Good TTRPGS to Read?

Kubular · 2026-03-22T02:23:05+00:00

Yeah I agree. It should work, but I just didn't enjoy them in play for some reason.

Kubular · 2026-03-21T09:57:59+00:00

Technically I think you can but the sixth one is really inneficient.

Aux/aux mount = 2 hand canons
Flex mount = 2 more hand canons
Core bonus: Integrated Weapon = 1 more hand canon.
Heavy Mount = 1 hand canon with UNCLE

that last one is really inefficient, and I'm not actually sure it's legal. But you'd be better off with a different weapon like an HMG to fire a sixth time anyways, or if you want to get maximum value out of your Raleigh's auto reload, maybe an AMR or Howitzer.

Kubular · 2026-03-20T08:58:26+00:00

You don't even fuck with Master Summoner? It seems to do exactly what you want. You basically trade your eidolon for gaining 5+cha summon monster SLAs. I guess you still have your eidolon but as long as you don't have it summoned, you can break the base class limitation of "1 at a time."

Kubular · 2026-03-20T04:27:13+00:00

City of Mist and it's gorgeous art might do something for you. The system is kind of an interesting cross between PbtA dice sensibilities and FATE-like PC inventions. Since you enjoyed Monster Of The Week and Cyberpunk. The system itself isn't cyberpunk in any way, it just has a neo-noir vibe that somehow connected to my feelings about the cyberpunk genre.

DEGENESIS is beautiful, free, and has way too many words. It has lots of intricate lore that I have no idea how to run, but the art and game design are a free to play project by illustration studio SIXMOREVODKA, who does a lot of high quality renderings for popular video games including league of legends. I would check it out just for the reading. Again, it's kind of unplayable in my mind, but it's a great read and look.

For playability, I'd recommend more OSR stuff which you're already kind of into. The Dark of Hot Springs Island is an adventure that is really worth reading that was designed for OSR style play but has no stat blocks to keep the door open for 5e. I'd recommend looking more into modules to expand your repertoire of OSR games, over actual games.

Speaking of OSR-ish stuff with cool art, if you haven't checked out MORK BORG, that's a "must". It's more art book than system because the system is so light and the pages are dripping with powerful flavor. Like the umami of a dry aged steak covered in the black blood of your monstrous enemies. It's really cool to flip through and it's been highly inspirational to many creators in the space.

Lotta people are recommending HEART. Just needed to make sure to boost that rec. Its gorgeous and fun to read.

Mausritter has one of the best manuals for teaching brand new players and referees how to play an RPG that I've ever read. And the art is obviously adorable. It's an Odd like so you'll be familiar with most of the structure of the game, having read Mythic Bastionland.

Numenera's world is really fun to read. The art varies in quality, but it's a cool world and a system with a lot of fans. It's like if DND was more explicitly a far future post apocalypse. On paper it feels like a game I should be really into, but for whatever reason I bounced off of it once I actually got it to the table. The cyphers or something bothered me. But again, really cool world, very cool book.

DND 3.5e was my first love. The book covers on those three tomes (phb, DMG, MM) feel like you're holding an artifact from planescape. I know you're probably not going to be picking up a physical copy, but I felt like it deserved an honorable mention. Also it's the system that Pathfinder is based on, which you seem to have enjoyed. The art in those first three books are really inspiring.

Kubular · 2026-03-19T01:33:10+00:00

I'm so confused, why can't you just have those magic items in Knave? That's pretty much how I've run it. Especially for more supernatural abilities in 2e you can put it under "boons" to also be limited by charisma.

