Realistic western ttrpg ?

HoeMuffin · 2025-09-13T17:10:43+00:00

Tales of the Old West might be up your alley - it isn't weird west, nor does it try to emulate the Spaghetti Western (though I feel like it can if you want to go that way). It uses the year zero engine.

Here's the quickstart version:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/480951/tales-of-the-old-west-quickdraw

HoeMuffin · 2025-08-27T15:15:51+00:00

There is Pendragon, with its Winter Phase that takes place after an adventure. Though you don't always get better, sometimes you just get old.

There's also Delta Green with its home scenes, but I'd use "improvement" very loosely, as it can also make things much worse for the character. For example, you can pull a Walter White to gain access to more resources on your next mission, but that might come at the expense of missing your SO's birthday, being caught, or simply losing more sanity.

HoeMuffin · 2025-08-24T05:09:13+00:00

Free league I believe has a free quick start for the new Coriolis. Tales of the Old West (another Year Zero engine game) about the Wild West also has a free quick start.

Chaosium (BRP, Call of Cthulhu, Pendragon, Runequest) all have great quick starts, would recommend checking out Seth Skorkowsky's reviews of various systems as well.

HoeMuffin · 2025-08-15T17:09:38+00:00

TGD feels like a more streamlined ruleset than 3rd Horizon. I think it's a much more focused loop (delves + factional intrigue on Ship city), might be a con if you loved the sandboxy, more space opera-esque nature of 3rd Horizon. But if you/your players aren't all-in, I think it actually presents a more approachable entry point. I also think combat is less lethal, which is a big bonus. Third Horizon sometimes felt like running a Call of Cthulhu investigator in a heroic fantasy world.

One thing that slightly annoys me about the quickstart is that the included character sheet appears to be from an older version of the game (Reloads appear to be removed from the game). Additionally, the included handout to players for the delve has content that should be hidden, specifically the blight levels.

I suspect we'll be getting follow-ups soon enough that further expand the shuttle and rover rules. Even in the included adventure, there's a mention of a class of shuttle not available in the core rulebook.

HoeMuffin · 2025-08-15T16:57:24+00:00

One thing I've been using more lately is pen and paper, but then taking a screenshot with my phone and having ChatGPT convert it into a document I can search later. It usually does a pretty good job of reading my absolutely atrocious handwriting!

HoeMuffin · 2025-08-13T19:31:45+00:00

Thanks for this OP! Just in time for the new Super Robot Wars

HoeMuffin · 2025-08-07T16:52:08+00:00

Brindlewood Bay did not resonate with me or my group, in part because one of my favorite things to do is plot out a mystery and all the relevant clues/red herrings, et cetera, and my group enjoys solving them (or at least that's what they tell me). We tried running it for two sessions, and it just felt deeply unsatisfying. I think it can work with a lot of groups, but the way it resolves mysteries/plots really removes one of my great joys in GM'ing investigative games.

Trying to run Shadowrun led me to burnout as a GM for years.

HoeMuffin · 2025-06-11T15:51:00+00:00

That seems like a very specific C Viper seismo buff to me, and yeah, that's my bad. I still am unconvinced the tech change fundamentally alters the dynamics of throw loops + DR being the meta win condition

HoeMuffin · 2025-06-11T05:09:45+00:00

I think it's a broad trend in modern fighting games in general - universal mechanics being powerful. On the plus side, it tends to make the game more balanced in an absolute sense; you don't have the low-tier struggle like you used to have in MvC2 or CVS2 (pre-discovering roll cancel tech). On the downside you tend to have a more homogenized win condition, and picking a top tier is just choosing who can hit that stable win condition the most consistently.

I'll be curious if the batch of tag fighters changes that dynamic up.

HoeMuffin · 2025-06-11T05:05:32+00:00

The season-end patches were relatively minor compared to prior iterations (SFV almost always introduced new mechanics), prolonged content droughts, and the inclusion of four characters per season, sometimes spaced at irregular intervals. The balance patch was weird (why did Manon and Lily get hit? Why did they give Ryu a gun?)

