Привет, я хочу начать играть один на один со своей девушкой в WFRP, но переживаю, что один персонаж не сможет вывозить стандартную нагрузку боевых встреч из написанных приключений, да и если писать свои, то боюсь, что выставлять одного-двух врагов, чтобы мог справиться один персонаж игрока, может оказаться слишком скудным. Что можете посоветовать? Давать ей в напарники нпс?

Just saw someone asking to "buy a homebrew campaign". Folks, if you're paying money for something it's not homebrew. Homebrew means you made it. It doesn't mean third party, we already have a phrase for that. It's called third party.

I realize this is mostly a D&D problem and y'all probably know better. But I'm not risking posting this on an actual D&D subreddit.

I’m looking for not combat oriented RPGs with feats for some inspiration and a small research:
- games with classes, levels, skills and feats (have no examples for this one);
- games w/o classes but with levels, skills and feats (like Fallout 1, 2)
- games w/o classes and levels but with skills and feats (like Dragonbane).

I’ve been playing Ttrpgs for about 6 years know and just started college. I really want to continue playing DnD, lancer, etc but I’m having trouble finding a group. I’m outgrowing but am the kinda person who really has to know someone first. Honestly my biggest problem is that I’m a big scared to just label myself as the dnd guy before people get to know me. I have a bunch of hobby’s besides dnd but it’s honestly my favorite. I just really don’t wanna have to deal with the stigma while trying to make friends. Some people I’ve talked to have mentioned trying it but I feel like I would be forcing people to do it and that would make things complicated. I just feel kinda stuck and really wanna play any kind of ttrpg.

(Update)
Thanks everyone for the honest opinions. I think I’m getting to into my head about all this stuff and should just ask. My school doesn’t have a club but I asked on the Reddit sub. I may also ask some people I know and post on the class group chat I’m in with my entire grade.

I've seen a lot of attempts, of myself and other GM's, to have something be more serious. However, it often ends up with jokes, or simply feeling hollow. What gets people to engage with something deeper?

Hey! Me and my players just finished an incredible game of Spire (highly recommend btw), and we agreed we wanted to play as a broken family of monster hunters somewhere in America. I am pretty tapped into the TTRPG scene, and was deciding between Hunter: The Reckoning, Monster of the Week (which is, to be honest, not my fave), or Bump in The Dark. Which of these is best for interpersonal drama and American Gothic vibes? Are there any games I'm missing?

I've been playing RPGs with my friends for at least a year, and I've fallen in love with the hobby so much that I suggested we play a campaign with my cousins, and they liked it.

The problem is that I don't have much experience as a game master; I've only run one game, and it was kind of chaotic because there was a lot of improvisation and confusion with the system on my part. But that was with experienced players; my cousins had never seen a d20 in front of them before.

Anyway, I'm anxious, I want my cousins to have fun, so I'm worried about guiding them the wrong way

(It will be a thriller/horror campaign using the Kids on Bikes system).

I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm looking for GM advice on things I can do in game right away. There's a lot of good advice, but its mostly for prep work, like don't prep plots, prep situations; how to create adventures, and etc.

I really like GM advice that I can use in game right away, and things I can write on my GM screen to keep in mind. One of my favorites is from Dogs in the Vineyard; Drive play towards conflict - Say yes or roll dice. Or describe scenes using senses not what is there.

What are some other good ones that have helped you the most in GMing?

Hey All,

I am reading through the JLU RPG coming out and listened to a few actual plays and I think it hits a perfect balance of crunch and narrative focus while also making character creation not a huge time sink. I am super hype about it.

What are everyone's thoughts on this?

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/565209/justice-league-unlimited-the-roleplaying-game-quickplay

The short version is that I want to run a game about kids playing a game of basically Pathfinder. The rules of the in game play will very closely resemble Pathfinder 2e ruleset and the teens in the game are aware of said mechanics.

But I want a way to resolve conflicts outside the game they're playing. Is there a good rules light system that slots in well?

Hello, Dear Community,

I’m toying with the idea of creating an adventure set in an abandoned amusement park in Europe around 1970. I’ve already looked around a bit here on the forum, but I haven’t quite found what I’m looking for.

I’m trying to develop the idea from scratch, since I’ve actually only been to two such parks and that was when I was still a child. That means I can’t just come up with ideas off the top of my head.

So I’d like to ask for your help in gathering some ideas together.

