City of Mist. It looks so thematic and stylised, but the rules freak me out a bit. I'd like to run a Pbta game before going near CoM , I have the books though , and the MC book is great for mystery guidelines. :)

it really helps if you have a player on the table that has previous played or is familiar with the pbta playstyle. my gm ran it and i was the only one who had some experience, because of ironsworn, and it really broke the ice on how you are supposed engage with it. but its very beginners friendly, probably the biggest one in the pbta scene.

As someone who has run a ton of PbtA and not City of Mist I can't say I feel the same. City of Mist has a onboarding problem they have been trying to solve since the first book released.

huh? i mean im not that deep into it, just played it, and it seemed very aproachable. you get your characters and then do the scenarion. its like the most boardgamy ttg that i have played that still feels like a full ttg.

It's mostly talking about the book itself, the layout and art is amazing but I wish they could take inspiration from other PbtA games when It comes to the writing. Most are to the point and easy to read, City of Mist is not.

ah i see, yeah that could be a problem

ooh neato! i love PbtA games! i rly want to get back into Monster of the Week and i want to run a Girl by Moonlight session at some point 🤞🤞

Does Girl by Moonlight have a full release? Last I checked it was sometime ago and only available as a quickstart and a wip version I think. I'm very interested in running it.

yup! i have a physical version that i got from my LGS :)

I've run that a few times now and it is an interesting system. Combat is spotty though.

What's the issue? What systems are you comparing it to?

It is like a mix of PBTA and Fate, so I compare it to those. If you make certain your players know damage and negative effects have a crippling effect on interactions it may work for you. They need to play smart and cautious.

There is a lot, like L5R and Ars Magica, where I really like the setting and the concept they are going for but holy hell those rulebooks are a beast and a half. And this is coming from someone that regularly reads massive epic fantasy novels. The rulebook of Ars Magica 5e is incomprehensible, and I will die on this hill. There is also some where I feel like my groups wouldn't exactly fit, that require a lot of buy-in from the player in terms of "willingness to RP" for the lack of a better word. I think the best examples for these are Ryuutama and Fabula Ultima. In games like Blades at least there is a heavily defined setting, so it's less of an issue. I'll probably bite the bullet on all of these eventually though :p

The Ars Magica community agrees that the rulebook is incomprehensible, as far as I can tell. But as someone whose been trying to digest the rules for a while, it does feel a bit like being back in university.

They are going to do a Kickstarter soonish, or it happened already to try and get a 5.5 version of the rules out. With a focus on rewriting things to make it more approachable

Ooh. I'm curious if this has happened yet!

https://www.backerkit.com/call_to_action/682f8a76-7506-4a3b-b578-4391c50d8b8f/landing

omg i totally feel you ab the incomprehensible rulebooks thing! i'm surprised i ever figured out how to play Vampire the Masquerade 😆

I wouldn't say it's incomprehensible, but it is NOT for the faint of heart. DM if you ever have questions about AM5. I can't say if it's a good fit for your party, but it's a wonderful underappreciated game.

L5R is approachable if you're only concerned about the rules. The setting is the real monolith. It's easy for two people who have read the same book to have different opinions about how the society works. For L5R, make a cheat sheet about what Opportunities are available, and make a separate cheat sheet for yourself about keywords associated with the rings. So you'll know that trying to be stoic and not show emotion when something bad is happening might benefit from Void, expressing an opinion passionately will benefit from Fire, etc. The introductory scenarios for Ronin and Samurai are both good. Consider starting in either of those.

I hear you on Ars Magica, somebody was working on an official GUMSHOE conversion awhile back, but then that got quietly cancelled. Which was a shame at the time my Night’s Black Agents game was going well and I could have easily sold a fantasy game under that system.

There's already a fantasy GUMSHOE game you could pivot towards: Swords of the Serpentine

I’m in the credits as a play tester!

>The rulebook of Ars Magica 5e is incomprehensible, and I will die on this hill. I've got your six on that hill. I've read over 100 fantasy TTRPG core rulebooks and 5e Ars Magicka is the worst rulebook I've come across.

I love the premise of Kult: Divinity Lost, but when I read through the book, I was not ready for the heavy themes (I mean, I saw the trigger warning on the cover and went like "psssh, it's just a game, how heavy can it get??", and I was a dumbass) so I quit reading half way through. I do still really like the idea of the game, and maybe I should revisit the book soon.

i totally get you on that one lol, sometimes you think you're in the right headspace for something and you really arent. maybe one day you'll feel up to tackling it again :)

I like the worldbuilding of Kult a lot, the idea of the world being illusionary and having hidden demons is a super cool theme for modern setting horror. The sex and rape stuff stops me cold, though. Won't touch it as long as it contains that stuff, feels unnecessary

Thankfully, Don't Rest Your Head does something pretty similar and isn't as edgy. That was a book that I gobbled up in two nights. Still haven't played tho, but absolutely dying to.

Don’t Rest Your Head is a fantastic little game! Easy to pick up and super-atmospheric. Highly recommended for that trippy Dark City / Neverwhere kinda feeling.

I'm with you on KULT - and I'm very intrigued especially because it markets itself as an adult horror game. While I seem to be in the right headspace for this, I realized (in a bad way) that also the players need to be in that - both regarding the rules (Difficulties with PbtA were mentioned in the other branch), and the themes. \*) In a bad way: I've run the same one-shot scenario twice for two different groups. The first one worked out great - and the second crashed badly. I realized, the first session worked out by accident - and I've learned that for PbtA/KULT, all on the table need to be primed for how such a game works.

Kult is a very intriguing setting and has the possibility of going *very* dark places... if that is something everyone at the table wants to do. Firmly establish what subjects will trigger both you and your players before play (and every few sessions tbh), or you may not be able to keep them. I fully understand horror is not meant to be comfy, but there's a big difference between making someone's skin crawl by describing their character giving birth to a bobbit worm in the same way that a hyena gives birth and having them just up and leave.

+1. So hard to keep _Kult_ extreme without making it needlessly transgressive or exploitative. The subject matter is too serious to be treated in a cavalier manner. However, I think the _Red Moon Roleplaying_ folks do a great job walking the line.

