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"Orthogonal factions" in RPGs refers to groups with goals, methods, or philosophies that aren't directly opposed but exist in different dimensions (like a crime syndicate vs. a religious cult vs. a neutral merchant guild), offering complex interaction, shifting alliances, and genuine player choice beyond simple "good vs. evil," adding depth to campaigns by creating potential allies, enemies, or wildcards with unique motivations. I made a list with 7 advantages of having these type of factions in a setting.

The 7 Core Advantages of Orthogonal Factions

1. Beyond Binary Choices Players aren't forced into constant A or B dilemmas; this eliminates moral fatigue.
2. Conflict Through Overlap, Not Hatred Clashes arise from intersecting goals and competing interests, rather than pure ideological hatred.
3. High Player Agency Solutions consist of negotiations, workarounds, compromises, and clever positioning.
4. A Credible, Living World Factions operate with an internal logic that exists independently of the player.
5. Sandbox-Ready and Sustainable The world autonomously generates new conflicts, even without player intervention.
6. Intrige and Diplomacy as Core Mechanics Information, reputation, and timing are just as critical as combat or violence.
7. Existing "Between Factions" Players can naturally occupy the space between groups, taking on roles such as double agents, mediators, or power brokers through relationships.

What do you think?

Continuing to work on my Horror RPG; after the response received from my previous query (have cut the core book/s to a single 300 page book - for those with eidetic memory), I've come to find the sage wisdom here invaluable.

I have a question for you regarding Introductory Adventures (quickstart modules) - do you prefer them to be included in the Core book or as a (free) standalone PDF?

The prewritten module (we call them "Flicks") is shaping up to be about 64~80 pages in length, and due to the amount of content per panel - margins have had to change. This makes the Core book feel a bit weird; with the layout shifting towards the end of the book.

Do you prefer the initial module to be a separate, completely free PDF? Or would you rather have the module included in the Core book?

Instinctively, i would say character customization but I feel like campaign interest would be more linked to what's happening rather than "can I learn new spells for long enough". Curious to know what you guys think.

Looking for a hard(ish) scifi RPG that best explains how the various technologies work in more detail, and with the most scientific thoroughness.

As some examples, I GM-ed SWN and Alien. Alien did a passable attempt to do it, but I guess they benefited from having an existing world to build on and study. SWN barely explains how anything works, but that's okay, as SWN is def more "soft" sci-fi / space opera, so it doesn't really need to for what it does.

Hard(ish) scifi: I'm looking for something along the lines of Alien (minus the xenomoroph part, just the tech part), The Martian, Three Body Problem, The Expanse.

EDIT: Bonus points if you can suggest a SPECIFIC book, rather than naming the entire product line.

So I'm excited to announce that I'm working on Bloodpunk 2090 - a TTRPG with influences from games like VtM and Cyberpunk RED. I've got over 100 pages done on the book so far (with quite a bit more to do) and I'm looking to start early playtesting next month. This is a D10 based system that also uses a Craving System inspired by the Hunger System in VtM V5 but with modifications and changes.

If the idea of this game intrigues you I'd be incredibly grateful if you subscribed to the mailing list and you'll also receive a free PDF with the Craving System rules when you confirm your subscription.

Please don't hesitate to ask about any questions you have here, I don't think there have been much in the way of Vampire Cyberpunk TTRPGs since the 90s World of Darkness Future that was a rather small 3 part thing in White Wolf magazine and I firmly believe this game is going to scratch an elusive itch for some people.

From: https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/1q9x6gn/trying_to_get_in_the_head_of_a_gm_who_keeps/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

I thought I would update what happened with the "GM" I described over here since it did get a lot of votes in and people were interested in the psychological aspect. Ultimately, I think people who said he might suffer from sort of disorder might have it the best.

After another day of players and I asking him to run the game, he came back with "I don't want to run [x] wanna do something else?"

It's pretty much when I decided to confront him in the lightest, most gentle way possible: "Why do you keep making these games when you don't have a concrete game set-up?" He said he always does, and when I pointed out he hasn't even set up a story, setting, or anything concrete for players to engage with, there was a lot of self-victimization and self-pity responses about how he sucks, how bad do I want to make him feel, and probably the most important answer: he says his interests keep switching. I advised him to not advertise these games anymore and asked him to consider the feelings of players who keep joining and never getting a game. He just went to a cycle of self-pity, and probably the worst thing: blamed some of the other players who had at this point were no longer speaking. When I pointed out that one 1-3 days of joining that they had made character sheets, said they wanted [x] game, and everything was there for him to start the game opening, he either kicked me or deleted the server.

I do believe it is ADHD / Bipolar as some people have said. The self-pity responses and blaming others is incredibly lame but I would say tame compared to the toxicity you can find in tabletop games.

Not going to state his username or what games he was trying to run of course because I'm not doxing people or someone with disorders for that matter, and even if I wanted to I'm pretty sure it would violate terms here.

Hey All. I’m looking to run a scifi rpg campaign and stuck on choosing a system. My party comes from a 5e background but we’ve dabbled in call of Cthulhu and a couple other systems. I know both myself and the group will want a sandbox style campaign.

I’m primarily looking at Stars Without Number currently but have heard good things about Coriolis: The Great Dark…

Any advice on systems would be appreciated.

I've had positive experiences with TTRPGs up until last year. My first several year TTRPG campaign as a player and several year TTRPG campaign as a GM went well. I planned a TTRPG campaign last year and it went really badly.

I'll keep the context short, but I invited a player who was involved in a few of the same social circles before I really knew a lot about them. This player was toxic outside of game and reacted defensibly every time I saw someone criticize them. I had a session 0 and told players they should come to me with any problems as they developed.

One day, they left midsession and told me to talk to them later, then they read a long list of criticisms about my GMing style, negatively compared my game to their DND games, and insulted me personally. I've since completely cut them out of my life for unrelated reasons. I've learned how to look for red flags. I would've kicked the problem player out sooner but was going through a lot in my life that made it harder to see issues as they developed.

I polled the other players and most of them enjoyed the game.

I am now looking to get back into TTRPGs following this experience and was wondering how people in similar situations have gone about this? Besides looking out for red flags, have you/would you make any changes to your GMing style following such a situation? How could I prevent similar situations in the future?

Thanks for any insights and I hope to hear from you in the comments!

I haven't seen this discussed anywhere but at Dragonsteel Nexus last month Brotherwise Games announced developing a setting agnostic version of the Cosmere RPG called "Plotweaver". As someone who enjoyed the Cosmere RPG but finds the setting too restrictive I am excited too see what they come up with.

https://www.plotweaverrpg.com/about

As the title suggests I want to run a campaign set in the Gundam universe, and was hoping for suggestions. I was thinking of something that would allow my players to bounce between mobile suit/mech combat and regular on the ground sections for when they're out of their suits. I'm really new to TTRPGS so would really appreciate any help with this.

Hey gang,

I've been running Old School Essentials and Shadowdark since I started GMing about 2.5~ years ago. I love those games!

But I've been eyeballing Pathfinder 2nd edition. The high-fantasy, player options for ancestries and classes, and enormous amounts of monsters to run look so cool.

I'll admit though, reading the GM book feels so intimidating. There are a lot of concepts I can't quite wrap my head around because I have no experience with this level of crunch to base it off of.

My group will be starting off with the recommended beginner box to see how it plays before I try and get a homebrew campaign going.

Is there any advice for folks like me trying to break into a crunchier high-fantasy setting? Most advice threads I find are the other way around, 5e d&d and Pathfinder players trying to learn how to run old school games!