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Hi All,

I'm writing to announce another major update to my game Trespasser! You can get it here. Community copies are available!

What is Trespasser?

Trespasser is a d20-based TTRPG about common folk becoming adventurers amid the ruins of their fallen land. It is designed for player-driven, sandbox-style campaigns of base building, survival, dungeon crawling, and perilous tactical combat.

Players take on the roles of trespassers, those who have rejected the lives of squalor and fear they've been handed by the powers that rule their world. It is their mission to explore dungeons, slay monsters, and use their power and treasure to build a prosperous haven in defiance of their wicked Overlords.

The game is designed with modern mechanics and centered around a tactical combat system, but it also encourages an old-school style of play. This is done by letting procedures govern parts of the game like travel, exploration, and downtime, with a central focus on time and resources as limiting factors for what the party can accomplish. In the heat of battle, characters fight valiantly and feel pretty cool and heroic. In the scope of the larger game, they are a small group with finite resources and limited time to set things right in their fading world.

Inspirations: D&D 4E, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Darkest Dungeon, Dark Souls, Baldur's Gate I & II, Strike! RPG, The Black Hack, Cairn, 13th Age, Shadow of the Demon Lord

Okay, but what is Trespasser, really?

Well, if I'm being honest, Trespasser is my attempt to refute the conventional wisdom that 'tactical' and 'old-school' can't play nicely together. Combat as sport! Combat as war! Let's face it, tactics fans love tracking fiddly little resources, they just want them to be called things like grit and panache instead of torches and food. OSR fans love strict systems for magic mutations and fitting things in your backpack, they just think combat is the only place rules shouldn't exist! Maybe we're not so different as we think.

I'm joking of course, but there's a seed in there of what I actually believe. If you want more of my bad takes, I was on Knights of Last Call back in the spring, where I did a couple interviews about an earlier version of the game (they are uh... pretty long).

I was willing to bet that if I combined a gamist, tactical combat ruleset with a gamist, old-school procedural ruleset, and if I wove them together meaningfully and thoughtfully, it would turn out to be pretty fun. Did I lose that bet? How badly did I lose it? Play the game and tell me!

Why should I try Trespasser? I already enjoy <insert game>:

• D&D 5E. D&D is a fantastic game! But a few have noted that it doesn't easily deliver on some of its titular promises. Consider Trespasser if you want a game that has crunchy combat but gives equal care and attention to its dungeon crawling, travel, and base-building mechanics.
• Draw Steel. Draw Steel is a fantastic game! But it starts you out as a fantasy superhero, and you only get more epic from there. Consider Trespasser if you're looking for the type of old-school power fantasy that takes you on a journey from scrappy survivor to intrepid adventurer, and finally, the leader of a mighty stronghold.
• Daggerheart. Daggerheart is a fantastic game, too! But its blend of narrative mechanics call on you to be very creative and spontaneous in the moment sometimes. Sure, that's all GMing to some extent, but consider Trespasser if you want a more gamist experience where procedures help lighten your burden as a GM. Trespasser values and cultivates a narrative, but its mechanics are mostly directed at the play, not the story.
• Shadowdark. Shadowdark is probably my favorite on this list! It has beautiful writing, great art, and super functional and fun dungeon crawling. Consider Trespasser if you like old-school sensibilities and a dark fantasy aesthetic but want something a little crunchier and more tactical to sink your teeth into.

Lastly, if you're already familiar with Trespasser, here are some of the major updates in the new version, 2.1:

• An overhauled action system that fixes the last version's movement/action issues.
• A handful of other fixes to core systems to smooth out gameplay.
• A brand new First Day adventure, Echoing Cistern, included free with the game.
• A new system of plights, lasting conditions that affect your abilities during dungeon crawling.
• Two new adventuring crafts, Radiance and Gloom
• Magic Scrolls and Esoterica
• More magic items of all sorts, including special rules for magic wands, rods, and staves.
• Detailed guidance on dungeon design and room creation
• Guidance on building interesting encounters
• New monsters, including cavern crawlers, dryads, dwarves, elves, gargoyles, vampires, and more!

So, I don’t really have anywhere to share this or anyone else who would think it was neat. But. At work every week my department does team building activities, which can be seen as a little corny or whatever, but they’re fun. Some weeks we play board games (Ticket to Ride) and other weeks (usually my turn to run the meeting) we do ‘Professional Development’ by messing around with learning each other’s communication strengths.

This week was our last one before Christmas break and it was my week. So I decided to make a home made “Chaotic Christmas Party” ttrpg where we were getting ready for our office Christmas party and everything went sideways in the half hour leading up to it. Taking the communication exercises I’d also run, I made the character sheets and assigned everyone the polar opposite personalities and jobs to what we usually do. The Marketer had to be the Tech Support person, the high strung customer support person had to be our chill accountant. That sort of thing. Gave them all a set of gaming dice, and sewed dice bags with our company colours, and a fleece liner for them as a Christmas gift.

I haven’t GMed in 20+ years and it’s been almost that long since I’ve even played. One of my colleagues is an avid gamer and she thought it was a riot. All said, we kept to the 30 minute mark, and once the initial nerves wore off, fun was had by all.

