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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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I've created a workflow on my PDF purchases, which I will describe at the end of this bullet list. But here is what I would like to see RPG publishing companies do to PDFs they sell to customers:

• Convert all images in the PDF to RGB. I have a script that does this, and it seems to really speed up image rending, especially on slower hardware. It also makes the images "pop" a little more when viewed on computer devices, since computers display things in RGB and not CMYK.
• Hyperlink your PDFs. The table of contents, the index in back and any references to other sections of the book. If you reference another page in the book, or another chapter in the book, please make the text a hyperlink to that location in the book.
• Please number the page labels in the PDF properly. When I use the Go To Page option in my PDF reader and tell it to go to page 35, it should not go to page 37. Page Labels will let you label PDF Page 1 as the cover, and any front matter pages such as the TOC and copyright pages with i, ii, ii etc. And you can label Page 1 as Page 1. So when I tell it to go to Page 35. It actually goes to Page 35.
• Please include proper metadata in your PDFs. PDFs support 2 types of metadata. Basic metadata is 4 fields: Title, Author, Subject, Keyword. There is also XMPP metadata that will allow you to enter much more such as publication date, description, publisher name, etc. At a minimum, please at least fill in the 4 basic fields. A lot of ebook apps on tablets read these fields and name file using this when you import it instead of the filename.
• If your pages have a background on them, if possible, please include a PDF with just a white background. This is easier for some people to read and is way more printer friendly, if someone wants to print out a few pages from your book to have at the gaming table.

PDFs are just a subset of PostScript. And PostScript is just code that describes a page. You can manipulate a PDF using scripts. That's pretty obvious, since PDF editors exist.

I've actually created Python scripts to do a lot of this stuff for me. When I get a PDF, I do the following with scripts:

1. Convert all images in the PDF to RGB.
2. If it's a Mongoose or GURPS PDF, I have scripts that will hyperlink all page and chapter references as well as the TOC and index,if it's not already hyperlinked.
3. If it's a Castles and Crusades PDF, I have a script to either remove the background completely or move it onto it's own layer.
4. I have script that applies proper page labels to a PDF, so that Page 1 is actually Page 1.
5. I have a script that will pull metadata from DriveThruRPG and tag the PDF and write a Grimmory sidecar file.
6. The conversion to RGB can sometimes really increase the side of the PDF. If it gets way too big, then I have a script that will do light compression on the PDF and can usually cut the file size down as much as 50% with almost no loss in visual quality when reading on an iPad.

The last thing I do is drop the PDF onto my home Grimmory server (https://grimmory.org/). The server reads the sidecar file and properly imports all metadata, and I can access my PDFs from either in the Grimmory Web UI, or use the OPDS feed built in the app to get the files on my iPad, iPhone or computer.

This is all made possible by Bundle of Holding and their insane deals.

So I've been finding posts about what's the Best campaign/adventure, and it's always the same suspects; The Great pendragon campaign, Impossible landscapes, Curse of Strahd, Masks of Nyarlthotep, pound of flesh etc etc.

I have no doubt these are great but these guys take 20+ sessions, I'm looking for the best ones that are less than 10 sessions long or so, hell even 5 sessions long.

Any system at all, what are the shorter campaigns and adventures that really stuck with you?

Something I noticed across most campaigns I've run: the NPC the table falls in love with is basically never the one I put work into (although I usually put too much work into all my NPCs but that's a me thing).

I'll spend time on the tragic antihero with the layered backstory and the custom voice, and the players will go "cool" and move on. Then some nameless dwarf I invented on the spot to sell them a rope, who I gave a dumb accent because I panicked, becomes the emotional center of the campaign. They name-drop him for months. They plan sessions around visiting him. They tried to get him elected mayor. He lost his campaign because the dice have a story to tell, too

I've mostly stopped fighting it. Now I hold my "important" NPCs a little loosely and pay attention to whichever accident the table decides to adopt, because that's the one they actually care about, and caring is the whole game. I use the backstories like modules to slot in whenever the team decides on what NPC, usually furry, they adopt.

I don't fully get why it happens. Best guess is the prepped ones feel like they belong to me and the accidents feel like the players discovered them, so they get ownership. But I'm curious if it's universal. Who's the throwaway NPC that hijacked your campaign, and did you see it coming?

Just looking for intriguing ideas for fantasy worlds and games in general. Stonetop seems interesting.

I've been wondering if there a TTRPG that takes the crunch of modern combat centric TTRPGs and use them in a sports context as opposed to a lethal fight context. Importantly, they don't have to be real sports like basketball or volleyball, but rather something adjacent to those things (a great example being Pyre the video game)

Does anyone know of any TTRPG that fit this bill? Or even any board game that might fit this bill?

