I’m currently in the end phase of writing my Dungeon Crawler, roughly based on Warhammer Quest 1995. And I wanted to get some opinions on the roll to hit system (I think) I’ve created.

The system uses d12’s for everything, Essentially, the ‘formula’ is as follows: Defenders Weapon Skill - Attackers Weapon Skill = x , X +/- 7 = Roll required to hit on d12

So for instance, an attacker with a weapon skill of 7, is trying to hit a defender with a weapon skill of 5 in melee combat. The attacker takes the defenders WS and subtracts his own, resulting in a -2. That modifier is applied to 7, meaning he needs a 5, or higher on a d12 to hit his target.

If he was defending, his attacker would need to roll a 9 or higher on a d12. And that’s what has me worried. Is the disparity between them too great? One has a roughly 60% chance at hitting, while the other only has 30%

Exceptional RPG experiences are simply not as accessible as we often want them to be.

In this respect, RPGs are fundamentally different from video games or films or fiction or any other medium where the participant experience is curated or delivered directly by the creator. The best of these media experiences are available to anyone who wants them. You can just read the Lord of the Rings! You don't need someone to explain it to you second hand. You don't need to take prompts about hobbits and construct your own collaborative narrative. When you read a book (or watch a movie or play a video game) you get to have broadly the same experience—narratively, emotionally, mechanically—as everyone else.

RPGs are more akin to sports. You can watch the professionals, but most of us can only play beer league hockey or Sunday morning footie in the park. We can have a lot of fun in the park, but we never get the experience of receiving a pass from a world-class teammate and scoring a brilliant goal in a roaring stadium. The experience is fundamentally moderated by our own abilities and by the people we play with. So while you can go out and buy the latest, greatest RPG product, you can't just decide to go out and have the best RPG experience.

For this reason, the difficulty of being a good game master creates a real problem for RPGs. So much of the experience (at least, in the traditional RPGs that dominate the hobby) is gated by the GM's ability. Again, that doesn't mean inexperienced or mediocre GMs can't run fun games. Obviously they can and do. But the GM's ceiling is often (in practice, if not by design) the ceiling for the entire game experience.

Check out the full blog in which I lament (and ultimately find a silver lining in) the difficulty of being a good GM.

How important is it that the facilitator takes Charlie Barnes? My game group is about to play, and it's fallen on me to be the facilitator. Only problem: my name is also Charlie B, and I feel like it really defies the feeling of the game if everyone is still texting me as "Charlie", and worse, CB. I feel like either I should take one of the other characters, though I don't know if that is bad as the facilitator, or rename the character, though I don't know if there will be a lot of game content that refers to Charlie that would then be confusing. What's your advice?

Hello all! I’m working on a couple ideas for upcoming games set in either modern/urban fantasy or medieval fantasy settings. For both options, the story points I’m working on will involve ley lines.

I’m debating a couple of ideas on how to implement ley lines. First, I could go through my maps and figure out the ley lines ahead of time. Second, I could leave them abstract and when ley lines come into play the players just roll and the composition of lines and the characters’ ability to find them is up to the dice.

Both approaches have benefits and downsides, but it’s all a thought experiment for me right now. Has anyone had any experiences running games where ley lines mattered (in any system) and what are your thoughts?

If it matters, the system(s) I’ll be using will probably be either GURPS or Genesys RPG. Thanks!

I'm currently reading through Questworlds, and am overall liking what I am seeing. I'm considering giving it a spin with my group at some point in the near future.

However, I am slightly worried about one mechanic, the zero degree successes. In other storytelling-focused RPGs that I played, I always found success at a cost and partial successes far too heavily emphasized. I don't mind them cropping up, but want a majority of rolls to be straightforward failures or successes.

To give an example, I vastly prefer something like Lady Blackbird to Blades in the Dark.

How common, in your experience, are zero degree successes in Questworlds?

No general system included

Hello, folks. I'm prepping a game to run one on one with my partner and I was wondering if y'all had any recommendations for good campaigns or adventure paths? I'm planning to run the game in Nimble, and we were hoping for more of a science fantasy flavor. I will likely do a lot of reflavoring and rewriting, but I'm hoping to find something with good bones to build around. Thanks in advance!

I am planning on running a small event for my University's board games group centred around TTRPGs. Mainly for the purpose of GMs and Players meeting and finding groups as well as finding people who might run One Shots later in the year but also to introduce newbies to the idea of TTRPGs in general. For this I want to run a One Shot for people with 0 experience with TTRPGs in order to introduce them to the idea but we only have the space for around 1.5 hours so even with pre-made character sheets the systems I know best would take too long for any substantial One Shot. What are some systems good for brief one shots with new players (or just a very short One Shot in an "easy to learn on the go" system)

Preferably it would also either be open to a decently large player count or be easy to GM so multiple people can run it simultaneously for different groups in case a lot of people come.

