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So I have been trying to get into Lancer games for a good while now. The games I do get in don’t usually pan out because of the following reasons.

The players, from what I have interacted with and seen on the countless recruitment posts, are majority combat coded. They are so focused on their builds and the combat that they can’t really add anything to the conversation outside of combat. But they definitely have hundreds of things to say about what other players should do on their turn. I have also noticed that games with lots of GM work put into them, with lore, NPCs, details, and so on, get flooded with these players. But they don’t touch the type of games where what they prefer to do, war game minis with minimal lore prep and PC interaction, is the expectation.

I have seen games die on session 1 because the table is so quiet. The attitude for anything out of mech is “whatever, let’s get this over as fast as possible so we get to mech combat.” That leaves any player or players to dominate the conversation or awkwardly interact with the GM one on one while the rest of the table just listens.

So anyone got other systems to recommend with hopefully a better community as well?

It seems incredibly common for people to have scheduling issues in our hobby, though I feel like an exception to the rule. I've been in many games with a group of friends through the years, and we always manage to make it to sessions despite work, family obligations, and school. For me, weekly sessions were the norm, and cancellations due to low attendance were extremely rare.

However, recently I hosted a D&D campaign for some newer friends of mine and we found it difficult to schedule things. I racked my brain a bit as to why and I feel like it came down to how they engaged with the hobby compared to my other friend groups.

See, my friend group that I mainly play with are a bunch of GURPS players. We all love to GM and play, and we all play in each others games when we get around to hosting one. We show up for each other, take interest in each other's worlds, and try to make interesting characters. For us, it's kind of a big part of our lives, having played on-and-off together for nearly 10 years.

For my new D&D players, it seems like they didn't take the hobby as seriously. Not that there's anything wrong with that! It was just incredibly hard for them to find time for a regular bi-weekly session, so we tried to schedule after each session. But that turned into a problem of things popping up on those days we agreed on so I adopted a strict "be there or don't, we're running."

My philosophy when I schedule time for anything is that I treat it like a serious obligation. Of course, important things will conflict sometimes, but if I schedule RPG night with some friends, that time is set and I stick to it. I felt like my D&D group was more prone to schedule things they really wanted to do instead of play an RPG, so attendance was low.

My conclusion to this is that it feels like scheduling is not really an issue for people who are truly invested in the hobby. That someone who really wants to play will make the time, despite how busy their day-to-day is.

What are everyone's thoughts?

Recently a friend of mine has been working on a new edition of her game, featuring many bold mechanical and narrative departures from the original; While she's confident in them, apparently several people have suggested that it might be better off being framed as not just a new edition of the same game, but a full numbered sequel in the fashion of a movie or video game followup, which has further helped her confidence in those different design decisions...

...And that has suddenly made me aware of just how weirdly uncommon it is to actually do this for TTRPGs, even though there's plenty that could absolutely be treated this way.

The closest to extant examples would be Monsterhearts 2 (though supposedly it is functionally just a new edition of the same game, in spite of the name) and I believe the upcoming Dungeon World 2 has explicitly been described this way by the developers.

Yet, one could very much argue that the different editions of D&D or Pathfinder are effectively altogether new game with how much they differ from their predecessors; I understand that in traditional non-fiction book publishing, editions are the main paradigm, but TTRPGs are at best only partly like textbooks or manuals (IMO), and while I don't think this would totally kill edition wars (given that people will often still argue about their favorite/best film in a franchise or installment in a long-running video game series), it could set much better expectations for games that employ sweeping system- and setting-level changes that they are not the exact same thing as what came before.

Iunno, am I alone in this?

I've spent the better part of the last year obsessed with finding a "perfect" workflow for my games. I went through and tried 15 different apps and sites just trying to find stuff that actually helped me with DMing.

