**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.

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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.

If you were telling someone what you're doing today and one of those plans is getting together with friends to play Traveller or Shadowdark or a similar game, what do you tell them?

Regardless of the system I'm playing, I always tell people I'm playing D&D. It's a good shorthand because just about everyone knows what it means, whereas a phrase like "tabletop RPGs" or the name of the specific game are only likely to mean something to someone who's also involved in the hobby, and even then they might not know the game I'm talking about. Possibly it's my mostly offline experience but when it turns into a longer conversation I've never once had someone get confused or upset when I clarify that the particular type of D&D I'm playing today is actually a space game rather than the trademarked game of that name.

I'm really curious what other people say in the same position, so thank you for sharing : )

So I was running Dragonbane for more than a year now with my old group from D&D 3 era and despite me telling them that the game can be deadly and we will roll new characters along the way (With which they were fine) it miraculously didn't happen and they are still playing the same characters. We are like around 4 sessions till the end of the whole campaign and my players had a tough fight where they miraculously survived. All the time I was assuming they were fine with character death but we had a smalll chit chat and it turned out that one player said that if his character died he would want to just change the game. I was like "what? don't you want to roll new character and just see the the grand finale?" and he said no. Other player said that with all that character improvement they would be shitty to face the finale to which I said that we can mitigate it and figure something out to have a closure to the story which is for me quite important as a GM - leaving campaign right before the end feels very irritating. But it seems other side sees it differently. I spent a lot of time prepping for all those games and I'm feeling slightly odd now almost like someone asks me to switch the channel before the movie ends and I'm the tv. Seeing it resolving like that I most probably wont be running more games for them in near future (not only for this reason) but I was wondering how GMs take care of such situations and hear what do you think?

I cannot remember any from the top of my head but I’m sure they exist, like treasure chests hidden in plain sight.

If you actually ever played them, share your experience!

Right I'm going to be involved in a Mystara campaign in two weeks and am looking for some inspiration for armour styles that might suit the Ierendi; Mystaras equivalent to the islands. I've toyed with Polynesian themed characters in the past; but they were always lightly armoured DEX based types which not surprisingly Polynesians had plenty of! Fantasy or other wise. Even brought this up on another reddit for those OCs and found plenty of good things for them.

This one though? Front-line-tank. Likely with cool stylized wooden/sharktooth weapon for bashing. So a heavier armour style is much needed. Googled some; got some results; though half them are AI. Not sure what to go with. The character in question is a water Genasi; so surviving underwater with chunky armour isn't going to be a big deal for them.

Hello, I was wondering if people knew of RPGs where you can play as a dragon -- discounting things like Dungeons and Dragons where a party member might be a dragon.

I was thinking that someone might have made an RPG where there is a lair and different players take up different roles of minions/lieutenants/the dragon and so on, but I don't have a good knowledge of all game systems.

I'm not interested in general systems like GURPs, as they apply to anything.

First off, this is my first reddit post, so apologies in advance for any uncouth formatting, run on sentences and walls of text.

I’m a somewhat green GM. Use to play D&D, but recently I’ve invested in the hobby as a self martyred forever GM, and mainly as a collector / reader.

In the last three years I’ve run a middling and very short Lancer campaign (planning to returning to the game with more steam on a VTT someday), Mythic Bastionland for a very small group, and now Vagabond with my fiancé; a sort of co-op play with me half GMing a smorgasbord of adventures where we explore fantasy ecology her character studies.
I do not have an IRL group of friends that would play with me, but I do have a close knit group of guys I’ve known for 13+ years who’ve expressed interest in playing on a VTT after I introduced them to BG3.

However, my fiancés friends (whom I’m friends with as well, to a lesser degree) have also expressed interest when I mentioned it, so now I’m thinking I might have a table of 5 people; in the flesh!
However, they’re all women, and besides my fiancé new to TTRPGs. 23-27. Which isn’t an issue for me, actually kind of cool, but I don’t think they’ll want to run a grungy Mork Börg one shot like my boys do.

So besides the obvious “ask them and see what they’re interested in”, which I will do! Any advice?
System/setting/excuse to buy another book?

- My first idea was a magical girl campaign, but I think I want to stick to more classical fantasy for ease of use, especially with players new to the hobby.
Maybe in the future I’ll get to try it.
- My second idea was a Breath of The Wild / Tears of the Kingdom inspired world (demi-human races out the wazoo) where each player is a time-travelled hero of the past who can now reconnect with and help a unique kingdom they were once the lost legendary home hero of.
My thinking is working with each player individually to build their specific kingdom would help connect them to the world, their world; that they will then have to safe from ruin.
Vagabond may work very well for this, which would be nice as I’m currently using it. I’m not set on this, just an idea I really like.

Bonus question, besides a thorough session zero (lines / veils, stars and wishes) is there anything I should consider? Or am I making a mile out of a few inches?

I just want to be a good GM!

EDIT: The two ideas I mentioned were initially based on general polling. Two possible players are very into Witch Hat currently (me three) and one is a huge Sailor Moon fan.
My fiancé loves ecology, and the other four showed interest in demi-human fantasy races when I asked if they thought that was cool, or preferred more classic human-y people like my mostly male friend group does.
All of them have played Legend of Zelda.

I started playing rpgs about two years ago. I've only been a GM. I did a campaign of blades in the dark followed by mothership and now mythic bastionland. For the experienced GMs out there, how do you get better at this? I'm definitely better than when I started but I'm still terrible. My biggest issue is keeping track of everything. I'm trying to keep track of every NPC, every location, myth, squire, etc. I feel like I've got to figure out how to do this without constantly searching for a paper with notes. Any advice is much appreciated.

tldr: I ran a one shot adventure with 3 friends, the length of one evening was as intended by the authors, had reduced the number of enemies, yet the players thought nothing happened and the fight was too long. Now I'm not sure what to do.

