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I think for me it's as soon as characters have different named attacks. I don't know why. I think it reminds me too much of World of Warcraft. As soon as I hear a player monologuing a list of abilities like an MMO rotation, I just mentally check out. I know some of these are good systems, like PF2E, but it's just not for me.

I love Cyberpunk RED. Move, shoot, aim, hadshot, autofire. Unless someone is doing martial arts or netrunning, it's just right to the point, y'know?

What about you guys? What just immediately signals "not for me" to you?

Whenever I see a group of players looking for a DM, I get (probably irrationally) irritated and make bad assumptions about these players.

It tells me that they're not really looking for another person to play with equally, they're looking for someone to entertain them like a movie or video game.

Why doesn't one of them DM? What sort of dynamic are they looking for? What sort of players are they at the table where they won't even run games for each other?

I stay away from these LFGs. And I'm probably wrong 90% of the time.

I'm tired of the same races in every system ive played (dwarves, elves, orcs). I need some new settings (fantasy) that are not tolkeineque fantasies

I'm sure other GMs can relate to this.

Cyberpunk Red is the first game I've ever run as the GM, I host it online on Discord on Roll20 and then Foundry VTT once a week. I started out at the start of this year with only a couple of friends, all new to TTRPG and we chose to learn the game together and making a lot of hilarious mistakes while we're at it but we had fun and several months later once I got a much better hang of GMing the game, the size of our table grew from 3 to 6, up to that point we were mostly just playing random NCPD one-shots I made, so then I decided that it was time for us to try playing with official modules and it was a blast, there were plenty of dramatic moments and cliffhangers that kept everyone excited for the next session, the team even got together and rented a HQ so they can be a proper team and from the perspective of the GM it felt so wholesome, as in, this is what I wanted to see when I chose to run this game.

But recently, life got in the way and players started to stop showing up for sessions, some clearly also having completely lost interest and only showed up occasionally for the sake of being present. Now I'm left with only 2 players once again, only one is among the 2 that I started the game with. Then I looked at all the maps and prepworks I've made ahead of them, for them, and I felt this cold ache in my heart because I know that I've just wasted my time, that those maps and prepworks I've done will be left forgotten and that the 2 players that remain will also gradually lose interest and that I oughta just take a break. I know that the campaign must end sooner or later, but I pictured it would end at a much more bittersweet note rather than being this mundane.

After making the decision to take a break, I felt this odd feeling of freedom but also this overwhelming feeling of loneliness because for the good chunk of this year, Cyberpunk and our sessions were all that we talked about every time I opened discord on my phone before or after sleeping. Before that, the players all couldn't stop talking about how much they enjoyed my sessions, how much they're looking forward to the next one and I guess it makes me felt like I mattered. Maybe the game made me forget all of my IRL problems and let me completely immerse myself in Night City and once the game is over, I'm forced to face my reality again. I don't know how to describe this feeling, but it's really awful and I wonder if other GMs have felt the same and knows how to deal with it?

Title is pretty self explanatory. I'm looking for a system that's good for horror one shots.

One important consideration is I'm not looking for anything super crunchy. Ideally something where characters can be made pretty quick, and I explain the rules as the game goes.

Shadowdark and Blades in the Dark are both good examples of games around this complexity. Doesn't need to be like no rules level simple or anything. But a game where it won't grind to a halt due to players not getting the rules.

Ideally, players would narrate what they want to do, and then I explain the resolution mechanic. Versus games (like D&D) which require the players to have decently deep systems mastery to play (D&D players need to understand spell slots, action vs bonus action, etc to get anything done).

My first thought was Call of Cthulhu. I'll admit, the sheer size of that character sheet is a bit intimidating.

Hey all, I have recently been getting into the hobby and been VERY interested in the OSR and PbtA side of things. I tried DND and Pathfinder but i like the lighter rule set and focus on problem solving of OSR more. To that end though, i had a LOT of question about it.

I read through a quick primer for old school gaming and principia apocrypha and took a LOT of notes link to my google doc if you are interested on what i have so far here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OEUpiUA8VnDRbnAUDWDiXXWHXWlFa6NlF5wNaZ80Rmk/edit?usp=sharing

I think i get the fundamentals, but i have a lot of uncertainty on the execution side of things.

my main questions are as follows:

1. What are thief skills for? How are they supposed to be used, since you usually just describe what you do. Thief skills seem to go against this idea

2. What are easy ways of tracking time, and resources for the party? Painless and fast ways to keep the resource management important but have little bookkeeping?

3. What counts as a turn in exploring? In crisis? In wilderness travel? In downtime? What kinds of actions?

4. Why roll the d6 to listen or detect a trap? Couldn’t you just describe what you are doing?

5. What are ability scores even for really? I get saves, as they are a fall back for risk or something going wrong, but do you roll for ability checks, and if so, WHEN and WHY?

6. How to easily track things like torches, rations, gold, or other consumables where you have a lot of them (arrows)

7. Does the party control hirelings, (and does it get clunky with too many?)

1. How do you handle prep? do you have a process you follow alongside some good random tables?

The main OSR systems i have on hand to work with are Shadowdark, Beyond the wall, Mausritter, Dolmenwood, mork borg, pirate borg, and (debatably?) Mothership.

I am COMPLETELY new to the hobby of RPGS, and i have to GM. And i've never been familar with improvising so it's a bit hard to wrap my head around. Which of the games i mentioned is friendliest to new gms? and if you have any answers i would greatly apreciate it!

Just downloaded the Easy Mode version for this weekend's oneshot. I don't see the netrunner option or rule in it, so i think it's the developer's way of saying "yeah, netrunning is complicated, don't worry about that for now". I haven't read the original rulebook, so i must ask: Is netrunning/playing a netrunner really that bad/complicate? Is there a hack to simplify it?

Do You have any easygoing suggestions? Nothing super advanced. And if possible: A cool map to move around on and funny character-costumization.
Thanks in advanced!

As the title states. I feel like in my local community, one-pagers are more like "an event is coming up, and we can't run anything long" type of deal. Of course, there are still TTRPGs played that are longer (looking at you, D&D), but when people start GMing for more than a few months, they suddenly shift to one-pagers because they're easier to set up and don't require that much prep time.

But the same can't be said about home games with friends. I've never seen any of my friends mention or suggest playing a one-pager, even though they know them pretty well.

Do you think one-pagers are naturally just something for event-play? Or does your table pick them up more often than not? And if so, do you dive deep into them, seeking new material to play (free or not), or is it just a one-time thing? I'm really curious about that.

I’m curious if anyone knows of a good RPG where the player characters are basically high level officials commanding a country through a war or other catastrophe. Alternatively, a system that can be reskinned to resemble that would also work.

I am currently working on some RPG stuff to hopefully sell, and I hope if you could enlighten me on some details of the market.

More questions will come soon, but right now the one that I wanted to know was which on-line sellers were best, in terms of security for the transaction, the security of the product (you know, no “you will own nothing and be happy” for those who buy it) and the profit percentage given to the developer. If it helps, at this current time it is impossible for me to set up any printing method (that will come later, for sure) so the product would be purely a PDF.