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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.

Last Friday, the Director of Events at Gen Con shared this list of games with the most "underserved demand." That refers to games with the highest ratio of "people who want to play" versus "games available." For example, there was unmet demand for D&D events, even though there were more than a 1,000 events at Gen Con, because it's so popular.

The majority (all the listings in bold) were RPGs:

1. Dungeon Crawler Carl RPG
2. Dungeons & Dragons
3. Call of Cthulhu
4. Dungeon Crawler Carl Unstoppable
5. Kingdom Death: Monster
6. Cosmere RPG
7. Daggerheart
8. One Piece Card Game
9. Pathfinder
10. Shadowdark
11. Delta Green
12. Dungeon Crawl Classics
13. Alien
14. Mistborn: The Deckbuilding Game
15. Draw Steel
16. Savage Worlds
17. Clank!
18. The One Ring
19. Vaesen
20. Lancer
21. Blades in the Dark
22. Mothership
23. Shadowrun
24. Starfinder
25. Vantage
26. SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
27. Arcs
28. Cypher: Old Gods of Appalachia

I have to say the Dungeon Crawler Carl being at the top is especially impressive, since they ran more than 100 events (gauging by the Gen Con events search) with over 800 total seats.

Here's the full text that he posted on the Discord server for Buried Giant Studios:

Here is a list of some of the games with the most unserved demand from 2026.

Some of these are very much driven by specific groups (most of the unserved D&D demand is for prominent groups like Avantris or Baldman Games, for instance) and it's pretty dominated by RPGs, but if someone is looking for motivation to run a game and wants a safe pick that'll likely fill a table, this is a reasonable starting point.

I like 5e. I don't mind playing it. But I also have some serious issues with it. I've noticed more and more that when I say anything that's not praise about 5e or WotC to the average 5e player (at least offline in my area) they get defensive. Saying things like "Give WotC a break" or "why can't you just be happy with the way things are" or "WotC hate is overblown".

It doesn't matter how tame my criticism of 5e and WotC is. Its their sacred cow, and even the thought of me criticizing them in any way, shape, or form upsets them.

While I mainly have 5e and WotC in mind with this post, this can also apply to other companies and TTRPG groups. I'm noticing this trend more and more. Is it just me?

I’ve come to terms with the fact that apparently a lot of TTRPG gamers would strongly prefer a game that involves no math whatsoever.

Well I’m trying to find the opposite. I think that the math adds something positive to these things, that can’t be achieved as well without it.

I grew up on DnD and Warhammer, and while I’m not ultimately a fan of Battletech I do have to say that it isn’t the math that makes me not really enjoy it.

I think of all of the games that involve math, and I prefer them the way they are. I wouldn’t prefer poker or monopoly if it didn’t involve math. I certainly wouldn’t prefer Warhammer or DnD without the math.

The way it’s implemented in the TTRPGs that I like always felt to me like it added the right amount of chance and realism that would feel lacking to me without it.

So I’m looking for people who feel the same way. People who like math in games, and prefer games that involve mechanics involving some basic arithmetic.

Armour is in a lot of rpgs, I’d go so far as to say most of them. But which RPGs do you feel do it well? And which do you think do it poorly? What can game designers take as lessons from both the good and the bad?

The game is CMT. A Lucha Libre RPG. which is a free D6 system inspired by the likes of CAIN, Troika! and Lancer. Its tone is of magic realism and pulpy urban fantasy with a big dose of surreal Mexican horror and folklore. También hay una versión en español disponible.

The gist of it is that you play as a Luchador, a Mexican Pro Wrestler whose aim is to Level Up in the world by winning Main Events that you'll organize yourself. All your brains and brawn will go towards the horrific tasks of marketing, booking, and also contracting the Rivals you’ll face. And not only are there opponents to defeat, but an Audience to please, and you better please them, lest they ruin your nascent career in this bizarre world of monstrous showbiz.

When you Roll in CMT, each Result of 4 and above on a D6 counts as one Success, and these Successes are used to solve the roadblocks you'll face along the way, including Progress Clocks. Successes are also how you Hurt the Rivals and Satisfy the Audience in the ring, but not both at the same time, so a Luchador must always be choosing between survival and performance, and suffering either way. Obtaining advantages in the game means adding more Dice to your Roll, which means more potential Successes.

Furthermore, you can build your Luchador by adding various Moves to their Repertoire, such as "Grab", "Flex", "Horrify" or "Fly". These empower your Rolls and have special effects when the Dice land in the numbers where you have placed a Move. And here is where Player expression begins: do you want to put your Moves in high numbers so your good Rolls are even more potent? or will you put the Moves low so they are a cushion for your low Rolls? Who are you when you wear the Mask?

Wrestle Monsters the Media and the Masses for Free Here:

itch.io - DriveThruRPG - RPGTrader

No AI was used in the creation of this game.

