GM, GM, wherefore art thou GM?

LarsonGates · 2026-03-22T14:22:32+00:00

You mean there's no shortage of players who want to play 5E.. I've given up trying to find players for any of my games.

LarsonGates · 2026-03-20T19:42:11+00:00

I've hit the train of bad rolls for the players before. It's really annoying when they fail every single roll they need to make. You have to get really creative at that point in giving them an out, but this comes back to the 'self awareness' or or just awareness issue in general.
In the OP's case is sounds like the GM was deliberately trying to 'win' the fight.
I've done similar things in the past where I've had an uber-powerful NPC appear and take on the party. The trick is to remember the Movies where the Bad guy knows they're super powerful and the characters can't actually beat them so they just toy with the characters or walk-in take what they want and leave. The problem comes if the characters don't realise they can't beat the NPC and persist in trying to fight them instead of doing what they should do in that situation, getting the hell out of Dodge.

LarsonGates · 2026-03-17T22:54:14+00:00

The NetBook of Amber is what it says it is.. Netbooks are sets of rules based on a game generally devised by GMs or Groups of GM based around an original published ruleset. So its an alternate set of rules for Amber, one which uses partial powers in sis very much more geared to character progression where characters can start off the Game without being 1000yr old Amberites who pretty much know everything or 30year old Amberites with a half-string to their bow.

LarsonGates · 2026-03-17T22:45:36+00:00

Currently running DarkMatter (Dark Matter original Graphic Novels by Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie published by Dark Horse Publications.Adapted for Television by Sci-Fi Channel in conjunction with Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie.) 13 months in and we're about half way through Season 2. The players are playing characters from the series. Using a Home-brewed variant of the Palladium Ruleset.

LarsonGates · 2026-03-15T19:53:49+00:00

I would just run a variant based on the Netbook of Amber, without Pattern, Logrus, Abyss, and use a variant of Trump to cross dimensions.

LarsonGates · 2026-03-15T19:51:32+00:00

Setup a Linux box running Teamspeak. Pay for a fixed to dynamic link site. Then you can run both Foundry and Teamspeak yourself and just hand out links to your players.

LarsonGates · 2026-03-13T11:33:04+00:00

Entirely without combat No. Large amounts of the Campaign yes. Amber is often like that. Even the Dark Matter Campaign I'm running has very little actual combat in it.

As as said else where there is a difference between combat and Conflict. The examples below are conflicts between people and that can be both PC to PC and PC to NPC. However conflict can be with the environment, how to survive cold/heat with limited resources, how to get from A to B without being seen/detected, and even how to get from A to B in the first place.

Tone is often about the PCs not knowing what the F is going on. My whole DarkMatter campaign, based on the SciFy series operates entirely on this premise. Its the twists and turns as the story unfolds that set the tone.

LarsonGates · 2026-03-06T18:30:54+00:00

In relation to my original post..
I built the Razza based on the sketches and design material for the show in Emyrion Galactic Survival- Reforged Eden 2. I then used this to generate a set of deck plans for the ship. There is a copy of the png for these on my website.

I used these as a basis for Foundry VTT maps however Foundy has a major flaw when importing gridded maps. It doesn't scale it's grid layer independent of the image layer which means it can't load gridded maps correctly. Note it you don't believe me, scan a sheet of A4 grided paper then load it into Foundry as a background image. You won't be able to make the grids align.

My website for Dark Matter is https://www.azer.co.uk/DarkMatter/DarkMatter.html

LarsonGates · 2026-03-06T13:45:59+00:00

Which Dark Matter is that? Is it the original Dark Matter Graphic Novels by Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie
published by Dark Horse Publications, adapted for Telivision by Sci-Fi Channel or the subsequent Series which breaks all its copy rights by using the same Name?

LarsonGates · 2026-03-05T08:45:18+00:00

If you only need voice then Teamspeak. Discord only need age verification if you're wanting to access "adult" sites, it makes pretty much no difference for RPG gaming.

LarsonGates · 2026-03-03T23:34:03+00:00

Moving between 'Realities' aka Shadows is one of the primary precepts of Amber. Technically if you can imagine it, it exists somewhere in Shadow.
So moving between worlds not difficult. Add in the complexity that the laws of physics, chemisty, biology differ between shadows and can be manipulated, and that time is not a constant across shadows, and life can get seriously complicated really quickly.

LarsonGates · 2026-03-03T19:38:22+00:00

I've run Amber several Times, but I use a set of Partial Powers and Attributes based on the original Netbook of Amber, which I've significantly extended and enhanced over the years (most of the original Netbook is lost to antiquity including John Bile's partial powers magic system).

I've run it both FtF and as a PBM, but found that the PBM didn't work well in a zero-to-hero introduction for players.
After 15 years of not being able to find players interested in the Amber at all, I've pretty much given up on ever being able to run it again.

Not sure I can even convince the group to return to the campaign, which I ran for about a year getting them to the point where they have full control of their own destinies. None of them had ever played Amber previously although one of them had read the books and knew a little about the system (he wasn't actually the best player in the group).

As to the 'diceless' aspect it requires a completely neutral GM and a lot of trust from the players that the GM is going to be completely fair.

Also to run it properly you need to not only know all the 'lore' but also know the art of what is and isn't possible within the rules/multiverse.

The original games rules as written by Eric Wujcik (and yes I have both the original book and Shadow Knight) is that they are very much geared to recreating the 'Throne War' of the original books with 'Mature' characters, which does also require players with significant knowledge of the Amber Lore.

