I didn't want to clutter up the Dungeons and Dakka thread with talk about non-D&D RPGs so I figured I would start a new thread.....

I went to a family gathering, and there is a segment of the people there who always want me to GM some sort of RPG experience for them. We have done this for the past decade or so, and since it is basically a one-shot I have never played actual D&D with them. Instead I typically bring something else for them to try. In the past we have played fantasy based games, star wars WEG, TSR Marvel Advanced Super Heroes, TSR Top Secret, Shadowrun One-shots, and other random games.

This time, we played Those Dark Places from Osprey one night. On the other, nights played a homebrew Space Mecha RPG game. Both had very simple character creation and core mechanics. The audience rarely plays RPGs, so I always bend the system to make it work. Both games were a hit.

Those Dark Places uses a very simple system called CASE, and rolling a d6, adding your CASE score, and a bonus based on your role on the ship. It heavily invokes the feeling of 80's space horror. In this case, the 'emergency" crew was awoken from deep sleep half way through their journey to collision alarms. Something had hit their ship and taken out their long range communication array. Some crew had to space walk out to repair it, and found an ancient "coffin" from a long forgotten mission wedged in their equipment. They broke it out and let it drift off. Afterwards, the crew members began to experience hallucinations of a ancient space suit walking the halls of their ships. In addition, their navigation system kept re-routing them back to the coffin over-and-over again. The apparition became increasingly aggressive leading to failures in various key systems around the ship and some crew men having episodes. Eventually, they space walked out, retrieved the coffin again, opened it, salted the body (too much watching Supernatural), burned the bones, had a funeral, and shot the coffin back out into space. Apparition handled.

For the Space Mecha game, we used a simple mechanics based on Star Wars WEG and placed it in a human only universe. The players were Peace Envoys from a Solar System wide governing body made up of a few Great Powers. They went to a small asteroid base to help them determine the fate of some lost prospecting vessels. En route, they were ambushed by some unknown mecha, which they dispatched. Upon arriving at the station, they had to investigate and then went out to find the missing ships. They found one as a wreck, that pointed to an attack. The second was found intact, but there they were attacked by more enemy mecha. This time they were able to get some of the enemy pilots to surrender after dusting several of their pals, taking their temp base, and securing the second prospecting ship. From there, they were able to unravel that the plot and reveal the nefarious actions of the big bad in a dramatic return to the colony base.

Overall, we had 6 players for Those Dark Places and 8(!) for the Space Mecha game. People opted to play these games rather than other board and card games we had tons of. Therefore, I guess it was a successful week of RPGs.

What non-D&D RPGs have you played lately? Tell us about it!

Also, has anyone read or tried the following games:
- Sigil and Shadow
- Dune
I would love to hear more about them.

One of our goto single shot games is always Paranoia. Your character comes in a six-pack, the no-out-of-game rule is hilarious, and the rules can be bent all you want.

Often times you can run this without even having character sheets since it is against the rules for the players to know the rules.

Veldrain wrote:

Often times you can run this without even having character sheets since it is against the rules for the players to know the rules.

Though to be fair, that isn't as funny as it used to be, since the secret GM sections of books (do not read) largely went out of favor after the 80s. So the parody is a bit lost, when originally it was a mockery of games that really did that.

Currently playing pathfinder 2nd. Much better system then 5e in my opinion. D&D removed a lot of the supposedly complicated parts for 5e to make it more approachable and I don't think they really succeeded. It's still overly complicated for what it is and combat takes forever still and you lost out on a lot of player choice for basically the same end result. With 5e the players are too super hero-ish for me. Pathfinder 2e players are strong but enemies are just as bad so it balances out. Plus being able to heal with out a clearic or just giving people a cure light wounds want is a big bonus.

Before that I did a one off harry potter game using the Apocalypse game engine. Really fun, easy system that the new Avatar TLAB RPG is using. Really light weight and narrative focused with, surprisingly, dice rolls that can matter. Good for kids and people that don't want to memorize whole sections of a rulebook. I think the core rules I had for the Harry Potter one was like 3 pages long.

The harry potter one didn't have much room for really leveling (and you did so by advancing school year) so I don't know how long you could run a game off of that but I'm interested to see how the Avatar one is.

Link to the avatar kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/magpiegames/avatar-legends-the-roleplaying-game

The last few games I have played have all been Free League games.

They come in slightly different flavors geared towards the settings of the various games with extra mechanics or slight modifications of the core rules to fit the themes of the game.

Mainly it's been Forbidden Lands (the fantasy variant) which is very OSR with a lot of quality of life modern mechanics and touches.

But I also have Coriolis and Alien for Sci Fi with some darker elements and a bit of Horror.

All great games. I think Free League and their core mechanics are some of the best out there at the moment.

Eric, as you might expect, I bought a copy of Sigil & Shadow. It uses the same system as Jackals which IIRC you did not have much interest in trying. Setting-wise, it also reminds me a bit of Jackals in terms of being jargon-heavy. For me, the main issue is the book does not include a starter adventure. As I get older, this is more of a deal breaker for me as I have less interest and time in producing content rather than actually gaming. Funny enough, S&S begins with a whole blurb about being designed for grown ups with less time.

My copy of Dune from Modiphius has not yet shipped.

I have been and currently am running Alien RPG. It is, IMO, utterly fantastic.

Two other RPGs are very high on my to-play list: Age of Sigmar Soulbound and the Talisman RPG.

Thanks Manchu! Appreciate the thoughts. I saw the Dune game at a LGS and was tempted. However, it was shrink wrapped so I could not open it up! Without knowing much about it, I was not ready to drop the money on it at that time.

@MonkeySloth- I used a Powered by the Apocalypse system to run a Monster of the Week game for my immediate family last summer. It was a fun and super easy system to learn. I think it could really shine for teaching people how to RPG.

 Easy E wrote:


@MonkeySloth- I used a Powered by the Apocalypse system to run a Monster of the Week game for my immediate family last summer. It was a fun and super easy system to learn. I think it could really shine for teaching people how to RPG.

I was really skeptical at first, as I do love crunch, but found that the common result of you succeed yet something unexpected happens to really drive some fun role playing in ways I wasn't expecting. That whole mechanic for success sold me on it.

Getting ready to run a Powered by the Apocalypse game for some RPG noobs tonight. I will let you know how it goes.

Related, I was considering picking up the Fate Core rules and the Genesys core rules to generate my own content. Any one have any recommendations. I have to admit, the system for Genesys does not look to be my cup of tea, but I would like to hear what others who have used think about it.

 Easy E wrote:
Getting ready to run a Powered by the Apocalypse game for some RPG noobs tonight. I will let you know how it goes.

Related, I was considering picking up the Fate Core rules and the Genesys core rules to generate my own content. Any one have any recommendations. I have to admit, the system for Genesys does not look to be my cup of tea, but I would like to hear what others who have used think about it.

I have next to no expeirence with Fate so can't help there.

Gensys is a good set of mechanics. The narrative element in the dice is fantastic. Sometimes it can slow things down. The players and GM can get pulled out of the narrative element of the moment when deciding how to spend things to get boosts. I tend to shy away from those types of mechanics as I want my players as invested in the story as possible and don't want the mechanics to kick them out of my carefully crafted immersion. As far as the core book generating content? It never struck me as having that great a set of tools for it. More a bare bone tool box to get people started wit the bulk of the work on the GMs shoulders.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record... Forbidden Lands core books have some of the best content generation tools I have ever seen. From creating monsters, loot, towns, npcs, stores, dungeons, keeps and castles.... The game is just filled with little random tables that are extremely powerful and robust and can easily be used in other games.

 Easy E wrote:
Getting ready to run a Powered by the Apocalypse game for some RPG noobs tonight. I will let you know how it goes.

Related, I was considering picking up the Fate Core rules and the Genesys core rules to generate my own content. Any one have any recommendations. I have to admit, the system for Genesys does not look to be my cup of tea, but I would like to hear what others who have used think about it.

I've played a lot of Fate (of the Dresden Files flavour) and have also had a go making my own system for The Venture Bros. using the FATE system.

It is pretty easy to homebrew whatever you want for the system as it is so mechanically light. Want to create a new monster? Just decide how much health it has (number of stress boxes), what its skills are, whether it has any special powers (stunts) and what aspects it would have.

As an example, lets make Shelob from The Lord of The Rings.

She's pretty sturdy so he give her a high endurance skill which gives her quite a few physical stress boxes. She is also a bit of a coward, preferring ambushes to a straight up fight, so we set her Will quite low, meaning she doesn't have many mental stress boxes. She attacks using her teeth and stinger so we give her the melee skill at some level. Fill out the rest as you see fit.

Okay, now lets give her some aspects. We give her "Ambush Predator", she'll be able to invoke this to get bonuses or re-rolls on actions related to this and the players could also invoke it to get bonuses to fight or fend her off in a straight fight, as she will not want to stick around if her initial attack doesn't go to plan. We also give her "8 eyes see in shadow", she can obviously use this to help her see in the dark but the players can use it to their advantage if they utilise light to defend against her as well.

For some stunts, we give her "Poison Stinger", a successful melee attack from her stinger requires an endurance save against a set value to prevent having the "paralysed" aspect placed on the player and "Chitin armour" which reduces damage by a flat amount.

And that's about done! Obviously some gaps as I'm just doing this quick and dirty off the top of my head but you can always add new aspects, skills or stunts on the fly.

With regards to creating homebrew systems, that depends on the system you want to build. The basic method of resolving all actions is simple (roll 4 fudge dice, total up the pluses and minuses and add the result to your skill level) and the mechanical bonuses from invoking aspects are also simple (if an aspect could apply to a check, you can spend a fate point to invoke it for either a +2 to the check or a re-roll of the 4 fudge dice). You can build more complex systems around that quite easily, typically just by combining 2 or more checks to pull of an action and adding some set consequences to failing or succeeding by set amounts. For instance in the Dresden Files, using magic came with the downside of being mentally exhausting, meaning you took mental stress when using your magic. In addition to this, if you ended up channelling too much power then you would suffer backlash from it in the form of extra stress.

And the core rules are entirely free so it's easy to just give it a skim and see how you like it.

