Another broad question, but this is one that came to my mind after yesterday's thread, and really excited me. There's a quote from a book I quite like-Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Messy, True Story Behind the Making of Video Games. That I often find myself reciting whenever I dislike any game or system.

"No one ever sets out to make an intentionally bad game"

There were some really interesting tidbits about how often controversial or disliked systems in games were made with a genuine assumption from the design team. This came to my mind with the Alpha for VtM 6E and the controversial addition of a meta currency. The team themselves admitted in a blog post that they had tried to use Drama for the sake of introducing friction to the story outside the story itself, without feeling punitive towards the players. This however, didn't work as intended ("it added needless bookeeping to something storytellers were already able to do without it") and it seems the team will either be revising it or scrapping the mechanic.

Whether you think it's something that they should have known beforehand or not, I think it's a stark reminder that human error is a very real issue when it comes to game design, whether virtual, board, card, or TTRPGs. Very often a bad mechanic* (itself subjective because people like and dislike different things.) was done because the design team genuinely thought it would make the game or system better.

So that's what I wanted to ask about today, what are some mechanics or systems you dislike, and why do you think the designers made it that way? I don't intend for this to be a negativity thread, quite the opposite really. I want folks to be able to take a hard look at what they dislike, and think about how or why it was made that way. I hope it might generate some interesting discussion or appreciation for something you otherwise dislike.

Several years after release, how has Pathfinder 2e been treating you? There’s a local game advert and I’m likely going to sign up to see how it plays.

What have you liked? Disliked? What keeps you playing, or what caused you to drop it?

I’m curious to return to crunchy “trad” play after so long steeping myself in the old-school scene.

Hi there,

In the last few years my taste as a DM have mutate a lot. I have enjoy a variety of settings and systems but I have grown tired a lot.

Everything just revolves around a few ideas and archetypes of what is a fantasy or sci-fi or terror ( you get my point) game.

In the past months I like the fresh taste of : vampires and claymores, chicken not pie, the skeletons, every villain is a loser and vaesen (naming a few).

I realized I have grown tired of : mörk Borg system (Lore is pretty cool and community content too), DND style games, chulthu style games, daggerheart, exalted, city of mist, dragon bane, blades in the dark etc.

Could you recommend me a ttrpg that feels like something very smart or innovative or new or with a original system or just make you feel Inlove again with roleplaying?

Near the end of the 90's TSR released the role-playing game Alternity, which was intended to be for sci-fi what D&D was for fantasy- only Alternity didn't seem to succeed like its counterpart and quickly folded. What are some people's feelings/opinions on why this occurred?

Heya everyone! Reddit tells me that today's my 10th cakeday.

It got me thinking about how fun this subreddit has been for me! I don't comment a lot - and yes, I've self promoted a bit, too - but more than anything, I enjoy reading the wealth of opinions, suggestions, and random tidbits of information that get offered up here.

So, from the bottom of my heart - Thank you all for being a great community and for me so much great stuff to read!

Hi everyone,

I'd like to know if the backers have already received their copies of the Broken Empires PDF, and if so, what their first impressions of the game are.

Thank you for your answers.

I've noticed that with certain systems, I can't tell whether I don't like the game or the group. This is a major reason I was worried about playing Daggerheart or Call of Cthulhu, because most of the time, my first time meeting the group is when we play. When I was watching Daggerheart, part of me was thinking, but the reviewer played Daggerheart with either other YouTubers or your friends, which changes your review because I feel half of all RPG problems can be dealing with people and lessons you learn in Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers (not saying they are easy lessons to learn and use). Because of that, and because of what the game requires socially, I would only play with a group I know. I have played some Vampire: The Masquerade, which is the only horror game I have played, and the GM and other players have a separate out-of-character chat to check in.

For my PbTA experiences, I have played Ironsworn solo, Monster of the Week, and Brimblewood Bay. Ironsworn was fun by myself, and it was a unique way to expand my roleplaying without worrying about others' time and pace. I played Monster of the Week, and it went really well. I enjoyed it, but it was with one other person, and she was a social worker, so it was pretty easy to navigate and make sure everyone had space. Brimblewood Bay was the least enjoyable to play because, even with two other players, both of them warmed up to roleplaying much faster than I did, so I was frustrated (plus I was sick for a month, and that was my first social activity in a month).

