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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.

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

**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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​

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

I was thinking back on a summer in the late 90s when I hit some serious GM burnout.

From ’92 to ’99, my friends and I played RPGs multiple times a week: Rifts, Shadowrun, Mutant Chronicles, Marvel Superheroes, Dark Sun, World of Darkness, Paranoia, Underground, Unknown Armies, and more. I was the forever GM, hopping from system to system whenever I ran out of ideas.

But one summer(’97, I think)I just shut down. My friends kept pestering me to run something, but for two weeks (our longest drought ever)I couldn’t come up with hooks, plots, or even random nonsense. I dug thru my sandbox style stuff and old Drsgon Magazine articles, but nothing. It wasn’t lack of materialjust a lack of motivation.

That changed when we stumbled onto Freak Legion, a Werewolf: the Apocalypse supplement.

If you don’t know Werewolf, here’s the quick version: it’s an urban fantasy game where werewolves battle corrupting spirits, possessed humans, and an evil megacorporation bent on global destruction. Freak Legion focuses on the twisted monsters created by those spirits.

We pickked it up and basically said, “Let’s just screw around and see what happens”

My players made the most ridiculous characters possible. Billy “Bottom-less Belly” Jorgensen had a prehensile tongue and could Swallow Whole. Another was stacked with Strength and Armor, rolling 18d10 with exploding 10s, but had a microbomb in his skull and was completely psychotic. I forget the other two, they built characters for mayhem, not longevity. They used the point buy system to min max their way to ridiculousness. Then I asked them what they want to do and said "rob a bank".

So we ran the session GTA style- wrecking buildings, fighting cops, escalating mayhem. They told me what enemies they wanted to fight and I grabbed stats or made them up. We stopped for dinner without even finishing.

The next day we used the same characters to run a scenario from the book: members of a PMC guarding illegal logging operations in the Amazon, ambushed by werewolves. I escalated until dinosaurs showed up (IYKYK).

It was a very player lead session. No hex crawl map with d8 mysterious locations, no villian motivations with plot timelines, no worldbuilding, no foreshadowing - just chaos.

Since then, I occasionally run throwaway sessions where players make broken, high-level characters, I drop them into a wild action scene, and we let chaos take the wheel. I don’t play as often now - maybe every other month - but those sessions are always memorable. I still love my campaigns, and this is usually just filler for when not everyone can make it.

3 years after the OGL controversy and a year after the release of the new DnD books, the RPG space is doing as good is it ever has and DnD seems to be a much smaller part of it. I am basing my observation on the large london based RPG club i am part of and play with as well as perusing Startplaying. In the local clubs I am part of, there is only 1 DnD game for ever 5 or 7 other games. The diversity of other games being played is staggering. Pathfinder has a place along with CoC, but various PbtA games are there, Vampire, OSR games, Horror Games, some Dragonbane and One Ring. The RPG space is live and as active than ever and it really warms my heart that it looks like lots of players who once only played DnD are not experimenting with different games.

At least that's how it looks like from my small vantage point.

Hi there! I've been looking for a universal system/ highly customizable system to try playing with some friends, but I've noticed they often swing in one direction or the other. Either very crunchy (Like Gurps/ MutantsAndMasterminds), or almost no crunch (More narrative-based systems like Fate). Is there any systems that strike a nice middle ground for this?

Edit: I especially love games where you can essentially build any character you desire. I've quite liked looking at the level of depth in systems like Champions, MnM, and Gurps, but just wish the crunchiness was much lower. A slightly more narrative Gurps, if such exists haha.

Hey r/rpg! I work at a big public library and we’re starting a monthly RPG oneshot night for teens & adults. The idea is to showcase the hobby’s variety by running a different system each month — so people can try a bunch of settings and mechanics and walk away thinking “oh, wow, RPGs are more than just D&D.”

I’m looking for systems that:

• play well in a 2–4 hour slot (oneshot friendly),

• either come with ready-to-run scenarios/playsets or make it super easy to improv/generate a scenario on the fly,

• are available right now, and

• have English or German versions.

  Also: we’ll be teaching basics at the table, so simpler rules or very clear cheat-sheets are a big plus.

What would you run for a public library oneshot series to show off the breadth of the hobby? Any must-try games, recommended starter scenarios/playsets, or short prep tricks for a GM who’s doing a system for the first time?

Thanks — any recs, links, or “I ran this at my library and it slayed/failed spectacularly” stories are very welcome. :)

Would I need T2k 4e in order to play Urban Operations?

I know in some cases FL's expacs have actually been playable without the original core rules (MY0 & Genlab Alpha).

