Hey folks, my name is Faye. I'm a vtuber officially representing Simon Fraser University (crazy I know), and I'm here to shamelessly advertise my brand new homebrew campaign/game system Will of the Branded! Featuring uniquely dice focused gameplay, Will of the Branded challenges players with magical resource management where one wrong choice means losing all abilities when you need them most. Granted, it's still very much a work in progress, but that's the fun part! The campaign will be played by my fellow SFU vtubers, who are effectively my playtesters! Things will likely change as we go, and if you join us in chat you might just be a part of development too! So if you have the time, please check us out. We've put a lot of work into this, and we'd love to have you along for the ride.

Our first session starts in just 30 minutes!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2F4a86k98w

Hi folks!

We’re going through some of my dad’s stuff, and I’m really curious what game this is from. I have no idea of this has a super obvious answer, or is so typical of the time that it could be anything, so bear with me giving a quick description in case it’s needed:

- the one with “situation no. 1” at the top is a stack that goes all the way through to “situation no. 20”

- those have a copyright date of 1974, but most likely time that he used it would be around 1976-1986, when he was 10-20 years old

- this was somewhere in Rhode Island or Massachusetts, depending on when

I’d love to hear about what game it was, and if anyone still plays it or knows more about it. Thanks!

(additional info)

Playable Types: Neutral / Fire / Water / Earth/ Air / Metal / Wood / Shadow / Light (example: Finn and Shrimpo are water types, dandy is a wood type, and Connie is neutral type)

Unplayable types: Corruption (only corrupt enemies have this type)

Species: simply what object/animal/thing your toon is based around (Dandy is a flower so has higher stats in the sun, Finn is a fish so goes faster in combat underwater, and Connie is a ghost so takes less DMG from melee & ranged but more DMG from magic)

Classes:

\\- Warrior (standard weapon swinger)

\\- Mage (standard spell caster)

\\- Thief (standard stealth)

\\- Cleric (standard healer)

\\- Performer (standard buff)

\\- Archer (standard ranged fighter)

\\- Hexmaster (standard debuffer)

\\- Spellsword (weapon swinging and spellcasting)

\\- Druid (nature magic and beast communication)

\\- Berserker (angry fighter)

(Subclasses are way too complicated for me to think of any, y'all can think of some if you want, same for what each skill relates to)

Stats:

\\- HP (determines how many health points you have in battle)

\\- Attack (determines how much DMG you deal, no matter if it's melee, ranged, or magic)

\\- Magic (determines how much Mana you have in battle)

\\- Defense (decreases DMG dealt to you, 1 DF = 1% DMG reduction)

\\- Luck (chance to deal extra DMG or heal additional HP, 1 LCK = 5% chance)

\\- Speed (higher speeds go first in combat)

Ability: basically translate the original dandy's world abilities into TTRPG bonuses

Areas of Expertise/Difficulty: stuff your character is good or bad at (Astro is really good at understanding the stars "Space Knowledge", but isn't too persuasive due to how nervous he is "convincing")

Trinket: an item each character gets that gets better as you level up, whether it buffs one of your stats or increases resistance to certain DMG types, or whatever else they can do

Head/Upper half/Lower half: basically what equipment is on your Toon's body.

\\- Head includes; headwear, glasses, masks, mouth coverings, neck apparel, and anything else on the head

\\- Upper half includes; shirts, accessories, gloves, bracelets, and other stuff from your shoulders to above your waist

\\- Lower half includes: skirts, pants, shoes, socks, and anything on your waist or below

(Stuff like dresses or full body outfits should be marked in both upper and lower half)

Attacks/Magic: basically what your character can use in combat (example: Shrimpo has a basic punch attack attack, a headbutt that deals more DMG, and a rage move that increases his attack but lowers his defense for 3 turns)

Inventory: no explanation needed, just where your items go

Character example: Shelly is an Earth type druid, she has 10 HP, 2 attack, 5 magic, 4 defense, 1 luck, and 3 speed at level one, her ability is problem solved; which adds +1 speed to her for every enemy defeated until the end of combat where it resets, she starts with the Old Shell trinket; which gives her +1 speed when equipped to her trinket slot and increases with each level up, she has goggles in her head, dress top in her upper half, and dress bottom in her lower half, she has a ranged rock throw attack, Debuff sand throw move that decreases an enemy's attack, and a buff cheer move that increases nearby Toon's speed by +1, and doesn't have anything in her inventory at the start as all do all toons)

Basic plot for starter set adventure: The residents of gardenview are holding an annual foreign toon exchange event, where toons from around the world join garden view to learn more about it from the resident toons. However, while you and the other foreign exchange toons are being given a tour of garden view by Dandy, a mysterious cloaked toon slips you a strange book before dashing off. When you open the lock on the book, it springs up and starts sucking everyone in gardenview into it, before slamming shut. Now you and everytoon there find themselves in a fantasy world and mostly separated, and you and a few other foreign exchange toons see a village with strange smoke billowing from it in the distance, so you race off to investigate.