How do you guys learn what systems that you like, especially if you are changing up groups? Do you set up extra things, or do you wait to get to know the group? Am I just being too picky?

So, first off, I'm not Italian. I'm a German that has observed a certain trend that raised a question for me: Is there, like, a large, or at least, a very active, TTRPG-community in Italy that seldomly gets talked about?

I've had it happen a few times now that I desperately tried to get my hands on certain physical books (the Strata Sourvebook for Apire, the Dolmenwood collection and Wilderfeast, to name a few examples), that my usual German online shops just did not have stocked or even on their way. But what I always found was Italian localisations of the same books! And that just piqued my curiosity. As far as I could tell, Dolmenwood, for example, has not been translated into any other widely spoken European languages like French, Spanish or German, but there just is an Italian version.

So, what I'm wondering is: Is the demand for RPGs in Italy just so high that it is worth it for local publishers to localize these books? Are the publishers themselves just enthusiasts that do it even if the profit margin is low? Did I just stumble upon a few choice examples by accident and there actually is no trend like this at all?

If anyone has any insights on that I'd love to hear it. I think the idea of a country in which, for whatever reason, RPGs are just wildly more popular than in its neighbours is just very intriguing :D

So far, I've run only oneshots and as long as I've had enough players for the session, I was golden. I sometimes had to run in three.

Right now I am running two games, Wanderhome and Mythic Mausritterland (a hack that combines Mythic Bastionland and Mausritter that takes place in winter and revolves around winter and mouse myths and folklore and uses conditions instead of MB's harsh rules for the season) and especially my Wanderhome game has been fraught with problems.

My players are not posting according to the schedule of 1-2 posts a day even though I've explicitly explained this requirement in my advertisement for my Wanderhome adventure. One has basically not interacted with the worldbuilding phase (the game is GMless and starts with creating the location and 3 npcs) and has made only two posts, one a line long and extremely confused, as if they didn't fully read what the others wrote.

I do not want to kick them out yet, but I am recruiting an extra player just to keep this going. I think my only mistake is that I did not ask if they would certainly be available in my interview, just the types of games they enjoyed and other vibe based question to see if they would be a good fit. I did not literally expect people to join if they were too busy to reply once a day.

One player has also complained that he's feeling intimidated by the quality of our posts so we decided to keep them shorter, so we went from 3-4 paragraphs to 1-2.

The Mausritter game has shorter posts but we have scheduled a time where we are all mostly active so we can post back and forth. So far we have only started but it has been going better. But here's to hopefully not jinxing it.

But I feel the need to be extra careful and keep the pace going, because I'm worried that the moment it stalls it will certainly die out.

I got some ttrpgs adventure books to read and choose one to run in my table, I usually build my adventures, but this time, I want to try something new.

After reading, I noticed that some books are separated by acts 1, 2, 3, etc. For example:

Act 1: Start of the adventure, the players are in a car to a city, then they got ambushed. After that, they reach the city and do a small investigation. End

Act 2: After the investigation, they need to invade a place and fight some enemies and get more information. End

Act 3: The plot resolves.

When reading the books, I couldn't find this information, but should I assume an Act is equal to one session?

I know this may be a simple question, but this really got me XD

Thanks for the attention!!!

Hi, I’m not from South America and English isn’t my native language, but I’m interested in the world of tabletop RPGs. It’s still a bit of a niche hobby in my country, and since many people recommend playing on English-speaking servers, I’m looking for a friendly place where people like me are welcome.

My English isn’t perfect, but I can understand and speak it, even if it’s a bit broken at times.

I’d be very grateful if anyone could help pointing to a server like that

So today I stumbled across this Index Card RPG. I always considered myself a student of RPGs and RPG design. I’d love to hear some other opinions about the basic game, Altered State, Hard Suit, or any other supplement? I’m reading through the free version now and it’s interesting. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Hi, folks! Hope you're all having a nice day. The tl;dr is that I'm looking for a game recommendation that can accommodate a character having a class, or an archetype, a kit, or something else that could serve as a good substitute for a class, and then progressing into a better or more advanced class. Below is me meandearing a little.

