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I think the main hurdle for me was the lack of a Monster Manual. And a lot of systems assuming the GM makes their own monsters.

Over 228 pages and 12 fully written scenarios, editors Heinrich D. Moore and Evan Perlman present an anthology that shines a spotlight on Shub-Niggurath in all her glorious and horrible guises.

Written by a mix of bestselling, award-winning, and debut authors, this collection offers an amazing experience for Keepers and players alike.

While intended for Call of Cthulhu, several scenarios are also very suitable for conversion to Delta Green and other Mythos-inspired games.

Reception has been amazing; it has smashed straight into Silver Best Seller and is trending towards Elektrum, which will make it eligible for print-on-demand.

I was sifting through my collection of books a while back and pulled out all the Game/Dungeonmaster Guides I could find. Ranging from Call of Cthulhu (5e-7e), SpyCraft (both editions), Stargate (d20 and 5e), Star Wars (West End Games, WotC, Fantasy Flight), Alternity (1e/2e), Savage Worlds, Hero System, D&D (Basic, 0e-5.5e, Pathfinder 1e/2e), and more.

I came to the conclusion that most of them suck when it comes to adventure and encounter design. For the most part, it's a couple pages. There are a few gems out there (my favs: D&D 4e DMG 1 & 2, Pathefinder Gamemastery Guide, and SpyCraft 2.0), but most of them just kind of gloss over the process.

What are your go to guides for systems?

I'm not talking "The Lazy Dungeon Master" or "The Game Master's" book series or any "compiled advice" books (Kobold Press). I'm more interested in guides that deal with their own games and how to make adventures/encounters that fit their system/setting.

I'm not a writer by any means. It's just not something that fits in with my thought process. But there has to be something out there that does the process well.

New to TTRPGs, and DM/GMing in general, I got a lot of answers about using a VTT the other day (thanks to everyone for the advice!) Since then, I've ended up being enlisted as the Narrator of an upcoming game of Marvel Multiverse. due to another campaign falling through.

I'm taking care to read the core rulebook back to front, both the free basic rules and the actual core rulebook for a beginner adventure. I intend to reread it everyday from now until the campaign date next Friday, but in the past I've struggled to retain information and needed to keep flipping back and forth in the book for basic information beforehand. I want to minimize the need to do that moving forward, especially as there are a lot of games we want to try. Marvel, Pathfinder, Fallout, Cyberpunk RED, etc etc.

I know a lot of games have GM screens which contain cheat sheets, so the PDF bundles I picked up for Call and Pathfinder should help, and there's a great cheat sheet for Marvel Multiverse I'll be using. But as someone who struggles with reading a lot of heavy rules text and memorizing it, what are some tricks you've developed to help you remember the rules as you play, aside from the ever important 'practice, practice, practice'.

This is partially a rant, and partially begging for help.

I've been interested in getting into GURPS for a while, but there's so much to it, it's overwhelming, and I can't ever seem to find the information I'm looking for. I've watched so many YouTube videos, but they (understandably) mostly cover just the barebones basics. And 600 pages in just the basic rules is so much to parse through.

I do think I have the basics mostly down (although it's been a while and I'll need to refresh on them—I rage quit a few months ago, and now I'm trying again).

But I have a couple things that I want to learn that I haven't been able to find out on my own:

• Player options supplements for: Classic Fantasy, Wild West, Superheroes, and Sci-Fi (specifically Star-Wars-style soft sci-fi with some minor fantasy elements like psionics, and also able to accommodate team ship salvaging and crafting¹)

• There was a guy on YouTube who talked about how you can build your character's features from 100% scratch. Ex: I want to build a fireball ability; there's rules for damage costs X, range costs X, radius costs X, trigger specifics cost X, etc.. Where can I find these "build from scratch" rules? (And how thorough are they actually?)

¹ For team salvage and crafting, I imagine just giving the party an XP budget for the ship is a start, but given how much GURPS is out there, I bet there are more specific rules somewhere.

