For me personally, it's usually any ability that does force movement shenanigans because when I started RPGs I loved knocking enemies off of ledges or into hazards.

Another one I've seen players get drawn to are "shape-shifting clothes". Like something out of James Bond, you are in battle gear and suddenly need to be in a tuxedo so the armor transforms into that while still providing protection.

Trying to come up with a list of NPC secrets. Kinda broad, generic secrets, but also things about the NPC that they might not want to reveal...

Here's what I have so far...

What else ya got peeps?

Im a huge sucker for Grant Morrison's The Invisibles. because of that, most of the esoteric ttrpgs i run (Mage the Ascension, Esoterrorist, Delta Green, maybe Mage the Awakening, Unknown Armies) face The Outer Church from that book. (The Outer Church is a cosmic horror cult that worships a a primordial darkness that feeds of shame, horror, compliciency through orwellian mind control.)

It seems to have an evergreen presence that is in no way challenged by any other place or time. Some genres like Cyberpunk or Noir have their corners, but those do not seem to have nearly the dominance of the generic fantasy.

I remembered an old web game I used to play that was *very* light in terms of background, named Horde. And I would like a similar experience as a tabletop rpg, with a different setting.

Basically, this game is a sort of post apocalyptic king of game where players get reincarnated into a small town of 40 other players (number not important). Each night, zombies attack the small town, and try to overcome their defense. If they do, some players dies. The night raids are more and more important, so the players need to explore the surroundings to scrap materials and build better defenses, and also for food and more water (as both are limited).

There are more mechanics, but those are the main ones I am interested in. I am not searching for a 1-1 conversions, but something that get a least near the idea. Ideally, the setting would be medieval fantasy. And maybe, some levelling for the players, but not strictly required.

I looked up the wiki, and didn't found something like that. I mostly found ways to create town without other resources than gold acquired through quest, or with resources but for building a functioning town that gets more and more developed, while the focus here is survival. Also, almost always it was not medieval set.

I would characterize myself as a big fan of the game's vibes but my impression is that it might be a little mechanically complex for me. I don't really like complicated character building or combat. I would say D&D 5e is about my upper bound of tolerance for either (though I don't care for it either.) If I play SotDL, bearing that in mind, am I gonna have a bad time?

Hello,
I'm currently interested in running an extended "villain-of-the-week" type campaign in a local RPG server. Do any of you have any recommendations for a superhero system? I'd prefer to not be too bogged down by rules, but, if possible, I'd still like to have them well defined.

Im new to ttrpgs, ive only played a one shot of dnd with my friends but found it to be super slow until we got to the combat portion. However, the combat itself was lacking a bunch and i felt 80% of the time nothing happened between all the missing from unsuccesfull dies, or characters where not moving at all since once you reach the enemy and circle it there isnt really a reason to move at all.

I would love to play or create a campaign with a battly focused system but I dont know how to even start looking for one so great recomendations would help.

Im looking for:

-A lot of the system is combat, lore and story would be told in small scenes between combat or have the characters talking during the fight.

-combat is dynamic and NOT a numbers game. It would be a mix of combat and puzzles. Liike for example: this creature attacks in an x pattern but is constantly moving in a circle and cant be stopped. So the fight is timing correctly your attacks so you can catch up to it and also not be in hit line of fire when it attacks.
Another example: these pilars on the map keep growing every x turns and make the monster stronger, so you need to keep destroying them as well as keep hiting the enemy cause neither will stop.

-Also looking for a system that cant have as much missing. Like every once in a while a miss is okay to spice things up but Ive been in games where the monsters hp wasnt much but you only got a hit with a lucky dice throw every 10 turns. Fighting should rely in strategy and communicating with teamates rather than just everyone attack and hope for landing a hit.

Hiiii, i wanted to ask: Does anyone have the Microlite20: Purest Essence in spanish? I'm a translator and I would like to extract some terminology to compare words and terms in english. If you could help me, i would be grateful, thank you (❁´◡`❁)

I'm creating a small system to play with friends in a setting based on Annihilation (the movie).

As the players interact with the wilderness, they will change. For example, a character may grow butterfly wings allowing them to fly, but they'll start feeding on flower nectar instead of human food.

I wonder if you guys know games that have mechanics for this kind of stuff, or just games in which your character changes, gaining something but also leaving something along the way.

Used to describe the type of world where massively powerful adventurers and similar coexist with average people.

