**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 run and play all of my games via pure text (and image links). Sometimes, these are synchronous, live text. At other times, they are play-by-post; I have run and finished several PbP adventures in a compact time frame (e.g. just under a week for a core rulebook's starter adventure) by consistently keeping things moving.

I often join PbP games that recruit online. There are often rifts in expectations. Across the past several months, one recurring issue I have seen crop up three times is the "sandbox + PbP + nothing to actually do" phenomenon. I am sure that not all sandbox PbP GMs are like this, but it feels like a non-negligible number of GMs start up a sandbox PbP because they want to put in the least effort possible.

These three games played out the exact same way. The GM starts off the PCs in an uneventful location, like some generic town, describing it noncommittally. The players and their PCs (including me and my own character) search around for plot hooks, opportunities, and points or persons of interest: job boards, reports of monsters or criminals, rumors of treasure or strange activities, word of what lies in a certain direction away from town, chances to fulfill some backstory-related goal, and so on. The GM tells the players and the PCs that they turn up nothing. The game fizzles out after a while, because there is nothing to do but aimlessly wander.

What was the GM expecting? Was the GM thinking that the players and their PCs would, completely by themselves, kick off some epic and exciting sequence of events? Even with nothing of interest to actually work off?

Two of the aforementioned games indeed petered out. One, which started last March, is still ongoing. It is a superhero game, and we have lost players. Superpowers are new in the setting, and yet the GM has been having NPCs act unimpressed or skeptical about our powers. Only now, three months later, have we finally managed to find an antagonist with superpowers to confront.

What do you think?

Let me expound on the superhero game example. We began last March, and have lost players since.

The GM starts our characters in a tech expo: a mundane tech expo, nothing super. We search around for any strange activity or opportunities, and turn up nothing. We try to impress people with our superpowers, but our efforts are brushed off or disbelieved, despite superpowers being a new phenomenon in this setting. (Honestly: Is it any wonder why some PCs flip out and start acting like chaotic, violent murderhobos "for no reason"?)

We finally find some scientist giving a speech. We crash the speech with our superpowers. The scientist takes us back to his lab for testing. However, it is a mundane scientist and a mundane laboratory, and the GM has us roleplay out the most banal, uneventful tests possible. At one point, the GM asks me to make a roll to see if my speedster character can successfully wave their hand really fast.

Rolling to see if something bad happens. Something catches fire, being on the spot makes you nervous, and you can't go super fast, or you open a rift in space/time. Lots of things can happen when showing off something at high speeds.

I just saw it as an opportunity to put some drama/unpredictability into the situation. Everyone has already seen you move quickly so far.

I tell the GM that this seems too random and punitive, and that a roll would be too arbitrary. The GM goes along with it, thankfully.

The prosaic tests continue, then conclude. Eventually, we are let back out into the city with no real plot hooks. We resume our attempts at finding opportunities. At last, after three real-time months, we find our first... "supervillain" of sorts. He is a mentally unwell, telekinetic tweaker in an alley; he rambles out violent intentions while menacingly displaying his destructive powers. It is... a start, at least?

I do not know. Should it really have taken three real-time months to reach this point?

How would you have handled this game setup?

I will quote a play-by-post "sandbox" GM on this subject:

I love that I seem to be more an Oracle than a GM Here - y'all are very self sufficient, it is incredible to see

Yes, this GM was boasting that they were doing nothing.

I am new to this community and I just found out about free RPG day, so off I went to look for an event in the closest city nearby here in my country that will host it. I found out there is one shop that will do it, but I also found out they require to get a ticket (not sure if that costs or not) and buy 10€ minimum of food. Is this considered the norm or is it bad etiquette on the shop's part? I understand that everyone has to get by in this economy (and also that otherwise they'd probably get people walking in and out of the shop just for the freebies) but it feels like the original freeRPGday creators intended for it to be actually free, then again, I'm new and I don't know much about how this works.