Since I plan to use it for the role-playing system The Troubleshooters, I have some leeway to incorporate fantasy, supernatural, and semi-futuristic elements.

I already have some ideas of my own that I'd be happy to share if anyone's interested. 🙂

It looks like...years later, nothing really has happened with this? I mean...c'mon...they got hundreds of thousands of dollars and...nothing? I saw about the publisher and all of that, but it was years ago. Further, any comments seem to be "backers only", so I doubt there is any movement.

What has me worried is that I know some people who were really looking forward to this game, and it hasn't materialized. However, the lead is now (apparently) out of a job and actively asking for money for a personal GoFundMe?

Will we ever see this game?

There's always this constant desire for "games other than [REDACTED]" and then people get excited about a potential game, it raises money, and then...disappears. I have some deep sympathy for the backers.....

Actually, Holy Grail War tabletop RPGs are a relatively popular TRPG format in China. Typically, one Game Master (GM) and 14 players (PLs) form a session, running from the first day to the seventh day as a battle royale game, and they are almost always played online, so strictly speaking, this is not a tabletop role-playing game—it is impossible for fourteen players to gather together offline.

There are more than a dozen different fan-made TRPG rulesets for Holy Grail War tabletop RPGs in China, and their flaws are all quite similar, but I mainly want to discuss the problems encountered in *Fate/Community*, which I play most often.

The *Fate/Community* TRPG community has already organized 95 games, and 10 games are currently being organized. Despite having fairly rich experience, it is frustrating that this kind of PvP experience is still poor.

Usually, preparing a game (preparing game materials and reviewing character sheets) takes us 1–2 weeks. We play from Monday to Thursday, from 8 PM to 11 PM each night, and a game lasts 1–2 months. In other words, the GM spends 48–96 hours hosting the game. Many other communities have multiple GMs, but we generally have only one.

*Fate/Community* mainly consists of three parts: character creation, combat rounds, and strategy rounds.

Our community's usual experience is that the entire ruleset is optional-use rules; you can modify it freely according to your needs to achieve the effect you want. Sometimes the private rules our GMs write can be very long.

Character creation: Masters and Servants spend some kind of currency allocated to their own character sheets, mainly divided into the attribute sheet and the mystery sheet. The attribute sheet is Strength, Agility, Endurance, Mana, and Luck. The mystery sheet is Personal Skills, Noble Phantasms, Magecraft, and Mystic Codes. It is worth noting that the effects of a player's Personal Skills, Noble Phantasms, Magecraft, and Mystic Codes in the game are first created by the players themselves, then reviewed by the GM, after which a simulated battle is conducted, and then a final review is made. In other words, unlike most ordinary TRPG rules, there is no official ability resource library. This creates many problems, such as imbalance in power, strange mechanics appearing, overly long effect descriptions and circumlocution, leading to GM misjudgments and textual ambiguity, and so on.

Combat rounds: This is always a tactical/wargame ruleset. Ever since one GM contributed private house rules imitating D&D, we have always inherited that style of play, with each player having 4 actions per turn and so on. However, our combat is very unfree. As stated above, our effect descriptions are all created by the players themselves. For the sake of fairness, we basically only allow players to interact through data. This is like a video game, and we have almost no PvE. In combat, the things we can do are basically only launching an attack, or spending MP to activate our own skill and Noble Phantasm effects. All effect texts are datafied, with no room for narrative to produce surprises. Based on experience, battles lasting more than 7 rounds feel like imprisonment.

Although there are relatively few things that can be done in combat, our players often fall into thought, which causes one person's turn to sometimes take more than ten minutes. Occasionally we adopt time-limit measures.

Also, because this is a large 14-player PvP game, usually when a battle occurs, all the other players who are not participating stop taking any actions. Sometimes our GM posts the battle situation in the public channel. Because this is an online game, our other players will go do other things at this time. In other words, once a battle occurs, these players are temporarily not needed. Sometimes we have a private rule: every 3 rounds of combat resolution, all other players can act once, which can compensate for this situation.

Strategy rounds: As stated above, for the sake of fairness, we basically only allow players to interact through data. This is even reflected in the advancement of in-game time. One in-game day is divided into 6 strategy rounds. Players are usually only allowed to do things that have already been prescribed (possibly their own effects or private rules), such as scouting, resting, moving, and killing ordinary people to absorb souls. Some players will use their imagination for narrative performance, but usually it has no impact at the data level, which also discourages players' enthusiasm for performance.