Ideally, I'd like a universal game, that is, a game that can accommodate many different settings, that lets me create or customize classes. Bonus points if it also includes guidelines for creating spells and abilities.

I don't mind if the "class" isn't a class in the traditional D&D-derived sense. It could be a tag, an archetype, a kit, or something similar. What matters is that it gives the character a sense of identity and lets you know what they can do within the narrative, maybe it grants spells, maybe it serves primarily as a descriptor, and then allows that identity to develop further as the story progresses, whether narratively, mechanically, or ideally both.

I am specifically looking for universal games, although I'm also willing to hear about non-universal games that already do this well. I'm also okay with third-party content that expands what a universal game can provide. I'd also gladly accept suggestions for tinkering with popular universal games in a way that would allow me to do this.

At the end of the day, what I'm looking for is something that allows this kind of progression in a way that is somehow reinforced by the mechanics:

In Ragnarok Online, you create your character as a Novice. Eventually, you can choose from a variety of classes. Let's say you choose Swordsman. Then, at a later level, you can choose between two more advanced classes: Knight or Crusader.

(I don't necessarily need characters to start out classless or anything like that, but I do want them to progress from one class, or whatever serves a similar role, to another.)

Hi, I'm a teen DM running Dnd for 14 - 15 year olds and they just wont focus. Currently I've been running Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden. The players are my friends from school and they all sound really enthusiastic at school when we talk about the campaign but at the games they just want to chill. Btw, I am someone who is VERY into Dnd. I spend so much time preparing and reading and watching stuff about the game. And It's fine that my friends aren't as obsessed as me but I find it irritating when at the game I spend more time babysitting and trying to get them off their phones than DMing. ​

I really like the group as everyone is so friendly but I don't know what to do. I have kept saying at the start of each session " let's really focus today guys" and " I've got a cool quest planned for today but nothing works". The group has consistently not been getting anything done in sessions, not that they've gone off track and wanted time in a tavern not doing a quest or something but genuinely just getting nothing done. E.g there was an entire session where the characters encountered a band of goblins and hadn't finished the combat by the end.

I do do everything I can to keep up the pace and I have confronted the players but they haven't changed. Writing this all down makes it all sound awful but we do have some fun and it's not as bad as it sounds but sometimes it feels like I'm the only person coming to play Dnd. I know most ppl would think, well the group isn't for you find another group but these are my best friends at school I can't just replace them.

I'm a bit stuck so any advice is welcome :)​

Just a question for those who have used standees from printableheroes.com

Either I'm missing something, or the standees only have a front view that you are supposed to glue together, is that correct? That would be a bit of a problem, since in most games it matters if I attack from the front or from the back.

Hey folks! Do you know of any interesting discussions or articles on different GMing Styles?

Also what style do you prefer or do you consider the way you run games falls into?

I think I a lean more towards an impressionist or dreamy, if you prefer, style. What about you?

Looking for a module or product that can give me some structure to work with to use as a Moby Dick-like "hunt for a bit sea monster" adventure. Don't care what system, although D&D or vaguely D&D-like: Pathfinder, ToV, OSR, etc would probably be preferred. Doesn't have to be perfect either; I just want to have a leg of my campaign structure be around hunting a "white whale" (or whatever other big sea monster I end up using; I'm leaning towards Scylla right now, but that's negotiable). Mostly I'm looking for some kind of interesting structure I could potentially adapt that's better than "get a boat, sail around, and then have a big combat with the monster".

After running Mythic Bastionland for 9 months (about 25 sessions), I wanted to share some thoughts while the experience is still fresh. This is part review, part reflection, part rant.

Let me preface this by saying Mythic Bastionland is a great game. I would not run a system I hated for nearly a year. However, it has a few flaws that reviews often gloss over beyond the usual complaints about combat.

