**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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You've heard the usual complaint before. That DnD asks too much of GM while not providing them with the necessary tools (which is true), but sometimes you hear a variant. DnD players are called lazy and blamed for not clicking with a narrative game, normally a PbtA, because they do not want to put in the effort.

My confusion stems from having had the opposite experience. As a player, I found DnD fairly crunchy and having a somewhat harsh onboarding as I had to take my time learning my entire spell list and reading everything over and over to make sure I didn't misunderstand the fine print when rolling my first two characters (a Circle of Stars Druid and a Divination Wizard, respectively). And even before that, I spent days researching builds because I knew DnD games are a time commitment and I didn't want to chose the wrong and be stuck with it.

After the game started I continued thinking of how to use my spells creatively (and I don't mean TikTok meme crap) and looking for any synergies with the rest of my team (yeah, I know DnD isn't the best game for this). In combat, I was a controller and, outside, utility caster and I took my roles very seriously. I enjoyed it, but I felt that it was a decent amount of effort.

On the other hand, I took to narrative games like water. A lot of what is claimed to take more effort on the player's side I found to be simple, such building the world collaboratively. That's kinda' just using your imagination and reading the room to see if your suggestion is appropriate.

Similarly, I heard that you need players to be taking a more active role and being prepared for their characters to have more agency, but I've never had a problem figuring out what to do next. I suppose, I do not like games where backgrounds are extremely important in guiding the plot (such as trying to enact revenge) and prefer to have a character that starts with simple goals and connections and build from there, basically playing to find out (which is what you're supposed to do in these games anyway). But that's not hard.

I feel that most narrative games there are mechanics that create drama and conflict and playing into the archetype of the playbook makes the story kinda' write itself. Even when there's no clear archetype, character creation generally guides you to making a cohesive character with goals and personality, not just a bag of stats and you go from there.

Most of the time the world is flavourful or emulating a genre and that helps. If you signed up to play Masks you should want to do things like being angsty and struggling with the responsibilities of being a superhero while your brain isn't fully developed, similarly to how in DnD you should want kill shit and probably explore dungeons while doing so.

I've been thinking about character advancement and how most systems handle two separate things: how you improve abilities, and how you acquire new ones.

For improvement, many games already do interesting things. Use-based systems like Mythras or Burning Wheel let you advance a skill by actually using it, which feels grounded and natural.

But acquisition is where I think most games still fall short. The most common models are:

1. Class/level-based (D&D, Pathfinder): you hit a threshold and become eligible to learn things, largely independent of what happened in the story. In D&D you reach 5th level and can take Fireball, justified by "personal research", even if your character has never encountered another spellcaster and lives in a world where nobody throws fireballs.
2. Menu-based (GURPS, Call of Cthulhu): you pick a new skill from a list and start improving it through use. More flexible, but the acquisition itself is still disconnected from the fiction.

What I'm curious about is a third model for acquisition: you can only learn something if the fiction provides a source for it.

Examples of what I mean:

• You can only learn a spell if you find a grimoire, a teacher, or witness it being cast
• You can only learn a fighting technique if someone trains you in it
• If nobody in the world knows how to do X, then no PC can learn X

Once you acquire it that way, you could still improve it through use, like any other skill. The two things are separate.

This would make the world feel like it actually contains knowledge rather than knowledge being an abstraction tied to character sheets. It creates natural adventure hooks too, want to learn something? Go find where that knowledge lives.

I know some games already move in this direction. Forbidden Lands, Torchbearer, Burning Wheel (among others) require a teacher to instruct you before you can learn something new. Thie feels much more alive to me than a level-up screen.

I'd also add one twist to the model: maybe you could invent or reinvent an ability from scratch, but only by beating a very high difficulty check? You spent in-game and out-of-game resources experimenting, you failed a dozen times, and then you rolled well enough to crack it. That way the door isn't completely shut, it's just genuinely hard, and the story of how you got there becomes part of your character.

How do you feel about this as a player? Does it add meaningful weight to your character's growth, or does it just feel like gatekeeping? And are there other games that handle this well that I should know about?

