See it here: https://sh.itjust.works/c/battlemaps for all your TTRPG map needs

This looks like rather good advice, and I like the comparison to brutalist architecture. It feels like it fits, because so many seem to think brutalist architecture is ugly.

Personally, I like how functional it is; and similarly, functional (if plain) adventures make for good sessions.

There's a new RPG-related Humble Bundle up.

I'm thinking of starting a hybrid campaign online, a live weekly session by video with a Discord forum for 24/7 sideplay. Has anyone tried anything like that? Any tips?

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/12397

The crazily developed world of German Shadowrun

Story Points

Story Points let a PC start without any backstory - instead you get 5 Story Points, and spend them to:

• know an obscure fact
• know a language/ culture
• introduce an ally to help with the current mission
• et c.

By the time players spend them all, they should have a chonky backstory which was always relevant to the current mission, so no info-dumping required.

• If all your points were spent introducing cousins and siblings, we have established the character has a big family.
• If all your points were spent knowing languages, and knowing highly obscure knowledge, we have established the character as a very clever, and well-travelled person.

Good features

• Speeds up game (no lore dump!).
• Players are less pissed about their characters dying early on session 2 they haven't invested the work of writing an essay on their origin story.
• It's probably the most popular part of the game whenever I receive feedback from someone reading (not playing) the game.

Bad features

Nobody spends Story Points

It doesn't replenish, so players hoard the points, refusing to spend them.

So far, I've tried:

• granting 1 new Story Point over a long Downtime period.
• granting XP in return for spending Story Points
• adding a one-page rules summary to the table, including notes on what you can spend Story Points on.
• demanding all new characters come from the pool of allies created through Story Points, meaning that:
  • it's better to have more allies, so new people have a wider pool of characters to select from, and
  • new PCs are never entirely new - they're known to the party.

...nothing works. Everyone likes it in theory, nobody uses it in practice.

The only idea so far is massively raising XP rewards for spending Story Points.

Is there another rule, or a better way to present this system, which would encourage actual use?

Just trying to start a conversation and see what people are interested in. Nothing special about the categories - add anything you want to talk about.

Favorites limited to ones I've played.

Overall: Fallen by Perplexing Ruins. Love the setting, atmosphere and mechanics. I have some quibbles about healing in the default rules but want the Fear mechanic in everything. It's great for both groups and solo.

Combat: Lancer by Massif Pres

Solo: Broken Shores by BlackOath Entertainment. I haven't managed to keep a PC alive for longer than an in-game week, but it's awesome. Runner-up is Riftbreakers, also by BlackOath. Much less deadly and more heroic. Also the best run-a-group-solo that I've seen.

Magic system: Path of the Aram Thyr by BlackOath, again. Another solo, and I'm not a fan of the game-play loop, as written, but that is easily fixed by making your own narrative/PC goals. And the magic system is so cool.

Supplement: Lots here, but from what I've used in games is a tie between Into the Cess & Citadel and Into the Wyrd and Wild, both by Feral Indie.

I've got a large TBR/TBP pile, so a couple of things I'm very excited about: Across a Thousand Dead Worlds (BlackOath), Salvage Union (Leyline) and Goblinville (Narrative Dynamics). The current top of the TBP is Pirate Borg, Runecairn and WWN.

Which RPG(s) have you always wanted to play but could never find a group that was interested?

Some of mine are Space 1889 and GURPS Discworld

Been on a binge of Pathfinder 1e 3rd party content after finishing up writing the current chapter of my campaign. What are your opinions of Dreamscarred Press' Psionics? Comments online seem to universally love it, and I think im starting to as well. Any personal experience with the ruleset?

Just joined Lemmy today and found this community. Any Shadowrun players/GMs here? Been playing SR5 on and off for quite a few years, and just started a new campaign. Very excited to get it off the ground.

It compiles materials from multiple books by Michael E. Shea: the Lazy Dungeon Master, the Lazy GM's Workbook and the Lazy GM Companion.

Well, it's not new - I've just ported it from Gemini, so it's new to the web.

Hugo compiles the website from Markdown documents. It runs on a raspberry pi, which spends most of its day telling robots that admin.php is not available.

I've played my share of sci-fi RPGs, such as Traveller and Starfinder, but as many things as they do well, the space combat rules have never really captured the feel of a Star Wars-style starfighter dogfight or even a Star Trek-style naval battle. What is your favorite sci-fi RPG for shipt-to-ship combat?

It seems all the previous posts are gone, I dont know why.

This jam was created because:

1. open source gaming is amazing
2. whole thing going on about gaming licensing
3. spreading the word about open licenses is always a good thing
4. highlighting irrevocable licenses is important for preserving open gaming

One of the more informative posts on the current OGL curfluffle, from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, written by Kit Walsh, both a senior staff attorney at the EFF and designer of Nebula- and Ennie-winning RPGs.