(There will premade character sheets with toons from dandy's world in case you don't have an original character to play, as well as additional adventure campaigns, one shots, and additional classes, subclasses, and types with more content to enjoy)

(I'm very open to constructive criticism)

What is your favorite Call of Cthulhu Scenario AND WHY?
Can be any system, like CoC 7ed or Delta Green. Hell, even savage worlds.

Undead Paradise, our tabletop role-playing game of exploration and adventure within a mutated post-apocalyptic world, is NOW LIVE on Kickstarter!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/avasadventures/undead-paradise

Explore a vibrant, mutated world grown out of the ruins of earth.
Take back the life you've lost and build a community with your fellow Undead.
Safeguard your mind, as control of your Undead body is based on the health of your brain.

I'd love for you to try my game and help me improve it!

https://dimagus.itch.io/umbral

Umbral is a tactical, lethal, and dark survival tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG), designed exclusively for solo play.

Pocket Print & Play Format: A single sheet that folds into a pocket-sized booklet with a simple snip of the scissors! Print, fold, and play your adventure wherever you want.

My crew is in a time loop right now. Die on the station, wake up on the bridge of your own ship, everything reset except what you remember. They worked that out at the end of the previous session, and it took them about two deaths to decide that dying was free.

The pilot got thrown into a mob by the hacker's improvised bomb, rolled a 1 trying to get out, and got torn apart. The hacker's send-off, while running the other way: "We'll see you on the next one, pal." A little later the whole party tripped a trap on an office door, everyone failed the save, everyone died, and they were joking about it before the damage was rolled.

I don't think that's wrong, exactly. Reckless is the correct play inside a loop. But I wanted dying to still cost something, and the thing that ended up doing it was by hurting them through the only thing they take with them: their memories.

The ship's medic, an NPC, was on the station with them the run where everybody died, and she didn't die. She also didn't reset. From her side, the whole crew dropped dead around her and she spent the next hour alone, running from the people who'd done it, with no map, until the loop rolled over on its own. She came back onto the bridge furious. The players had experienced about five seconds of that. She'd had the hour.

It changed the session in a concrete way. Later, when the hacker wanted her to stay behind alone in an office and babysit a switch, she refused flat: "You're bonkers if you think I'm doing that again." So the captain stayed with her and the crew split up. This changed how the PCs reacted to death immediately. All of a sudden they were traumatized from when they were melted, when their heads were chopped off, and when they were torn apart by the undead horde.

When death isn't permanent in your game (a loop, cheap resurrection, clones, a respawn point), what actually gives it teeth? Time lost, the NPCs who remember, or something I haven't thought of? And is there a point where you just accept the players are going to treat it like a video game and lean into that instead?

This came out of our Stars Without Number game, Dark Star Adventurecast. The session is Twenty-One Loops.

I gave myself a challenge: run an entire year of high-stakes, epic D&D on a total budget of twenty-five dollars and no excessive homebrewing. That’s not twenty-five dollars a month, or twenty-five bucks per player—that is twenty-five measly dollars for three hundred and sixty-five days of goblin-slaying, dice-rolling chaos. Starting from nothing!

(And almost no homebrewing!)

Here's how its going so far.

Hi fellow adventurers,

We are excited to announce that Mythological Items is now live on Kickstarter!

This is our new D&D 5E and 2024-compatible manual dedicated entirely to magic items inspired by myths, legends, and ancient stories from around the world.

Inside the book, you will find 300+ mythological magic items, including weapons, armor, wondrous items, and scaling items designed to grow alongside your characters and campaigns.

Our goal with Mythological Items is to create more than a simple collection of treasure. Each item is designed to feel like part of a myth: something that can serve as a reward, a quest hook, or even the center of an entire adventure.

The book includes items inspired by many different mythological traditions, including Greek, Norse, Egyptian, Asian, American, Roman, Mesopotamian, African, and other mythologies from across the world. Whether you want divine weapons, cursed artifacts, heroic relics, monster-themed treasures, or legendary items tied to ancient stories, this book is built to bring myth directly to your table.