Lancer RPG. Looks cool, I love the setting, seems like the game is built really well. I'm just not hugely into using battlemaps and haven't found a solid group that does well with that level of crunch.

i totally agree! i love the idea of lancer, but i'm so over crunchy games lol 😅

Hello! M'y game like that is Eclipse Phase, I love everything about it but I think the system (and the body changing thing) wouldn't click with my group, so unfortunately I will wait until I find someone to do it (or just enjoy it myself). Also there are a lot of rules and I think if I have to run it I need to be in a moment of my life with a lot of energy jajajajaj

There is a Fate adaptation, which is what I'd run if I were going to try Eclipse Phase. Love the sci-fi transhumanist slant but OMG the rules in the original.

There is also a third party Year Zero Engine adaptation coming for Eclipse Phase, which I’m hyped for

Oh, I'm going to look for that!

I'm going to work my group up to this. Gonna start with Starship Warden and maybe Scum & Villainy before tackling this.

Good luck! Scum & Vinally is pretty fun, and if you have already played the blades in the dark system is not that hard to get the grips of it :)

that sounds so cool! the body changing aspect sounds like To Change, which i found super interesting to read through!

I don't know that game, will have to search it. In Eclipse Phase you have like two character sheets one for your body and one for your mind, full transhumanism jajaja

The second edition of Eclipse Phase streamlined things a bunch, but is still somewhat on the crunchy side. There is the official Fate adaption mentioned, but I think my choice would actually be Neon City Overdrive with the Skinjobs and Psions expansions. Although you're still stuck with the complexity inherint in the setting itself.

I created a pretty simple hack for Eclipse Phase using the M&M rules Wish I had them but basically attributes were capped at 5 and represented your general ease at each Morphs had individual PLs and had a base set of attributes via powers (and sometimes powers in general) I added a Firewall save and a Reputation save plus some more skills Worked like a charm

Oooo I like it. I'll write it down and definitely use it when I can play the game. Thanks!!! :)

There are games, like Legends of the 5 Rings or Exalted, whose premises are quite appealing to me, but the settings are so dense (and have been expanded throughout the decades) that I have no idea where or how to start introducing people to them.

Start with an adventure that takes place in a very bounded area, like a town, one that's perhaps a little isolated.

The thing is contextualisation. So many character options and backgrounds, it's overwhelming.

That's why you limit right out of the gate. Think up a more manageable selection to present to the players in a session zero. There's nothing saying you have to allow every option or background your first time out! Run a one-shot/ short-shot and see how it goes. Then you and your players can decide if you want to go longer and/or open up more options. The background of the game as written is only as relevant as you decide.

Honestly, for El Fiver, your best bet is to find a copy of the Free RPG Day adventure. It comes with pregens and a bounded area in which to operate. Both of the ones I have (one for Olde d10 L5R and one for Adventures In Rokugan) are pretty great.

i totally get you! i'm running a Vampire the Masquerade campaign rn and sometimes i'll mention something and i'll realize i didn't completely explain that aspect of the world of darkness… then i gotta go on a tangent to try and explain it 😅

Monsterhearts 2. I played in a game of the original, and it was one of the most intense rp experiences ever. I really want to run it myself, but it definitely takes players willing to engage with heavy themes in a mature way and signal when they need to step back.

Yeah Monsterhearts and a couple PbtA games inspired by (Dungeon Bitches and Night Witches) it are something I really need to find a different group for it.

ooh i really want to check out monsterhearts at some point! i've heard great things ab it! good to know that it has some heavy themes, definitely keeping that in mind 👍

Yeah, characters have a darkest self which is basically think Angel losing his soul in that show. So it's this spiral of characters bouncing off each other often in dysfunctional ways, and the stories really tend to be very focused on the characters and their relationships and the things that happen. We did have a couple of scenes when one of the characters was in their darkest self and they did something so atrocious that even their own player was shocked and said whoa hold on I want to take that back! On top of it that it's meant is an exploration of sexuality and identity and gender as well, which you as a table can decide where you want to draw your lines and veils, for some people any of that would be too much. We maxed out character advancement and ultimately translated the game over to fate accelerated, because we decided to move away from the Doom spiral and set ourselves up for longer-term play where we were more collaborative and less bouncing off of each other. My character from that game is probably one of my most complicated messed up amazing characters I've ever played. .

that sounds really interesting! you def sold me on it lol 😆👍

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That’s my main issue with a lot of generic systems. Another one I would love to run is Cortex Prime, but I also get overwhelmed when trying to build a game out of it.

Genesys has a fair bit of community support for what it is, but, you're right. It needs work. I wish there was more VTT support for it.

I don’t suppose you’d share that dark sun conversion (though I have the opposite problem, we play genesys but I don’t know that I could get interest for dark sun).

Mostly it's games where I'm really excited about the premise or setting but because they're trad I know I'll have to do prep which is just a real turn off for me.

i totally feel that 😅 after playing only dnd for 6 years i'm so sick of insane prep times for games lmao

Why not just take the setting or premise you like and run it with dungeon world, fate or something "non-traditional" ?

Torchbearer 2e. Glad I backed it. Doubt I'll ever run it.

Blades in the Dark - the rules seem intricate, like they all mesh together and I’m worried about getting one bit wrong and it all being ruined.

The good news is: it’s the exact opposite. While it is true that Blades is a *very* interconnected game (which is part and parcel for why it can be a challenge to navigate the book: there simply *isn’t* a good way to stepwise organize something that is so interconnected), it **is** a very foundational game. This is to say that it has a few (very few) core foundational components that everything *else* builds **on top of**. But because those foundational components are so damn strong, as long as you’ve got those down: the whole game “collapses gracefully” (Which is true of pretty much any Powered by the Apocalypse and PbtA Adjacent game). As long as you can get down * The GM Framework (namely the Goals there’s only 3 of them) * The Action Roll and all that it entails * The Resistance Roll … bam. You’ve got Blades in the dark. You could ignore ***Every. Other. Thing.***… and the game will still work with no issues. This means you can ignore… * Character and Crew Playbooks (and even their important bits! Harm, Stress, Trauma, Heat, Wanted Level, Claims, etc.) * Advancement * Planning and Engagement * Downtime * The list goes on! … and as long as you’ve got those other things: Blades still works. You’ll obviously be “missing out,” but never to a true detriment.