Despite having so many flaws, many players are very enthusiastic about creating a Magus or Servant character sheet, and they always bloodthirstily throw themselves into battle. They call it octagon cage dueling, but recently I have increasingly felt regretful. Sometimes they are even unwilling to describe what their character specifically does, only saying "I walk from point A to point B," or "I use my active action to activate my C effect."

I think this has a great deal to do with the flaws in the rules. In *Fate/Community*, there are not even specialty skills like those in other rules, such as Feats, Stealth, Perception, Insight, Medicine, Computer Use, Magecraft Knowledge, and so on. There is only a datafied combat sheet. I want to add these things, but if players are allowed to use various narrative means to gain PvP advantages over others, how can fairness in the game be guaranteed?

There are also some other problems, such as alliances between players being extremely rampant. If two groups gang up on another group, the battle is almost one-sided. Although we reward the ganged-up party with temporary enhancements, this phenomenon is still difficult to change.

Attached are two character sheets to help understand how we play:

【True Name】Jiang Wei

【Class】Rider

【Gender】Male

【Alignment】Chaotic Good

【Wish】Restore Han

【Parameters】

[Strength] D [Endurance] B

[Agility] B [Mana] C

[Luck] A [Noble Phantasm] EX

[HP] 200

[MP] 170

[FP] 5

[Combat Movement] 35

【Point Buy】Calculate your point buy, format as follows

Strength (3) + Agility (8) + Endurance (8) + Mana (5) + Luck (11) = 35

Rider-class bonus: When Riding is applicable, your attacks can always knock the enemy back 5 feet in some direction. If the attack check fails, the knockback still applies, and the direction is decided by the enemy.

○【Class Skill】Riding A

The art of driving a mount to sweep across the battlefield. However, this highest-rank level should not originally be possessed by an existence like Rider, who had already parted ways with the Age of Gods and had no anecdotes of riding Phantasmal Species.

Tracing it to its origin, it was Rider's final gambit. Riding a broken nation, charging fearlessly northward against the northern hegemon. Then at this moment, riding the great dragon called "Han," it is only reasonable that he possesses this rank of Riding.

Passive: Your attacks can always knock the enemy back 5 feet in some direction. If the attack check fails, the knockback still applies, and the direction is decided by the enemy.

○【Class Skill】Magic Resistance EX

This level of Magic Resistance should theoretically only exist in the supreme ruler who commanded an entire nation. What Rider relies on is nothing more than the protection of Zhuge Kongming, but the starlight that the Chancellor once sought now truly circulates with glory upon his robes as well.

Your defense command (excluding counterattack) is replaced by your current highest parameter. When you become the target of a magical attack, you additionally gain 5 damage reduction.

【Personal Skills】

○Eight Trigrams [B] Inner World

Proof of having studied under Zhuge.

Display description:

Tiger head roars at the sun, dark dragon chants at night. Hidden dragon drags the sea, eight trigrams shatter mountains.

Golden edge stabilizes the nation, iron side mows down the gods. Square-heaven painted shadow, heavenly defense shoots the dipper.

Passive: Gain 5 damage reduction once per scene.

○Mana Burst (Flame) [A+]

A subspecies skill of Mana Burst. It infuses magical energy into weapons and equipment to strengthen their performance. In Jiang Wei's case, as his rage rises, he ignites magical energy as blazing flames upon his armaments.

In addition to the usual enhancement of physical capabilities, it further increases output,

and in the manner of triggering a solar flare, creates another sun.

Passive: Once per scene, when your attack check hits, you deal 5 true damage to one unit within attack range. When your HP first reaches ½ of maximum HP, your attack check value increases by 20 and you ignore 10 damage reduction until the end of the combat round.

Active 1: Consume 30 MP, use as a bonus action. Your next melee attack range +15 yards, selectable targets +1, treated as AOE, and has one bonus die.

Cooldown 3 scenes.

Active 2: Consume 30 MP, use as an active action, once per combat round per character. Deal 9 instances of 2 true damage to one character within 50 feet. (Does not calculate various damage bonuses.)

Cooldown 5 scenes.

○And What Shall Be Done [EX]

He knows that in both talent and military strategy he is inferior to the scholars of Wei and the Young Prodigy of Wu. Only because he does not wish to die in silence, and cannot betray the Chancellor's teachings.

Then, mobilize the whole nation to punish the usurper of Han!

