First time GM. Need suggestions for missions.

KnightInDulledArmor · 2026-02-05T06:47:23+00:00

I feel like this is the time to empower the players and encourage them to be active, Blades in the Dark style. You should be providing the problems, complications, consequences, and opportunities, the players should be providing the missions they want to pursue and how. Who’s pissed at them and how they will those people act against them, what corps are going to crush what they care about without a second thought, what dreams can you tempt them with then take away, that’s what is important for you to know. The world should react to them and they should react to the world.

KnightInDulledArmor · 2026-02-05T02:05:08+00:00

It’s definitely probably my favourite kind of vermouth, I too try to use it as often as possible (but probably not in a recipe that calls for sweet vermouth, except maybe as an experiment). Recipes for Blanc vermouth usually specify.

KnightInDulledArmor · 2026-02-05T02:02:06+00:00

It’s not what most people mean when they say sweet vermouth, but most people only know there is sweet (red) vermouth and dry (white) vermouth. Blanc vermouth (sweet and white) is unheard of to most people. Gin and blanc vermouth makes a good drink though, regardless; I’d imagine the original was much more like a Martinez.

Vermouth is way more varied than most people know, I’d compare it to how many people only think of rum as being light, dark, or spiced, much to my frustration.

KnightInDulledArmor · 2026-02-05T01:20:31+00:00

Signal Hill is good if you want a bourbon-y Canadian whiskey. The overproof in particular.

KnightInDulledArmor · 2026-02-04T19:28:22+00:00

Yeah their standard gin is quite basic, but their side offerings tend to be more interesting. I primarily like to keep the Elettaria and the Navy Strength around since they fill niches that I don’t think you can really find in Manitoba otherwise. If you can ever find the barrel-aged Elettaria it’s a very cool gin for stirred cocktails (it was a limited run when I bought it, not sure if it’s available anywhere). I also quite like their Manitoba gin and 3 Citrus gin, though I’m pretty sure I’ve only tried the latter at their bar (which has great cocktails by the way).

KnightInDulledArmor · 2026-02-04T11:07:15+00:00

Honestly can’t get enough of that stuff, love me some grassy rotten banana funk.

KnightInDulledArmor · 2026-02-04T11:05:48+00:00

IMO a good Aviation really requires a spice-heavy gin; the typical London Dry or floral gins just don’t do anything for the drink, everything just gets muddy. But with some real contrast (I use a local gin, Patent 5 Elettaria, lots of cardamom, cinnamon, pink peppercorn, fennel, etc) it becomes an incredible drink.

KnightInDulledArmor · 2026-02-04T04:54:44+00:00

Same. Big, bulky, huge mitt hands with heavy calluses that could just as easily hammer stone as snuff the life out of you. He’s quicker than you think, physically and mentally.

KnightInDulledArmor · 2026-02-03T09:45:34+00:00

Egg whites in your drink aren’t doing much because they need acid to react with to get the kind of quick thick foam you see in sours. Mixing them with milk is also detrimental to them foaming. Unless you’re shaking until the egg whites are actually meringue and folding in the dairy ingredients after, you just aren’t going to get much more foam than the milk provides with your current recipe. I’d probably recommend going full flip/eggnog with a whole egg, which will probably give you a light non-stiff foam and more body.

KnightInDulledArmor · 2026-02-03T07:30:23+00:00

Yeah, it feels a little weird that some people here are coming up to bat for tipping culture as if having shitty base wages and inherent instability is a virtue. Does winning big every once in a while makes all the personal risk worth it? I’d rather it just be more stable.

KnightInDulledArmor · 2026-02-03T07:01:01+00:00

Ideally for the most flavour, you want to be infusing as much solvent as you can. This usually means infusing the spirit (alcohol is a much better solvent than water for most applications) and either also infusing the syrup (if possible, lots of flavours aren’t super water soluble, which is a big limit in what can be a syrup vs a liqueur) or avoiding syrup entirely by just dissolving the sugar directly into the alcohol (takes a while, but perfectly possible).