I have always wondered if FATE is just a variant of the FUDGE universal system. I all ready have that, so am not sure I need FATE.

Also, the Powered by the Apocalypse game went good. The players had a range of RPG experience, but seemed to enjoy the more narrative and mechanics light approach to it. One even said they wanted to play again today, but I had to put the breaks on that!

Has anyone else tried Blades in the Dark or any of the games derived from it? Beam Saber. Band of Blades.Scum and Villainy.

I love the system. It's got this minimalist simplicity to it, but its robust enough to handle nearly anything you can throw at it. The base rules are a narrative game but it's easy to hack in tactical combat if that's something you want and changing the setting or tone of the rule set is very simple.

Have not tried, but have heard good things about it.

Just going to GM the 2nd session of a Pulp Cthulhu campaign this Thursday I began back in Halloween 2020. My cousin and my friend are the PCs. It's based in modern-day (2014) and heavily inspired by True Detective (it's even set in Lousianna, the 1st session they were investigating a gruesome murder in the City of Franklin which is south of Lafeyette) or as I pitched it: True Detective vs the Mythos. Or True Detective vs the Cthulhu Mythos vs my own Mythos that I wish to pitch an animated show about one day. I had a lot of fun GMing it.
Just prepping for the next session now, thank the Emperor for Google Maps as it helps quite a bit for me to get a "view" of Lousianna or more particularly Baton Rouge as it's based there this session.

I made the mistake of making the PCs be detectives in Lousianna's State Police, which posed a few problems, the first being that the two scenario books I bought The Things We Left Behind and Fear's Sharp Little Needles, were incredibly hard to convert from them being for independent Investigators so I had to make the last scenario from scratch, which was much harder than I thought it'd be. And the 2nd is the incredible level of resources and backup they have from law enforcement, I did eventually manage to separate them so they had to confront the monster at the end of the scenario. I'm hoping to get them fired from the State Police and so pursue the Cult(s) conspiracy(s) themselves and that this session will really give them the inspiration to pursuit it.

 LordofHats wrote:
Has anyone else tried Blades in the Dark or any of the games derived from it? Beam Saber. Band of Blades.Scum and Villainy.

I love the system. It's got this minimalist simplicity to it, but its robust enough to handle nearly anything you can throw at it. The base rules are a narrative game but it's easy to hack in tactical combat if that's something you want and changing the setting or tone of the rule set is very simple.

Played both Blades in the Dark and Band of Blades, very good impressions from both, and have been playtesting a couple of FitD games from friends.

Also been playing and translating Lancer: the "out of the mech" part of the game is pretty much BitD.

 Adrassil wrote:
I did eventually manage to separate them so they had to confront the monster at the end of the scenario. I'm hoping to get them fired from the State Police and so pursue the Cult(s) conspiracy(s) themselves and that this session will really give them the inspiration to pursuit it.

Clearly, the influence of the Cult either gets them fired or ostracized within the department. Then, they could still be State Police officers and still do that job AND work the Cult cases on the side. That sounds a lot harder to juggle though for both players and the GM.

The cult getting them fired is an easy hook.

 Easy E wrote:

 Adrassil wrote:
I did eventually manage to separate them so they had to confront the monster at the end of the scenario. I'm hoping to get them fired from the State Police and so pursue the Cult(s) conspiracy(s) themselves and that this session will really give them the inspiration to pursuit it.

Clearly, the influence of the Cult either gets them fired or ostracized within the department. Then, they could still be State Police officers and still do that job AND work the Cult cases on the side. That sounds a lot harder to juggle though for both players and the GM.

The cult getting them fired is an easy hook.

Yep. Cult has someone who can apply pressure to the police. The possible people that could be is huge, giving you lots of room for red herrings as well. Could be in the department, a rich corporate executive who funds the commissioners campaigns, could even be in the state government.

We played a lot of "Das schwarze Auge" (The dark eye), a german RPG over the years. And since about a year we have a nice little group again and have a lot of fun. We use a hybrid of well thought throug 4th edition house rules, rounded with some bits of official 4th and 5th edition rules where we need them.

The character creation and development is... let's say complex. The set of house rules has reigned it in a bit, but there are still dozens of talents and the option to create additional specialized ones. And on top of that surely something in the range of a hundred feats and "spells" each, so it takes a while to take everything in. Nonetheless what I really like about it, that you have a lot of room to make your character your own and the gulf between a specialist and a generalist in a given field is big enough that you can have for example multiple social characters in the same group without stealing each others spot light. In our case we have a naive druid with an exceptional charme score that tends to have an easy time finding friends, a seductive witch/dancer, a noble mercenary that speaks a dozen languages and knows his way around exotic cultures and how to behave, a medic that is a surprisingly good liar and showman and a norse-like warrioress that is good in intimidating people.

The fight system also offers a lot of options, but we rarely ever fight as the group is quite good in finding peaceful or sneaky solutions.


The world itself is some medieval low fantasy with some regions in the rennaissance and others feral. Not Grimdark at all. The world has it's problems and dark powers, but overall the good guys tend to win the long game and your characters can really have some influence on the setting (be it good or bad).

Currently the group (I act as DM) is in a city heavily dedicated to the god of luck, thieves and trade, were every area of life seems to be influenced/solved by games of luck, corruption or deals. And as it happens even the "government" of said city is elected every year by a lottery. And one of our heroes (the medic, who has the feat "smiled at by destiny") has won the unloved position of "police chief". It's kind of hilarious because the campaign book seems to assume that a "normal" adventure group will try to root out corruption, form his guard into a real efficient police force etc. but our guy just... sails along with it, not shaking the boat. He does good and caring things (protecting the weak etc.), but... in a way that really fits in the setting and already made him the most popular police chief in decades. Last time we played we came into conflict with some pirates and he managed to recrute a hand full of the more competent ones for his guard, because he is a pretty good judge of character and knows how to convince people that a change of employer might not be that bad of an idea...

Does Exalted count? I'm running two every-other-week games of Exalted 2.75 (my own cobbled together mishmash of 2nd and 3rd Editions), and it's my absolute favorite game.

A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Easy E wrote:

 Adrassil wrote:
I did eventually manage to separate them so they had to confront the monster at the end of the scenario. I'm hoping to get them fired from the State Police and so pursue the Cult(s) conspiracy(s) themselves and that this session will really give them the inspiration to pursuit it.

Clearly, the influence of the Cult either gets them fired or ostracized within the department. Then, they could still be State Police officers and still do that job AND work the Cult cases on the side. That sounds a lot harder to juggle though for both players and the GM.

The cult getting them fired is an easy hook.

Yep. Cult has someone who can apply pressure to the police. The possible people that could be is huge, giving you lots of room for red herrings as well. Could be in the department, a rich corporate executive who funds the commissioners campaigns, could even be in the state government.

Yeah, that also aligns with the True Detective inspiration as when Rust Cohle (one of my favourite characters ever) Gets too close to the conspiracy he gets not fired but put on probation and quits after getting in a fistfight with his partner Marty. He then investigates for years by himself as he's a...True Detective (badum tish! lol) I do have the great opportunity to get them fired this session even without the influence of the cult(s) as their last case ended in a frig show (a fed and two other detectives helping them on the case wound up dead. One of the detectives turning out to a Cult member as well as the fed) due to it being their first encounter with a mythos creature, but he's going to give them one last chance. Thinking the Cult might send assassins after them while they're on their next case make it a more pulp action game and the resulting chaos that causes will certainly get them fired.

Should be fun!

 Octopoid wrote:
Does Exalted count? I'm running two every-other-week games of Exalted 2.75 (my own cobbled together mishmash of 2nd and 3rd Editions), and it's my absolute favorite game.

It sure does! I would love to hear more about it!

 Easy E wrote:

 Octopoid wrote:
Does Exalted count? I'm running two every-other-week games of Exalted 2.75 (my own cobbled together mishmash of 2nd and 3rd Editions), and it's my absolute favorite game.

It sure does! I would love to hear more about it!

Since you asked...

Exalted is a White Wolf-based d10s game set in a fantasy/anime world, with each cardinal direction (and the center) lining up with one of the five classical Chinese elements. Currently, one group is sailing around the ocean-based West planning to fight a Deathlord for the rights to an ancient and powerful Manse, while the other group is bungling about in the Wood-aspected East, defending people from the corrupt upper-class who would exploit them for their labor. The first game is a high-action/adventure game with pirates, sea monsters, and the undead (sometimes all three at once), while the second game is a lower-key (but still fantastical) game about socioeconomic disparity and righting wrongs.

I'm loving them both!

Got to play the second episode of the PbtA game. This one was focused on "Gremlins on an airplane" and no one even said the fateful line. I was surprised.

Delta Green is one of our group's go-tos for fill in games and one shots. Someone can't make it to the game this week and we don't want to advance plot without them? Then some secret paranormal investigators get a phone call from their handlers and assigned to a creature-of-the-week scenario.

Some people have mentioned FATE. It's a system where characters are defined by player-created narrative traits. So for instance, Han Solo as a FATE PC might have traits like:

Gunslinging space smuggler
In too deep with the Hutts
Nobody understands me like my Wookiie

Players activate ("tag") their traits when dice-roll situations come up to represent a bonus (or penalty!) to the roll. The game is trying to create an ups-and-downs style of play where failing a critical task is supposed to create drama, conflict, or comedy, not just push a PC toward "losing". The downside of this system means that minor details of actions are incorporated into narrative description rather than being mechanically built into the game. So instead of having a series of dice rolls to determine your astrogation skill and your piloting modifier and your hyperdrive status level, you make just one space-pilot roll and describe how the hyperdrive goes whoop-whoop-whurr-kathunk when the dice go against you.

 Octopoid wrote:
Does Exalted count? I'm running two every-other-week games of Exalted 2.75 (my own cobbled together mishmash of 2nd and 3rd Editions), and it's my absolute favorite game.

I've heard rumours (but no solid details) of a 3.5 Exalted looking to simplify some of the systems.

My local group ran a few games of it and found the combat could get very complex very quickly, and that even with a lot of pre-built generic NPCs it was a lot of work for GMs to fill out characters and items to get their charm/evocation mixtures and social intimacies up to scratch.