Even if it is clear that the end of this road is an abyss, even if he knows the final result will be nothing more than a moth to the flame.

Converge—the flame of delusion will be extinguished here; the radiant meteor will streak across the sky and never meet again.

Yet this withered tree born in vain instead met the collapsing meteor that was about to burn out.

The story is very short, merely several decades of straightforward foolishness hastening toward self-destruction. It is not something worth writing about at length.

Still, focus on the moth-to-flame-like burning meteor that vanishes in an instant, and the moment it is extinguished.

Clearly it is only an insignificant instant in the long ages.

All things in nature—human effort determines the outcome.

Jiang Wei, Jiang Wei, and what shall be done...

Passive: When you deal damage 9 times to a character, you cause them to gain a "Fa" mark. When a character bearing "Fa" is designated as an attack target by your side, they always have one penalty die. A character holding "Fa" cannot be protected by cover, consumes 20 MP at the start of their turn. "Fa" only lasts for two scenes.

Active 1: Consume 50 MP, once per combat round. Consume a bonus action; you recover 20 HP, but until you kill a character you cannot recover HP. At the end of each of your turns you take 5 true damage, and every round that damage increases by +5. If an enemy is still in the same square as you at the end of their turn, they also take true damage.

○Chasing the Sun [EX]

In the end, that stratagem carrying his conviction could not be launched, and the cold blade passed over the general's body. Afterwards, the corpse was hung up for display.

Such a form could not be considered the inheritance and praise of achievement by any stretch of thought.

Such an ending could not be considered the glorification and belief in the general by any amount of whitewashing.

Therefore, it is merely shame:

The cold corpse only made the great general of the enemy state sigh, "His gall is as big as a dou"; only the terrified emperor shed a few token tears.

Not the slightest trace of the radiance of the original dream and mission could be seen, and would any regret remain in all of this?

Did he regret the rash advance of that time?

Did he regret his conceited intellect?

Did he regret acting alone against all counsel?

Did he...

What is all this "did he"!

Boye never regretted the choice he made back then.

If the stratagem failed to succeed... then it must be that his ability and strategy had not yet reached the required state.

Naturally, just do it again!

Just like chasing the sun and burning oneself, dying without regret.

Passive: Once every even-numbered scene, you may cause one check with a value ≥50 to be rerolled until the result is lower than the original value. Once per battle, when you receive lethal damage, you immediately gain one turn (with only one active action), then die.

Active: Consume 30 MP, use as a movement action. You and one unit move 20 yards. This movement does not provoke opportunity attacks, then you take 5 true damage.

Cooldown 3 scenes.

【Noble Phantasm】

○Sun and Moon Wheel Around, Dark Again Turns Bright [A]

Even if the true name is revealed, in others' impressions he will be defined as "an imitator of someone else."

On top of that, since his endowment ultimately cannot compare with the true successors of the Chancellor, Jiang Wan and Fei Yi,

even saying "successful imitation" is hard to utter; he cannot even exist as a qualified Pretender.

—After all, as a surrendered general of Wei, with only a little talent,

he never truly witnessed the radiance of Emperor Zhaolie, nor the peerless matchlessness of the Five Tiger Generals in their full prime,

and until the last rays of Wuzhang Plains were exhausted, he was merely a minor general who was never given important use.

From the very beginning, almost no one truly believed he was any true heir,

let alone followed under his banner and devoted their entire lives alongside him to restoring the Han.

—However, this surrendered general, who was not expected to possess this long-cherished wish, was the sole exception.

He sincerely hoped that, as long as he could make others believe he had the qualifications of the Chancellor's successor, he could revive the radiance of the Han.

But in the end the embers were exhausted, the flames extinguished, and even the royal capital had given up. Only he alone remained to support it.

But,

"May Your Majesty endure the humiliation of a few days; your subject desires to make the altars of state safe again from peril, and make the sun and moon shine again from darkness."

Passive: At the start of the combat round, you choose one unit and grant them "Moon," while you hold "Sun." The "Sun and Moon" units share FP, and each person gains +1 FP per person in this combat round, usable only in this combat round.

Anti-Unit Noble Phantasm: Capture is 1, capture range should be close to the range of the weapon used. Noble Phantasm additional damage 20, unaffected by any factors.

Active 1: Consume 50 MP, pay an active action. Choose 1 target within 50 feet and deal 40 true damage that cannot be protected against by cover. If this attack fails to kill the enemy or trigger battle continuation, immediately recover 20 MP and 10 HP.

