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Somebody in our group took the GM seat to run a mystery for us in "Nancy Druid", a Polymorph-style RPG. We had been doing Cairn and Ben Milton's Jim Henson's Labyrinth: The Adventure Game before this and I GM'd. I'm still thinking about something she did.

Beginning of Session 1, when our troop came to town (we were a business of ferret-scouts), the lady at the welcome center told us the museum in town had a new Sci-fi art exhibit. She introduced some places in town and the main mystery (we think). Then we went out and got entangled in different NPC's stories/lives and tried to make it to a plane crash site in the woods, look for clues, etc etc...

The party didn't get near to the museum until late in Session 2; we all remembered the science fiction exhibit and just had to go! Do you know what our GM did when we entered that exhibit? She read a real-life article about about the art of science fiction, and turned around her phone to show us pictures of the art as it came up in the article. Here's the article: https://www.thecollector.com/science-fiction-art/

This detour made the museum and town feel real somehow? I don't know how to describe it, but to me it was a cool GM move. It's not even related to the town's problems/mysteries/things, and yet his mirrors how museums work in life. We had in-game goals we could have pursued, but for a time we just learned about something we wouldn't have learned otherwise if we hadn't popped into the museum that day.

We all liked the sci-fi exhibit, but isn't that surprising? It's not interactable, there nothing in it from Arnold K's Dungeon Checklist or most gameability guides. At least I don't think. You guys ever experienced or brought something like this at or to the table?

Hey all,

I'm curious about real, at-the-table experience with games from the 2400 line. How many sessions have you actually run or played? How did they go? Any recommendations, like which games to start with or what to watch out for?

I'm asking because I get the impression 2400 gets talked about quite a lot, but I'm not sure how much of that is actual play versus people reading the games and liking the idea. How well does it hold up in practice?

Thanks!

I’ve been writing a series of articles about designing mysteries for tabletop RPGs, particularly Call of Cthulhu, Delta Green, and Vaesen.

For the latest article, I accepted a suggestion from a reader of the blog and, rather than simply discussing principles of scenario design, I take an original horror mystery (for Delta green, but easily adaptable) and work through how I would construct it.

The central idea is that a good horror mystery should be more than a trail of clues leading to a predetermined revelation. The investigation should gradually expose an increasingly disturbing reality, while the situation develops in response to what the characters actually do.

I try to show how I approach the underlying events, the clues, the escalation, and the opportunities for the players to intervene, without having to prescribe a sequence of scenes.

The article is fairly substantial, but I hope the concrete example makes it more useful than another collection of general advice. I think the scenario itself requires only a bit of preparation to be playable. My intention is play testing it and eventually making a full version available… but it will take some time.

I already noticed some issues. The countdowns, for instance, should be more clearly related to actual encounters the player characters must solve. I started to work on an updated version, but it will take some time.

For now, you can review and “alpha test” what I already wrote.

Designing Better RPG Mysteries — A Worked Example

I’d be interested in criticism from people who have designed or run investigative horror scenarios. Are there weaknesses in the approach? Would you structure the mystery differently?

And, do you have any ideas to improve the scenario?

Ps: marked as “self-promotion” according to forum rules.

Hello everyone! So to explain my situation, two years ago I bought Magpie Games' Avatar Legends (Legendary Bundle) for my friend group. The problem is, we never ended up using it and so it's been just at my place collecting dust. I really want to sell it but I don't really know where to start. What should my expectations be of if people would want to buy it or not?

Thank you so much for any advice.

For context, I've run a LOT of games featuring mass combat and the like. Weirdly, though, I've never run an actual military RPG campaign (meaning, players as members of a professional military). So, I've never had them deal with rank, social norms of soldiers, notions of duty and honor in these contexts, etc etc.

For a very long time, I've had a notion to run a Honor Harrington-esque space navy game, mixing miltiary, political, and intrigue. Players would most likely be serving space navy officers (say, an Admiral and their staff).

My main issue is the chain of command. In the above idea, there would be an admiral in charge (one of the PCs, in command of the other PCs). Of course, this is the same problem on a smaller scale with, say, a ship captain and their senior officers (so, Star Trek); one player "in charge" and the others their subordinates.

How do you handle it? Better, how HAVE you handled it? I've had plenty of games where one player might be socially "higher" (so, we are playing a game now where one player is the heir to their noble house, and within their task they're expected to be "in charge"), but not under military discipline.

How do you handle it?

In July 2026, I decided to make a new dungeon every month for a year. Past entries: July, August, September.

After 3 months of Cairn, I've moved on to a different Odd-like: Mausritter! This game is up there with my all-time favorites. The rules are so concise, beautiful, and efficient. In just 50 pages, it has both the player and GM rules, and still fits in toolkits for making entire hexcrawls and adventure sites within them.

