**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.

Edit: There have been enough comments and upvotes on the idea of the 'self-promo day' that I've added it as an option. Unfortunately I can't add options without redoing the entire poll and post itself. My apologies for you who have to vote a second time, but this was a significant enough option that it felt worth it.

We have also now added 'OGL' and 'DND Alternative' flairs. If you see a recent post that should have one of these flairs feel free to report it and we'll change the flair instead of removing the post.

Hi Everyone,

With all of the posts and discussion in the sub lately revolving around Wizards of the Coast’s OGL changes, the mod team at /r/rpg have been considering tweaking our self-promo rules. A lot of people have been asking for alternatives to D&D or similar, so we want to expand game designers’ abilities to promote their own games. We’ve come up with a few options:

1. Weekly self-promotion megathread. People can post their own stuff there without limit (games, videos, etc). If we did this we would still allow self-promo as a separate post, but with more restrictions (once per month instead of once per week, excepting crowdfunding campaigns, you’d still need to be a regular user, etc).

2. Regular self-promo day. We'd likely start this at once per week and see where it goes from there. If we did this, we'd probably increase restrictions on self-promo outside of that day in ways that we'd fine tune. The mod team is still discussing what details would look like, but an example would be the following: Kickstarters would be fine, as might sales that expire before the next self-promo day, but most others would be restricted to being posted only on that day. There are a lot of different ways we'd fine tune this to make sure it was right for you as a community.

3. Temporarily open the floodgates. We would fully allow people to make posts about their own RPGs for a period to see how it goes, as a trial period of likely one month. The once per week rule would still be in effect to prevent spam by the same users, but users wouldn’t be required to be active members or follow the 9:1 ratio of regular posts/comments to self-promo.

4. We keep things the same as they are now. People can post once per week if they are a regular user and follow the 9:1 ratio.

No matter what, all self-promo posts must still have the self-promo tag. Additionally, we will tweak the definitions of self-promo in the rules to make it clear that it does include products that are free as well as surveys and studies.

We’ve been paying attention to various discussions about this topic, but we want to make sure even those who don’t comment still get a say. Which would you prefer?

We're also paying attention to the current amount of discussion regarding the OGL potentially drowning out all other stuff. We thought it would start to die down after the 'apology' but with more developments continuing that seems unlikely. Feel free to also discuss your opinion on that below below.

View Poll

As a pirates and patrick o'brien obsessed sailor currently living in the Caribbean, I would love to find an RPG that really "gets" ocean travel and sailing, and has a good system to capture the feel of navigation, sail handling, exploration, and sea combat.

It doesnt have to be simulationist, just a game that really captures that "feel". I'm currently looking at:

Lilliputian : ITO/Mausritter hack that at least from appearances seems very well done. Would love to hear anyones experiences

Beat to Quarters : I downloaded the rules for this and it seems REALLY good. And the deck of cards instead of dice seems extremely well implemented. Has anyone played? My only fear is the lack of the "fantastical" might be a harder sell to other players. Pirates and zombies on the high seas with realistic rules is an easier sell then 19th century napoleonic historical warfare. (Though the latter seems perfect to me)

Sea of Dead Men : Looks like a well put together game, with some engaging mechanics. I have no experience with Blades in the Dark though, so now idea how it would play. No real nautical rules, its all supposed to be GM theater, but id be interested how the rest of the game plays out.

High Seas Hack : Dirt cheap so I should just buy it, but how do the naval rules compare to Beat to Quarters? Ive heard great things about the black hack so this is high on my list

Also open to any suggestions not on here

I'm SUPER EXCITED for BlackFlag but the details are light at the minute. The idea of a 5e-like system has had my brain whizzing and keeping me up at night thinking through all the things I'd fix or change though, so I thought I'd put it out to the reddit verse.

If Black Flag is designed similarly to 5e to maintain compatibility and fit that niche, what is it people would like to see altered, bearing in mind the design constraints?

Personally, I'd love to see:

• more flexibility in how the "bonus action" is used so it can be more shenanigans friendly.
• yo-yo healing disappearing.
• martials to have more battlefield control abilities beyond going "I stab it". More battlemaster techniques or maybe criticals allowing you to impose a condition.
• the number of spell slots reduced at higher levels.
• more minor conditions that can be applied beyond advantage and disadvantage (bleeding damage every round, demotivated).

What are other people's hopes?

