**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.

The groups I tend to play with include anywhere between four to six players, depending on the day. If your quickstart only contains four pre-made characters and no rules for making additional ones, I literally cannot play it with all of my friends, and I'm thus way less likely to actually give it a shot.

Even when we only get together four people to try out your quickstart, it can suck when everyone has to play one of four specific characters, and one person can just get stuck with a character they don't really vibe with. It's understandable with a larger group, you can only include so many characters before your customers get choice paralysis, but when it happens with only four players it feels restrictive.

That's it really, that's all I wanted to say.

For the first time today I noticed a section at my local library with core books and box sets for several TTRPGs including:

• Dungeons and Dragons (3e, 3.5e, 4e, 5e, 5.5e)
• Pathfinder (2e)
• Call of Cthulhu (7e)
• Vampire: The Masquerade (5e)
• Blades in the Dark
• Shadowrun
• Dungeon Crawl Classics

And a few more that I didn't recognize, there were even full dice sets available for borrowing. So anyways, don't underestimate your local library for trying out other TTRPGs!

I wanted to play a SWAT themed campaign, so I got myself a copy of GURPS SWAT. There I have read that I also need a copy of GURPS cops to play it and several more issues are reccomended. As I began to look for those, I have found out that there're also GURPS core books and several different editions.

I'm on a loss to be honest. Where should I start? How many books do I need to have to play? Is there some site where I can browse through all of the books for free or do I need to purchase all of them? Digital or physical? Where can I buy?

I ran the Caverns of Hidrida onehsot found on itch.io. Everything is pretty much down to the book. The final fight is the most unexpected. The party of 4 cut down 8 of the Hydra's heads (7 burned by the flame sword). Yet, 3 players we downed, included the player using the flame sword. The final player, who hasn't lost any HP or STR (he rolled 1 HP, lol). Decided to make a last stand to cut down the Hydra's final head. Since he used 1 action to pick up the flame sword, the Hydra get to attack first. His STR got reduced from 15 to 13, there's pretty decent chance to not get affected by the Critical Wound. And he rolled a Nat 20. So yeah, the party got defeated, but they saved the farmers. Good first impression. And the first TPK i've experienced since i started playing TTRPG, lol

So, I'm starting to think on my next blog article and it occurs to me that I don't really have any "newb" friendly games. Then THAT got me thinking - what IS a newb friendly game? What makes it so? I've certainly run all sorts of games before, and a few of them for people entirely new to the gaming hobby.

D&D is often used as the gateway to more gaming for lots of reasons, but I don't really think it's newb friendly, with all its rules, exceptions to those rules, and things to know (Feats, Spells, Skills, etc.). And yet, it absolutely dominates our hobby, and for the majority of us (me included) it was the first TTRPPG game I ever played.

Thus, what makes a newbie friendly game? What should it have? What examples are there? The only one I'd consider so on my shelf is Old School Essentials Classic. Mostly because the gameplay is easy in terms of rules, and character generation is pretty fast, since you just pick a class and go. I'd say the same for Classic Traveller - character fits on an index card. You roll up on a VERY simple career model (simpler than the one for the more modern Mongoose Traveller anyway) and away you go (though combat is...interesting, in CT).

At the same time, I've run GURPS and Fate for new people before and both worked fine (with the caveat that I significantly helped them make the character).

Anyway, what makes a game newbie friendly? How do you make games that AREN'T newbie friendly into ones that are? What examples games do you know that fit, or how have you made a game fit?

With Cyberpunk 2077 being one of my favorite games, I fell in love with listening to lore videos and reading the comics. However, I wanted to branch out in the game world with the boardgames. I also recently kickstarted Cyberpunk Legends: Into The Night but because of delays I won't be able to play it for a bit.

Now with Cyberpunk tabletops, I see that there is

- Cyberpunk 2013

- Cyberpunk 2020

- Cyberpunk V3.0

- Cyberpunk Red

And of course, the Cyberpunk 2077 boardgames

Which one would be the best as a new ttrpg player as well as a Cyberpunk fan that wants to know more lore in the universe.

TIA!

So quickstarts are basically an industry standard now - and that is great! Now, with so many of them out there I wonder, which are your favorites are what are you looking to get from them?

Is it mainly to get a general feel of the game or are you looking for something specific? I know it'll be different for different people but that's why I would love to hear from you.

I'm on a bit of a TTRPG visual design kick and recently read through Twilight Sword, which uses a lot of symbols in the rules text, like a heart instead of writing out 'Health', or a sword instead of writing out 'Damage', as well as Triangle Agency that has some sort of diagram or little illustration accompanying a lot of the rules.

What other games do you know of that have a lot of visual design elements like this alongside or even as part of the rules text?

I need to get this out of my system, because I don't really have anyone around me to talk about this with.

Mutant Chronicles is fucking awesome.

I played it obsessively about 20 years ago. Then I grew up, got distracted by other things in life, and eventually Mutant Chronicles became one of those weird things I remembered fondly but hadn't thought about in years.

Until recently.

And now I've fallen down the rabbit hole again.

I've been reading old lore, looking at artwork, remembering old campaigns and generally rediscovering the setting — and I'm honestly amazed at how much I still love it.

What's funny is that I'm not even particularly nostalgic about the rules at this point. It's the setting that grabbed me all over again.

It's this completely bonkers mixture of military sci-fi, space opera, cosmic horror, dystopia, corporate warfare, occultism and gothic aesthetics.

Humanity has colonized the Solar System and instead of building some glorious utopian future, we've created gigantic corporations that rule entire planets and wage wars against each other.

And then there's the Dark Legion.

And the Brotherhood.

And the Dark Symmetry.

And somehow you can put all of that together with trench warfare, corporate espionage, religious fanaticism, mutants, cybernetics and ridiculous amounts of power armour and it just... works.

I think what I appreciate about it much more now is that it's over the top without necessarily being shallow.

You can have absolutely ridiculous aesthetics and pulpy action, but underneath that there's plenty of room for stories about paranoia, fanaticism, corporate exploitation, war, loyalty, trauma and what happens to ordinary people when the universe goes completely to shit.

Basically, I keep looking at it and thinking:

"Holy shit, I could run so many good games in this setting."

And apparently my brain has decided that after 20 years this is what it wants to think about now.

So I'm curious:

Are there any other old Mutant Chronicles players lurking around here?

What edition did you play? What corporation/faction did you gravitate towards? Any particularly memorable campaigns or characters?

Or if you discovered it much later — what was your first impression?

I don't even have a particularly profound point here. I just rediscovered something I loved when I was younger and realized that, apparently, I still fucking love it.

And I desperately need someone to talk about Bauhaus with. 😂

Hellow there! I am looking for some cool police/detective scenarios, short or long — doesn't matter. System doesn't matter also.

Anything but cyberpunk-esque is appreciated!

Thanks a lot in advance for your suggestions 🤝

I work at a hobby shop and have recently started to run one shots with a variety of systems to let my customers explore different system besides the big names.

This month I am running daggerheart, fabula ultima, soulbound, and outgunned. I went for systems I am at least passingly familiar with.

For next month I am looking to expand out further and would like some recommendations. What is your elevator pitch for your favorite system?​