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Recently a friend of mine has been working on a new edition of her game, featuring many bold mechanical and narrative departures from the original; While she's confident in them, apparently several people have suggested that it might be better off being framed as not just a new edition of the same game, but a full numbered sequel in the fashion of a movie or video game followup, which has further helped her confidence in those different design decisions...

...And that has suddenly made me aware of just how weirdly uncommon it is to actually do this for TTRPGs, even though there's plenty that could absolutely be treated this way.

The closest to extant examples would be Monsterhearts 2 (though supposedly it is functionally just a new edition of the same game, in spite of the name) and I believe the upcoming Dungeon World 2 has explicitly been described this way by the developers.

Yet, one could very much argue that the different editions of D&D or Pathfinder are effectively altogether new game with how much they differ from their predecessors; I understand that in traditional non-fiction book publishing, editions are the main paradigm, but TTRPGs are at best only partly like textbooks or manuals (IMO), and while I don't think this would totally kill edition wars (given that people will often still argue about their favorite/best film in a franchise or installment in a long-running video game series), it could set much better expectations for games that employ sweeping system- and setting-level changes that they are not the exact same thing as what came before.

Iunno, am I alone in this?

Hi everyone,

It seems that the trend is to go PDF only. Cheaper, easy to search and reference, you can copy and paste text, etc. And nowadays, with the tariffs and the big delivery fees, it is becoming more of a must than a choice for some people.

I find PDFs much more useful to run and general use, but I like the feel of a good book.

What do you guys prefer, and which do you use the most?

So I have been trying to get into Lancer games for a good while now. The games I do get in don’t usually pan out because of the following reasons.

The players, from what I have interacted with and seen on the countless recruitment posts, are majority combat coded. They are so focused on their builds and the combat that they can’t really add anything to the conversation outside of combat. But they definitely have hundreds of things to say about what other players should do on their turn. I have also noticed that games with lots of GM work put into them, with lore, NPCs, details, and so on, get flooded with these players. But they don’t touch the type of games where what they prefer to do, war game minis with minimal lore prep and PC interaction, is the expectation.

I have seen games die on session 1 because the table is so quiet. The attitude for anything out of mech is “whatever, let’s get this over as fast as possible so we get to mech combat.” That leaves any player or players to dominate the conversation or awkwardly interact with the GM one on one while the rest of the table just listens.

So anyone got other systems to recommend with hopefully a better community as well?

Okay, not very used to Reddit, so I'll do as best as I can:
I'm a long time GM, was the nerd kid that introduced TTRPGs to the only couple of friends I had at the time, and I never stopped playing.
For a long time, I was like many others: when I wanted to create a powerful BBEG, I made it strong and powerful so that my PCs would be afraid... But in a series that I love, there is a speech that offered me another way of conveying the threat, which I find even more effective.

In a French series called Kaamelott, Méléagan, an obviously very dangerous being, has a speech that I love... Allow me to translate it quickly:

CONTEXT: In this series based on Arthurian legend, Méléagan is alienating Lancelot and has asked him to withdraw from everything.

"Losers always retire near a stream, because of thirst. But retirement means retiring from everything, don't you think? When I have nothing left to do here, I will retire... No more water. No more sunshine. I dry up, from head to toe, into a little corpse under a pile of leaves... The seasons pass me by without suspecting me... And then, one day, the crow tells me that she has heard someone crying again in the distance. Guinevere! Guinevere! Then I open one eye, crawl, eating the snow, licking the muddy water... and my enemies flinch, because as they see me drinking, they know that I am back."

Since then, I’ve experimented with different ways to show just how powerful my villains can be.

Recently, for example, I introduced a powerful DMPC with two clear purposes: to be overwhelmingly strong, and to guide the party toward a location where a strange magical anomaly had been detected.

This DMPC was intentionally awful; the classic overpowered, all-knowing type who understood the world far better than the players ever could. But that was the point. My goal was simple: he was meant to die.

The party eventually reached the abandoned camp where the magical surge had been recorded. As they began to investigate, the DMPC suddenly stopped. He had noticed something on the ground.