The 2026 ENNIE Award Judge self nomination form is now open! https://ennie-awards.com/judge-application/

Be sure to read the instructions at the top fully and review the eligibility requirements. https://ennie-awards.com/mission-statement-and.../

If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them! Applications due by July 7th, voting is July 10th through 19th.

Eligibility

• Must be at least 18 years of age as of start of the ENNIES Judging period and able to enter into a legal contract.
• Thoroughly complete self nomination with legal name and provide a clear photograph.
• Not have any professional relationship with any RPG publisher during the period for the six month prior and 12 months post becoming a judge.
• Must declare any relationship with any publisher in which they receive money, product, or special consideration in exchange for their services.
• Must be able to read English and communicate clearly therein.
• While campaigning and if voted in as judge, must in no way, shape, or form promise favors to fans or publishers in exchange for votes.
• This must not be the third consecutive year for judgeship.
• The ENNIE Awards reserves the right to reject candidates who have failed to meet the above requirements or have displayed significant disregard for the ENNIES Organization or an inability to work cohesively with a team as determined by the Submissions Coordinator and Director.

Sorry for the clickbaity title, not sure how else to explain it in 300 characters or less.

Over the last several years, I've gotten really into the Essence20 RPG (E20) by Renegade Games. It's a d20-ish set of rules that they've used for several of their licensed RPGs, including Power Rangers, Transformers, GI Joe, Welcome to Night Vale, and, my personal favorite, My Little Pony.

The system isn't always a perfect fit for the IPs it's using, but it works well enough, and made some very clever choices: for example, it's designed so that the most complicated math you will ever need to do is add two dice together, usually a d20 and a d4-6--even bonuses to rolls are handled by changing the size of the dice, rather than plusses or minuses to the numbers. Character creation was fun and interesting, and offered lots of possibilities for customization. I particularly admired the MLP RPG because it did a pretty darn good job of making non-combat roles interesting and viable in a d20-ish RPG.

E20 isn't as big as the other RPGs that people are into these days, but its fans are dedicated. One of my favorite parts of the game is the tight-knit community, especially the dedicated homebrewers who were finding ways to make the various IPs work together. Want to make an evil sorceress in Power Rangers? Steal the spellcasting rules from MLP. Want to run a post-apocalyptic MLP game, a la Fallout Equestria? Mix the weapons and classes from GI Joe with the race options from MLP. One idea I've wanted to experiment with, but was never brave enough to try: do Captain Planet by giving the teens from Power Rangers the classes and magic rules from MLP.

I've been using the present tense so far in this post, but, if you read the title, you already know the punchline: the game got unceremoniously cancelled last Friday. There's lots of anger, frustration, and grief in the community right now, and, on my part, I know that thinking about it was making me feel almost physically ill.

Here's what happened, more or less:

To some extent, we should have seen the writing on the wall. Despite the fact that E20 had appeared in several Humble Bundles over the last couple years--sometimes even having entire bundles all their own--it felt like the output of E20 content had slowed dramatically. My Little Pony hadn't seen a new sourcebook since early 2025--which was wierd, because Renegade had announced a new book about once every six months. Still, fans were clamoring for more: every couple months, there was a rash of discussion on what content we wanted to see next, how we would write it, all that jazz.

Last Friday, Renegade held their twice-annual RenegadeCon, where they announce all their upcoming products. This time around, Renegade surprise-announced that they would be reprinting the E20 RPG books--but as D&D 5.5 hacks. Essence20 had been shitcanned without warning. Even worse, the announcement didn't mention the MLP RPG book at all, which fans have taken as a sign that they're not interested in producing further MLP content--possibly, says the speculation, due to low sales.

To some extent, I get it. I know that RPGs are a tricky business, and that an MLP RPG probably didn't sell terribly well even for an RPG. But I've been pulling hard for this system since the MLP book was first announced in 2023(?), and have been running games steadily since I first got the MLP book. The Renegade Games Discord has become one of my main hangouts online, and I was always impressed by the creativity and dedication of the fans.