Most of them didn't make the cut (mostly either too clunky, took too long to set up or there were better alternatives). There are now 5 that I actually use every week, these are the tools I currently use for all my sessions:

1. Notion (World builder): This is my favourite world building tool. I know everyone raves about Obsidian and I did try to make it work, but I eventually came back to Notion. TBH obsidian felt a bit overwhelming with so many plugins and template tinkering. I found Notion a lot more straightforward and the database structure just clicks better for me. Being able to link an NPC to a specific shop and then to a quest line in a clean table just works incredibly well.
2. Saga20 (Campaign tracker): This is easily the biggest game changer for my table’s pacing. It transcribes our sessions and handles all the recaps and notes. No one has to take manual notes anymore, so we don't have to pause and wait for players to finish scribbling (which IMO kills the pacing). It also lets players jump in and check the recaps between sessions to stay caught up since many of my sessions are missing at least one player. I also just take those summaries and use them to seed my Notion lore so everything stays consistent without me having to write up my own session recaps.
3. Syrinscape (Music): I used to use spotify or just random youtube loops but the immersion here is MUCH better. It lets me layer environmental sounds like a crowded tavern or a rainy forest directly over the music. Being able to trigger a dragon roar or a fireball sound effect with easily adds a ton to the vibe without me having to juggle different browser tabs or search for "fireball" sounds mid combat. I also tried pocketbard which is pretty good but I prefer using an app on my laptop rather than having to use my phone.
4. Lost Atlas (Maps): This has saved me the most time for my session prep, I honestly haven't drawn a custom battlemap in months. This is basically a massive search engine for maps. I used to spend hours on Inkarnate or Dungeondraft, but now I just type in a theme like "Sewers" or "Dungeon" and I’ll find exactly what I need in seconds. It always has a map that just works for whatever scene/situation my players are in.
5. Shieldmaiden (Combat encouters): This is what I use to run the actual fights. It’s lightweight enough that it doesn't clutter my screen, but it tracks everything I need. The autobalancing feature is huge for me. If I realize mid session that an encounter is turning into a total TPK or is too easy, I can tweak it live and also enjoy not having to do much math :D.

I’m always looking for new tools to try so if you’ve got a tool you swear by pls drop a comment. Also happy to answer questions if you're curious about how I’m actually using these or why the other tools I tried didn't make the cut

Thoughts?

I am trying to run a sci-fi game for my players. My problem is that I want the game to have elements of Star Wars, Alien, Firefly, Halo etc. Pretty much I want to add a little bit of everything sci-fi I (and my players) grew up with. We have only ever played 5e together, and my players are SUPER hesitant about learning/playing a different system. I wouldn't mind switching it up at all to be honest. I need some suggestions for a system to use (or if I should just stick with 5e). I have been interested in Savage Worlds or possibly Starfinder?

Hi everyone,

It seems that the trend is to go PDF only. Cheaper, easy to search and reference, you can copy and paste text, etc. And nowadays, with the tariffs and the big delivery fees, it is becoming more of a must than a choice for some people.

I find PDFs much more useful to run and general use, but I like the feel of a good book.

What do you guys prefer, and which do you use the most?

Okay, not very used to Reddit, so I'll do as best as I can:
I'm a long time GM, was the nerd kid that introduced TTRPGs to the only couple of friends I had at the time, and I never stopped playing.
For a long time, I was like many others: when I wanted to create a powerful BBEG, I made it strong and powerful so that my PCs would be afraid... But in a series that I love, there is a speech that offered me another way of conveying the threat, which I find even more effective.

In a French series called Kaamelott, Méléagan, an obviously very dangerous being, has a speech that I love... Allow me to translate it quickly:

CONTEXT: In this series based on Arthurian legend, Méléagan is alienating Lancelot and has asked him to withdraw from everything.

"Losers always retire near a stream, because of thirst. But retirement means retiring from everything, don't you think? When I have nothing left to do here, I will retire... No more water. No more sunshine. I dry up, from head to toe, into a little corpse under a pile of leaves... The seasons pass me by without suspecting me... And then, one day, the crow tells me that she has heard someone crying again in the distance. Guinevere! Guinevere! Then I open one eye, crawl, eating the snow, licking the muddy water... and my enemies flinch, because as they see me drinking, they know that I am back."