A human corpse, barely alive, clinging to the last threads of life. As the DMPC approached, he noticed an artifact embedded in the corpse’s head. The moment he recognized it, he froze.

“No… it can’t be… It can’t be you. You... You can’t be alive.”

The corpse smiled.

The DMPC panicked. Completely losing his composure, he turned to the party and screamed at them to run.

The party fled back to the main village. When they arrived, something impossible awaited them. As if he had teleported ahead of them, they found the DMPC there. Dead, burned beyond recognition, his body twisted and scarred as if he had suffered a thousand deaths. Somehow, impossibly, his eyes were still open. With his last breath, he forced out a few broken words:

“Keep… on… running.” Then his body collapsed into ash.

That corpse in the camp? That was the BBEG... at his weakest.

And let’s just say… my players are absolutely terrified now.

So yeah, that show made me reconsider how to make a menace truly menacing... What about you? Any show or books or whatever that is outside of TTRPG that change the way you play/run a game?

TL;DR:
A speech from a show made me rethink how to make villains scary. Instead of raw power, I now show menace through inevitability and fear. I used an overpowered DMPC meant to die, when he utterly panicked and was brutally killed by what turned out to be the BBEG at his weakest, my players were far more terrified than any boss fight ever made them.

Any shows, books, or other media that changed how you run games?

My 11 year old son might be interested in RPGs. Despite having played Hero Kids twice, I don't think he really understands what they are, and thinks mostly in terms of computer games where you have to kill monsters that are mostly defined by how they look and how many hit points they have. That's not really the kind of game I want to run, but I can compromise and do something where they have to kill interesting monsters in interesting set piece combats or something.

But which system to use? He's not much of a reader (though I'd love it if this encouraged him), and I don't want to drown them in complex character creation with too many options. Something that gets us going quickly, but has a bit more depth than Hero Kids. And ideally something that I already have and can run without too much work. Fortunately, I've got a lot. Unfortunately, I've got a lot. So let's run down the list of RPGs I've got and might consider for this:

Hero Kids: He's not 6 anymore. I'd like something with a bit more heft and depth.

D&D: An obvious choice for combat against monsters, but I feel there are way too many character creation options, and honestly, I'm not a fan. I don't really want to run D&D. Although I suppose we could stick to just the Basic rules. And then run them through Lost Mines of Phandelver. Not the worst option, perhaps, but I'm not a fan of D&D.

DCC: I've got it. Never run it. I have a ton of little adventure booklets for it even. I suppose there's plenty of material, but it's a hefty tome to read. Hopefully it's easier to get started (it's got those funnels, right?), but is it easier/better than D&D? Also, not a huge fan of D&D clones.

I've got a few other D&D clones, ranging from Pathfinder to some more controversial systems. Not a fan, and they're unlikely to be better than D&D or DCC, I suspect.

Star Wars d6: Hell yeah! Fantastic system, and probably tons of fun with kids. But maybe less suited for monster hunting, and probably not what he's thinking off.

Star Wars EotE: Hell yeah! But same problems.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: I grew up on 1st edition, and can still dream most of it. Or I could run the gorgeous 4th edition. Or anything in between. Character creation can be entirely random, so we can get started quickly. Although the game usually focuses more on human lands, there are plenty of monsters in Warhammer. We could go there. I could run The Enemy Within. Again. Or the starter set.

GURPS: Another system I can dream. But mostly for modern/high tech settings. Fantasy may take a bit more work to set up. And it's a fiddly system. You've got to love it, and they don't know it.

GURPS Dungeon Fantasy: Never played it, but I've got the box. It's already done most of the work.

Forbidden Lands: That's not a difficult system. There's a few aspects of the system I'm not entirely fond of, but we will probably skim over those anyway. No shortage of monsters I believe, although it is a bit overly horrific. Maybe I should tone that down a bit?

Call of Cthulhu: No, those aren't monsters you hunt and kill.

