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I don't know how else to put it. I am not saying everyone, but ffs! I can't decide if DnDbeyond was the best, or worst thing to happen to the TTRPG space. It creates ease of access.. which is great, while also creating people who do not understand the rules of the game or their character.

Discuss.

I didn't catch their kickstarter, but I picked up a physical copy of the Monty Python RPG and just finished my third session with my group. Overall, it's great fun but it did require a lot of GM creativity at times.

My favorite part was GM personas. I played different kinds of GMs who gave out metapoints rewarding different behaviors. When I was Lord Kinwoody, I rewarded players when they talked about sex. Cardinal Ximenez (which no one expected) punished talk about sex. And with Ralph the Wonder Llama, I only spoke in vaguely llama-sounding bleats the entire time.

Core system is close to step-die, and you roll against a target number. But you have to use a dice rolling app because the system needs dice like d14 and d18. It's the kind of system that makes you go "eh?" but is also easy to ignore so you can keep roleplaying.

One downside? At least for me, it required a lot of creativity on the fly. I'd get a random event like, "Make a commercial for a Sicilian pizza place and make it funny" and I'd have to improvise that on the spot. I love challenges like that, but I know if I had a bad day at work and didn't feel all that creative, the game might suffer.

Some random tidbits from the table:

• "Yes, the village name is spelled Y-o-r-k, but in our regional accent, it's pronounced, "Aretha Franklin".
• Two PCs in a pantomime horse costume almost turned into a Top Secret! scene. If you know, you know and you shudder.
• "Run for your lives! Zombie cows use bad dancers as their skeletons!" This made perfect sense at the time.
• The exchange rate for Whizzo Butter to lupins was surprisingly good.
• Water caught on fire. I'm mildly concerned that I cannot remember why or how.
  
• The plural of moose is meese. The plural of mouse is moose. This has been proven mathematically.
• The PCs lost a battle to a chest of drawers. It was not sentient and did not attack. (Shades of gazebos here.)

If you know Monty Python, this game will do nicely. If you don't, the game is still fun but you will miss some references and all that. The system isn't complicated, and if the GM can be quick on their feet, you could have an amazing night with this game.

Ever wanted to check out what the best RPG of all time is all about? Atlas Games kindly released the texts for all 53 books of Ars Magica 5th Edition a while ago in CC-BY-SA-4.0 license. I've run a project for a while to produce reviewed and source-complete Markdown versions of the complete corpus. 16 books are done and counting...

Today the markdown for the new core rules, the seminal work Ars Magica Definitive Edition (a 2026 release) so you can review, remix and enjoy the texts.

Hopefully this will enable more players to enjoy the best magic system, and my absolute favorite of (many) favorite games.

You'll find it here: https://github.com/OriginalMadman/Ars-Magica-Open-License

I highly recommend to still buy the absolutely gorgeous book in physical version (not yet delivered) or PDF.

Hi everyone, I’d like to know how you see the future of this hobby, and especially what new trends are already emerging or might appear on the horizon, things that can influence or even change everything.

I mostly play “D100, roll under” games, the BRP-adjacent ones, but I’m waiting for the next big crunchy diceless (without any randomizers) implementation in RPG design.

Because I’ve never played it, but even today, Amber Diceless seems incredibly visionary in its mechanical structure. I miss those trailblazers; sometimes everything feels a bit repetitive, like yet another “PbtA” or “FitD” promising to do better than its predecessors.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not judging the quality of those games; I’m just saying that I’d like to see more new ideas being successfully implemented and becoming central to main discussions about RPG design and legacy, just as each of those games once was.

Even if I never play them, mainly because of the difficulty in finding the right combination of factors to get a table together, I love reading “authorial” designs with an implementation that seems quite competent and well-suited to the whole concept.

On the slightly negative side, though this might be welcomed by a large number of players, I imagine that WotC, for example, is working tirelessly to find a way to “better” monetize the tabletop RPG experience, likely by exploring new digital integrations, AI, and the like:

Oh yes, I think AI will take over the hobby, not by replacing illustrators or writers, but through online tools in VTTs. In particular, I believe that the “AI GM” could become a reality, and the industry, a.k.a. WOTC, will profit heavily from it. And, I suspect that at first, “AI GM” will be more like GMless, as in the Mythic Emulator, but integrated into VTT platforms and other online tools that the industry can monetize in some way.

So, the expression “Tabletop” will increasingly cease to be a preffix for analogic and will become a hybrid that attracts more and more gamers and everyone who pays a lot for digital content. Also, within this landscape, perhaps more guided gaming experiences will be implemented, like “D&D Adventures,” which provide clear objectives for online players, offer mechanical rewards, and monetize the means to achieve them more easily, as is already the case in current video games.

This doesn’t mean that traditional games will cease to exist or that everything will take on a form that seems “dystopian” to many sensible players; they will be able to coexist in the indie space that is, fortunately, already well-established.

And what do you see on the horizon?

Thank you all for your responses; I really appreciate reading them.

I am trying to give my players an idea of what my campaign will be like going into it, but a huge part of the plot will be a major, story-defining twist near the "act 1" climax. Before that, the story is supposed to seem very cliché and normal on purpose.

