**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.

Before anyone immediately comments "have an adult conversation with your group" or "this should’ve been handled in Session 0", please hear me out. I’m not angry at them. They’re my closest friends. I just feel deeply, quietly pathetic.

I’ve been running our campaign for about seven months. Last week, I had what I thought was an inspired idea for their investigation in the capital. I spent my entire Sunday afternoon writing three separate in-world letters, printing them in calligraphy, staining them with black tea, and even sealing them with actual red wax. I felt so proud of it.

Fast forward to tonight. They finally breach the magistrate’s study where the letters were. I set the real wax-sealed props in front of them with a grin, expecting some gasp of excitement. The barbarian player glanced at them, didn't even break the seal, and went, "Can I just roll an Investigation check to see if the desk is expensive? I want to chop it up." Everyone laughed, the wizard cast Fire Bolt to distract the guards outside, and they moved on.

They didnt even pick the props up. I just quietly slipped them back into my folder while they spent 45 minutes debating whether to adopt a stray goat. I know it’s just a hobby with plastic dice, but man... do I just have completely unrealistic expectations, or is running a game always just an exercise in emotional masochism?

Personally I predict that Solo TTRPGs are going to grow in popularity, even if only temporarily.
Could be wrong, but making predictions is fun even when they're wrong.

Do you have any predictions? What's your biggest, most bold prediction?

Kinda embarrassed to even type this out after running games for so long, but I need a reality check because I feel like a total fraud right now. I’ve been a forever DM for my group for about four years, almost exclusively running 5e and Pathfinder. Whenever the pacing dragged or I got mentally stuck, I’d just throw an ambush at them. Rolling initiative buys you an hour of game time where the system does teh heavy lifting for you.

Tonight we finally tried a Call of Cthulhu one-shot (The Haunting). No battlemaps, no tactical grid, just pure investigation and horror atmosphere. But about an hour in, my players tore through the library clues twice as fast as I planned, looked right at me, and asked "Where do we go next?" And my brain just completely flatlined.

I sat there in dead silence for two minutes, shuffling papers like an idiot. Without a monster stat block to drop onto a grid, I had zero clue how to maintain tension or improvise on the fly. I panicked so hard I basically fast-forwarded them to the basement and ended forty minutes early. has anyone else had this horrifying wake-up call when ditching combat, or am I just fundamentally bad at actual storytelling?

Olá, sou novo no Reddit mas é que estou procurando o fandom de rpg em geral para saber sobre algo

Estou Traduzindo e juntando grande parte do conteúdo do Marvel Multiverse (Poderes, armaduras, armas e itens narrativos tudo em um livro geral e traduzido para pt-Br)

Queria saber se existe algum fandom em específico para que possa ver e me corrigir caso tenha algum erro

Não tenho nenhuma intenção de gerar monetização em cima só quero realmente jogar o jogo e unir o fandom BR

Hi! I just released my new game titled SQUIRE.

It's a dark, solo survival TTRPG. Think Star Wars Order 66 Survival meets Warhammer 40k. It's nearly 100 pages of gameplay, with unique character classes, unique villains to hunt you down, and optional journaling gameplay.

If you know the Carta SRD, you use a deck of cards to represent your fallen temple and do your best to make it through the wreckage, avoid (or overcome) attackers, and ultimately... escape! If you can.

Itch: https://bardlight.itch.io/squire

It's on sale for launch week to celebrate Halloween. I hope you check it out! You can use it to run a Star Wars adventure, if you want, or lean more 40k, or make a universe of your own somewhere in between - it's ultimately setting agnostic.

I'm a forever GM and I've noticed something that might sound too mean, but I say with the bottom of my heart. Most players write terrible characters. It's their characters so I usually don't bring it up to them, but most players write characters that are bad for a variety of reasons.

Common reasons I've noticed are that they mistake elaborate backstory for an interesting character, writing characters that are written with one specific character arc in mind, characters who are too mysterious so nobody in the party ends up caring about them, one-dimensional personalities and etc.