Het Oog Des Meesters (DSA/The Dark Eye): A Dutch language RPG! That makes it easier for Dutch kids, though maybe a bit weird, because they're used to everything being in English. I grew up with the first edition of this, and it made me fall in love with RPGs, despite the extreme limits of that game. The new 2019 edition has a lot more detail, but maybe too much. I'm not looking forward to digging through that tome.

Dungeon World: It's not particularly complex, although the style of play might be a bit weird perhaps? Or it might be perfect. I don't know; no experience with it, though at least I've read the rules once.

Savage Worlds: Not a bad option at all, except I seem to have mislaid my rulebook. That limits things. But otherwise I think this could be great.

Fudge: I've had fun with it in the distant past. Still my favourite damage system. Certainly flexible, but I have no Fantasy rules for it, no monster stats, no magic system.

Reign: This is what I'm about to start running for my regular group. They could hitchhike on the back of my work for my other group. Not hard to get started either: one roll decides your character. I'd have to drop in some more monsters than I'd do for my regular group, but maybe the kids can playtest the monster encounters for me.

(I think I'll skip Shadowrun, Traveller, Harnmaster, Hollowpoint and Fiasco; I don't think that's even remotely what they're looking for.)

So, of this list, what would you recommend for a dad to run for a group of 11 year olds? Or is there one I should just give to them and let them figure it out? Maybe I should run something that they can take over once they get the hang of it?

Is there something else I should get because it's clearly superior to everything listed?

Does anyone here have experience running a game for 11-year olds?

Been DMing for my group for 8 or 9 years. Almost that entire time we've been playing 5e. We've taken a break to do other games, including one I made, and in the last 6 months since we finished Storm King's Thunder we've been doing short games and one shot, more comedy focused stuff like Honey Heist, Kobolds, Business Wizards etc with simple rules.

So this week I'm going to pitch some ideas for games we can do for a long campaign again. Everyone is fine with DND again, obviously we all know the rules very well, but I don't think this group is going to be willing to learn the rules to something as complex as Pathfinder or maybe even Call of Cthulu. Took years for them to absorb DND and we play very casually anyway. The group is WAY more into roleplaying than combat/mechanics, so much so that I've been spending a lot of our time with DND campaigns reconfiguring fights to be roleplaying encounters. This is my main reason for not wanting to just continue on with 5e or 5.5e, the group is just so not into combat.

We are an online group (although we are all friends IRL) if that helps. We also used to use Roll20 for DND, which I have no issue with buying stuff for and resubbing if they have really useful tools for the game like they did we Lost Mines, Strahd, Storm King etc that we've already done.

tldr; What are some roleplaying heavy games with simple rules that are meant for longer campaigns? Thanks!

I've seen a few slice of life actual plays with Yazaba's, Chuubo's, etc. But they all tend to be shorter campaigns. Does anyone know if there's been any long term slice of life campaign actual plays? Thanks

My wishlist never ends, I feel like a fool chasing the end of the rainbow.

• Mythic North
• We Deal in Lead
• 13th age 2e
• The Dread Thingonomicon
• Electric Bastionland
• Reavers of Harkenwold
• Genesys
• The vanilla game (Is there a .pdf form of the game? I don't enjoy using the native site, but there's personal preference.)
• The Isle by Luke Gearing
• The Halls of Arden Vul
• Runecairn
• Shadow of the Demon Lord
• Arc: Doom
• Dungeon Crawl Classics
• Mork borg
• Pirate borg
• Frontier Scum
• Wolves of God
• Outgunned

What's on your wishlist?

For some years now, my RPG party has been using a completely homebrew system for running One-shots. This has lately become so fleshed out that we are thinking of publishing some sort of beta version for it.

I am curious if anyone here has ever gone through this ordeal or supported other developers from the start, and in that case, if they can help:

1) Do you honestly even think this idea is something the ttrpg community lacks at all?

2) How do you handle feedback from beta-testing? (discord servers / subreddits / polls)

3) What platforms are best for supporting crowdfunding and beta distribution? (kickstarter/patreon/itch.io etc )

4) Any personal experience you had related to the topic and possible tips you might want to give based on it?

