**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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I’m looking to sink my teeth into something new, and would love to hear which game(s) you think are currently not getting the attention they deserve?

It can be from a system, theme or setting point of view, but please let me know why, so I can be inspired to go pick it up!

You could technically push your own creation or and older game but I’ll leave that up to your own judgement - just give me something cool or neat!

I was at BIRCON (Berlin International RPG Convention) today, which was my first time ever at an RPG convention. BIRCON is definitely still in its infancy and seems to be growing, so while I do think the event as a whole could've been improved, I think it naturally will be improved as it continues to mature over the next few years.

Anyway, this was also my first time ever playing a game at a convention. The first game I played was great. The group had great energy, the adventure was well designed, and the GM was fantastic. We just adventures through an Old School Essentials dungeon. The energy was lighthearted, but focused. Nobody was being stupid. We all just played the game and had some laughs above the table.

But then came the second session. I don't even wanna say which game we played, because I'm not trying to publicly shame the GM. But holy shit that was the worst ttrpg gameplay experience I've ever had. The GM started by telling us that this adventure we're playing was originally designed for something like 3-5 sessions, and then continued to railroad us through the whole thing for 3.5 hours. The players barely spoke a word. When we did, we were ignored and forced to do the things the GM needed our characters to do, so that we could achieve the premise of the adventure in the allotted time.

The amount of times a player would state their intended action and be told "but wait, before you do that, you notice..." and it was very clear the player was supposed to do a different thing. And then the GM really shuffled the player into that action, whether the player wanted to do that or not. At some point I lost focus for maybe all of 20 seconds while the GM was monologuing and when I caught myself and focused again, one of our players was in a whole different room and I don't ever remember them requesting to go there.

The GM also let the party split up into 3 separate groups at some point, which basically brought our plot development to a crawl, further escalating the problem of needing to railroad us through the adventure.

I also had a really bad experience with my character. This game we played doesn't really have adventuring gear or any kind of inventory at all. Skills, traits, weapons, items, spells, etc are all lumped together into slots, which meant my character had 1 weapon, 1 item (yes, ONE!), and 2-3 support spells that were basically "sacrifice your stats to give the rest of the party a boon". You'd be forgiven to think that this is a very combat-focused game. The GM even said characters die fast here. So I expected I'd need to make good tactical decisions with when to support the party with my spells and such. However, 90% of the game was adventuring and social encounters. BUT WE HAD NO TOOLS AT ALL. My singular item was a piece of fabric. Like what? I found it so difficult to adventure with no gear at all. The GM said "those things were abstracted away to focus on the interesting stuff." Abstracted would have been if it had said something like "every character has basic adventuring gear." Like ok I can assume I have some rope or maybe a way to make fire, or literally any tool at all. But instead we had nothing but our bare hands for the most part.

The game was very rules-light, but at the same time crunchy. That is to say, it was designed like a crunchy game, but with 80% of the rules removed. My spells were written as very mechanics-driven interactions. You couldn't improvise anything. You couldn't make it fit your needs. You could just take 1d4 damage and give your friends a +1. We just had nothing to do in the game.

And now for my magnum opus complaint:

I believe that this GM will go home tonight and say something like "my group was really quiet. They just didn't really have the right energy," or maybe "they didn't really try anything creative at all." Because if you railroad a party this hard, there ain't no way you're gonna reflect on that and see the real issues.

Anyway, I have always seen the railroading horror stories on here and I always thought "surely it can't be that bad. All ya gotta do is ask the players what they wanna do and then let them roll some dice." But we were literally forced to take actions against our will and then roll the dice. Wow. I feel like I've been traumatized today.

Anyway, what's your convention horror story?

Anyone reading this, what superhero RPGs have you played and how did you like them?
My theory is superhero RPGs are really a niche rpg area that isn’t something you’re average rpg player will end up playing

I haven't played anything in a long time, and I'm considering maybe possibly getting into it again. But the years have somehow only made me LESS patient, and I'm not interested in trying to round people up into something with highly detailed rules. I haven't played the V5 version of the Storyteller System, but from what I can tell it has delightfully streamlined systems for combat, social interactions, and basically everything.

Is there something similar, with which to play a simplified version of standard fantasy adventures?

I just had a memory from 2017 of playing games at my FLGS and seeing a group laying out the Elite Dangerous RPG. It looked interesting, but that is literally the last I've heard of it. I know the company got weirdly sued five days before launch, but I think everyone got their products, so I don't know why the fame would just vanish from Reddit consciousness. I don't know if it was just a collectible (like Cosmere, say), if it was a flawed game that didn't have staying power, or if it was a good game that got screwed by themselves or others.

