**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.

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

If you're not aware of what's been happening regarding this whole thing, here's a bit of context.

Earlier this year, I announced in this sub that Mythworks (The Eternal Ruins RPG, The Wildsea, CBR+PNK, Slugblaster, The Last Caravan, etc.) had reached out to me to publish a brand-new edition of a survival horror role-playing game I had released in 2022. The goal would be to use the same format as CBR+PNK and to work with Jack Panic (DNGN Club) and Vil (of Mothership fame) to create a cool retro VHS-style aesthetic for the project.

We got over 1,000 signups on the campaign, but times are hard for many folks, and as the campaign was reaching its end, I was running the numbers and all my simulations pointed me toward a pretty unsatisfying outcome: we probably would not fund.

Things happen, and there are a lot of aspects we don't have control over. That's life. I decided to record a video about the state of the project, why we decided to do things a certain way, and the various aspects that led to where we were. I published it out of transparency on my Patreon to help other creators who may be going over the same things in the future.

From there, the TTRPG community on Bluesky rallied around us and yelled about our game to help us reach our goal. Then John Harper published this post.

> If Breathless: Frightmare Edition funds, I'll make this. (KS link in the thread 👇).
Bluesky post

So yeah, a new game set in the setting of Blades in the Dark that uses the Breathless SRD as its foundation for the rules.

I've been a huge fan of John's work for years, and Blades in the Dark is one of my favorite RPGs, so seeing a person I respect so much not only speak up to help our little project fund, but also literally use it as a basis for a project of his own is wild. The the kind of thing that filled me with pure joy and excitement 😅

A couple of hours later, we got 200+ pledges, thousands of dollars more, and we funded.

All that to say, not all hobbies share what we have in the TTRPG space. Our community is truly something special that we should continue to invest in.

If you are curious about what John is cooking, be sure to follow him on Bluesky. He's been sharing some screenshots of the character sheet, and its looking very nice.

If you want to know more about our Kickstarter, here's the link. We are in the last 48-hour stretch, so any kind of help or support is deeply appreciated.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mythworks/breathless-frightmare-edition

As always, new is cool, and that’s alright. I started playing TTRPGs in 2018, with, of course, Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition. Since then, I branched out, but right now I’m heavily invested in older games (80s, 90s, early 2000s). I don’t have time to play them, but I like to collect and read them.

Let’s have a post about those who have tried but now are rarely talked about.

The strange boxed sets gathering dust on a shelf. The systems with bold ideas that didn’t quite catch on. The games you stumbled into once, played for a summer, and never saw again but somehow you never forgot.

I like this era The 80s and 90s (even the early 2000s) were full of these experimental mechanics, bizarre settings, clunky rules.

So here’s a toast to those forgotten TTRPGs.

Which ones do you remember?
What made them special to you?
Was it the setting, the mechanics, the people you played with or just the right moment in time?

Let’s give them a little life again. xo

Tales from the Floating Vagabond Chaos and Comedy,

Tales from the Floating Vagabond is one of those forgotten RPGs that feels less like a controlled explosion of ideas.

Set around a bizarre interdimensional bar that pulls in characters from across time and space, the game thrives on absurdity. You can play anything a space mercenary, a cartoon creature, or something even less sensible and somehow it all works because the setting doesn’t care about logic, only momentum and jokes.

What really sells it, though, is how the mechanics lean into that chaos. The system uses the roll under your stat approach where success isn’t just about skill it’s about how ridiculous or entertaining your action is. Characters are built around over-the-top “Shticks,” which are less like balanced abilities and more like comedic superpowers that define how absurd you can get at the table.

There’s also a constant push toward escalation. The rules reward bold, exaggerated actions, and punish hesitation with failure or comedic disaster. It’s not designed for tight balance or realism instead, it actively encourages scenes to spiral out of control in the most entertaining way possible.

It’s not a game for long, serious campaigns. But as a chaotic, laughter-filled one-shot (or a short-lived campaign that spirals into madness),

Bonus one:

HoL (Human Occupied Landfill) Edgy and Chaotic

Human Occupied Landfill is pure, unapologetic chaos. The setting is a grotesque, over-the-top dystopia packed with violence, satire, and a kind of deliberately offensive humor that very much screams “90s edge.” It’s messsy, loud, and absurd.

I know the Cortex Prime community license was first reported on a couple of weeks ago, but Cam Banks (the creator of the Cortex system) gave an interview that was published yesterday talking about it.