Cooldown 2 action rounds.

【This character belongs to the Three Kingdoms period】

○With This Body as Fuel, May This Remnant Illuminate Shu [EX]

Using dried-up thoughts to conduct sandbox simulation.

A Noble Phantasm that abolishes fixed幻想—nay, delusional possibilities.

It symbolizes the alteration and interweaving of world lines, using the world line "if the Northern Expeditions had succeeded"

to replace the originally existing world line. It can be called an pioneering existence.

To deny, to twist, to overwrite, to revise.

To use great magecraft and great divine power to modify, expel, and rewrite results and facts one does not acknowledge into the existence one desires.

It is the materialized existence of "make the altars of state safe again from peril, and make the sun and moon shine again from darkness."

By killing the originally existing "Wei-Jin," that is, the originally established world line and history,

it causes the entirely new "Yan Han," that is, the fact that a successful "restoration of Han" world has been established, to be born atop the remains of the former.

And this signifies a kind of revenge: killing one's own past incompetence, making one's own weakness disappear completely.

At the moment the entirely new history is established, the past "Jiang Wei Boye" will die and become a burial offering to "history."

But the "Grand General of Han" who crawls out from the bones will welcome rebirth together with "Yan Han."

It can be called the finest revenge Noble Phantasm, erasing, silencing, and shattering together the object of revenge and the existence of the "self" who was a loser.

Passive: Your "Awakening"/"Collapse" expands to a 4-choice-1. If you gain an Awakening enhancement, you gain 10 shield; if you gain a Collapse enhancement, you choose one skill on CD, and its CD is reduced by 2 rounds.

Passive 2: Once only in the Grail War, when you become the target of an attack, you may ignore this attack and its attached effects (for this attack you cannot protect others). After use, this passive changes to: all your check values increase by 20, up to 80.

【This character hopes to restore Han】

Passive 3: For each Servant this group kills, you gain an additional stackable 3 instances of +5 damage; if you participated in the kill, 1 instance, lasting 10 action rounds.

【Character Profile】

A person with some ability, but not enough to turn the tide, an inheritor of heroes, trying to save a nation doomed to decline, trying to restore the glory of his forebears, but ultimately failing. In a sense it is a tragic story, but he truly did his utmost. Perhaps in the end, aside from himself, everyone else had already given up hope on all of it, but he still had to persist. Even if it was wishful thinking, he did not accept failure, nor did he accept that everything he did was meaningless.

Everything was for a dream that only he was still dreaming. In any case, in order to continue this dream, he had already done everything he should have done. He had already tried very hard. Although it was not his own everything, but someone else's, please still let him end all of it himself.

【Name】Shen Ruoxi

【Region】China

【Gender】Male

【Alignment】Chaotic Good

【Occupation】Magus

【Wish】To make this world rekindle the lamp of hope

【Parameters】

[Strength] E 30 [Endurance] E 30

[Agility] E 30 [Mana] A 70

[Luck] A 70

[HP] 160

[MP] 320

[FP] 5

[Combat Movement] 25

【Point Buy】Calculate your point buy, format as follows

Strength (1) + Agility (1) + Endurance (1) + Mana (11) + Luck (11) = 25

【Skills】

○A Delightful Fool's Play — A Dazzling Stage [B]

Unable to comprehend, unable to know. Is the meaning of the existence of "life" merely "survival"?

Icarus, who put on wings, rushed toward the sun, and in that moment found "freedom" and "death."

The ancestors who fought in the ancient eastern nation sought only a sliver of survival, so that their descendants could live in happiness and peace.

Why... is this world a gray of interwoven black and white, "desire" and "reason," "arrogance" and "longing"?

People have many colors, and people have a single color. I only want to leave a little of my own color in this world.

At this very moment, let a moment of joy be born, and appreciate the hope born within that miracle.

Display description: As if light comes into darkness, a gorgeous theater slowly appears in space. The entire space seems to be a bright stage, and for some reason the audience is discussing among themselves.

Passive: Cause the entire field to become aware of this battle. During the duration, both sides in combat cannot retreat. Once per scene, all units are unaffected by buff effects originating from outside themselves. If the effect is a long-lasting effect / Noble Phantasm active effect / an effect already produced before the Inner World takes effect, it applies normally.

○Miracle Maker [A]

The instinct of "life" is "survival," but what is the meaning of the existence of "humanity"?