And of course the dubious mechanic of building initiative by repeatedly kicking the weakest fighters to fill your limit break bar. I'd be curious to know what you kept and changed for a 2.75 version?

A.T. wrote:

 Octopoid wrote:
Does Exalted count? I'm running two every-other-week games of Exalted 2.75 (my own cobbled together mishmash of 2nd and 3rd Editions), and it's my absolute favorite game.

I'd be curious to know what you kept and changed for a 2.75 version?

Mostly, I kept Evocations for Artifact weapons and the free Excellencies. Just about everything else is 2nd ed. I never did care for the complexity of 3rd Ed. Good to hear they might be releasing a streamlined version!

What is the actual deal with all the old white wolf stuff these day? Didn't they get bought buy another studio? Turned Print on Demand?

 Lance845 wrote:
What is the actual deal with all the old white wolf stuff these day? Didn't they get bought buy another studio? Turned Print on Demand?

Paradox Interactive bought them in 2015 and absorbed the company in 2018.

I'm not sure what they're doing now. Paradox's interest was clearly in acquiring IPs but I don't know how committed they are to the TT space being a video game developer. A lot of White Wolf's staff got fired in 2018 for some stuff that got published* and Paradox assumed full control of the company. The company hasn't published anything in the past two years.

*it's actually pretty crazy. Just looked it up to remind myself and it involves gay death camps and rules for playing nazi vampires.

I had my session of True Detective vs the Mythos over Discord last Thursday. The PCs went in a direction I had no idea they would've which in hindsight was damned obvious (investigating the background of another detective who betrayed them and turned out to be a member of any enemy cult) So I had to improvise a lot, so they hit a bit of a brick wall which makes sense seen as though he's a member of a super-secret cult, but it would've been good to give them something. I hope my rapid improvisation wasn't too obvious. Also, it was fun RPing the angry Police boss.

Also, had a session of my Rogue Trader campaign on Saturday, also over Discord due to us being in lockdown now. We finally managed to finish a big ass combat we'd been fighting for like three sessions now. Most of the characters had their time to shine each killing a Widower monster thing each, one a sniper with his Long Las killed one in a single hit (47 damage which was the exact amount of damage he needed to do) Which was awesome. It'll be great when they get out of this huge void battle they're taking part in and start exploring the great unknown and pushing the plot onwards.

So has anyone played Ruin Masters? I like Trudavang but Rune Masters seams similar enough to Forbidden Lands that I don't need both. But I'm curious what others think.

I know very little about RuinMaters, but after looking over the kickstarter they have going and doing some digging I can say the biggest difference between it and Forbidden Lands is going to be the combat and general exploration element. Maybe the level class?


FL has no levels. It's a semi structured point buy for character creation and health is low and damages high. things are deadly and dangerous. There are no rules for miniatures and a map for dungeon crawling. Combat is tactical in that your limited actions means you need to be careful how you spend them so you can defend yourself and not be overwhelmed.

Ruin Masters appears to be a cross between the hex crawl world exploration that FL shares but more DnD in the rest of it's mechanics.

I could be wrong about that. Happy to have someone more knowledgeable step in and fill in some gaps.

What is the oldest Non-Dungeons and Dragons RPG you have played?

I think the two that come to mind for me are Marvel Super Heroes from TSR (but we used custom heroes) and Top Secret from TSR.

How about you?

I was first introduced in 3rd edition dnd. The first non DnD game I played was White Wolf (I think it was Vampire the Masquerade ?) or maybe just basic Story Teller.

I'm a late comer to actual TTRPGs. I think the first system I played other than 5E was L5R.

 Easy E wrote:
What is the oldest Non-Dungeons and Dragons RPG you have played?

Potentially Call of Cthulhu, but I don't know what edition the DM was running.

The first long-term face to face game I played was 1st edition warhammer fantasy rpg ('86) mashed together with the advanced fighting fantasy setting books.
Several games of the original cyberpunk 2020 ('88) including one earlier this year. A few brief tries at shadowrun ('89), a number of early 90s games like starwars d6, kult, vampire,

 Easy E wrote:
What is the oldest Non-Dungeons and Dragons RPG you have played?

I think the two that come to mind for me are Marvel Super Heroes from TSR (but we used custom heroes) and Top Secret from TSR.

How about you?

Traveller and Call of Cthulhu but it was 6th edition for me, COC just had its 40th anniversary a few days back.

 Easy E wrote:
What is the oldest Non-Dungeons and Dragons RPG you have played?

I think the two that come to mind for me are Marvel Super Heroes from TSR (but we used custom heroes) and Top Secret from TSR.

How about you?

It may be that same Marvel game. Or MERP (Middle Earth Roleplaying) based on Runequest (which I've only every played a game of 3rd edition of that, much later. 2nd attempted failed trying to coach people through character creation with a single copy of the rulebook).
Edit: Oh! Forgot Star Frontiers! The rules were simple (closer to the D&D boxed sets than AD&D), but we had a blast with that.
Not sure on dates anymore, to be honest.

Other contenders:
Palladium Fantasy RPG & Beyond the Supernatural (don't recommend either) TMNT and Robotech (also from Palladium, and bad for the same reason, though TMNT is crazy enough to be actually fun), Paranoia, Twilight 2000 (I actually have fond memories of this, but vaguely think I shouldn't) , WHFRP 1st edition (which I also GMed most of the original campaign, it died in Something Rotten in Kislev), Shadowrun (1st-3rd), West End's Star Wars. Toon, a couple times. Call of Cthullu and Elfquest (uses the same basic system, bizarrely enough). I think I played Champions briefly (another superhero game), and it probably wasn't Mutants and Masterminds.

We also played a game of Cyberpunk in the long ago. One of the worst character creation experiences (bar Runequest), and half the party died in the first fight. Ended early, didn't play again. Went back to rotating DMs for D&D 2nd edition.

Vampire & Werewolf I didn't think I hit until their second editions (played in college, natch). Mage was definitely a later game and also college.

Some older games I played later, not when they were new, though many of those were high school.
Skyrealms of Jorune I have, but never actually got to play it. Its... interesting, but a little gonzo. And mechanically
Had but never actually played GURPS. never liked the concept of generic RPG systems, to be honest.

Twilight 2000 has a new edition coming out soon. Kickstarter was last year. I think the public release is a month or 2 away.

Systems I've played or ran include,

Talislanta 3rd and 5th editions (GM)
Marvel Super heroes (player and GM)
Shadowrun 2nd ed (player) shadowrun 3rd ed (gm)
Deathwatch (player)
Starwars-weg (player)
starwars-d20 (player and GM)
Gurps (player and GM)
Rifts (player)
Pathfinder 1st ed (player)
D&D 2nd, 3rd, and 5e (player and GM)
Old school white wolf games -Vampire and Werewolf (player)
Vampire (Larp)
NERO (Larp)

and a couple other minor one shots over the years I dont recall

Oldest non-AD&D played for me would be:

Gamma World 1E
Stormbringer - not sure which edition though - maybe 3rd?
Hawkmoon

I still have my Gamma World and Hawkmoon stuff...somewhere. I wish I still had my Stormbringer stuff though!

(...and of course a whole lot of 1E AD&D, which to be honest, is where most of my RPG time was spent.)

Voss wrote:
We also played a game of Cyberpunk in the long ago. One of the worst character creation experiences (bar Runequest), and half the party died in the first fight.

Cyberpunk 2020 was simultaneously incredibly lethal and non-lethal, and both the players and DM had to be on the same page about what they were doing in terms of helping the unarmoured/unmodded characters avoid ending up as collateral damage.
Or everyone just takes skinweave, but that was always a bit of a cop-out that somewhat forced escalation of lethality to compensate.

Just finished my last session of True Detective vs the Mythos; it didn't get as far as I'd hope (hoped it'd reach the final confrontation, but we're a while away from it). They're investigating into a murder of a local gang leader and just encountered the pair of DEA agents who he was informing for, and one of them was a complete donkey-cave, It was so fun to roleplay, and the PC's hate him right from the get-go (they're both cult members who murdered the gang boss to essentially draw the PCs into a trap, as the PC's know too much, in truth, it was a tactic from both of them to get them flustered so they might spurt out more information they don't know, it worked as they confessed they'd had a run-in with the FBI in an earlier session, as their masters didn't inform them of this information when they go the assignment)

Sounds super fun!

Players never get as far as anyone expects.

 Easy E wrote:
Sounds super fun!

Players never get as far as anyone expects.

you'd think at this point we would all know to plan for extended shopping trips sessions and the like

Gamma World, totally forgot about that one!

Has anyone played those systems where the players actions/inactions generate "points" that the GM uses to set challenges for the players? How does that experience differ from other RPGs?

It feels a bit..... contrary(?) to the way most TTRPGs work, but have no experience myself and would like to hear more.

Not all systems are equal and there are some that are definitely not great experiences for anyone. But I have some experience with several that have been really wonderful. I guess one of my favorite systems is Coriolis.

That game has "Darkness Points" here after called DP (ha ha ha. Get it out of your systems).

Each published adventure says the GM starts with x amount of DP as a recommendation but you could ignore that and just keep whatever you have from your previous sessions. Its up to however you are running the game.

The players generate DP for the GM in a number of ways. The main one is probably "Praying to the Icons". Basically if the players make a roll and it doesn't succeed they can reroll once. That reroll, in other games by the same company is called Pushing the Dice and represents a concentrated effort on the part of the players. They reroll a hand full of d6s and any 6s are successes but any 1s on the reroll generate DP.

That DP is then spent on all kinds of stuff. You can have the players gun go empty, requiring them to take a fast action to reload. It fuels the special abilities of the monsters. A creature has the ability to regenerate health... for an action and a DP. Or it can sprint at an amazing burst of speed... for a DP. Or can create an area of what amounts to magical darkness... for a DP.

You get the idea. Imagine DnD but a dragons breath weapon isn't on a dice roll or a timer. It costs currency. But then also environmental effects like pit traps. It's not a meticulously planned map of a dungeon where the players need to search every nook and cranny because the GM is crafty. It's the GM thinks this would be a good spot to spring a thing, spends the points (if hes got them) and the players make rolls to avoid it.