From what I've been reading, the new license seems to be a pretty good deal. You can basically do whatever you want non-commercially (as long as you're not doing anything that would violate DTRPG's TOS), and you can even publish commercial works without worrying about paying royalties until you start making enough revenue for that to be worth bothering with. And Rusty Sellsword Design is Cam Banks' own company, so if you want to produce a commercial product and that product sells well enough that it becomes practical to discuss royalties, you'll apparently be talking with the man himself rather than Direwolf Digital.

Cortex Prime is a great system, and it's been sad to see it so neglected for the past few years due to getting purchased by a company that seemed to not want to do anything with it. I think Cam Banks getting enough of the rights for the system back in his own hands to be able to release it under a community license is definitely a win for everyone.

This Humble Bundle was scheduled to end last week but it looks like it was extended. Now it ends on May 7th.

The City at the Center of the World Humble Bundle

This bundle dropped a few weeks ago but the threads tend to drift off the main page in the subreddit after a couple of days, so this is your reminder that it's happening!

Paizo runs one of these every few months so it's hardly new, but there are always "new to the Bundle" products that can make these worth picking up even if you bought earlier offerings. This Bundle focuses on Absalom, biggest city in the official setting.

Per usual this bundle includes everything you need to get started. The "Beginner Box" which is basically a tutorial for the system as well as all the essential Core Rulebooks (The latest, Remastered versions) which contain everything you need to play as well as several Lost Omens books to get you up to speed with the official setting.

If you have bought any Pathfinder 2e Bundles previously, There is a lot of content we haven't seen in previous Bundles in the form of Map Folios/Flip Maps and Pathfinder Society Mini Adventures. The big draws are all at the $30 level. The most generically useful item is the NPC Core. Basically a "monster book" for humanoid intelligent enemies & NPCs. City Guards, Hunters, Bandits, Generals, Court Jesters, Cult Leaders, that sort of thing.

After that we get the Absalom focused part of the bundle, including the 6 part Agents of Edgewatch Adventure Path, which runs from lvl 1-20 and assumes the PCs are all members of the Absalom City Watch/Police. To support the AP we also get the LO: Absalom book in a bundle for the first time, basically a giant guide (400 pages!) to the giant city. I really can't emphasize enough how enormous the setting book for the city is. It spends 120 pages on prominent local NPCs, with each getting 2-4 paragraphs & that is less than a third of the page count.

Finally at the $45 level includes all the digital content and a Physical hardcover copy of "NPC Core" which is normally $70 all by itself. (But you will need to pay shipping!)

Sadly, no Foundry Modules this time out. The included Adventure Path came out before those were regular products & so "Agents" never got one.

It's worth remembering that all the Core Books cost $30/each in PDF form normally so getting 5 of them for $30 is an amazing deal all by itself before you add in the Absalom Book, the Adventure Path, or any of the mini-adventures or maps.

Here is a thread discussing the bundle from when this first dropped

Lets break this down:

$5 Level - These are all PDFs!

• Beginner Box
• Player Core
• GM Core
• Core GM Screen
• Map Folio: City of Lost Omens * First time in a Humble Bundle
• Ebook - Lord Penance * First time in a Humble Bundle
• Ebook - Gears of Faith * First time in a Humble Bundle
• Adventure - Little Trouble in Big Absalom (normally free anyway)
• Players Guide - Agents of Edgewatch (normally free anyway) *First time in a Humble Bundle

$15 Level - These are all PDFs!
Everything in the $5 level plus:

• Pathfinder Society mini Adventure - The Broken Scales *First time in a Humble Bundle
• Pathfinder Society mini Adventure - Year of Shattered Sanctuaries *First time in a Humble Bundle
• Pathfinder Society mini Adventure - Struck by Shadows *First time in a Humble Bundle
• Pathfinder Society mini Adventure - Dreams of a Dustbound Isle *First time in a Humble Bundle
• Pathfinder Society mini Adventure - Dacilane Academy's Delightful Disaster *First time in a Humble Bundle
• Pathfinder Society mini Adventure - Mean Streets of Shadow Absalom *First time in a Humble Bundle
• Pathfinder Society mini Adventure - Dacilane Academy's First Great Prank War *First time in a Humble Bundle
• Pathfinder Society mini Adventure - Sewer Dragon Crisis *First time in a Humble Bundle
• Flip Mat: City Sites Multi-Pack *First time in a Humble Bundle
• Flip Mat: Tavern Multi-Pack *First time in a Humble Bundle
• Flip Mat Tiles: Dungeon Starter Set
• Flip Mat: Haunted Dungeons Multi-Pack
• Flip Mat: Bigger Island *First time in a Humble Bundle
• Flip Mat: Pathfinder Lodge *First time in a Humble Bundle
• Flip Mat: Theater *First time in a Humble Bundle
• Flip Mat: Haunted Dungeon *First time in a Humble Bundle

