurelookup, drivethrough, and tenfootpole, as well as generic web searching.

My needs are narrow. Low level, fantasy, and the animal shouldn't be especially aggressive (more mystery and less stopping destruction). But all I really need is a framework to hack, so an adventure doesn't need to fit my needs. OSR for preference, but my needs are less mechanical and more conceptual.

What I most wanted, what has been my mental block in creating it out of whole cloth, is ideas about clues or encounters the party can have while searching. So they can narrow the area, triangulate, or deduce its home.

My location is a suburb ish kind of place. Houses and trees, so a city or wild adventure might have useful things for me to work with.

What ideas I DO have: sightings/witnesses. paw prints. poop. I know the area it is in, and I know which building it is connected to.

What I don't know is how to make most of these parts actually work. Especially the witnesses. And I also don't know what I might be missing. And I don't know how it all fits together from a player perspective.

I am specifically talking about one shots at conventions, events, rpg clubs and stuff like that (no matter which system). It's not an issue at my own table and if it was, I could just talk to my friends about it.

But I have noticed that no matter what kind of character I am given (or quickly roll up) for one shots with strangers, I always end up playing the straight man to the bit. I don't mind that in principle, but being chaotic is fun and I'd love to do it at least some of the time. One shots are often a good opportunity for hightened chaos and comedy compared to a long term campaign in my experience, and I have played funny/chaotic/wild characters before. It's not like I can't do that.

It just seems like everybody else always goes off the rails harder and faster than I can, and I get kind of forced into the role of the sensible one. Because somebody needs to do it, right? Somebody needs to gently get the group back on track so that the adventure can happen, and somebody needs to be exasperated at the crazy antics of the chaos gremlins, that makes it funnier.

I've tried simply not doing it and just also being chaotic, but it ended up being less fun and almost kind of... awkward. People would comment "wow I wouldn't have expected your character to also be this stupid" or "that seems more like something [other character] would do". It felt like everybody had just already decided that my character is the one with the brain cell, or the group mom, or whatever you want to call it. Even if I intended to play a totally different kind of character.

And look, maybe this happens to me because of some trait I have that isn't just the fact that I'm a woman. (Like, I've heard that people with more GM experience often tend to be the character that keeps the plot moving when they are players, and I have done a lot of GMing.) But I do think it's probably partially because I'm a woman.

Has anybody else also felt like this? Do you have any ideas how I could try to counteract this trend?

I have love for this game, I've run it two or three times and played once. I really enjoy the ideas, the vibes and the story focused mechanics.

However. I have no idea how to run delves procedurally. It always feels either railroady or too vague. Besides ideas to better express the travels, how can I make the delving and exploration more concrete in terms of game mechanics? I've felt my players are lost about what they are supposed to do.

I get the feel that the delve is basically a creature and the exploration is like fighting the road. But I'm looking for tips to make it work better.

By that I mean that a lot of players naturally feel quite attached to their characters, and so death and the prospect of having to make a new one from scratch can be a turn-off from certain systems. What can one do to ease them into it? An idea I had was asking the players to think about three broadly-defined characters, instead of a detailed singular PC, and that group would be their cast of PCs ready to rotate whenever one of them bites the dust.

Has anyone played the Zombie Reign by Angry Engine Games? It is a copy of the Shadowdark Quick Start rules. I’ve never played a Shadowdark game. It looks like a lot of fun but before I join the kickstarter and get access to some of the material I wanted to know how it is.

Has anyone played it in a campaign formate? Was it good and did it offer fun player progression. I want my players to feel like they are growing and learning skills as they survive the Zombie Apocalypse. What do you like about it and what do you feel it is lacking?

I ran a 3 session starter campaign using the Breathless system. It was a lot of fun and worked great for the start of the Zombie Apocalypse. Where the players are just running and trying to escape the city of Detroit. I definitely recommend Breathless for an easy pick up and run a session or a small campaign. The problem is Breathless doesn’t really have a player progression like XP and skills. Like I said before, I want my players to gain skills and knowledge every time they survive.

I’ll also take suggestions on how to hack the Breathless system if you have any! I appreciate the help!!

Hi all,

Back in the early 90s played a hilarious one shot based around a group of adventurers being sent by Mordencainen on a little beach holiday. All I can remember of the adventure is,

I played a thief with no CHR who had the aim of having a "holiday romance" who had to woo female NPC with suitable pickup lines.

The Burly Paladin always standing next to me took all the attention though.

Another character had the goal of collecting as many souvenirs as possible including rolled rock candy.

We were attacked by deck chairs we sat in to enjoy the relaxing beach view.

At the end of the adventure Mordencainen confiscated all our treasures.

Would love to play it again if I can find the docs.

I was a player, not the DM and don't know what the source was.

Posting in the hope someone else recalls it or better yet, has a secret horde containing the character sheets and DM guide to it.

It was a one shot, this feels like a long shot.