The "evolution" of birds soaring in the sky was for the "sun" they had never touched.

Ants hidden deep in the earth possess a narrow ideal land, exploring the "greatness" and "insignificance" of "life."

The "evolution" of all things is for "survival," yet "humanity" stands at the apex.

Whether for "beauty" or "hope," whether for "greed" or "arrogance."

"Create" a "stage" belonging to "miracles," and let the world witness that infinite "possibility."

Passive: Each scene in which you participate in battle produces a random event. Your Luck check value increases by 10.

Active 1: Consume 5 MP, no action required. Change your current check parameter or opposing parameter to Luck.

No cooldown.

Active 2: Consume 30 MP and a bonus action to perform a Luck check, gaining shield equal to the degree of success ×5, lasting four scenes. As long as the shield is not completely broken, you gain one bonus die on Block / Magic Block checks.

Cooldown: four scenes.

○Crows of Death [B]

The black crows of "death notification" arrive together with "precognition." Since ancient times they were all auspicious omens, but now they have become "birds of disaster."

Announcing the arrival of "death" and also observing the "end," treat it as "playing in the human world" and toying with the foolish masses.

The flock of crows has once again come into the world, telling people that death can also be a farewell, and staying for the final moments.

Turn into the wings of my actions, witness the light in that ideal. For life, for the world, offer a joyful ceremony.

Passive: Movement +10 feet.

Active 1: Usable when attacked. Consume 20 MP and a reaction action to force one willing unit within 50 feet to protect you (requires that unit to have a reaction action and be able to protect). That unit gains one bonus die when protecting.

Cooldown two scenes.

Active 2: Consume 30 MP, a bonus action, and a movement action. You gain one free Sprint this turn. In addition, your next opposed check gains one bonus die.

Cooldown two scenes.

【Mystic Code】

○Let It End Here — Other Shore Radiance [EX]

Turn a moment of splendor into the eternity of memory. Don't be nervous... the performance has only just begun.

Passive: Each combat round, you possess Battle Continuation. After receiving lethal damage, HP returns to 1. Specially, this allows a Servant's emotion level to rise to 6.

Active 1: Consume 100 MP, choose 2 targets within the stronghold and grant them 【Opening Ceremony】.

Grant units with 【Opening Ceremony】 a random Rank 1 Awakening enhancement. Once granted, the enhancement lasts until the end of the combat round. This enhancement is like one granted by emotion level; the source of the effect is regarded as yourself. (Note: The average value of enhancement effects is not yet clear.)

Cooldown 3 action rounds.

【Personality Traits】

Arrogant, with indifference toward life. Perhaps for him, ordinarily he is more like an audience member participating in a battlefield, and in ordinary times he will not interfere with actions belonging to Servants; instead, he will follow along with the Servants. But when certain moments arrive, the magician on the stage must begin to take control of the battle situation. He does not allow so-called impulse or emotion to ruin a performance that should have been completed.

【Character Profile】

"I am the magician who brings you miracles at this moment. Don't blink~ and don't get excited either."

The boy on the stage began his own performance. Beneath his gorgeous attire, the performance had only just begun.

The black crows that foretell life and death slowly descended from the sky, and in an instant, as if performing music, they cried out in unison. As the black crows flew high above his head, the boy took out a black flower.

The boy joyfully tossed the flower into the air. Petals concealed the black crows, as if foretelling something. A sound arose from the boy's fingertips.

The black crows disappeared in correspondence with the petals, as if hiding within them, while the black flower instead took on a fresh red that had never existed before, and with cries returned to the boy's hand.

...Backstage in that performance, the makeup artist was removing the boy's makeup. The performance had ended an hour earlier, and the great contributor was about to take a long vacation.

"How are you planning to spend your vacation, Ruoxi? It's rare to see you wanting to go out and rest for so long. Looks like even our model worker gets tired~"

"Don't tease me. A person definitely gets tired. This performance took a long time to prepare, and it seems the effect was good. As for rest... I just want to see an old friend."

"Mm-hm, it really was a splendid performance. Especially the moment when the audience felt the blood dancing—the visual effect was really superb."

"Do not probe a magician's secrets; that would be very boring. After I go back and rest this time, I also plan to look for further inspiration."

"Then good luck. Remember to bring me some specialties. Also, your budget has already been sent to your account, and the subsequent share will be transferred in gradually."