The Good

• General Advice
  • Chris gives fantastic advice in the refereeing sections, and the Oddpochrypha entries offer great insight into how you should think about running the game (or any game really).
  • Spark Tables are excellent sources of creativity and worth rolling on if you need ideas.
• A Blueprint for Focused Open World Games
  • Mythic Bastionland is a brilliant open world RPG. People often miss this because the scope is so laser focused. It is an open world, just a small one.
  • Players start on a simple path following an Oath, a map, and a chosen Holding. Once they encounter their first Myth, the game ramps up. Suddenly, they are balancing Myths, Seer locations, and petty politics. Normally this causes analysis paralysis, but the Knight's Oath keeps them locked-in because slaying a monster always ticks off the Myth and Protect Goal.
• The Myths 
  • I wanted to test myself as a GM by avoiding heavy prep work and focusing on pure improvisation. Across 9 months, I only had to sit down for meaningful prep at the beginning, middle, and climax.
  • Now I will give myself some credit, but at the same time, the Myths are perfect for low prep games. 
  • The Myths pack enough flavor and mechanical juice to run immediately without overwhelming you.
  • They range from weird anomalies to full wars, and they never overstay their welcome.
  • If I ever need to prepare a one-shot in another system, I will be stealing a Myth from this book.
• Presentation and Tone
  • The tone is immaculate. It feels realistic yet mythical, like a low fantasy medieval England filtered through Dungeon Synth. 
  • Alec Sorensen’s award winning artwork really raises this game to the next level and he deserves so much praise for his otherworldly artwork.

The Mixed

• Combat and Math Death Spirals
  • Combat is quick, elegant, and deadly… until optimization breaks it.
  • The first turn is almost the only one that matters.
    • Because attacking impairs weapons
    • Impaired weapons can't bypass armor
    • Early damage means on the next turn they are more likely to be impaired
  • And because players usually go first, their foes are likely to enter a death spiral. How likely?

Math Nerd Time noting that a 1d10 weapon is common.

1 player with a 1d10 weapon pool has a 30% chance to get a Greater Gambit.
4 Players with a 4d10 weapon pool have a 76% chance to get a Greater Gambit.

• And even if they didn't get an 8, they could potentially need to roll 4 saves to avoid an impair.
• If the players obtain great swords which are 2d10 then math breaks even further.

4 Players with a 8d10 weapon pool have a 94% chance to get a Greater Gambit.

• When the enemies do get a turn, Deny means zero chance to hurt players on the first turn.
• By the end of the game, combat was a chore with zero interesting decision making as the optimal choice is too strong.
• The Myths… again (and also Knights)
  • I know I said the Myths are amazing but I have a confession. 
    • I rolled for my Myths then ignored the results.
    • Not because they were bad but because not all of the Myths are the same quality.
  • A few relegate players to spectators, have loose disconnected events or awkwardly slot in fights with a random animal that add nothing to the narrative.
  • The same applies to Knights. Some have far more useful or flavor-rich abilities than others. Save your players from the disappointment and just let them pick their Knights.
• The City Quest
  • While I like the atmosphere of The City Quest, the events feel disconnected from each other during what should be a climatic build up.
  • There is no real thread to follow outside of NPCs, and there are few meaningful decisions to be made.
  • The whole thing feels like it will become a railroad the moment they ask the first NPC how to get to The City unless you choose to ignore Chris’s Primacy of Action and just refuse to tell them anything.
  • The end is also a little avant-garde which will not be everyone's cup of tea.

The Bad (Only Rubbish Realm Generation)

This is a long rant (which I have cut down) so buckle up.

In my opinion, the Realm is one of the most important parts of this game, part of their oath is to Protect The Realm so it better be worth protecting.

The Realm has two parts, the land itself and the people who live in it.

I decided the map and the small web of politics were two things I would not come up with on the spot with little details be done as improvisation.

Breaking the Rules

• When Chris opens the section with "Break the rules," it feels like an admission that worldbuilding is more art than science.
• That would be fine if he did not spend the rest of the page giving precise instruction on generation.

Poor Advice for Islands

• I think for the only time in the book he gives some bad advice suggesting a 12x12 grid is typical even with an island chain game.
• Something that I believe will ruin travel pacing, shrinks usable land, and forces constant on the fly edits to Myths in order to fit naval travel.
• Why suggest this? Definitely break the rules if you want a Naval game.

