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Pretty straightforward question. Are there any games thst you really like running but hate playin. Or love playing but hate running? For example I dislike running DND 5e because it's a bit too complicated for my taste while lacking rules in the toolkit I like to use as a GM, like social rules. But playing it is pretty fun when I get in the gyst of things and the right mind

I've played RIFTS, and that's the only system that comes to mind that does it all, really. I do prefer simulationist style games rather than narrative style.

I currently mostly run Pathfinder 1e and enjoy it, and honestly, it can do everything except the mecha / planes that I want. I could try to homebrew them in, but I'm not sure where I'd even start with that in particular.

Just posting to share, there is no request for advice or attempt to start a deeper conversation.

I played RPGs off and on for about 30 years. It was always something I enjoyed but often felt like I was too busy or sometimes (in my twenties) too cool to make time for. But I recently returned to the GM screen at 57 after a gap of over ten years.

Despite many reasons that would suggest (on paper anyway) it should have been a failure it has so been the most successful campaign I have run. I gauge success by everybody (including me) having fun.

I have a mix of players ranging from a friend my age who has played as much as I have, to a childhood friend and career soldier who isn’t a gamer at all, to my 13 yo daughter. We play in person despite people driving over an hour to get to the game.

I ignored a lot of common wisdom on how to start a campaign, but normally with good reason. For example, I’m not going to have someone drive an hour and a half for a freaking session zero.

It’s a West March lite post apocalypse campaign using reskinned Shadow Dark rules.

I’ve been pondering what my takeaway from this experience is so far. I think it is that it has succeeded because I was realistic about my situation and bandwidth. For example, I set the expectation early on that we will play once a month on a day that at least three people can be here. Instead of trying to meet weakly or wait for everybody to be free. And the fluid nature of a West Marches lite approach makes it pretty easy for me to navigate the problems we have had with scheduling and planning.

The high points:

I’m on track to get us a satisfying end (not a plotted end but a natural resolution of the conflicts created by layer decisions) instead of it just petering out after a while.

My daughter whom I was not sure would enjoy TTRPGs has been super gung ho about it.

Anyway, just wanted to share.

Can you recommend me some good, low-powered, "danger is dangerous" fantasy games that aren't the usual suspects? Stuff that is rarely, if ever, recommended in this sub? I've got a hankering to run a hexcrawl and I haven't seen anything here in the last few years that really piques my interest.

I think it's no secret that there's a major part of D&D homebrew that makes you go: "Brother, you should really play a different system."

I don't want to get into the weeds of the how and why that's such a prevalent thing, but bottom line is: D&D occupies a very large portion of the TTRPG market.

So that made me think: what if that just wasn't a thing? Would some other system take its place and it would be practically the same problem but under a different name? Or would the TTRPG lanscape be more varied due to people actually playing systems they should be playing?

For the sake of this hypothetical scenario let's only say that Pathfinder doesn't exist as well (since it started off as a spin-off to D&D, so no D&D => no Pathfinder).

EDIT: Forgot to add my own answer. To be honest, I have no clue, that's why I thought it would be interesting to make this post. D&D is just so heavily ingrained in the TTRPG scene that imagining a world without it is difficult for me, so I'd like to hear other people's opinion!

Which TTRPGs have the best materials to get players up to speed on the setting and tone of the game?

I love me a TTRPG that has a rich setting and a definite feel, but getting that feel across to players is a real challenge. The usual options are a detailed briefing/lecture/speech during the game pitch, a handout that I've made, or expecting them to buy the rulebook themselves, which not all players will do.

Lancer has a really decent option of having a free player-facing PDF that covers rules and setting, which avoids the "but it's a huge tome" problem when handing over the rulebook, but what do other games do to get over this particular hurdle, and which do it well?

Just looking for great examples of a system-agnostic setting book!

My 8 year old is very into RPGs, especially D&D. He's in his school D&D club, did a D&D summer camp, etc. He and his older sister have also played some made-for-kids games (Amazing Tales, etc.), and I've DM'ed some Mausritter one shots for them as well the D&D 5.5 starer box campaign.

Now he's keen to get behind the DM's screen himself.