Thanks y'all

I'm going to be playing Triangle Agency with my table, which for those who do not know, is a very story-heavy game that involves rolling 6d4 and counting how many 3s you get. The game itself comes with one set of d4s that have a red top so that you can easily identify how many 3s you rolled. But I'd like to have more sets of them. Buying more is an option, but it will take a few weeks for them to arrive so I was hoping to avoid that.

I bought a bunch of cheap, unmatched (and ugly) d4s from my local gaming store with the intent to sharpie the tops of them. Which does work, but the sharpie smears off over time. I could paint them, but I don't know how easily that would chip off, nor do I know if that would do weird things to the balance of the dice. (Which, at a certain point... it's a story-telling game and the balance doesn't matter too much as long as it isn't crazy loaded. But I want to be at least somewhat mindful about that.) Maybe there's a product I don't know about to mark the dice, and/or make the sharpie more resilient?

What would be the best way to mark the dice without severely impacting the ability for them to roll?

I'm looking for suggestions on TTRPG systems which are ideal for fully analog in person gameplay. Doesn't necessarily need to be a narrative focused game (I'm kind of a fan of crunchy combat encounters), but my goal would be a system that is:

• Simple enough that we don't need complex character sheets or automation to make the gameplay smoother.
• Simple enough that we don't need to reference complex system/rules frequently during play.
• Very intuitive for theater of the mind encounters. If possible, still tactical but no need for grids and maps. Maybe sketch a quick visual on a big piece of paper, but no minis or grid combat.

I've only played/GM'd 5E and Pathfinder 2e. With 5E we run a pretty light screen usage for digital maps and d&d beyond character sheets. For Pathfinder were heavily on screen using foundry and because the experience technically is so similar and seamless comparing remote play to in personal play, my group has fell into a full remote only digital experience.

Fully open minded on setting. Just hoping to try something new that brings the table and physical dice back together. Also, I know I absolutely can run 5e and PF2e in person and screenless, its just that the digital alternatives make so much sense for them. I'm looking for something that is clearly the opposite where in person screenless works so well it wouldn't even make sense to explore digital options to simplify.

Hi everyone,

In the spirit of Halloween being only two months away, my group is requesting that we return to trying Curse of Strahd and I'm looking for a non 5e system for it.

Why not 5e has been rehashed plenty of times but briefly, I don't like it, my players don't love it, and I think gothic horror action is best done with another system.

I'm looking for something not super heavy, for combat or skill challenges to be fun or interesting, and for there to be some danger without feeling like a rotating cast of new characters as they all get meat-grindered.

We very briefly tried CoS before with Shadowdark and my players hated it (the system), so I'm ruling out that or any super stripped down D20/OSR systems since at least to us they tend to have the worst combo of just rules heavy enough to be stiffling without being mechanically interesting.

We did recently play Pendragon and everyone enjoyed that. They've enjoyed a lot of mini-games in that like Jousting and Feasting so I'm looking for systems that could make things like diplomacy, chases, etc fun mechanically.

I have players that definitely do not power game or optimize for the system so any game that requires that is out.

For our Ravenloft it would probably be a little Warhammer inspired in terms of vibes, more of a Renaissance Europe feel as opposed to fantasy DnD with lots of elves and dwarves. Some blackpowder weapons but should be easy to house rule into a system.

Some stuff I'm thinking about:

Dragonbane--similar to Pendragon. Combat is interesting and fun. Rules are light and easy. I own it as well as Book of Magic. Cons: Will need some tweaking to add flavor as well as the removal of the sillier animal species. I don't really love the travel/camping procedures so I'd need to pull them out somehow. Some people say its too lethal, not sure if that's true compared to the other examples. I've heard it's less ideal for long term play but again not sure if that's true or not either.

BRP/Call of Cthulhu: Like Dragonbane very similar to Pendragon which was our last module. Pretty straightforward mechanically. Someone partially did a CoS rewrite with Call of Cthulhu somewhere on Reddit Cons: Would use Pulp rules to avoid frequent character death, will need to do a lot of re-writing to make the module less combat heavy, my players do enjoy combat so I don't want it to be too lethal and I'm not sure how well CoC does medieval/renaissance combat. Not sure if sanity would be relevant in a CoS game or just add more work for me.

Savage Worlds: Fairly straightforward system. Easy enough to convert stuff especially since there's a Pathfinder version to transfer DnD type monsters between systems. There is a Ravenloft guide online. Plenty of subrules for chases and such which should be fun. Cons: My wife thinks the combat is boring, admittedly from only one game. Very swingy as well. I don't have a huge amount of experience playing it.

FATE: Fairly light and easy to explain. Can easily handle basically any possible encounter or event. I like the idea of a more narrative system and I think there's a lot you could do with that in a vampire module. Cons: I'm still not sure how to make combat or other involved skill challenges fun as they all seem very-same-y. I haven't really played much but it seems you should just be creating advantages over and over until your beefiest character takes a big swing, which I worry would get repetitive over a long campaign. But I'm happy to be wrong on this one.

