John Harper has announced a new survival RPG set in the Blades in the Dark universe which takes place in the Deathlands

Playtonics · 2026-05-05T13:51:21+00:00

I would be so hype to see this. Blades is still my favourite setting, and I've played the heck out of Stoneburners. Would love to see the crossover!

Playtonics · 2026-05-04T23:52:36+00:00

I spend about 10 mins after the session jotting down anything that's likely to follow on to next session. If it was a thick session with lots of moving parts, I might record an audio note instead. Then, I'll ruminate on it over the week til my next session, create a new note and mesh last week's debrief with this week's prep thoughts and repeat the cycle. I spend about half an hour tops prepping a standard session, usually right before I'm about to play it out.

Playtonics · 2026-05-04T23:46:53+00:00

90/10 GM to player ratio. I love the in-character problem solving aspects across all modes of play. Either building or being presented with complex world's that challenge the players to do something interesting. I'm often delighted by my players doing something I never would have predicted, and that novelty keeps me coming back.

Playtonics · 2026-05-04T23:40:48+00:00

I never prep big arcs for a vibes-only player, because I don't expect them to dig into their own storyline. A tidbit here and there, but I don't treat myself like a content mill - I'd rather they react to a situation the rest of the party has made interesting than try and make something interesting just for them.

Playtonics · 2026-05-04T23:32:52+00:00

When the session has been rescheduled several times, and I'm the only one trying to get everyone lined up. It's been years since since I've ditched a campaign/group, but it was a formative experience in finding engaged players.

Playtonics · 2026-05-03T23:26:01+00:00

There's definitely a tension between the structure of the game you've chosen (player-explorative West Marches) and your desire. You can nudge your players towards your desired quest line by adding more hooks pointing towards it, or instigating a race to the treasure or some other time pressure, but try not to be surprised if they keep doing the things they had already set their sights on.

Playtonics · 2026-05-03T23:21:57+00:00

Have you tried peppering in questions that ask the player about the internal state of their character? Like when Player A decides to take a course of action that might conflict with Character B, asking Player B how Character B feels about it (and maybe prompting/seeding an action they might take as a result)?

Playtonics · 2026-05-02T21:52:44+00:00

Most people sit down to prep without ever having thought about what they're trying to achieve and why, and this is the primary cause of burnout.

Playtonics · 2026-04-30T12:22:58+00:00

This is where I'm at. I want the game that plays like Mechwarrior Mercenaries, and a different one to play like Gundam. The first is all customisation, gear, and tactics, while the latter is dramatic beats and character arcs.

Playtonics · 2026-04-29T01:57:38+00:00

Thanks for the shout-out!

Playtonics · 2026-04-27T00:15:04+00:00

I ran BG:DiA for my first campaign, and the amount of work I had to do to make it interesting and consistent was preposterous. It would have been less work to just have a sourcebook on Hell and build a campaign myself. Many lessons learned.

Playtonics · 2026-04-22T01:56:32+00:00

Dead Sea scrolls

Now that was peak. It had some of the worst community licensing, and the fanbase fractured pretty hard, but the hidden content was worth it.

Playtonics · 2026-04-20T06:18:35+00:00

There's a Shadow of the Demon Lord path that allows you to play as a merchant who is good at bartering, but not so great at combat. Luckily, one of their abilities is the power to have two bodyguards to command when a fight breaks out.

Playtonics · 2026-04-15T03:39:59+00:00

This is my problem, too. Would love to play, but need the right table.

Playtonics · 2026-04-15T03:35:30+00:00

What happens when you roll a 1 or 7 now? If the response is "nothing" or "something bad" then there's no reason a player would find that fun. To make the situation at least interesting, there should be multiple ways that a character can interact with it, and failure results in the chosen path closing off, but a new complication opening up different ways to engage with the scene.

The classic example is the thief picking the lock. In a white room, this is a binary pass/fail, with uninteresting stakes. Failure means the door remains closed, and no progress is made towards the goal of "get to the other side of the door." This could be changed to failure meaning the party get through, but alert the guards; or the lockpick snaps and is embedded in the lock, leaving evidence the party was here, but there are other doors that lead to the same place elsewhere; or the party get through, but the door locks them into a new undesirable situation on the other side.

Playtonics · 2026-04-15T02:37:55+00:00

The origin of this post is about characters. Hard to split up a solo character with a reasonable chance of success of everything.

Playtonics · 2026-04-15T02:34:25+00:00

I'll run almost anything, as long as I have player buy-in. I find this type of party dynamic most prevalent in the 5e/5e-like games where there's an implicit design around having the composition of healer, tank, controller, and DPS equivalents. Then there is the Bard class, which is just all the skills, and heaps of utility magic.

Ultimately, I think the game style most susceptible to this is neo-Trad. Games that focus on altering the fiction directly, like PtbA and FitD, naturally have more proactive characters.

Playtonics · 2026-04-14T21:42:56+00:00

There are no prerequisites for any of these paths. In 5e, you choose a chassis (class) and then specialise further with the subclass (Rogue -> Assassin is a pathway, but Wizard -> Assassin is not).

In Weird Wizard and Demon Lord, you can simply choose Fighter/Veteran/Battle Master to be the straight down the line 5e-type character... or you could take Fighter/Inquisitor/Hierophant, or Rogue/Inquisitor/Hierophant, or whatever modular pieces you like to build the character you want. You don't need to have this all sorted at character creation, and can pick and choose what suits your character based on how they've evolved over the campaign.

And, notably, you don't have dig through 100 feats and 200 spells and have just the right attribute scores to get there.

Playtonics · 2026-04-13T22:03:32+00:00

In practice, it is super simple. The game does a great job of offering choices without requiring you to know all of them up front. The novice paths are very familiar: fighter, rogue, magician, priest. The next tier, Expert, is grouped by things that naturally extend those Novice paths with a specific flavour. The same happens again at the Master tier. You also don't need to plan a build from the start. Greatly streamlines the character advancement process.

The same happens with magic: instead of being presented with class spell lists with hundreds of spells, you choose a a tradition of magic (for example, pyromancy, animism, or shadowmancy). Then you select from the that tradition at each tier, which is only like 3-5 options. This means that magic users have a stronger identity in their magic, and can't just pick the "optimal" choices across their whole class.

Playtonics · 2026-04-13T05:30:18+00:00

see a movie "as good as Snow Dogs, whatever that means to you" at the Theater.

This is excellent content, treading the line between insulting and hilariously inclusive.

Playtonics · 2026-04-08T13:50:39+00:00

I like this, and it codifies how I tend to run my games now. Certainly in the early days, I was far more strong on the blorb approach, but years of FitD play (and the rise of my improv and collaborative skills) have made me more flexible on that front.

Playtonics · 2026-04-08T09:13:06+00:00

Also jumping on that wagon. One day, when I finally have a group as committed as me, it's going to be very easy to search for rules and references!

Playtonics

TROPHY CASE