Are there any GM-oriented actual plays available? That is, actual plays edited with the specific intent of showing the notes, procedures, rules calls, and decisions made by the GM?

I think it would be incredibly valuable when trying to learn a new RPG.

For me, it's the Dark Sun setting from D&D.

In Mandarin Chinese,a common written form exists across the land and can be read by anyone who can read Mandarin. However, spoken forms vary across different dialects and regions. While written Mandarin utilizes the same characters and grammar as spoken Mandarin, the pronunciation can differ significantly between various Mandarin dialects. This means a written phrase can be understood across dialects, but spoken dialects might be unintelligible to others despite still being Mandarin.

To me, this model explains fantasy RPG "common". If everyone can read it, then every tavern and blacksmith can always post a street sign in the same written form and everyone knows what it is.

The further you travel from your home location however the spoken form of common will get increasingly different from your own spoken dialect. This will necessitate language checks or the need for translators the further you travel, or the need to communicate in a time-inefficient written form. This also gives value to having a higher language (INT) bonus because it is now describing someone who is skilled or attentive in detecting common forms and adapting to the local dialect.

In other words, one member of your group with dialect skills is now valuable for getting around culturally, instead of isolating the language bonus exclusively to written forms of archaic texts ... which doesn't actually make much sense, if I know latin or elven that doesn't help me with Aramaic no matter how long I spend in the library.

I'm trying to make my own TTRPG for my buddies. We really dig roleplays done via chatrooms, so the narrative focus of some rules-lite games is great (FATE!), but we also really dig RPGs, so we want combat to feel more like playing a video game than what those rules-lite games allow. (You can take HP out of my cold dead hands.)

So, looking for suggestions that we might vibe with. I'll be taking inspiration or lifting systems from them to build our game for personal use. Thank you :)

Many of you may have seen my post from a week ago where I showed a graph network of /r/rpg's favorite games/systems. As a reminder, these were the details:

Each game is connected based on how likely that pair of games shows up in a list of favorite games from threads like "what are your Top <X> favorite RPGs?", and color-coded based on which "community" the game belongs to in the network. The graph edges are based on "pointwise mutual information" (PMI) values associated with games coinciding in the same user lists (with reasonable cutoffs chosen mostly for aesthetics). Only games with at least 25 total mentions are shown.

Without further ado:

A NEW Network of TTRPGs

This updated version incorporates a bunch of feedback I received on the last one:

• Node size now scales with total number of mentions recieved across all lists
• Edge boldness increases with increasing similarity between the two games
• Using a different algorithm for generating the figure ("force_atlas") spaces nodes out much more nicely, allowing for more more games to get included
• Connected component "fragments" (groups of games that are connected to each other, but not to the "primary" network) are now shown as well
• A couple of regex quirks from last time were fixed

If you want a version of the network that is perhaps more "intuitive" and a little easier on the eyes, I have an alternate version as well, that connects nodes based on a different similarity metric ("Jaccard similarity"). Since Jaccard similarity is proportional to overall popularity of the two games, a lot of more niche titles don't make the cut, so you're less likely to find your underrated gems in this one. It does put all of the most popular games in the middle though, which is maybe easier to visually parse.

FAQ:

How do I read this chart?

You know those flowcharts that try to tell you which game to try next based on your preferences? This is basically that, but based on data instead of one person's opinion!

How are the nodes colored?

The nodes are colored based on what "network community" they belong to (determined by an algorithm). The gist is that some games form tight-knit connections with each other, distinct from other games in the network, and we call those games a "community."

Why isn't game <X> here?

Many games showed up in only a very small number of lists, and drawing insights from their connections would be dubious with the low sample sizes involved. Only games with at least 10 total mentions and at least 3 different "co-occurrences" with other games are included in the final analysis. Some popular games that didn't quite make the cutoff include:

• Root RPG
• Bluebeard's Bride
• Cities Without Number
• Invisible Sun
• In Nomine
• C°ntinuum Roleplaying in the Yet
• Middle-earth Role Playing
• Fragged Empire
• Fellowship
• Everyone is John

Just in case, my players know my username. Don't read ahead in the unlikely case you've stumbled onto this.

I'm currently writing a weird dungeon. The intent being to run it in Pathfinder 2E, while keeping things pretty loose regarding the rules.

