**Come here and talk about anything!**

This post will stay stickied for (at least) the week-end. Please enjoy this space where you can talk about anything: your last game, your current project, your patreon, etc. You can even talk about video games, ask for a group, or post a survey or share a new meme you've just found. This is the place for small talk on r/rpg.

The off-topic rules may not apply here, but the other rules still do. This is less the Wild West and more the Mild West. Don't be a jerk.

----------

This submission is generated automatically each Saturday at 00:00 UTC.

Hi, does anyone have any suggestions for good post-apocalyptic, cyberpunk, or sci-fi hexcrawl games? I'm looking for some for my campaign, regardless of the system.

To all GMs and fellow players, I have a question. Have you ever met a specific type of player that knows a lot about the system you're using, maybe they even help you/your GM run the campaign, but they themselves never actually hosted any campaign? If so, what do you think about them? How are they like? Any notable moments?

I'm asking because I am this type of player, I started playing RPGs without actually knowing much about them. One of the first systems I played was one from my country, which the universe's story is based on the campaigns the actual creators of this system have played before. I never read the system, nor watched any episode from the campaign, so I went in basically completely blind, receiving some assistance from my GM. In that same year, I learned so much about the system by just playing that my GM basically made me his co-GM, and I started to help them with rolling the dice, checking some rules, helping other players create their character sheets when the GM is busy, making homebrews, etc. To this day, I still help other GM friends with their campaigns, and have never really hosted a serious campaign yet (too much trouble IMO).

This has been on my mind the past week, and was part of what prompted me to ask if there was resources for making large dungeons earlier this week. I have been thinking on the only homebrew campaign I have attempted, and if I should use my notes again to try again, but that means identifying mistakes.

I am not the most experienced of GMs/DMs, my only real claim to fame is running LMOP all the way to the end without any issues in 5e. Hell, I loved it. 10/10 would run another pre-written module.

OGL Scandal happened, I left 5e, looked at many different systems and arrived on PF2e (Because I actually like Heroic Fantasy a lot), and I decided to try a homebrew campaign for the first time.

The structure was simple, set on an archipelago, and meant to follow the structure of a Ocarina of Time style Zelda game, with those styles of dungeons.

A prologue where the party recovers a stolen book (And witnesses the unsealing of the BBEG Lich)

Chapter 1, where the party explores the largest island, learns about the Lich, learns about the pirates infesting the islands, then explores a dungeon underneath the island, wherein they recover a piece of a key that let's the party access the phylactery.

And so, it was meant to go that way for a bit. Choose a new island at the players leisure, explore, find dungeon, get key, repeat. Eventually all routes converge on needing to take out the pirate captain for the final key, than kick the BBEGs ass at the bottom of the sea.

The idea, in my head, is that the out of dungeons, it was meant to be a lot more free form. Less prep, more scenario nodes as I try to organically leave clues and info into the parties path so they can eventually gleam where they should go to find a key. But when they enter the dungeons, it's much more classic, less narrativist and more simulationist/gamist. Very Zelda style, with a boss at the end.

And so, as per common advice given for GMs, I only prepped the skeleton of the Islands, the skeleton of the campaign outline, the stat blocks of the pantheon for clerics, and the OG plot hook and prologue. I should only prep at most, up to 3 sessions ahead. And so I did. And the campaign ran wonderfully for a few months. And nearly every single week I had to get ready for the next session, simply brainstorming a potential situation that the party could find themselves in, and then prepping a simple battlemap if it seemed like it would be prudent.

And every single week, it got harder. Just thinking of something new. Something interesting. I was never writing down pages, just notes to give myself anchors to kick off improvisation. And eventually, I hit the point where even thinking of prep actually started to make me freak out as I thought of the deadline. I liked running the game, but LOATHED having to prep it. Running LMOP in 5e was a joke compared to this.

At the very least, my players appeared to really be enjoying it, I think. At one point, a player told me how it's impressive that, no matter what the fuck choice the players made, I always had something at the ready to present them with, statblocks or maps, which I wore with pride. Almost nothing I prepped went unused, and frankly the party was more predictable then they thought. Mostly they were good at biting any plot hook presented to them.

We hit the point where the party was meant to hit the first dungeon, and I just... completely stalled. I made a floor, and couldn't do it anymore. Brain fried every time I tried to think. I told my group I just couldn't do it anymore. Maybe my ADHD was too much. The group pretty much disbanded after that. I don't do a lot of creative writing as a hobby, a lot of this was all new for me.