I have never been good at writing summaries, and I want the surprise to be hinted at in the game but kind of a curveball that is unexpected but obvious in hindsight. Any suggestions on how to show off that my campaign will be interesting from the start without spoiling that there will be a major twist? I considered writing a fake hook plot for the start, but I don't want to have my players write characters for one story and then rug pull them into a separate one.

Dear rpg-subreddit,

I’m currently facing a social issue at my table that I can’t seem to resolve on my own, and I feel like I’m missing the tools to handle it properly. I’d really appreciate your feedback, because I can’t quite pinpoint what’s going wrong.

Here’s a summary of the situation, what I’ve tried, and what’s frustrating me:

I invited some friends to play City of Mist with me. We had a session zero where we discussed organization and set a date for character and crew creation. I sent them materials in advance and pointed them to a few pages for inspiration.

Importantly, I first asked them to think about what kind of crew they want to play (e.g., detectives, thieves, a secret order, etc.), because that’s a core part of the game. I also asked everyone to come up with a character concept. I made it clear that I’d help translate their ideas into playable characters.

During character creation:

• Player A was very straightforward. She knew what she wanted, and we created her character without issues.
• Player B also had a clear idea, but seemed to have had a rough day. Since she has played the game before, I suggested she finish her character on her own time.
• Player C is where the main problem started. When asked about their concept, I only got very vague answers. They couldn’t answer basic questions like the character’s name, appearance, or occupation.

More importantly, whenever I asked the group what kind of crew they want to be, I was met with silence. Even when I gave concrete examples (detectives, criminals, secret society, etc.), nobody really engaged with the question or built on each other’s ideas.

We ran out of time, so I suggested either finishing characters individually or scheduling one-on-one sessions. I also told the group that they are responsible for deciding what kind of crew they are and contributing to that process. At that point, I was already feeling frustrated. I want to play a collaborative game, not do all the creative work alone. If I have to come up with everything (world, NPCs, characters, and group concept), I might as well write a book or make a video game. I did communicate that frustration.

Player A later suggested we meet again the following week on Discord to finish character creation. We agreed on a time and date.

On that day, Player A and Player C both showed up 30 minutes late. Player A was on a train, and Player C had a family dinner scheduled, despite the agreed time. When I again asked what kind of group they wanted to play, I was met with the same silence as before. We still didn’t finish character creation and still don’t have a clear party concept.

Here’s what frustrates me:

• Questions and materials I send are being ignored. A few days before the second meeting, I explicitly asked if anyone had questions or needed help. I got no response, and then the session went poorly.
• Some players don’t seem to prioritize the game time (e.g., arriving late or being occupied with other things).
• There is very little active participation when it comes to creative or cooperative decisions. When asked to contribute ideas (especially about the group), people stay silent instead of engaging.
• If I’m doing something wrong, nobody tells me. I feel like I have to guess, which is mentally exhausting. I have ADHD and work 60 hours a week. Trying to “mind-read” on top of that is overwhelming.

Overall, I feel like I’m trying to run a collaborative game, but I’m not getting collaboration back. The process is draining a lot of energy because of passivity and lack of communication. I’ve also suggested multiple times that we could just start with pregenerated characters if this is too complex, but I get no feedback on that either.

So I’m wondering: am I doing something wrong here, or is this table just not working? Should I consider disbanding the group?

I’d really appreciate your thoughts. I’m also open to taking responsibility for anything I may have handled poorly.

Idea: Set in a sci fi galaxy, and inspired by the Grand Line in One Piece. Players are a crew of rogues, pirates, etc who hop from one planet to the next, following clues in a galaxy spanning treasure hunt.

I thought about using Traveller, but I'd like it to be more heroic, and from what I hear Traveller is a little more grounded and lethal. Starfinder 2e could work, but I'd like to stretch my legs and try for something a little less Trad.

Maybe the genesys system, but i've got a pain point with custom dice.

Do you folks have any suggestions?

I just hit Burnt Out. I can't believe how many new campaigns are being trotted out every day and it's genuinely making me feel a little weird (yes, that's a me problem!). How's everyone else holding up?

So this may fall slightly under the banner of "shitpost" but I do have some genuine curiosity about what other people think of Size as an attribute in the BRP engine and its many offshoots.

Personally I've always thought it was kinda silly? Like don't get me wrong, I've played these games for years (or I did way back when) but a lot of the time I usually just dropped it if I could cause it just didn't really seem necessary.

Like I said this could probably be a shitpost, but I really don't have any deeper thoughts about it than that

I know that there are tons of horror RPGs out there, but most of the ones I know of are either cosmic horror (like Call of Cthulhu or Candela Obscura) or very story-based, mechanics-light (like World of Darkness). My knowledge of those systems is limited, so apologies if that's an oversimplification.

What I'm looking for is an RPG that feels similar to playing Silent Hill or Resident Evil (or at least, Resident Evil 1-3), where there is still a strong mechanical emphasis on combat, but as opposed to epic/heroic combat like D&D, the players are forced to work with limited resources, and scaled down so that even minor enemies can be threatening. The only thing that maybe comes to mind is Alien.

I'm okay with any setting; fantasy, modern, sci-fi, etc., as long as it's intended to be scary. Do any games like that exist?

Less on "How to build a trap" rules, and more just a big list of trap ideas with solutions and effects. The closest thing I could find is a D&D d100 table of traps with generic damage effects, but none of them were particularly interesting and did the same thing with different damage types.

Bonus points if there's any kind of puzzle that needs solving for their effects.