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I have run a few ttrpg games before, as well as been a player in various games. In those games I saw a pattern where specific people who in all other situations are fully capable to come at the agreed time show up hours later with seemingly no explanation, as if their transportation got stuck in a wormhole for an hour or two. I have no idea what it could be because i’ve never been hours late, and if late I could provide a clear reason (usually public transport issues).

I’ve seen various jokes online about players being late to D&D, and to me it seemed like people were later when D&D was played compared to Cyberpunk and BESM.

Have you experienced this before, and do you have any ideas why? Please share your thoughts.

EDIT: I seem to have not made this clear, but these people can show up on time to other events, it just seems like ttrpgs are treated like parties where you can show up whenever.

EDIT 2: Thanks for all your support, I recently found a schedule-obsessed group of fellow autistic people to play BESM4e with, so for the foreseeable future I won’t be having this issue as I play my Synchrotron character in Toaru’s Academy City.

At the base i learn and read the guardian rule book of Call of cthullu because i didn't want to play DnD, so i try to learn to GM for this game. but between the lack of people intress and my group who seems to doesn't care about me i thaught "Hey, why not trying to play rpg ?"

because yeah i never actually play a role play game, i am just a guardian for Call of cthullu and i love reading book of rule of different games to learn more.

the thing is : i am not intressted by DnD, i don't want to play it ->the medieval fantasy trop annoy me, and from what i read, the experience seems not enought narative and you just roll dice to level up your character statistic.
But here the catch : if i don't want to play DnD i unfortunately cut myself from the huge majority of rpg players

And wenn i do find a group who intress me like for exemple there was people searching for Dragonfly motel : i was super excited , but they say their session was not open to begginer, despite me reading with attention the rule book 😭

So i feel like if i don't create myself a group for roleplay and GM for a group of person nobody will wants to play with me

(I initially posted this over on the r/oneringrpg subreddit, but have decided to post this here as well)

Mae govannen!

On Sunday, me and my usual troupe of players ran through the starter module for The One Ring 2E, Over Hill and Under Hill, and I thought it might be nice to post up a review. If you want my final notes/ a TL;DR, it'll be at the bottom of this post!

Initial Notes

I've been a GM for ttrpgs for 10+ years, having been running things since High School. I've mostly run D&D 5e and Pathfinder 1e, but have been looking to branch out and try some new systems. I was first drawn to The One Ring after reading about it last year. After finishing a Pathfinder campaign, I spent some time going over other systems and felt this would be a good fit.

On a personal note, I've been a Tolkien fan ever since I saw the films as a kid. I've loved his world, and have spent a lot of time poring over his books and the lore of Middle-Earth over the years. I'd say I have a relatively deep understanding of the setting.

The Players

I offered some pregens to my players, but also let them make their own characters. A couple of them took that opportunity, and found it to be relatively quick and easy, while also giving a lot of choice. For our party, we had a Ranger Champion, an Elf Messenger, a Hobbit Warden, and a Barding Captain. The Captain and the Warden were custom characters, whereas the Messenger and Captain were the pregens (that I had made!). Following the advice of the book, the players' Target Numbers were made by subtracting their Attributes from 18, instead of 20 for a one-shot.

Tabletop Info

We used Roll20 for this one-shot, using their sheets. I would say that the sheets are adequate, with alright automation. I think that Roll20 is a bit behind the times, but at the moment I can't really switch to a better VTT.

Things We Liked

Overall, this module presents a really solid foundation for the systems of The One Ring. It introduced us to the Journey, Combat, and Council mechanics in ways that I found mostly satisfactory. On my end, I also found prep and running the game to be a breeze compared to something like Pathfinder or D&D 5e - building NPC stat blocks took all of five minutes, and they didn't have particularly complicated abilities for combat. Combat was my biggest worry - my players, coming from Dungeon Games, are more used to the tactical combat grid. However, they all seemed to enjoy it greatly - one player even remarked that it had just enough crunch to make enough decisions, while also feeling very lightweight.