Edit: thank you so much everyone for your replies, sorry if I can't individually thank you for it

I wanted to write a little bit about mechanics that result in incapacitation or being “stunned” after watching Peter’s (from TFE) video here. For reference, Peter ( r/TalesFromElsewhere) is an accomplished player and game designer. I am not. So take my criticisms with a grain of salt. I have a lot of respect for the audience he’s built, the work he's done, and the community he’s fostered.

I’m inspired to investigate these mechanics for a few reasons. They’re interesting. It gets to the basics of game design for TTRPGs. It helps us understand why certain mechanics do and don’t exist in games (and how you want to approach those mechanics).

He defines a stun as “anything that prevents the player from acting”. Now, I’d probably say a more accurate definition subs in “character” for the player; after all, BrobaFett is, obviously, not stunned when his character is hit by a stunning strike, even though his character might be.

He argues that this is a bad thing (and I agree with some of what he says here) using a few very clear lines of reasoning:

• TTRPGs are “Games” first and demand a great deal of investment by the players to play
• Preventing a player from playing that game is, inherently, contradictory to the spirit of the game
• Watching other people play while your character sits stunned is “a waste of time” and tells the player that “their time is less important”
• A designer that includes stun is doing so knowing that there are “mechanics in my game that I’m purposefully putting in here that will prevent a player from playing.”
• Having to “save” versus stun is also “un-interactive”

He proposes you can also maintain “gritty, hardcore style games” without needing these mechanics. Later in the video he describes gritty as meaning “you gotta make hard decisions when you play”. I suppose this is objection #1. Gritty doesn’t mean hard decisions. You can make hard decisions in Wanderhome or a game focused around romance. In my opinion, gritty means consequences that are “raw, realistic, and weighty”. A “gritty” wound system might be the one from Song of Swords where a single wound is sufficient to break your skull and end your fight/life as opposed to the multiple systems to mitigate damage/prevent death you might see in a considerably less gritty game like Daggerheart. Gritty = how severe are the consequences of your actions. I think Peter just gets this wrong, frankly.

My second criticism is that I think this frustration with “Stun” mechanics is a little overstated. Let’s take a look at some popular systems:

5.5e:

• Stunned Condition: Incapacitated (No action, bonus actions, reactions, no speech, disadvantage on initiative rolls), automatically fail Str and Dex saves. Attacks against stunned targets have Adv.
• Level 5 Monk ability “Stunning Strike”- Once per turn, on-hit, spend 1 Focus. Target makes a Con save or is stunned until the start of your next turn if failed. Succeed and their speed is halved and attack rolls against them have advantage.
• Most creatures cannot stun. Glabrezu, Oni, Vrock, etc. Usually 1/day
• Spells: Power word Stun (Level 8 spell) Symbol (Level 7, trap)
• Very Rare magic items (Staff of Thunder and Lightning)
• Incapacitated is also fairly rare: Turn Undead, Sleep Spell, Grappling, Brass Dragon Sleep Breath, Cloud Giant Thunder Cloud, Ghost Posession, Banish legendary actions, etc.
• Restrained is more common than both, but beyond the criticism of Peter’s video.

Daggerheart:

• No clear “stun” condition, per se. However you can be restrained (cannot move) or made vulnerable (actions against them have advantage)
• “Stunned” does show up in some abilities (Hypnotic Shimmer, Stunning Sunlight). Where it’s described as creature “can’t use reactions and can’t take another actions until the condition is cleared”
• Among adversaries, only Battle Box has a “stunning” action (Stunning Clap) which causes the target to be Vulnerable
• Most actions in DH tend to be a combination of “Restrained” and “Vulnerable” (Hold them Down, Grasping Vines, etc)

Draw Steel:

• “Dazed” condition (may only do one action, maneuver, or move action; no free or triggered actions), “Restrained” (Speed to 0, no Stand Up or Force move) and “Slowed” (Speed reduced to 2)
• Few, to no, “Stun” effects. “Stunning Blow” (Null class) applies Dazed and Slow.
• The main application of what might be considered a stun would be in applying the “Dazed” condition (many abilities do this in Draw Steel)

In most of these examples, the ability to “stun” rests in the hands of player characters as opposed to monsters. Even in D&D. Even so, I don’t disagree with Peter on his central premise. As a player it’s just not very fun to sit a turn out.

