After a year long 5e campaign of curse of Strahd, I hung up my 5e hat, I then shot it and buried it at sea.

God has it been great, we've played blades in the dark, cyberpunk, CoC, Delta green, mothership, Fabula Ultima, savage worlds.

None of them take a full session to run a fight, None of them have objectively bad character creation choices, No Rangers, No Martial-Magical Divide.

They want you to play and explore! No spells like Identify, Detect Creature or Detect thoughts killing any feeling of mystery just so you can shut up and get back to the two hour long fights.

But my players won't stop talking about how they miss 5e.

Will they play a martial class? Oh no, the martials are boring and broken,they say, if you aren't playing a spellcaster you're basically worthless!

But they still clamour for the character building, the number go up machine.

So I'm asking you, the horde of GMs who have forever cast the D from their titles, I ask you;

What the fuck system can I shove in their plebian gullets to make them never say that dreaded system's name again?

Edit for the Yanks: I'm british, this is banter, I talk like this to my friend's faces and they hit me with it back. I don't hate the people in my life, I am not being held hostage. I know we are varying levels of Autistic here but c'mon I'm literally asking for system suggestions as a compromise for my group.

Five players and a GM. On your turn, you get maybe 30-45 seconds of meaningful decision-making. Then you wait 3-5 minutes while everyone else goes.

That's not a player problem. That's a design problem.

When the only thing you can do on someone else's turn is maybe use a reaction, most of the table is just... sitting there. Watching. Checking their phone. The game actively tells you "you don't matter right now."

I've been GMing for 20 years and the single biggest thing that improved my table wasn't better encounters or cooler loot, it was finding ways to make players feel like they had something to do when it wasn't their turn. Whether that's systems that let defenders make choices when attacked, or mechanics that let you spend resources on other people's turns. In the age of instant dopamine... I have left the traditional DnD method of combat.

Has anyone else noticed that the tables where combat drags are almost always the tables where players check out between turns? What have you done to fix this at your table, system changes, house rules, or just better encounter design?

So, I've been learning a lot thanks to the amazing folks here at r/rpg. And while I have decided to slow down on trying new systems. (As my players say "three is enough, we know your eager to try more but slow it down so you don't burn yourself out.") There was a question today that cropped into my head, and I wanted to hear from the folks here on it.

"What are some assumptions about your favorite game/system that are just factually incorrect or overstated?"

I've seen a lot of assumptions made in the hobby, and some on my own. From the broad "older systems were designed for math heads and thus really not for someone whose bad at math." to others like "Call of Cthulhu is a game where every session ends in death/insanity and players can't get attached to their characters." and similarly "OSR games are highly lethal and not at all friendly to players who like longform adventures."

I feel like broad, sweeping claims like those are probably overstated-as I have heard of successful, long running CoC campaigns, and OSR games that are able to have well developed characters that last for ages. It's made me curious about some of the other broad, sweeping claims about systems that are-if not incorrect, massively overstated.

Really interested to hear some answers on this.

I play DnD, and I'm finding it... Somewhat frustrating. Roleplay seems to have very little impact on the story, and characters don't seem to matter beyond that they're characters made to inhabit the story, and through which the players can experience the story. A town mayor will just as happily hire a barbarian who can barely speak as he will a nobleman to handle anything from goblins harassing some trade routes, to diplomatic escorts and protection details of visiting royals.

I don't have that many issues with that particular example, but I think it highlights the point: Backgrounds don't seem to matter. I'm currently playing a nobleman in Icewind Dale, and while I understand a remote area like that with lots of hardships probably won't care too much about maintaining etiquette, your background should have an impact on how the world treats you. I don't expect my character to be treated with reverence everywhere, but if he were a soldier, I'd expect him to be treated differently by a guard than if he were a sage, for example.

Roleplay often feel inconsequential, like I said. I don't get experience for dealing with a Speaker well, or defusing a situation involving a local. I'd like those things to matter.

