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I feel like most people tend to follow specific IP, not necessarily specific authors. For me, I tend to follow Matthew Dawkins's work since VtM, even though some aren't my cup of tea I tend to like his design style and writing.

So, I've been learning a lot thanks to the amazing folks here at r/rpg. And while I have decided to slow down on trying new systems. (As my players say "three is enough, we know your eager to try more but slow it down so you don't burn yourself out.") There was a question today that cropped into my head, and I wanted to hear from the folks here on it.

"What are some assumptions about your favorite game/system that are just factually incorrect or overstated?"

I've seen a lot of assumptions made in the hobby, and some on my own. From the broad "older systems were designed for math heads and thus really not for someone whose bad at math." to others like "Call of Cthulhu is a game where every session ends in death/insanity and players can't get attached to their characters." and similarly "OSR games are highly lethal and not at all friendly to players who like longform adventures."

I feel like broad, sweeping claims like those are probably overstated-as I have heard of successful, long running CoC campaigns, and OSR games that are able to have well developed characters that last for ages. It's made me curious about some of the other broad, sweeping claims about systems that are-if not incorrect, massively overstated.

Really interested to hear some answers on this.

Just started watching glass cannon’s pendragon actual play and looking into the game itself and saw there’s a grand campaign that lasts 80 years in game. I was curious if there are other campaigns out there like that, with a grand scope.

I consider myself as someone who would play most types of RPGs. (I have some instant turn offs, but who doesn't?)
Lately I am more likely to try out rules-light RPGs. (Mostly because of having too much titles and not enough time, haha)

My current favorites are:
- Grok?! (2nd editions just came out, can't wait to try it)
- Far Away Land 2nd edition
-Cypher 2nd edition (I know the books are long, but system-wise, it is pretty light-weight.

I wanted to know if anyone else has this issue. I keep coming up with campaign ideas and they are so detailed that I can write out like 50 session plots that I will never run. I have four campaigns fully written out (obviously with room for character backstories and things not going according to plan) that I will probably not be able to run for years. I just keep writing this stuff cause otherwise I keep thinking about it, but I was wondering if anyone else has this issue?

I even made a list of them all, with their name, followed by the amount of sessions I expect them to take, followed by the system I will run them in. The first 5 I have more or less fully written out.

The Abyss Tree (30~) Vagabond
Guardians of Vunfer (20~) DnD
Band of Nowhere (45-50) DnD
End Them All (5~) Outgunned
Ben 10: Mixed Space (10~) MM
Stories Reawakened (20~) ?
Late Night Streets (15~) Outgunned
The Old Rain (5~) Things from the Flood
Freelance Frontier (10~) Lancer
Faraway Fates (5~) Draw Steel
Warhammer: The Enemy Within (5~) Imperium Maledictum
Face The Horde (10~) Draw Steel
The Road Ahead (10~) ?
Schools and Weirdos (20~) MM
The Biggest Men (5~) ?

This is kinda a perpetual struggle for me since I've got both some dyslexia and some dyscalculia so I find it very easy to both misread something or to fail to understand what a stat or dice roll means.

Doesn't help that the game I like the publishers are a bit notorious for editorial errors and also avant garde presentation including the weirdest fonts they could find for immersion.

But tell me about instances at your table whether you were the one misunderstanding it or it was someone else's mistake.

So, I was running a short campaign for a group of players. Some players were new, some were experienced, some were old friends. We were playing 5e over roll20. And this seemed to be a doomed voyage and a parade of errors.

I provided the players with links to the applicable wikis and sites for references, rules, and other tools. Since Hasbro was shifting to 5.5e and overwriting and replacing rules, I figured having a few vetted resources would be helpful and ease the process. But the players kept not following the provided links and kept just googling and reading the AI overview or the first article that came up (which was generally 5.5)

I found a fillable auto calculating character sheet that included the info for all the races and classes (5e). But it apparently would only work with adobe, and the players couldn't seem to download the free version of adobe so the PDF would work. I ended up abandoning it and recommending everyone use an alternative sheet and provided a few options for just dumb form fillable sheets. Every single session someone couldn't find their sheet or it was corrupted.