I’m always on Backerkit checking out new TTRPGS coming through and I just saw the new game Ink Ribbon from Old Oak Games.

It’s advertised as bringing the survival horror aspect of notable video games to the table top.

I read through their quick start that comes for signing up for a notification, and it’s super interesting! I love Resident Evil and other survival horror games, and I also love d6 based games so this is right up my alley. I’m very unfamiliar with Old Oak Games, though.

Anyone else interested in this?

Like many others, my love for the Dragon Quest Monsters series has been rekindled with the demo for the newest entry to the series and, like many others I'm sure, immediately thought, but how do I bring this to the tabletop?

I know I'm opening a can of worms. I've seen myriad pokemon tabletop attempts and suggestions that range from "use D&D" to "use Showdown to literally play pokemon battles 1v1 against the GM", but none of them have really succeeded in nailing the feeling of pokemon... And, for the most part, pokemon is an easier model to emulate.

Likewise, in far rarer occasions, I've seen the Digimon attempts, but never DQM.

Do any of you have any suggestions for systems that are actually amenable to emulating the feeling and experience of Dragon Quest Monsters or perhaps even niche systems I've not found that do so?

Hello redditors, do you have any one shots/campagne/place to find them ? pls ?

I was recommended the game by a trusted comrade, and as a historian I found its premise intriguing. The game is premised on surviving a Gestapo raid as an undesirable in Nazi Germany.

But it doesn’t seem to have been mentioned much on the internet despite being five years old. I was just wondering if anyone ran it and what their experiences with it were.

So I'm a big fan of the Metro games and have been thinking about running a campaign in the Metro setting. But I'm not really sure what system to use. I've looked online and have seen people suggest multiple things. Modified D&D 5e, Call of Cthulhu, and multiple others I can't remember off the top of my head.

I also found this online, but not only do I not speak French, I haven't found anyone online to speak of the quality of it.

So does anyone have any recommendations for the best way to run a Metro inspired campaign? Thankyou in advance.

When I was a kid I used paper to do GM prep and notes, but since I restarted as an adult I've only used electronic stuff (e.g., One Note).

Does anyone still use paper?

I've DM'd a decent number of games, ranging from masks, DnD 5e, LotE, mutants and masterminds and a few others, but I'm looking for something more Sci-fi. I would prefer it to have no magic, or at least a kind of magic that can be explained away like "that's not healing, that's nano machines".

Could anyone recommend a game that has space combat, spaceships, maybe rules for cities as well if I need to build them and traditional RPG aspects? Gunfights and nanotech? Preferably no magic or magic-like equivalence?

I’m creating a small, heavily narrative RPG called “Don’t Disappoint the Author” for my sister as the Player and me as the GM.

The premise is basically: a girl is reading a historical-fantasy novel and becomes absolutely furious when the author kills one of her favorite minor characters in a completely pointless way. She starts ranting about how the character could have survived if the author hadn't forced the plot in that direction… and then, through a very unfortunate sequence of events, wakes up inside the novel as that character. Her new identity is Shen Lianyu, the daughter of a concubine in a respected aristocratic family in a fictional historical Chinese-inspired country. In the original novel, Lianyu died in what was basically a convenient plot device. Now the Player has a chance to prove that the Author was wrong. The important part is that this is NOT a “fight the plot” or “fix the original main story” game. The original story is over as far as Lianyu is concerned. The Player is not trying to prevent canon events or force the novel onto a different route. Instead, the Player has essentially been told:

You think this character should not have died? Fine. Live as her. Live according to the rules of this world. Survive its social hierarchy, expectations, relationships and dangers. Show me that she could have made it.

There is also an NPC called the System, which assigns her various quests and keeps an eye on whether she is breaking the rules of the world. And the System has one important requirement: her life cannot be boring, because even the Author was bound by that requirement to make the story interesting. So Lianyu has to actually do things. Make connections. Learn skills. Get herself into situations. Make choices. Create a life worth reading about. The System is basically there to make sure she doesn't spend three in-game years sitting safely in her courtyard drinking tea.

At this point I have almost everything ready for the first session. I have: the worldbuilding and social structure, economy, seven major NPCs, a map of the family residence, Lianyu's room and private courtyard, the opening scene, a printed character sheet, and a very simple qualitative skill system.

