**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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I was curious what the most popular RPG systems are nowadays, among those played online at least. The proxy I came up with is the number of discord server members as displayed on the public channel invite screen. I did not expect Lancer to come second! Also happy to see Mothership make the cut. My favourite free league games have small communities and do not show up here.

One of the things I love the most about the hobby is how many systems there are based on franchises I love. My favorites include Grimoire of the Heart which is based on Persona, Shinobi no Sho which is based on Naruto. And there are also some I'd like to try out someday like that one AC rpg that was in development a Star wars system and Alien rpg.

What are other ones that you like? How often do you play them? Are they good to play or would you rather reskin another game?

Hey, folks;

Thanks to the support of the Bundle of Holding over the summer, I was able to survive between teaching years and pay my graphic designer without needing to crowdfund! I know a lot of support came from the folks here, so thanks for that, already!

And as a result, the GMA2e Fantasy Deck is up on DriveThru!

As always, if you're a teacher or a student, or otherwise under duress due to the techno-fascist apocalypse, reach out to me directly if you can't afford to purchase anything I make at the current prices, and I can try to help you out.

And now, back to grading essays and student-made games...

My group decided on City of Mist for our next campaign. It's been on my list of games to play since it came out, and I'm stoked to finally get it to the table.

Since the release of City of Mist, Son of Oak has released Otherscape and Legends in the Mist, both using the same game system.

My question is for folks who have experience with these games. Are there any big quality of life improvements to the system that were implemented in the later games that I should port over to City of Mist?

A profile of Dr. Rick Barton, a professor of history at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, who developed the megadungeon "The Halls of Arden Vul."

Picture this: Your player wants to pick a lock so you tell them to roll some skill/attribute. They roll and fail. There's typically two options for the DM now, the action fails or it succees with consequences.

In option one, you go "You fail to pick the lock". Best case scenario they have other ideas and one of those leads to a more interesting scenario. Worst (and the most common) case, they sit there going "Oh... what now?" or another player goes "Can I try instead?" and you're left trying to find out why they can't.

In option two, you go "You pick the lock but [your lockpick breaks / guards are alerted / something else goes wrong]". Best case scenario this leads to interesting drama or at least forwards the plot. Worst case scenario the player goes "Well shit if I knew that'd happen I wouldn't even have tried to begin with" and they feel unduly punished for an action they'd rather just have failed normally.

I feel both options have many pros and cons. The first is less interesting but leads to players trying more things. The second is more interesting but typically makes players way more wary and scared. I've tried both many times and neither hit the sweet spot.

So my idea has been to simply let them pick. When they fail the roll I ask them "Do you want to back off or push yourself?". This isn't meant to be a mechanic in a specific game but more to signal that they can pick between option one or two. If it was just a one-off try they don't want to derail the scenario with? They back off. If this is a last ditch effort that has to succeed no matter the cost? They push themselves.

This seems to me like it'll fix the issue but I'm wondering if anyone has tried this before? Any pitfalls I should look out for?

I'm thinking about running a session of Dread for my group on Halloween, but have been struggling to understand how the game works after reading it and watching a few Actual Plays.

The game asks for a block to be pulled in situations where there is a chance of failure, whether there is an actual risk of death or not. The example in the book is translating an ancient text, but other examples from APs I've seen are improving weapons, knowing facts about nature, impressing someone, contacting someone on a radio. These are things where, if the tower were to fall, there's no reasonable narrative way to kill the character.

The rules seem to adress this in three ways: first, it says that a character can be killed with "the flimsiest of justifications". Secondly, it suggests a list of eays for a character to exit the game without dying, but they're all incredibly context-specific. Lastly, it says to reference Chapter 4 for what to do when the tpwer falls but there is no way to kill a character. Chapter 4 says nothing about the topic at all, so I'm assuming this is just bad editing.

So, how does it work? What do I do if the tower falls during a task that involved no risk of death at all? This seems like a huge hole that the book should be doing more to address, but maybe I'm missing something.

My daughter wants to jump headfirst into playing tabletop games with me and others but she wants to be the GM.

What is out there that can help her run a simple game that she can be at the controls of?

I'm pretty vanilla and am most familiar with D&D but I know of others mostly from listening to actual play podcasts

I want to play a TTRPG with my son but with no DM. People have given me suggestions but they all turn out to be solo games (not so played games) or games that really require someone to be a DM.

Any suggestions? I’m pretty open to story, world, etc. It doesn’t have to be a dungeon crawler (though that would be totally cool).

Appreciate any help.

We’re wrapping up a year-long Old-School Essentials campaign soon, and am looking for a palette cleanser. I mostly run vanilla fantasy, and since 2/3 of these players have only ever had me as their GM, I thought a brief hop over to sci-fi might be fun, and perhaps eye opening to most of my table.

System is less important, as I can convert as-needed, but I’m leaning toward a Mark of the Odd game like Monolith, Meteor, or Opera.

I’m interested in an adventure module that can be played in 1 or 2 three-hour sessions.

Themes/Settings I’m not interested in:

- a lot of insectoid horror (no triggers, just not into it)
- a lot of body horror (no triggers, just not into it)
- IP settings (I love Starwars, Dune, Star Trek,… but I don’t want to distract my players with any setting errors I make)
- military/space marines (just doesn’t sound interesting to me)

Themes/Settings I’m into:

- space opera
- space western
- retrofuturism
- steampunk
- Tech-noir
- light horror/thriller
- Exploration and/or investigation

(Please no “just write your own adventure” recommendations).

I'm running a game with some very powerful stun locks in it. I tend to avoid using them. A villain casting a spell that takes a player out for an entire combat isn't fun for that player. Killing them? I’m open to that, because they at least have a fighting chance. But taking them out of combat entirely? I struggle to bring myself to do it.

I'm not looking for advice on how to fix or soften stun locks. The sub has plenty of that already.

I want the opposite. Do you have a controversial opinion that debilitating stun locks are a good thing? Why? How do you keep the stunned player engaged?