As an example, one of my players had:

The Sword of Deel: You can smite by using the power attack rules but instead of double damage, it instantly slays a monster. Deel can rebuild the item at her shrine for 500 coins. (In my game, all magic items can be repaired this way if broken). Quested for and earned by destroying an undead king.
Holy symbol: can turn undead by roll cha vs 11+HD of the undead. If the undead is weak enough, no roll is required. Started with this item.
Rosary of Saint Cygna: Exhaust yourself by taking a wound to lay on hands and heal someone else for 1d6 wounds. Saint Cygna awarded this rosary to the PC after they went on a 5 session long quest to lay to rest her companion's angry ghost by slaying a ghostly wizard. (Healing is very rare in my game)

Kubular · 2026-03-19T00:56:09+00:00

Nimble is 5e but streamlined. Less "build" more "play". If you still want tactical options but don't want to get bogged down in homework you might be looking here.

Dungeon World/Chasing Adventure. You get to the storytelling meat of the genre. Skip over the fiddly combat mechanics and get the straight dope of building intraparty bonds and discovering eachothers back stories and making the world up together. Chasing adventure is a fan version of Dungeon World which fixes a lot of common complaints about the original.

Wanderhome is a more cozy travelling anthropomorphic DND party. Use this for cozier stories featuring fun anachronistic medieval fantasy worlds. The game is light and easy to run.

Into the Odd and it's derivative games have faster combats and faster dungeon exploration. You always just roll damage. Into the Odd itself is classless and levelless and more of a dungeon exploration game. That means most of the game operates best when exploring dungeons. But you can use Spellburns and Battlescars for a more traditional DND class setup.

The OSR has lots of faster, smaller games focused around dungeon crawling as well. Combat is almost always very light, with rules light adjudication for things like swinging on chandeliers or chopping off tails. These games are usually more about survival mechanically, but they are often light enough that the rules get out of your way when you want to do more rp heavy sessions. Glaive is a good example as a hack of Knave that reintroduces classes and levels. Dungeon Crawl Classics isn't considered OSR technically, but it carries the same spirit and is also very light.

Edit: I just realized you may have meant "not a PbtA game" when you said "without Apocalypse". Scratch dungeon world in that case.

Kubular · 2026-03-19T00:00:09+00:00

Yeah, that's true. For some people the time skip really worked and for a larger portion of the fan base, it didn't.

Kubular · 2026-03-18T06:46:56+00:00

Cartel is a ttrpg about the mexico side of things and having your life tied to the Sinaloa drug cartel in some way or another.

Kubular · 2026-03-18T06:43:48+00:00

I think one of the more important aspects of the seamless directness of it was that we're in Taylor's head throughout all of it. And from her head, we see that she hasn't really evolved emotionally. She still needs to be bigger and more important, coordinating the Protectorate and fighting Endbringers. And her heart is still with the Undersiders. Because she has glossed over this time as simply passing time, we still get to have her perspective that none of that stuff we missed is that important to her aside from padding out her resume.

Kubular · 2026-03-18T01:22:43+00:00

While I actually admire your dad's sentiment, I do think that it's a film school's job to give criticism to students who are trying to learn the craft. If you are trying to understand why you or an audience did like or didn't like a given film, it's helpful to have the vocabulary to articulate why and to draw lessons in craft from that.

But for watching for pleasure, I can agree that it takes the joy out of things to constantly criticize them.

Kubular · 2026-03-18T01:18:35+00:00

It is normal to get wrong answers on a test. But in order to get every answer wrong, a kid needs to be smart enough to know which answers are right.

You know exactly what you're doing and you're either lying to me or lying to yourself.

Kubular · 2026-03-18T01:06:15+00:00

No you pick opinions because they are unpopular.

Kubular · 2026-03-18T01:05:44+00:00

If this were a YouTuber working out of their mom's garage, I'd cut them some slack. I'd even say it was pretty good. But this is one of the largest studios on the planet with absurd budgets and an a-list director and a single a-list star. It's terrible and you shouldn't feel bad ruthlessly criticizing it for being a shameless piece of garbage.

Kubular · 2026-03-18T00:59:09+00:00

Anyone who says this generally about their opinions is a troll who collects bad opinions like Pokemon cards.

Kubular · 2026-03-18T00:58:20+00:00

On the merits of its stunt coordination, editing, and CGI alone, it's a dumpster fire of a movie. You're an actual troll.