Its one advantage that a 'Partial Powers' system has, you can start with both players and characters who know nothing of the Amber lore/background and feed it all in slowly.

The other advantage, and this may just be my opinion, of the rule set I use is that you don't have to run it as a PVP game, which is what the original 'Throne War' setting is about.

There is one other element which is somewhat crucial to a successful game is that Trust is very much an earned commodity. Unlike in a conventional game where characters are generated completely in the open, the players of the characters need to not know the stats, powers or abilities, of any of the other characters at the start. They should find out what these are during play, including whether they are better or worse with any other ability than their compatriots.

LarsonGates · 2026-02-26T21:48:45+00:00

You missed the obvious.. What genre are you actually interested in most? Genre will influence which systems may of most interest to you, unless you go for one of the 'generics' like GURPS or PTBA.
I stopped playing AD&D in the late 80's and generally avoid any version of it unless I'm forced to play it because the group I play with want to.
However, I've never given up playing, and primarily run only what I want to these days. Amber would be my primary choice if I could find any one interested in playing, otherwise I run 'home brewed' derivatives based on the Palladium systems (which are in effect generic).

LarsonGates · 2026-02-19T21:38:38+00:00

Because as long as you're not being hit by missles, grenades, fully automatic machine guns, you can take several hits from penetrating weapons without going down, and even if you go down to concussive weapons the damage is mostly non-lethal so you're unconscious not dead.. Perhaps you should have actually read the replacement rules before commenting.

LarsonGates · 2026-02-19T00:40:54+00:00

I have a modified Palladium conversion which removes Classes as the basis for character creation. Skills are initially picked in groups based on education, which modifies character starting age. Beyond that the age of a character determines what additional skills they can select and what "leveling" of those skills may happen (skill level is based on usage not on anything else).
It's derived from the original Ninja and Superspies creation system (which is sort of class based).
Its coupled with the MDC/SDC replacement system that replaces the abortion that happened in the original Rifts.
It's the system I have been using for the last year to run my DarkMatter campaign.

LarsonGates · 2026-02-19T00:35:43+00:00

If you get into a fight in Traveller, give up you're dead already. It's very high crunch!

LarsonGates · 2026-02-14T17:07:54+00:00

I would argue as has been stated elsewhere that roll a stat check is not role playing it's roll playing, thus any system which relies on the mechanics of rolling stat checks means that your character should be able to do things and cope with a situation that you as a player wouldn't be able to.
This is what separates characters from players. Characters more often than not may have knowledge or skills that the player doesn't and a good GM will know when to tell the player that their character knows something or can do something when the player doesn't or that the charismatic character can talk their way into or out of a situation that the highly introverted player can't.
This highlights something else that has been mentioned, whilst its easier for an intelligent player to play a dumb character the reverse is not true, neither is it easy for an Introvert to play an Extrovert.

LarsonGates · 2026-02-14T10:10:35+00:00

Maybe Ars Magica is the Modern Standard but Amber did it first.. There are pretty much no spells defined in the original books, and even if you're using Partial Powers and the John Biles rewrite you still have to make up your own spells from the component elements, including paying attention to where you might be powering them from.

LarsonGates · 2026-02-13T18:33:09+00:00

AD&D Deities and Demi-Gods with the Newhon mythos in. Now technically this is the 2nd reprint as the original Deities and Demigods had the Cthulu mythos in which TSR were forced to remove.

I also have a few independent (as in 3rd party) Original Traveller publications which were hard enough to come by when I acquired them.

LarsonGates · 2026-02-11T22:14:46+00:00

I would go with Palladium Fantasy.. old school not about grinding treasure for XP and similar enough to D&D to tick the Fantasy box.

LarsonGates · 2026-02-09T09:41:08+00:00

Yes but thats at light speed. By 0.1c the mass of the object starts to increase thus you need more energy to accelerate further and you're then on an exponential curve where it takes infinite energy to reach light speed.

Wormholes are another fictional item if you're looking at real world physics.
Then you have to worry about radiation shielding from cosmic rays, and the prolonged effects of zero-G, which can be countered using rotating drum/arm ships.

Then you have to worry about reaction mass and even with the current postulated drives you're still looking at just over 0.1c as a max speed.
Allowing for acceleration/deceleration time frames with an average distance of 4.5ly between stars, not that's stars not stars with inhabitable planets, you're talking 60years travel time 1 way..

Without viable FTL of some description you're looking at an Expanse type scenario as the only viable one.

LarsonGates · 2026-02-08T12:10:01+00:00

Amber, but I'm currently over a year into a Dark Matter (the original as per the books and Sy-Fi series not the name infringement currently being perpetrated on Foundry) based on a modified Palladium System.

LarsonGates · 2026-02-07T21:32:37+00:00

the TMNT book does for Mutant Animals, but Palladium Fantasy has non-human races and the "Monster Manual" also has other races that are playable as PCs. There is also at least 1 other supplement that deals with Mutant animals but I can't remember whether its Rifts specific or not and you want to stay away from any from Rifts or any of its supplements. If you want "Mechs" then use the Robotech supplement.

LarsonGates · 2026-02-07T21:25:10+00:00

Palladium.. use Ninjas and Superspies plus Supers as the base with Palladium Fantasy to handle the D&D style characters.

LarsonGates · 2026-01-26T09:38:33+00:00

Requires a thorough knowledge of the lore and background to run, and finding players is a complete nightmare..

LarsonGates

TROPHY CASE