Image in question here ----> https://i.imgur.com/EejRoMW.png

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https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/limithron/pirate-borg/posts/3716964

It has come to my attention that one of the creatures in Pirate Borg is potentially triggering and can be interpreted as racist. Upon receiving and reviewing this news, I 100% agree and I am deeply sorry for any harm this may have caused and am frankly appalled that I didn’t realize it before going to print.

One of the zombies was titled “The Rope Monkey” as a riff on the historical term “Rigging Monkey” used to refer to sailors that climb masts. The art is of a dark skinned zombie with dreadlocks. Even as I type this, I can't believe that I didn't see this as triggering or inappropriate. When I drew that art I was actually trying to be MORE inclusive, but I messed up. I’d drawn a corpulent zombie, I had a female zombie, and I wanted to show that the setting is multicultural, so I edited my drawing of the crouched over male zombie to be someone of African descent. At no point during the creative process did the taboo monkey comparison nor the presence of the term “rope” cross my mind.

In order to take corrective action and address this issue, here is what we are going to do:

We are hiring a sensitivity reader to review the entire book.

We are changing the name of the zombie to “Deck Ghoul”.

We have started working on a 2nd printing. As such, the public release date is now delayed for several months.

New PDFs and digital assets will be sent to everyone after sensitivity reading is complete.

The Roll20, Foundry VTT, and Alchemy RPG modules will be updated as well.

We are printing “Deck Ghoul” text stickers and replacement playing cards. These will be available at conventions, on our website, and will ship with future orders. You can also request one for free here.

We will be offering free replacement copies of the 2nd printing of the book to anyone who wants one. We are humbly asking that you pay for shipping, and note that these copies will not ship for many more months. If you are interested, please fill out this form so we can gauge how many to print. Unfortunately, the Limited Edition will not be reprinted.

I’m honestly mortified and very upset that this was not seen and corrected before going to print. I want to affirm that we at Limithron are firmly anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-bigot, anti-homophobic, anti-transphobic, and do not want anyone to feel like they do not belong at our tables or playing our games. We declare so loudly and proudly on page 1 of the book. You’ll find that throughout Pirate Borg there are people of color in positions of power (like the Naval Mastermind) and it’s an honest oversight that I chose such a terrible name for that zombie and we will continue to work to provide a diverse and safe environment for all players.

If you would like a new book, a refund, or would like to request a free “Deck Ghoul” text replacement sticker and/or playing card, please fill out this form.

Feel free to email [support@limithron.com](mailto:support@limithron.com) or comment below with your comments and questions.

Please accept my sincerest apologies.

Luke Stratton | Limithron

Recently someone else asked about a final fantasy system for TTRPG, and fabula ultima was highly recommended. As a FF fan, I senti to check out.

WHAT. AN. AMAZING. SYSTEM.

The highly of the system is having 15 classes with abilty pool for each. You choose your ability when leveling up. And to make It better, the game encouraged multiclassing, you already start with 2 or 3 classes. It's a simple system that let's you build your unique character without the hastle of point buy.

Honestly, for anyone who Just got out of 5e and is searching for Another combat focused system, that isn't too deadly and tries to emulate videogames. This one does It Just perfectly.

I'm bringing my first game back from the dead!

I released this game last year, but I've been working on design skills to make it look a lot better than it did before.

Still just as free as always, so grab a copy here on itch.io and have some fun!

(And for anybody interested, I used Kegan.exe's PWYW template for Extremis to start it, and you can check that out here)

There's been a lot of threads lately discussing trying new RPGs in both this sub and others. I've noticed in some of them, there is some confusion as to what people want out of their RPGs. Some features that some people consider an unambiguous plus are dismissed as a negative or even a hard limit by others. I have seen more than a few people dumbfounded by this and wanted to offer some clarity. Specifically, in how ADHD can affect information processing and completely change how someone approaches RPGs.

For context, I was diagnosed with ADD at a young age (back then, they distinguished between ADD and ADHD). I have one of the more extreme cases where I actually invalidated the test due to not paying attention to the instructions and the second time I took the test it was the highest scores the psychologist had ever seen. I've since spent my whole life learning as much as I can about ADD/ADHD and developing coping strategies to deal with the various ways it affects me, so I'm a bit more conscious about what is going on than most people.

There's a lot of different ways that ADD manifests, but the most important feature related to RPGs is called decision paralysis (aka choice paralysis or analysis paralysis). Not everyone who suffers from ADD experiences decision paralysis and not everyone experiences it to the same extent. But, for me it is one of the most powerful symptoms of ADD. How it manifests is that when presented with too many choices, the brain gets caught in a feedback loop trying to analyze those choices and ends up getting stuck. When it is at its worst, it makes it almost impossible to do anything.