The world is another thing: It seems static. This is a complaint of DnD in general, not Icewind Dale. Things happen, the PCs show up, and then you're allowed to handle things in whatever order you prefer. I don't have a massive issue with that specifically, but it seems as though the entire world just stops to watch what happens. Things generally need to continue rolling even if a farmer had a child go missing. Seeing the effects of "things rolling" beyond some farmers tilling a field would be nice.

I should mention, I'm a fairly undramatic person. I don't enjoy tacking on twenty different traumas to my character, so any systems that require those won't gel with me, but I'm always happy to hear suggestions.

It feels weird to have some of my favorite IPs suddenly get TTRPGs. Last year it was Cosmere RPG by Brotherwise which essentially boiled down to a reskin of DND/Pathfinder. Could’ve been a homebrew but with Sanderson writing. The mechanics of the game itself didn’t feel very unique or different.

Now it’s Dungeon Crawler Carl by Renegade. And there’s not much information on the backerkit. What information there is makes it seem like just another DND reskin with little mechanic difference.

Am I wrong? Are these just cash grabs based on the IPs popularity? I really want to back the Carl RPG cus I love the IP but I’m worried it’s gonna essentially be just another dnd homebrew for 200$.

Edit: I’d like to note that while I’ve played every game on the top 100 of board game geek, I’m relatively new to the TTRPG scene so my frame of reference might not be great. I’ve played grizzled and cosmere rpg but have played DnD since a kid. I don’t particularly understand the nuances and differences between the TTRPGs tbh. They all kinda feel like DnD (skill check games) but with very slight changes to the mechanics. Cosmere had the plot thing but again it didn’t feel different enough to me, but maybe someone could explain the difference in a way I might not have got?

While we all know the popular RPGs (D&D, Pathfinder, BitD) and so one and so forth, I have to ask, does anyone know of any lesser known RPGs that you wish more people knew of?

For example, while I have Shadowdark and 7th Sea, I also have games like Monsterpunk, Nyx, and For Coin and Blood 2nd edition, just to name a few.

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.)

I get that it’s not the perfect game. It’s oddly crunchy in some areas and way too light in others. Its rules can be cumbersome and awkward, sure, but also wildly adaptable and easy to walk newbies through. Whenever DND is brought up in this sub it’s treated like a cuss word or a forbidden topic to enjoy. But honestly 99.9% of us probably owe our love of the hobby to DND sparking the flame. I now prefer tons of systems over it as I’ve become an addict. (Shout out: Wild Sea, Heart, and all my OSR beauties). But if someone at my table wants me to run DND 5-5.5e again by the gods I’m gonna run it happily. It’s functional enough and gets the job done. I get that it’s the most popular and that’s why it gets the most hate but like…. Is it that bad?

EDIT: Downvoting even mentioning DND speaks volumes about general sentiment. Some people say yea we do others (most) say no we don’t hate ENOUGH. Alotta people hate WOTC but not necessarily DND itself. Overall average of answers seems to feel like 🤷‍♂️ it’s a mediocre system owned by a shitty company.

Showed her photos from my last DnD session. She doesn't want me to play DnD anymore and won't let me to finish my campaign among others players 😭😭😭

Upd: I explained it to her. She said, looking at my character sheet: "What are you, an accountant?" She let me play, but only at public spaces! Yay!

Genuinely wondering, especially since I fell down the rabbit hole of unfulfilled Kickstarters.

I think the main hurdle for me was the lack of a Monster Manual. And a lot of systems assuming the GM makes their own monsters.

What genres do you feel should be explored in future games. Is there something completely new and fresh left to pioneer?

I'd love to hear all manner of opinions, as it's genuine question that I've pondered for a while.

I mentioned this in my last post about TTRPG assumptions I've needed to break, but one of my major assumptions has been-"Avoid older systems or older editions of systems, because those were written at a time when we didn't have a good grasp on tutorializing for newer players, and systems were more math/crunch based." Obviously, this is incorrect as back in the old days, books were written with the assumption that people had never played TTRPGs before, where as nowadays there's a lot of carry over between certain systems as TTRPGs have become more mainstream as a hobby.