Hey folks. I am a professional illustrator who is writing a sword and sorcery TTRPG. It began as a Mörk Borg hack, but ballooned into it's own thing with it's own aesthetic.

Because it is a rules light OSR indie-game I was designing the physical book to be A5 format. However, I am making a ton of art for it. So it is essentially becoming a TTRPG/Art Book.

The over all flavor is if GWAR, Cannibal Corpse, Korgoth of Barbaria, and the movie Army of Darkness could be combined into a TTRPG.

I am wondering if I should up the size to a standard 8.5x11 inch rule book to let the art breath more so. It would also reduce the over all page count. The trouble is, the rules would constitute about 1/2 of the book and make the whole thing cost a bit more.

I also have lots of ideas for bits of lore and flavor text, but I don't know how important that is to folks who are looking for an indie rules-light game. About 1/3 of the book would be actual rules if I add some lore and world building.

So I am asking you good folks to weigh in with your opinions.
Thanks so much in advance! :-)

Below you can find translastion of post from my blog (https://polter.pl/Cthulhtech-podrecznika-gracza-b22237). For the sake of clarity, I should note that this is not a full review, as I haven’t read the entire rulebook.
Cthulhutech is a system that combines various anime genres with the Cthulhu Mythos and cyberpunk. In the previous edition, we could play both classic investigators of mysteries and pilots of gigantic robots pummeling Mi-Go machines. In the new edition, however, the authors decided to limit the first core book to a single “mode” of play. We can play exclusively as Tagers—humans bonded with monstrous symbionts, much like Venom—who fight the cultists of the Black Pharaoh. This was a controversial and widely criticized decision, but personally I believe it was the right one. The previous Cthulhutech was a game “about everything and nothing.” Due to its huge thematic spread, there was no room for concrete tools to run sessions focused on Tagers or mech pilots. The new approach offers a chance to focus on a single theme and refine it properly.

The books are divided into two: a player’s guide and a game master’s guide. I deliberately refer to them in the plural, because unfortunately I believe that running the game without owning both is practically impossible. While most of the mechanics are in the player’s guide, key elements (such as the GM’s metacurrency or the bestiary) are placed in the game master’s guide. I won’t hide the fact that I don’t like this. I personally bought the player’s guide first to check out the system, but the lack of enemy statistics or a sample adventure made starting the game significantly harder.

From an aesthetic standpoint, the books are weak. The layout resembles a Flash game from 30 years ago, and most of the artwork consists of reprints from the previous edition. On the plus side, the margin summaries are helpful and make the text easier to read.

Let’s start with the player’s guide. In the first chapters we get a classic introduction, a description of the setting, and its history. There are no major differences here. The situation changes when it comes to the mechanics.

I won’t hide that I disliked the mechanics of the first edition. They were overcomplicated even in such basic matters as counting successes, which caused major problems—especially when playing with beginners.

The second edition not only simplified the rules but introduced as many as three separate mechanics. In the following section I’ll focus on Fundamental, the classic dice-based system, because that’s the one I played and studied. The second one (Avant-Garded) does away with dice—players instead spend assigned points to achieve success in a “test” (similar to Trail of Cthulhu or Apocalypse World). The third mechanic combines both approaches.

Fundamental is based on classic solutions: we choose one of five attributes and a skill, then roll a dice pool equal to the total number of dots in the attribute and the skill. What dice do we roll? Any kind. Successes are counted as even results, so d4s, d6s, and even d20s are all fine (coins too). Tests are divided into simple and complex ones. Simple tests are a single roll compared against a difficulty level—nothing particularly interesting. Theoretically there are several types of tests (e.g., be sneaky or notice details), but they differ only in the suggested skills.

Complex tests are more interesting. We perform them as opposed tests or whenever the game master spends a Tension point. Both sides roll dice and compare results, which are then interpreted using an appropriate table. Successes are graded and resemble the ladder known from FATE.