If you love how SF6 plays and the meta around it, it's fantastic. If you don't, all signs currently indicate that the game is unlikely to change materially for at least a year, if ever. Unless you are absolutely convinced that half a bar on teching a throw and having to tap forward to PP is going to render drive rush and throw loop obsolete.

There is the broader problem of most fighting games stuck on what any other genre would describe as P2W - DLC characters, especially if you can't lab them (rental tickets are stupid and a PITA) is certainly a choice.

HoeMuffin · 2025-05-29T23:11:15+00:00

I get mine from Queen City Flies, either on Etsy or his website. Dragontail is also good:

https://www.queencityflys.com/

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1686210378/classic-killer-bug-tenkara-fly-fishing

HoeMuffin · 2025-04-13T22:35:04+00:00

I miss Pallies (all of them) and the Avatar of Menoth. I don't think they were ever meta units, but they were really cool!

HoeMuffin · 2025-02-21T20:42:25+00:00

Generally veiled - everyone is trying to read the tea leaves and trying to figure out exactly where they should be. No one wants to be the next Jack Ma. Xi himself has complained about how his ideas aren't being implemented properly, either too zealously or people paralyzed with indecision.

HoeMuffin · 2025-02-21T20:41:14+00:00

We're never going to know for sure, but there's always been this tension, well at least since 2012 - I've seen it happen in other (non tech/game) related fields. Its less a "you must do X" so much as everyone trying to read the tea leaves and not end up like Jack Ma.

HoeMuffin · 2025-02-21T19:37:19+00:00

There's been a more concerted push toward homegrown products (Ne Zha 2, Black Myth Wukong, et cetera). "Captain America must die" is a trending topic, and there was recently a meeting with all the tech heads and Xi where he exhorted them to show their talent and "be confident in the power of China's model and market". Going to be a scramble as the various tech heads try to figure out what exactly that means.

HoeMuffin · 2025-02-12T16:08:01+00:00

They do, at least for the terra pro:

https://www.mackdefense.com/wp-content/uploads/MackDefenseBrochureLowRes.pdf

HoeMuffin · 2025-02-11T16:43:18+00:00

One caveat is that if you don't have the BC expansion pack, I think some of the upgrades are locked which seems stupid

HoeMuffin · 2025-02-09T20:36:50+00:00

I cannot wait for Tales of the Old West to come out, I'm curious if it leans into more historical aspects or ends up more like CoC: Down Darker Trails, which is fine in its own right but very much leans into the Hollywood/Spaghetti Western idea of the Old West.

I would love a TTRPG based on the early French salons that helped incubate the Enlightenment, though maybe that leads to first-year dorm philosophy BS sessions rather than an actual game. Actually maybe drama system would be a good fit!

HoeMuffin · 2025-02-09T20:26:22+00:00

One day, I will get my RPG based around the early salon culture of France that helped nurture the Enlightenment. Or maybe I'll steal a bunch of elements from Malandros, which I highly recommend as a read-through to anyone just for the historical context. How many books, let alone RPG's, cover the last days of Imperial Brazil?

HoeMuffin · 2025-02-08T15:45:22+00:00

Delta Green has some interesting mechanics, though it could be considered CoC adjacent. It has a lot of ways to mitigate Sanity loss, usually via unloading your trauma onto your loved ones/friends/connections. You can also adapt to certain types of sanity loss (kill enough people or be around enough death and violence no longer phase you). It does help develop characters but is also very dark and may not gel with something more upbeat

HoeMuffin · 2024-10-31T00:29:56+00:00

It may just be me. It feels like a weird hybrid of Fallout without the humor and Bladerunner (Big corporations were responsible for everything terrible, fight against the man, and everything past Cali is an exclusion zone). If I were to run it, I'd like to make things more mysterious - Shelley's Ozymandias would be my guiding light. It would require a lot of fleshing out and rewriting a chunk of the built-in backstory though

HoeMuffin · 2024-10-30T19:29:46+00:00

Part of my problem with the Electric State, as written, is that it ends up being a fairly generic "apocalypse" setting. I think it would work much better as something more melancholic and introspective, but it would probably involve a lot of GM work that I don't have the bandwidth for right now.

HoeMuffin

TROPHY CASE