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Hopefully you all can help me figure out how to move forward with this.

I've been GMing since I was like 16, about as long as I've been into TTRPGs, and that's my own preference. I typically like GMing more than being a player and I've run plenty of different systems, some that I liked and some that I didn't. The issue is the constant demoralization when several players can't play so the session gets cancelled. This happens constantly no matter what system or people I invite. I always feel like a dang stooge for being the most invested in the game to just have another group of people need to cancel for one reason or another.

Then comes the second issue. Whenever something that affects the schedule out-of-game, it often falls on me to both address their problems and figure out when they can play, usually with little input from the rest of the group. I already work with kids at my job so this just feels like I never left my work.

I like GMing but I signed on for adventures and gameplay, not this. I've already had to take several months off from GMing because it was just draining me. Is there something I'm doing wrong or something I should be doing instead? I want to keep playing, but I want to keep playing.

EDIT: I want to be very clear. This has happened with most groups I've been in. It's not unique to my current groups. I've only been able to play online as well since there is literally no RPG community in my area. (Or community of any sort historically.)

I think RPG space suffers a bit from Cult of the New. Basically, there is a load of great games that have been just forgotten. Some of them are pretty unique and don't really have a "newer, better" version. Don't get me wrong, I certainly think RPG design has progressed, especially regarding rulesets. But personally, I find many old games have charming settings easily converted into modern rulesets.

The trouble with old games is that you might never hear about them, since the talk is always about the new mainstream stuff.

What are your olden goldies you'd recommend? My qualifications are:

1) The game is 10+ years old.

2) It is not widely known (like AD&D which is definitely famous, for example).

2B) Bonus points if it is available as PDF, since hunting down printed copies of obscure old games is really hard.

I have a few recommendations of my own, but I'll put them in as a comment so if you want to discuss them, you can reply to the comment instead of cluttering the thread root.

TTRPG players are the only storytellers I've met who love being plagiarized.

By session zero, I come up with and tell my players the "bones" of the world: theme, mood, their character's power level, major locations and conflicts. For story-heavy games, I ask them to come up with at least one person or community in the world that their character cares about. When I have newer players at my table, I give them additional, more specific prompts to guide their character creation.

Then, they start asking questions, which shows me what gaps in my worldbuilding are worth filling. Oftentimes, they gift me content I can straight up steal. Living people from their backstory become NPCs. Dead people from their backstory inspire flashbacks I can throw them into. Locations they come up with become battlemaps. Their character's strengths, weaknesses, and fears guide what the enemies are like.

When I'm running a game with experienced players, I can even ask them questions about their backstory mid-session to fill in small details that I otherwise would've improvised. For example: "You all hear eerie music coming from deep within the dungeon. [Player Character], remind me, what instrument did your mother play when you were a child?"

When I lean on my players' storytelling talent, I put a lot less pressure on myself to have all of the worldbuilding figured out. I worry a lot less about whether they'll be invested in the world. I have to be extra conscious about not causing "main character syndrome," and I usually can't follow a pre-written adventure page-for-page, but to me it's worth it.

Maybe I've gotten lucky with really great players! But I've GMed for both friends and strangers, both one-shots and campaigns, in over twenty different systems, and I've had a lot of success when I "plagiarize" my players :)

I've recently played monolith for a small 2-shot of my own design, and man I am in love.
I ran the same adventure twice in stars without number and once in Monolith and I found the monolith game to have gone much better. Now this might partially be because I had more experience with both GMing and that adventure, but I think the system also had a big role to play here.

Here's an unordered list of some of the things I really like about MONOLITH

The random tables are really fun

Theres a lot of variety in the characters you can make and the various psionics or magics the characters can learn, Its definitely a little anemic compared to some paid products, but given that it's free, I can't complain.

No to-hit rolls for combat make it fast and dangerous

This isn't unique to Monolith, it is a cairn hack which is where it gets this from, but man I did not realize how slow to hit rolls can make combat, and also how goofy it can make combat feel when it's just endless misses (and yes, I do try to describe them as block but eventually it just feels tiresome)
In my monolith games, every single roll always felt very eventful and was a big deal. And combat never felt boring or like a chore.

Damage actually lowers your stats

This is a huge pet peeve of mine in like so many systems, that someone at 100% HP is as effective as someone with 10% HP, in this game you have a small buffer of Hit protection (which is basically 'don't-get-hit points'), but after that you directly take str damage. Which makes the decision of how far you push yourself in a fight really meaningful.