Since then, I’ve experimented with different ways to show just how powerful my villains can be.

Recently, for example, I introduced a powerful DMPC with two clear purposes: to be overwhelmingly strong, and to guide the party toward a location where a strange magical anomaly had been detected.

This DMPC was intentionally awful; the classic overpowered, all-knowing type who understood the world far better than the players ever could. But that was the point. My goal was simple: he was meant to die.

The party eventually reached the abandoned camp where the magical surge had been recorded. As they began to investigate, the DMPC suddenly stopped. He had noticed something on the ground.

A human corpse, barely alive, clinging to the last threads of life. As the DMPC approached, he noticed an artifact embedded in the corpse’s head. The moment he recognized it, he froze.

“No… it can’t be… It can’t be you. You... You can’t be alive.”

The corpse smiled.

The DMPC panicked. Completely losing his composure, he turned to the party and screamed at them to run.

The party fled back to the main village. When they arrived, something impossible awaited them. As if he had teleported ahead of them, they found the DMPC there. Dead, burned beyond recognition, his body twisted and scarred as if he had suffered a thousand deaths. Somehow, impossibly, his eyes were still open. With his last breath, he forced out a few broken words:

“Keep… on… running.” Then his body collapsed into ash.

That corpse in the camp? That was the BBEG... at his weakest.

And let’s just say… my players are absolutely terrified now.

So yeah, that show made me reconsider how to make a menace truly menacing... What about you? Any show or books or whatever that is outside of TTRPG that change the way you play/run a game?

TL;DR:
A speech from a show made me rethink how to make villains scary. Instead of raw power, I now show menace through inevitability and fear. I used an overpowered DMPC meant to die, when he utterly panicked and was brutally killed by what turned out to be the BBEG at his weakest, my players were far more terrified than any boss fight ever made them.

Any shows, books, or other media that changed how you run games?

I've seen a few slice of life actual plays with Yazaba's, Chuubo's, etc. But they all tend to be shorter campaigns. Does anyone know if there's been any long term slice of life campaign actual plays? Thanks

My 11 year old son might be interested in RPGs. Despite having played Hero Kids twice, I don't think he really understands what they are, and thinks mostly in terms of computer games where you have to kill monsters that are mostly defined by how they look and how many hit points they have. That's not really the kind of game I want to run, but I can compromise and do something where they have to kill interesting monsters in interesting set piece combats or something.

But which system to use? He's not much of a reader (though I'd love it if this encouraged him), and I don't want to drown them in complex character creation with too many options. Something that gets us going quickly, but has a bit more depth than Hero Kids. And ideally something that I already have and can run without too much work. Fortunately, I've got a lot. Unfortunately, I've got a lot. So let's run down the list of RPGs I've got and might consider for this:

Hero Kids: He's not 6 anymore. I'd like something with a bit more heft and depth.

D&D: An obvious choice for combat against monsters, but I feel there are way too many character creation options, and honestly, I'm not a fan. I don't really want to run D&D. Although I suppose we could stick to just the Basic rules. And then run them through Lost Mines of Phandelver. Not the worst option, perhaps, but I'm not a fan of D&D.

DCC: I've got it. Never run it. I have a ton of little adventure booklets for it even. I suppose there's plenty of material, but it's a hefty tome to read. Hopefully it's easier to get started (it's got those funnels, right?), but is it easier/better than D&D? Also, not a huge fan of D&D clones.

I've got a few other D&D clones, ranging from Pathfinder to some more controversial systems. Not a fan, and they're unlikely to be better than D&D or DCC, I suspect.

Star Wars d6: Hell yeah! Fantastic system, and probably tons of fun with kids. But maybe less suited for monster hunting, and probably not what he's thinking off.

Star Wars EotE: Hell yeah! But same problems.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: I grew up on 1st edition, and can still dream most of it. Or I could run the gorgeous 4th edition. Or anything in between. Character creation can be entirely random, so we can get started quickly. Although the game usually focuses more on human lands, there are plenty of monsters in Warhammer. We could go there. I could run The Enemy Within. Again. Or the starter set.