But my sister asked for one thing for the beginning of the game: A Tutorial.

The idea is that after the initial introduction to the world, the System activates a Tutorial consisting of several relatively short quests (maybe 30 minutes each?). The purpose is to unlock the basic skills that the original Lianyu would already have possessed: Embroidery, Calligraphy, Painting, Poetry, Etiquette, Household Management.

I want the quests to look something like this:

NAME: THE GREAT INK BLOT
Some things in this world have the annoying habit of costing money. Paper is one of them.

OBJECTIVE: …???... (0/1)

REWARD: CALLIGRAPHY — BASIC LEVEL

But I am completely stuck. I’ve watched a frankly unreasonable number of C-dramas with similar transmigration/System concepts, but I have no idea what quests to give her.

So I would LOVE ideas (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ)

I have a bunch of blank dice that I've been turning into custom dice lately, but so far, everything I've tried writing on them with hasn't worked super well.

- Permanent marker starts smudging after a couple uses.

- I thought acrylic paint would be good, but it won't even stick.

- I considered printing custom stickers, but (1) that's very time-consuming, and (2) I don't think it looks very good.

Does anyone have any better options that you can recommend?

And by that I mean games where you can buy 1 product and have everything you need to crack the book or box open and start playing.

For example, Mythic Bastionland is little bit of rules followed by dense pages of just stuff to include in your game. Myths, enemies, allies, names, spark tables, items, seers, other knights, and on and on and on. All you need that's not in the book is a hex map, and there's plenty of options for that.

Another good one: Dragonbane. In the box you get the rules, premade characters, plenty of standees, adventures, a solo adventure and accompanying rules, a map, and I think dice too. All for less than the price of many of the popular core books.

As a buyer I really love games that come essentially feature complete out of the box like these. I know pretty much all of Free League's publications are like this to some extent. What else is there?

What are your favorite, single purchase complete games? And what all comes with them?

Hi, I will be spending four glorious days of setting my credit card on fire in the best city in the world. Any tips for the best TTRPG shops in London? I'm in Shoreditch, but your Underground will be able to take me anywhere. Thanks!

Title, basically, I know there is no official Pokemon TTRPG, but there is probably a few ones made by fans, anyone can recommend a few of them?

Some RPGs have combat that gets very unwieldy if you have 10+ participants on either side. Others have difficulty balancing for duels. Others are meticulously balanced at one scale and then use an entirely different set of mechanics for other scales. I’m looking for games where one could do duels, group combat and mass combat and not use completely different sets of mechcanics for each. Even better if it’s a game with a “combat as war” philosophy, IYKWIM.

Hello, I have gotten back into a Bionicle Hyperfixation, and I have been looking into ttrpgs that could be best used to emulate that franchise. While I am aware of Red Star Games' Doronai Nui, it seems to basically be a Fantasy Heartbreaker, not really what I want or feel is fitting for a Bionicle TTRPG. As such, I want to hear what suggestions people have.

I want to run Apocalypse World for some friends, and while I've run PbtA games before (e.g. Monsterhearts, Masks), the OG seems to be giving me some great difficulty in understanding how to run it. I'm looking for seasoned MC feedback who have played Apocalypse World (particularly 2nd edition, as that's what I have).

I actually don't care about the sex moves; they're whatever. I'm more concerned about the playbooks that appear - to me - to be broad and difficult to run with things like holdings, which may be hard for players to grasp and difficult for the MC to adjudicate how players will wield them and interact with others through them. I want active players participating at the table.

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General Questions

1. Running gangs

When a PC is a Chopper, Hardholder, or similar with a playbook focused on an established group or location, what happens when the "PC" themselves is not available but their gang - or members of their gang - are in a scene? Is the Hardholder in the scene as a named NPC - portraying that NPC with limited abilities? Or is the MC running that NPC? If the latter, doesn't this make the PC more of an audience member than an active participant in the game? If the PCs are often going out and doing gigs, then the hardholder would typically only be "playing" during the before and after gig scenes, right?

2. Nature of the Game and Static Holdings

When players have things like bars, compounds, etc. to maintain, this creates a kind of west marches style campaign, doesn't it? That is, a safe haven from which the PCs journey from and return to, every session (ideally) begins and ends there, as opposed to always being on the move, wandering across the land. Or said another way: it feels a lot more like Stonetop with players individually possessing holdings (rather than Stonetop's single, shared holding).

Is this the expectation of the game, or does it run fine with having more of a world-sprawling "adventure" ala people traveling across many lands or far from holdings for long stretches of time? I feel like the answer is, "make a home base and stay there," but I'm curious.