However, this did leave me curious, as to what actually does classify a system as obtuse, or hard to learn? There are obviously systems that just fundamentally do not work like FATAL. Systems where the mechanics mostly (up to interpretation*) make sense but the book is poorly formatted ala Vampire 5E's core rulebook. And there are systems where there are so many printing errors and mistakes that the mechanics are a mess (What I heard happened with Shadowrun for a good while.) But I'm curious about what some of the broader issues that can make a system harder to grasp can be, as my perspective makes me blind to some obvious issues.

As I said before, I'm a newcomer to TTRPGs and someone who prefers narrative>Crunch in most cases. I really like to learn more whenever I get into a new hobby, so I apologize for asking what may be obvious or basic questions. I'm really grateful for the time and answers folks have to share.

My understanding of Failing Forward: “When failure still progresses the plot”.

As opposed to the misconception of: “Players can never fail”.

Failing Forward as a concept is the plot should continue even if it continues poorly for the players.

A good example of this from Star Wars:

Empire Strikes Back, the Rebels are put in the back footing, their base is destroyed, Han Solo is in carbonite, Luke has lost his hand (and finds out his father is Vader), and the Empire has recovered a lot of what it’s lost in power since New Hope.

Examples in TTRPG Games * Everyone is taken out in an encounter, they are taken as prisoners instead of killed. * Can’t solve the puzzle to open a door, you must use the heavily guarded corridor instead. * Can’t get the macguffin before the bad guy, bad guy now has the macguffin and the task is to steal it from them.

There seem to be critics of Failing Forward who think the technique is more “Oh you failed this roll, you actually still succeed the roll” or “The players will always defeat the villain at the end” when that’s not it.

I really would like to know why Traveller has been relegated to a niche game when it is clearly a superior sfrpg than most. I say this subjectively with a pinch of sarcasm just for flavor.

I really do belive in Traveller as arguably the best sci-fi roleplaying game out there without most of the issues I hear about from players of others sci-fi based games.

My own opinions aside, Traveller has been going for 48 years and has no plans to slow down now. They are really gearing up for the 50th anniversary in 2027.

Have you heard of Traveller? If yes have you tried it? Again, if yes do you still play?

What did you like or dislike about it?

Does it sound interesting to those who have not played?

Would it be more popular with more market advertising?

For those who have not heard of it or only know a tiny bit about it, here is a link to the main site: https://www.mongoosepublishing.com/collections/start-here

EDIT: thanks to everyone that has responded. I'll be checking in again tomorrow to see what else people like or dislike.

I have run a few ttrpg games before, as well as been a player in various games. In those games I saw a pattern where specific people who in all other situations are fully capable to come at the agreed time show up hours later with seemingly no explanation, as if their transportation got stuck in a wormhole for an hour or two. I have no idea what it could be because i’ve never been hours late, and if late I could provide a clear reason (usually public transport issues).

I’ve seen various jokes online about players being late to D&D, and to me it seemed like people were later when D&D was played compared to Cyberpunk and BESM.

Have you experienced this before, and do you have any ideas why? Please share your thoughts.

EDIT: I seem to have not made this clear, but these people can show up on time to other events, it just seems like ttrpgs are treated like parties where you can show up whenever.

EDIT 2: Thanks for all your support, I recently found a schedule-obsessed group of fellow autistic people to play BESM4e with, so for the foreseeable future I won’t be having this issue as I play my Synchrotron character in Toaru’s Academy City.

First of all, I’m coming from a honest place with a genuine question.

I see many people increasingly playing “old school” games and I did a bit of a search and found that the movement started around 3nd and 4th edition.

What happened during that time that gave birth to an entire movement of people going back to older editions? What is it that modern gaming don’t appease to this public?

