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As a newish GM, one of the problems I always find myself in, is making cities not just a place to find plot hooks to other locations, but making the city itself a playable place.

What I mean is, when I GM, I create cities as a place for players to buy things and get plot hooks from NPCs, so they can then go to the dungeon, cave, ruins etc. I want to make it feel like they can also do things within the city that they can do in dungeons, and etc.

Any advice?

I've been thinking lately about how some characters stick with us long after the campaign ends.

My favorite started because of one mechanic in D&D 3.5 that I absolutely fell in love with: Shadow Conjuration and Shadow Evocation. The idea that you could weave shadows into imitations of other spells was just incredibly flavorful to me. Then I started digging through books and discovered ways to make those shadow spells more and more "real," eventually pushing them beyond 100% reality. The whole concept was ridiculous in the best possible way.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped thinking about the mechanics and started asking myself, "What kind of person could actually do this? What would they believe after learning that shadows could become more real than reality itself?"

That character ended up inspiring an entire deity in my own campaign setting, and years later I'm still expanding on that lore. It all came from one weird spell interaction that captured my imagination.

What's your favorite character you've ever built? It doesn't have to be your strongest or most successful. I'm more interested in the ones that stuck with you. Was it their personality, a memorable moment in a campaign, an unusual mechanic, or something else entirely?

I am normally a GM for personal and psychological horror. I play Vampire V5, KULT and even my DnD campaigns are very straight forward, story-driven games. So a joke at my table is that it will be horrible (in the best way possible) in my games, no matter what. Because of that and because I was interested as well, I researched cozy TTRPGs. I found one that particularly stood out to me called Pumpkin Spice, think Kiki's delivery service meets the dream of having your own bakery/coffe place/reading space, but also some others that seem to be very cozy.

Now onto my question: How do you play those games? What do you do? Is there a plot? Are there stakes? Is there an adventure/throughline of a story or is it "just" slice-of-life, talks of the player characters with various NPCs, maybe some romance or comedy thrown in?

I would love to know how some of you, those who have played such games, well.. play those games. Maybe I can surprise my table with a cozy adventure some time in the future.

Its my first time running this game soon. Im familiar with PbtA through Masks and Avatar Legends, so its not all completely foreign, and ive got a good group. But if anyone has any advice for actually running the game, quirks of the system, or other rhings like that id appreciate a heads up. Shooting for a 20ish session campaign if that matters, picking the setting and choosing playbooks to be done soon

I am looking for a perfect system for my campaign. Pathfinder 2e proved itself to not match my expectations.

Traits that I hope to see in the perfect system (but realistically expect that not all of them will be there):
* Gritty but with heroic potential -- I want it to be gritty and dirty of sorts but with a potential for the PCs and the narrative itself to develop into being epic and huge.
Let me elaborate: I want the low-to-mid level narrative to feel challenging and *real* in a way to make players care about their precipices much more. Thus, the healing/magic system and power levelling should not be anime until the mid-late and late levels/points of the narrative.
It's specifically true about wounds, injuries and healing magic. God I could not express enough how frustrating the magic in PF2e is as for me it defeates the purpose of a lot of narrative ideas, such as surviving, sustaining peoples, healing injuries and diseases, etc.

* Liberating but challenging gameplay -- I want the gameplay, specifically the combat, to be inclide towards narrative and freedom of imagination and not so much rigid and constricted with rules as it's done in Pathfinder system and systems alike. But at the same time as PF2e veteran I love the tactics of PF2e combat so much, and I really want the combat to still br interesting and channeling, and brutal.

* Battlemaps -- as mush as I lovr a theatre of mind, I am really a sucker for battlemaps sometimes. And an option to sometimes be able to employ a battlemap for a more tactical encounter would be extremely appreciated.

* Ability to hack the system to introduce homebrew elements easier -- I have a pretty non-generic mana-punk setting. It's kind of a sci-fantasy, with swords, horses, plater armour and magic and, at the same time, astral flying ships, sometimes guns, mana-guns and mana-mobiles and mana-refrigirators. You got the gist.

UPD: important thing -- the campaign is long. Originally up to 20th level.

Thanks a lot for your suggestions in advance!! Peace!