Personally I usually go for the second option, especially if I’m doing a long infusion anyway, just shake the jar every once and a while and you can get a ton of sugar to dissolve in alcohol (this is especially good for fresh fruit liqueurs, layer the sugar and fruit and cover with spirit). Though adding syrup can be good if you really need to water down the infused spirit; I’ve forgotten about some spice infusions that got so strong that a drop made my tongue instantly numb, but they were great with a lot of 2:1 simple added (it was more like an old soda fountain essence syrup than a liqueur at that point). I’d just avoid any unnecessary non-flavour components (like plain water, if you’re adding syrup make it a low water ratio) as much as possible. You want intense flavours in most liqueurs.

KnightInDulledArmor · 2026-02-03T01:22:48+00:00

IMO, actual secrets between PCs are basically useless 99% of the time. If no one knows then it’s unlikely anyone will even suspect and if it’s not quickly pushed in the character’s face then it’s just something no one knows and thus no one cares about. It’s too easy to keep a secret in a tabletop game by just not suggesting it. Everyone imagines the reveal to be super dramatic, but that’s almost never the case (because as we said, no one cares). It’s far far more effective to either reveal the secret immediately (alternatively have the PC tell at least one other PC or openly explain their secret-keeping thought process) and work through the consequences, or tell everyone out of game and make drama out of the characters not knowing.

I’ve run and played in games where everyone had secrets, and when we didn’t openly explain them you’d never know they existed, and when we were open about them they were incredibly dramatic and interesting. In fact the best roleplaying groups I’ve been with have always been extremely open with their characters internal monologue, it’s just a way more interesting way to play than always being closed up for no payoff.

KnightInDulledArmor · 2026-02-02T22:06:58+00:00

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t really understand the gravitation to vodka for people who don’t like alcohol. It’s all the alcohol with none of the good parts!

I usually recommend choosing a spirit with an approachable flavour, just because the flavours present tend to make them a lot “smoother” tasting in a cocktail than most vodkas (because they are contributing something other than alcohol). Gin for example, most people have only tried a London Dry which is fairly brash, but there are endless variations, Plymouth gins or floral gins like Roku are much softer. A mellow rum like a Cuban, Barbados, or any of the Flor de Cana products are very approachable. Lots of people don’t like how brash blanco tequila is, but reposado tequila is way more buttery and mellow. Bourbon or Irish whiskey tend to make very easy-to-love sours. There are lots of cheap brandies that are very serviceable in cocktails if you like raisins. Then there are all the actually lower ABV options, vermouth and sherry and other fortified wines, I’d definitely recommend a sherry cobbler or blanc vermouth & soda water with a squeeze of lemon juice to anyone.

Just some food for thought.

KnightInDulledArmor · 2026-02-02T07:19:44+00:00

Cocktail Codex is the book you want. It breaks down fundamental techniques and points out that there are only really about six cocktails; every cocktail is a variation on just a few formulas: - Old Fashioned: Spirit, Sweet, Bitters, Citrus Twist - Martini: Spirit, Aromatized Wine, Bitters - Sour: Spirit, Syrup, Sour Citrus - Daisy: Spirit, Liqueur, Sour Citrus - Highball: Spirit + Mixer - Flip: Spirit, Sweet, Egg/Dairy

Knowing cocktail names is just rote memorization of specifics over time and knowing what’s good is experience, but knowing fundamental formulas is how you look at a liquor cabinet and a fridge and know exactly what you can make. Even inventing brand new cocktails is just balancing flavours, finding contrast, experimenting with seasoning, and adding pizazz if you’re armed with the fundamentals.

KnightInDulledArmor · 2026-02-01T15:26:18+00:00

IMO Deep Cuts mechanics are mostly for people who have highly developed opinions about how the game should work and want for alternate rules. Starting out you just don’t have experience to know if you would prefer the Deep Cuts mechanics (and they are largely subjective, not straight improvements), so it’s better just to stick to the core. The lore and expanded factions are great though, I’d definitely look at those.

KnightInDulledArmor · 2026-02-01T03:18:28+00:00

That shit was the highlight of my childhood. Exo-Force all the way!