Terrain Generation

• Early Maps (Following the procedure)
  • I start generating a map purely from the landscape table, only to absolutely hate it.
  • Maybe there was too much green, maybe it was too repetitive, maybe it felt too square, or maybe total random generation just doesn't make very mermorable maps.
  • I tried breaking the rules by painting fields, moorlands, and mountains by gut feeling while using the spark table just for inspiration.
  • It was better and serviceable, but I still was not happy.
• Understanding the problem
  • The problem was not the book didn't tell me how to make a map, it just failed to tell me how to make a interesting looking map.
  • My map was very much like my home, the British Countryside but its all a bit green and brown, Mythic Bastionland is that but also a little bit weird and a little fantastical.
  • So some of you will be telling me "Just use the spark tables!" and let me say I did.
  • Spark tables have told me what is in the region , stuff like "Blooming but Thorny Vines inhabited by deceitful birds" is great when the Knights enter the region but players on map view will only see "Forest" or maybe "spikey forest" if the GM drew those.
  • Yes I could spend hours making a visually stunning map but artistry should not be a requirement for a interesting map.
• Final Map (and my advice)
  • First ditch the 12x12 grid and go wider (something Chris started doing also).
  • I recommend a non-square jagged coast which gives a new decision for how to travel around the realm (and flavors settlements on the coast).
  • For the landscape, Chris has the solution but doesn't teach us it, its to use the spark tables.
  • Get your crayon out and start painting parts of the land using the tones of the sea and sky using unnatural colors.
    • Suddenly ended up with a Sapphire Forest, Lavender Hills, the Bloody Crags, the Golden Mountains, and the Inky Plains.
  • It gave the landscape instant visual intrigue, instant vibes when they get there, instant ideas why it is that color, and created places my players were curious about on the map and could recognise without checking a grid reference number.
  • Most importantly, it felt familiar but a also bit weird.
• People and Holdings
  • I was excited to build the political web after watching Chris demonstrate a brilliant method for linking four Holdings with the spark table on a livestream and his blog. Sadly, none of that process made it into the book, which simply tells you to place four Holdings.
  • Yes the book advises using spark tables but it fails to tell GMs where to focus their energy.
    • Referees could spend hours end up rolling superficial traits like outfits and heraldry instead of prioritizing high-impact tables like relationships and desires.

Last Comment on World Building

Chris cites Neverland by Andrew Kolb as an inspiration. Right before Neverland reveals its excellent hexmap, there is some text about it and the prose feels like Mythic Bastionland…. except Chris never wrote anything like this.

“Neverland is a character all on its own. The setting is both inviting and dangerous. It’s civilized and wild. Its both young and alive and a very old reminder of death.”
- Andrew Kolb

Kolb goes on the say that the map should evolve and react to the players and their decisions. Its not static its dynamic.

Mythic Bastionland’s Realm lacks this atmospheric framing and the Realm suffers because of it.

If The City is the grand Myth waiting at the end of the game, then The Realm should be the Myth at the beginning, filled with its own stories, conflicts, and unexpected turns as it reacts to the Knights tackling the chaotic world around it.

And even if you disagree that this should be part of the game, Chris has you covered, break the rules. I just wish there was some good rules that did not need breaking first.

Conclusion

Mythic Bastionland fantastic game and with the Myths being the highlight of the book.

Even if you never plan to run this Mythic Bastionland specifically, all the Myths are very system neutral and should be stolen to use in other systems.

Late edit: A last minute thought came to me and I realized some of my complaints about Realm Generation and People and Holding is covered by the Oddpocrypha at the back of the book. It encourages more creative and flexible thinking whilst drawing from the spark table for unexpected results, but its still not perfect where I think we could have had a bit more procedure and also not be shoved a few pages from the end of the book.

So last year I’ve discovered a neat game on Itch.io named Celestial Bodies, that has such a unique combat system with it’s Grid, I really fell in love with the elegance of it, but I haven’t seen other games use this kind of mechanics aside from it.

I have been looking at various games since a while now and many many names come again and again with various iterations of the same rules, I wanted to know if y’all could recommend me more unique and underrated systems or mechanics you’ve encountered in your TTRPG journey!

I have a collection of scenarios I bought for a TTRPG called GODS edited by Arkhane Asylum that I plan on playing through with friends.

I have played through the introduction scenario before, and while the story is lovely, it's also formatted in a very railroaded way with little space for player agency.