It cuts out what has traditionally been a kind of bad part of RPGs (there are whole articles on why traps are bad - https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/45020/roleplaying-games/rulings-in-practice-traps ) and instead turns it more into an indiana jones style cinematic event. Clink 2 tokens over your DM shield, tell a player that the stone under their foot sinks into the floor with a "click" and get ready.

It can also mean when the players do something cinematic you can spend the points to add complications "that fireball got um, but now that pillar is looking weak. ::Clink clink:: You see the piller shift and dust and debris falls from the ceiling. You think you might have seconds..."

And my favorite part about them, which I have mentioned elsewhere before, it makes the GM into a real player. They start looking at their points, their powers, their options. Considering when and how to spend and to what effect. A whole asymmetrical mini game emerges behind the GM screen. The players are in on it. They know when that rolls has 1s that they just fed the DM something. And when the DM drops the tokens onto the table the players know the GM isn't just arbitrarily doing things to them. They gave the GM those points. They knew you were going to spend them eventually. Tons of fun.

The more I look into Call of Cthulhu 7th edition, the more I like it. It seems to be in the middle of not being too simple but not too complex in my eyes. Although I haven't delved much into the magic stuff or Weird Science yet as we're playing Pulp Cthulhu, not CoC (which fits my original setting as there's sorta a sorcery vs science theme behind it), Right now, I'm sorta sticking with sorcery and stuff that's for the plot or whatnot. I've been doing a lot of prep, and I've written down the description of the big bad monster the PCs (and a couple of allied NPCs will fight. So here it is, it's damned gruesome; I don't know where I get this stuff from...

 Lance845 wrote:
Not all systems are equal and there are some that are definitely not great experiences for anyone. But I have some experience with several that have been really wonderful. I guess one of my favorite systems is Coriolis.

That game has "Darkness Points" here after called DP (ha ha ha. Get it out of your systems).

Each published adventure says the GM starts with x amount of DP as a recommendation but you could ignore that and just keep whatever you have from your previous sessions. Its up to however you are running the game.

The players generate DP for the GM in a number of ways. The main one is probably "Praying to the Icons". Basically if the players make a roll and it doesn't succeed they can reroll once. That reroll, in other games by the same company is called Pushing the Dice and represents a concentrated effort on the part of the players. They reroll a hand full of d6s and any 6s are successes but any 1s on the reroll generate DP.

That DP is then spent on all kinds of stuff. You can have the players gun go empty, requiring them to take a fast action to reload. It fuels the special abilities of the monsters. A creature has the ability to regenerate health... for an action and a DP. Or it can sprint at an amazing burst of speed... for a DP. Or can create an area of what amounts to magical darkness... for a DP.

You get the idea. Imagine DnD but a dragons breath weapon isn't on a dice roll or a timer. It costs currency. But then also environmental effects like pit traps. It's not a meticulously planned map of a dungeon where the players need to search every nook and cranny because the GM is crafty. It's the GM thinks this would be a good spot to spring a thing, spends the points (if hes got them) and the players make rolls to avoid it.

It cuts out what has traditionally been a kind of bad part of RPGs (there are whole articles on why traps are bad - https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/45020/roleplaying-games/rulings-in-practice-traps ) and instead turns it more into an indiana jones style cinematic event. Clink 2 tokens over your DM shield, tell a player that the stone under their foot sinks into the floor with a "click" and get ready.

It can also mean when the players do something cinematic you can spend the points to add complications "that fireball got um, but now that pillar is looking weak. ::Clink clink:: You see the piller shift and dust and debris falls from the ceiling. You think you might have seconds..."

And my favorite part about them, which I have mentioned elsewhere before, it makes the GM into a real player. They start looking at their points, their powers, their options. Considering when and how to spend and to what effect. A whole asymmetrical mini game emerges behind the GM screen. The players are in on it. They know when that rolls has 1s that they just fed the DM something. And when the DM drops the tokens onto the table the players know the GM isn't just arbitrarily doing things to them. They gave the GM those points. They knew you were going to spend them eventually. Tons of fun.

Thanks for the info. Sounds interesting and a divergence from normal GM and Player roles. Normally, I see RPGs as cooperative and the GM as the facilitator of the adventure. Here it feels a bit more "antagonistic" in nature. I suppose it depends on how the players play it, as the points are basically "story beats", "Plot Points", or "Complications" that the GM is triggering.

Does this promote a GM vs Player thought process via the mechanics?

Some of the systems that use them can create a DM versus the players dynamic. Others make it more a narrative element.

It depends on the exact system and how they are generated. Especially if the points have a bit of back and forth with the players.

FF starwars for instance has little tokens that sit in the middle of the table. Light side points on one side and dark side points on the other. When a players spends a LSP to boost their roll they flip it and it becomes a DSP. When the GM spends a DSP it flips back and becomes available for the players. The GM isnt just doing a thing to be "antagonistic", the players also get a resource for it. I think that goes a long way to being friendly and cooperative. Vader gets to do a cool force choke and luke gets to do a sweet flip tossing these points back and forth together.

Again, it really depends on the system itself and how it fits into the bigger mechanics of the game.

Probably depends a bit on group dynamic too.

I've heard both good and bad experiences on FF Star Wars. I think a lot of it really comes down to investment. If the group can't invest nothing really works. If it can then almost anything can work.

Yea I can agree with that. I have heard of players in the FF SWs getting all the tokens flipped to Light Side and then, as a group, deciding to never spend them so that the GM has no DSP.

Which you know... bad form.

There are a lot of different attempts at meta currencies out there. The best ones have multiple ways for them to generate and a lot of ways for them to be spent. As long as the spending is balanced (both in the power of the things you spend them on (Just activating "Bonus Actions" for the monsters as an example) and keeping a balance between generation and spending so that it's not an infinite supply but neither are you starved) then I think it adds a lot to the game play for everyone at the table.

I almost hate to ask, but is GM Fiat something that is really divisive in the RPG world at the moment? It feels like there is a lot of effort to remove this element from games and I am unsure why? Is there someplace I can look to get more context on this discussion?

So. Professionally i work a lot of system/process analysis and from that perspective i can say with 100% certainty that it is ALWAYS better to have a system in place that controls than to leave it up to individuals who can have any number of biases.

Now... Thats not saying that in this creative game of story telling that there shouldnt be freedom. But completely unrestricted freedom traditionally left in the hands of teenagers is a recipe for a lot of bad calls. Even in the hands of practiced adults a lot of missteps get made. I can look back at myself year by year and see how i have improved as a GM and how my old philosophies and decisions are things i would never do now. And i hope 10 years from now that i can look back to now and feel the same way. It means im getting better.

But that also means that a system of standardization and control to help reign in bad calls and put newer people into a better place with better guard rails so to speak can only be a good thing.

Think of board games like decent and dungeon quest. There is basically a DM there with super restrictive rules and no actual RP. Loosen up a little. Give the players and DM a little more freedom. Get half way between the GM is just god and does what he wants and "everything the gm can do is on the cards he draws from his deck" and you will get a more consistently good experience for everyone involved.

GM Fiat I think works a lot like suspension if disbelief.

In a certain mechanical sense, everything in an RPG happens by GM fiat (excluding of course GM-less sytems). As long as the players can remain in the fiction, they don't care and it doesn't matter. As long as everything flows right and the experience is enjoyable, the GM can use any number of contrivances and it doesn't really matter. When GM fiat gets too obvious, or in this case maybe a better word is onerous, it's like pulling back the curtain and revealing the man behind the machine. The suspension of disbelief is broken and the whole fiction collapses.

Hey guys, I'm looking for some advice. For my currently running Pulp Cthulhu scenario the ending before the monster comes is a big action set-piece where the player characters are holed up in a mansion and fighting off waves of attackers (three) made up of local gangs of Baton Rouge. One of them is a far-right racist biker gang who have allied with African-American gangsters, as they'd seen the monster and driven them so mad with fear they're able to get past their racism and work together, therefore, foreshadowing the Flesh Golem.

But the problem is, the Pulp Cthulhu/Call of Cthulhu rules aren't made for such large-scale battles (neither was Rogue Trader but it wasn't hard to house rule the horde rules from Deathwatch to fix that) This is also made more complicated due to the latest edition having disadvantage and advantage rolls like in DnD 5th edition, which the NPC attacker will almost always be at due to the PCs taking cover (as they're smart enough to) Also, the way initiative is run is that those with the higher Dex always goes 1st, then the 2nd and 3rd and all the NPCs have the same Dex. I guess I could make some have different Dex stats, but both PCs have high Dex so they'll probably be going at the same time, anyway. so they'll all go at the same time, so I'll be spending ages rolling for them while my PCs have to sit around waiting, I'm thinking of pre-rolling, but even that has issues.

Anyone here have a similar problem GMing Call/Pulp Cthulhu? If so, how did you fix it?

Use a horde, a collection of multiple enemies you treat, for convenience, as a single entity. Set 1-2 HP thresholds (2/3s health and 1/3 health for example) where the horde's behavior or actions change as the number of enemies making it up decrease from damage dealt. It's the best way to handle large scale set pieces where you don't want the mechanics of taking turns to grind the game to an effective halt. It also helps with action economy so that players don't get overwhelmed by numerous enemies. You could simply let the horde have advantage through numbers to kind of even it out.

TLDR: Don't treat it like your players are fighting 50 npcs. Instead, have 2 hordes, one for each gang, and describe the hordes as made up of 25 guys each. When your players shoot or fight, they take a guy out. Maybe another runs. Use mechanics to cover over the annoyance with more abstraction.

Hey thanks, LordofHats! That will work very well, indeed.

I agree with Hats. I have seen a lot of systems group same monsters together if the number of monsters in a combat starts to exceed the number of players to keep things moving fast. Each "monster" in the group is a +1/+2/whatever-makes-sense-for-the-combat-system to their roll and some extra HP. It's a good way to handle large amounts of mooks or turn fighting through waves of monsters into a kind of mini game combat.

Could also just use some basic skill checks, where success means that the PCs have fought off X, while a failure indicates that they were hurt in the fight.

