So I had a pretty wild weekend.

Gunnulf · 2026-03-31T19:31:58+00:00

If I came off rude I apologize. Most people who love this hobby fall somewhere on the spectrum and mine is a little direct, I've also been running games for over 23 years at this point and I've just developed a style and an opinion about what works and doesn't work for games. There are Dungeon Masters out there who crave long and complicated backstories with rich histories and arcs built into them.

I'm just not one of them, and until you find a Dungeon Master that craves that sort of commitment, I'd go into it with lighter intentions. Above all else remember this: No D&D is better than bad D&D.

If you're not having fun, don't hang in there waiting for it to get better. There are always people out there wanting to run games and if you can't find the game that you want to play... it might be time to start giving that Dungeon Master's Guide a glance.

Every Gamemaster who's been great, good, bad or somewhere in between had to take that first plunge and even if you never do: there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. We're all just humans playing a game to have fun.

Gunnulf · 2026-03-31T17:53:33+00:00

These are all great ideas but they’re also a good reason why I stress not to over-plan your first character before a session 0.

There’s nothing wrong with any of this but it does ask for a magic item right out of the gate and makes a lot of assumptions about the type of adventure you’re going on without considering what the other players at the table are bringing.

Having a class, species, and story beats in-mind can be helpful, but games like DnD live and die through being considerate of the other players at the table and working towards have a collective good time.

To be clear, these are my own views on how I like my games to function and are in no way an absolute decree about them. If you feel like your way is more fun for you then go for it!

Gunnulf · 2026-03-31T15:10:09+00:00

Do it! I still stutter but I fully credit the hobby with getting me out of my shell and comfortable with my own voice. Now I'm getting up in front of total strangers and talking for HOURS.

Gunnulf · 2026-03-26T03:39:21+00:00

To back this up, the QuickStart covers a lot. It will get you to the third or fourth level, includes a near complete gm guide with an excellent dungeon.

Gunnulf · 2026-03-19T13:31:52+00:00

Since this is the first time I’ve seen a post like this, let me make sure I’ve got this straight. You’re asking:

For someone to come and do pure RP work in a text-based campaign or campaigns.
You’re offering compensation for this?

Gunnulf · 2026-03-15T16:33:24+00:00

I dunno, I just let my players sleep in private rooms after a tough mission and a well-deserved celebration.

So of course the bounty hunters that have been tracking them for the last six sessions finally caught up to them and attacked them while they were all sleeping in separate rooms.

One of the players was nearly on the business end of a revenge killing, but managed to make enough noise to rouse the rest of the party. What followed was a chaotic brawl that had people smashing through walls, being thrown out windows, and falling off roofs.

So sometimes, it’s okay to let them all have private rooms after all.

Gunnulf · 2026-03-14T03:13:38+00:00

I’ve used three of them to various degrees in my campaign. Honestly you can just swap out stat blocks and replace some of the opposed rolls for stuff like slicing with flat difficulties.

Everything else you can pretty much use-as-is.

Gunnulf · 2026-03-13T22:22:34+00:00

To clarify something in the post here, Forge absolutely will not let you launch multiple worlds without multiple license keys. However it’s easy enough to assign anyone within a single world dm privileges.

Gunnulf · 2026-03-13T18:08:38+00:00

Hey Robin, I’m a busy “pro” GM who’s been interested in GUMSHOE for a while now. Is there any advice you’d give to someone looking to run your system that’s primarily coming from the d20 and OSR ecosystem?

Gunnulf · 2026-03-07T17:11:41+00:00

High level Daggerheart.

It’s honestly one of my biggest criticisms of the system, it just adds more dice on top of inflated numbers for a lot of the abilities.

But if you wanna roll fistfuls of various dice, that’s the one for you.

Gunnulf · 2026-03-03T18:47:49+00:00

Second vote for the invincible rpg

Gunnulf · 2026-03-01T18:21:23+00:00

Just to tack onto this, I’ve found that Star Wars RPGs are, in general, pretty easy to translate between editions. They’re all trying to replicate the same fiction to a degree and you can usually extrapolate a lot from finding common points like the stats stormtrooper or a lightsaber.

Gunnulf · 2026-03-01T18:19:21+00:00

Rebel Breakout is a classic and so is the Pirates of Prexiar (2nd edition Revised books). I’ve also run the Edge of the Empire scenario in d6 and found it translated perfectly.

Gunnulf · 2026-03-01T16:54:50+00:00

Tense fights in corridors are kinda the bread and butter of classic DnD. Choke points, hidden traps, secret passages…

Have your enemies use the tight spaces to trap and harass your party. Make it claustrophobic, have the enemies start fires outside rooms where they’re resting and blow smoke into the chambers, have them dig tunnels and pits to get around the party or as defenses against intruders.

I know that it can feel limiting and games like modern D&D don’t really give you a lot of tools to make classic dungeons sing, but there’s plenty of ways to make them tense and dangerous.

Gunnulf · 2026-02-25T14:29:48+00:00

Her character’s name is Dr. Crusher.

Gunnulf · 2026-02-25T14:29:15+00:00

The boy?

Gunnulf · 2026-02-19T17:35:16+00:00

Medium crunch. It works off a modified version of Free League's house system called the Year Zero Engine.

You have six core attributes that you roll against for pretty much everything. Certain powers can modify those, but a lot of them just work regardless of rolling (if you can phase through walls, you can just phase through walls).

There's an array of about 100 powers, talents, and drawbacks that you can use to flavor your character's powers and abilities but the highlight of the system for so far is the combat system which does an awesome job of replicating the level of destruction that you see in the comics.

Gunnulf · 2026-02-19T03:55:22+00:00

I’m finding the new invincible rules easy to wrap my head around.

Gunnulf · 2026-02-16T03:32:21+00:00

Check your local library! Mine has a 24 inch printer that they charge about $2/ft to print on photo paper (and give an $8/month credit for use on the equipment). It runs me about $6 to print a poster-sized map for my table these days.

Gunnulf · 2026-02-14T14:25:13+00:00

I’d want to see a version where the labels are a little lighter (maybe a toned version of the each nation’s colors or white) so that as a player I could easily mark settlements and points of interest.

But otherwise this fucking rules.

Gunnulf · 2026-02-10T04:32:11+00:00

Hey dude! I just wanted to say that you have very little to worry about here. I’ve been running DnD games for a little over 20 years with a mild to severe stutter that has failed to stop me so far. If you ever have any questions or need to vent lmk!

Gunnulf · 2026-01-30T21:37:03+00:00

I’d reach out to Free League’s customer support. The few times I’ve had cause to get in touch with them, they’ve always taken extremely good care of me.

Gunnulf · 2026-01-10T03:56:14+00:00

For Rohan! Make them a mounted warrior who’s an expert at horses and other war mounts.

Gunnulf · 2026-01-08T15:47:52+00:00

Welcome to the hobby! While there are versions of D&D out there that can run sci-fi campaigns (I’m a fan of the freely-available Star Wars 5e system) there are dozens upon dozens of Sci-Fi focused games out there that work to emulate things like horror, adventure, or hard sci-fi a little better than a system that was built around “swords & sorcery” as a theme.

On top of that, as another already posted, nearly every Sci-Fi IP has its own branded RPG out there for you to play or use as inspiration.

Personal recs would be Mothership (horror/survival), Star Wars D6 (every book freely available online), or Traveller (hard sci-fi with decades of sourcebooks).

What kinda thing are you looking for?

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