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This submission is generated automatically each Saturday at 00:00 UTC.

My understanding is that Pathfinder is second-best-selling RPG in the US.

Reading through many threads on here over the years I see requests looking a system that I think Pathfinder or Starfinder might be a good fit, and sometimes I won't see it even mentioned once.

So, I'm curious why such a popular game is brought up so infrequently. Is it because so few people in this subreddit play these games? Is it because there isn't a lot of love for these systems in this subreddit?

In my perusal of the Internet, I've noticed Pathfinder is kind of it's own little RPG subculture. I see people talk about playing a number of different RPGs. But the Pathfinder people I meet seem to only play Pathfinder. I never hear someone say they play Pathfinder and Savage Worlds, or Starfinder and Traveller. Which is fine. There are plenty of 5E addicts out there. Nothing wrong with Pathfinder addicts. You do you. But it makes me feel like Paizo doesn't live in the same RPG sphere as all the other role-playing games.

I'm not going to name any vendors here, so no public shaming, other than Amazon. So here's story of the last 3 weeks.

3 weeks ago, I ordered a POD GURPS Dungeon Fantasy book from Amazon. Amazon shipped the book in a padded mailer, and the book arrived damaged. Amazon shipping cracked the spine. So, I ordered a replacement. And the replacement arrived in just a padded mailer, and that book also arrived damaged. I sent that one back to Amazon and bought a used copy off of a redditor, who shipped it in a box and it arrived intact.

Then I placed an order with a well-known RPG publisher, and they threw 4 products into a padded mailer, and, sure enough, 2 of the products in the padded mailer arrived damaged. To the publisher's credit, they immediately sent me new product, this time in a box and everything arrived in perfect condition.

Next I ordered a used out-of-print RPG book from a vendor that specializes used RPG books. And, what did they do? They threw the book in a padded mailer with a piece of cardboard behind it. And guess what happened? The book arrived damaged with a bent spine. Shipping bent the book. The cardboard insert was severely bent.

The last one bugs me the most, because the book is out of print. So, it's not something you can easily replace. It's not available as a POD, and now there's one less good copy of it in the world because of bad packaging.

Now when I ship books out, I try to use a book box. If I can't use a box, I will take the book, put a piece of cardboard on the front of the book, and on the back, and wrap the entire thing in plastic wrap. Then I put it in a padded mailer and make sure it's snug around the book, so it has no room to move. Never had a book damaged in transit.

Above 3 shipments used the following carriers:

1. Amazon
2. UPS Ground
3. USPS Media Mail

So, this isn't a problem unique to one shipper. I think padded mailers are treated like boxes by these shippers, as opposed to envelopes, so they get a little manhandled.

Sorry, just need to vent my frustration. I have an eBay auction I just won arriving on Friday, and I'm now nervous about how the book got packaged.

I'm sick of regular suggestions of Superhero TTRPGs. Mutants And Masterminds, Hero System/Champions and popular generics like GURPS, Fate, Cypher and that Savage Worlds Superhero thing. This may be stupid to some but i don't like any of them. ANY.

This was never a problem to me because i haven't seen a single Superhero Setting i liked anyway. Until...i made my own. And i want to see it working in TTRPG form.

So now i want to see the underground ones. Wether indie or just not really that reccomended, i want to know your suggestions of cool Superhero TTRPGs and WHY they are cool. Please don't post "[TTRPG Name]" and nothing else.

Also, not required, but it would be really cool if it was possible for characters to have progression in the game. It's not that common in the Superhero genre in general but most characters in my Setting can theoretically evolve to near infinity so...yeah, Heroes that progress are always cooler than static heroes that were just born that way.

I've been interested in games that avoid a negative feedback cycle by using failure or not succeeding as a means for advancing or growth.

Torchbearer 2e came to mind, as well as some PbtA games make it so when you fail you get something like Monster of the Week.

Are there any modern examples that do this or any other games that you like that use failure for progression?

A lot of people in the post about Magpie not returning to GenCon are talking about how people should stay out of the USA if they can help it.

What are your recommended RPG cons that happen outside of the US?

I’ve seen very little talk about this game despite how good I think the Beta is, so I wanted to take a moment to gush about it.

The Eternal Ruins is a game about exploring and every so often making a cozy camp in an endless maze of ruins, with heavy Ghibli, Zelda vibes and some Dungeon Meshi vibes. It uses the Wild Worlds System from The Wildsea.

Things I really like about it:

Exploration scenes
Travels are usually done between one location and another, with the DM setting a Track that marks progress, with players taking on roles like Forage or Scout, and the GM rolling to generate locations each time a travel sequence ends. These are not new mechanics if you are familiar with Forbidden Lands, Heart, the City Beneath or even Mythic Bastionlands, but where The Eternal Ruins shines is how the locations interact with the camping scenes.

Instead of being merely narrative, each ruin feature you roll as a DM comes with additional mechanics that often impact how easy it is to make camp or explore the location. This means that players have meaningful mechanical choices on whether to explore or make camp at each location they arrive at.