Legend in The Mist: I just got it, I have no experience with it, but worth thinking about

WFRP 4e: Played it, too crunchy, we stopped. Not really sure what it offers over BRP anyway other than cooler art and production values (and character creation is more fun). I've heard good things about the Old World RPG but never played or read.

Runner-ups: Tales of Argosa may be D20 but it seems a bit more fun than other OSR games without fully going as gonzo as DCC and its still gritty enough for a CoS type game. I have some PBTA type games sitting around that I've never played like Chasing Adventure. Someone once mentioned using Blades in the Dark for Strahd which sounds intriguing but I have no idea how you'd mash them together.

Hope to hear from anyone who has played CoS in a non DnD system or to hear your recs on any of the above games.

Thanks in advance

I’ve never seen this type of campaign when I’m interacting with the western(by western, I guess I mean NA) RPG community, and I think it would be fun for me to introduce this eastern type of campaign on this platform.

Now, since there is no concept like this(at least not one I’ve heard of) in western community, I’m going to refer to it as opera campaigns. The idea of the opera campaign is that it has a coherent story of its own and players are merely side characters to the story. The character taking the central stage will be an npc controlled by the game master, and most of the game will revolve around this one npc(and most of the time, the npc’s mental struggles and suffering). The players will merely be this npc’s friends o acquaintances who for whatever reason the specific campaign states get involved in the conflict and is there to witness the story of this npc.

For the players, they control their characters just like in any other campaigns but they’ll have that npc protagonist controlled by the gm being a part of their party. And very often(by that, I mean most important and emotional scenes) they’ll be locked into a “cutscene”, in which the gm narrates a prolonged action from that npc protagonist(it’s often an interaction between the bbeg and the protagonist, both played by the gm, or significant moments to the protagonist). “Watching” these “cutscenes” feels like watching an opera, which is why I can it opera campaign. And of course, these campaigns are extremely railroaded with almost no freedom in the direction of the story whatsoever since the protagonist is that npc, not the players.

Now, I was giving the most archetypical description of opera campaigns. It’s a spectrum just like every other types of campaigns. Some campaigns allow more freedom while some less. I know how abstract what I just described seems, so let me explain through the most recent campaign I had with my friends.

In that campaign, the other 3 players and I played as classmates of a teenage wizard character, who was controlled by the gm. So all four of us just did normal human things to solve mysteries while the teenage wizard used magic to fight evil forces. Eventually, we learned about the teenage wizard’s past, fear, trauma, and the campaign ended with us accepting the wizard as a flawed person who was also our(characters’) friend.

The appeal of this is that it has a complete story with coherent themes, and it’s like reading a novel with your friends while playing as characters in the novel. I’ve never seen anything similar in western campaigns, and I’ve watched countless actual plays and read modules. And don’t get me wrong, this type of campaigns is only a sub-genre sort of thing in Japanese and Chinese communities, too, but it is a sizeable one, and you can certainly find a good amount if you are shopping modules.

Anyway, I don’t really trust in my own ability to explain the concept, so feel free to ask me about specifics

Edit, sorry I can’t reply to everybody. Just too many comments. I hope you all have fun and enjoy the post

Quick confession. I've got a shelf (and a hard drive, TBH) full of games I bought, read cover to cover, got genuinely hyped about, and will almost certainly never run. Mothership, Spire, like four different OSR things, a gift campaign about SEC football, one Kickstarter brick I still haven't finished reading. For a while I felt kind of guilty about it, like I was doing the hobby wrong or just setting money on fire.

But at some point I stopped seeing it as a backlog and started seeing it as its own thing. Reading a really well made RPG is just fun on its own, totally separate from ever getting it to a table. A good rulebook is part game design, part worldbuilding, part art book. I'll read a clever initiative system the way other people read a good nonfiction chapter, get inspired, steal one idea for the game I'm actually running, and put it back on the shelf perfectly happy.

What finally made it click is that my home table only really runs one, maybe two systems a year, and thats the real bottleneck. It's not money and it's not interest, it's the group's time and their willingness to learn something new. So the play side of my hobby crawls along while the reading side moves as fast as I want. They're just two different speeds.

I dont think it's a problem anymore. It's two hobbies wearing one trenchcoat and I genuinely like both of them. Am I the only one who does this, or is your shelf a graveyard too? And does anyone else still feel a little guilty about the pile, or have you made your peace with it?

I am running a Mausritter campaign in a 90s setting. My next session will have player in an RC car race. I want it to feel engaging and similar to Mario Kart. Has anyone run a session like this that might have some suggestions on how to make this feel better than just rolling?