I bought BSH because I liked the art and the inspiration the designers had (Karl Edward Wagner, etc.). My group is pretty new to ttrpgs and I decided to be the DM, since someone has to. We've been playing video games for close to 20 years together, among which are rpgs like Baldurs Gate 3 and many others, so we're not new to rpgs in general.

So, in the 1. zine for BSH there is a one shot adventure intended for one evening with a handful of players. It starts the group on a road toward a small town iirc, where they meet a group of armed men with tools for excavation - shovels, pickaxes, etc. One guy has a map and they're obviously waiting. That guy warns the group not to go towards the town since something is going to happen.

Turns out they bought a map that shows the location and time of a meteoric impact, which hits an inn just outside the town shortly after the players talk to him. The NPCs go towards the crater and retrieve the meteor. Angry townsfolk show up and the players learn, that an astronomer in the town should have warned the town about the impending impact.

The PCs follow the mob to the astronomers tower and learn that the town hadn't paid her, so she didn't warn them. The players help the astronomer and get rewarded with a map showing the next impact. Meteoric metal is precious and can be made into a strong weapon, so they go into town, gear up and spend a night at the local inn where they talk to and armwrestle with a couple of locals; one player decides to seduce a bar maid.

The next morning they hire 2 locals and a trader with a wagon from the town square and head to the spot indicated by the astronomers map - a cursed gold mine.

At the gold mine, the meteor hits the rear part of the mine. Inside, there is a main corridor from which a couple rooms - containing cursed gold, skeletons, and a hammer - branch off. The room at the end contains the meteor. If the players pick up the meteor, the skeletons (the workers) rise and begin to work on the mine, hastening its collapse. If they pick up the hammer or any of the gold, the skeletons rise and attack. In either case, the dm rolls a usage die representing the instability and on collapse the players must make a dex save to escape or suffer 6 hp.

Now for the actual events: the players rappelled down the meteor 'shaft' where the meteor was still glowing with heat. Two NPCs came after them, and started preparing the meteor with shovels and pickaxes (all stuff the players bought in town), while the guy with the horse wagon was waiting up top to pull it up with the rope later. The players explored the mine and picked up gold and the hammer, and the skeletons rose up and fought the players all the way to the main room where the NPCs were working. The players held off the skeletons from entering the room, the meteor was pulled up using the wagon and the PCs along with it. The NPCs died and the mine collapsed.

I added some stuff spontaneously and the players came up with the rope part. The next part would be finding the anvil the hammer, which is possessed by the spirit of a smith, is paired with, and find a smith that can forge a weapon from the meteor.

Now, the session ran pretty smoothly for the first ttrpg we ever played. However, afterwards I asked for opinions and there were two main issues:

one player said it was boring since "nothing really happened", another said the fight lasted "for 2 hours", which is very exaggerated.

Re. the first complaint: the adventure is supposed to "keep the players busy for one evening". It took us around 4 hours, including character creation, etc. So, the pacing seems fine. It might have been too linear, idk.

Re. the second complaint: The zine describes the number of enemies as follows: "There seems to be an unlimited supply of skeletons. As they go down, more take their place. Make the players aware of this by describing hordes of skeletons pouring out of every gallery." I had already reduced the number of skeletons to 6 or so.

I might have been a bit "railroady" since I had only prepared this adventure, not the surrounding world, when the players wanted to kill the first group they met to get the map, then kill the astronomer to get more maps to sell them - which would have resulted in me having to improvise everything else that would have followed.

I can understand the fight seeming too long since in BSH all weapons do the same damage, and the combat rules are simple. Yet I'm surprised that apparently "nothing" happened. Is this a shortcoming of an admittedly linear adventure?

I'm really not sure what I can do differently: I had reduced the number of enemies already, the combat system is already quick and simple, and the adventure should take up one evening. The only thing I could have done was to reduce the enemies even further, and the players could have played quicker - but I shouldn't cut roleplaying in a tavern short to get on with the main adventure, I think.

Any tips? Should I change the rpg system? That wouldn't be an issue.

I don't think there are lots of prewritten adventures for BSH, and I'm not sure if I should start writing my own so soon.

I missed the Kickstater and I am wondering how it is from those that backed it and had a chance to run/play it? It looks to occupy the same space as Castles & Crusades. Old School bones with some new school updates. Just looking for opinions about how it is and what it offers? Thanks...

Hi all. I started DMing dungeons and dragons for my friends in 2023, but in the past year I've been moving towards running sci-fi themed games in the setting I have been building for many years, as sci-fi is my real love in fiction. So far I've run 2 GURPS one-shots in this universe for my friends, and they had a great time.

I want to continue to write more oneshots in the setting, and eventually build a campaign. I feel a little lost trying to find information to help with building the games however, as all of the resources I have gone to in the past have been fantasy-based, and don't always translate.

This is basically just me putting out a feeler for what I should be looking into to make my games better.

Youtube channels that offer worldbuilding and game planning information would be great, I've watched a few but they tend to be fantasy focused. (sometimes I don't enjoy videos because they feel too "pushy"-- i prefer suggestions for improvement rather than a straight up "this is what you need to be doing" approach.)

Blogs with relevant resources would also be helpful. Some general things I feel I need to improve with are: coming up with situations and obstacles for the players, laying out "dungeon"-type oneshots (building a location in a way that makes it interesting and explorable for players), and managing larger areas like cities.

The last thing I would like to request guidance on is if there is a better system I could be using for combat. I like the GURPS skill system, but the combat is a little too "realistic" for my desired cinematic style of game. Is there another sci fi combat system that I could be integrating? I don't know where to even start looking for one.

Thanks for all help that can be offered.