**Come here and talk about anything!**

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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.

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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.

**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.

​

----------

​

This submission is generated automatically each Saturday at 00:00 UTC.

"Elegance" meaning the most complex/nuanced outcome from the simplest input.

I really like Lancer! I've ran and played a couple games and love the art direction, the general tone, and the way mechs feel. That being said, there are a couple aspects of the game that don't really appeal to me as a fan of the wider mecha genre. I'm looking for a game that still has a heavy focus on tactical combat while giving me more of what I want.

Some general things I like about Lancer, as a metric:

- Mechs feel unique and offer a wide array of combat strategies

- Combat is highly tactical and requires a lot of communication and cooperation

- NHP's are just cool!

Where my issues arise:

- Lancer's 'utopian' focus leads to a shift away from a lot of the darker aspects of the genre - mechs are giant war machines designed to kill people, and I feel Lancer isn't really interested in the moral dilemma of being a mech pilot

- The post-scarcity element of the setting removes any real tension when it comes to mechs (or parts of mechs) being destroyed - as long as a pilot gets out alive, they can just reprint between missions

- Enemy design is very archetype focused, making it difficult to create truly memorable fights and rival pilots

- The non-combat gameplay (both in base game and the bond system added in expansions) feel very isolated from in-mech gameplay

Any suggestions?

Hey guys, this may be a weird one but some may be interested nonetheless. There's currently an ongoing crowdfunding for the rpg adaptation of China Miéville's The City & the City. It's for the "Y Sytem" an Spanish generic rpg sytem by "Walhalla Ediciones" a local rpg publisher.

This is the first official adaptation of China's work to rpgs apart from a Dragon Magazine article that adapted some ancestries and items from Perdido Street Station to D&D 3.5.

All the profits will be destined for the British NGO Medical Aid for Palestinians. And the only place you'll be able to get this is through the crowdfunder. Afer the campaign is finished it won't go to retail in any form.

There are two catches:

1. Both the book and the crowdfunding platform are in Spanish
2. I'm not a 100% sure it ships internationally but you can always pledge for the pdf

(I've asked the publisher if it ships internationally but I'm still waiting for an answer)

You can pledge for the pdf, a physical softcover edition or a pack that includes the Y System core rules.

I leave you with a translated quote from the publisher from the campaign page (emphases mine) and the link to the campaign at the bottom:

Walhalla Ediciones has secured the official rights to adapt The City & the City with the direct support of China Miéville.

In keeping with the spirit of the novel, which condemns the normalization of borders and structural violence, our project bridges fiction and real-world action.

At the author’s request, all net proceeds from this campaign will be donated in full to the British NGO Medical Aid for Palestinians.

Neither the publisher nor the game’s author will receive any financial compensation for this. The layout is also provided free of charge, and the illustrations will be billed at a rate significantly below market value.

In short: the campaign is not a commercial venture, but a means to make a high-quality edition possible while simultaneously channeling resources toward a humanitarian cause that remains as urgent as ever, even though the media has stopped giving it the same attention as before.

https://www.verkami.com/projects/43087-la-ciudad-y-la-ciudad-el-juego-de-rol

For all the Call of Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulhu and Delta Green fans out there:

Cthulhu fhtagn! Today is a great day my fellow cultists!

Source: https://cthulhureborn.wordpress.com/2026/04/02/ysdc-wiki-reborn-an-essential-ttrpg-resource-rescued/

We are THRILLED to announce today the rescue and re-hosting of the extensive Lovecraftian TTRPG reference wiki formerly hosted at Yog-Sothoth dot com (YSDC). This vast repository, built up by hundreds of users over several decades, was thought lost when the operators of YSDC made the hard decision to close the site in early 2026.

The resurrection of the YSDC Wiki from its Essential Saltes has been a huge joint effort between a consortium of small-press Lovecraftian TTRPG publishers: us, Sentinel Hill Press, and Shoggoth dot net. Some of the folks who ran technical support for YSDC — in particular the ever-amazing Tyler Hudak — were also instrumental in making the rescue of this important reference and historical archive a possibility.

For now, the re-hosted Wiki is a read-only reference resource, however we will be working hard to open it up to ongoing community contributions later in the year.

(The YogWiki is a community resource that was originally created by members of the (now sadly deceased) Yog-Sothoth.com web form, for material relating to the Cthulhu Mythos and Lovecraftian games and media.)

As a longtime visitor to Yog-Sothoth in the past, I’m genuinely thrilled to see this.