Thinking back, I think if I overprepped before even offering the game to others, it might have been much easier. Namely, prepping the dungeons completely (Yes, all of them), and just writing plothooks for outside of the dungeon. It would have meant that if I got burnt out, I had existing prep I could draw on, so it wasn't full on prep every week. I could have prepped that all without deadlines at my leisure. And then leaving certain areas very much unprepped for player agency and improvisation. And I could probably condense the content of each island to make a shorter campaign overall. And use simpler designs for the maps instead of Dungeondraft with handplaced assets, maybe dungeonscrawl with some symbols.

It was announced that all systems will just be reskins of 5.5e.

Where in the universe can I get a copy of these books!? Its feel like borderline lost media!

Hi everybody!

So I just found out that the "Heroes of the Borderlands" starting set for DND5 encourages players to share the GM duties. They put the setting in three books: 1) Wilderness, 2) Keep on the Borderlands, and 3) Caves of Chaos. A different person take each book and when the party goes to their book's place, they GM. What a cool idea, guys!

Is there a system, adventure, whatever, that does this besides this box set? I just started to GM this year(Ben Milton's Jim Henson's Labyrinth the Adventure Game first for three sessions so far, and then a break to play Fabien's Atelier in Cairn with smaller groups when the whole Labyrinth group can't make it) and haven't played since a 5e game in 2019. Having a great time, but would love to see both sides on the table and show the players both sides, too.

My interests are in the OSR, and in Story Games like PbtAs, but because I am new to the hobby, I am pliable. Love love loved "Inhuman Conditions", which I believe is a ttrpg; that game got me interested in these other games!

I've done a fair bit of rewriting old monsters, whether it be making Orcs more fitting for the style of the setting by giving strange reasons for their destructive tendencies, trying to make the Mimic more engaging for the players by making them more social, or making Mind Flayers not get me sued if I publish the setting by changing all but the most critical and fun-to-engage-with components.

Buuuuuut I'm burnt out on ideas because I spent all my best ones on my first (and main) setting. Whoops.

(Also, I'm much more used to trying to make the weirder, surrealist changes. I'm now trying to write for a more grounded setting.)

So, how do you come up with ways to re-invent old monsters?

Edit: To be clear, I'm not concerned about the mechanical changes. I'm pretty confident in being able to make the game feel good. What I'm concerned with is the story element and what it means in the narrative to have the monster be a certain way.

For example, Orcs have largely split into two major interpretations. You've got mindless destroyers who rampage and pillage everything, and you've got tribal people who are green or maybe grey who often have some code of honor. The former tells me that they're essentially not people, that it is a world with a more black & white morality. The latter tells me that they are essentially people, meaning they are as capable of moral grayness as anyone else is (with that meaning different things in different settings, but it still tells me that they're playing on the same social level as, say, a human). Then, you've got the details that emphasize where in that spectrum they fall, and I'm curious how you decide these sorts of factors.

In Pathfinder's Divine Mysteries, Paizo introduced the world to Atrogine, a god born of the wishes and dreams of a reclusive coven of witches.

In Dragon 293, Wizards of the Coast talk about Small Gods, like:

Lomeriseh, an intricate mosaic. The mosaic, which stretches over thirty yards in each direction, is composed of a seemingly abstract array of magic tiles. It is an artifact whose purpose is now forgotten, and has achieved a level of sentience and power that allows it to influence its environment. The elves worship the mosaic as a god, praying to it for good weather, protection from their enemies, and healing, all of which the artifact can provide. It, in turn, is very protective of its people and will not hesitate to intervene if they are threatened.

Are there any OTHER gods in the TTRPG worlds like these?

For example, I really like Modern Age from Green Ronin, but one of the rules I always ignore is speed. A character has anywhere from 10-15 Speed, i.e. can move up to 10-15 yards in a single action. Even if I plonk down a map or scribble the combat zone on paper, I'd be hard-pressed and extremely annoyed if I had to guess exact distances.

Most of the time I either ignore it, use it as a +- modifier for chases or just do what 13th Age does and say that everything is either nearby or far away. Now I'm thinking, maybe I'm doing it wrong? There has to be a reason why and how people use exact speed attributes in a TotM game. So I'd like to ask those that use it, like it and wouldn't want to play without it: how do you make it work for you?