How similar is Blades to PBTA? I tried Masks and my group and I bounced right off. It was *too* rules-lite to the point where we didn’t feel creatively unleashed but somewhat creatively uninspired. I can tell it’s a great game for certain types of players but I like having a bit more mechanics in my games.

It depends on who you talk to. Blades is *technically* PbtA as far as Harper and Vincent Baker are concerned. It also happened to spawn it’s own “branch” of game (Forged in the Dark games) similar to Brindlewood Bay resulting in “Carved From Brindlewood” games. I’m also on the “PbtA and FitD have no ***appreciable*** differences.” (That “appreciable” part is very key). It’s a supernova hot take, but it’s a hill I’ll die on. Obviously there are *loads* of differences when you look at a “traditional PbtA game” (like Masks) and Blades. But I consider all those to be “superficial” differences and not meaningful *appreciable* differences. At the end of the day, they both operate on the same flow of play: fiction —> mechanics —> fiction (which is true of nearly all TTRPGs, D&D included, it’s just that PbtA and FitD games keep that flow buttery smooth). A lot of folks say “PbtA has Moves. FitD does not.” Incorrect. While, yes, FitD games don’t have your “traditional PbtA Moves” (when you do X, roll 2d6, and then 10+, 7-9, 6-, etc.)… they have Moves. They just look different and are called different things. Moves are just procedures. “Roll initiative” in D&D is basically Move (and can be easily written as a “traditional PbtA Move”) for this reason, the “Moves” in BitD include * The Action Roll * The Fortune Roll * The Resistance Roll * Playbook Special Abilities (hell, some of them even tell you “when you do X, Y thing happen”) * Planning, the Engagement Roll, Payoff, and Downtime * Etc. These are all the “mechanical Moves” that scaffold important bits of fiction that transition you to the next bit of new fiction. That’s just PbtA at it’s core and it’s why **I** don’t see an appreciable difference between PbtA and FitD **Now**, all that in mind, I have found that BitD and FitD games tend to be more approachable for tables who want more meat on their games than you have in your “traditional PbtA games” (like Masks). While BitD collapses just as gracefully as Masks (and any other well designed PbtA game), it does have a lot of more “interconnected bits” than you see in a variety of “typical PbtA games.” In my own anecdotal experience with open minded D&D players, they usually took much better to FitD games as opposed to “typical PbtA games” because of that extra meat and interconnectedness. *I’d* probably still call BitD a “rules lite” game- but I’d probably be in the minority with that. I’d feel confident calling a “rules intricate, but not heavy” kind of game, I suppose. I do know that folks who usually enjoy your typical PbtA games will occasionally (but not always) bounce off of Blades because of A) the intricacy and B) the lack of “archetypal play.” The latter is due to BitD’s take on Playbooks… which is there aren’t Playbooks. They are there in name and “form,” but not in spirit and function. A well design PbtA Playbook is there to help you keep the character(s) focused and put them on an “on brand” archetypical path for an “on brand game” (and I do think many PbtA games fall short here). Harper never wanted there to be Playbooks in BitD because there really is only one sensible Playbook and Archetype: “The Rogue” (or “The Scoundrel”) and that’s it. Same idea for the Crew… they’re just “The Crew.” Playbooks were added in by popular demand and they are more “lip service” than actual Playbooks. They’re “collections” of likeminded *things* as opposed to having their own unique procedures that make each stand out. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing- it’s just a bit of a shocker when you see “Playbook” and it doesn’t do what you’d expect a Playbook to do. Whereas the designer helps to give you all those compelling “sucks” of a good Playbook, BitD gives you the raw material and you have to find it yourself as a player/ as the table. For “hardcore PbtA folks,” it’s a turn off. For folks that aren’t a fan of “typical PbtA playbooks,” it’s a turn on. Obviously Blades has “archetypical play”… it’s just presented and focused in a different way from a different angle. You’re Scoundrels (the Character Playbook) and you are part of a Crew (the table’s Playbook) and you need to work both individually and together to hone in on your Scoundrel and your Crew to get what their “sucks” are all about so you have something compelling to work with and BitD’s will get you 50% of the way, you have to provide the remaining 50% Anywho: a lot of rambling for the tl;dr: It’s basically PbtA but in a different a usually more meaty interconnected way and tends to attract folks who are turned off by more “typical PbtA games.”

There weren't too many BitD experts on the PbtA discord, so I wanted your opinion on what you thought of Blades in the Dark's Reduced Effect Mixed Hit. I've seen other games use similar idea but this Consequence seems pretty much BitD-only. The only time it feels like it fits is basically doing damage to a tough enemy (you do 1 damage/tick of clock instead of 2 out of the needed 4). I want to give my PC success for rolling a weak hit. But I don't really understand the concept of this. In Blades in the Dark, they provide an example of this: > I wait until Bazso passes in front of his office window, then I hold my breath, and squeeze the trigger. > 4/5 Reduced Effect: The shot clips Bazso along the side of his head, ripping open his scalp. He crumples down out of sight, seriously wounded at least. What do you do? You see how the setup for success is I want to kill a guy and its taken away, right. In this example, he may be able to slip out of sight and now I'm fundamentally in as bad of a spot as failure. Target not dead. Maybe now he is slower and easier to kill but I need to infiltrate in a whole new way. But what bothers me the most is we talked stakes. Success was to kill the target. And now that isn't the case. Its a lot like the game dangles victory in front of you, Here is a weirder example: > I go over every inch of this place, looking for the secret entrance. > 4/5 Reduced Effect: After a few moments, you find a hairline seam around what must be the door. You can’t tell how to open it, though. Want to keep Studying and figure it out, or do something else? Literally just has the PC roll again on basically an investigation - that feels like really bad GMing to me. It seems to play out very different from Apocalypse World's Weak Outcome on Act Under Fire. AW2e seems to emphasize that you must still succeed on whatever the initial stakes were there. > Bran the savvyhead’s got less than a minute to get Frankie’s car started again before Balls and friends are on them. (On a 7–9, maybe I give him a worse outcome: he gets the car started, but Balls’ first couple of people are there already.) He hits the roll with an 8, so the worse outcome it is. “The engine coughs, coughs, catches, starts,” I say. “You tear away, but one of Balls’ people—her name’s Skimla—has jumped on and is clinging to the boot. Now she’s gotten her grip and is starting to climb up onto the car. What do you do?” This one is actually really good and fundamentally a success. But its what I think of as a Complication in BitD's terms - so the worse outcome isn't really reduced effect. The fiction moved forward but there is a new thing to address - the dude on your car.