This isn't a post about me venting about players, as I would normally just keep this to myself since I don't want to judge and the good lord knows my players could find way worse things to pick apart about the settings and adventures I write.

But then I noticed, when writing settings and adventures, I have lots of guidance. There's tons of advice on how to write a good setting, adventure design and all that. While a lot of this information can be found in blogs, videos and other sources, it can also be found in the rulebooks of the TTRPGs that I'm actually playing. The Dungeon Master's Guide has tons of useful information on worldbuilding, adventure design, setting up campaigns and all that stuff.

Meanwhile, the Player's Handbook's guidance for writing interesting characters is to just come up with a concept. This extends to almost every TTRPG I've ever read, that players just need to come up with a concept without any guidance on how to make an interesting concept.

No doubt, there's tons of information on writing interesting characters from the perspective of fiction writing, but don't think all fiction and improv advice applies to TTRPGs. I think a lot of the bad characters that I've seen came from assuming a style of fiction that doesn't suit most TTRPGs.

With all this, why do you think there isn't much guidance on writing interesting characters? Am I wrong in thinking some characters are better or worse than others?

So they just announced a feature film based on iHunt. I am excited based on who they've got working on it. Dunno if this is allowed, but thought I would get other people's thoughts.

https://variety.com/2026/film/news/ihunt-killing-monsters-in-the-gig-economy-movie-1236930441/

I have an obsession with playing classes that allow me to be a puppetmaster manipulating lil dudes for all sorts of things! From combat to puppet shows. I was inspired by anime like Karakuri Circus, Naruto, and Puppet Princess. Could anyone reccomend some games that have classes that would allow me to play out my fantasy? Please and thanks

Hello!

I have recently been thinking about building my own TTRPG system and was looking for inspiration from other ttrpg systems. I have a basic idea of how I want the system to run, but really want to look what other systems are currently out there with similar mechanics to gather a bit of inspiration.

I have been very interested in systems using cards for randomization as i believe such a system could lead to very engaging and strategic combat. Although I would like to use dice for resource tracking, although a pencil and eraser would do just as well. As such, I would like to look into systems and see how they have integrated cards into the mechanics of the game to figure out ways to stock my skill tree.

I am also very interested in using skill trees rather than classes, although a point buy system may also be a reasonable option for me. I want to learn how other designers have balanced the scaling of abilities in skill tree based systems. My specific idea is to have 2 separate skill trees, one relating to physical attributes and one relating to mental attributes, but I would place a little crossover between the 2, such as placing some physical abilities with a mental requirement or mental abilities with a physical requirement.

Thank you in advance for any of the systems you can point towards.

I’m planning on running a reoccurring game at my local store, and wondering if anyone has suggestions for games that will be easy to pick up as a new player. Points for straightforward character creation; bonus points for setting flexibility.

So far, I’m definitely planning to run Monster of the Week, after that I’m considering Pico, FATE, Rapscallion, and maybe Wildsea.

I've been thinking about the difference between a villain and an antagonist in tabletop RPGs.

When the party encounters an evil necromancer raising an army of undead, the situation is pretty straightforward. The players might disagree about how to stop them, but generally everyone agrees they need to be stopped.

The characters I find more interesting are the ones who stand in the party's way for perfectly understandable reasons.

Imagine a city official refusing to open the gates during a plague, even though the party desperately needs to get inside. Or a village leader refusing to let adventurers investigate an ancient ruin because the last group that went there got half the village killed.

Neither person is necessarily corrupt, stupid or secretly working for the villain.

They're protecting something they genuinely believe is worth protecting.

And suddenly the players have a more complicated problem than figuring out which weapon does the most damage.

Of course, there's a fine line here. An NPC who refuses everything regardless of what the players say is just a frustrating roadblock. The interesting part is giving them understandable motives and allowing the players to change their mind, negotiate or find another solution.

I especially like when the party initially hates an NPC, then gradually realizes that they would probably make the same decision in that person's position.

So I'm curious about actual experiences from your tables.

What's the most memorable antagonist you've played against or run who wasn't really a villain?

And did the players eventually come to understand them, or did they end up fighting anyway?