We had all discussed and agreed to a schedule of every other Friday at a specific time. Despite this players forgot, showed up late, or planned other commitments over top of the game. Every single session was at least 1 person not there or late by over an hour.

By session 10 (what was going to be the final session) the warlock didn't know how Eldritch blast worked, the bard didn't know they could use bardic inspiration on others, half the players didn't know the rules to make a basic weapon attack, and 2 players again didn't have a character sheet.

I had had enough and cancelled the session mid combat, mid player sentence as they were taking 3 minutes to figure out how to make a perception check. I told them all I was ending the session early, and we will continue the game at the next date in 2 weeks and I expect everyone to have their character sheets in order, be on time, and be ready to play the game, then dropped out of the call, closed roll20, and later posted in the discord about expectations and responsibilities and how frustrated I was. We were able to finish the game after 1 more session (where of course someone planned something overlapping and couldn't attend)

What the hell? Was this just a series of unfortunate events and bad luck? Was it wrong of me to tell them they should know their character by session 10 and need to be responsible? Is this a general trend in the community?

I could use some experienced GM input, or am I just crazy and an asshole?

I guess the obvious answer is back up pregen character sheets. Which the module I'm running does already have.

I'm running Outbreak which already does have pregens. It also has a mechanic for players to continue playing as zombies once they're killed which does help a little bit.

I guess the answer is pregens, but I'm open to other solutions (as a supplement to the pregens if nothing else) if anyone has any ideas.

My husband has finally agreed to give TTRPGs another shot after decades of not playing. I'm now looking for some recommendations on a game/system that would work well for one player and a GM. Something more on the rules-light side so he's not overwhelmed right away.

Something sci-fi-related or mysterious in a Stranger Things/X-Files way would be great, considering his interests in movies and TV shows. F

Thanks for any ideas.

I'm looking for something to run modern armed resistance movements, particularly IRA during the Troubles, but open to other similar conflicts - PLO, Latin Americam movements, etc. Bonus points for straightforward simulationists games and especially one with a solo mode.

Currently looking at Zozer's Modern War, but would like some other suggestions.

Hey! How do you communicate you lost the GMs plot and don't really care about it?

We are currently playing a game with a fairly new GM and mostly new players (I am the only one with a little more experience).

In session 0 we talked a bit about what we were expecting and we all agreed we were looking for a relative classical fantasy world with a good mixture of social roleplay, exploration and combat with a focus on role playing and interaction (probably partly because of not being particularly good at the rules yet).

Before we start going into the Problem: we are having lots of fun playing and the world has many fun elements and the encounters are usually challenging and exciting. But. We don't care for the main plot and mostly make up our own stuff by latching onto every side quest we can find or create ourselves.

See, when it came to the first actual session we quickly realized that the GM did an extensive bit of world building with lots of powerful NPCs that were all connected through a complex web of personal connections.they clearly loved this world of intrigue they created.

There was soon some kind of plot we got connected to but for us as players it was all very confusing and it was absolutely unclear to us who we could trust (and not in a fun way) or really how we could reach our goal (and what that goal really was).

At the beginning we tried to take notes but the player who wrote down all the connections dropped out quickly and I lost my notes for ecample. Combined with us only playing once a month we are forgetting lots of stuff and confuse NPCs constantly (who are to us all very "elvish" and "royal" and "samey") and at this point we have mostly given up.

As I said, we have fun, but we are actively sabotaging the progress of the main plot because we don't remember anything and frankly do not care about it anymore.

How do we best communicate this to the DM who clearly love the intricate web they have spun and who I sense are getting increasingly frustrated we rather try to find a way to reassemble a broken animated armor then progressing in the great prophecy...

So what should we do? We like the GM and the world in general but just not the big thing in this world and don't want to hurt any feelings...