Spoilers: I had a really hard time using it! I documented the whole process here, but to summarize:

• Cairn really fits my creation style. Generate a random skeleton, then flesh it out. The level of detail vs blank space was perfect. Mausritter skews both too sparse (not enough details to inspire) and too broad (too many unrelated details to keep in mind).
• Mausritter's setting is cool, but not my favorite. I used previous months to flesh out my personal Oster setting (from Castle Noth), and I couldn't find a way to do that here. As a result, my motivation plummeted.
• Yochai Gal's write-up of using Cairn's procedures was infinitely helpful. I didn't have an equivalent here. Ultimately, I bought The Estate (fantastic) and used it as a template for what "done" looks like.

In the end, with zero days left in October, I've finished both a hexcrawl and adventure site. Both are free on itch, RPGTrader, and (eventually) DriveThruRPG.

• Wintersoon Valley is an 8-page hexcrawl. It's a mouse-y valley caught between restless peace and the threat of an early winter. Skyrat pirates, harvest cultists, a lunar owl, and an aging mouse duelist vie for power. It contains settlements in varying levels of detail, plus plot threads and adventure site seeds.
• Big Dam Treasure is a 2-page trifold-formatted adventure site. Within a beaver gang's ruined lodge, mice delve to reclaim years of stolen treasure -- but something haunts the dark.

I'll expand some more adventure sites in November and December. I'd love to discuss the process or outcomes, if anyone's interested!

Just in time for Halloween, learn why these are some of my top 10 horror TTRPGs. Whether you're looking for unsettling, or campy, or downright horrifying, there's something for everyone. From 80's slasher flicks to haunted houses; from exorcisms to high school; from VHS tape investigations to the classics: werewolves and vampires; join me as I review some truly scary roleplaying games.

Full Review video: https://youtu.be/ArZyxKEiYRU

It Will Kill

Scream: The Horror

An Old Priest & A Young Priest

Sinister Semester X

Slasher Flick

Slash!

The Count, the Castle, & the Curse

Darkest Hour

Public Access

Infected!

What's your favorite horror game? Want to see these and more as solo actual plays? Let me know!

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For example ttrpg is oversaturated with fantasy, horrors, cyberpunk and sci-fi, but there is very little of retro futurism, dieselpunk, solarpunk etc. So what else?

For me, The One Ring absolutely nailed the aesthetic. I'm not the world's biggest fan of the game for a number of reasons that aren't terribly relevant for this discussion, but the art definitely pulled me in.

On the other hand I dearly want to love Mothership, but I bounce hard off the art style. I recognize that the game itself looks well-crafted and that the art is not bad art, it's just not to my taste. But it still is something of a deterrent from me playing the game

Hello all! I've truly tried my best not to ask this question by searching on the sub already, but the vast array of options confused me even more and thus I plead for your help.

I have been recently approached by a couple of relatives who were curious about all the buzz around tabletop RPGs, and wondered if I'd be down to try and DM something that could last a session or two to see if it's our vibe. I love the idea and have expressed interest in the past, and they asked me because I'm the most seasoned gamer out of them all. However, I have absolutely no clue on how to decide on a system, with my only experience of tabletop rpgs stemming from watching a couple of seasons of Dimension 20 (which I know is not a standard, these are professional actors being very great at what they do and I wouldn't expect my future players to be so pro-active).

One thing I know about this group is that they're not the most "high fantasy" bunch. They wouldn't mind it, but they would much prefer something set in the last couple hundred of years, and for it to have a general "we're investigating a mystery, something ill is a foot" type of vibe. Naturally, I still would like for dice checks to be thrilling, hence why I think there should be some sort of combat system with simple rules.

Now, of all the options I've noticed out there:

• Out of the various free ones (Cairn, Quest...) I've eyed both Mausritter and DURF, which both sport a nice full translation in my language. Cairn also does, but only for 1e, and I've seen mixed feelings about that particular one.
• At the same time, I've also seen more slightly complex system such as Call of Cthulhu and Mothership recommended for the DM to have a stronger based set of system that would make the play less reliant on improv for new players.
• Vaesen also looks kinda sick? It does have a translation in my language.
• Lastly, the names of "gumshoe-based" systems like The Fall of DELTA GREEN and Nights Black Agents were dropped in suggestion threads, which piqued my interest as I'm sure the players I'm thinking of would love the settings... but it would require me to study on english manuals before coming up with an adventure, which is a lot of work on my end.

Hey all, I’m pretty new to ttrpgs as a whole. I started playing dnd a couple months back at this point and have also started my own campaign. I’m really enjoying it so far and want to try other games. I’m a really big sci-fi fan and would love to try some sci-fi ttrpgs, maybe that feel similar to dnd since that’s what I know but all recommendations are welcome! Thanks all :)