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Narrative and rules lite RPGs are as successful as always and there seems to be a new wave of tactical RPGs. However, I haven't heard anything about new simulationist RPGs. So, I am wondering what new and upcoming simulationist systems there is.

I’m looking to run a horror campaign for me and my friends (3 others) and really want to do something similar to the podcast “the white vault”, or the early episodes of “the Magnus archives”. I’m not a huge fan of space sci-fi or the more fantasy based horror games. I was hoping there’s something that feels like normal people trapped in a situation that is overwhelmingly out of their power, or more or less tap into that human fear of helplessness and the unknown while keeping it based largely in a non fantasy world. Lovecraftian is okay I just can’t find any that stick to being more realistic.
I’d really appreciate any recommendations or suggestions

Not fantasy dressed up as history, an actual documented event, squeezed into one session.

Liudprand of Cremona’s disaster of an embassy to Constantinople in 968 is one I keep thinking about.

Guy gets humiliated by the Byzantine court, they even take his robes off him, and he goes home and writes this furious account of the whole trip. Could run it as pure court intrigue, nobody draws a weapon.

Dallas motorcade, Nov 22 1963, but not the shooting, it’s about the hour after. Everyone’s got half the story and there’s no way to check it.

Iranian Embassy siege, London 1980. Six days before the SAS finally went in. I remember being a kid annoyed that the John Wayne film got cut off for the newsflash. Could run the whole thing from the negotiator’s side, door stays shut the entire session.

Berlin Airlift too if anyone wants something slower. No fight at all, just whether the numbers add up before winter hits.

What’s your pick?

I'm thinking of running it soon.

I'm loving Daggerheart's duality dice: roll 2d12, and depending on which is higher, the roll is made with "Hope" or "Fear"; I feel like it's probably my favorite unique piece of the game's design. I like that it brings in the fluidity of a PBTA game while also being SUPER simple to read. You don't have to have a big list of gradations of success listed for each ability, like in games like Stonetop (which is no shade to Stonetop, it's a dope and elegant game). But as a GM/Player who is mostly uninterested in combat, I'd love to see other systems use it, iterate on it, rethink it, etc. across contexts that aren't limited by the tropes of heroic fantasy.

Are there other systems that Daggerheart borrowed this from? Have you seen other systems implement it since Daggerheart came out?

I'm also curious about the legality. Is it like a d20? Could designers use duality dice (or some legally distinct, renamed versions of them) in their own systems without listing it as a Daggerheart-compatible product? Anybody have a good read on that?

GinnyDi posted a video about player x DM contracts that she inspired herself to do after seeing Aabria doing it. Explaining it as quick as possible:

When the moment ask for it, when your roll will either cause the biggest impact narrativaly or when you already failed, Aabria will ask you "What would you give me for you roll to be a sucess?" or "How many NPCs are you willing to sacrifice for X thing?". I watched this today and I was like "cool, I need to test it sometime.

I didn't expected the sometime to be so early. I'm running CoS to my players and the today's encounter was VERY clearly supposed to make them run. Last session they had a hard time killing 2 werewolves. Today there were FOUR.

Even then they decided to stand their ground. Round 1, one player was already unconscious and another one was at half HP. It was going to be a TPK. And the funniest part is that the CoS:R itself tells you during Session 0 to warn your players that "Some fights are impossible to win. That's by design. Sometimes running isn't an option. It's the option." (which I did)

Well... my players didn't get the memo and after 2 rounds they were full on desperation mode. One of them decided to try persuading the werewolves to let them leave using the fact that he was infected with lycanthropy. Instead of asking for a Persuasion check, I just put my best scary DM voice and said:

"Kayron... what do you offer me for your persuasion to succeed?"

He thought for a few seconds and answered:

"I offer that I won't cure it through easy means like magic or clerics. I'll only get rid of it through a narratively satisfying way."

I just said "Deal." Not gonna lie... for a brief moment I felt like Aabria.
They were saved by this, but now I'm gonna start thinking of ways to do a good "Werewolf Cure Arc" lol

Hey there,

I just came across the Itch summer sale and wanted to know what your (discounted) highlights are :)
Personally I am looking for really good adventures or interesting source books - so if you have recommendations, I'm listening!

Hey everyone so I need some advice on how you guys run deep political intrigue campaigns in Symbaroum. New to the system/setting but it's all super interesting to me.

We really want to focus on the gritty city politics like in Yndaros and scheming against noble houses instead of just crawling through the davokar forest.

Our group doesn't really like tactical grid math, so we want to keep our combats super fast like 30 minutes max so we can stay focused on the cinematic story first vibe.

How do you guys handle faction reputation and social challenges to make the politics feel super deep without getting bogged down in crazy rules? any simple house rules you recommend to keep the crunch low but the drama high?

Any tips, tricks, advice would be super helpful!

I’m looking for a rpg system for golden age style Batman stories. Something where Batman, Sandman, and the Shadow can vie with Clayface, Joker, etc. I want there to still be a chance a Tommy gun could take someone down

This is a weird request, but I was wondering if there's anything that focuses on PCs building traps and designing defenses and defending a location against enemies.

There's a subgenre of books called DungeonCore, which is about the main character is the heart of a dungeon, building its defenses and designing its monsters and I think that is a really fun thing. Both tactically, and in the defensive nature of the battle, but also in designing the decor and theme and so on which would make for a nice player experience. There's levels to the advancement though, limits on how much the main character can make--size of dungeon, number of monsters, level of those mosnters, etc.

I've also had moments in games where the PCs have an opportunity to fully shape a battlefield when they are planning an ambush or preparing for an assault, and the creativity and energy that always brings is super satisfying for me. Those are genuinely some of my favorite experiences, and I'd love to make that more of a focus.

I know the obvious response is "It's called being the Dungeon Master". But obviously there's more to being a GM than just running the dungeon. Also I like the idea of making the entire group in charge of handling the defenses/repelling intruders. Forcing them to work together, to come up with good room designs/etc ahead of time, and fun playing the different monsters in the dungeon. It would make a good collaborative boardgame, so perhaps an RPG can simulate that.

I'm having the idea of making a campaign around this setting which i called "The Great Illithid War" (or any other alien species if you hate DnD 5e). It took place in your regular fantasy setting (elf, dwarf, goblin, dragon,... you know the drill) until one fateful day, a meteor crashed onto the realm, inside it... was an alien creature, tasked to turn this whole world into a Hivemind. Fastly and surely, it infected the area with some kind of fungus, turning every creature exposed with it into mindless, loyal minion for the Hivemind. Its influence are expanding day by day, other countries have noticed it. Some prepare their army for war. Some, foolishly enough, are researching for a way to turn the Hivemind into their own weapon. But for the commonfolk, they only know one thing: War is inevitable. Kingdoms from all over the world are starting to recruit troops to face this threat. The campaign will take place several years after the meteor crashed. I'm planning for the player to be new recruit, that were sent straight into the frontline. Yeah, that's the premise of it. What system would be the best to run this kind of campaign?