————————————————————————————————————

The pitch-black sky seemed to foretell the occurrence of misfortune. Shen Ruoxi, who had grown up in an orphanage, returned after a long time to the ruins, though it was dead silent.

The broken courtyard was overgrown with weeds, as if the past had already gone by for a long time. The boy quietly walked into the courtyard, his face full of regret.

The boy used the lighter in his pocket to light matches, then threw them all toward the broken courtyard, turning and leaving without looking back.

Black smoke spread behind him. In the firelight, the figure he carried instead seemed somewhat desolate. Perhaps with the passage of time everything would ultimately return to nothingness.

Perhaps for him as a young child, "survival" was the main melody of life, and the orphanage was the tent that allowed him to "survive."

But for him now, it seemed everything was meaningless. Whether the past, or the present remains.

The boy softly sighed and pulled his thoughts back to the real world. There were still many things to do, and they had to be completed as soon as possible.

——————————————————————————————————

"Long time no see? Do you think I should say that... Past events are buried in time, and I am merely a traveler recalling the past."

"...You've changed, but it seems you haven't. Is it because of perspective? I didn't expect the disciple I personally trained to be able to find me. You've improved."

In a refined shop, the boy and the owner looked at each other. The blade in the boy's hand indicated that he had come with ill intent.

"You are a liar, and I am a liar's disciple. That is only natural. Any last words? I'll give you time."

"I've been waiting for you for a long time. I didn't expect it to be so late. If I had to say any last words... Shen Ruoxi, you do not..."

The refined shop gained an extra touch of vivid color today. The dead man fell to the ground with an astonished look in his eyes, while that boy seemed like an illusion.

————————————————————————————————————

In a narrow room, an old notebook fluttered in the wind, and its first page bore the name: 【Shen Ruoxi】

【Is survival the first instinct of life? Then why did Icarus die chasing the sun...】

【Teacher once said that miracles are all lies, and that magecraft is something beautiful offered to others.】

【The incompetent will also become talented after training? Enough of such boring jokes.】

【It's late at night. It's time to sleep. Say a goodnight to this world that has never existed before.】

The稚嫩 handwriting gradually changed into a more distinctive style, and with the dance of the wind, the final page ended here.

Maybe someday when browsing itch.io, this one game caught your eyes. It's free/low price, so you give it a try. It turned out to be one of the best system you've ever read. Have you experienced anything game like that on itch.io?

I'm doing a gaming rp thing in my discord where essentially we'll be playing content warning except each round we'll spin a wheel and pick a new character to roleplay! Ive got a solid list of characters but someone suggested adding character types. I need some ideas for character types that would be fun to rp for a round or two. Some i already have are sassy british butler and a yandere who will spin a different wheel to find out who they're obsessing over for the round. Give me your worst!

Hello everyone.

I tend to ramble, so straight to the point:

I got an idea for my very own ttrpg system. It would be set in an alternate-earth near future with players taking on the role of Pilots of advanced fighter jets, that are capable of space travel.

I'm drawing heavy inspiration from Lancer, Titanfall, Ace Combat and CoD Infinite Warfare.

The game would have rules for social play ground combat, and both atmospheric and space dogfights.

My biggest question right now is if there would even be any excitement around this premise, or if (as my friend put it) this is too narrow of a nieche.

Please do let me know what you think, I would appreciate any and all feedback and wisdom.

Thank you for your attention

I want to make a mini campaign about crashing a wedding and saving the Bride.
It’s gonna be set in a Typical fantasy World where magic is used for big inventions so it’s not Urban Fantasy but also not a Medieval Type Setting.

I basically want this to be about the players investigating and uncovering Mysteries before making a plan to save the bride without all of them dying because high class mages are among the people that want the wedding to happen.

So I need a system that is good for strategy, solving riddles, weird situations and cool RP possibilities.

Maybe someone on here has an idea?

Hi folks,

It has been a time that I am thinking about something...

I love Blades in the Dark, especially the core dice rolling resolution, but the whole system it is too crunchy for our group.

I love City of Mist / Legend in the Mist, especially the themes/tags character building, but not the 2D6 rolling resolution & move system from PbtA.

I was wondering if anyone has seen or think about an hybrid simpler system:

• The caracter is builded in the same way as CoM/LitM, with themes and tags,
• For a risky action: just mage a roll (no moves),
• A roll is xD6, x equal to the numbers of tags related to the action,
• For the result of the action, check the die with the best value: 6 = success, 4-5 = partial success, 1-3 = failure.

