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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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I met a gm some time ago, running a game that lasted about two months. They advertised as so, but I figured they were most likely vetting for players for a longer term game. Game was fun, players were cool, GM was flexible and when the end of the adventure came. GM said thanks for playing and closed shop.

Players of course wanted to continue but GM had no interest. I was bummed figured the GM didn't care for one of us or all of us as players and moved on. Within the same day GM posts another ad seeking another group of players with the same time restriction. No more than two months.

Peeked over at another system discord I know they're in and checked their ad history. Same thing with the different system, games no longer than two months. Out of curiosity I dm them "Hey why not just keep the same group and run through all these different adventures you have?"

Their answer was unique amongst GM sensibilities as far as I am aware.

"I don't like playing with the same people over and over. Different people, different experiences, for good or bad. And players in systems with levels tend to want to keep reaching higher levels. I don't care for higher levels, they're uninteresting to me. Also I want to play different systems and I know for a fact some players from your table will never try out a different system like Blades. Even then like I said, I prefer to play with different people."

Like the title says, I'm looking to run a campaign set in mythic Greece. I would use 5e but I ran into a problem, I love mythology to the point that accuracy is important to me. The main issue I have is that your average hero has no substantial control over magic, they gain control through items or gifts. Does anyone know a game or system that supports a story like this?

Hello! I'm Polish, and in our country, the most popular RPG system has always been Warhammer Fantasy, especially the first edition, mainly because it was the first system most people experienced.

This has always led to conflict between fans and fans of other systems. For a very long time, they first fought DnD 3.0/3.5 fans, and then the second edition fans, who were, incidentally, called DnD-like.

To tell the truth, this admiration has always been completely incomprehensible to me. Especially when it comes to the first edition. Maybe because my first system included Werewolf: the Apocalipse, and then Earthdawn and Fading Suns.

The system is so popular in Poland because it's hard to play anything else. So I recently coined a saying: to hate Warhammer, you just have to dislike it.

Long, drawn out combats are boring. Button smashing the same attack each round is, too. Here's 3 tips from 13th Age.

1. Miss damage - on a miss you still deal your level's worth of damage, representing glancing blows.
2. Flexible Attacks - Make each die roll have meaning other than a binary hit/miss. Examples with situational bonuses: "on any natural even miss, add additional damage to the miss". Or, "On a roll of 16+ (and when the escalation die is at 5+) 3 allies can add 3d6 bonus damage to their next attack."
3. Escalation Die - each round of combat after the first, add a cumulative +1 to hit bonus. This bonus can be used to unlock abilities, add damage, or help speed up combat.

The escalation die and flexible attacks can be overlayed onto features, abilities, spells, etc. to further increase their potential uses. What do you all think?

I recently found a super cool layout in a book that used the outer page edge color to denote chapters, which meant it was easy to flip to a specific chapter. Then I realized how much diversity mork borg had in their layouts. Which overall got me super interested in layouts recently.

So now I'm curious. What kinds of RPG books have done layout really well vs really poorly? What made them so interesting?

I feel like I see way more attention paid to Electric Bastionland and Mythic Bastionland than Into the Odd, and I also feel like I see lots more eyes on ItO hacks than the game itself.

I’m curious if I’m just not looking in the right places or if the original game — even in its remastered form — has been effectively surpassed by these other titles.

I just don’t see much vanilla ItO, I guess, when it comes to modules or discussion. Mostly hacks or adjacent games.

I played Traveller at school in the early 80s and absolutely loved it. The little black and red books were probably responsible for many hours that should have been spent doing homework.

I spent evenings designing ships, creating worlds and dreaming up adventures. Ran my first campaign one summer holiday sitting in a friend’s garden.

Desperately trying to make them follow the hook I gave them whilst they did everything but.

I’ve recently come back to Traveller after all these years and the books are stunning. The artwork, production values and support material are leagues ahead of what we had back then.

But it got me wondering.

Is modern Traveller actually better, or am I just remembering being 14 years old with endless free time and a huge imagination?

For those who’ve played both, what do you think modern Traveller gained, and what did it lose?

I love the setting and concept behind City of Mist - especially the extensive usage of narrative tags - but it's a tad clunky for my table. (My players are pretty crunch-averse.)

Instead, you can use the rules from Neon City: Overdrive. The original system is for cyberpunk heists, but they can easily be adapted to urban fantasy mysteries. The key thing is that CoM's themes are easily ported over to NC:O's trademarks. Like themes, trademarks are collections of positive (edges) and negative (flaws) tags that influence gameplay. From there, everything else falls into place with minimal adjustments.

I know this is kind of a niche post, but I thought some folks might be interested. If it helped, enjoy!

I really like the rhythm of Blades in the Dark’s sessions proceeding from Score to Downtime to Score again.

To me, Downtime rules are a great way to make a game more player-driven. Players pick a Score to “zoom in on”; resolve it; use their Downtime to pursue personal goals, heal, or identify new Scores; then pick a new Score to run. I love that. It cuts through the “dead air” created when players need to discuss what objective to pursue next, and it gives them an explicit period where they can speak up.

What are your favorites? How do they work?

I am working on a few tight setting guides for a game system I'm designing, and I want to look at how others have approached this.

The Fate Worlds anthology books for Fate Core and Daggerheart’s frames are on my radar, but I’d love to see more examples.

What other games or supplements are great at setting up a specific mood, premise, and conflict in a compact format?

(i.e. All those GURPS books are great, but much too hefty for what I'm looking for.)

I want to study layout and structure, so specific recommendations are appreciated.

I like the setup of Salvage Union and while I'd maybe like a little more character crunch I think I can resolve for that.

What I don't know is how the Union and community aspect plays out and how much it drives the play. It sounds interesting but the story I have in mind slightly ignores the progression. The party would be chasing a massive walker (as will other factions) with the objective of claiming it for their new home. As such their own home base shouldn't progress to the point where it can rival it.

Anyone have any experience with the system and a view on what happens if you ignore the base progression?