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What are your RPG pet peeves? Trends, player behaviors, mechanics, etc. etc. Do tell.

For me, it's how small writing space almost always is on character sheets. Seems like 90% of the time you gotta use chicken scratch to write stuff down.

Related: when a character sheet has just TONS of stuff on it. As an example, I love Pathfinder but the 2nd edition character sheet spills over four pages and they're basically walls of text and graphics even before you start writing.

I'm a special guest at a number of ttrpg conventions. I prefer theater of the mind, but I bring miniatures, terrain, and props as I feel like I need to "bring it" as a special guest. Would you as a player be disappointed, or feel ripped off, by a special guest game if it was simply ToTM?

Not best, not worst, not most or least controversial or relatable, what is your most COMPLICATED take, with the most little fiddly bits, that takes the most tangents to explain, that takes the most work to make heads or tails of whatsoever?

Edit: TAKE. Not most complicated SYSTEM, I'm looking for TAKES.

I've been finding myself caught between the dichotomy of games with huge, multi-hour combats on a grid (e.g. Lancer, Draw Steel, Pathfinder) and games with rules so lite that combat doesn't have much mechanical depth (e.g. Monster of the Week, Wildsea, most OSR games). Which is obviously fine, but I really like game-y combat, and sometimes it seems like the only places to go for that sort of thing all have the same problems: it takes too long, you wait forever to take your turn, it's super complicated and takes a lot of knowledge to master for the GM and the players, etc etc

Games that seem like they might hit that sweet spot all seem to be obscure itch io titles, like Infinite Revolution Overdrive, Slayers, or even the slightly-less-obscure Tom Bloom game, Cain.

What are some other games that are lighter than a D&D-like but which still have some depth to their combat mechanics?

It's a commonly brought up sentiment that many people are reluctant to try games outside of 5e due to the perceived amount of reading that one needs to do. "I already read this 200+ page book and now I gotta do it again? I'd rather not bother!".

But I am curious how the more invested in the hobby approach the concept. You and I are more open to reading, and also know a bit more that even if a book is 200 pages you only really "need" a fraction of it more often than not. But even so, I imagine some have their limits on how much they're willing to bother to participate rather than just play a game they're already familiar with.

To elaborate on the hypothetical: A friend of yours proposes them running a game with a system you are unfamiliar with. The pitch for the system has you definitely onboard with the premise. It's not your dream game you'd move mountains for, but it's also not a "sure whatever" kind of situation. You want to play this game, in short.

As well, the consideration of "required" reading is a little flexible, but is generally what you would consider broadly necessary. For example, if you knew you wanted to play a cleric, you would only need to read the cleric section of the book, which might only be three pages, so in your case "required" would be three pages. But you might instead want to read up on each class to know what your options are before deciding, so your "required" reading might instead be twenty pages to read the broad strokes of each class first. Some sections might be less negotiable, like resolution or combat rules, but I'm basically trying to lay out the scenario where you're looking at a fat book and thinking on how much would be, or that you would want to be, required reading.

Anyway here's the informal, unscientific poll:

A) 1-10 pages

B) 10-20 pages

C) 20-40 pages

D) 40-60 pages

E) 60-100 pages

F) 100-150 pages

G) 150+ pages

My group normally doesn't play unless all 5 people (including gm) are there, but we've been having a lot of 4 people days the last few months, so it was decided I would run smaller stuff on those sessions.

I want to use these games to test things out. Learn more about the ttrpg space, become a better gm, learn about ttrpg mechanics, figure out what is out there in ttrpg mechanics, maybe even write a module or a small system after learning how they work, that kind of thing. Run different kinds of things to learn from them.

So far for this group outside of our normal 5e I've run

Old school essentials- tomb of hte serpent king
Cairn- demons driven to the maw
Call of cthulhu- the haunting
shadowdark- winters daughter
Mythic bastionland- the chariot and the tree (running a 6 session chronicles, first session was last sunday and those were the two they beat)
Savage worlds- homebrew
Pathfinder 2e- beginner box
Mothership- gradient descent

And I'm having trouble deciding what to run next. Any suggestions? Looking for things to learn design from, that are hopefully fewer then like 7 sessions.