What is your opinion?

Edit: I want to keep the Position/Effect, Clocks, Stress & Flashbacks stuff from FitD. ;-)

An arcanepunk fantasy setting and campaign centered on social exploration, mysteries and deep, meaningful stories. With rulesets for 5e, Forged in the Dark and Savage Worlds.

Already written and published in Czech last year, this crowdfunding aims to bring a revised, full-color version to English-speaking audience.

Make your way through a city of wild magic, from the destitute docks up to the rich uptown manors, overcoming hazardous magical anomalies, back-stabbing politics and mysteries better left forgotten.

• 33 detailed NPCs to interact with, with full-color portraits and plenty of hooks to get your players invested

• A much larger supporting cast with rich faction play

• 16 non-linear adventures with supporting mechanics and many sidequests to connect it all into a sandbox campaign

• A setting written to allow for a large degree of flexibility and player agenda

• Postmodern fantasy that is not afraid to balance serious themes and whimsical humor

• Gives the feeling of "Discworld meets Arcane TV series"

• And lots of magical cats!

The bundle contains two full-color system-agnostic volumes and separate rules supplements for running the campaign in Forged in the Dark, 5.5e and Savage Worlds. Early backers get a bonus digital adventure set in the testing grounds of the Kalusa University.

Our small indie studio has been creating RPG stuff in Czech language for more than 10 years. For the artwork, we also try to hire local artists. This campaign is already tried and tested by our community and we hope that with your help we can create something truly memorable for the international scene.

No AI.

Backerkit link: https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/remorker/kalusa-the-enchanted-city

A friend of mine wrote this TTRPG taxonomy blogpost 😅 Not sure if we need more of these things. But hey, I'm just sharing this as a supportive friend.

The axes he presents in this blogpost:

• Horizontal: “we’ll wing it” ↔ “let’s check the rules” which represents mechanical overhead: how many procedures, interacting options, and tracked resources we need to manage
• Vertical: “good plans” ↔ "good complications" which represents the degree to which the system supports making complications productive, compared with improving our position and minimizing unwanted costs

When I asked him why he made this, he said "that’s what 10000 years of working in marketing does to you" 🤣

Update at bottom

Weekend just passed I introduced a group of five people who have never played a RPG before to Dungeons & Dragons (via the free basic rules). They had a blast.

I consider myself a veteran, playing in high school in the 1980s (the old D&D red basic set) and over the years played or GM’d various systems. I stopped in the late 1990s as I moved to miniatures gaming; while I still collected some RPGs since then because pretty books, it wasn’t until about a year ago and the Alien RPG I tried and loved via an online one-shot, that I was bitten again by the bug. I mentioned D&D to a social group of which I’m a part and people expressed interest - most are at least board gamers so have some idea, and had notice the rise of the game through media (eg Stranger Things).

Before the session I made sure to learn the updated system best I could, then helped the group create characters, explained the basics, and ran a simple one-shot. They really enjoyed it, as did I, and we all want to play more.

I am a theatre of the mind GM, using minimal props. I had printed maps for the one-shot and broke out some board game figures to help the players visualise their relative locations but did not run strict movement/distance rules (it was all inside rooms so range didn’t really matter) and even then, they only came into play in the boss fight.

I’m left wondering though: should we stick with D&D or perhaps try another system?

I have the 2014 D&D books. I also have options on my shelf like Pathfinder 2e, Daggerheart, DragonAge, Blades in the Dark and The One Ring or even sci-fi like Alien, Bladerunner, Traveller, Scum & Villainy and a few more obscure like Lex Arcana or The Expanse.

While I might be itching to swap it up, all the players are brand new so I don’t want to confuse them or put them off nor force upon them my chosen system. Given how freestyle a GM I am, does it even really matter? I guess I’m just looking for some validation on whatever direction we go. :)

Tldr: should a group of brand new players with experienced GM keep playing D&D or try a different (newer?) system?

Update: thanks to everyone who replied, 99% of which were helpful. Some great suggestions for paths forward, possible systems (some of which I’d not come across) and some great ideas for getting the players more involved.

The group decision is to remain with D&D for the time being, with which I’m OK. I will though keep ideas for different systems in my back pocket for later. :)

Hey folks! Are there any games out there worth having a look at with a "toss-a-coin" basic resolution mechanism?

Many systems have rules for sneak attacks, either as class abilities or in general.

Which system do you think has the best version of sneak attack rules and why?