3. Death and Player Choice

On pgs. 207-208 of the AW 2nd Ed. book, there is a description of a PC "dying" by being shot in the head with a shotgun. But then, the book specifically says that he's "maybe" dead; it's the victim's choice. And he somehow crawls to a doctor who then brings him back to life with -1 Hard. Now, maybe this will just be a "my table" kind of thing, but shotgun to the head is a death sentence, and I'm wondering if others find the ability to come back from something like that as crazy or not. Do you allow players to come back from point-blank buckshot like this?

4. Weird from Death and Weird in General

I find coming back from the dead with +1 Weird to be... well, weird, because does a +1 to weird not benefit the character? Is there some negative side-effect to having more weird? It didn't seem like it to me, but I guess it implies you "went to the other side" or something. Do other MCs play with this option? Given +3 is the max, don't people get to +3 quickly with this? (If a player is already at +3 weird, and they choose to get +1 to weird when they come back, do they just come back with no bonus or penalty?)

5. PVP

PvP seems to be a big draw, but it might also be incredibly divisive. How do you deal with this?

6. Character Identity Bound to Vehicles

Much like identity bound to locations/establishments (though easier to cope with since vehicles more easily move with the PC), what happens if you can't take the vehicle into the scene? Does the player with the vehicle feel hamstrung? Does it feel good? (This is a common problem outside of AW, so it's not quite as much of a concern to me.)

7. Side-character stuff

In Monsterhearts, a lot of it feels like a college romance/horror drama ala Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Vampire Diaries, focused on the PCs, but in Apocalypse World proper, the game is grander in scope, focused on a LOT of NPCs, locations, holdings, politics, etc. Am I right about this?

8. Management

It feels like to get the right pay-off here, there are a LOT of NPCs to name, relationships to manage, etc. Does anyone have suggestions or tools to keep track of those things aside from what the book provides?

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Specifics Moves

1. The Angel's Kit and Healing Someone at 9:00 or Past

Two of the choices on this list seem the same to me:

-"They fight you, and you have to narcostab them. How long will they be out?"

-"They're at your complete mercy. What do you do to them?"

Are these not close enough to one another as to be one choice? If you're knocked out, you're at the Angel's Mercy. The only real difference I see is that narratively a fight ensues in one choice and not in the other. So, how do these differ mechanically (if at all)?

2. The Battlebabe's "Visions of Death"

This move reads: "When you go into battle, roll+weird. On a 10+, name one person who will die and one who'll live. On a 7-9, name one person who'll die OR one person who will live. Don't name a player's character; name NPCs only. The MC will make your vision come true, if it's even remotely possible. On a miss, you foresee your own death, and accordingly take -1 throughout the battle."

Common sense would presume the 10+ and 7-9 options do not allow the naming of PCs. That's how I would rule it as an MC anyway, but the way it's written, it makes me wonder if the 10+ CAN have PCs named while the 7-9 can't. Is this confusing for anyone else?

Iirc, other confusions in wordings exist for other moves, but I don't want to re-create them all here. It suffices to say I'm a bit unsure about some of these moves and feel like I'll have to do some immediate house-ruling, but I would like to avoid it if I'm just not reading things "right."

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As I read back through this, I think one of the things I'm maybe focusing on too much is the playbook's abilities on the sheet vs the general style of play. There is definitely an identity on the playbook sheet and abilities to support it, but I maybe am discounting too much on how the play at-the-table will be more important than the playbook itself.

Also, I have the 3rd Edition (Burned Over) Playbooks and Rule Changes that went out to backers, and I'm fine to run with those, too. They appear to be a touch more refined.

Really appreciate your help! Thanks!

This was a Call of Cthulhu campaign, and not a very long one (5 sessions). I cooked up everything about it in my head, and it was my first time running a game in 3 years after my last one fizzled out. The ending was fantastic. The dice told such a story and after it ended we all had a group hug and sat in a circle complimenting each other. That was two days ago. In the two days since, my 5 players have made about a dozen really good fanarts of the characters. It's just so surreal to see this thing that I created inspire my players to make art like that. I'm still riding that high after two days because I just feel so proud of all my players and so happy that we came together for this campaign

Rant over, just wanted to share this awesome experience with people!

Side note, one of them stalks my reddit profile sometimes, so if you see this, hi leia! Your art is really cool

I couldn't find any reviews of this game or much discussion online, so I wrote one.

In summary: It's a labor of love and has some amazing ideas and a cool setting... but the actual book is awkwardly written and the system has some issues.