GURPS: Another system I can dream. But mostly for modern/high tech settings. Fantasy may take a bit more work to set up. And it's a fiddly system. You've got to love it, and they don't know it.

GURPS Dungeon Fantasy: Never played it, but I've got the box. It's already done most of the work.

Forbidden Lands: That's not a difficult system. There's a few aspects of the system I'm not entirely fond of, but we will probably skim over those anyway. No shortage of monsters I believe, although it is a bit overly horrific. Maybe I should tone that down a bit?

Call of Cthulhu: No, those aren't monsters you hunt and kill.

Het Oog Des Meesters (DSA/The Dark Eye): A Dutch language RPG! That makes it easier for Dutch kids, though maybe a bit weird, because they're used to everything being in English. I grew up with the first edition of this, and it made me fall in love with RPGs, despite the extreme limits of that game. The new 2019 edition has a lot more detail, but maybe too much. I'm not looking forward to digging through that tome.

Dungeon World: It's not particularly complex, although the style of play might be a bit weird perhaps? Or it might be perfect. I don't know; no experience with it, though at least I've read the rules once.

Savage Worlds: Not a bad option at all, except I seem to have mislaid my rulebook. That limits things. But otherwise I think this could be great.

Fudge: I've had fun with it in the distant past. Still my favourite damage system. Certainly flexible, but I have no Fantasy rules for it, no monster stats, no magic system.

Reign: This is what I'm about to start running for my regular group. They could hitchhike on the back of my work for my other group. Not hard to get started either: one roll decides your character. I'd have to drop in some more monsters than I'd do for my regular group, but maybe the kids can playtest the monster encounters for me.

(I think I'll skip Shadowrun, Traveller, Harnmaster, Hollowpoint and Fiasco; I don't think that's even remotely what they're looking for.)

So, of this list, what would you recommend for a dad to run for a group of 11 year olds? Or is there one I should just give to them and let them figure it out? Maybe I should run something that they can take over once they get the hang of it?

Is there something else I should get because it's clearly superior to everything listed?

Does anyone here have experience running a game for 11-year olds?

Been DMing for my group for 8 or 9 years. Almost that entire time we've been playing 5e. We've taken a break to do other games, including one I made, and in the last 6 months since we finished Storm King's Thunder we've been doing short games and one shot, more comedy focused stuff like Honey Heist, Kobolds, Business Wizards etc with simple rules.

So this week I'm going to pitch some ideas for games we can do for a long campaign again. Everyone is fine with DND again, obviously we all know the rules very well, but I don't think this group is going to be willing to learn the rules to something as complex as Pathfinder or maybe even Call of Cthulu. Took years for them to absorb DND and we play very casually anyway. The group is WAY more into roleplaying than combat/mechanics, so much so that I've been spending a lot of our time with DND campaigns reconfiguring fights to be roleplaying encounters. This is my main reason for not wanting to just continue on with 5e or 5.5e, the group is just so not into combat.

We are an online group (although we are all friends IRL) if that helps. We also used to use Roll20 for DND, which I have no issue with buying stuff for and resubbing if they have really useful tools for the game like they did we Lost Mines, Strahd, Storm King etc that we've already done.

tldr; What are some roleplaying heavy games with simple rules that are meant for longer campaigns? Thanks!

My wishlist never ends, I feel like a fool chasing the end of the rainbow.

• Mythic North
• We Deal in Lead
• 13th age 2e
• The Dread Thingonomicon
• Electric Bastionland
• Reavers of Harkenwold
• Genesys
• The vanilla game (Is there a .pdf form of the game? I don't enjoy using the native site, but there's personal preference.)
• The Isle by Luke Gearing
• The Halls of Arden Vul
• Runecairn
• Shadow of the Demon Lord
• Arc: Doom
• Dungeon Crawl Classics
• Mork borg
• Pirate borg
• Frontier Scum
• Wolves of God
• Outgunned

What's on your wishlist?