Players have access to their own metacurrency—Resolve—which, when spent, grants additional successes. The game master, in turn, has Tension points, gained for example when players spend Resolve or roll poorly. These points can be used to turn simple tests into complex ones, remove dice from players, or act as Resolve for opponents.

To sum up, the core mechanics work quite well: they’re simple yet offer a lot of possibilities. The division into simple and complex tests allows for balancing fast-paced play with more elaborate scenes. The metacurrencies also work well in practice.

In the next chapter we move on to character creation. First, we choose a heritage, essentially a “race.” Here, too, there have been significant changes. The races from the previous edition are retained (humans, Nazzadi, and their hybrids), but the Nazzadi themselves have been greatly expanded. We can choose their phenotype (soldier, pilot, scout, etc.) and their legion, which affects personality and skin color—Nazzadi can now appear in various hues.

New races collectively referred to as Strangers have also been introduced—various oddities from the more magical side of the world. These include the Cat of Ulthar, the Hidden (a civilization whose presence is instinctively ignored by humans), ghouls, Ravenking (a race from Carcosa resembling humans), Tcho-Tcho, Viperborn (creations of the serpent people), and Waveborn (failed hybrids of humans and Deep Ones). Overall, heritages are one of the stronger points of the game—they’re diverse, interesting, and original (though Catkin feel rather out of place). I especially liked the Hidden, with their innate “invisibility,” and the Waveborn, because playing a failed experiment of madmen from Innsmouth sounds very intriguing.

Next, we choose the character’s background. Each heritage has at least four, and some—like the Nazzadi—even more. Backgrounds are fairly solid, though it’s noticeable that they mainly differ in bonus attributes and skills, while racial abilities remain largely the same.

The next step is choosing a symbiont and one skill package. The monsters are the same as in the previous edition, but each comes with two skill sets—for example, Mirage can be a trick-oriented Trickster or a combat-focused Whiplash. This is a quick and convenient solution, especially for beginners, though it may not appeal to players who enjoy allocating points themselves.

Finally, we distribute free points among attributes and skills and can purchase flaws, merits, and other options.

Overall, character creation is very well done. There are plenty of options, and making pregenerated characters for one-shots was a lot of fun for me. Adding the Strangers better highlights the magical side of Cthulhutech, making the urban fantasy vibe more noticeable. Combined with Lovecraftian mythos and cyberpunk, this creates a truly unique mix.

Next we move on to combat mechanics. There is no initiative—players take their actions first, in any order, and only then do the opponents act. Combat is based on complex skill tests and comparing results on the ladder. An interesting solution is that failing a test not only may prevent an attack, but can also leave the character exposed, allowing the enemy to deal damage. The basics of combat are simple, and additional rules add variety, making the system fairly light in its core form. Everything changes, however, when symbionts enter play—but more on that in a moment.

In the following chapter we get a description of the Eldritch Society and our symbionts. Each of these creatures offers specific powers, as well as sets of attacks and one special attack that can be used once per session. We are also given the option to choose one of three levels of game complexity:

• Streamlined (we don’t change anything about the symbiont and don’t spend points to use powers),
• Blended (we can make minor modifications and choose abilities, but we pay for using attacks with so-called Blended Charge),
• Dynamic (instead of using predefined attack sets, we assemble our own “spells” on the fly from available tables).

This chapter is long, and most of it is taken up by attack descriptions. These significantly change the nature of combat, turning it into very crunchy encounters. Attacks are described using keywords. On one hand, this reduces the space needed for descriptions; on the other, it requires players to familiarize themselves with the book in advance to know what, for example, AoS means and how it works. Unfortunately, while combat itself is fairly dynamic, it demands prior mastery of character abilities. During play, fights dragged on because we constantly had to check the book to see what a given attack trait meant. Once the rules are mastered, however, I believe fans of tactical combat will be satisfied.

After that, we once again receive a description of the world—this time focusing on arcologies. Unfortunately, this chapter lacked more engaging plot hooks for me. At the end there is a list of weapons and other equipment. It’s a pity that in a system dominated by tearing enemies apart with claws, most of it is unlikely to see much use by players.