Hello, I am very new with this TTRPG thing, but I know some stuff from basic knowledge. I tried playing Cyberpunk 2020 and RED with my family since I loved 2077. But none of them liked it. I tried everything to make them interested in it, but nothing worked.
We played a little bit, but it was hard to explain in to them. I am thinking about either forcing them to do so or trying with DnD

There are a lot of rpgs who don't have a tactical grid or even a combat state that differs from the rest of the game but the moments where I felt I was roleplaying true cinema are somewhat far between. A chase often feels more dynamic than a fight in a fixed environment and how much the environment itself has an impact pays a part, especially when it is interactable and not just a scenic backdrop.

That said, the game that made me truly feel that I was making cinema was Fiasco. As we going through Act One, I realized how much I felt both a screenwriter and an actor. Every card was juicy and ready to create a trainwreck, our characters were rotten hot messes and when the Tilt happened and everything went off tracks we just rode it screaming. I had heard it described as playing a Coen Brothers movie and it definitely delivered.

I think what really sold it to me was that the story it told were were both modern, extraordinary, dark humoured and unlikely, but at the same time grounded in a reality of depravity and vice. All was just hammed up to 11. It was a comfortable absurdity under the the sign of maybe; Maybe people can be this scheming/ can be this stupid/ this irresponsible/ this insane. Maybe it all finally spirals into murder. No. Not a maybe. A certainty.

The other thing was the pace. We were never allowed to catch our breath. The story was going at 1000 miles per hour. But it was dramatic and intense as our characters were highly volatile and impulse driven.

The game wanted us to be bad people making bad decisions and that's probably where it diverged from most rpgs. While not the most common structure, tragicomedy feels more grounded fiction than in games. It does not have you root for success. It does not have you play to win, but rather tell a story with a deep emotional range.

And it allows for characters to have conflicting agendas, especially that you establish their messy Relationships and Needs. You can have a villain or have bad people all going against each other. This is more movie-like than a lot of system where the party has a common goal. In fact, the best cinematic games often have interparty conflict.

The last piece is the unpredictability. A player can only establish or resolve their scene and that creates plot twist after plot twist and only the Aftermath ties everything together.

I was surprised how well everything turned out. We even improvised two flashbacks.

Am I the only one noticing a huge asymmetry in the TTRPG hobby right now - one that’s actively burning out GMs?

Back in the day, it felt like you’d have a dungeon to clear, a few factions thrown into the mix, and the players figured out what to do with them. But now? It feels like the GM is expected (in most cases) to deliver a "good plot," a "great story," and "interesting twists" so the players can be surprised and have big emotional moments.

And what do the players bring to the table? Most of the time, they just show up - and that’s pretty much their entire contribution. Rarely do they even know the rules.

Was it always like this? Am I just burned out? Or did I finally figure out something fundamental about this hobby? …Or am I the toxic one?

Just to clarify - I mostly play online with randoms. I’ve played with friends too, but their expectations were pretty similar, which is why I don’t run games for them anymore.

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Thanks for the answers. I'd like to clarify one point.

Just to clarify - in my experience, it’s not even about the rules or the system themselves. People come to this hobby looking for the same emotions and payoff they'd get from watching a series or playing a video game. And since their input there is minimal, they carry that same passive, low‑effort attitude over to the tabletop.

I keep having this issue both with my players when I GM and also some other people at the table when I'm playing a character, where they keep wanting to learn as much info as possible before acting at all. "do we really want to enter this home that we can see through the window has a single unarmed person inside?" "Nah better make 3 more rolls outside it to try to get the information that is very easily accessible risk free inside it"

I get wanting to try things as risk free as possible and I also don't want to force my players into houses just to get the plot moving, but I actually keep running into this issue all the time where my players will stand just outside houses in my game, discussing what to do. I obviously keep giving them the info on what they can see and hear inside, but they just refuse to act on it in any way. So I move the plot forward, close off options, kill NPCs inside, whatever.

I am actually getting frustrated by it, cause it happened 3 times now. I swear the biggest obstacle to players following the plot is if I put a fucking door in front of it, not even a locked one, just a door with the vague implication that there is an NPC behind it.

How do I get my players to just act and move forward? Is it something about my playstyle that makes them super afraid of random consequences or something?

One of my biggest GM takeaways from a recent campaign is nothing gets the players going like a Big Map. We started with a poster board where I had marked a few notable locations and encouraged them to draw and fill it in as they explored, and if you've never tried it I highly recommend it. Finish your introductory mission and then break that puppy out and ask "where do you want to go?" and everybody's eyes light up. It doesn't have to be to scale or super detailed, just a general map and room to write and draw.

It also opens up a whole host of extra puzzle options. You can give them in-world treasure maps. NPCs can indicate that something is somewhere or beyond something and players can understand where that is. Players can track where someone has been and where they might be going. The possibilities are as big as the map.

I'm prepping for a hex crawl based campaign soon and I'm looking to figure out how to make Big Hex Map. I've never gotten this level of engagement out of any other prop.