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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.

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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Long-time lurker, first time posting something like this.

A group of us has been playing in the same homebrew world for over a decade — different characters, different arcs, but the same setting, slowly built up session by session. At some point I realized the world itself had become the real main character, and I started writing it down properly instead of just running it at the table.

That turned into a full novel — dark high fantasy, retired adventurers pulled back into one last fight when an old friend's wife is kidnapped. A lot of the DNA is straight from actual sessions: the magic system started as house rules, half the world map came from a napkin sketch during a session zero, and at least one major villain was originally just a name I made up to explain why a shopkeeper NPC was nervous.

Not trying to sell anything here (mods, let me know if this crosses a line and I'll take it down) — mostly just wanted to share the "yes, this can actually happen" story with people who'd understand why turning a home campaign into something bigger feels like such a strange, specific kind of milestone.

Anyone else had a campaign take on a life of its own like this? Curious if others have gone down this road too.

I kind of see the appeal of playing an older edition of a game. It's 'done.' No new supplements will come out to mess with your world.

But sometimes a new edition comes out and it just doesn't click with you.

I'd like to hear people's stories of why they stuck with an older version of a game after trying a newer version.

I keep using these like they mean the same thing. They don't.

Rules-lite is how much book is on the table. Low prep is how much work I have to do before Friday.

I've sat down with a rules-lite game and still spent two hours making a town because the game didn't actually tell me how to start. And I've run something crunchier that was ready in twenty minutes because the procedures were the prep.

I think I pick the wrong game when I want "easy" and I don't know which easy I mean.

Anyone else mix these up? What's a game that is actually low prep, not just thin?

Crows is a new post-apocalyptic survival horror fantasy RPG that just went to crowdfunding. This game is about playing the titular Crows who are adventuring scavengers picking through the dead and discarded pieces of a broken world for shiny things. As someone who's played and run a decent amount of the game's playtest materials, here are some key points that might make or break your interest in this game:

• All About Loot - Crows is entirely about risking life and limb to get shiny items out of dungeons. Loot is tracked with printable cards with a set number of slots per character which makes inventory management tangible and fun.
• Original Monsters - As opposed to classic creatures like goblins and oozes, Crows contains several kinds of original horrific monsters, so original that these baddies aren't even named! For example, what would you name this guy? Your party gets to name the monsters they discover... assuming they survive the encounter.
• High Lethality - Life is short in this world and death is never far away. Characters start with only a handful of hit points and never gain too many more. Monsters also do unfairly large amounts of damage and so reckless Crows will lead very brief lives.
• A Town for Building - Start with a unique village and invest into its institutions over time. Crows may come and go, but this village and its people will remain, although the quality of life there will depend on the success of your adventures.
• Hex-based Travel - Explore a magically wrecked world through hex crawling. Much like the dungeon your heading towards, travel is full of dangers and unexpected opportunities with random encounters and hidden points of interest.
• Fear the Dungeon Turn - Once in the dungeon, a 30 real-world minute timer is set and every time it ends more monsters have a chance to appear. This is also when ongoing effects from spells or equipment like torches may run out depending on how the dice fall.
• Simple Grid-based Combat - All distances are abstracted into squares and most actions are resolved in a single roll. Because of this, options in combat are always clear and turns flow very quickly, which is handy because the dungeon turns don't stop during combat.
• Classless Progression - Getting loot back to town earns you XP and this can be spent freely across a variety of Skyrim-esque skill trees to add to your characters options. The real power, however, tends to come from the loot itself and all characters can use all items (although some will use certain items better than others depending on where they spend their XP).
• Fickle Magic - Sentient magic which despised manipulation by mortals caused the apocalypse this world finds itself in, and the arcane is still just as mercurial today. This means spells can backlash with unpredictable effects unless they are wielded by experienced casters.

If you want to see any of these points in more detail, there's a free playtest of the game available here. You can also hear more from the game's devs about the game here. Finally, if you want to help make this game as awesome as possible, you can find the crowd funder here.

There's a new charity bundle on itch, hosted by jesthehuman. Funds raised by those who participate will go towards scholarships for youths participating in the Games for Change Student Challenge. There are more details on the page itself. Minimum buy-in price is $10.00.

https://itch.io/b/3847/games-for-scholarships

I'm not affiliated with these folks. Just figured I'd share since I try to snap up every one of these sorts of bundles I come across.

