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I know I kinda talked about this before but now I kinda wonder if I'm some kind of coward for wanting to avoid RPGs themed around some inevitable downward spiral for either your character or society. Reflected in the mechanics by sanity, money, corruption, humanity, esc. But also in setting and lore, too. Doesn't a dystopia inherently assume we're all just slaves to history?

I feel like my perspective on life and the world is actually already pessimistic and nhilistic enough. Mildly fatalistic too, I think everything is cause and effect and that if a better world was possible, it would have happened already.

I’ve noticed that newer GMs sometimes put a lot of work into figuring out how to connect different adventures into a campaign. One thing that’s easy to overlook is that the adventures don’t actually need to be related.

I’ve been using a simple four adventure structure for this, mostly with published scenarios. Figured I’d share it here in case anyone finds it useful.
I find this works best with one-shots or short adventures that take no more than two sessions. The idea is to have a recurring element show up often enough for the players to remember it and notice how things are changing.

What I do is pick a recurring element and let it develop in the background of otherwise unrelated adventures.
It could be an NPC, a faction, an artifact, a cult, or even an entire kingdom. The important thing is that it doesn’t need to be central to the adventures themselves. Sometimes it’s just a conversation, a piece of information, or something the PCs happen to encounter.
I usually think of it as a short, four adventure arc.

In the first adventure, I introduce the element and give the players a reason to remember it. In the second, I show them another side of it, preferably something that changes how they understood it the first time. By the third, it starts affecting the PCs directly. Then I use a fourth adventure, usually something I write myself, to bring that element to the foreground and give the whole thing some kind of resolution.

For example, in Delta Green (it can also work on any investigation game), I’ve been using a recurring handler (basically the guy giving the PCs their missions).
He starts off as a fairly understanding guy, willing to overlook small mistakes and help the agents when things get complicated.
But as the campaign develops, they begin seeing another side of him. They discover that he has no problem abandoning agents he doesn’t trust when it serves his purposes. At first, those are other agents, people the PCs might not even know.
Then, during a later operation, the PCs find themselves in exactly that position. Suddenly, the guy who’s been helping them all along doesn’t seem quite so reliable.
That gives me enough material to eventually run an adventure centered around this character, where the PCs have to confront what they’ve learned about him and possibly the organization they work for.

For a medieval fantasy game, you could do something similar with an entire kingdom.
Maybe the PCs visit a kingdom that seems like a fairly decent place. In another adventure, they hear about people disappearing near its borders, or villages being abandoned. Later, someone they know ends up fleeing from that same kingdom, and the PCs discover its rulers are doing something pretty terrible.
By the fourth adventure, the kingdom itself becomes the problem. Maybe they get involved in a rebellion, confront whoever is responsible, or even decide that the kingdom has good reasons for what it’s doing.

You could do the same with a quest giver who keeps asking for help, a magical relic that keeps showing up in different places, or pretty much anything you can develop over several adventures.
The nice thing is that none of the published adventures need to be connected. I can run them largely as written, introduce a little information related to the meta plot here and there, and let the players build their own understanding of what’s happening.

It also keeps preparation manageable. PCs might die but the players still know the meta plot. I’m not planning some massive campaign with dozens of interconnected clues. I’m just developing one element across a few adventures until it becomes important enough to deserve its own scenario.
And of course it doesn’t have to be four adventures exactly. You could do it with three or six, or use an existing published adventure as the finale instead of writing your own.

One thing worth mentioning, especially for newer GMs, is that I’m not planning how the players will react to any of this. I’m just developing the element and introducing new information as the campaign goes on. What they decide to do about it is up to them.

Cheat sheet:

Adventure 1: Introduce the element

Adventure 2: Show another side of it. Challenge the players’ initial understanding

Adventure 3: Make its consequences personal. The PCs now have to deal with it directly

Adventure 4: Make the element the central conflict of the adventure

It’s a pretty simple way of building a short campaign out of published and homebrew adventures without forcing them into the same story.