So for context, I've never DM'ed before, but I've gotten really interested in it lately, and I have a worldbuilding project I was planning to use for novels/short stories that I think would make a cool setting for some campaigns: basically 30 Years' War Europe but with vampires, witchcraft, satanic cults, religious fanatics with actual 'divine' powers, etc. Main inspirations are Berserk and the Castlevania netflix series. Problem is, I'm not sure if there's any rules systems out there that are an ideal fit or if I'd have to seriously tinker with one.

I know that Vampire the Masquerade has a supplement/alternate version set in the Middle Ages, but to my understanding that setting is more about playing a vampire; the way I imagine this is that most if not all the player characters are humans fighting against the vampires and other forces of darkness. I've also heard of Mork Borg and Rhapsody of Blood, so I'll definitely try to look into those. Are there any others you guys think would be a good fit? Ideally something rules-light. Thanks!

Is it psi? Cybernetics? Bio mods?

Hi! To be clear, this is a repost from a different sub, I was told I'd be better off posting here.

I've been DMing based on 5e for a solid 4-5 years and I got so deep in homebrew, I started considering finding a new system for my new campaign, not to mention that experience would probably be a good thing to have.

I am running a custom setting with the tone being victorian, teslapunk, and urban fantasy. I am looking for a system that would accommodate for thoughtful tactical combat and require effort for character development. I want to run a kind of a tightrope campaign that would encourage exploration and situational awareness, combining stealth, social interaction and creative problem-solving to get out of a bad spot, which wasn't beyond me before, but it often felt like I was working past 5e rather than with it (please feel free to tell me if it's a skill issue). Also, the people I'd like to play with are mostly 5e loyalists like myself, so I'd be glad to hear how to make this transition (should it happen) smoother for them.

I would also be glad to hear how you think I could tweak 5e to accommodate for the aforementioned quirks. Thanks in advance for any advice!

P.S.: In the original thread, I was asked to clarify what my problems with 5e are, so I could get better recommendations. Here's what I wrote:

In combat and character regards, I've always felt that specialization in 5e took a bit of depth out of interactions with the world, if that makes sense? I mean, I've had very specialized characters in my parties over the years (monks, warlocks, warriors, the like) who got very proficient in combat (meaning: got big numbers on their sheet) and illustrated the "if you're a hammer, you start seeing every problem as a nail" problem. Yeah, sure, I prepped exploration, social interactions, environmental puzzles, but why would they go through these things if hammer hit stuff and stuff die? Then I went: "Okay, let's make combat deeper", - and added things like advanced enemy tactics, unique abilities for every enemy, weak points on big monsters you have to target from specific tiles, inanimate environmental hazards on the arenas, yada yada and it worked! Kinda? It's a sort of a brittle nonverbal pact with the players. They think they wouldn't be able to take these problems head-on, but, if you do the math, they really can with how big the numbers are.

In regards to character development, I felt it was a bit disconnected from anything but combat and didn't take any real investment. You're telling me you suddenly learned a spell and a trait that was never part of your character because you hit a vampire hard on his head? Yeah, sure thing, bud... I tried milestone leveling, but I'm not sure if I like it either. I mean, it DID give me more control on WHEN characters develop, but they are going to do important stuff one way or the other, I just get to dish it out.

I used to hang out in google+, twitter,gauntlet forums. Then i stopped for some years and now i would like to go back to chat online with the community.

Apart from reddit (that is eating all the online communities) where are nowadays the ttrpgs online discussions?

I'm a faily older TTRPG player and in recent years I've been thinking about trying to get into using VTTs. I used Foundry a couple times but it is SUPER complicated compared to what I actually want to use a VTT for, so I was looking around for a more simple option and looked into Owlbear Rodeo, as some youtube videos and reddit folks suggested it was. I saw on one of those videos that there's a drawing tool that you can use with a drawing tablet.

To an older DM/GM, that seemed like a super intuitive way to use a VVT because I could treat it like a virtual battle mat, where I can draw things and use it like I would use a battle mat on my kitchen table.

So I was all "How much can one of these things cost" so looked up the one the youtuber showed, a Wacom Cintiq. Great googily moogily, those things are expensive, so I started digging more. I found a couple discussions on Reddit from years ago but very little information that might be more current.

Do ya'll technologically minded folks have any suggestions on a good drawing tablet to use with a VTT to treat said VTT like a battle mat, where I can draw freely, but doesn't need to be quite as high tech as someone who actually does digital art for a living might need? Also, any suggestions on how to use it or other resources on how to use a drawing tablet as basically one would use a wet erase marker on an old school chessex battle mat?