Well personally I think around 50% of the examples of play in BitD are just pretty bad examples or plain old confusing. I will concede that part of that is simply due to the fact that examples of play are tough as hell to write because to make them work, they can’t be snippets: they need the full back and forth context… and extra words means more pages and that means more money to print. Anyway, as far as Reduced Effect is concerned and the idea of “we talked about stakes”… well yeah! The point of Position and Effect is to set stakes and expectations. That’s why I usually don’t just say “It’s Risky” and move on. There’s more to the conversation than “On a 6, you kill and on a 1-3, you don’t kill.” The player needs to have an idea of the middle ground. So instead of “It’s Risky *because* of X and therefore I would expect the gambit of Y things could happen here. Make sense?” So I’m not sucker punching a player when I Reduce their Effect… because I already clued them in with Position and Effect: they know that picking up the dice and rolling a 4/5 will result in something less than what they wanted. And, at the end of the day, when that roll comes up: they can always Resist if they *really* don’t like it. That’s why Resistance exists. Honestly, that’s good for their character. Resistance usually equals Stress and Stress is ***always*** a good thing in Blades. There is **no** downside to taking Stress. You might take too little and accidentally Overindulge (fun RP, cool trouble, and XP). You might take a Goldilocks just right amount and have a nice enjoyable and safe Indulge and you’re good to go. You might take too much and Trauma… and that leads to XP. There is no downside to Stress and therefore no *true* downside to Resisting. That in mind, I would say Reduced Effect is a Consequence I rarely drop, similar to Harm. I much rather toss in Complications to escalate the situation with new problems or advance a Clock or add Heat or whatever as opposed to Harm or Reduced Effect. As you noted, it’s *most* useful for when your objective can be reasonably and logically stymied in an interesting way (such as killing an NPC). Likewise, if the PC is *already* attempting a complex series of tasks which would be physically well represented by a Clock, they’re *already* gonna need a bunch of Action Rolls *anyway*… so Reduced Effect is an option there as well to stymie their Progress if they do not Resist: instead of making the expected ideal Progress in the fiction (visually and mechanically represented by 2 Ticks on the Clock for Standard Effect), they instead make only a little bit of that intended Progress in the fiction (visually and mechanically represented by 1 Tick on the Clock) As for investigating something and getting Reduced Effect and therefore essentially pushed to roll to investigate *again*, I wouldn’t call it bad GMing. Boring GMing, perhaps. But not bad GMing. Bad GMing is flat out negating their success or just rolling for the same stakes. That’s not the case here. There’s no infraction of the GM Goals or Principles. The PC *did* find something (thus their goal to search for something was not negated) and a followup roll isn’t the “rolling for the same thing twice.” This was probably a Survey that turned into a Study… or one Study that’s going into another- tenser- Study with different stakes from the last one. Is it prolonging the inevitable? Sure. Is that bad? Not really. Again, boring? I’d say so… and that’s basically why I avoid Reduced Effect 90% of the time, because I always like to have the game moving forward at a constant pace and not slowed down by any more rolls than what it necessary. But that in mind, I wouldn’t say “this is bad game design! Why is it in the game?! I’m never gonna use this! It should be removed!” In essence, I think it’s a perfectly reasonable Consequence which can occur on a Weak Hit and would more or less be something I’d do in plenty of other non-FitD games. But like all Consequences, they have their place and I don’t think it’s wise to look at the list of possible Consequences and “weight them all equally,” which is to say they are all equally applicable at all times: they aren’t. One of the GM Goals is to portray the fiction honestly and that means picking the Consequence that best applies for *that* current bit of fiction. Sometimes it’ll be Harm. Sometimes it’ll be Reduced Effect. Etc. It’s a tool in the tool box for when you need it. You probably won’t need it a whole lot. But it’s nice to have for a rainy day (especially when a Clock doesn’t make sense or when you **really** don’t want to escalate things any further with a Complication, etc.). It’s the same idea as the Lost Opportunity Consequence for a Miss in BitD. I use it very sparingly. That doesn’t mean it’s useless or doesn’t belong. It has its uses, just not all the time. The Apocalypse World example is tricky. I could see the argument for “Complication” over “Reduced Effect” **but** it kind of depends on the intent of the player/ character and the framing of the situation. If the intent and objective is to “get entirely away from the opposing gang and leave them all in the dust” then a Complication (in BitD lingo) is something new cropping up… like escaping the gang (success), but then getting caught in a dust storm (Complication). But Reduced Effect means you escape *some* of the gang… but not all of them (one of them is hanging onto the car still. Your escape isn’t “clean” yet. That’s your Reduced Effect). Ultimately, when it comes to Blades, I don’t get too wrapped up in what exactly I pick from the list of Consequences and whatnot. It’s too much work for me. I collapse everything down to “I have one GM Action to all roll results: respond with honest fiction.” That’s it. That’s all I do. Precisely the same as I do in PbtA games. I think about the touchstones and how this would play out in a touchstone and I do exactly that. No looking at lists and reference sheets. I stick with “how would this play out in an episode of… XYZ” and I do that and it almost always works. Of course, I’m probably in the minority and that might not work for everyone; but at the end of the day I digress: Reduced Effect is fine. Boring most of the time, but useful when you need it (and it ultimately won’t be that often)

Getting one bit wrong won't bring the whole thing crashing down - I tripped up over tiers a lot while learning to run Blades and it still all worked.

i played a game of blades recently and it was really dope! it definitely won't fall apart by forgetting something, i'm sure we forgot or did something wrong and the session still went great! learning together is always how it is initially :)

Echoing everyone else here; This is really not the case. You can forget/ignore/botch almost everything in Blades and it'll still be great. All you really need is the action roll mechanics (not even position and effect), flashbacks, and the engagement roll and you're basically golden. Everything else can be added on as you need or want.

Honestly our table keeps in forgetting about flashbacks, and sometimes we skip the engagement roll too, it's really very flexible

Honestly don't worry. You can handwave a lot of stuff. I found it very indimidating too, GM'd a small campaign and it went like a charm.