I recently played a game of D&D where we individually fought off 50+ individual monsters, and it was boring as all hell.

Better to treat it as a skill test, with the PCs narrating a bit about how they are tackling the issue.

LordofHats wrote:Has anyone else tried Blades in the Dark or any of the games derived from it?

I started running a campaign with my friends over zoom in Nov 2020 and we wrapped Season 1 this July - the last time I had GM'd was probably when I was 15 or less running games with my brothers Great experience and I love the system, we're all chuffed for Season 2 when most of the players are debuting new, sneakier members of the gang, which is going to shift the bombastic tone of our games quite a bit!

I'm also planning to make a Fantasy Western-style one shot using either Blades or one of its hacks (is there already a Western one? must be!), so I can introduce people to the system in a more contained, less background heavy way. And I'm also also trying to figure out what I want to do with Brinkwood, the vampire-slaying fey-empowered freedom fighter 'hack' delivering from KS shortly, which I was super excited to run before I got so attached to my players' gang and marauding around Duskvol

Albertorius wrote:Also been playing and translating Lancer: the "out of the mech" part of the game is pretty much BitD.

Lancer is real high on my Want To Play list, cracking the code on what 3D sculpts to print for it is mostly the thing standing in my way. That and loving Blades. And also that us Bladers are currently playing in my buddy's Broken Compass game.

Oh right: shout out to Broken Compass! Flexible adventure game with a simple dice matching mechanic. Their second KS wrapped recently, so my buddy has a load of stuff incoming for it.

EDIT: Speaking of GMing over zoom, we had our final session of the season in person and it was so good comparatively. Or at least it had loads more RP and storytelling was far easier for me. Rules reference and just tossing flavor images out is way easier online, but I find online we leaned harder on rules mechanics and the like, as opposed to just jamming things out. Jamming definitely feels more like what Blades was built for - there's a little crunch but not really all that much. I think that was part of the goal with Brinkwood, to return some of the minutiae to the rules side, like breaking currency back down away from the abstract Coin of Blades.

 Boss Salvage wrote:
Lancer is real high on my Want To Play list, cracking the code on what 3D sculpts to print for it is mostly the thing standing in my way.

Lancer, IMO, is one of those games where you want to make sure the players have a decent understanding of the rules.

Setting up combos with other players and having tricks up your sleeves is a whole lot more interesting than just having a basic grasp and playing with the same few basic actions round after round and mono-task mechs that just end up slowly grinding through problems that are outside of their ideal target.

Have any of you guys ever used a "generic module" before? A module that is just a story line, adventure hook, encounter path, potential complications, and Possible Big Finish before?

One that does not have stat blocks, specific mechanics, etc. built into the module?

 Easy E wrote:
Have any of you guys ever used a "generic module" before? A module that is just a story line, adventure hook, encounter path, potential complications, and Possible Big Finish before?

One that does not have stat blocks, specific mechanics, etc. built into the module?

So, like a system-agnostic module, is that what you mean? No, can't say I have, mostly asking for clarification. '

Also, another general question, what would be your favourite modules you've run? I really love the Illumination scenario in the Dark Heresy core rulebook I've played it and GM'd it and had a great time both times and the 1st scenario of the Haarlock Trilogy Tattered Fates, although admittedly, the stuff I enjoyed the most was the stuff I added to it when I ran it.

 Adrassil wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
Have any of you guys ever used a "generic module" before? A module that is just a story line, adventure hook, encounter path, potential complications, and Possible Big Finish before?

One that does not have stat blocks, specific mechanics, etc. built into the module?

So, like a system-agnostic module, is that what you mean? No, can't say I have, mostly asking for clarification. '

Yes, exactly!

I had my 1st session of Pulp Cthulhu using the horde rules I made using the advice of LordofHats as a jumping-off point and they worked very well (I made a couple of changes in mid-game, such as if a horde with a diverse array of weaponry is attacking a PC and hit, they roll a luck roll to see what kind of weapon hit them, fail it could be that close-range shotgun, pass it could be from that dude with a revolver) Had a ton of fun!

Use Hordes GMs.

Hordes simplify your life

 LordofHats wrote:
Use Hordes GMs.

Hordes simplify your life

Well, I was only going to have the one ancient red dragon but you have convinced me.

I can already imagine it.

GM: You see a red dragon.
Players: Alright, it'll be tough but we can handle it.
GM: He has friends.
Players: wait wha-
GM: It's a horde.

A horde of wild C'thulhu appeared.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
A horde of wild C'thulhu appeared.

now see, that just make me think Damn son, pokemon cut lose since the last time i played

I picked up the Dune RPG over the weekend. It is a hefty, hardcover tome. More to come once I start to read it......

 Easy E wrote:
I picked up the Dune RPG over the weekend. It is a hefty, hardcover tome. More to come once I start to read it......

I hope the first three hours of character creation are generating your bloodline, including major ancestors.

There should then be an incredibly complicated formula, involving referencing dozens of charts, to determine if your character is the Kwisatz Haderach.

 Easy E wrote:
I picked up the Dune RPG over the weekend. It is a hefty, hardcover tome. More to come once I start to read it......

And very pretty, with pretty dice as well. I'm curious to hear what the guts are like.

I picked this up from the LGS. I saw it before, but passed. The game was shrink wrapped so I could not look at the rules. Later, I read up on the rules and decided that it looked interesting. Next time I was in the area I decided to pick it up.



This is a nice, hefty tome. It is hardcovered with 300+ pages of content. The background of the Dune universe is about 83 pages of the book. The artwork inside is also very nice!

So, after looking at reading a couple of pages, here are a few things that I noticed right away!

1. The game used dice pools of d20s looking for a TN and a number of successes.

2. Target Numbers are generated by combining your actual ability score + your motivations and values. It is interesting that the characters values/personality that drives TNs. Therefore, how your character perceives the world can influence you ability to get things done. Nice touch.

3. The game encourages using "support characters" so if your actual character is someplace else you can then use your "support characters". Therefore, you can always participate in a scene.

4. The game does use a "Meta-currency". Players build a "Momentum" pool with success. These can later be used to add dice to your skill checks. You can also add dice by giving the GM a Threat point. The Threat Point can be used to boost enemy rolls.

I am not a fan of Meta-Currency as it seems to be designed by folks who can not handle GM Fiat to control the action. I am not one of those people, but can see the appeal of it. I know Lance feels differently, so I would appreciate their perspective on it as well.

5. Scenes are a bit abstract, so each roll is not a swing of a sword or a specific action. Instead, it dictates the direction of the scene. For example, if you make a combat roll it allows you to narrate the action going forward. The same system is used for a single character using a knife, versus you running a squad of operatives, or directing an army in the field. Rules for intrigue, espionage, and other less direct confrontations also exist and use the same basic system.

First Thoughts:
The game seems to be walking the line between crunchier D&D/Shadowrun style and more narrative style like Powered by the Apocalypse/FATE style. I think it looks pretty fun for what I have found so far.

I just looked up an article on the momentum/threat. Basically Dune runs on the same system as the more recent Conan game. the 2D20 system. I like it! There is a asymmetrical back and forth but always as a choice on behalf of the players or as a consequence of their own dice rolls. The players NEED successes. To get more successes they need dice. And while they have ways to get dice without giving the GM threat those resources are limited and the threat version is always readily available. Further if they ever roll a extreme it creates threat.

If I am reading into it correctly I do have one criticism of it. It's too flat in it's usage.

This isn't all that uncommon with meta currency systems unfortunately. The GM gets to spend their threat basically to counter player abilities. Does x give you a bonus die? Well Y amount of threat reduces a die from your pool. It's the most boring usage of something like that. The game talks about how certain circumstances can add "complications". Something that changes the difficulty of a situation. A pipe vents steam obscuring vision and making your shot more difficult as an example. It's far more interesting for everyone involved when threat can be spent for/and is spent for, things like that. Narrative elements that tip the balance one way or the other. Laser shield doors seperate Obi Won from Kwi Gon when fighting Darth Maul. Get in a cave to take shelter.... but something lives in that cave...

All those kinds of things. Using threat to move things forward or create interesting/complicated situations is far more satisfying for everyone at the table.

Thanks Lance!

Looks like we are planning on playing Osprey's Those Dark Places RPG for Halloween this year.

Managed to play a One Shot of Those Dark Places from Osprey Role-Playing.



This is a rules light system where you roll a d6 + attribute + crew position bonus looking for 7+ for a success. In addition, certain "shocking" moments will trigger pressure roles. Fail too many pressure rolls and you start to have "episodes" that lead to unwanted side effects like insanity, the shakes, rage, and other bad outcomes that can add to the terror.

I was the GM for the first time in a while. The players did a great job role-playing as blue collar, space truckers in a corporate future faced with the supernatural! My favorite moment was when a staunchly, rationalist, veteran spacer was faced with a ghostly vision, and broke into a rage assuming that their colleagues were somehow pumping them full of hallucinogens. The ensuing stand-off was intense and very well-played.

The resolution of the plot was also well RPed, and resolved with talking and deal making. Good times.

 Lance845 wrote:

This isn't all that uncommon with meta currency systems unfortunately. The GM gets to spend their threat basically to counter player abilities. Does x give you a bonus die? Well Y amount of threat reduces a die from your pool. It's the most boring usage of something like that. The game talks about how certain circumstances can add "complications". Something that changes the difficulty of a situation. A pipe vents steam obscuring vision and making your shot more difficult as an example. It's far more interesting for everyone involved when threat can be spent for/and is spent for, things like that. Narrative elements that tip the balance one way or the other. Laser shield doors seperate Obi Won from Kwi Gon when fighting Darth Maul. Get in a cave to take shelter.... but something lives in that cave.

As I read the DUNE RPG more, it has an abstract part called "Traits" that can effect characters, settings, objects, etc. These can be added and canceled by the use of Momentum to add or remove benefits for the characters. In the example of the steam pipe obscuring vision, the PC could spend Momentum to have access to trait that removes that penalty. The GM could then counter-with threat to place a new or similar trait back in place.