I am completely new to RPG but a school counselor recommended NTYE to my 8yo and he was dying to play so I got it. We (me, my 8yo and 6yo) attempted the first recommended game and now I am SWEATING. If I wasn't trying to figure this out for him I would give up.

1. Can someone please explain to me how in the world you defeat the monsters? Is it their health that you have to get to zero? Is it that you have to roll the dice at the listed level as many times as their health says? So if its a level 3, health 3, you have to roll +3 three times? I just don't understand and I find the directions very unclear.
2. The tokens. When do these get used? Do they only get used if the characters want to "try harder"?
3. Can characters choose different actions? For example in the first story the game uses (the dragonsnot falls one) one kid wanted to look at the buttons on the random device thingy and the other wanted to just cross the bridge.....do I need to get them to work together or can they choose separate things?
4. How in the WORLD do you know if something needs to be rolled? My 6yo was going on and on about all of the things he was doing with his batmobile throughout the story (putting special grip tires on it, strapping it to his waist while crossing the bridge so it could turn into a parachute in case he fell, etc. etc. ). At what point do these things count as actions that need to be rolled?
5. At the end of the game during the celebration they each got one more "fun".....why? Do these carry into the next game or something?

Needless to say my kids were sorely disappointed when we finished the first game and it was 100% because of me and my skills. *facepalm*

I've been playing with my group for almost a year. We're playing a complex political intrigue sci-fi game using the SWN system. There are a LOT of moving parts, to the point where I'm shocked our DM is managing to keep track of it all. We even had to make our own fandom wiki to keep track of information.

NOW, my question: I'm the note-taker, and I'm in the process of consolidating/organizing it so we can actually figure out what the hell is going on. Aside from literally getting out a corkboard and red string, how would you organize this information so we, as the players, can start making sense of the big picture?

Currently, I have a lot of the info in a document. I thought about having a spreadsheet with all the info then having a column of "tags" to sort by (so, for example, we can filter info by anything that's about a specific organization and/or person). But I wanted to know if there was another, potentially better, tool or system you would use if you were doing this.

This campaign has been so much fun, and the mystery has been a huge part of that. We all want to give it the respect it deserves by putting the puzzle pieces together. But, man, there are so many pieces.

I've been collecting ttrpgs for about 7-8 years now and I haven't found a good bookshelf in my area that was large enough, strong enough, or affordable enough for me to display my ttrpgs on. Any suggestions? Preferably something easy to build or prebuilt and easy to move.

Would love some suggestions on a game for a more unqiue group of players.

I have a friend group of creatives (authors, etc) who want to try a tabletop, but are less interested in the combat aspects and more interested in the roleplaying/story telling aspects. I can obviously just run a story heavy/combat lite oneshot in dnd/pathfinder, but I'm curious if there are any systems that would be accesible to newer players (obviously with me boning up on the rules and helping) that were less combat focused that you would recommend?

I picked up the starter set and was hoping to play it with a few friends that have played ttRPGs before but aren't what I'd call hardcore tabletop players. So far it seems a bit...overly gamey?

I'm wondering what the general opinions on it are and the big pros/cons for new-ish tabletop players.

Hello,

I'm a bit at my wits end and am seeking advice. I've been playing pf2e for almost 2 years now, and I don't like it, but I've stuck with it because my players really like it. I have finally hit a wall, and I need out of this system and would like advice of people who have more experience with different systems to help me find one that checks a few boxes.

My needs are:

A system that is not 100% combat focused, I like hazards and traps mean something something and having last effects on a dungeons experience, as well as travel to and from dungeons mean something with good resource management systems in place, although I can (and have) homebrew those, as PF2e has one of the worst overland systems I've ever seen in a game.

Rules for complex things, but doesn't stand in the way of improving. My biggest gripe with pf2e is the over abundance of rules that cover every inch of the game, but then nearly aimless improv rules for dc's and tests that step on the toes of the other half of the game and provide little to no guidance on how to use them effectively.