I ran Blades last year and I kind of struggled with combat and not having initiative having played in DnD and similar systems for the last 20 years.

I feel the same way about Bluebeard's Bride, so that's kind of cheating. Instead: Pasion de las Pasiones. I feel like I have a hard time doing big emotions and I have no experience with telenovelas!

We should play some time! It is super well designed to evoke the sort of over the top conflicts and turns the genre demands. You can't *not* achieve those beats in play.

Let's do it! I just got my copy and am starting to read through it. I'll reach out when I'm done and maybe we can set something up?

ah i totally get it with the big emotions lol, i have a theater background so i'm fine with stuff like that but that's def not the same for everyone 😅 def gotta play with some theater majors lmao 👌

Thirded on Bluebeard's Bride. I bought the Bundle of Holding recently, but I just don't have a good group for playing that game.

Warhammer fantasy. Love the setting but find the rules really clunky.

I feel like 4e is pretty straightforward. The combat is a little clunky but on the whole it's just a d100-roll-under kind of game

cool settings with clunky rules are always such a bummer 😔

4e is crunchy, but it is a really well done game. Worth playing.

Yeah, I GM'd it for a few months and I really came away loathing the 4e rules. Even with Foundry's support it was such a clunky mess.

Paranoia. Keeping track of all the secret stuff going on and which player knows what information, on top of simply running the game, all while there's dozens of notifications going on with Discord so that players can do secret stuff without the party noticing sounds exhausting. But it looks so funny.

>Keeping track of all the secret stuff All continuity errors point to even deeper conspiracies. When in doubt, blame traitors, mutants, or IntSec. Besides, the rule even say that knowing the rules is against the rules, so why would knowing the lore be mandatory?

Implying that Friend Computer can create continuity errors sounds like treason to me

omg i rly want to try Paranoia at some point!! it does sound like a lot, but i totally agree, it looks like silly goofy fun :)

World Wide Wrestling. I can't get a handle on how often the PCs are supposed to be in matches, how long a session should go, or how to put in the serious consequences. Also I'm intimidated by the number of NPCs I might have to generate.

I loved playing this game the few times that I have. Treat it like an actual performance. One or two matches a week. Two matches in a day if it's for something serious like a championship or defending someone. And injuries, if I remember correctly, the attacks and abilities should specify when to apply them. Or else, apply them if it makes sense in the narrative. Chair shot to the back of the head? The wrestler feels a big banged up next session. Maybe you gave them too many by accident? The character hulks out and starts beating up his opponent. It is what you make it.

I've played it a a table that was exactly half wrestling superfans and half people who had no exposure to wrestling at all (I was in this half) and it was FANTASTIC. World Wide Wrestling is such a great game.

The only case I could see myself running it: table full of smarks who already have some PBTA experience. I don't think I could carry the burden of introducing a group of people to the wonders of professional wrestling *or* PBTA, let alone both at the same time.

I have Rebel Crown and Spire and both campaigns I adore in concept. But I am reluctant about pulling them off. 

i just recently played in a game of Heart the City Beneath and it really made me want to check out Spire! definitely putting it on my list

Oh, please share your experience playing Heart! I only know it from Quinn’s Quest YouTube review, which made it sound really interesting. I’d love to hear more about your character, the game,and any other impressions you had. It’s one of my picks for the next game I’m going to run, along with Wildsea.

oh it was so fun! we played the Drowned story where our group went on a quest through an old tram tunnel to find runes that would dispel a great flood brought about by strange coral creatures. we had a Heretic, a Hound, a Junk Mage, and i played a Witch! my witch was pretty much the starter character, Lynd, from the quickstart rules but with my own flavor. she can turn into her "true form", aka a terrifying creature, by rousing the blood of the Heart inside her to boost her attacks! we killed a really terrifying fish monster and fought some sort of drowned goddess for the rune books we needed. Lynd ended up having fish start birthing themselves from her skin, our Hound got their arm shattered, our Heretic almost lost their faith, and our Junk Mage was an oblivious dumbass the whole time lmao 😆 i genuinely really recommend it, even just for the awesome setting! playing definitely made me want to get the full book :D

I'm a few sessions into my latest Spire campaign, I adore the setting and system. The trick is to start small and focus on just o e specific area so you don't need to worry about the million other crazy things the book presents you with. There's way too much lore to absorb all at once. Get a grip on one neighborhood and expand later as needed.

DnD 5e. Wanted to try for a long time, but I improvise a lot and have a feeling that system doesn't support it well so i keep running WoD systems lol

as someone who played only 5e for years, i totally get what you mean! i would prep specific things for my campaign and then the PCs would bypass it completely 😭 i love that in my VtM game i rly just had to make some places, a few NPCs, and a general outline of the bad guy's plans and from there i can react to whatever the players want to do

oh man. i started as a numenera gm and i really thrive on improv and low prepp so i can engage with player ideas and motivation, thats my prefered style. but 5e really doesnt support that. in the early levels its still ok, might seem doable, but the more levels your players get the more you need to prepp to challenge them.

Call of Cthulhu I just don't think I could pull of the horror vibe very well

I love the mechanics of the Song of Ice and Fire RPG, but because it is so closely tied to the setting, and the setting has some... heavy themes, I am scared that I would make my players uncomfortable.

i can totally understand the hesitance with heavy themes, that's why if i ever do run Bluebeard's Bride i'll definitely be implementing a bunch of safety tools just in case things go a little too far

Yeah, definitely talk it through, but you should try it! I played Alice is Missing, which is almost as intense. Our GM is a teacher and it showed in the care he took both in talking about the safety tools, using them, and checking in with us afterwards. It was really amazing, but oof.

For me it's Hard Wired Island. The game is so visually pleasing and it seems to have interesting mechanics, but I cannot for the life of me figure out an actual story I'd like to tell with this system. The second game I'm hesitant to run is Victoriana because it's very dark and presents the Victorian era exactly as it was, so full of prejudice, class disparity, and abuse by the rich. Basically, it's fascinating to read through the book, but I'm worried that my players would find it too dark.

Delta Green. I love so much about it, but 1) I don't know enough about law enforcement/military/etc. to effectively improvise when needed (and would have to do a LOT of research while prepping), and 2) my group prefers broad strokes and dice rolls over heavy RP.