$30 Level - These are all PDFs!
Everything in the $5 and $15 levels plus:

• Monster Core
• NPC Core *First time in a Humble Bundle
• Player Core 2
• Lost Omens Grand Bazaar *First time in a Humble Bundle
• Lost Omens Pathfinder Society Guide
• Lost Omens Absalom: City of Lost Omens *First time in a Humble Bundle
• Adventure Path Agents of Edgewatch Part 1 of 6 *First time in a Humble Bundle
• Adventure Path Agents of Edgewatch Part 2 of 6 *First time in a Humble Bundle
• Adventure Path Agents of Edgewatch Part 3 of 6 *First time in a Humble Bundle
• Adventure Path Agents of Edgewatch Part 4 of 6 *First time in a Humble Bundle
• Adventure Path Agents of Edgewatch Part 5 of 6 *First time in a Humble Bundle
• Adventure Path Agents of Edgewatch Part 6 of 6 *First time in a Humble Bundle
• Pathfinder Society mini Adventure - A Most Wonderous Exchange *First time in a Humble Bundle

$45 Level - This includes a Physical Item
Everything in the $5, $20, and $30 levels plus:

• Pathfinder NPC Core - 240 page Hardcover book, *First time in a Humble Bundle. (But see the shipping warning below!)

FAQ:

• WARNING: The $45 price tag doesn't include shipping! Within the US it will only be a few dollars but costs get murderous internationally so be careful if you don't live in North America. If you don't want to deal with that, you will need to stick to the Digital Only levels. The PDF version of the Hardcover book is included at the $30 level.
• When you purchase the Bundle you will get a code that you enter at https://store.paizo.com/redemption. This will fill your Paizo.com cart with the digital purchases but set the price to $0. You purchase it for $0 and then everything is added to your digital library where you can download it normally.
• The bundle is "all or nothing", you can't break it up or swap out books. If you already own something from the Bundle it won't appear twice in your library.
• These are all DRM-Free PDFs that will be downloaded direct from Paizo.com. No subscriptions or special viewers needed (you do need a Paizo.com account). Paizo has dropped their earlier practice of watermarking the PDFs with your name & email. These are *completely* DRM free.
• For folks worrying about the remaster, the included "Core Books" are all the currently released remastered core rules. The Adventure Path & many of the mini-adventures are Pre-Remaster 2nd edition content. They are 95% compatible with the Remaster, the main differences are spells, monsters & terms that were renamed during the Remaster. It takes very little adjustment to use them with the current rules and the old versions are all still up on Archives of Nethys if you prefer.
• The various Map books are digital only, consisting of a mix of PDFs and JPG copies of the physical maps Paizo Publishes. You can print them out on your own but most people seem to use them in various VTTs.
• Remember to adjust the donation sliders if you do buy. The proceeds are split between Paizo, the Charity (Comic Books for Kids), and Humblebundle.com but you are free to adjust the ratios of who gets what from your purchase.

As the title says, what game did you have expectatives but ended up being a disapointment, and what games did you expect nothing but ended up being something you enjoyed?

In my case, I always had a bad idea of Anima Beyond Fantasy, but once I played it and understood how and why it worked it was a blast. On the other hand, I had Lancer hyped quite a lot (myself being a mecha fan), with it being the largest mecha ttrpg currently, but when I played I ended up disliking most of it's decisions and mechanics.

Hi all, I was wondering if there is any system that uses mana (or the equivalent of that system) and health as the same resource. I figured that some type of blood magic would be fairly common in RPG but that is not exactly what I am looking for. A friend of mine is doing a system inspired in soul eater (for those who don't know soul eater is an anime where people can essentially fuse their souls, with one becoming a weapon and the other being the wielder). And instead of health you take damage on your soul and if it depletes you are vulnerable to attacks. But you also use your soul to use magic and do special attack. The idea is to give the player the feeling of "Do I really need to use this right now?". Anyway too much off topic. I was wondering if there is any system that does something similar? We wanted to do some research to see how to implement this in a fun and playable way!

A while back I created a campaign that was originally for DnD. I stopped working on it after realizing I didn’t have it in me to learn the combat rules, but also because I learned that DnD in its current state is not made for horror. It’s supposed to make the characters feel like heroes.