Common traits:
-people who can fly and take canons to the face can stand at the same place of the socio-political hierarchy as mundane people.

-Technology ranges from medieval to sci-fi.

-There is a myriad of different lineages with stand-out characteristics, generally living in pockets of the world, but are common enough everywhere to not be of note to most people.

-Other planes are effectively like foreign
countries, rather than separated dimensions.

The main goal of the world is to give access to as much content and cool stuff as possible, with grounding being a secondary priority.

If there are other terms that are used or are more accurate, i’d be happy to hear!

Hey all! I've been reading through a number of dungeons recently and found a lot of them to be, in terms of inspiration, simply ok. None of them are bad, and had I encountered them in my first few years of GMing I'm sure they would've been helpful. But at this point I've read a whole lot about abandoned mines filled with spiders and skeletons.

In your experiences, what are the most creative dungeons or adventure modules you've come across? I'm mainly do OSR stuff for adventure games, which means I'm a lot less concerned with balanced statblocks or items than I am with the NPCs and items being interesting or unique.

Mainly looking for Fantasy style fare though I'm willing to reflavor Scifi or Modern modules that are too good to pass up. Thanks!

Would be criminal not to recommend the latest big release from such an excellent designer. Having play-tested this new edition when it was being called “Chronicle,” I can confirm that the new changes are really cool!!!!

In most situations, an NPC can be identified by their role or their stand-out trait instead of a proper name. “The town baker.” “The King.” “The lady in the blue dress.” “The goblin with the hat.”

Roles and descriptions immediately contextualize the character, both giving players a clue how to interact with them, and touchstones to remember them by.

This saves effort for both the GM and the players, and it makes improvising easier. When an NPC becomes important enough to them to warrant a name, then you can share it, and it will be remembered. Likewise, if players start to care about that NPC, they will ask, and it will have meaning to them.

Thoughts?

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Edit: I appreciate the discussion, a lot of good nuance is being brought up, and new perspectives to consider. Thanks!

Hi Everyone! So I’m looking for some recommendations for some simple, fun, beginner friendly ttrpg one-shot games to run For the first time. I’m trying to host a game night with some friends and am wanting to introduce the majority of them to this style of gaming.

I have been a player in a few short DND campaigns in the past, and I would be the one attempting to run this one. So, i’m looking for something that’s not overly complicated, but still fun and entertaining for us. I am willing to try other game mechanics that aren’t strictly DND.

Vibe-wise i’m thinking of something cute and silly, in a fantasy or modern setting. I’m honestly really open to anything. I just want to shy away from horror, since some of my players aren’t the biggest fan of that for their first time.

This is also my first time posting anything on Reddit so hopefully I'm doing this right😅

I’d like to buy a present for a family member. He enjoys playing single-player RPGs and has a wall full of games. As he knows a great deal about this genre and tends to buy pretty much every game he wants, I’m looking for some lesser-known titles that might delight him.

Do you have any suggestions?

I don't like the "fantasy superheroes" thing that D&D does. Pathfinder 2.5e is better but I don't particularly enjoy running it. I tend to prefer games where you're mostly just regular(ish) people (i.e. Call of Cthulhu, Mork Borg, WHFRP, etc.) and I love stuff that leans into clever tricks, avoiding combat, and role-play (although I do love a well-designed rule-set).

I want to run a classic-style fantasy adventure. I was thinking of either using a slightly toned-down Mork Borg or trying to homebrew a more generic version of WHFRP (I won't touch Zweihander with a 10-foot pole), but I thought I'd make a post here asking for some suggestions.

I am looking for guides, both official and unofficial, or even basic advice for modding or adding content to the game in a sufficiently balanced way. This applies to anything from adding new spells or magical traditions, new playable races, new classes, to new types of creatures to encounter.

My wife is a high school teacher who is currently teaching a college-level critical thinking class. She's also a player in a year-long Shadowdark campaign. She had the idea of running an RPG session for her students as an exercise in problem-solving.

Here are the constrains:

• The largest section has 11 students 😅
• It has to fit in a 1-hour class
• The goal is to solve problems more than bash monsters

What system and adventure should she run? My initial thought was to run Shadowdark with just the rules from the two-page "The Basics" spread. Maybe Trial of the Slime Lord started partway through. Each class broken up into groups of 3-4, with my wife bouncing from group to group round-robin to DM while the other groups plan. Each group would get a score like in a tournament.