I've long maintained that there were (ed: at least) two paths to roleplaying. The first is the one we all know: wargames -> Chainmail -> Dungeons and Dragons. This led to two parallel (and often crossing over) schools of players: those who treated D&D as a tactical wargame with some roleplay between fights, and those who treated D&D as a loose framework for roleplay.

The second is 60s LARP/SCA -> formalized roleplay -> tabletop roleplay. I know my uncle-in-law, Bruce Glassco (of Haunted House on the Hill fame) ran elaborate roleplaying games in the 60s, but they were mostly (exclusively?) one-shots.

But how about this for another path to roleplaying:

In the '60s, Edward Packard entertained his children by making up bedtime stories. One night, he'd run out of ideas, so he asked the kids what his character should do. They directed him, and Packard continued the story based on that decision.

A light bulb appeared over Packard's head, and he came up with the idea for a novel written in 2nd Person where the reader would be given several decision points, different choices leading to different pages in the book.

Sound familiar?

Well, Packard took his book to nine publishers in 1970 and was rejected by all of them. It was not until 1976 that he found a home with a small press, and not until 1979 that the first Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) book was published for widespread distribution. By that time, of course, roleplaying had blossomed, and CYOA were basically solo campaigns—even to the point that TSR published a(n excellent) line of Endless Quest CYOAs.

But what if Packard had been published in 1970? Kids might appoint themselves "The Reader" for a group, and the group would then make decisions collectively, whereupon The Reader would turn to the appropriate page and continue the story. Indeed, I used to do just that with some of the CYOAs.

It's a short step from reading a published CYOA to friends to impromptu creation of a tale based on input from friends, each with their own characters. And that is the definition of roleplaying. From there, it just takes someone to publish a formalized sets of rules, but instead of it being a wargame with roleplaying elements tacked on, it could be a roleplaying game with some simple combat (and other conflict/skill resolution elements).

What might this phenomenon look like? Who would be its target audience? How popular could it get? What happens when D&D debuts, and do the two have much impact on each other?

TTRPG sessions and campaigns take a lot of time, so it's understandable that one day players can have one mood, another day is another mood.

Additionally, even if you reference one piece of media as a main inspiration during the session zero, two people can have completely drastic understanding and view of this media.

So you can have a slight vibe mismatch between the players and the DM. So my question is how strongly do you lean into what players propose, especially if it differs from the vibe or course of action you envisioned at first? Or you try to be an anchor, or a director, that ties your game towards a certain vibe and shut down the ideas that do not fit the vibe you're aiming for?

edit: As an example, everyone watched a certain gruesome anime and used it as a reference trying to get on the same page, but the DM and Player could've understood or remember the same piece of media completely differently.

the DM remembers only the cruel, gruesome parts, while the player remembers the slice of life, horny shounen parts along with decapitations.

So DM could envision quite serious game, but the player would bring some goofy stuff and lean into otaku internet culture. The game started, you seemingly fine with everyone else's character's but the player expects some shounen anime logic for the world. But the DM does not make the world work like a shounen edgy anime. Thus the player actions clash with the DM's vision

I remember seeing an old rpg system that was pretty much pure narrative. It involved players and gm bidding(I think) on interrupts to the story flow and taking control. What rpg's fit this bill? I am primarily a gamist type GM running PF2e(previously 1e, 2e, 3e, and 5e dnd) but want to expand my horizons and possibly run an rpg for non-rpg players around a campfire. What would you recommend I look at? Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone. I've been playing TTRPGs off and on for about 30 years and only recently got back into them on a serious level with D&D 5e. 5th edition has its pros and cons and I like it well enough on its own but I am trying to find a good system for the sci-fi genre. I own a few Starfinder books and played in a Starfinder campaign once. I've also played in a Spelljammer campaign. Starfinder was okay, but wasn't a very memorable experience. Spelljammer was fun because of the DM that ran it but it didn't feel like a sci-fi campaign.

I'm looking for recommendations for a rule system (and one shots) that I could get into easily but also - hopefully - come back to on a more regular basis. Once a year I host some friends for a long weekend where we cook for each other, go on nature hikes, and bunker in during the evenings for an epic adventure.

I'm looking for something that will scratch that sci-fi, space focused, technological, itch. Tone wise I'm pretty open, I wouldn't mind a system with flexibility - able to support rich, long term campaigns with drama and political intrigue - but also support campaigns where we flirt with cosmic horrors and the existential dread of being a mortal in the infinite cosmos. The cherry on top is if the rules are relatively easy to pick up.

I've started looking into Traveller and Worlds Without Number but I'd love to hear from some players who have experienced these systems, or others.

Thank you in advance.