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Some important context to start with my ramblings:

I (33 f) was born into an RPG household. I have been playing since I was 5 years old, starting with my dad's "Choose Your Own Adventure" books. My first d20 was gifted to me when I was 7. I've played TTRPGs and video games for almost my entire lifespan, but I have only been narrating for a total of 5 years or so. Of those, 2 years have been professional DMing (yes I was hired by a game shop exclusively to narrate RPGs in person).

In all of this time, I've only received harsh judgment and complaints from one specific group of players... the people I consider my very best friends with who I play online (using Discord, no webcams and I think this can be one of the problems)

We also have a very fixed GM (Blue) , that narrates to us for the past 10+ years (and that I know in person for even longer).

Now that the context was given...

I've narrated 3 times to my friends online and all of those experiences went out horribly to say the least:
1 - Once when I started narrating TTRPGs with my own worldbuilding
2 - One Halloween one-shot that was pre-made (Sulphur: A Mystery-Horror One Shot)
3 - And most recently by trying to have my first Daggerheart session.

The first time I was thinking that maybe, since it was one of my first games I didn't do the right things, and maybe I got a bit anxious by narrating my own world. The game went really slow and we barely made it to the end of my first prepared dungeon, but no problems I was expecting some bumps on the road. When asked if they wanted a second session, they completely vanished and proceed to ghost me and ignore me for a while.

I didn't think much of it, we live in completely different time-zones nowadays and it is very hard to make time for RPG sessions so I give up on trying to check if we are still going to keep playing.

A year later, my friends really want to play a Halloween adventure, our fixed GM doesn't want to narrate, but wants to play, so I offered myself to narrating some good old DnD, since we had less than a week to prepare, I choose a pre-made adventure (the Sulphur one, for the tones of horror and mystery). Again the session runs slow, they barely talk with my NPCs and get lost and confused unless I throw the action on them. As soon as there is one major obstacle they completely stop and try to check for a different alternative that requires less action or thinking (except for Blue, but he is not acting as much because he doesn't want to steal the spotlight too much).

After a while, I tried to narrate Root, they say they want to play at first, but gave up once I teach them the rules... 3 weeks of preparations (and learning the system) going to the drain, but if they didn't like the system, what will I do?

And now, almost 4 years after the first time I've narrated to them I try again, now with Daggerheart (because I want to learn the system) and I feel they will enjoy the extra roleplay that the system enables...

For that I get fully made artificial generated characters and backstories, that I manage to fit in the narrative as cohesive as I can. I've asked important question for the players that never get answered and I fill the gaps trying to make a shared world building.
I create a total of 1 NPC to tie them all together, a mentor of sorts that holds a big position on the school the characters go and ask my friends to add him to their lore... One of the players (Green) even gave me his lore completely changed 2 days before the session ;_;

Well, this session in particular goes awfully terrible. This was supposed to be a one-shot, but if they enjoyed the system I would transform into a full campaign and that was what I was aiming at.

I start the session with a short play from one specific character (Purple), she is hunting on the school forest and find something dangerous and that shouldn't be there, but since she is alone, she refuses to investigate further, what is fair point on my opinion and I had many backup plans anyways (Since my player Red is not participating, he goes out of the table to eat something and comes back later, usually when he does that he is hearing with his Bluetooth headphones, so I allow it. This is important for later).

The games goes smoothly with those brief character introductions, and I spill parts of the secret in every introduction. (Yes, it was my mistake to make separated character introductions, but they where fairly quick tbh and I can say that one of my best qualities as a narrator is dealing with parties that are split)

The problems start as soon as they are together.

I let them meet my NPC, that starts to act suspiciously as soon as Red tells him of the dangerous substance she found in the forest (I act in a way that the players did notice he got weird AFTER she presented him with the substance).
NPC hides on his room and Blue (that is stealth) notices he is gone from his room and there is tracks under his window. Blue and Purple start to track the NPC, while Purple and Green stay behind to look for clues (Green is my other player, he is new to RPG so still don't do much on his own).