This segues into my third, and main, criticism: I think Peter is approaching the problem (and his solution) from the wrong angle. He says this early in his definition, “Roleplaying games are games”. Sure, but plenty of games have “stun” mechanics (board games, video games, TCG’s). I don’t think by merit of being a game that’s a satisfactory objection. I also think the important word in “Roleplaying Game” is, categorically, not the word “Game”. It’s the word “Roleplaying”. That is: how do these mechanics support the ability for a player to roleplay something that is happening in the fiction?

Peter, and many game designers, become overly fixated on how mechanics interact that I think they miss the forest through the mechanical trees. Start with the question: what even is a stun?

Let’s look at real life for a moment. Anyone who’s played contact sports (including martial arts) has a reasonable chance of having sustained a concussion. I remember the first time rolling as a white belt against a much more experienced blue belt and having my bell absolutely rung as he threw me to the ground. Your vision goes black, your ears ring, everything is blurry, your arms and legs feel like rubber. If you were holding on to something, you’ve probably let go. Bad enough and you might be temporarily confused, un-oriented to person, place or time. I remember doing concussion assessments while volunteering time as a sports doc for a local high school. The degree that kids can get concussed, confused, dazed can be considerable. And when this sort of thing happens, it doesn’t resolve in some 6-second time frame. Particularly nasty concussions might knock you unconscious for several seconds while your body does all the things it does when you’ve suffered a TBI (posturing, voiding yourself, ect).

If we’re using gritty realism (a redundancy in this case), being “stunned” like this is probably a fight-ending condition until you have time to recover (probably with some lasting/lingering issues). During that recovery you’re probably vulnerable to additional “stuns” and each additional insult to the brain more likely to ramp up the severity of your consequences. Again, I think Peter gets “gritty” wrong here.

I have to imagine those men at arms at Agincourt experienced as severe if not worse as gauntleted fists and half-sworded pommels struck their helmeted heads. Being “stunned” probably meant they drowned in the mud, or worse.

What else might “stunning” look like? If you’ve ever eaten a leg kick or liver shot you know what it’s like to be “stunned”. The former basically causes immense pain, followed by numbness to overwhelm the affected leg. You can’t move, much less act. Your balance is off. And you’d better hope that your opponent isn’t following through because your likelihood to protect yourself is significantly limited. A liver shot? Hard enough and, again, the fight's over (oh my god, the fight is over).

So when it comes to reality as a source of inspiration, “stunning” is often far more punishing - I’d argue- than most game mechanics represent. Probably for the same reason Peter argues they should be: it’s not conventionally “fun” for your PC to be put down in a single round of combat.

So why do I mention all this? Well, I think if we’re roleplaying, we need to ask ourselves what the fiction is trying to say. What are we roleplaying exactly and how can that be represented mechanically in a way that supports the fiction being told. Should a brutal enough leg shot always result in a “hard choice”? Or is it more reasonable to accept that some circumstances might not result in circumstances that we find “fun”?

The question must start with “what kind of story are we telling”? Do we want to create a game where the player characters are “heroic” and free of the typical weaknesses that we mere mundane humans suffer? Player characters that can shrug off a hammer blow to the head and still fight as long as they “mark a stress”? There’s nothing wrong with this as your design goal, but you have to start here.

The inverse might be overly punishing. Oh, you’re playing a “realistic” game set in WW1? Assuming you want “the most simulation possible”, great, there’s a near 70% chance that your character will die from artillery. Not some heroic gun battle. Not some valiant charge. No, you explode. No saving throw. Time to make a new character.