Any consolation or sympathy is appreciated. Any help finding what I need is appreciated even more :P

EDIT: Also, how compatible is 3e with 4e?

Genre doesn’t really matter. Just interested in checking out mechanics for Attack vs Defense rolls.
Cheers

Hi, all. I've been feeling the need to get into some TTRPGs lately, so naturally I immediately started going deep down the rabbit hole, as one does (or as I do, anyway). At first it was a lot of fun, delving into all the possibilities, especially once one gets past the hegemon, D&D 5e. I even purchased a few (several) things...as one does.

My goal has been to do solo gaming, but also to GM for one other player who is game to play. I have a little experience with D&D, mainly a little 2nd edition (about, ahem, 30 years ago), and a couple one shots of 4th edition, all as player. I've watched and/or listened to a decent amount of play, largely (but not only) Dimension 20 and NeoScum. And I've very much been a fantasy/scifi/horror nerd and in those nerd spaces my entire life, so I've soaked up a great deal of info and such about the hobby, just limited actual play time. So those are my bona fides, such as they are.

However, I've never GMed, so even more than the solo stuff it's finding a system and/or module to GM for a single person that's giving me trouble. I've looked into so many: D&D, Ironsworn/Starforged as a duo, Scarlet Heroes, Cairn, Mork Borg, OSE, Hostile, Mothership, and on and on. Found a lot of really cool games, but a) my player is not deeply steeped in nerd stuff nor a gaming person (tabletop or digital or otherwise) in general, and so has no real preference for genre or...really any part of it, so they're leaving it up to me (they DO want to play though, to be clear, just even more out of their depth than I am). I've read countless reddit threads about the subject, too. There are so many ways to go and different opinions on where to begin and what's suitable for a (newbie) duet, that basically, I've researched it past the point of fun that now it just seems like work and almost a source of stress.

All of which is to say: please, kind TTRPGers of reddit, help me. You're my only hope. To bullet point what I'm after:

-A newbie-friendly system, not too much crunch, probably more narrative-driven and rules-light, especially since the player will not be devoting research time to this.

-A system and perhaps module that is suitable for a GM and a single player, preferably a single character (though I did see people recommend "subordinates" that the player can order around but not necessarily have to control, which is interesting).

-Something we can preferably play in no more than 3 or 4 hours, though 2 would be even better, to dip our (their) toe in and not make them role play too long and carry the weight of the player side all alone.

-Milieu and genre don't matter. Can be space horror, classic dungeon action, Victorian London mystery (with or without Cthulhu), cyberpunk heist, really anything.

-Character death isn't a deal breaker, but for a very first TTRPG experience, probably not ideal, so something survivable would be good.

Any ideas or tips or anything I'm overlooking would be appreciated. I really want to play, and so does my player, but decision fatigue has set in. Help me decide?

I'm a single girl, so I'm not inviting people into my house. That leaves me stuck with public meeting places in my area. Coffee shops and the like, because the obvious choices are defunct for various reasons. I know all the obvious answers. They're not options.

These people clearly don't believe people meet in big groups. Bolted down or non-combinable small tables that seat four at most are the norm, and I need to sit down too.

Any advice on how I'd run a continuing game with that limitation?

Edit: Just to be clear. I'm not looking for better spaces. I've worked with the local gaming community and they concluded "Wow, your town bites for space." Now I just want to know how to work around the limitations. Thankfully our game collection is dominated by minimalist systems.

Asher's Ridge by Rori Montford

I've been curious about it for a while, want to know how it plays at the table.

I’m curious about other systems like united or odyssey. I haven’t played it ran the other systems than adventures.

(Sorry I posted this in a different subreddit, it was for a Pokemon ttrpg subreddit. But over all for this case any system would work like dnd, Delta Green, Call of Cthulhu, Myhtrus, 13th age, The Legend of the 5 Rings, etc)