For example, a Noblewoman character goes to a social party to find information about her rival. She is a Noble which allows her to access the party and allows her to work with the lesser folks for information. However, as play progresses, her rival shows up and the GM spends threat to make the room "hostile" to the Noble woman. She loses her advantage of Noble as everyone is wise to why she is there. As play continues, she can generate opportunities with momentum to add a trait back, and decides that people are starting to get tipsy and loose lipped. This allows her to try and gain information again.

This plays a bit like a back and forth on an abstract and narrative level.

Yeah thats a bit better.

It's just not the best feeling if it's all done at the table going back and forth. You never want the player to spend a point just for the GM to immediately cancel it with a point of their own. It can be a feel bad mechanic.

Asymmetrical mechanics work better imo. It's not momentum can be spent for x and threat can be spent for -x. It should be x and y where y is different and interesting. A threat that doesn't take away x but layers in complications to it.

Definitely more difficult to design and build but better in the long run.

Last week I had an epilogue session for my Pulp Cthulhu campaign and boy was it fun. The PCs were detectives in the Louisianna State Police but it ended in them becoming wanted fugitives and making an enemy of an influential cult. But now I think about it I had one of my favourite scenes I've ever RP'd Nyarlathotep himself (in human form with a black suit, moustache and goatee and fedora) came to them asking for a favour in return for his aid. Didn't ham it up too much. But RPing at the Crawling Chaos Himself was so much fun.

They of course said no but Nyarlathotep knew this he knows either way they'll be causing chaos with their new knowledge and everything. Mwahaha!

 Easy E wrote:
Managed to play a One Shot of Those Dark Places from Osprey Role-Playing.



This is a rules light system where you roll a d6 + attribute + crew position bonus looking for 7+ for a success. In addition, certain "shocking" moments will trigger pressure roles. Fail too many pressure rolls and you start to have "episodes" that lead to unwanted side effects like insanity, the shakes, rage, and other bad outcomes that can add to the terror.

I was the GM for the first time in a while. The players did a great job role-playing as blue collar, space truckers in a corporate future faced with the supernatural! My favorite moment was when a staunchly, rationalist, veteran spacer was faced with a ghostly vision, and broke into a rage assuming that their colleagues were somehow pumping them full of hallucinogens. The ensuing stand-off was intense and very well-played.

The resolution of the plot was also well RPed, and resolved with talking and deal making. Good times.

awww yeah, alien style horror is my favorite.

The last time I played one of those I jokingly told everyone my core character trait was that I was a militant fundamentalist agnostic - fanatically dedicated to the concept of the unknown and the unknowable vastness of the cosmos. It was a fun ride!

My group seems to have fun with the supers RPG, ICONS.

Sort of a homage to Marvel's FASERIP system.

We play it relatively loose and end up going with little dice rolls.

Hey all,

Next week, I am going to run a CoC inspired game, loosely based on some of those old Gothic, Hammer horror style movies.

I am not using the CoC game, but am using something with Those Dark Places style mechanics for ease. This is only a 1-shot.

Any tips of tricks on how to run a good gothic horror game?

Busy getting a group together for Coriolis while simultaneously getting another one together for Alien (only interested in science fiction RPGs at the moment, severely burned out on fantasy). Here's hoping for fun times ahead!

Does/has anyone here played Legend of the five rings? I’m considering trying that or Soulbound when it comes back round to being my turn to run a game in my group. I really like the look of L5R (I’d rather play it than run it really but I’m not sure any of the others would fancy running it).

I have played 3rd edition/4th edition. I enjoy it a lot, as the focus on Bushido, Clan, and Family really grounds the characters and forces the players to think and role-play much differently than other RPGs. Plus, combat can be pretty deadly for characters too.

What edition are you thinking? The new FFG edition or an earlier edition.

I've played the 5th edition but not the earlier, so I can give answers on that.

It would be 5th edition/the Fantasy Flight one yeah (or Edge now!). How do you find it, is it a system you’d recommend? It looks a fair bit more complicated than games I’ve run in the past (Free League stuff like Coriolis). Which books would you recommend past the rulebook?

It's a system with amazing flavor, a great setting, and the basics of the rules are not that complicated. I'd advise not treating the game like it's a dungeon crawl or action banaza (porting the setting to DnD 5e would serve you better for that kind of game). The core book is fine. A lot of the supplemental books are mostly for specific kinds of campaigns, specific locations in the game world, and additional classes and mechanics. The starter set has a decently put together adventure if you want one. Mostly the main rulebook and a vague knowledge of Samurai movies or anime will probably serve you in actually playing the game.

Where L5R really and truly excels is when the players and the GM really commit to the roleplay of the setting. Build strong characters (the game has a good system to help you do this) and play them out. Let social situations happen as the game gives you a lot more social tools than most RPGs. Don't sweat the paper keeping too hard. Most player skills and abilities can be treated as reactive in a lot of situations even if the rulebook doesn't say that. Roll when you need to roll, work out the dice, and then describe what that rolls means.

Be advised this means rolling will sometimes take a bit of time to resolve. I'd suggest only rolling when you really need to and otherwise letting roleplay play out.

The only real warning I'd issue on playing 5th is that the rules in some aspects can be a bit wonky. The GM will have to make some calls with limited help from the rulebook but I think the general rule of 'do whatever is fun and makes sense' will smooth over the occasional weakness of the rulebook.

EDIT: Actually, the starter set is pretty great in general if you just want to test the system and see how it can play. You could start with that and then get the full rules after the experience. Depends on how you and whoever you're playing with wants to try things.

Thanks for the in depth response, that’s really helpful. I guess really I need to ask the group how interested they are, because it seems like it needs more of a ‘buy in’ to the rules and systems of the setting than a lot of RPGs.

How about Soulbound, how have people found that?

I got to play my Call of Cthulhu- Lite game for a one-shot with my group yesterday. We had 3 hours of play time, and in truth probably needed another session to unravel all the mysteries in the one-shot. That said, it was a fun game that felt suitably CoC.

We spent about 1 hour setting up the atmosphere, introducing NPCs, and revealing the mysteries. Then about 1.5 hours investigating and interacting. This led to a 30 minute climax. In the end, 2 PCs went insane, 1 died from their wounds, and the third barely escaped as everything came burning down around them.

The group did not coalesce at all, and all went off investigating their own leads, so it was like running 4 separate mini-adventures. I had to shift the spotlight around a lot.

That said, the group embraced the timeframe of the 1890s, and leaned into it. They also embraced the fact that the game was a death/insanity spiral. I am 100% sure they did not put all the pieces together about what was going on, but it didn't really matter. They also embraced the Hammer horror of it all, and none of the characters were joke characters.

Overall, a success even though as GM I do not think I set the pacing very well. The atmosphere was on-point, and that was the main goal of the game.

If anyone is interested, I can PM you the 1-page of rules for the game. If you are particularly masochistic, I can send you the 10 pages to run the scenario yourself too.

For fun, I got my actual hard copy of the Keeper's 8th edition rulebook. Beautiful book and nicely laid out. There was also solid advice about how to run the game as a Keeper as well.

 Easy E wrote:
For fun, I got my actual hard copy of the Keeper's 8th edition rulebook. Beautiful book and nicely laid out. There was also solid advice about how to run the game as a Keeper as well.

I ran a Pulp Cthulhu campaign (8th ed) for a while, and I liked the system a lot. It seems to be a system that balances the line between simple and complex very well in my eyes.

So, I have a friend who wants to run a low-level Expanse campaign. Anyone have experience running or playing this system.

I do not. For my space faring games these days I use Coriolis as my base if not flat out playing Coriolis.

So, from what I can see of the AGE system, you roll 3d6. One dice is the "Drama" dice, and you are trying to achieve a target number for success.

You can manipulate the dice roll a few ways.
Players can add some mods based on attributes. You can also spend a pool of Fortune to change dice results, however Fortune is also your hit points so the more you spend the easier you are to kill.

If successful, the Drama dice may also allow you to spend points to "stunt" that opens up other options on the dice test. Perhaps find more clues, do a task faster, shoot more, etc. The higher the drama dice result the more stunting you can do.

That pretty much sums it up. Once I play, I think I will have a better feel for the nuance of the system.

 Easy E wrote:
So, from what I can see of the AGE system, you roll 3d6. One dice is the "Drama" dice, and you are trying to achieve a target number for success.

You can manipulate the dice roll a few ways.
Players can add some mods based on attributes. You can also spend a pool of Fortune to change dice results, however Fortune is also your hit points so the more you spend the easier you are to kill.

If successful, the Drama dice may also allow you to spend points to "stunt" that opens up other options on the dice test. Perhaps find more clues, do a task faster, shoot more, etc. The higher the drama dice result the more stunting you can do.

That pretty much sums it up. Once I play, I think I will have a better feel for the nuance of the system.

I ran some dragon age sessions years ago when that first came out and it was the same/similar system. People enjoyed the drama dice (I do believe it was called the stunt dice back then) as it encouraged them to be more engaged with how their player was doing something and not just dice rolls.

Greetings,

I am pitching a game of Legend of the 5 Rings (3rd edition) to play with my group. They have mostly played 5e D&D and know very little about Rokugan. I am also relatively new, but have played a few times in the past. I have been brushing up with actual plays and reading materials again.

What are some tips you guys have for running a L5R game, especially for players that are new to the setting and ideas of the game?

Thanks for your help.


Edit: Oh yeah, the Expanse game is getting off to a slow start due to some real world issues. Looking like first game will be September.

So, we have played a couple of Expanse games, and it was fun. I am not sure about the mechanics and how they "flavor" the game world yet, but it seems pretty grounded in the Expanse reality that I am aware of.



On an unrelated note, is there a good forum to discuss or read about a wide variety of RPGs like reviews, mechanics discussions, GM tips, etc?

I just got a copy of Opsrey's new game Hard City. I will report back once I have given it a read, and tried the mechanics a bit.

We are also doing character creation for L5R, so I will have more to say on that probably starting next week.

Osprey is the guys that made that Prehistoric game and the very generic Knights of the Blue or some crap right?

 Lance845 wrote:
Osprey is the guys that made that Prehistoric game and the very generic Knights of the Blue or some crap right?