It's so simple and easy to explain to noobs

I ran this game for 3 players who had never played RPGs before and it was so easy, I had them create characters within 30 minutes, and had all the basic rules explained in another 5-10 mins.
I remember how confusing it was when I tried playing SWN or 5e, or PF and having to mention how all the skills work, and how actions and reactions and move actions and attack bonuses and blah blah blah work in those other games.
here it's just "roll under your stat" for skill checks and "take and action and move" / "roll the damage dice of your weapon" for combat. Extremely simple.

All in all, it's a really good fit for anyone that likes improv heavy games and rules light systems, If there is anything I wish this game had, it'd be a zone system for combat (as in creating ad-hoc zones on a battlemap that are used for distance), I love zones. But that's easy enough to homebrew.

By which I mean, a game system you run exclusively.

I have a few mainstays, but I think that hardly two months go by without me trying out something new. Often just for oneshots, sometimes for a short campaign or two. I love trying out new games, seeing what people do with the hobby, discovering what I like and don't like. I used to look for the perfect game that I'd fall in love with and never leave, but nowadays I've accepted that that's just not the kind of GM I am, and I think I've become a better GM for it. It's nice to be able to pull out something from my shelf whenever the mood strikes me.

Im planning to start a star wars campaign and im interested in SW EoE, so i want to read your opinions about it. Is it fun?

Edit: *The time it takes to travel between locations not time travel

I feel like sometimes just narrating travel time or rolling on random tables makes travel time feel a little contrived? Both those things certainly have their place, but I am on the lookout for other solutions to combine them with.

So recently, per Quinns suggestion, I got the campfire RPG question deck to help facilitate more intra-PC conversations. I realised today that these cards may even be better used for filling travel time so my idea is: set a real world timer of (say 3-7 mins) and allow the players to draw cards from these decks to ask each other questions in character, once the timer goes off they have arrived.

I'm super curious how you guys, (or other systems) deal with travel time in game.

I want to create a sort of a "weapon triangle" (like Fire Emblem or Octopath Traveller) for my Science-Fantasy rpg , where:

1. one type excels at dealing raw/frontal damage,

2. the second is weak at dealing raw damage but excels at creating status condition,

3. and the third is either A) the balanced out of the three, or B) is good for dealing something else entirely (like AoE or something other)

I'm not focusing on weapons perse, but more so what "TYPE" of fighting excels at what.

The Types are 'Brawl' (hand to hand), 'Melee' (any martial art weapon), and 'Ranged' (bows and rifles)

I would like to hear what thoughts you guys have

I've loved the Mutant Chronicles franchise since I was a kid, because it was the 90s and the novels were probably the first scifi I was exposed to in literature. Also, insert other reasons about being over the top, macho and kitsch/camp in a good way.

I've never had the chance to play the TTRPG (any version) and now I have some friends who are into warhammer stuff and are curious to try something mutant chronicles.

I know that its rpg systems are quite messy and not particularly good, and honestly I'm not super into learning the modiphius manual only to try a oneshot game.

So I wanted to try a simpler version, even a onepage RPG, which I remembered seeing somewhere. I thought something by Grant Howitt, like what "Justified Anxiety" is to Paranoia. Or what lasers & treason is to Paranoia. But I can't find it between his games. Nor in my collection. Maybe it was from someone else, like "colonial space grunts".

I remember it being onepage, handwritten (that's why I thought of Howitt), with little drawings and a simple list of corporations similar to mutant chronicles (Mishima, Bauhaus, etc). I can't find it anywhere and I'm starting to think it's some Mandela effect applying only to me. Or I'm remembering other timelines, Philip K Dick's style. I don't know what's worse.

Thanks, hivemind.

TL;DR: help me find a simplified onepage version of Mutant Chronicles TTRPG so I can make myself and friends happy.

I've tried tons of role-playing games, and I already have my favorite systems (True d20, D10, etc.).

However, after a long time without Mastering, I became a Player with this group of friends.

The Master, my friend's girlfriend, invented her own game system (unfortunately, I didn't ask her for notes or what inspired her) that didn't focus on dice but rather on Mahjong tiles. (It was a crazy experience, a mini-campaign in semi-Oriental style—she had dubbed it BAZAARPUNK—and we were all social figures—merchants, spiritual leaders, etc.—and we had to influence the people, the masses.)

Have you ever tried something similar? Or with the "classic" "poker" cards (♠️♣️♥️♦️)?

I’m an organizer of board game events in my town, I used to play a lot of wargames, I’ve got terrain, and I recently got back into TTRPGs with friends. All my toys have been lying forgotten in the basement for a long time, but I’d like to run one‑shots and I’m looking for smaller systems from niche creators so I can both support them and run games using their systems. Where do you look for things like that nowadays?