He wrote an adventure (adorable!) and we played it, me running 2 PCs, and him being the DM. It went OK, but it seemed to me that he got bogged down in all the rules of D&D. Lots of flipping through the books to read spell effects, and that seemed to take all his focus, so everything else kinda descended into a slugfest combat. The whole environment of the dungeon he had written barely got described, because he was so amped up about running the monsters. But then when we got to the monsters, most of them just kinda ran in without any tactics, while he spent all his time thinking about the spellcaster.

I know that as a player, he's very imaginative and into things beyond just the mechanics of combat. And he and a friend do a sort of free-form roleplay where they just talk out fantasy adventures, with one of them being the main character and the other the narrator/DM. Again, from what I can tell, his narration of the world and even combat goes much better there, when he's freeform describing the world and what monsters do.

So I think running a game using the D&D 5.5 rules is just a bit too much for him right now.

Do you guys have any advice on what might make things work better for him?

I thought about trying a different system. I suggested that we run Mausritter, but he wasn't into it. I think in addition to not wanting the game to be about mice, he wants a heroic combat-centric D&D feel. E.g. when I suggested that my characters might be sneaky tomb-robbers, he basically told me it's not that sort of game. Sure enough the adventure presumed that they would jump at the opportunity to save a village from an evil cult, with no apparent monetary reward. Is there an simpler system that would fit that tone?

Or maybe a stripped down version of D&D. Like I've seen suggestions of just abstracting range and movement. You're in melee range or you're not, and characters can move pretty freely. Or simplified spells. Is there something like that that you recommend?

Or, finally, maybe the problem was that in writing his adventure from scratch, he set up a scenario that was too complicated to run at the table (spellcaster cult leader, guarded by a few cultists with melee weapons). Are there modules that are known to be dead simple to DM? Maybe I could get him one of those to run.

Thanks!

I've been running a GURPS setting across multiple campaigns for the last five-ish years. For one of the side campaigns coming up, the group of players pitched possibly being airship pirates. Steampunk-y airships are well-established in the world and have been used for set pieces several times, but I've not really dabbled with the players controlling the ships during combat.

Historically, one of my weak points as a GM is in making vehicle combat interesting to begin with. What I would really love is some examples of some games that do things like ship combat, whether that is by sea, air, or even in space, interesting. Or just some general advice that is rather system-agnostic.

I feel pretty comfortable homebrewing and toying around within GURPS. I've been playing it longer than just this setting. But really, I am just looking for what actually makes the combat feel interesting.

Thanks!

Do you guys have any tricks up your sleeve for making travel feel like a meaningful part of the campaign? I'm looking for cool mechanics, gimmicks, or narrative ideas that make the journey itself a challenge, rather than just a series of random encounters or a few rolls to determine whether the party gets there safely.

Here's my situation: I'm running a game for six inexperienced teenage magic apprentices who have only had about three months of magical training. They're about to travel across the literal Arctic, facing a four-hour journey on foot with nothing but their determination and their very limited magical abilities.

I want this journey to feel genuinely challenging. Not necessarily because they'll be fighting monsters, but because the environment itself is dangerous, their skills are inadequate, and they'll have to figure out how to overcome obstacles using whatever resources and creativity they have.

I'm especially interested in ideas that make the players engage with the journey itself. Things like having to make difficult decisions, managing limited resources, cooperating to overcome environmental hazards, finding creative uses for their abilities, or dealing with unexpected complications that aren't just combat encounters.

One important detail: we're using a PbtA system, so D&D-style Constitution saving throws or other mechanics built around traditional D&D rules aren't really what I'm looking for. I'm much more interested in narrative-driven challenges, interesting player choices, and mechanics that make the journey feel tense and memorable.

How would you handle this at your table? Have you ever used any travel mechanics, narrative motifs, or creative gimmicks that made a journey genuinely fun to play through?

I'd love to hear your ideas, especially unusual ones that go beyond the usual survival checks and random encounters!

To be more specific with what I mean by dynamic, I’m looking for RPGs where:

- characters have a lot of different options they can pull off each turn
- characters have a fair amount of flexibility, and perhaps even room to improvise.

I am not opposed to RPG suggestions where characters have a ton of skills, but I am very partial towards rpg where there’s a greater emphasis on coming up with stuff right on the spot. Hence me specifying ‘dynamic’ instead of merely ‘lots to do’.

The Genesys system is a good idea of what I’m talking about, as the battle mechanics in it allow players to improvise a ton of different solutions to any given problem.