And yet. The way it ended, so suddenly and so definitively, has not been... pleasant. I'll live, and my group will probably end up continuing to play E20 for some time to come. But even so: all my hopes and dreams for what this game could become, given the time, care, and marketing it needed, have come to naught.

If you're interested in taking a look at what E20 has to offer, the CRBs for Power Rangers, Transformers, GI Joe, and MLP (sorry Night Vale) are currently in the "Roll Big Or Go Home 2" bundle over on Humble Bundle. Additionally, most of the books and all of the dice are on, like, 80% off closeout sale over on the Renegade Games store. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but if you can overlook some level of jank, it's a great time, IMO.

Thanks for reading, everyone.

So I have been curious about this Mythic Bastionland ever since it released but only recently has my Pendragon 6th edition campaign has finished. I love Pendragon, I've run the Great Pendragon Campaign in 5.2. I will run it again someday when the full 6th edition expanded version is released. Knights going mad, dynastic growth, Traits & Passions, Manor management and more. There's so much I adore about the system.

I enjoy OSR too, I have been running Dolmenwood for about 7 months now. What does Mythic Bastionland offer me that Pendragon doesn't? I'm not sure if there's much overlap in the communities but I like the idea of Arthurian Knights in an OSR setting but how does that take form in this system? Or is it just another game in BX/D&D shell because after my Dolmenwood game is finished, I’d rather have something different enough to run.

Would appreciate any insight.

Hello r/rpg! LaCara Games is happy to announce our second Kickstarter, The Withering War! It's an epic war campaign for Draw Steel, based loosely on the classic D&D 3.5 adventure The Red Hand of Doom. Yes, I know Crack the Sun is going to exist. No, I didn't know Crack the Sun was going to exist when I started writing the book. I think The Withering War is going to be different enough to make them both stand on their own.

This adventure lets you live out the fantasy of being Aragorn, wandering around recruiting allies to stand against an overwhelming foe, culminating in an epic siege reminiscent of Helm's Deep. Lavishly illustrated by professional concept artist David "Arcvein" Simons, The Withering War takes place in a dark fantasy setting littered with demon-haunted ruins and the detritus of a fallen empire.

The March of Valmure is facing an invasion in the midst of a succession crisis. The heroes must travel around the realm and recruit various factions like goblins, elves, a necromancer, and a dragon to their side before the hordes of the vicious Troll King convince them to fight for them instead. The module plays out very differently based on who you are able to recruit and who you have arrayed against you. While it leans heavily on Draw Steel's tactical combat, it also features a ton of negotiations. You could easily port this adventure into D&D 5e, but you'd lose something without a dedicated negotiation system.

If you want to discuss the adventure, or just get more previews of the sick art, you can stop by our discord to hang out.

A few days ago, I ran John Harper's renowned rules light one-shot game, Lasers and Feelings, for some of my players, and the story we created was honestly amazing.

For those who don't know, Lasers and Feelings is a one-page RPG available for free: https://johnharper.itch.io/lasers-feelings

It's a sci-fi game with a very simple core mechanic:

• You have a number between 2 and 5
• If it's a higher number you're better at LASERS, if it's a lower number you're better at FEELINGS
• Whenever you do something risky or uncertain, the GM tells you to roll Lasers (roll a d6 and try to roll UNDER your number) or Feelings (roll a d6 and try to roll OVER your number)
• If you do some preparation, or if you are an expert, or if someone helps you, you get a bonus die for each of those, and can stack
• 1 success means you barely do it, 2 successes means you do it well, 3 successes means you do it with a bonus
• If you roll exactly your number you get LASER FEELINGS, which is a success but you also get to ask a question of the GM to get unique insight into the situation

And that's literally it. The one page comes with basic character creation rules (choose a style, i.e. hotshot, alien, savvy, etc.) and a role (envoy, scientist, doctor, soldier, etc.) and your character's goal in life, which can inform some of the bonus dice and of course how you play your character, but otherwise that's it for the mechanics. Then there are some random tables for the GM to generate an adventure.