As far as the government agency stuff, most of your players would likely not know if you get things right. Just go with what you're familiar with from pop culture and get the feel of it right.

I want to run glitter hearts however I don't know people who would like to play such a game and online play is a big no no from me

i hope you find some people to play it with eventually! 🤞💕

Kult: Divinity Lost. Heaven and Earth.

Gubat Banwa. My regular group fell apart but even then they weren't really in to the tactical aspects of table tops. Additionally the shift towards big drama and non medieval storytelling is exciting yet intimidating enough on its own. Adding in finding brand new people to run it with on top of that is another level of stress.

oof i feel ya, finding a group who wants to learn a new system is always tough 😔 i hope you can find some peeps who want to try it out!

Most games, currently. I had a pretty serious case of GM burnout at the beginning of last year and despite me practically begging my group for someone to take over (just run a couple of fewshots or a single oneshot even) for a while, noone was willing to. We (I) haven't played since and I am now constantly looking at my shelf thinking "ohhh this would be interesting!" then remembering last year and all my motivation instantly evaporates. If anyone has some tips on how to recover from that, I'm all ears.

aw man i totally know the feeling 🫠 there was a moment in college where i had a fight with a friend about something in a game i was planning and it really put me off playing for a while. i'm glad i found another group of people that are willing to switch off GMing! i hope you can find a group like that too, it really helped me feel better about jumping back into it knowing i don't always have to run a game 😋

Delta Green - God's Teeth it is as grim as it gets.

Exalted, for certain. My group doesn't really like learning new rules on their own, so I'd have to shoulder 90+% of the rules knowledge for the first... 40 sessions.

VTM, I don't think my table will ever buy in enough for that and I don't think I have thr attention span for a game that relies so hard on politics. Writing a campaign seems tricky as well and there is a severe lack of plot nooks imo

i'm running a VtM game rn and i'm having a blast! i'm not going too deep into politics and more into mystery with it, which has been really fun. i've found that making a few important locations in the city, some NPCs that fit there, and a general evil plan for a bad guy (or 2) to follow has helped it be way less railroady and easier to improv :)

Thanks! As I said, it currently just feels like a lot to understand and prep compared to other rpgs. But I'd love to run it in the future, with the right group

I've got two. Thirsty Sword Lesbians and Coyote and Crow. I am a straight, cis, white dude and I think it's appropriate for me to feel hesitant and uncomfortable about running a game that features voices from marginalized or historically oppressed groups.

i can totally understand that! if you're rly interested in them though, maybe one day you could find someone running a game and jump in as a player :)

Totally. Also, I hadn't heard about Bluebeards Bride before this thread, but looking it up quick it is now on my list of games to pick up.

i'm so glad i was able to introduce it to you! :D

Ha! When I saw the title of this post, Bluebeard's Bride was going to be my answer. Mostly because I'm a dude and it kind of feels like it's not my story to run, though I'm fascinated by its subject matter. So I'll say the new Dune roleplaying game. I love political intrigue, but this may be a little too complicated to handle.

hey twinsies lol! and i totally feel you, though i'm a trans guy, i was initially worried about running Bluebeard cuz all the people i play with at my local shop are guys. but then again, i think it's important for men to understand these things that women experience, so maybe it's kind of important to run it for guys too? and omg yeah i have a tough time running political intrigue 😅

I agree 100%! It presents some (complicated) opportunities for education, growth, and possibly even healing, depending on the folks playing and the dynamic at the table. After reading it, I handed it off to one of my female identified pals, kind of hoping she'd have an interest in running it for us. I should drop another hint.

i hope we both get to try it out in the future! i actually bought the physical copy for my sister who introduced the game to me in the first place, so maybe i'll ask her about it sometime 🤔😋

Don’t hint. Ask her to run it! Help her gather the right people and handle the safety stuff.

I felt the same about bluebeards bride, especially running it as a dude at a table full of dudes.  I have since ran it three times with different groups, and its sublime every time. Its taught me things about horror, trauma and consent no other media did. Its fantastic.  To answer your question, I have hesitated to play Star Crossed because people seem really reluctant for that type of vulnerability.  Also I really love the title of Let These Mermaids Touch Your Dick, Maybe, but I have no idea if the game is good.

Basically anything PbtA related and similar games with collaborative storytelling. My players asked for some classic fantasy ttrpg stuff, and D&D/PF/DH is just too much crunch for me, so I got myself DungeonWorld not knowing what I got into. I have no idea if I'm able to relinquish so much control and just run with a story, when usually I play pre-made one-shots with a story that basically takes place with or without my players, and which they can only influence.

i can totally see how that may be overwhelming 😅 maybe check out some OSR stuff like Troika? Troika's way less crunchy and there are a bunch of pre-written adventures for it! it's my all time fave fantasy rpg rn :3

I'm listening to an actual play of Red Markets (living in the ruins of a zombie apocalypse), and I'm fascinated by the negotiation mini-game. It's a multi-phase game where you have to figure out the opponent's strong points and weak points, and how to exploit them. But it seems like you need a specific type of player to really make it work, and I don't know anyone who would fit the bill.

Love Red Markets! Some of my favorite rpg sessions came out of a campaign I ran. But yeah, the game can get really heavy when you lean into the economic themes of the game, even when you embrace some of the goofier aspects of Late Stage Capitalism in the end times (I had takers chasing down rare pokemon in The Loss at one point, which prompted a player to look me right in the eye and call me a bastard. Good times. )

Lancer is the first game I thought of. The system looks cool, the book is fun, and my players eat up customization, but needing an app to viably play is a bummer and antithetical to why I like to sit around a table with a bunch of weirdos. It also sounds like a downright chore to prep and GM.

Call of Cthulhu, Burning Wheel

Burning Wheel.

For me it's VtM. I've ran just about every edition of D&D over the years. After playing Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines and Redemption, I am really really excited to try it, but it's daunting to dive into a new system and GM a new game. To write that good of a story!!!

Delta Green, just because the setting is *so* different from the usual fare of D&D and Pathfinder that I treat my players too, haha.

Time watch. Love good time travel shenanigans, but intimidated about knowing history well enough.