The Journey mechanics were also very well received. Most other journey and exploration mechanics in other games they have tried left something to be desired, and so this felt like a breath of fresh air. One player wished that there could have been more encounters while traveling, as they had a relatively easy time succeeding at the Exploration roll. This was, of course, a consequence of their Target Numbers being lower.

When it came to more free-form play, players liked the numbers of skills that they had. They also enjoyed the kind of granularity when it came to character customization. They also enjoyed the setup of the world, and felt that the module was tonally very consistent with Tolkien. I will say, as a Tolkien fan, the game was much more like the books than the films.

Things That Could Have Been Better

The biggest problem my players had was with the Council system. Part of this was user error - I didn't quite know how to run it well, having never done so before - but the other part was the way it was presented in the module. In this module, in order to get information from a child in a ruined village, it suggests running a Council. However, this felt very low-stakes for the system, to the point of it feeling unnecessary. The abstraction of the Council also felt odd for the situation. A couple of my players enjoyed it and understood it, but one player did not like it whatsoever. I believe that it may be better suited to larger and more important situations, rather than the somewhat small situation presented.

TL;DR

I really enjoyed running this. Honestly, this was the most fun I've ever had GMing something. I also did not feel so out of place or pressured, and I felt energized rather than exhausted when it came to running it. I also felt prep was so easy, and involved things I enjoyed doing.

My players also enjoyed this system, and said they would enjoy a longer campaign. I would be very excited to run a campaign - especially because it will necessarily involve mechanical systems not touched upon in the one-shot - and am considering doing so in future.

All in all, I would recommend this system immensely, especially if you're looking for something lighter-weight and are a big fan of Tolkien. I don't think you need to know everything about Middle-Earth, but it's definitely for people who are at least familiar with the setting.

I'm lucky enough to have players who are willing to play any TTRPG I want to play as a GM. I'm thinking of doing Fabula Ultima as my next game and I've played few jrpgs throughout my life so I get the general feel and look of the game I want to run, but a few of my players haven't. So far we've only run medieval fantasy settings like DnD, Dragonbane, Vagabond and everyone gets the general idea of those settings.

How do you get players to get the general image of the world? Do you use pictures of things to send to players, are you more descriptive of things around the world? Any help would be appreciated

Hi everyone,

Novice GM here, looking for advice to restart a campaign with my group after a medical hiatus. I would love to find a system better suited to our expectations.

Here is my TTRPG History

- As a player: D&D 4e (on Roll20) and D&D 5e (in person)

- As a GM: Pathfinder 2e (Beginner Box then Age of Ashes, stopped at the beginning of book 2). I have to stop due to medical reasons.

My feedback on Pathfinder 2e:

- I heavily relied on automations in Foundry VTT and, for me, it killed the TTRPG feeling. It felt like playing a video game at the table, with very little interaction.

- Our absolute best session was a homebrew in-person one-shot. We used maps strictly for combat, and everything else was handled through TotM. It worked incredibly well, proving that this format fits us much better.

- PF2e is maybe too "complete". I spent too much time looking up if a specific rule existed for an action rather than just improvising (also because I was afraid of breaking the game balance if I didn't).

- My players never managed to exploit the 3-action economy in combat, and I failed to guide them properly on how to use it.

My Players' Profile:

- They really love exploring dungeons, killing monsters, and looting.

- When they do roleplay, it is mostly to negotiate, lie, or scam NPCs, and they always try to test the boundaries of situations or the rules system.

- They struggle with pure, selfless heroism. They prefer playing pragmatic characters with personal motivations who always look for what they can personally gain from a situation.

- However, we are still looking for high stakes and epic situations/combats.

What I am looking for today:

- A system that is easier to pick up, which leaves real room for GM improvisation (and ideally integrates it into the mechanics. For example, I saw the Fabula Points system in Fabula Ultima and it seems to fit).

- Real tactical depth in combat, but without the heavy mathematical modifiers of PF2e.

- Setting: Fantasy only.

- Red Line: ZERO horror. My players will not enjoy a horror setting at all, and some players have extreme arachnophobia.

