**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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Hello! I'm Ben Robbins.

I made Microscope, a fractal game of epic histories. And now many years later I'm hard at work on a new edition (which is kickstarting right now).

I also ran the original West Marches campaign. Is it weird that the same person who came up with West Marches makes GMless games of cooperative world-building?

I could talk about Microscope (or West Marches) all day, but I'm also happy to talk about other games I made like Kingdom, In This World, or This Means War. Or about Story Games Seattle, a public meetup I ran for eight years. Or how way back in the 80s I was a camper and then councilor at the Shippensburg D&D summer camp, and all the awesome teen-nerd shenanigans that entailed.

I've also been blogging about all this stuff for 20 years, because I love talking about games.

Ask me, as they say, anything.

UPDATE: And we're done! Thanks everyone!

I can usually tell what a game expects us to do when somebody draws a sword. I'm much less sure what it expects us to do the morning after.

A few sessions into a recent campaign, our group helped evacuate a flooded town. Great session. Next week we wanted to know whether people had come back, who was running things now, how far word of what we'd done had spread, and whether the damaged bridge would be repaired before winter.

We had very specific rules for what happens if you fall off that bridge. Almost nothing to help us figure out what happens to the town when its only bridge is gone.

And sure, we could improvise all of that. We did. But it made me realize how much of the actual experience of running a campaign lives in the gaps between the procedures the book gives you.

I'm not asking for a tax return minigame. I just wish more core books showed what an ordinary week looks like in their game. Who decides what changes offscreen? How much time passes? What happens to relationships, obligations, factions, livelihoods?

Blades in the Dark's downtime and Pendragon's winter phase are two examples that come to mind. Even a game whose answer is "skip that stuff and start the next job" is telling me something useful about how it's meant to be played.

I don't need every game to simulate daily life. I just want to understand its rhythm without having to invent that part myself.

Which RPGs do you think handle the time between adventures particularly well?

A while back I asked for some good podcasts under 5 people and while I found some good ones, most of seemed to focus on dumb jokes and ooc talk, which I am not into at all. I want to listen to a ttrpg and be invested in a story, not listen to some guys talk about gencon. So, any suggestions for me?

By that I mean the futuristic diplomacy, where many humans have become so advanced that they can reliably read body language, communicate with their allies with covert hand signals, imprint commands on a person with their voice, calculate large numbers in their mind and other such wackiness. This makes spycraft very complex without being too out there. It's a sort of subdued magic, where training and human evolution has pushed our limits rather than computers or aliens. And so I'm looking for a game like that, where social interactions are central and refined to a superhuman level.

Warning: needlessly long effort-post. Feel free to ignore the navel gazing.

Let me start by contradicting myself: you don't have to take it seriously. You can do whatever you want! I do feel passionately about this, though. Nothing has been more rewarding for me than taking roleplaying more seriously. It's sort of like going from microwave dinner to learning how to smoke brisket.

Taking things seriously requires a some effort. It also requires a little bit of discomfort. At some point, playing pretend becomes uncool and fully committing to being a different character is a vulnerable act. So start with a group of likeminded people and build each other's confidence up.

Before I get into the tips, let's start with how I define roleplaying: using your imagination to inhabit the mind, senses, feelings, and direct the actions of a character. This activity is what separates "roleplaying" games from boardgames, card games, and even the wargames that spawned the hobby.

Roleplaying is both the goal and the reward.

"I thought fun was the reward?" Sure, but you can have fun watching a football game or playing UNO. Besides, "fun" is highly subjective. I'm more interested in the very meaningful experiences that roleplaying offers. Fun is nearly guaranteed if we're all invested in the roleplaying game. (Failure might not feel fun, but can be extremely rewarding than succeeding at everything you try)

"Isn't it collaborative storytelling?" This is a sort of rectangle vs square issue. All roleplaying is collaborative storytelling in the sense that it happens but not all collaborative storytelling is roleplaying. That is, you can have a collaborative storytelling experience with zero roleplaying.