In my case, it was encountering the skill system in “Unknown Armies” 2E. You essentially make up your own, and they can be pretty descriptive. I felt cheated (“Wait, I have to come up with a skill list?”) until I saw how they were used to describe the character as well as an ability.

You could have a character with “knife,” “slice you into ribbons,” “military combatives: bladed weapon” or “prison shank” and have them all mean the same thing mechanically, but still tell you very different things about the person with the blade in their hand. It was very new to me and was rather eye-opening. What about you?

I hear that that is one of the major down beats to the powers rangers rpg, that the zofds dont really work well, so I wanna know ow if any game does that aspect well, seperate techs that can combine into one big one?

Paranormal Order/Ordem Paranormal is a brazilian system created by the biggest streamer in Brazil, Cellbit. Said system was created for the purpose of his own rpg webseries of the same name since the start of the 2020s. The system got an official playable version around 23 and his series became basically THE lead when it comes to TTRPG in Brazil, being pretty much what introduced millions to the hobby. Some would even say that the series is the brazilian version of Critical Roll due to its high production budget and others.

But, due to the rulebook and supplements not having versions in other languages, and the only things of PO in english being the official videogame Enigma of Fear, the spin off official campaign Quarantine (that wasn't really that popular among people), and the comic adaptation of the first campaign and the first part of the comic adptation of the second campaign, its hard to find any feedback for it coming from outside of Brazil.

So, I'm here to ask of what you folk from outside this beautiful country named Brazil think of it? Be it the rulebook, series, comics, whatever, I just want to know what the people outside my country think of this system that is basically THE face of TTRPG in it

About to play the game again but in a large group with five players in addition to myself. The book says in that case each player only creates one connection. With such a large group, as the facilitator I'll not be playing an MC.

The table in the book recommends one connection each if there are five major characters.

If every player has both an MC and one connection, that means there's no leftover connections for the facilitator to play. Is that correct? Never had that situation in previous games, and it feels odd. I'm inclined to let people create an extra if it seems appropriate and then play those. Or do I just focus on keeping the flow of play and clarifying rules?

Me and my girlfriend are in our 20s and living in a small town where nothing ever happens. Our friends all moved out and our old D&D group split up over sum drama. I'm fine with online games but she's more social than me and wants to actually talk to the other players at the same table. We have one game store in town with an lfg channel that's absolutely dead and I never get responses when I post in there so that's a dud and going onto "group finder" apps and sites doesn't work either because this town is low key insignificant. Does anyone know what websites or apps u can meet people on or what kinda places young adults who are into D&D can meet at? Thanks. And I wanna clarify this is not an LFG post im just wondering how ppl find groups nowadays

Hello!

A little bit about me: I've been mostly GMing via Play-by-Post, but I'm now diving into in-person/live games. Reason being: I finally found players! . . . With the additional detail that they are newbies, so I want to make it easier for them to learn and enjoy the experience.

So, we'll be playing Candela Obscura, an Investigative Horror with a dice pool mechanic, and a bit of PbtA/FitD DNA. And, honestly, they don't much care for the "mechanic" side of things; they do appreciate that it's easy to learn. We did a sample, no-prep, scene just to get a feel of the mechanics, and they somehow get the "flow/gameplay loop" of the game easily—i.e. it's all just a conversation, and we only roll whenever there are stakes on the line.

Now, I already have blank playing cards as a means to disseminate scene information, clues, and other note-worthy things. Admittedly, I'll probably change, or at least try to use index cards as an alternative. I just think that the thickness of the playing cards have more "presence" when held by the players. But, again, this will be only the first time they will encounter this. So, this could go either way.

Another tool I plan to use is a simple, small whiteboard. Only to be used to quickly draw up an image whenever it is needed, and since I can only draw stick figures, I don't intend to get larger drawing tools.

Then, I'll make use of Clocks. I'll probably use the whiteboard for this as well, or I can easily just use dice, but I do want it to be more visible, intimidating. Any suggestions for alternative items/tools for Clocks? One alternative I'm looking at is some form of tokens. Where I just place on a square in front of me, or at the middle, then I state when it becomes X amount of tokens—or the inverse—whenever I take all of the tokens, X happens.

And finally, I'm still unsure if I want a curated music playlist for them, since I'm not sure how long we will be playing, but I do intend to have some background music whenever we play. Oh, and are there any free, basic soundboard apps for me to look at? Again, I just want to immerse them with the least financial expense on my end.

Any tips or opinions would be great!

P.S. If it matters, we will be using Theater of the Mind for this system.