My story for it was that there is this village being attacked by a fleshy sludge thing. To put it simply, this creature cannot move easily on its own, but studies the creatures around it and can mimic their body structures in order to move. Its main strategy for getting food is possessing another living creature, and after a time using it to kill everything around it, before sucking the blood out of each corpse. In turn, it can break down and use the DNA to more perfectly imitate body plans, therefore allowing it to move even more efficiently. Over time, it will become perfect.

This cycle begins in a village when the first human is possessed, and after this point it causes mass killings at least once every few days. It first infiltrates the knights castle, killing everyone within; then systematically possesses people who go to bars and other public spaces, doing the same thing.

The PCs must find out what is happening and stop it. I do not want the PCs to feel heroic in this. I want them to know that this force is greater than them, and that they need to be careful. I want them to be on edge, and I already have multiple ideas for scenes that set that kind of tone. I just need a good TTRPG as a base, one that can ideally span multiple sessions.

I feel like swimming out into stranger waters with my RPGaming. More story, less focus on 'Levels and increased capabilities'.

The current campaign that I'm envisioning is set in a version of the Ghost in the Shell universe, but I want my players to be more invested in learning more about themselves, and their place in society, than anything else.

I keep thinking about The Wire, the astounding and 'could-be-argued-the-Best' television show of all time.

McNulty, Daniels, "Bunk", Greggs, Lester, "Prez", Herc and Carver. All really GREAT characters.

Did McNulty ever 'level up' and become better at shooting a pistol? Or increase his skill level in grappling? Or negotiating?

Nope. McNulty was always McNulty in terms of his capablities. He had exactly the same capabilities at the end of Season 5 as he did in the first episode of Season 1. He didn't 'Level Up'.

So what changed?

What changed was our appreciation of who McNulty was, and why he has become the person that he is. By the end of 5 seasons, we haven't seen McNulty become a 'better' cop. But we just know him and understand him better as a human being.

So anyhoo, I have gotten the feelings that some people out there in RPG land might know what I am talking about here.

Anyway you can point me in the directions i'm looking for, much appreciated. If not, at least salute me as I point my RPG ambitions into the uncharted waters.

Hey everyone! If anyone is interested in the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG I'd like to recommend Nobody Wake The Bugbear, we've been a dedicated Mothership RPG podcast for the past 4 years or so.

During that time we have amassed two full campaigns featuring the adventure Gradient Descent along with over a dozen Oneshots/Short-series playing some of the best modules for the system.

The games are not a live-stream but rather played in-person at the table and then later edited into a podcast with high quality audio and a cinematic score. Each episode is around 60-90 mins~ and around 15+ hours is dedicated to the editing for quality.

We have a lot of episodes up on YouTube as well which have been converted into video using a graphical overlay. Some of the best ones to check out would be:

Orphans

Decagone

The Law Of Salvage

Another Bug Hunt

Ghosts And The Machine – A Gradient Descent Campaign

So if you've been curious about what sort of games you can have with the Mothership RPG I’d recommend checking out the show, You wont be disappointed in the quality I think! The only drawback is we're Australian :D

Anyways thanks for reading, I hope it's well received :)

If so, what system did you use? When and where was it set? Honestly I’ve been thinking about it and while race options might not be that variable (only humans) and magic isn’t as widespread as in D&D, it honestly sounds like a fun setting to try to adapt to a TTRPG format.

Hello! I work for an LGS (Local Game Store) and just got permission to start up a Learn to Play event focused on TTRPGs.

I would love to get some tips and tricks. Any help is welcome!

Here's some of what I have so far;

I know I want to do more than just Dungeons and Dragons and even just big ones like Pathfinder. I do want to do these ones, but I also want to do smaller, lesser known RPGs such as things like Daggerheart, Cyberpunk, and Shadowdark. And even smaller ones like Ryuutama, Stewpot, and Magical Kitties.

I want the event to be all ages, but for sure kid friendly.

At first I thought I wanted to do this event once a month, but I think once a week would be better, and have the month be focused on one RPG. For example, one month will be DnD, the next will be Ryuutama. I think this will be easier to provide different kinds of sessions, like one of the weeks could be focused on character creation for that month's RPG. Thoughts?

The other thing I can't quite decide on is how long the event should be. I'm thinking two hours minimum, four hours maximum. Thoughts?

Again, any help is welcome. I really want to spread the love and fun that is TTRPGs. Thank you!