I think you mean, Tales from a Perilous Land? Yeah, they make a bunch of One-Off RPGs like Paleomythic, Righteous Blades, Ruthless Blood, Sigil and Shadow, Those Dark Places, Crescendo of Violence, Jackals, etc.

Unlike many publishers, they are mostly printing one-off, complete games. Each system is mostly unique and they are not tied into a shared set of mechanics. They are contracting with individual creators and authors, similar to what they do with their Osprey Wargaming Series. One big difference is that each game has a unique page count, new art work, and are normally hard covers.

This one, Hard City; is designed "Noir Role-playing" based on the famous Noir media of the 40's, 50's. and 60's. Think of the Maltese Falcon, Dragnet, or even something like Sin City.

Anyone have any experience with the recently funded Dragonbane rpg from Free League? Lance has been helping me with Forbidden Lands and I rabbit holed over to this one as well. I had never heard of the original(s) but this one seems to have a unique d20ish but not feel to it. Classless with relatively static HP so you're never completely safe from even a lowly goblin maurader, a roll under mechanic for attacks and skills instead of the D&D3.x/d20 roll over mechanic, Year Zero style conditions and streamlined equipment, etc. I'll be looking at the quickstart rules a bit more this evening as I only skimmed through them for a minute so far.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1192053011/drakar-och-demoner-dragonbane

Plus... I think this is the first RPG where you can play fantasy Darkwing Duck. I was always more of a Rescue Ranges/Duck Tales 80's kid but I can still respect the former.

I'll be honest, up until I started looking at the new Kobold Press game coming out, I would say that Monster of the Week was the best TtRPG I've played recently. A good mix of old school math rock tossing, and new school themes. Plus the majority of the game is based around theater of the mind, which is oddly lacking in most modern TTRPGs.

https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/10dzy7b/new_seemingly_confirmed_leak_for_dnd_beyond_with/

I don't put much stock in Twitter without sources, but the latest rumors are changes to DnDBeyonds structure including subscription model. Tiered monthly fee going up to 30.00 USD a mo.

Lower tiers will not incorporate anything but official material and severally limit other features.

Twice as much as most MMO's and fully stocked streaming services? I'm going to press x to doubt those rumors. WOTC has proven themselves to be greedy and stupid but that's greedy and stupid on a whole other level.

Yeah, going to need to see better sources (or any) before I take that information as fact. Just thought id point out the latest rumors while they are circulating.

Speaking of smaller publishers in the wake of big dumb corporate moves, DriveThru is running their New Year, New Game sale: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/rpg_newyear.php?&filters=0_0_0_0_0_44298

Monster of the Week is on there too (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/143518/Monster-of-the-Week)

I have played Monster of the Week many times, and it was a great experience. It works really well with people new to TTRPGs, and the learning time is super quick.

So I continue further down the rabbit hole of RPGs that didn't start out in the 70s-90s... anyone have any thoughts on Zweihander? A review of the rather full looking yet affordable starter box scrolled across my youtube feed and I clicked. It seems like a WHFB rpg style game in tone and percentile mechanics but I have no idea about the level of complexity relative to OSR or D&D5e. The starter had a kickstarter that specifically said it was streamlining the core rules fwiw.

I'm a big believer in the Cyberpunch 2077 spin off of MoTW. It's basically DnD meets shadowRun,

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I'm a big believer in the Cyberpunch 2077 spin off of MoTW. It's basically DnD meets shadowRun,

I can't tell if I'm just boomering the references (even as a genXer technically) or if that's autocorrect typos of cyberpunk and MOTU (Masters of the Universe).

I'm glad GURPS has been mentioned in this thread, even just in passing. GURPS is by far my favorite rpg. It has a reputation for being very math heavy, and very complex, but it's oddly intuitive and easy to learn the basics of. I highly recommend trying GURPS Lite for a short campaign to try it out.

I read through a bunch of GURPs years ago. It's... fine. A completely serviceable system that does exactly what it says on the tin. Modular universal system for running RPGs.

But that universal modularity comes with the price of a poorly focused design. Some systems can feel very tacked on (because they are). I think the Hellboy RPG was GURPs and might be one of the only GURPS books I ever actually owned.

 Lance845 wrote:
I read through a bunch of GURPs years ago. It's... fine. A completely serviceable system that does exactly what it says on the tin. Modular universal system for running RPGs.

But that universal modularity comes with the price of a poorly focused design. Some systems can feel very tacked on (because they are). I think the Hellboy RPG was GURPs and might be one of the only GURPS books I ever actually owned.

GURPS books are, as a rule, very well researched. Its melee mechanics are better than any other system I've seen. I find that most RPGs that have a focused vision often handle them about on par with GURPS, and sometimes worse. It depends on what you're going for. Like, if you want to play D&D, my recommendation is Pathfinder 2.0 or GURPS Dungeon Fantasy. The only reason I think people have the notion that GURPS does something poorly, is because everything tends to feel like GURPS, because it handles damage and other combat related stuff roughly the same, no matter the genre. Honestly, GURPS Vikings was probably my favorite read of any RPG book.

Though, I do understand that GURPS isn't for everyone, and even as a huge GURPS fan, I still use other systems sometimes. I hope people try the system. It's really fun.

I never personally got into GURPS as during its heyday I had just started roleplaying and was already in a RIFTS campaign so didn't need another kitchen sink setting/game personally. That said.. I've never actually looked at the ruleset so can't comment on it specifically unlike with the horribad Palladium rulesgolem.

I've been looking online at some reviews and videos of Zweihander and I'm not sure it's for me despite the relative quality of the new starter set. I want more lethality and grit in the next RPG I try but a "random medieval fantasy misery simulator" (an actual description I found among many similar!) might be a step too far, lol.

 warboss wrote:
I never personally got into GURPS as during its heyday I had just started roleplaying and was already in a RIFTS campaign so didn't need another kitchen sink setting/game personally. That said.. I've never actually looked at the ruleset so can't comment on it specifically unlike with the horribad Palladium rulesgolem.

I've been looking online at some reviews and videos of Zweihander and I'm not sure it's for me despite the relative quality of the new starter set. I want more lethality and grit in the next RPG I try but a "random medieval fantasy misery simulator" (an actual description I found among many similar!) might be a step too far, lol.

I own Zweihander, as I bought it on impulse, and I'd recommend just using the Warhammer Fantasy RPG if you were to pick it up. Also, yeah, GURPS is definitely not alone in being universal. It's a common genre for rpg now, so all GURPS has going for it is quality in writing, rules and otherwise. GURPS Lite is free if you want to take a glance, but, honestly, the skill list in both it and GURPS was almost enough to put me off at first. I think a big advantage GURPS has for its universal rules is that everything works off the same building blocks, so you understand what everything means after one good read. A strong enemy in a Psi Wars (totally not Star Wars) campaign could appear in a Dungeon Fantasy (totally not D&D) campaign, and very little would be unknown. Their powers, weapons, and skills work on the same exact rule set that the fantasy characters do. And if there's one thing GURPS does well, it's lethality and grit.

I'll stop shilling, now.

You would think that such a flexible system would have taken off and become a market leader but even back in the late 80's/early 90's heyday it was just popular but never a market leader in any genre. I know it would be easy to read sarcasm or ill intent into that statement but none is meant as I'm genuinely curious/asking. I loved Rifts (and Shadowrun) for a long time but I can definitely go on for multiple posts about why they never took off more than they did in the 90s but I don't know why GURPS isn't more than just a footnote for more genX gamers like myself (and completely obscure to younger ones for the most part).

Was it just the curse of the jack of all trades/master of none game mechanics? Was it the lack of genre focus? Was it the art? Was it the branding? Was it a lack of further development as decades passed? As a self professed fan, I'm curious what your thoughts are on this.

 warboss wrote:
You would think that such a flexible system would have taken off and become a market leader but even back in the late 80's/early 90's heyday it was just popular but never a market leader in any genre. I know it would be easy to read sarcasm or ill intent into that statement but none is meant as I'm genuinely curious/asking. I loved Rifts (and Shadowrun) for a long time but I can definitely go on for multiple posts about why they never took off more than they did in the 90s but I don't know why GURPS isn't more than just a footnote for more genX gamers like myself (and completely obscure to younger ones for the most part).

Was it just the curse of the jack of all trades/master of none game mechanics? Was it the lack of genre focus? Was it the art? Was it the branding? Was it a lack of further development as decades passed? As a self professed fan, I'm curious what your thoughts are on this.

There's a lot of discussion on this, so I'll give my thoughts and a few opinions shared by others. There's not going to be one answer, and the simplest is that tabletop rpgs have always been niche, with D&D being the first and most popular, thus causing and being the center of controversy, causing its popularity to rise.

But, as to why GURPS isn't the most popular? Perhaps due to Steve Jackson's aversion to risk. That's my main theory. Due to his aversion, though, he still owns his RPG, unlike many other companies. In addition, it only ever had one real controversy, and that's the whole Secret Service thing, when they seized GURPS books for a Cyberpunk book. And this was forever ago.

I do think a lack of art, a clinical approach to rules writing, and the odd name gave it a bit of a lackluster start. Despite this, Steve Jackson Games has made GURPS survive, with enough money to pay freelance writers, from what I hear, a good amount of money. But this leads into another reason as to why GURPS never took off. They have a strong opinion regarding content, where even freelance writers have to meet a high bar of writing, and Steve Jackson is very strict about this. This means there's very little fan content, and very few adventures. A lot of popular rpgs have a beginner campaign of sorts, with a small sample of the basic rules needed to run it.

This, again, leads to an issue for mass popularity. The amount of rules. GURPS is the Generic Universal Role Playing System, and never advertises itself as playable out of the box. If you want to get started in GURPS, there's a lot of rules to dig through to even start. Even GURPS Lite has over 100 skills. Most people who are just looking to hang out would be intimidated, due to the front loaded complexity, with a book that is not written for new players, compared to D&D's gradual complexity. This is probably the reason I'd go with outside of risk aversion. It's hard to get into GURPS. I struggled at first, as my group had no one that played it. But we eventually figured it out.