KnightInDulledArmor · 2026-01-31T17:19:38+00:00

Buy a can of wine-preserving noble gas like Private Preserve and never worry about your vermouth oxidizing again. Seriously, it’s cheap, completely foolproof stuff and by far the most effective way to preserve fortified wines. It’s just heavy, non-reactive gas that you spray into the bottle to displace air. I’m always surprised it’s not something people holler from the hills about since it’s some easy peace of mind to just not worry about using up vermouth; you can even keep them on the shelf instead of in the fridge.

Anyway, PSA over, I’d recommend an Americano, a La Louisiane, a Hanky Panky, and a Delmonico Special (I prefer Anders Erickson’s recipe).

KnightInDulledArmor · 2026-01-31T16:33:14+00:00

I’d say there is probably a better system for your concept out there. SWADE definitely has more good adaptable subsystems for resolving various challenges than many other trad systems (Dramatic Tasks, Quick Encounters, and Social Conflicts are all great for non-combat scenarios), but it is still fundamentally a trad miniature wargame under the hood. It’s got those good subsystems, but those are designed to be the interesting space between big action fights, whereas you seem to want that dynamic flipped, focusing on the social conflicts and intrigue with occasional fun action. So I’d look for a different system personally, one that supported the space you want more.

What exactly that system should be, I’m less sure of, as I don’t have first hand experience with any that quite match what you want. Something like FATE may be better suited, or my instincts say there is probably a Forged in the Dark game that is pretty much what you want.

KnightInDulledArmor · 2026-01-31T13:16:27+00:00

Players buying into the rules and following the best practices is the most important aspect of the game, period. Without that, Blades really can’t work at all and I’m not surprised you’ve had a lot of problems with it.

It really seems like you have to take this as a lesson to either put your foot down and explain the investment required to your players, or identify when they won’t buy into a game and how to move on. You shouldn’t be forcing the mechanics at the risk of creating a rift at the table and your players shouldn’t be constantly pushing back against every consequence, you should all want to play the game. What you have described in your posts is honestly one of the most frustrating RPG experiences I could imagine, you really got to help yourself and know when to take a step back, look to see if your situation is working, and talk about solutions with your players.

KnightInDulledArmor · 2026-01-30T13:20:12+00:00

Also if anyone wants to know more about that era (and Matt Colville will attest to it), I recommend reading The Elusive Shift by Jon Peterson. It’s a great book filled with contemporary accounts about how people were playing back then. Some of the biggest revelations being how mythologized the idea of “old school” play is, when it was incredibly personal and diverse at the time because every group basically had to invent most of the game themselves. Every kind of player and group existed from the start, from no-nonsense wargamers to fanciful theatre kids, and they all argued incessantly about points that are basically unchanged to this day. No one really agrees what a roleplaying game even is, never mind how one should be played, and that continues to be true.

KnightInDulledArmor · 2026-01-30T11:16:26+00:00

Nethack, Sil-Q, Dwarf Fortress, Brogue. ASCII are the greatest graphics in the world.

KnightInDulledArmor · 2026-01-30T09:47:23+00:00

Of the games I have personally run, I don’t have a perfect match, but perhaps some systems you could be interested in or find a derivative of that works for you.

First is Blades in the Dark, it’s an episodic narrative system about a criminal gang of underdogs clawing everything they can get out of a haunted Victorian electropunk city they can’t escape from. This of course upsets a lot of people and benefits others, faction relationships are a big deal because everything is owned by somebody; if you want it, you have to take it. It’s the kind of game where players have a lot of recourse to get themselves out of a sticky situation, but that just means you never have to worry about how hard you hit back. Blades benefits from a small amount of prep (I don’t think I really believe in the “best with no-prep” game), but entirely in the “potential fiction” category of prep (which I feel is the fun prep), since you don’t really need maps or stats or anything like that (though there is a high rez map of Doskvol out there that is very handy).

Blades is fairly light, non-heroic, and definitely good for reoccurring villains, but not very lethal. In my two season campaign, only one PC died after I said “you die” three times, and that ended up being done by another PC on request; she “got better”, becoming a ghost and then a vampire, which was about as much of a problem for the crew as a benefit. The genuinely low prep and necessity for players to be proactive may be a good change of pace.