I keep give hints about the forest, so many hints about the forest, hints about the forest everywhere, even going as far as Green getting a premonition about forest fires and the now missing NPC with the tracks that goes towards the market and the forest (my players showed a lot of interest about the market and ignoring completely the forest, so I think I can make them act by making the place they want to go suspicious and interesting).

But again, when I try to make things a bit hard by saying "The tracks are starting to get obscure here and you feel about to lose the NPC" my players give up immediately on the chase, what is corroborated by Red "calling" them and asking them to go back.

Red doesn't let anyone do anything, because he feels lost "We can't do anything in this situation" he says often (even when the other players are telling him that they should investigate and that the NPC is doing weird). As is our dynamic and Red is the queen bee, no one does anything without his consent.

Being honest here, all of my action was outside of the house since that was the house of the NPC and Green and I wanted it to stay as a base of operations for the party later (another mistake, I feel like I should had anticipated that they where going to choose to stay closed inside all times), I had things prepared for the market, the forest and even an arena, but not really the house. But hey, I am good at improvising and I know the NPCs and how they would react in that universe and what they would have at home, so improv I do.

Since they don't leave the house, I bring NPC back (as if not had happened wink wink), and instead of talking to him they keep discussing the fact that they can't do anything. So on a last desperate measure I make the clouds go dark and the NPC faint with so many clues that my players KNOW he is under a curse and CANNOT talk about whatever is happening on the city/ forest.

At this point, the adventure comes to a complete halt. I stop the session, ask for 10 minutes and when I come back I lay down for them ALL of the clues, on which player Red gets really upset because I did not told him specifically about the clues of the fire on the forest.

My 5 hour long one-shot became a 8 hours long game and that have never happened before to me, everyone was tired and I just wanted to end that torture that had became the game.

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I've asked for some criticism and the things they told me were:

- Revise the lore so the mentor is more important, because they did not know their mentor was powerful and important (since the start I was telling them that he was their main mentor and specifically chose the players) they said they did not have a strong connection with the NPC that was literally the foster father of one of the players (From Blue)

- Only the characters where good, all of the rest where shit (with those words) (From Red and backed by Purple)

- They hated the system with all of their might (understandable, we played so many different systems together since we know each other).

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After that session I was feeling pretty bad, it had been a year since last time I narrated RPG and at first I was thinking that I was rusty and trying a new system was maybe not something interesting to do when I was so rusty.
But the more I think about it the more weird to me it gets.

No one ever complained this much about my sessions. Everyone always complimented my narration and the fact I like to make everyone shine a little bit. I wrote compelling mysteries and living worlds. And my favorite compliment is that everyone feels welcome and even the most shy of my players feel compelled to interpret their character.

I may not be the best DM out there, but at least I was honestly trying to give my friends a good time, and I left feeling like the worst DM on Earth.

There are many things I feel that I could do different, but at this point how much of it is me trying to cater to their needs and how much is me just trying to make a baby's first adventure by over-handholding? I don't want to tell them HOW to solve the problems, but they appear to not act if the solution is not absolutely clear to them, even when I escalate the situation because they are not acting.

Is the lack of cameras the problem? Is me the problem? Or is it purely the friends dynamic that got too rotten to be salvaged? I feel that it is a combination of the factors.

Tl;Dr - My players lack of investment on my games can be a symptom of a deteriorating friendship and sometimes that is fine, even when it is frustrating.

PS:
- English is not my first language, some people seem upset for me using the word "narrating" as a synonym to GMing.
- We do have sessions 0 through group text chat, it worked well for those 10+ years we know each other..
- This game session only made me realize that the whole group dynamics may not be that healthy, but there is a lot more to that that doesn't fit to the RPG subreddit.
- And yes, I am used to run my own one-shots and campaigns and work at a store when I had a very strict 4 hours per session, I got pretty good at determining how long a session last with an average group. The session lasting 3 hours more than expected is a BIG outlier to me.
- And no, they don't cause as much trouble when it is anyone else GMing for them.