How this interacts with TTRPGs is that when presented with too many options it makes it difficult to actually parse through the choices. I've talked with people who don't experience decision paralysis at all and even ones who are very knowledgeable about psychology and know what it is have trouble actually picturing what is happening. Effectively, my brain is trying to independently assess every single option, make a pro/con list for each, and then rank them according to which ones are a priority. But, a longer list of options gets exponentially worse because not picking the other options gets added to every con list.

For dealing with everyday life, I get around this issue by making routines and flow charts for things I deal with regularly. By removing choice, I make it easier to just do things. For some RPGs, the lists of options presented are short enough that I'm able to reduce them to a manageable length by using this method. For example, if I play a Warlock in 5e and am presented with a chance to take an Invocation, I parse the list by first removing anything that involves resource management (which will just trigger other potential decision paralysis moments later). The remaining list is short enough that I'm able to actually parse the pro/con list for every option and function with the system. This is manageable due in part to how short the list is, how infrequently I am making the decision, and the fact that the ability to undo the decision is presented as a core game mechanic.

Not all systems are workable like this. For example, Pathfinder 2e has the player select multiple feats on most levels from multiple feat lists that are each fairly long. Made worse by the fact that there are some feats which aren't necessarily ones I want but are prerequisites for others. The system crosses a threshold where I move from being able to work with the system to me feeling like I am fighting the system. PF2e isn't necessarily the worst system ever in this regard, but it does push far enough that the system ceases to be pleasant. It results in a fine line that I try to walk between enough complexity to be interesting, but not so complex to trigger decision paralysis. PF2e is just over the line into decision paralysis territory and it does that thanks to a feature that many people consider one of the great positive features of the system.

This becomes difficult when playing with a group who react in different ways to this. In my group, I am on the extreme end of sensitivity to decision paralysis while there is someone else in the group who has never experienced it at all. It means that for my group to find a system that works well with us, we need something that can cater to a variety of degrees of sensitivity to the issue.

Something that I very much appreciate that some systems do is offer what amounts to a pressure release valve. They will make their feat system either opt-in or opt-out and give people like me the ability to bypass the issue while others can interact with the feat system as much as they like. PF2e and Fallout Equestria are systems that don't do this and so even when I have reached the point where I want no further feats, I don't have the option to take something else instead. Meanwhile, in systems like 5e and Savage Worlds, I am presented with the option to take a stat increase instead of a Feat (or the equivalent term). So, I can sidestep the decision paralysis issue by simply not interacting with Feats when they have become difficult to parse but I can still use the system at my own choice when there is an especially good feat that I want.

I would like to note that Pathfinder 1e was actually better for me than 2e in this regard. It might have been specific to the build I stumble upon (I only ever did one serious game in PF1e) but I had access to a feat that I could take repeatedly and just gave me a flat buff to fire damage. That was the only feat I ever took in that game and I effectively opted out of the feat system by taking a flat buff instead. PF2e doesn't allow that or at least makes it so difficult to manage that the result is the same.

Yes, this does mean that two key things which are commonly listed as benefits of PF2e compared to 5e make the game neigh unplayable to me. Despite as much as some people might complain about getting so few feats and being forced to choose between a feat and an ASI, I like those features about 5e better. That's ultimately what inspired me to make this post. There's quite a few voices in the Pathfinder crowd that are pretty vocal about considering these objective design flaws with 5e and find other opinions incomprehensible.

Ultimately, there is no such thing as a perfect game for everyone's table and I suspect there is not even any one feature of an RPG that is the right fit for everyone's table. My explanation here is one particular feature and how that is affected by neurodivergence. There are many other things than can affect how game design plays at a table. It is important to keep in mind that just because a feature is well received or poorly received at your table doesn't mean that everyone will react the same way. People aren't necessarily being closed-minded for not liking what you like. They might have very legitimate reasons for it not working for them even if they don't have the words to articulate why something doesn't work for them.

I've had a craving to try my hand at a Watch_Dogs style campaign, or something near future like Cory Doctorow's writing. What are the games you've played with the best mechanics for hacking?

Looking for something with a good deal of choice and multiple potential character builds that incorporate those choices. Bonus points if it finds a nice middle ground between semi-realistic and cinematic.