On to the tips or how I think you can get the best experience out of roleplaying:

1. Be respectful and kind to one another- This means paying attention to each other, sharing the spotlight, minimize interruptions, being honest with your rolls, and not making an effort to subvert the experience of others. Be respectful of everyone's time! This means making an effort to dedicate time you know you can commit to and showing up on time!
2. Stay in character as much as is comfortably possible and then push that comfort zone- It's impossible to be "fully in character" as we are all aware of the fact we are playing pretend. But if you can spend more time thinking about what your character might feel, think, or want in a given scenario, the easier it is to improvise what you choose to do. Try to picture the scene as much as you can in your mind. Place yourself in your character's shoes. Some people call this "connecting with the fiction. One helpful tip is to use character names and assume everything being said at the table is coming out of the character's mouth. Shift out of character planning and deliberation to in-character. Stay discrete with mechanics and avoid naming them out loud if possible (instead of "can I roll persuasion" simply describe how you persuade the NPC, prompting the GM to call for a roll). Avoid calling for rolls yourself if possible
3. Ask yourself, "What do you do?"- PbtA games like Stonetop have this as a sort of maxim, but place the onus on the GM to prompt the player with "What do you do?". Instead, I would encourage you the player to ask yourself that question.
4. Actions inspired by goals- Take a moment between sessions to reflect on your character's goals. Write down 3-5 of the things that keep your character moving so that you can refer to them during the session.
5. If you want to do it, you have to say it! - Don't "test drive" your actions. Instead, consider simply stating your intended action, "I move the log over to bridge the chasm, testing it to make sure it doesn't budge"
6. Anchor yourself- Avoid "floating head syndrome" where there are a bunch of talking heads. Start what you do with a brief description of what you are doing and where you are. "I sit down next to the patron and tap the table before saying, "..."". This helps the other players and GM know how to picture what you are doing
7. Improv isn't out of nothing, build off of each other- It's no secret that improv actors seem to flourish in this space as there are many overlapping skills and techniques. One of them is thinking "yes, and..." or "no, but..." to what people are doing. Build off of the momentum of your fellow players. Expand on what they are doing. A rising tide of ideas raises all ships!
8. Keep it short! - This is where I might divorce from the critical roles or dimension 20's. When possible, try to keep it short.
9. Be honest with your character and embrace flaws- Does your character have social failings? Flaws? Failures of integrity? These are opportunities to both add depth to your character and create avenues for character development. Here's the supertip: let the other characters be a bridge to developing your character through interaction.
10. Play with descriptive control and co-creation- Co-creation is the act of adding details or facts to the world that the GM hasn't explicitly mentioned. For instance, the players explore a cave and one says, "I lean down, grab a fist sized rock, and toss it down the nearby pit". The player "co-created" that rock. This can extend to elements of the setting if agreed upon beforehand. (i.e. "Yeah, I heard of the Saladine Barony, they're known for their salt trading"). Before session one, try to clarify who gets to describe what. Consider allowing the player to describe what successes or failures, or both look like!
11. Embrace failure- the best stories come from adversity. Lean into failure and take risks.

Slightly more controversial tips but ones I've come to swear by:

1. Instead of asking the GM questions, cue the questions from your character's standpoint- Rather than, "Do I know this person?" to a floating GM head in the sky, consider stating, "I study his features to see if I recognize him" or "I rack my memory for what I know about him". This is very much taking advantage of the "show versus tell" style of exposition and keeping

2. Don't worry about immersion- it'll come. You don't have to prioritize it. You don't have to feel it. Don't let anyone make you feel bad if you don't "feel immersed" yet. Just focus on the actual things you can do and enjoy the experience!

3. Read the rules- It sounds trite but having some mastery of the rules as a character will save everyone time and avoid the next tip...

4. Ruling first, rules after- More a GM tip. In my opinion, the benefits of clarifying a rule by cracking open the book mid session are outweighed by interrupting the flow of play. I recommend simply stating your intention and letting the GM decide how to adjudicate it if the rule is uncertain.

5. Try ditching the minis and maps- Honestly, I don't think I've seen maps and minis add much in terms of clarity or reduction of questions. Usually it replaces one question with another, in my experience. I know folks love this aspect of the hobby, but give pure "theater of the mind" a try.

What are your favorite roleplaying tips, Reddit?