So, I've been learning a lot thanks to the amazing folks here at r/rpg. And while I have decided to slow down on trying new systems. (As my players say "three is enough, we know your eager to try more but slow it down so you don't burn yourself out.") There was a question today that cropped into my head, and I wanted to hear from the folks here on it.

"What are some assumptions about your favorite game/system that are just factually incorrect or overstated?"

I've seen a lot of assumptions made in the hobby, and some on my own. From the broad "older systems were designed for math heads and thus really not for someone whose bad at math." to others like "Call of Cthulhu is a game where every session ends in death/insanity and players can't get attached to their characters." and similarly "OSR games are highly lethal and not at all friendly to players who like longform adventures."

I feel like broad, sweeping claims like those are probably overstated-as I have heard of successful, long running CoC campaigns, and OSR games that are able to have well developed characters that last for ages. It's made me curious about some of the other broad, sweeping claims about systems that are-if not incorrect, massively overstated.

Really interested to hear some answers on this.

Looked at Wrestling TTRPGs and all of modern ones are out of Kayfabe which I think is silly so would like one in Kayfabe (If you don't know the terms I'm just looking for one that portrays it as "real")

I recently heard of Solo September for the first time, and decided it would be super fun to give some Solo TTRPGs a shot this month. I’ve played/run heaps of different group-TTRPGs, and a couple of smaller duo/solo games like Tangled Blessings, Starforged and Thousand Year Old Vampire alongside my partner, but I haven’t really dabbled in any solo games all on my lonesome.

In the spirit of Solo September, I’ve suggested that my partner and I each pick out 4ish solo games to play - aiming for one a week - and chat about whatever games we end up playing by the end of each week! Kinda like a cute little solo-ttrpg book club.

So, the big question is: What Solo TTRPGs would you recommend I look into?

Willing to have a look into game of pretty much any genre - cozy, horror, fantasy, sci-fi, mechs, etc.! :) But, I am only interested in human-made TTRPGs, so please do not suggest anything that incorporates AI.

Thank you, in advance, for any help! Have a successful September, everyone. <3

Just had a game end due to the DM not feeling good enough despite the fact that everyone at the table genuinely enjoyed playing. As someone who has DM'ed in the past I understand how they feel though I have my own way of coping. But this got me curious as to how others find ways to deal with imposter syndrome.

I feel like most people tend to follow specific IP, not necessarily specific authors. For me, I tend to follow Matthew Dawkins's work since VtM, even though some aren't my cup of tea I tend to like his design style and writing.

Just started watching glass cannon’s pendragon actual play and looking into the game itself and saw there’s a grand campaign that lasts 80 years in game. I was curious if there are other campaigns out there like that, with a grand scope.

I consider myself as someone who would play most types of RPGs. (I have some instant turn offs, but who doesn't?)
Lately I am more likely to try out rules-light RPGs. (Mostly because of having too much titles and not enough time, haha)

My current favorites are:
- Grok?! (2nd editions just came out, can't wait to try it)
- Far Away Land 2nd edition
-Cypher 2nd edition (I know the books are long, but system-wise, it is pretty light-weight.

I was wondering, what is your opinion of an ideal length for each session of a game? I've done 30 minutes, which felt a bit short, but I've also been at D&D sessions that went on for hours and felt a bit too long. What do you think is the sweet spot between satisfying and fatiguing?

I'm trying to find a lofi scifi rpg released recently (2-3 years) that was about you raising a family of explorers in space.

I recall one of the main mechanics was the ability to deposit your apprentices at different planets for training which functioned as upgrade mechanics. Your "family" also had different roles you could place them into.

The art direction of the book was abstract pastels. A children's book style, so to speak.

I was thinking that it would be interesting to have Traveller-like character generation in a fantasy game, with academic-type magical power, or battle-hardened tactics and bravery taking many years to acquire, and with mishaps and events that create NPCs, permanent wounds, or the like. Are there any games like this?