Games that do not expect a "magic shop". I don't like magic items being the norm in games, i like them to be special and be the target of players when they hear rumors of them. Like Sting, or Glamdring, not +1 long sword that you get at the local general store.

My players needs are:

Deep character customization that goes beyond combat, one of the big pros of Pf2e is the character creation for them.

grid play friendly, none of them have the ability to imagine 3d space, and using ranges is useless. I've tried.

Characters are not expendable, they like to have the same character for a long time and build a story around one pc.

I know this might be an impossible system, but I've looked and looked and have failed, but was wondering if anyone had some insight.

Making a campaign set in an archipelago of 6 (previously 7) island that for some unknown reason that to "sail" through the ocean, where after the capital disappeared, a war started for 100 years. They are in a quick explanation of each island:

- The Vortex: Previously "Clear Skies Island", it sank into the ocean one day and left a gateway to the Underworld in it's place, pouring demons and momsters out of it.

- Capital Island: Capital of the Empire, when The Vortex opened, they island sailed into the horizon to be never seen for 100 years, only now returning.

- Dead Island: tried to rebel against the empire on the past, lost, became a social pariah and official cemetery of the empire. When the cataclysm happened, they used necromancy to gain a fighting chance, though they are more defensive and open to conversations.

- Frozen Sea Island: Previously "7 Waters Island", it's home of many arcane discoveries in the empire. When the cataclysm hit, an earthquake slit the island into many part, only surviving by freezing the entire place together. They now venture into the other islands in search of magic items to prosper their land.

- Iron Forge Island: Mainland of craftsman, blacksmiths and commerce guilds, a now half normal/half frozen volcanic island have a forceful occupation from the Frozen Sea Island over the crafting of magical items.

- Desolate Island: First Island to fall in the war for succession of the imperial throne. Know a place full of ruins, refugees, pirates, but also diplomats and aspiring adventurers as the island now serves as a neutral ground in the war.

- Monster Island: First island to be taken over by the monsters of The Vortex. So grand were the dangers that now most sane citizens live in the neighboring, smaller islands or in makeshift floating villages in the sea.

Now, after 100 years, the Emperor returns and announces a Grand Group Tournament with a yet to be disclosed prize. However, I still need to create factions to make each place feel more lived in.

The group will start and do its first main quest in the neutral grounds of the Desolate Island. Which factions from what I described could be a good fit in the isle and how many should I develop?

Edit:

In general, I plan on making factions on the following framework:

1. What they WANT (General + Specific)

2. What they DON'T WANT (General + Specific)

3. What is STOPPING them from getting what they want.

4. 1 to 3 Important NPCs (with Wants, Avoids, A Secret and A Inconsistency)

My favorite kind of police procedural story is the kind where you have a cop sent to a small town for a case, and throughout his investigation he has to dig the dirty little secrets of all the inhabitants ; and the inhabitants are either weirdoes or hide a dark secret. Such examples of this kind of story are : Twin Peaks, Deadly Premonition, True Detective, Midsommer Murders and Broadchurch.

I was wondering if there has been a scenario or premade campaign made to emulate this brand of police procedural?

A warning however, I really really want to stress out the fact that I AM NOT looking for a system, nor a set of rules, nor a hack ; what I am looking for is what we could call a "premade campaign" which is a book with ready to play scenarios and locations descriptions. Such examples that come to mind are "The Masks of Nyarlathotep" though it's not the kind of stuff I want, it is a good example of a prewitten campaign. I repeat, I'm not looking for rules, I'm looking for a premade campaign.

Do you know any kind of premade campaign that would fit this style? It can have supernatural or not, I can like both, also I would really prefer the setting to be a small town but I guess I can accept a big city if it's the only thing available.

I've been playing D&D with my son and partner and I really think they'd enjoy a survival crafting type thing, but nothing too brutal. Mostly just the fantasy of being stranded and crafting and surviving and building a base. Yes, he's very into minecraft. Alot of them seem to lean into postapocalypse, horror, or brutal survival. Anything like this?