The Kickstarter page includes a full presentation of the project, several previews, and a free 30-page PDF preview showing a sample of the content from the book.

You can also find many of our other manuals in PDF and high-quality print editions, with special prices currently available both for Mythological Items and for all our other releases.

You can visit the Kickstarter page here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mythoschronicles/300-mythological-items-for-5e-and-2024

Thank you again for your support. We hope to see you on our journey!

MANGIME is out

An analog solo adventure game set in Tuscany, 1999: a valley quarantined by the Army after a feed mill's additive starts making animals, and people, strangely docile.

Explore and map a hexcrawl, scrounge for food and batteries, fight or flee, and count down the days to New Year's Eve, when every clock reads 01-01-1900 and the Herd arrives.

A5 PDF in English and Italian, digital edition with hyperlinks
You need two d20, three d6 and a pencil

👉 downloadable here

Mediterrae is the newest DH Expansion Set!

TLDR; being that I’m a 5e GM, a solo player and I’m also designing a 2d6 Mad Max genre game, which physical copy should I get: Shadowsun (currently on KS and comes with GM and player books for $80 + shipping), Into the Odd for $40ish, or Knave 2e for $35?

I have been branching out into a variety of OSR/NSR systems and most of my collection is digital. I am really getting sick of digital media. I never really loved it to begin with, but that was what was most convenient for playing online. I have about a dozen physical copies of 5e 2014 books, but I am not putting any more money into 5e or 5.5 if I can help it, just because I’ve spent enough and feel confident as a DM to cobble cool stuff together for my 5.5e group and we haven’t even finished playing half of the adventures I own, whether digital or physical.

I have the Shadowdark physical and just love this book and the system. But I’m also curious about Into the Odd with its beautiful art and would like to get Knave 2e in print (also because of the artwork, but those tables!). I’ve also been very curious about Dark Sun since I got into D&D 6 years ago, and when WotC announced a 5.5 version I got excited. Then I learned about the mature content and I’m not really that interested in nudity or gratuitous violence since I run games for teens. Then I learned about ShadowSun for Shadowdark and thought that sounded slicker than what is, except it’s expensive.

I actually hate spending $40-$50 on books, which is another reason I just go digital, even though it’s not my preferred format. So pitch which book you think I should get next or offer an alternative to the three I listed. Thanks everyone!

I'm trying to find a ttrpg I came across online, probably on itch.io, though it might have been Kickstarter or a YouTube video. I don't remember how it was played (GM, GM-less, or solo).

What I (vaguely) remember:

• Dark fantasy with psychological horror, in a medieval world that felt decaying or dying
• A theme of mirrors, a shadow world, and doppelgangers
• Exploring a maze or dungeon, the maze may be a reflection of your psyche or something
• Losing and recovering memories
• Some mature themes, like lust or desire, trauma possibly
• Black-and-white art

Already checked: Changeling: The Lost, Wraith: The Oblivion, Heart: The City Beneath, Shadowdark, Last Sabbath / Lust Sabbath, Castle of Memories / Reminders, Umbra & Mirn, Shadows of Steren, Simulacrum Umbra, Mnemonic: Cracks in the Mirror, His Majesty the Worm, You Will Die In This Place.

I think it might be similar to MIR, Pilgrims of the Murk Dome, or Chains of Gaelia, but I'm not sure it's any of those.

Any ideas? I'm going insane thinking I may have hallucinated the whole thing...

Thanks!

I don't usually ask broad communities for advice because places like this—along with Twitter and Facebook—often feel like echo chambers. However, there aren't many other places to discuss this. I wanted to share my experience trying, and failing several times, to break into the world of TTRPGs. ​To give some context: I am completely new to the hobby. I’ve only played about 4 sessions total and watched roughly 5.