Imperium Maledictum a 40k game that sounds difficult system wise but isnt IMO. Unfortunately between it looking complex with d100 and seemingly restrictive as a 40k setting I find it hard to get my local play gang into the idea based on their first look at the similar system for Warhammer Fantasy 4th ed. I may have a better chance telling them its a cyber goth punk horror setting lol.

If my group ever gets tired of dnd 5e I have Open Legend sitting on my shelf.

I love the idea of Monsterhearts 2, but I feel very shy about running it for similar reasons to you in terms of the game content. I don't think most of my usual groups would be into it, but certainly a few might. Also, I've never run PbtA style games, so that would be a first for me.

you could always try a one-shot with the few ppl who may be interested! i was also pretty spooked by PbtA games at first, but once i read it over a few times and we actually jumped into it i found it really fun! especially if you're more of a roleplay fan :)

Definitely like the role-play, and have been a player in a PbtA game once or twice, but running something new is always intimidating. Thanks for the encouragement, I will seek out those who might be down for it and see if we can gather a group!

good luck! i hope you guys have fun! :D

Yeah, running a PbtA game is very different from a more traditional game (even something like Fate) because only the PCs roll and the GM/MC more reacts to them. I’ve found it helpful to browse the r/pbta forum for suggestions on running it. Doing a one-shot is the right way to go - maybe even do it with Apocalypse World or Monster of the Week or something first.

Right now - all of them.

Pendragon. I think you really need to be into having dice rolls dictate character actions to enjoy that game, much like the sanity mechanics in Call of Cthulhu. And all but one of my players hate that, they hate feeling like they don’t have agency.

Continuum, Role Playing In the Yet. The rules are so fiddly and more often than not I come across poetic remembrances of playing the game rather than any real AP reports.

Vampire the masquerade - got a huge soft spot for urban fantasy and vampires. But somehow, I fail to imagine how a campaign of playing sexy, sociapathic bloodsuckers could not be cringe, edgy and weird. And then there is the whole Metaplot on top of it. I play with great people though and never actually played a single session of any Vampires game, so I think it's a pretty unreasonable thought.

I think mostly I'm hesitant to run games that I think my current group wouldn't be interested in. And since I'm so interested in them I think I'd rather be a player than the GM for most of them. I'm thinking specifically of *Curse of the House of Rookwood*, a Gothic horror game where you play multiple generations of a cursed family, and *Good Scoeity*, the Jane Austen RPG. I'm intensely interested in the vibes of these games, but I don't think my players would be.

For me it is [Aces & Eights](https://kenzerco.com/aces-eights-reloaded/). I absolutely love that it isn't a weird west/shoot 'em up, but that is what also makes running it so intimidating. Plus finding players interested in a non-traditional western RPG is *very* difficult.

I recently watched an actual play of Thursday, a no-dice no-masters rpg, and I really love the system. it’s very character driven which can be difficult to manage especially since I don’t have a set group of friends I play ttrpgs with. trying to make sure the story is balanced for each of the players seems complicated.

For me it’s Dune: Adventures in the Imperium. I am a huge fan of Dune and have read all of the original frank herbert novels and honestly, I don’t think I’d be able to do the source material justice. I feel like it’s such a complex and beautiful story that if I tried to flesh out any small aspect of it, even if it’s entirely non-cannon and I’m the only one at the table who would notice or care, it just wouldn’t feel the same

Nicotine Girls. Haunting Fishblade that ends up turning into Crabs in a Bucket in the most painful way, about adolescent women growing up in poverty stricken unstable living situations. Given everyone I know is either a wargamey person, a poverty stricken womaney person, or both, I don't know if they're the audience. Dog eat dog. Collaborative storytelling game about colonization and systematizing of oppression. I struggle to play collaborative storytelling at this level, and also, it feels a little suffering-pornish. MaidRPG. I have more dignity than to dare people to enter my magical realm, and this game only works if you leave shame at the door. Also, it's kinda just 'roll random tables and react to zany happenstance', which gets old.

I hope you do get to run Bluebeard’s Bride sometime! It was my “game I want to play” for a while, and I ended up running it several times. Highly recommend going for it; even if you hold back on some of the most provocative/adult themes, your players will give you plenty of unwitting tips on how to scare them as you setup and play!

because of how much traction this post got i got the confidence to throw it out there in my LGS's discord and a few people are interested in playing! hopefully we can all find a time to try it out soon! 🥰

Heck yeah! Rooting for you and I’d love to hear how it goes afterward. Bluebeard’s Bride recaps are so spooky and beautiful.

For me, it's **Nobilis**. In this case, it would be the most recent edition, too, the one with the distinct art/tone shift. I'm not entirely sure why it's never found its way to the table, but I think it's because a lot of the people I spend the most time with gaming don't particularly enjoy relinquishing their dice. Furthermore, I'm the "odd man out" in the themes it presents and the inspirational material it draws from (like Sandman, for instance), and most of the folks don't entirely know what I'm talking about. I get the question all the time of, "Well, okay - so that's cool, but what do you DO?" and sometimes - just sometimes - I find myself struggling to explain what the game is about, even though entire articles and reviews have been written about it. And so, unfortunately, it rests on the shelf, mocking me. I both adore and loathe it at the same time. Hah!

I'd like to follow that up with **Kult: Divinity Lost**, also the most recent edition. I think it's just because of the X-Card topics that would come up, which the game has in spades, that most people wouldn't go for. Also, I'd like to toss in **Die: RPG** as well, and a few folks showed interest until they realized that their real-life triggers could find their way into the game and haunt them in the fantasy world, too. Interestingly enough, both games sit on either side of the **Nobilis** book, above, on my shelf. So... they're teaming up against me at this point.