I suspect the answer is finding the sweet spot of your “gritty meter” and, if that’s the case, focusing less on “stun” as a mechanism and more on how the diegetic consequences of actions create choices (or not). For instance, your buddy gets smashed by a tree. He’s not stunned. He’s concussed, unconscious. Now, you can spend your time moving to him to wake him up. Or, you can leave him unconscious.

The game Mythras does a pretty good job representing “stun” effects. Bludgeoning weapons can “Stun Location”. Assuming the attacker succeeds well enough, and the blow overcomes the armor, the defender rolls their own endurance to determine if the location is incapacitated. An extremity cannot be used for a certain number of turns. A torso blow renders them winded and only able to defend themselves. A head shot renders them briefly insensible. Very consistent with “how it works in real life” which appeals to those desiring what happens in the game to mirror what would happen “in reality” if the same thing happened.

I don’t only have criticism for Peter. I do agree that player agency is paramount and worth preserving! I think that to violate that agency should probably require some profound extenuating circumstance (being killed, knocked unconscious, some kind of magical effect, overwhelmed by foes). And we agree that when you can render difficult choices “do I cut my friend free of the vines, or do I keep attacking the Dryad?” they end up being more engaging than “player is stunned by vines for X turns”. I will say, though, that I don’t see “mark a stress” as any more engaging of a mechanic as “roll a save”. And, in fact, casting a spell to reverse a stun is far more engaging because it taxes a more valuable resource and, therefore, introduces a choice (do I spend this resource to help my friend, or do I hope he can recover and spend it doing something else?).

I think the best sort of game design starts with what the fiction is achieving: what happens as a result of X in the world, and then allows players to react to solve the problem.

So I joined my first DnD campain last week and uh, there were situations that made me uncomfortable / uneasy / weirded out. I don't want to write exactly what happened bc i'm worried about other players also being on this subreddit.

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But the point stands - what are the early red flags to look out for? I really don't want to leave since I love the story and other players' characters. DM has ton of ideas and I like where everything is going but I need to know if I'm going crazy or that stuff isn't normal.

This week's RPG is Mage: The Ascension!

Have you played it? Have you run/GM'd it? How did it go?

What's your favourite memory from the game?

What's the best thing about the game?

What's the worst? How would you improve it?

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Last week was Symbaroum. Join us again next week for Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition!

Hey all, so I got the idea to run a wild west horror game. Im looking at what's out there it's nearly all really overt on the fantasy themes and pulp

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Even the CoC adventures have hordes of zombies etc

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I was hoping for something more like creeping dread investigation set in the old west. Lovecraft without the gunning down giant monsters

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Anyone know of anything? Essentially I'd love to run Mothership in the wild west

Obviously, Deadlands is the standard bearer for this little corner of our hobby, but I see Frontier Scum getting a lot of love these days. Have you played either? Something else? What did you like? Or if you didn't like it, what made you bounce off?

**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.

----------

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

just what the title is asking for. surreal, wacky, but not totally unserious RPGs. like troika for example

I've been playing for a while now and I keep coming back to one scene from a campaign last year. My character was dying, and instead of trying to save me, my party just... sat with her. No heroics. The DM described the sunset, someone played quiet music, and we all just roleplayed saying goodbye.

I wasn't expecting to actually tear up over fictional characters, but here we are.

What's your moment? Could be joy, grief, pride, anything — I'm just curious how deep this hobby has gotten under your skin.

I picked up the Troika starter bundle recently and I would love to hear what you’ve done with the system. It looks like the advancement math caps out eventually, so this isn’t exactly built for years-long campaigns, but the 1:5 modules and the machine with which you run them all seem great.

90% of what I’ve come across that’s third-party seems more conceptual and “weird” than gameable, but maybe I’m just not on enough acid.