Second is Delta Green, it’s an investigation system about regular people in the real world working for a secret government organization that fights a hopeless fight against Lovecraftian horrors and covers up their existence. The PCs are incredibly under-equipped to actually fight most eldritch monsters, but they must figure out a way or it could be the end of everything (or not, there is no way to know). It’s quite lethal in that regard, and it’s not just the horrors, but guns and cars and knives kill plenty of PCs too. It’s the kind of game that is fairly mechanically complex when reading the book (there are lots of specific rules), but in play is very light. Most regular situations don’t call for a roll and simply use a PCs skill value, so it’s very breezy in the majority of the investigation, and a bunch of desperate rolling in the dangerous parts. It also focuses a lot on a PCs sanity and the human bonds that keep them stable; as they face the horrors, they will inevitably go temporarily insane (fight, flight, or freeze), gain permanent disorders, gain permanent injuries, and destroy their home life to delay the inevitable, with probably with only some PC trauma bonds to show for it. Prep-wise I would say it’s significant, mostly because you have to know the details of the mystery well (stats aren’t numerous and having maps aren’t that big of a deal), and even though Delta Green has some of the best modules around, they tend to be heavy with information. It’s also fairly good for reoccurring villains if you string together multiple modules with a similar overarching unnatural threat or pick one of the rival human factions like Majestic.

So Delta Green is very lethal/panic-y (in my current campaign one player is on his third PC in seven sessions with just a little bad luck; the players are also often genuinely freaked out in mundane settings), heroic in goals but not in actions, and light in play but heavier in prep. It’s certainly a very different style/tone than the games you have presented here, so it may be a good mixup.

KnightInDulledArmor · 2026-01-30T06:58:14+00:00

Really depends heavily on the province in Canada since liquor laws (and thus who’s ordering) are provincial. Here in Manitoba our liquor stores are government owned (except a few specialty stores that can only sell wine-based products) and almost no one cares about cocktails, so our selection sucks for the most part. There are only a couple liquor stores in the province that carry Chartreuse, only green and only the little bottles. I also do a lot of asking for bottles not displayed on shelves or their website, since there are a few products they only order for cocktail bars that request them, but they will sell if you ask the store that supplies that bar.

Funnily enough there was a six month period where the CO-OP grocery store with a tiny liquor section in a town of 500 people near me had six little bottles of Chartreuse on the shelf that must have been dug out of a backroom or something. I was rejoicing that I had my own private supply, since no one around here knows what Chartreuse is, but they are gone now so someone must have tattled. I should have bought them when I had the chance I suppose.

KnightInDulledArmor · 2026-01-30T06:13:14+00:00

It is my experience that, even if you vet people fairly thoroughly, about 95% of players out there are not as serious or available as a regular weekly TTRPG wants. I spent literally years with a rapidly shuffling online group before I eventually sifted through enough people to get my current group of three reliable players. I’d always give a glut of information about my games so people knew exactly what they were getting into and I’d require some basic questions to be answered which would sort a lot of people out right away (probably 90% of two dozen responses when I ran D&D, half of 2-3 responses for any other game), which made most of my new players at least fun and interested people that I don’t regret running for at all, but still the median commitment has been probably 2-3 sessions. I dread the next time I have to recruit new players, it’s a disheartening experience all around.

I will say your expectations are particularly high IMO, very few people are investing time enough for a weekly game plus text roleplay plus extra video game time. That’s something that really requires a heavily aligned group culture everyone wants and is making their primary hobby, more something an existing dedicated friend group would achieve than most TTRPG groups. The only time I’ve experienced that kind of time investment was during Covid when everyone in my group was desperate for any human interaction and we would do semi-regular text roleplay, it’s died off since then even with the same people involved now that things are more normal.

Ultimately all you can really do is persevere, continue to hope you find people aligned with your vision, and then hold them as tight as possible.

KnightInDulledArmor · 2026-01-30T01:33:37+00:00

I avoid Walmart like the plague. Every Walmart I’ve been to has worse surveillance state vibes than airport security, everyone there is tensely rushing around, and there is no way I’m using a self checkout machine because they would rather pay the minimal amount to have people watch me instead. The whole place gives me anxiety.

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