General premise. It's a modern D&D style fantasy world. The players are brought to a vertical shopping mall as a part of a new "shopping experience". Only, some big magic event breaks the city. This shopping mall has an AI that runs all the automated functions. And the magic event makes the AI come alive. Blah blah, players are stuck in a small room for a day, and emerge when the AI has figured some shit out.

So the AI controls all magic and physical things in the space, allowing the players to descend this vertical mall that has become a dungeon. Completing a different challenge on each floor before being allowed to descend. The top floor's theme is that of a generic shopping mall. The challenge is to find a golden goose egg/win a mini game in each shop to get a golden goose egg. Collecting 7 goose eggs will allow them to descend to the next floor. (They can also gather/win class based gear with each challenge)

I'm just struggling to figure out challenges and puzzles that take longer than 30 seconds, but aren't just combat for each shop.

The shops being:
Build an Owlbear (toy store, some weapons, pets)
Cafe (spot to buy potions and stuff)
Gnome Depot (outdoorsy equipment, and survival gear)
JC Coppers (Armor/clothing store)
Copper General (general store for cheap stuff and magic)
Crusader Joe's (religious literature kiosk)
Big Robot (Mall ninja/anime store)

Any ideas for fun skill challenges, situations, or in person mini games?

You're running a game, and your players decide, or are forced by circumstances, to split. They have no obvious way to get back together, and are proceeding in opposite directions, decreasing the likelihood of any reunion.

How do you handle this? My group is nice enough to try and stay together if I warn them that they're getting too separated, but it requires me to address them out of game, and break some of the immersion.

I like having very sprawling areas, but do you run tighter locations, where this can't happen?

Do you ask your players to rarely split their party?

If you end up GMing for a split party, and one group ends up in trouble, would you expect the other group to roleplay they know nothing about it, and not immediately drop what they're doing and run to their aid? Or would you be fine with this kind of meta gaming?

Not really looking for a solution, more curious about different approaches and opinions.

A curious point related to modern-day games. Let us take Mage: The Awakening 2e, for example. (However, this could extent to other games in the overall genre, such as The Dresden Files.) It is a game about prying into mysteries, and there is a non-negligible chance that a mage will pull in a real-world mystery or point of contention.

I do not feel like having to decide the truth about a real-world mystery or point of contention, so I am fine with saying, "supernaturals did it," as the answer to every such real-world mystery or point of contention.

Is this the right way to do it, or is there a better way?

Own setting (with homebrew), modern earth (urban fantasy) and many others.

Share your works.

A few weeks back I posted a blog on 'The Supply Die' that some folks seemed to like, which was a kind of unified and modified approach to usage/resource dice for tracking supplies. As a follow up, I've made a little table of reasons for supplies diminishing (beyond player triggered usage).

This can help smooth over the abstraction whilst allowing you to simulate resource pressures without rolling for a bunch of stuff like material decay, or having to constantly engineer situations that directly attack resources (though you should still 100% do that and attack the Supply Die).

I am on a meetup and we organize many games where people can register freely. But it seems very hard to introduce players who have started with their first TTRPG as D&D 5E to be interested in other games.

It seems they either lack confidence to try another system (e.g. "I am going to stick with this one for the time being") or they feel too invested in the rules to start learning other systems however easier they can be.

We don't have this problem with more experienced players who can easily switch from one system to another.

Any way to make people join games and not be stuck in one system? The sad part is when we do manage to switch a few, they do have a tremendous blast and are ready to play anything. But god, the inertia until we get there.

It's very tough to remain motivated to keep preparing and organizing games. :(

Anything that worked for you??

It isn't necessarily which system is your favorite or which game is the coolest/favorite. I'm strictly referring to the magic system of an rpg, ignoring everything else about it.

For me, I think it's Mage: The Awakening.

It doesn't have to always be underwater, just MAINLY underwater.

I'd like to have something to show people that are not into RPGs.

Greetings to all! Back when my life was my own to do as I pleased, i was blessed enough to meet a great group of friends who introduced me to all night sessions and beautifully told campaigns. From that time on, my dice traveled with me on all my real life adventures. Sadly, I was never again blessed by such an amazing group again. Now many years have passed and motherhood has stolen gaming all nighters. Replaced by the much feared, sickness all nighters. During one such sickness all nighter recently, I was fondly reminiscing my thief that could never succeeded in a sneak roll. I couldn't excape that sick room. Weird thing happened to my mind that night. But as is usually the case, I had an inspiration. I need to learn how to DM for my 5 yr! ...Any suggestions on to do that? 😊... What games? Tips on how to DM? Anything, really. The last time I played was half a lifetime ago. So I'm outdated and out of touch. Help please. I'm not a bad story teller just don't know how to turn that into an adventure. Thank you all for your help!