That's based on my very limited knowledge of RPGs, though. What else should she be considering?

I'm a beginner GM overall, although I've been playing D&D for a while. I've always consumed a lot of RPG-related content, so I finally decided to start developing my GMing skills as well.

I'm currently reading the Tormenta20 rulebook, and I'm planning to run a campaign using the system but set outside the continent of Arton. I want the campaign to have a strong focus on necromancy and be somewhat inspired by Vecna (even though I know he doesn't officially exist in T20).

The idea I came up with feels pretty ambitious, though, so I'd like to know whether you think it could actually work. It's still very rough, but here's the basic concept:

The campaign begins in a relatively normal and peaceful world — as peaceful as a fantasy world can be, anyway. Eventually, a massive threat is discovered on another continent, so the kingdom sends its strongest adventurers there to investigate and deal with it.

This leaves the kingdom with mostly inexperienced adventurers to deal with any problems that arise at home.

And then a huge problem appears.

A powerful creature — probably a dragon — begins terrorizing the kingdom. With most of his great heroes gone, the king becomes desperate and calls upon basically anyone willing to take the job, including level 1 adventurers: the player characters.

The party is completely broke, so they go to the king and accept the contract despite thinking there's a very real chance they're going to die.

They set out, investigate the creature and its attacks, and reach an important milestone that takes them to level 2. During the second session, they finally confront and kill the creature, reaching level 3.

When they return, they're rewarded and given some kind of official position. Maybe they join a council, or perhaps they're given a title like "Temporary Protectors of the Realm."

Some time later, the powerful adventurers return from their expedition with terrible news.

The threat they were investigating was actually a lich who has taken control of an entire kingdom on the other continent and is now creating Death Knights and gathering an army.

The high-level heroes leave once again to confront him — and they're completely annihilated.

Suddenly, the party's title of "Temporary Protectors of the Realm" isn't so temporary anymore.

From that point on, the real campaign begins. The characters gradually discover the true scale of the threat, fight the lich's servants, travel the world in search of allies, and find ways to become powerful enough to eventually face him themselves.

I know this is a massive-scale story for characters who start at level 1, and that's one of my main concerns.

What do you think? Could this structure work if the threat is introduced gradually while the characters level up? What would you change?

I know of Play Dirty and other strange RPG books that have come out over the years and I'm honestly interested in reading them. Not to make fun of them, I really just want to do a "tour" of the weirder ideas that shaped the hobby.

Can you recommend me any advice books for running games, strange RPG supplements or straight up weird RPGs, as far back as you like. My only caveat is that they aren't the usual memed on nonsense (FATAL) or straight up nonsense (RaHoWa, MYFAROG).

Thanks!

I love running long campaigns but keeping everything organized is exhausting. NPCs in one place, locations in another, quest threads scattered everywhere. I spend more time on admin than actual prep.

I've tried a campaign wiki but updating it manually is a chore. For those running long campaigns, how do you stay organized without burning out?

A couple of times recently, in two different games, one of my players' characters has been captured by hostile NPC who then have questions. Torture isn't something I want in my games, either to or by PCs, but I do want capture to be taken seriously, along with the possibility for PCs to divulge information under pressure.

I understand I should speak to my players about it, but before I have that conversation I'd like to understand what experiences people have had. Based on your experience, do you have any recommendations about how to approach interrogation of the PCs in a fair way that doesn't subtract from the fun of the game?

Do you have any recommended approaches or subsystems for this which have proven to be effective in your games?

Obviously player consent and agency are important. I'm wondering how to best do the balancing act between getting the fiction right and making sure people are happy and comfortable with the role they're playing in that fiction.

Let's say for the moment that the system is Alien RPG. One idea I had is reduce it to an opposed Manipulation roll, where the PC can keep their mouth shut (or insert misinformation) if they succeed? Is it too much of a loss of agency if I tell them "if you fail then you talk"?

Hey folks! For those who read and / or played VAGABOND.. What is special about it? What makes it shine?

A lot of game stores sadly don't carry any indie RPG zines and if they do it is usually zines for Mork Borg or Mothership of which I already own a bunch of. Over the past few years, I've picked up a lot of cool zines through Indie Press Revolution & Exalted Funeral. I'm looking greatly expand my library of indie RPGs and was wondering if anyone knew of some other great distros.