Community tips:

1. u/ithika has a great tip: " My roleplaying is pretty basic in the scheme of things. I like to start off with one thing. Everything is a reflection of the one thing." and using that single idea to develop your character out of it.
2. u/schillMcGuffin finds maps to be helpful. And, you know what? I agree that they absolutely can contribute to roleplaying.
3. u/Logen_Nein (best username in the thread) keeps it simple: "Just have fun"
4. u/thetruerift says "get to the point" and that's great advice! Sometimes folks think "talking in character" means to go on long monologues. Keep your descriptions, dialogue, and actions succinct! It keeps the session moving.
5. u/zerocool gives the excellent advice "Be a fan of the players" which applies as equally to your fellow players AND as a GM philosophy.
6. u/VianArdene gives some great tips on using voice and physical movement to aid in finding your character.
7. u/Kiliantill says to keep "yes and..." reasonable and offers some great advice on rewarding player creativity.

TL/DR: Received Backer PDFs, eager to talk with other folks, but there's not a dedicated community for this yet. Looking for folks to talk about the game, rubber-duck my reading and analysis.

Did a quick search, only found discussion of using GURPS or other systems for the setting, not much talk about the official system. I received my PDFs last week, and it's a lot... more than I expected. How does one turn a third person cover-based looter shooter RPG/MMO into a tabletop game?

I'm not nearly smart enough to present opinions on mechanics and math, though I do appreciate inclusion of a table that shows odds of success for combinations of difficulty and dice pool size. The resolution system is interesting/concerning. Rolling a 1=crit fail? Cool. Below target= fail? That tracks. Rolling a 10 (max)= crit success? Absolutely. But only an exact match to target is a plain success; rolling over the target is a "Tour de Force", a success "plus". "Purely narrative...don't give mechanical effects..." but still the Coordinator/GM is supposed to narrate the effects granting the group more info, an "edge over the enemy" or some other narrative benefit/bonus, not just "you succeeded". Considering that a crit success has this AND a mechanical benefit, and the average target is 7; per the included probabilities table, I expect to be providing this narration about 60% of the time. Sounds like a big demand on the Coordinator to keep adding more.

I do like other elements; while it is a tactical game with positioning and cover mechanics, the TTRP is not purely combat. Significant emphasis is placed on elements like social networking with survivors, including foes when you may have to negotiate cease-fire. There's also a lot of focus on the psychological trauma Agents experience. Post-epidemic environment means not only are they going to see unpleasantness but sometimes have to be involved in it; going against individual or agency values means time required coming to terms with it, having discussions with squadmates to restore balance.

There's also a track for team cohesion; the more successful missions, and the more downtime spent socializing as a team, the better they'll perform. While XP is awarded individually, it can be pooled to purchase squad development and improvement. Individual advancement is a la cart; using earned XP to purchase specific Agent improvements, just as squad improvements can be purchased.

Gear/weapons/combat is... interesting to read. Not as granular as I expected, fairly abstract. All weapons of a given class have the same stats, so a coach gun is the same as a Beretta 1301; an FAL is the same as a CAR-15, a S&W 500 is the same as an FN Five SeveN. I see WHY they did it that way, but I'm not sure I love it on first read.

When the players are camping and their positioning is relevant for some reason, I'll sometimes put a red D4 onto the map to represent the campfire instead of drawing it. I was curious to know how common this is.

I use maps to communicate visual information in pretty much every game I run and have done it for years. Have you ever used a D4 to represent a fire?

There is some chance i'll be spending the next yeah or more in China, living and studying language. I am sure that Reddit is a wrong place to ask this, but still - i am aiming to continue my hobbies there and play TTRPGs (in English yet, later in Chinese).

Do you know if RPGs are played often, what systems and settings are popular there? What platforms to research?

Something that captures the original delight and magic of your first introduction to fantasy books and RPGs.

Maybe I've just played a lot and the truly magical feeling(s) is just dulled nowadays, but is there a system and/or setting you feel helps capture that true delight you had when you read your first fantasy book and were taken a way to a land of magic?

I was looking through Cubicle 7's WH: The Old World products and noticed they sell a collection of 50 character sheets. Given that we can all print our own character sheets for any RPG, is there a compelling reason to purchase character sheets? Are there sheets that are of such high quality that we couldn't duplicate them ourselves? I'm talking about any RPG, not just WH: The Old World.