I think I have it about right, but some people think it's due to the community, which is made up mostly of grognards that don't tend to give out a helping hand to new players. I think this has an element of truth, but isn't quite accurate. The issue, in my opinion, is due to presentation. Often, when someone asks what they need to start, the answer is either "The rules," or "These 20 supplements with optional rules." Neither is really helpful. In addition, I think D&D gives a really bad idea for what to expect in other RPGs, as it is very unintuitive. I find it easier to teach people who never played an RPG, as GURPS tends to be very intuitive. As an example, there was a Dungeon Fantasy RPG (GURPS, basically) summer camp where some of the kids said that it was easier to explain and learn than D&D.

Basically, D&D was popular long enough for most people to know about it, so it's their first stop. It then gives a couple bad lessons for what to expect from other games. Because GURPS is only really played by GURPS players, it has poor outreach. If someone learns about it, they see the very clinical and rules heavy approach, and leave to find something less intimidating. In addition, it's not for everybody, due to its clinical, crunchy approach. When someone wants to learn it, but has nobody to teach them, they read a book formatted poorly for beginners (but great for experienced players), and give up. If they start to play, there's just not many groups, so you need to make your own. If you can manage that, and most of them like the system, and aren't intimidated by it, you now have to create your own campaign, or buy one. There's no official beginner campaigns that are free. It's also harder to get someone to invest in a game when the most recent edition is 17 years old, but that's more of current thing.

But, despite all of this, it still turns a profit, Steve Jackson won't sell it easily, it's one of the most supported RPGs ever, even currently, and people who write for it are paid fairly well, with at least one writer (not employed by SJG) living off his licensed products. He's one of the very few rpg writers who managed to keep his game his own, and didn't have to sell it, or be bought out. In addition to all this, they still have insane quality control, and still release books somewhat often.

Also, he really messed up not letting Fallout use GURPS. That could have shot the game to extreme visibility.

Thanks for the detailed response. It definitely sounds multifaceted as to why it didn't take off further. I wasn't aware of a Fallout connection to the tabletop rpg (unlike with say Warcraft and Warhammer). As with Cyberpunk and Michael Pondsmith, I can respect an rpg developer for wanting to stay true to his or her vision and "just" earn alot of money but not necessarily "all" the possible money.

Cyberpunk is another rpg I really enjoy. I've been playing 2020, and you can feel the love through the rough bits.

Unrelated, can someone recommend me a word based or diceless RPG?

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
Cyberpunk is another rpg I really enjoy. I've been playing 2020, and you can feel the love through the rough bits.

It's great if you play it casual with a DM familiar with it (or with good reference sheets).
The system (and feel to some degree) falls over if players are more interesting minmax murder-hoboing and/or having characters that are consistently successful.

The local group had a look at the new cyberpunk (red) recently too and it is extraordinarily dry by comparison. In the name of balance everything is boiled down to a handful of generic values - fast to run, easy to understand, but no mechanical depth or discovery.

So, the weather is terrible here so our game night was cancelled for the second night in a row. The internet is also threatening to have outages. Yikes!

However, has anyone tried an all text based RPG conducted over SMS that is diceless? What was it? What did you discover?

I haven't tried it but I'd imagine that it's a more chaotic and sped up version of play by post.

However, this is going to be my first actual RPG review. It will follow the normal format my reviews take:

- Things I liked
- Things I did not like
- Meh and other uncertainties
- Final thoughts

Let's get into this with two-fists swingin' and snub-nose .38's blazing!
http://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2023/03/rpg-review-hard-city-osprey-games.html

Thanks and I will take a look.

For those interested in OSR, the Shadowdark rpg kickstarter is in it's final 48 hours and is (at the time of this post) currently at $1.15 million in funding. Just going by the free intro rules, I don't think it's for me personally but lots of people seem to think/hope it's for them!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/shadowdarkrpg/shadowdark-rpg-old-school-gaming-modernized

I am a relative newcomer to Legend of the 5 Rings. I have been familiar with it as an Intellectual Property for a long, long time but never really spent much time with it. However, I listened to an actual play of one edition or another on the Happy Jacks Podcast, and was intrigue by what I had heard. I listened to a few more podcasts and was even more interested. Then, one day I was at the Half-Price Bookstore and saw a copy of the Third Edition rulebook. I bought it.

Since then, I have managed to design a short campaign called "One Year in Rokugan" that was edition and stat block agnostic but based on my 3rd Edition knowledge. After all, there are 5 editions of the game! If you are part of my Patreon, you can find this campaign available there for free as a PDF. I have managed to play through the campaign using 3rd edition rules, and we all had a lot of fun. It was a huge difference from our normal D&D 5E games, and I enjoyed introducing the world of Rokugan to my players.



After that enjoyable campaign, there was an interest in updating from 3rd edition to 5th edition. I myself was curious about the differences, but had put off buying it. I all ready had 3rd edition, and figured there was no great need to update to the "newest". However, as I learned more about the new edition the core mechanics seemed markedly different than the AEG versions of the game I owned.

Therefore, with some hesitation; I acquired a copy for myself. Keep in mind Legend of the 5 Rings: 5th edition is NOT the same as Adventures in Rokugan; also by Edge Studios. Adventures is a skin for using Rokugan in D&D 5E. Legend of the 5 Rings: 5th Edition using its own system based on the Fantast Flight Games Genesys system. Genesys is used with games like Edge of Empire. It will be interesting to see where this game maintains and differs from the L5R I am familiar with.

So, let us don our Daisho and prepare to serve our Daimyo.....

http://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2023/08/rpg-review-legend-of-5-rings-5th.html

Late to the discussion but I’d give a +1 to GURPS, although it’s been a long time since I looked at it. I didn’t know the Fallout thing.

I’m very intrigued by the new The One Ring, which has a Moria kickstarter now.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1192053011/moria-through-the-doors-of-durin/description
I have the Strider rules, which allow for GM-less play, and I’m hoping to try that out soon with my significant other. Anyone have thoughts on it?

Greetings all.

Some of you maybe wondering "why so many RPG Reviews?" I know, I know, this is a wargame design blog! However, I have been dabbling a lot in RPG design, writing adventures, and playing RPGs! As part of this, I have been playing a lot of RPG sessions, and reading a lot of different rules sets. Therefore, that has led to a lot of RPG reviews.

Avatar: Legends is a Powered by the Apocalypse system RPG based on the Avatar: The Last Airbender and Avatar: The Legend of Korra cartoon series seen originally on Nickelodeon. So, to many of us that sentence might not make any sense! What does it all mean?

Well, let's start with the setting. The book is about half setting details and half-rules for game play. The setting focuses on a mystical world of various elemental powers, a spirit world, and nations built around affinity to these elements. The elements are Fire, Earth, Water, and Air. In addition, there is a martial arts tradition of "bending" these elements by channeling chi. So, basically it is another Fantasy Asian culture leaning much more towards Chinese and Southeast Asian influences as opposed to Legend of the 5 Rings that leans heavily into Japan.

If you want more setting stuff, try here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar:_The_Last_Airbender

The players are a group of young heroes who have banded together to complete a great quest or adventure. They all have chosen to participate, are all familiar with martial arts, and are all generally good people. For the most part, they are also mostly tweens, teens, and young adults.

Great, now you know a bit about the premise. So, what the devil is Powered by the Apocalypse? This is a very loose philosophy for running an RPG that has a few similar traits. It is not a "mechanics system" per se as many of the rules that use the PbtA "system" have very different mechanics. However, it is more of a philosophy of how to play RPGs using these general ideas:

All dice rolls are determined on a 2d6
-7-9 is a success with complication, and 10+ is a success with some benefits
-The Game master does not roll any dice, only interprets results
-The focus is on Narrative and leaning into the story
-The game is designed to exploit genre conventions and tropes
-There is no Class/Level system, instead using genre archetypes in the form of Playbooks
-There is no Health/Hit points, instead causing conditions to apply to the character
-Players and the Gamemaster use a variety of pre-defined actions known as moves to broadly determine the action, these are designed to highlight the genre of the game.
-If you want to know more, you can look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_by_the_Apocalypse

So, now maybe that opening sentence makes more sense. It does? Great! With that being said, let's mount up on our Air Bison and "Yip, Yip" on our way!



You can see my full thoughts on the game at the Blood and Spectacles blog:
http://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2023/09/rpg-review-avatar-legends-magpie-games.html

Whoooooooa I did not know that this is PBTA! I'm far more interested now

Well, it took almost a year but I finally pressed the button and picked up Zweihander's starter set. I discovered it last year and asked about it in thread as it seemed like a great starter box but I have almost zero experience with either the game genre (horror) and setting (including WFRPG).

Why buy it then? Well, the starter box seems genuinely very well done from unboxings I've seen and I wanted to see it in person and, more importantly I saw it was ridiculously cheap on Amazon in the US (less than $20 shipping and tax included).

Has anyone played the game here? I know it's a knockoff/evolution/whatever of an earlier WFRPG edition but I don't have experience with that either.

Well, I found out why the starters are so cheap now... because they're coming out with a new edition of Zweihander this year! Lol. I can't win. Regardless, it's a great starter set from a player perspective in terms of completeness and the sheer amount of stuff you get in terms of components for the price (even full price) but the rules aren't for me which I suspected. Same for the art other than the box cover painting. I doubt I'll ever play it and I definitely won't be trying to organize a session/campaign myself.

Any thoughts on or experience with Barbarians of Lemuria RPG? It's a rules light sword and sorcery Conan-inspired 2d6 system that seems pretty complete from a simple read through.

It also appears that Cubicle 7 (inheritors of the WFRP and makers of AOS Soulbound rpg) is also now making a WH Old World rpg as well. From their facebook announcement:

Breaking news! We are developing a new roleplaying game based on Games Workshop’s recently launched Warhammer: The Old World.
Our own Dominic McDowall said, “Exploring a new era with Warhammer: The Old World is an honour and a privilege. As huge fans of the classic Warhammer setting we’re thrilled to be working with Games Workshop on the new chapter of such a beloved setting.”
Fans of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay can rest assured it will continue as its own game line, with many, many releases already scheduled for the coming years.

https://www.facebook.com/Cubicle7Entertainment

From the chatter elsewhere, it's reported that it will use the Soulbound mechanics of a d6 dice pool system though I can't find an official source stating that.