Maybe they found a very safe location early in the day, making camp then would mean having to travel at night. Maybe they found a suboptimal location at the end of the day, do they stay there or do they push their luck and risk not finding a better location before the day ends?

Camping Scenes

I’ve read a fair number of camping rules and mechanics, and none have captured so well the cozy vibes of a communal cooking pot surrounded by explorers sharing stories like these ones.

Cooking not only allows you to fill your hunger track, but using additional edible resources, the players can create a pool of “flavor points” with which they can go shopping for positive effects that will accompany them for the rest of the coming day. Other cozy tasks include sharing stories to restore hope and crafting camping gear that makes cooking or healing easier or sleeping more restful.

Nonviolent Combat Mechanics

I’ve seen a ton of games go for the “talking things out is always an option” approach to combat, but it’s usually relegated to roleplay scenes and never as deep as the physical combat. In TER, the nonviolent option is actually mechanically supported with as much depth as the physical combat.
Each enemy or hazard has two “HP bars,” a Challenge Track and an Accord Track. Actions taken to parlay or nonviolently deal with a creature lower its Accord Track, while attacks lower its Challenge Track, with each enemy often having different lengths of each track, different protections, and special rules.
Moon-Mask Foxes, for example, have a short challenge track, but the difficulty to hit them is increased due to their speed, their accord track is longer, but if you use a sweet edible resource as part of the action, the difficulty is lowered.

Like The Wildsea but Better?
Finally, and maybe this is just a thing with me, but if you ever played The Wildsea due to it’s cool worldbuilding and concept, but had trouble with some of it’s more open ended resolution mechanics and travel rules, which was definitely the case for me, TER seems to keep all the cool flavourful stuff of the system, while streamlining it and giving you a more direct and mechanically concrete resolution for each of the cool actions you can take and fixing almost all the problems I had with the previous system.
Of course a lot of people love The Wildsea as is, but I've seen a fair number of DMs report that they struggled with the same things I did.

That's about it. I've been having a ton of fun with the system and wanted to give it a shoutout while the Kickstarter is still running, while also introducing some people that might love the system but haven't heard of it yet.

Looking for system recommendations for playing a game set in the warframe universe. Ideally want the feel of pretty overpowered combat and good boss fight mechanics but not 100% focused on finding a system that has them as overall vibe is more important.

So I really like Necromancy as like a concept (like a lot. Raising the dead has always been a cool concept to me) and I've been looking for ttrpgs that have Necromancy and don't try to limit it or cheapen it to "evil magic that pcs can't use because it's evil." What are some games that have the coolest use for necromancy for PCs?

I currently play RPGs with my group of friends almost every week, all still young, finishing university, looking for jobs, etc.

However, we are unfortunately decided to start running 3 different adventures at the same time, so we don't have the space or time to try new games, something we really want to do, specially me!

I want at least see one that would be good for me to GM (even did a post today looking for options), but I can't get the time to see if it would be a good fit or not, and I don't wan to delay 3 whole adventure just to get the feel for a new game that we may or not play.

For an idea, I want to look into:

• ICON
• Legends in the Mist
• City of Mist
• Nimble
• Shadow of the Weird Wizard
• 13th Age
• Dragonbane
• "X" Without Numbers
• Savage Worlds
• Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells/Solar Blades & Cosmic Spells
• Chasing Adventures
• Mythras + Classic Fantasy

Should I just be patient?

Hey folks,

I'm thinking about putting together a ttrpg campaign for some friends of mine, and setting it in the Fallout universe (or one very similar) in our home city. I've been looking at the Fallout ttrpg system, and also considering using Kevin Crawford's Ashes Without Number which I also like.

However, this particular group, broadly speaking, tends to prefer rules-light games, or at least games that aren't so crunchy and are a bit more free-form, like Fate. I could just try to run it in Fate, but I'm wondering if there are any other options out there. So, are there any ttrpg systems that you all would recommend that are fairly free-form and on the loosey-goosey side, but that would be a good fit for a post-apocalyptic/Fallout type vibe?

Thanks!

I’ve been playing RPGs regularly since late 2019. I’ve lost count of how many sessions I’ve played. I finished Curse of Strahd (which lasted 3 years), played many one-shots, and now I’m halfway through Masks of Nyarlathotep. I’ve always been the DM among my friends, because I’ve always loved being the game master, coming up with stories for my friends to experience. I’ve always been very easygoing and open to other people’s ideas, and I’ve always had a lot of fun doing it.

But recently I’ve been feeling a bit tired. Since I’ve already read all of MoN and now I’m running it based only on my notes, my RPG effort has mostly been about thinking up stories I want to organize. I have one with a Stranger Things vibe and another set in the Wild West, and I really want to run an original D&D campaign, so that’s where my effort has been over the last few months. This weekend I played a one-shot run by a friend, and besides feeling happy, I also felt very tired, and I realized I’ve been feeling this way about almost everything related to RPGs. I was excited about buying a 3D printer and running a D&D campaign completely off-screen, but now I just feel frustrated, thinking my world idea is bad, not unique or original at all.

Have you ever gotten tired of RPGs at some point in your life? Did the excitement come back after a while?