Hi! I'm looking for rpgs made for mechas vs kaijus with the next features!-

-It's mid to easy to understand

-Doesn't use d6

-It's flexible enough to play with "small" (house to small buildings) mechas and gigant mechas(big buildings, skyscrapper). Maybe even evangelion-height

-It's not lancer

I'm thinking on doing somethin like the Godzilla monster apocalypse novels! Combined with a little bit of x-com where death and failure (even TPK) doesn't mean loosing right away, but it does mean steps back on the kaiju war

Along side with this, I will be playing other sistems such as: [Endure](https://vonbednar.itch.io/endure), Rats in the walls and FIST. As a second (civilian) view of how fucked up is the world. (And as a way to take a break between battles so that it's not too repetitive)

Thank you!

I play in Norway where the vibe at the table is pretty direct. Sex, politics, violence, dark themes, we just go there if the game goes there. Online, especially in English-language spaces, it seems like people are very cautious in what they say, or even which topics to discuss. Which is fine, but: is that what your actual tables look like? Or is there a gap between how people talk about RPGs online and how they play in their living rooms? Not judging, just asking about the distance between the discourse and the practice.

I'm looking for RPGs that have a unique and interesting setting, such as The Wildsea and Ultraviolet Grasslands. I would prefer if they had their own system or had the rules included so I don't have to buy additional books, but that's not strictly necessary.

I am looking for a slick, fun and rules-light, easy to prepare indie TRPG for a one-shot.

App. 1-3 sessions, 3 hours each, 3 players + 1 GM or alternatively 4 players and GM-less.

Preferably classic fantasy, but open for other suggestions as well. I am specifically not looking for anything like Fiasco or Quiet Year, but more Cairn 2e, but maybe with some gimmicky mechanic like using playing cards/trick taking for conflict resolution.

Already tried Dread (the Jenga one), so that's out as well.

I consider our play style quite "classic", that's why I ruled out the aforementioned.

Carolina Death Crawl seems quite up my alley, but I guess there are many more games to consider, so thanks in advance for any recommendations!

Just got the Core set w/the cards. What's some of your fav things in it?

Stuff to pay special attention to?

Stuff that can be improved on?

Stuff that a person should definitely 100% read carefully cause it's great for one reason or another?

Also, just want to say in general: It's nice when an RPG comes with the material like cards, maps, etc. Got a love for starter boxes, maps, standees/pawns, etc etc.

In general, there are only two scenarios wherein I will have NPCs deceive the PCs in a betrayal-type way:

• The RPG in question is specifically one wherein intrigue, deception, backstabbing, and paranoia are front-and-center. I do not have a personal interest in running, say, Urban Shadows (PbtA) or any of the Vampire games, but if I were to do so, I would put traitorous NPCs on the metaphorical table.

• I am running a premade adventure, and it specifically contains a character who will try to betray the PCs.

Apart from this, I just cannot bring myself to have NPCs deceive the PCs in a betrayal-type way. For one, it is a little inelegant to resolve mechanically; I am not a fan of suddenly saying, "Please roll [social awareness skill] for me," nor am I a fan of the Path/Starfinder 2e method of secret checks.

More importantly, I think it sets a poor precedent and creates an atmosphere of paranoia. The moment the PCs suffer from some unexpected betrayal, which the GM "laid so many obvious hints about" (sadly, they are often obvious only to the GM), the players are henceforth inclined to be paranoid about everything, always question NPCs, always assume the worst of NPCs, and so on, often with extreme overcorrection. Maybe this atmosphere fits some genres, but it is a poor fit for many.

I will give an example that happened just hours ago. I joined a D&D 4e game starting at level 11. The DM specifically denied the inherent bonuses (i.e. automatic bonus progression) variant rule. As level 11 characters, we had a lot of strong magic items.

Our characters were serving aboard a spelljammer. The captain came on over with a big bag and asked us to put all of our weapons, armor, magic items, etc. inside it, because they needed to be warded for entry towards this new world we were approaching: which made sense at the time, given what we were told of said planet. Indeed, our characters all agreed to do so. The DM called for Insight checks. It later turned out that this was a dauntingly high DC 30 check, and we succeeded only after a whole lot of awkwardness. This was the very first check of the game.

Yes, this was a succubus (or something vaguely similar, anyway) who was trying to nab all of our gear. And again, this was at the very start of the game. I do not know. The DM never said that this game would be about intrigue, backstabbing, paranoia, and so on. It would have felt awful had we actually had all of our gear nicked.

What do you personally think?