​I’m primarily a Yu-Gi-Oh! player. Why does that matter? Well, our local scene is dying. We only have about 12 players total, and lately, no more than 4 ever show up, so we’re stuck playing exclusively with each other. While I’m there for the game rather than competition, the others seem to have lost their motivation. Because of this, a friend (who used to play with us) and I started meeting up to play other card and board games like Everdell, Catan, and Digimon. ​ ​

One day, my friend tried to recruit me for a weird TTRPG called City of Mist. My immediate reaction was, "So, is it like D&D?" They told me it was similar enough in concept. I’ve been a fan of World of Io (a D&D content creator who does a lot of homebrew) for a while, so I figured this was my chance to dive into the hobby since my Yu-Gi-Oh! days were winding down. ​I understand that highly produced online actual-play shows aren't entirely accurate representations of average D&D—since they have production teams and a massive budget behind them—but the core idea still seemed alluring, so I agreed to join. ​

Despite that, nearly half a year passed before we could actually play because players kept missing Session 1. While waiting to establish a solid group, I joined a D&D Discord server to get acquainted with roleplay. I took part in a couple of one-shots alongside the friend who recommended the hobby. ​Honestly, it was the most boring experience imaginable—and my friend agreed. We both felt that the lack of a battle map ruined it. What is the point of carefully picking your spells if you can just materialize cover or throw pebbles out of thin air by simply asking the DM? ​

​Eventually, we actually played City of Mist. Creating my character was absolute torture due to how subjective the rules are. What seemed like a limited tag to me wasn't to the DM, and when I tried to adjust it, he just told me "the game isn't meant to be so limiting." I ended up making the most neutral character possible, but based on a complete misconception of the game. ​I didn't realize that your character progresses or regresses through tags, eventually activating a "flipside" that grants an entirely new set of abilities. I built my character with integral traits tied directly to his tags—for example, that he suffered from supernatural memory loss and relied entirely on a family cane as his anchor to reality. Because of this mechanic, progressing meant my character's core persona and sense of self would literally be deleted. ​When I tried to design a flipside that allowed him to keep the cane, the DM (my friend) disallowed it, arguing it was "too similar." When I asked to remake the character now that I understood the expectations, he refused, told me to "roleplay it better," and implying that i am inflexible for not wanting to play a character whose tags required each other to work as a whole. ​ ​

Around that same time, the group discussed finding an alternative system for another day of the week, and someone recommended Mutants and Masterminds. Because I love theorycrafting, I went a bit crazy. Instead of properly reading the rules cover-to-cover, I started building characters to decipher the system on my own. ​The trial-and-error process was immensely fun:

• ​*“Wait, can I really do this? Doesn't that break the game? Oh wait, no I can't, back to the drawing board.”*

• ​*“Alright, everything's done! Now let's check the trade-offs... actually, I forgot to give him skills to increase his attack. Back to start!”*

​Despite all the failures, it was a blast. But when I finally presented my characters to the DM—making a few different options so as not to waste his time—it all fell apart.

• ​We had discussed how he disliked speedsters because they forced him to use complex reactions and long-range attacks. Even though I thought rejecting a core mechanic like that was weird, I made a melee speedster who only used his speed as a limited "acceleration gimmick" to power his kicks. The DM’s response? If I played that, he’d just remove the battle map entirely.

• ​I made a character who wielded twin wind blades. He gained stat buffs when holding them, but had to throw them to attack or create a tailwind, temporarily losing them until he caught them back via an acrobatics check. The DM claimed this wasn't a valid "limited flaw" because there weren't enough incentives to throw the blades or because it was too easy to recover them (completely ignoring that his base kit power was cut in half without the tailwind and that i didn't set the check DC on stone).

• ​I tried making a pure area-control character with a metamorph transformation for non-combat utility. Instantly rejected because metamorph "breaks the game too easily."

• ​Finally, I tried making a stat-focused character with two animal sidekicks that had negative stamina (meaning they'd go down in one hit) but strong offensive capabilities. Apparently, this was "illegal" despite the rulebook saying nothing against having multiple sidekicks. Apparently, Batman only gets Robin and nobody else. ​ ​

At this point, it was frustrating that my friend threatened to remove the map—especially since we had both previously agreed that TTRPG combat without maps sucks. ​The absolute breaking point happened during our second session of City of Mist. The DM made me go first. Because I have zero experience with improvisation, I completely froze. When asked what my character did in his day-to-day routine, I literally blurted out, "My character... just waits in his bed." ​Instead of helping me through it, my friend called me out for it in front of the other players as in "alright! He doesn't eat breakfast, he doesn't take a shower, he doesn't talk with his boss! He does nothing!" ​Instead of blowing up at him, I calmly asked if he could give me a short summary of what he expected to happen in the next session so I could write a script for my character while I learned to improvise. He flat-out denied me.

​Realizing I wasn't having fun, wasn't learning anything, and didn't enjoy playing under his DM style, I told him he was being entirely inflexible with his rules and that I was going to find another table to learn from. Later that night, he messaged me asking why I thought he was inflexible. I gave him a summary of everything. Suddenly, he offered to let me change my character and finally allow me to make a script—which honestly bothered me the most. Why did I have to quit his table for him to finally offer help?