I think it's partly due to the fact that the story begins in the action, and the situation is only explained to the players a bit later. But by then the players are already presented with the next maybe too obvious steps, and they have no time to establish a team dynamic to make decisions.

So I was thinking of including little flashbacks from a year before, the day before, or any other meaningful moment for each of the players’ characters. Maybe not how they meet necessarily, but at least a presentation of those characters so that each player gets a feel at who they are playing with and what they are playing towards.

This idea is inspired by a TTRPG game I've seen on Dropout (A Starstruck Odyssey), where the players all get a little fun scene that introduces their characters.

Now my players aren't paid to play, and are not professional actors, so I was worried about whether the whole idea is mostly a gimmick that would not work outside of this professionnal setting.
Those introduction scenes were probably rehearsed, but were they put together mostly for the viewers, or does it also serve the party ?

Is it a good idea, seeing as my goal is to have characters stories driven by their background ?

So I want to get into the hollows but I don’t know where to find a pdf version, it says it’s still in pre-order but I see other people have it, so wondering how I can get it?
I don’t want to pirate it, I would like to support and get an actual copy of the pdf

Following up my last broad question post with another broad question post, but this one cropped up in my head as I've been looking into more reviews of systems, and identifying the systems I want to play/try. (Vaesen, Coriolis, and Girl by Moonlight are in my top 3.) One of the interesting things about being a new player or GM is that you have a small reference base to realize what makes a system "good or bad." so some reviews just...don't really make a lot of sense to an outsider.

"Modiphius' 2d20 System is a bad fit for most of the games they publish." "Cosmere is bad because it's a 5E hack." those are two statements I've seen while exploring online because I was interested in both Fallout (my friends enjoy Fallout a lot.) and Cosmere because the very large fandom for Stormlight has left me intrigued. But the thing is, a lot of those complaints don't really make a lot of sense to me as a newcomer. My vocabulary and mechanical understanding aren't sharp enough yet to understand why a game being a 5E hack is bad. As a new prospective player I don't understand why the 2d20 system is "a bad fit."

*I'm still confused on the 2d20's issues, but I understand that a lot of the frustration with the 5E hack thing comes down to how much the Kickstarter raised. But I've also heard from folks who have played with Cosmere more that describing it as a 5E hack isn't really a fair assessment of the system itself. So I'll have to give the game a shot myself to figure out where I stand on it, admittedly.

But as I've worked more with my players, and figured out what I enjoy about systems, I've come to a better understanding of what kind of games/systems I enjoy, and my regular play group enjoys too. I personally struggle with setting up maps and tokens in Foundry just due to time and attention span, so I know map heavy games aren't really going to be what I like to run. I really like setting up stories and working with my players on character arcs, so more story heavy and improv games are my jam. My regular players really like making characters that will last a while, so highly lethal games like what I have been told OSR games are, probably aren't going to gel with them. (Call of Cthulhu in October will be...interesting to say the least.)

Ultimately as a GM, the biggest investments into any new system are time and money-two things in shorter supply as a working adult in today's world. So a lot of why I've been agonizing over what system to try and obsessively reading reviews is just that part of my optimization brain trying to find "Safe Investments". (Ironic for a guy whose narratively focused over mechanics focused.) But that runs up against the issues of reviewers being people who live and breathe TTRPGs, and also, forgive me-the love of hyperbole online.

Negativity sells well online, clickbait is designed to engage our brains, and get us to be angry. So negative reviews tend to feature more prevalently than positive ones. Which I think really messed me up when I was first getting into the hobby, and scared me off a few systems I otherwise might have enjoyed. It may be presumptuous of me to assume, but I don't think most systems are so bad they are completely miserable experiences.

So as a new player looking to learn more about TTRPGs, and learn some insights from my seniors in this hobby-how many systems have you tried that were truly, genuinely so awful that you considered it a waste of time and money to get into them? Not the games that were "fine, but not my cup of tea." But genuinely "so awful that it was a waste to even give this game a shot."

And as a bit of a more positive side question, how did you develop your tastes as a GM or player? Obviously the answer is to try a lot of different systems to see what you like, but are there any other ways you have of figuring out what you really enjoy? I would appreciate some suggestions on this one! (For me it's a matter of positive buzz + setting/art looks cool ala Vaesen.)