PS: English is not my native language. I apologize if some phrases or wordings sound a bit strange!

Thank you !

I'm trying to make my own RPG for personal use based upon some martial arts concepts because I'm that much of a dweeb, in specific I'm going to use:

• The I Ching/易經 (The Book of Mutations)
• The San Cai/三才 (The Three Powers)
• The Yin-Yang/陰陽 (also a bit of the Taiji and Wuji)
• The Wuxing/五行 (The 5 Movements/Elements)
• The Bagua/八卦 (The 8 Ways/Trigrams/Guas)

For now, I'm trying to study how to apply all this into a fun TTRPG. For now I'm only looking into the Wuxing because in my head they will be the easiest to find (don't know why), but I would also be happy with exaples for the other concepts.

Don't need to be some big famous games or a martial arts game, since I myself not making one.

As a long-time GM, I've always been extremely fascinated by sandbox and open-worlds. It always felt like, to me, that that was the core reason we played RPGs: for total creative freedom for players and Game Masters / Storytellers alike.

So I created "The Deck of Fates", a 52-card oracle deck that uses narrative themes to help guide improv. In short, it gives you a way to represent the whims of Fate itself to create a small bit of chaos that I feel mirrors the real world so much better than anything I would have written myself.

But especially, I liked that it gave me a way to give my players a narratively fitting reward for good RP. Instead of just letting them re-roll a die or check, I give them a card that gives them a fleeting bit of control over the narrative -- just like a "temporary GM".

Anyway, if you want to check it out, it's live now on Backerkit if you feel like you might want a copy: https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/amoirais/the-deck-of-fates?ref=rrpg

As a bit of FAQ, it's fully human-made (no AI!), designed to work with any TTRPG (especially narrative ones!), and features some ready-made adventures we're making in partnership with other big publishers like 9th Level Games, Critical Kit, Hunters Entertainment, and so on.

But otherwise, I'd love to hear about how other folks capture that feeling of an open world: what do you do either similar or different to something like my Deck to help your worlds feel more alive?

I'm planning on running a Greek Mythology campaign set during the buildup of tensions between the Athenians and Spartans. I know Agon is very Odyssey coded in its structure, so I was curious if I could reflavor the islands and towns, like Megaris or Delphi.

So I have been GM'ing groups for Warhammer The Old World RPG and my players have a large knowledge of Warhammer Fantasy lore. I find myself being apprehensive about making large story moments that might break with the lore. Even sometimes, my players have corrected me on the lore.

Does anyone have suggestions to help avoid this? Besides just studying the lore even more, which I am already doing? Or just ignore it and plow forward?

Let me know.

I'll admit up front I have some very specific wants, but I'm still early enough on the setup that I can probably bend my setting to most systems and I'm willing to be sold on a system that's fun but not a perfect match.

Requirements: Skills based not resource spending, and expertise in a skill should feel like expertise, no magic, no magic disguised as nanobots either, ship combat that includes the whole party, not super high tech but I do want interstellar travel, intended tone is space opera but more like The Expanse or Firefly than Star Trek or Star Wars.

Nice to haves: something already built around a jump drive / skip drive kind of idea would help but I feel like I can probably homebrew that into most systems, leaning towards a mostly classless system, I'd also like a dicepool system though mostly that's just me wanting to get away from being stuck exclusively playing d20 systems the last 10 years.

Part of me just wants to homebrew Shadowrun to be no magic in space, and probably tone down the augmentation a bit. But I'm aware how big an undertaking that would be to do well and I want to be able to play sooner than that. The setting is still forming in my head, but based strongly on books like CJ Cherryh's Merchanter's Luck, Bujold's Vorkosigan novels, Cowboy Bebop, plus influence from half the other scifi I've read over the decades. (setting and system are mostly independent from each other to me, but it's nicer when they reinforce each other)

I've watched a few videos, Traveler is close to what I want, same with Coriolis except for the mysticism. My playing experience in scifi systems is limited to Cyberpunk and Shadowrun, and like two sessions of Dark Heresy. So let me hear your thoughts!