I started by giving my players a primer: this is a rules light game, which means that you get as much joy out of it as you put effort into it. The fun scales with initiative and roleplaying effort. This isn't a game where you can sometimes have an off day and lean on the mechanics more, because there are no mechanics to lean on (this ended up not being strictly true, because the bonus dice mechanics ended up being quite important to our game, but at the beginning it definitely felt true). You gotta bring 100% of your energy to roleplaying your characters — and boy my players did.

My four players created their characters in 10 minutes, then we did the "two strengths and one flaw" for the spaceship, and then I rolled up an adventure on the spot and we started playing it out.

I've written up a full summary of our session here if you want to read it, but what I will say is that the character and spaceship creation, brief situation primer re: the Raptor spaceship and Captain Darcy's situation, and the random tables to generate the adventure did a lot of heavy lifting to help us immediately get into the right mood and mindset for the game.

My players were improvising interesting fictional details for their characters (our hotshot pilot had a beloved cat who become absolutely central to the adventure) just as much as I was improvising interesting voices and descriptions throughout the adventure. They were roleplaying in clever and creative ways with one another as much as my NPCs. They were able to grasp that this is a game that just allows players to create facts about the world (if the GM is ok with that of course) and started making up things when needed (like the aforementioned cat, or one of our two android players randomly shouting during combat "OUR ODDS OF SURVIVAL JUST WENT UP 2%!").

In the end, we told a story that was absolutely hilarious (one player messaged me after saying he hadn't laughed this much in an RPG session in a long while) while also having some tragedy and heart. I think one thing that made it work was the absolute trust my players had in me to be fair in a very GM-vibe-y game that allowed me to kill off a couple of them at the end on "success with consequence" (only 1 success) results for very high-stakes situations. But just as much it was because of how much the simplicity of the system is inspirational.

Now do I have an amazing group of players? Yes, absolutely, and that makes a huge difference for a truly rules light game like this. All the same, John Harper is quickly becoming my favorite game designer because of how much he can inspire us with very little mechanics and setting information. With a few deft words, he has us going for 3 hours. (Chris McDowall has a similar strength.)

I don't think it would work for every group per se, but for groups willing to commit HARD to the bit and treat the fiction with equal amounts of seriousness and levity, it will sing.

So, if you're searching for a great one-shot game to play, consider Lasers and Feelings. Incredible super fun game and we had an amazing time.

As I burn through the without numbers series for faction and world building what other books would y'all suggest as a helpful tool for making factions rivals or any Organized group?

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Mostly looking to help with the game mechanics size of things. The WON books are really helpful but I feel like I'd be limiting myself if I didn't check out other methods and didn't try to mix and match concepts for my personal fun and structure.

Did you ever play a session where one person spoke to the GM for everybody else, like they describe in ye olde D&D?

If you did, bonus points for saying what year it was.

Before anyone makes the “haha just read the book haha” joke, I’m asking this because a long time ago I read a book about how to read books — hilarious, I know — and one of the points it made was that different types of books require different ways of absorbing their content.

So I wanted to know if there’s a better way to learn new RPG systems, especially with the goal of running them, faster than just reading the book from beginning to end.

I know the usual advice: start with the core mechanic and character creation. But, as a bit of a mea culpa, knowing how to create a character and knowing that PF2e is basically “d20 plus bonuses” hasn’t really helped me feel comfortable running it. Same thing with Scion 2e and its stunts.

So I wanted to ask: do you use any specific method to learn new systems faster, especially from a GM perspective?

The indie TTRPG scene is often really theory and tastemaker-focused, which makes it easy to lose sight of what the vast bulk of players are actually enjoying or looking for in their games.

I regularly see posts here full of interesting and sophisticated preferences, critiques, aspirations, etc. that contradict the trends and think-pieces in my Bluesky feed. They remind me how broad our design space actually is and how large the various audiences within it might be.

I'll often read a comment like this that expresses a preference I share but wasn't thinking about, which unlocks a door in some project's design that I hadn't even noticed was closed.

It's do-or-die to both make what's in your heart and to stay in touch with the people you're actually designing for, and this sub helps me do both. Thank you!