I like to GM for Mothership and have done so a few times with success, but I have never run any other game (though I've played others). I am considering running Vaesen for some friends. I'm currently reading the standard reference document for the Year Zero Engine that Vaesen uses, so I understand that it is different mechanically from Mothership. For anyone who has played both Mothership and Vaesen, is one easier to run than the other?

Two weeks ago, i asked you for your help, some tips on this.

Bascially it boiled down to: "When players try out to play blind characters (e.g blind fighters like Zatoichi) or antropomorphic characters like "Dog-Humans" that rely on smell a lot...

Can i describe scenes a little more from "their viewpoint" to raise immersion?

https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/1tsa1om/two_of_my_players_want_to_test_me_made_a_blind/

And you helped. Got a lot of DMs, quite a few very good posts, and i also digged through my esxperience of 30 years of Larp, camping for a long time in the bush and... i just pinged two old Larp buddies who i knew have been for a very, very long time in Special Forces Departments of their countries army. I got some... surprising tips.

One example scene (that i wrote down before the game) where i introduced the character. The players loved it - and yes, it is pretty different to how i described things before. I learned something. Smells seem to also help the other characters. More immersion to a scene and such.

----------------

The sun seems finally to set and the shadows here in this street catch up with you. You feel the temperatures change, from a hot summers day, towards the night. You pick up the sparrows now getting more active, making a ruckus in a bush somewhere near you. Overall, the air seems to get clearer somehow, the sounds getting more crisp.

You tap your way down the street, following the description of that boy you asked the way to that tavern.

And yeah, at the end of the street, you seem to hear some sounds you deem to be a tavern. On your way further down the narrow street, to the left upwards, an open window. You hear a young couple in a heated discussion. Some ceramic breaking. To the right of you, a baby.... crying. A mother singing, some giggled "Oh oh oh" hummed inbetween. Guess somebody really shat himself.

The street is filled with evening scents. Cooking. Burned fat, sizzling meat, cabbage soup, cooked grains. Hints of geosmin, the dust reacting with the air getting more damp. Dry fir resin, lime, chalky smells. Cooling tar. Also, these cracking sounds. Half timbered houses settling in with the temperature change.

You enter the tavern. A real FIST in your FACE of smells and sounds storming your ears and nose. Old beer, spilled moonshine, perpetual stew, dry and dusty, earthy notes of rotting drying up straw, loamy notes from the kicked up floor. Piss and somebody probably puked a day or so ago. A mixture of discussions, cards slammed on tables, burps and laughts.

Sweat tells you a lot about the people here. No hints of this rusty, nose cringing smell of Sweat in a Gambeson with a Chainmail. More like, sweat in linnen. Sundried. This is definitely a workers, a farmers place. Yeah. you get hints of cheap blacksmith coal. Cow and Pig shit. Rotten fruit. Very cheap ale. Onion Farts and rotten teeth and bad breath.

As you arrive at the bar, following the steady squeaking sound of a damp cloth rubbing on ceramic and hearing three times the dark, grunted "Ok" from there when somebody yelled for more beer...

... you smell that bartender. Dried beer. Liquor. Sweat. Lots of it. Pipe smoke. Real shitty cheap tobacco. Garlic. Stew. And this extremely sweet, caramell notes in the sweat smell tells you something - he will not getting to be very old. You assume his bad mood based sound to be connected with a lot of back pain. Guess that this person already has problems with his Intestines.

After you showed him that wooden badge you got for that job, you hear only that gruntled, slightly drunk "Through the curtain. Down the hallway. When the shitters left, open the door on the right, up the stairs, then left, through the door. "

You walk through that stinky curtain. Mildew. Old potato. Ash. Rancid Fat. And yeah, you can tell where the shitter is. OH BOY. No way to miss that one.

Slowly opening the door. First steps up the stairs. Your nose is catching something. An open window. Somewhere above you, probably next floor. And - that creak. Thats not the settling wood. Thats someone shifting his weight very slightly. Behind the corner upwards of you. The cool night wind brings you scents, from somebody upstairs. Around the corner.

Camelia seed oil on steel. Somebody loves his knifes. Like a chef. You could pick up that peanutty sweaty metal coin smell everywhere.

Damp fur and this very light smell of forest and grass and algae. That weight shifting. Thats not shoes. Hooves. There must be a satyr up there. Somebody who washed himself in a river before coming here.

What are you going to do?