I am workshopping a campaign that I hope to run next year. My main sources of inspiration are the Ghibli films Nausicaä, Porco Rosso and Castle in Sky and the game Final Fantasy VI. The setting is as original as possible, but I'm still missing game mechanics.

The players would take on the roles of a nomadic group based on a central airship (a mobile base, similar to the Tiger Moth in Castle in the Sky) to which smaller ships would be attached (one per player). They would be a kind of rebel fighting against a hegemonic, dieselpunk empire that uses magical pheromones to redirect giant insects from the Forests of Death toward its enemies.

My ideal game would simulate aerial combat, but I'm willing to sacrifice this aspect for a more suitable system. I want to prioritize role-playing, descriptions, wonder, drama, and personal tragedies. A secondary aspect could be ecological devastation.

I have read on Cloud Empress, Ryuutama, Golden Sky Stories, Wanderhome and Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine, but none seem to meet my expectations.

Please, I am open for advice.

EDIT: Current advice is directing me either towards Flying Circus, or towards my initial idea of ​​a revamped Cloud Empress. Thank you, all of you, I have some reading to do.

Hey folks! A video popped up on my youtube about 4e and it reminded me that this edition was quite fun to play.

I've also heard that there are some systems inspired by it. One googling later, I've got Lancer, 13th age, Icon, Gubat Banwa, Shadow of the Demon Lord.

Can you share your experience with them?

I'm an older gamer, exclusively a GM by choice. I've been running games online for seven years now, and I've been involved in TTRPGs since I was ten and got the Basic D&D box (the BECMI version.) For most of that time, I was running Pathfinder 2e.

After my more recent Pathfinder 2e campaign ran into some issues, I ran across an Urban Fantasy setting in a 3e style ruleset that I fell completely in love with. I currently have 3 players remaining, which means that if there's a scheduling issue for one player, it's a cancelled session for the whole group.

When I do LFG-style posts, I get a very good number of upvotes, but pretty much no interaction. That feels to me like I'm being told, "Hey, you seem like a cool guy!" But as nice as that feels, I need to Game Master. I have dice in my blood, which is something the doctors are still trying to fix.

When I was advertising for a Pathfinder campaign around 4 years ago, I had 50 applications.

If people are liking my posts but not reaching out, is that more likely to be a "me" problem (probably specifically that I run my games on Sundays?) Or is it more likely to be a "game" problem (probably specifically that it's an Urban Fantasy game?) If my goal is to run games, do I try a setting that doesn't resonate with me as much to try and "break the ice"?

Context: Gonna run a game for family during the holidays. None of them have ever played an RPG before. Absolutely zero experience across the board for the players. Looking for a game that is accessible, fun, and requires very little on the player.

Age group: 20-30 year old players

Number of players: 4-6 players

Requirements: good for maybe two sessions, gotta have some combat but the combat cannot be a slog. Fantasy can work but the setting just has to be accessible. Nothing too weird.

Additional thoughts: Basically, I want DnD but without all the baggage of DnD. I want cool powers for my siblings to play with and make the process as easy as possible. I want to err on the side of "simple" for this first time.

Which one best fits this? Shadowdark, Cairn, Quest, or other?

Do you prefer RPG rulebooks that look stunning but are harder to read, or clean layouts that sacrifice some “wow” factor for clarity?

I’m thinking about all the Borg style games: the aesthetic is incredibly cool and creative, but often readability and quick reference suffer at the table. In your experience, what matters more when you’re actually playing?

If you know any RPGs that manage to combine strong, striking visuals with excellent readability and usability at the table, drop a title and tell why you think they nailed it.

I am considering designing a TTRPG and I heard the first thing you should figure out is what type of dice system to use, but they didn’t really go into what each one was good for. I’m specifically referring to things like success with these sixes or D 20 system. Are there any resources or personal advice you would have?

I’m thinking I’m going for something real to the rule of light I kinda wanna go for earth magical apocalypse?

My second question would be what is a good RPGs for playing out a very long period of time like a year in a single session where your decisions are not moment to moment, but instead are long-term choices and habits?

Does anybody have any good recommendations for a system that could be used to run a pulpy, dime store novel style noir but in a space setting? I'm looking for something that's more about cinematic action than crunch or strategy. Some good intrigue or investigation mechanics are a plus, though the campaign isn't going to be a pure mystery.

I'm hoping to run a holiday-themed (or at least winter-set) one shot for my players in a few days. Unfortunately, I don't really have time to prep anything myself, so I was hoping someone could suggest a pre-published adventure that can be run in a single session, around four hours.

We are currently playing Pathfinder 2e, but we've tried a handful of different systems. As long as it's not too crunchy, the system itself doesn't really matter. We've all got 5e exhaustion, though, so probably avoiding that. As a GM, I think something leaning into investigation or horror would be more fun than just dressing up a dungeon crawl in an ugly reindeer sweater and Santa hat, but I can't really be choosy at this point!

Hi everyone! Just saw some advertising for the Cosmere RPG and idly wondered if a wheel of time rpg was ever made? Or a WoT setting produced for an existing game? Anyone played if it exists?