Thanks to Cthulhu Reborn, Sentinel Hill Press, Shoggoth .net, and Tyler Hudak, we have another opportunity to access the vast library of knowledge and wisdom preserved at Yog-Sothoth .com previously. Even so, we should keep in mind that we have been warned...

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents... The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."

I've been the DM of a DND 3.5 game for 11 years, but I'm panicking!

My players have all said they can show up this weekend.

I don't know the rules and I've never actually run a game. How do I prep?!

For people who play solo or GM-less games, what part of the experience creates the most drag for you? Is it oracle use, taking notes, npc conversations, anything else? Also, do you play digitally or at the table, and solo or gm-less? I imagine the biggest pain points will be different on your style of play.

I'm not Austin, just a fan of his work, so I'm not trying to self-promote. Just sharing the KS for a game I've been excited for.

An Ashcan version of the game released in January of last year, whereas this is for the full physical edition. I ended up playing a campaign of the Ashcan edition and while I'm usually pretty skeptical of Diceless games, this one just lit my brain up in a super pleasing way; so feel free to ask me anything if you wanna know how this game plays at the table.

I have tried to run "theater of the mind" in multiple systems, but I always wind up kind of losing the plot and acting as if everyone is standing directly next to eachother in a white room. Do you have any advice for running theater of the mind combat, in general, and making it fun for the players?

So, long-time GM here. I've started playing in a Shadowrun game as an actual player for the first time in...probably decades. And I enjoy the RPG itself, but the GM is doing some things I find odd.

Example 1:

[Let me bracket this by saying all the players are new to this RPG's edition, so it didn't seem THAT big a deal at first -- it actually seemed helpful...until examples 2 and 3 started rolling in and now I'm looking back....]

After we all created our characters, he went through everyone's character sheets and made a list of things each player needed to change. Then he scheduled 1-on-1 meetings with each player to go through the changes.

At first, I was glad because it did seem helpful as it definitely made my PC a bit stronger.

Example 2:

Between sessions, the GM creates these very detailed "happenings" documents (keep in mind this is a cyberpunk-like setting) full of info-dense clippings from underground newsletters, video segment transcripts from random (in-game) news shows, etc.

Neat, huh?

Except...they're each about 12+ pages long of "edgy/cyberpunky styles" (I'm sure you can picture something close in your imagination -- lots of black background, yellow or white or even purple type, tiny fonts, edgy spelling, etc.).

And at first, we all thought they were flavor. A bit long and dense, but no biggie. Somewhere in between family and jobs (and for me, at least, prepping for gaming sessions I actually GM), we all figured we could skim 12+ pages every so often.

And yet, he's started getting frustrated at the players for not picking up on and linking together the various clues he's hidden in the four or five 12+ page "happening" docs for future adventure possibilities.

Hmmm.... I mean, so far (and I went back and counted), it's been 78 pages of "flavor" with a handful of hidden clues that could be stitched together to give a hint for a future adventure or two if we can figure out what they are. Still, seems a bit aggressive....

Example 3:

GM has told us all that between our last adventure finish (last session) and our next session in a couple of weeks, our PCs will have 2-3 weeks of downtime and to think about what, if anything, we'd like to do during that time.

Sounds appropriate, right?

Except...three real-world days after our session, while I was periodically thinking of what my PC might like to do with that downtime but not really putting anything down on paper given IRL work, family, etc., into my email comes a six-page document of all the things that happened to my PC during that downtime and how she reacted.

Wait...I haven't even decided what my PC was going to do yet...what is all this?

TL;DR -- I'm rather puzzled at this GM's approach. It's almost like he wants the PCs and players to be characters and actors in a story he's writing (rather than one we're all writing together collaboratively)....

Questions:

1) Is this a common GM behaviour these days? (e.g., you're a player in MY story)

• I admit I've not really followed "How to be a great GM articles and tips and videos" in the past 10+ years so I'm willing to acknowledge I might be out of style with my focus on collaborative storytelling

2) If you were in my shoes, as someone who's been GMing a variety of TTRPGs for decades, how would you handle this? Would you

• (a) "Suck it up buttercup" because at least I get to play as a player every 2-3 weeks?
• (b) Try to talk with him about his less-than-collaborative approach?
• (c) Say "Forget it," and just leave the group?

I'm kinda stuck on what to do....

I recently got my hands on this d20 adventure and found the themes, the setting and the writing really inspired, do you know about similar adventures?

sorry for my awful English, it's not my first language