Are there any RPGs out there that have that Arabian Nights/Sinbad vibe that aren't either super reductive or racist?

I'm going to write up my personal experience playing a new (to me) genre of roleplaying game. It's been a personal revelation to me, and I'm excited to talk about it, but if you're a CoC-head or a very clever gaming genius you're probably going to roll your eyes at how it could have taken me so long. Well, that's part of the story!

I cut my teeth GMing D&D 5e when I was a teenager thirteen years ago. Much fun was had by all, and I learned a lot and had a great time. I got tired of 5e relatively quickly, and by the time I was in college I wanted to run other games. And so I did!

I was fortunate to have a group that would try anything, and so we played Blades in the Dark, Lady Blackbird, the RWBY unofficial tabletop game, two different Pokémon tabletop rpgs, Monsters of the Week, Mage: The Awakening, a custom game based on the magic system of Hunter X Hunter, all sorts of stuff.

But one thing I never tried was horror, and that was for two reasons; first, and least, I'm not a horror fan. I don't read many horror novels, play many horror games, watch any horror films, etc. Secondly, and much more importantly...I was terrified!

Would I really be able to scare my players? To take a bunch of grown adults sitting around a table in my dining room, and scare them? It seemed a tall order. And I felt too vulnerable to approach it; if I asked my players to try out a horror game, tried to scare them, and failed...can you imagine anything more embarrassing than staring at your friend failing to be spooky? It seemed like I would be signing myself up for bombing at a comedy open mic.

But as I grew older, I grew less self conscious, and I grew more interested in the depth and breadth of the hobby. Quinns, of Quinns Quest fame, talked about how for a while there were two juggernauts simultaneously in the ttrpg space; fantasy games, and investigative horror games. I had been playing for twelve years and never touched on of the two parrallel columns on which our hobby is built. How much could I really claim to know about ttrpgs if I was ignorant of half its history?

So I got a crew together, made my plans, bought Delta Green: Impossible Landscapes and began to prepare.

We are currently eight sessions in, and I have to say, never have I been as happy, as fulfilled, and as delighted running a game as I am with this. Game design is a powerful thing; so much of the tension in the game is generated by its mechanics, the sanity system, the bonds. Having a well-written campaign with strong mysteries and set pieces does a lot of the work, too.

The rules have the players in the right frame of mind to be scared. The module gives you the material to build moments of perfect terror. And when you are sitting with a table with your friends, and they realise that not only have their characters unknowlingly taken steps into something darker and far more terrifying than they could have guessed walking in, they can no longer see the way out, when they are invested and immersed and genuinely spooked...it's pure fucking magic. I have never felt so happy as a GM.

I'm not saying I'll never go back to fantasy, or that horror is the one true way. But this is a flavour I shied away from out of fear, and all I can say to anyone who was furtive about it like me...game design is real. Pick a horror game that's well regarded and well designed, and you will have everything you need to bring genuine scares to the table.

This isn't an attack on pathfinder at all. It has many areas of clear improvement over D&D.

That being said, the overall feel and mode of play is very similar. It's a medieval fantasy, class based, d20 system that expects you to run tactical combat on a grid.

For burnt out GM's that find themselves wanting to try something new and different, a similar system with more crunch is probably not the way to go.

There's also the issue of playability on an actual tabletop. This isn't limited to pathfinder. I've tried a few systems recently that I simply wouldn't run without a VTT.

My suggestion is to play something with a significantly different setting or tone that is lighter on rules.

My friends broadened my horizons with Delta Green/Call of Cthulhu but I've used Cyborg and even Traveller to introduce 5e players to the broader sphere of ttrpgs.

Once your group is out of the 5e only bubble you can bring them back to fantasy heartbreaker land with pathfinder.

But hey that's just my 2¢. Lots of people read the PF2E core book and fall in love. I just think most tables reluctant to switch from 5e are not those people.

God is dead, the Angel of Shadows blots out the sun, and vampires rule the prairie! Check all three books out here: https://watcherdm.itch.io/blood-prairie