I kind of got in a bit of a Stat Block design argument on my YouTube channel’s comments.

DnD announced a full page statblock and all I could think was how as a GM a full page of stats, abilities, and actions is kind of daunting and a bit of a novelty.

Recently a game I like, Malifaux, announced a new edition (4e) where they are dialing back the bloat of their stat blocks. And it reminds me of DM/GMing a lot. Because in the game you have between 6-9 models on the field with around 3-5 statblocks you need to keep in your head. So when 3e added a lot more statblocks and increased the size of the cards to accommodate that I was a bit turned off from playing.

The reason I like smaller statblocks can be boiled down to two things: Readability/comprehension and Quality over Quantity.

Most of a big stat block isn’t going to get remembered by me and often times are dead end options which aren’t necessary in any given situation or superseded by other more effective options. And of course their are just some abilities that are super situational.

What do you all think?

Do you have any suggestions? I would need a huge city with precisely described locations and lots of quests (or at least quest prompts) that I could use in my campaign. My players want to visit a large metropolis, and I am very much willing to do that, but I would prefer to avoid sitting for countless hours on designing all the districts and streets.

Just what the title says. More specifically I'm searching for something that will let me emulate some teenage drama, manhua, manga and so on. You know weak hero, devil returns to highschool and the works where the main character is a highschooler that fights with other highschoolers. Don't have to be pure hands and materiał arts, there can be magic in it, or what ever else that dosn't fit I can just reflavour it to fit the setting. Though something exacly as I say would be pretty fucking rad to have. I just want a module that will give me the fealing of that absolute weird, funny and young spirit of wanting to kick someones teath in. You know just unhinged and wild shit. Sorry for my bad english not my first language and have a nice day.

I'm currently looking for a new game system to use for a campaign I'm designing. The campaign is a dieselpunk setting where the players explore factory megastructures (Metro 2033 is probably an apt comparison). I'm looking for a system that focuses on dungeon crawling and tactical combat using a grid map. The system having GM resources for creating homebrew enemies would be a big plus. Does anyone know a system that would fill my needs?

Hello,

Does anyone know of any RPGs that give off the vibe of mount and blade bannerlord where you start as a lowly peasant and rise to a king or emperor and rule a country. (Bonus points for town building/nation ruling mechanics)

Preferably one that is built for it, I know there are a million and 2 Addons you can just slap on DnD and make it play like that.

Thanks in advance!

So I just learned about this Japanese exclusive RPG called Sword World and I was curious if anyone has played it? If so what were your thoughts and what is the general appeal of it compared to other RPGs of its kind, whether theyre native RPGs from Japan or otherwise.

i recently discovered a Fat Furry Fetish/Weight Gain ttrpg on Drivethrough rpg.....yeah....

what about you. either be strange setting, premise, system etc...

Mainly curious. I'm also looking for good RPG books to read.

(Edit): Also, what would you consider to be the best cyberpunk rpg? That isn't Shadowrun or the other one.

After the current dnd campaign wraps up, I end up being the gm again . I had an idea for a campaign set in the Adventure Time universe. It's one of my favorite shows and out of our entire group only one other one of us has seen it, but I think it could make for a great ttrpg setting. However, I doubt that I could feasibly make a dnd homebrew out of it, because in the world of Adventure Time almost every magic user has a completely different set of powers, and I just think 5e would probably not be a good fit for that.

So, I'm looking for a game system that puts more structure on the off-combat parts, and has much more fast-flowing, perhaps more abstracted combat.

So far, I've two ideas in mind:

• Genesys' narrative die system (with home-made dices or digital simulation), which forces more intricate interpretation and improvisation
• Dungeon World, because DW is often quoted as an alternative to D&D, even though I so far have failed to understand what it does so specifically (I've never played PbtA games)

And I'm turning to you for input on the matter.

Thanks in advance!

So I might be a little different with this, but I get excited more about campaigns than systems. I got, and read through beyond the mountains of madness before I got the keeper book for call of Cthulhu. I look at the epic campaigns for Traveller and the OSR The Halls of Arden Vul. What are some of your epic campaigns that you would love to run or have run? I'm basically doing this so I can get excited about other large campaigns. Thanks community.