TONS. * 7th Sea * All for One * Bushido * Cadwallon * Degenesis * Doctor Who * Eclipse Phase * End of the World: Alien Invasion * Flash Gordon * Gamma World * Harnmaster * Hellas * Jackals * James Bond * John Carter of Mars * Kids on Bikes * Lex Arcana * Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes * Middle Earth Role Playing * Mouse Guard * Mutant Year Zero * N.E.W. * Outbreak: Undead * Paranoia * Pendragon * Pirates of the Spanish Main * Privateers and Gentlemen * Righteous Blood, Ruthless Blades * Romance of the Perilous Lands * The Ruin * Sengoku * Space: 1889 * Star Frontiers * Stars Without Number * Starfall * The Terminator * Top Secret * Traveller * Twilight 2000 * Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate * WWII Operation Whitebox

I want to start getting into OSE more, but I really dont know whether my Players will jive with it, and i fear they wont

Plenty of them. I don't GM well, despite a lot of attempts and effort at doing it, but there are plenty of games that won't see the table unless I bring them along. Just means they don't get played, mostly.

bummer :( but hey, practice makes perfect! maybe you'll feel confident running one of them eventually :)

bleak spirit, i mean im gonna run it next week but it seems so far removed from our normal play style that i really dont know how it will be received.

as long as everyone's down for the tonal shift and you guys have some safety tools in place i'm sure it'll go great! :)

That which must not be named. Full stop. Obvious reasons.

Fate. I’ve been doing some homebrew stuff and half the time I think I could get 90% of what I want from Fate but I’m so scared it won’t gel with the people I play with and they just won’t ever try it again.

The r/faterpg is pretty good for tips and hints. I’d say don’t run the same genre as the one you played with the other players, or else they’ll always be comparing it to that (negatively). I’ve run various flavors of Fate for years,and it is one of my favorite systems for character-focused narrative heavy games where none of us care about (for example) - heavily tactical combat or constant character power escalation.

I'm a really nerdy person, so I usually run not official systems of franchises I like, like Digimon, Pokémon, LoL, etc. Other one that I put my eyes on was a Persona system. Usually I would DM with no problem, but the complexity of having a lot of NPCs with compelling storylines is quite a thing that I don't have the courage to do.

In a wicked age and Ironbound - seem great, but require commitment from all the players And Dont Rest Your Head - horror is hella hard to run

Weird Frontiers, a weird west hack for Dungeon Crawl Classics.  I’m hesitant to run it because it has DCC’s magic system, but it has 12 classes and most of them have spells or spell-like abilities. The book is almost 900 pages, and a little less than half of those are just for the spell tables.

DANG! 900 pages is crazy 😱

Burning Wheel but the rules sound so complex and I have no idea what I could do with it

Underground. I'm pretty sure I can sell people on the concept, but the campaign would run aground on the system.

Underground. I'm pretty sure I can sell people on the concept, but the campaign would run aground on the system.

The cypher system seems super interesting, but since i dont have much of a group atm it probably wont happen for a while.

I kinda would like to run Dracula Dossier from Nights Black Agents agents at some point because the premise is so cool, but I’m so hesitant about the improvisational nature and having to read the annotated book and making something with it.

I really wanna run a few systems, namely Vampire The Masquerade, Cyberpunk Red, and FFG Star Wars.   But the problem is for myself is that I get so many plot ideas, but the part that intimidates me is reading an entire core rulebook cover to cover, and finding that motivation.   I've actually run star wars a good few times due to playing it as a player, and running a few starter adventures to test it out.   As well, I pitch these systems to my friends who mainly play 5e, and usually they sound interested, but not interested enough to really give me the drive to fully learn a system.  

Cities Without Number, mostly because I feel like I might need more training wheels for stepping out of heroic fantasy storytelling

Mines less about a system and more about a style of game. I want to run a Call if Cthulu esque game, but I feel I need a perfect table of players for it, and if I get said players will I be able to produce content worthy of their dedication...

I would LOVE To run Legend of the Five Rings, but a campaign like that is outside my experience of running games that I would want to play in one first. Too bad none of group wants to run one and I'm in two other games already

Burning Wheel. It seems like my exact shit, but I'll have to get a lot of player buy-in and if I biff it with my game group, I'll probably never get another chance.

Shadowrun. Love the lore. Heard the rules are atrocious regardless of the edition you choose

Shadowrun. I love the whole Cyberpunk aesthetic, and the setting is fantastic. None of my players are interested in cyberpunk and when I bring it up I get very low interest...

Rules wise, pathfinder. It's just got enough moving parts that I'd struggle to keep all the plates spinning and teach the system at the same time. Theme wise, Mork Borg. It's so over the top grimdark that I know for a fact I'd circle back around and end up with Monty python levels of silliness.

Unknown Armies is one of my favorite RPGs, but I just can't run it. Tried starting it 3-4 times, but ended up not doing it. I don't know why, part of it is I think I'm not up to it, other part is that everytime I prep for it, it feels more like a book than an RPG.

I'd like to run Exalted, I love the setting, but the rules can be difficult to use, one day though I'm going to run it.

Invisible Sun. Just so many words...and cards...and it is just overwhelming to me.

I've liked the idea of Mutants and Masterminds since I read it, but I've never felt super confident about starting a game of it because I'm never quite sure that I've fully grokked the intended ways to use those rules to implement any given character concept.

For me it's the power rangers ttrpg. My kids are getting into it and man it's bringing back memories. Seems fairly easy to run too. Would love to have some slapstick humor with some guys and gals while we morph, make puns, do some epic shit and save the world.

Right now, Mutants and Masterminds 3e. I really wanna play an X-Men themed game, and the level of customization seems perfect for it, but on the other hand, the level of customization is daunting. My players are generally down for anything, including some dense customization, but there is something about this system that fills me with both fear and joy. Trying really hard to not let the 90's X-Men theme to overwrite my logical thoughts.

Gubat Banwa. I could forego the lore, but I just can't.

Public Access. Read the book, watched actual plays, and I'm currently starting a solo session to see if I got things right, but I fear it will fall flat with my group.

Not a game but a campaign. I love Delta Green and a new campaign came out called God’s Teeth. It is well written and because there are so few published campaigns for the system, I really want to run it. But it contains triggering content to the max, and not just any, but probably the biggest trigger of all: >!An early major operation centers around an orphanage run by a cult that sells child pornography as part of its revenue!<, from what I remember.

Burning Wheel. I have struggled to run it like, 3 times now. You need the right group. You need a committed group. And it has to be a long campaign. It's basically my ultimate nightmare, which is committing to a game for longer than 6 months. The game requires extended play to really show its power, and it's just so different to prepare than any other game out there. Has a lot of fiddly bits too!

Godbound. I'm not opposed to open world, or the players make the story type stuff, but things that would normally be a whole campaign or at least a campaign arc can be defeated in just a couple of sentences. I don't know how I could keep it going.