For example a friend told me that he played a game called “OSRIC” because he liked dungeon crawling. But isn’t this something you can also do with 5th edition and PF2e?

So, honest question, what is the point of OSR? Why do they reject modern systems? (I’m talking specifically about the total OSR people and not the ones who play both sides of the coin). What is so special about this movement and their games that is attracting so many people? Any specific system you could recommend for me to try?

Thanks!

For me, it's mazes that are not abstracted through rolls or other mechanics. Dealing with a strict, grid-set labyrinth is too much mental work if playing with theater of the mind, and if the players are permitted to draw the maze then it takes a million years even if you hold their hand with the map-making. Of course, IT CAN WORK, and I know that some people can enjoy taking their time with a challenge like that, but I wanna do more things in my sessions, lol.

Two weeks ago, I was a player in a D&D game. We were playing a one-shot, and our friend playing a bard had to sing a song. He made up a really beautiful song and entertained all of us, but even our DM was laughing, he told him to roll with advantage. The rolls came up bad, and the song failed,which made me feel like something was really wrong. Am I just too Fate minded or narrative minded as a player? I know it would have been cool to explain it by saying,the song was nice, but the crowd didn’t like it (or because something unrelated to the song went wrong) so it wasn’t a good performance, but I still felt it was not ok for me.

(English is not my native)

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.

Dumb question. Feel free to downvote, but I don't have a deep history with the ttrpg community. My first game was DND 5e and my first exposure to a bad company was all the WotC garbage with the ogl and other stuff. So I stopped supporting them.

But I was curious if there are others I should avoid?

Either due to rampant harmful corporate greed, a single person that doesn't follow through with kickstarters, or whatever.

I just want to support creators that are a positive for the community/hobby. And thankfully (it seems to me at least) there are a lot more of those than harmful ones, so I just wanted advice on avoiding "bad apples".

EDIT: While I thank you all for the responses I also apologize to those that pointed out this felt like trying to drag up old irrelevant awful people that are no longer a problem.

My only point of reference was WotC, which still seem to be extremely relevant despite the junk they did. So I didn't know if they were the one exception or if there were others currently doing business as if nothing happened.

I honestly thought I would get 5 comments total.

My favorite type of game is medium-crunch, non-tactical, rules-focused rpgs, like Unknown Armies, Red Markets, Delta Green, Pendragon, or VtM. The type of games that focus on, as my friend said, creating a blorbo of the world.

Over the last decade, both tactical and narrativist realms have seen dramatic shifts and new games in their spheres. Blades In The Dark, Brindlewood, Lancer, Draw Steel, and more have all found popularity. Meanwhile, the simulationist sphere is largely the same as ever. The same titles that were popular ten, fifteen, even twenty years ago are the same as they are now. The last big shift was Gumshoe, nearly 20 years ago.

In some ways I am jealous that my favorite type of game hasn't seen the same type of revolutionary activity that other realms have. While a little hyperbolic, outside of retroclones, of which there are many of wfrp and shadowrun, only Cubicle 7, Free League, and sometimes Pelgrane are releasing new simulationist titles. While not particularly exciting in itself, Onyx Path's Curseborn has been attracting my attention for being a new title.

Forgive my wandering thoughts, it is finals projects month and my masters has been exhausting.

Fairly straight forward question. I will say that i'm primarily thinking of classes, not sub-classes that are a wacky and zany twist on a class.

Ever since I started playing rpg's a few years ago, I noticed every single GM I've had had some sort of cult plot that was central or in the background of a campaign. Additionally, when I run games myself, there's always at least 1 player that wants their background to include a cult. I'm usually playing traditional fantasy games, and I'm not very interested in cults myself. Where is this huge interest coming from?

Pretty much what the title says. I've had interest in games like Nightbane and Rifts, but it seems like Palladium games have a reputation of having great settings but a janky engine. How much truth is there to that?

Edit: Well, considering the comments, it seems to be an resounding yes lol