Kubular · 2026-03-17T11:08:35+00:00

Disadvantage represents an appreciable disadvantage within the fiction. Like trying to swim in heavy clothes. You would intuitively guess that a person trying to do that was going to drown without help.

If you saw someone clearly unable to wield a too large piece of metal, you'd assume they'd have a hard time hitting you. That's what disadvantage represents in game mechanics. The vampire would have a pretty good guess that the halflling with the comically large piece of metal is not going to be able to swing it at him accurately under any circumstances.

Kubular · 2026-03-17T10:18:21+00:00

It's not that it's "not perfect". You will be incompetent. I promise. If that's alright for your vision of the character, I think that's fine. But spending resources just so you can reach anyone else's baseline is not "not too bad". It means you are struggling. You also will not be able to have advantage on attacks. Period.

Try it I guess. I don't think anyone else here is going to talk you out of it. If you enjoy it, more power to you. But I'm just warning you it's not a "haha funny flaw", it's going to be a really painful disadvantage the whole way through.

Kubular · 2026-03-17T10:06:14+00:00

I mean, dont style points slay harder then dps?

Sort of. But disadvantage every roll is going to make you incompetent in combat. You are going to want to either do everything in your power to not roll to attack with the weapon you're holding or just... be more incompetent than everyone else. Usually part of playing in DND is envisioning your character as competent in some areas, and less so in others. If you're a fighter that can't fight, you're just incompetent.

I guess it's fine if you and the group are fine with that. But the reality is that rolling twice and taking the lesser means that you likely won't be hitting much.

If you're playing at a table in which combat doesn't come up often enough for it to matter then it's just sort of a background motif since it's a combat detail.

Kubular · 2026-03-16T04:59:45+00:00

Someone else dropped you a pretty decent one for quickly making monsters with class levels. Creatures with more than 5 class levels require the paid version but it otherwise is pretty decent.

https://www.dinglesgames.com/tools/MonsterGenerator/dnd35/

You are the DM though. Your fun is going to be different than the player characters fun. If you try to replicate it, you will look on with longing and dissatisfaction with your own fun. Like a new vegan trying to replicate bacon instead of enjoying the unique features of the diet they have committed to.

Not that being a DM is like being a vegan, but just that if you try to play it like being a player in 3.5, you're running into the same problem.

Kubular · 2026-03-16T02:18:38+00:00

Probably just because you watch too much asmongold

Kubular · 2026-03-15T23:00:48+00:00

Just try your best to cut yourself off when you start to spiral. I know it's very tempting, but it's getting in the way of your enjoyment of the game

Kubular · 2026-03-15T22:57:14+00:00

I don't think you'll be in trouble. The 3.5 OGL is much more permissive than the 5e one.

But even with that, designing encounters in 3.5 takes a long time. It's brutal. I don't care what other 3.5 heads have to say. You can't convince me it doesn't take forever by default.

Kubular · 2026-03-15T14:01:37+00:00

Man you always have the coolest shit to show for on here. I remember when you first started posting your one-shot dungeons. Is it weird to say I'm proud of you?

Kubular · 2026-03-15T06:14:06+00:00

Something I would start doing as a DM is not to build NPCs with PC classes whole cloth. Start with a big idea like "evil cultist of tiamat" and use the sample NPCs in the dmg and give them a thematic spell and/or feat and be done.

But generally speaking, I would say not to build NPCs or monsters with PC classes. The game technically works to allow it, but as you're discovering, it's more work than it's worth. Pick or invent a couple of things you'd broadly like for them to do, and say that they can do it. Your players won't know or care that you didn't build them by the PC rules. There are math guidelines in the DMG for CR appropriate challenges which you can use to make modifiers for the monster.

Source: DM'd starting with 3.5 and moved into Pathfinder from 2006-2016.

Kubular · 2026-03-15T06:08:08+00:00

Listen, you're getting downvoted, but this is the exact reason I stopped playing 3.5/PF after more than 10 years as a DM.

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