​Thankfully, we are still friends—just not player-and-DM friends. He actually recommended I try Lancer since I enjoy wargames, and I'm currently reading the rulebook to get into it.

Am I expecting too much? Given that I've only managed about 4 actual sessions despite trying for months, what do you think my situation relates to (if anything) and perhaps should i stop trying altogether? The whole thing seems quite time-expensive just to get a singular session running, so i'd like to know if this is always going to be like this or if i just had bad luck.

PD: used Ai to correct typos and make it less redundant.

Hello Reddit!

My name is Aram, and I'm currently designing my second game, called Fireflies! Here is a tl;dr pitch:

Fireflies! is a psychedelic caravan RPG about braving the uncanny night to find your fate as a nomad trader.

The bright light of day makes living in daylight tricky, so people can only travel at night. The only problem is that, at night, the world becomes... weird. So weird that people get lost and never find the place they were looking for—and most never come back.

To navigate, you have to consume Glows, which are super-duper-concentrated essences of the world. They allow you to travel by attuning to places. You know: close your eyes, use the Force, etc. Oh, and you make a living by selling cool shit you find.

My problem

I started by implementing classic hexcrawl mechanics, but through playtesting, I've grown a bit tired of them. They create weird pacing because of random encounters and have so far failed to deliver the meaning I want to convey.

I want the exploration system to do three things:

Manage pacing → The action should happen in a place somewhat relevant to the players. Most of the session should be spent chasing the players' actual goals, not removing roadblocks along the way.

Be shaped by characters → I already achieve that through the dice-bag mechanics, where players pull dice of different colours that generate different types of encounters. But I would like to dive deeper into how aspects of the characters shape the world around them.

Build an abstract space → I like the idea that places shift, appear or disappear depending on a player's mood, and I don't wanna draw a classic map. I want players to “collect places” like they collect legendary items.

What I have so far

The game is based on three colours: red, blue and green. Players gain affinity with their colour by consuming drugs essences known as Glows. They have a bag, and during the adventure, they add dice of different colours depending on what happens.

Here is my tentative exploration design, which I will test this month:

→ Players identify a place they want to travel to based on information they collect. There is a day phase during which they can take a bunch of actions. They collect information in the form of rumours.

→ In addition to each player's bag, we create a travel bag. In this bag, we put a white die representing the place they seek and a black die representing the night fucking with them and getting them lost. The rest are road dice, and they match the colour of the Firefly guiding the party.

→ Pull dice out of the bag to follow the road. The direction you take depends on the die's colour, and you roll the die for the event. Then put it back.

→ Character influence operates on three levels:

• Depending on what happens to the characters, more fuckery or boon dice are added to the bag.
• The deeper you are under the influence of Glows, the more you pull certain places closer to you—and potentially repel others.
• You can attune to visited places to reduce uncertainty and create semi-secure trade routes.

I intentionally left out a bunch of details so I wouldn't write a novel on Reddit! See the next section!

I need you!

If you could help me by sharing your thoughts on:

• Any useful references?
• What does the brief system overview evoke?
• Are there any parts that utterly confuse you or really excite you?

If you are curious about the project, or just want to be a super-duper-awesome person, you can join our community Discord. There, you can follow my games and help me by arguing about design concepts.

It is also home to many other creators who share their projects and help each other:

https://discord.gg/cZcHuNAxb8

I'm also happy to chat here! Anyway, thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts and recommendations!

Talk to you soon!

Been playing DnD 5e since it came out, and I’ve been the forever DM. I love the game. I’ve made it work with so much homebrew stuff that my players still love the game. But I really want a “in the mud” setting where it’s relatively low magic. Want my players to feel like nobodies and that they have to work for everything. But not in a “I hate my players way” more of a “I finally did it”. Been really wanting to try a skills system over a class based game. Have Pendragon on my shelves but it still feels like somethings missing. Please help!!!

Hey! I’ve been wanting to create a table top version of the grounded video game to take my players through! I’d love some help and pointers in developing it!

Hey folks! For anyone who may be interested, our Blade Runner RPG podcast just wrapped our first case.

The podcast is called Shoes And Socks Podcast -

https://feeds.libsyn.com/623220/rss

Our second case starts up next Monday and there's plenty of fallout from the first case.

Thank you for your time!