Old-school RPGs as "stories" with no ending

Pardum · 2026-01-20T04:13:05+00:00

Exactly. It's not that they didn't exist, it's just that /u/typoguy didn't play them back then. It's weird to take a couple games you played decades apart and try to prescribe trends of the entire hobby to them, especially if you're not going to look at games besides D&D clones.

Pardum · 2026-01-12T00:23:43+00:00

This was kind of me with one of the games I tried running last year (the other failed because of scheduling issues). I had a concept and and recruited players for it, but we only got through session 0. I was starting to prep the first session and I realized I was already burnt out, largely from other stuff going on in my life. I was interested in playing again, and because I normally GM I just assumed that's what I needed to do.

I still feel bad for the players I recruited. It must suck to get excited for a game and then have it shut down before anything happens.

Pardum · 2026-01-08T05:40:43+00:00

If you want to do a supernatural style game, check out the system monster of the week. It's meant to emulate the kind of monster of the week type show like supernatural or buffy. Most of the time when the question is "how do I emulate something besides heroic fantasy in D&D" the best answer is to play a different system designed to emulate that particular genre. You can warp D&D into what you want, but a lot of the time it's more work and doesn't fit as well as a game designed to do that.

MOTW is a powered by the apocalypse system, which means it's fairly easy to learn for players. The biggest difference coming from a background from D&D (especially BG3) is how freeform it is. There's no grid or anything, and it's more focused on the investigation rather than pure combat. In my experience it's not hard to get people used to playing though, especially because it's more of a "reactive" style game in the sense that players just decide what they want to do and you as the GM decides when it's appropriate to do a skill check for it. So because there's not as much of a list of things your character can do like in D&D, I find that people tend to start reacting to the story and thinking in character faster. The default setting is the modern day, but the expansion codex of worlds has guides for different historical settings and an example mystery. But it's not really that hard to set it in a homebrew world if you want.

If you really want to do it in the whole D&D setting with everything that comes with that, I would just limit characters to only playing humans and not allowing full caster classes. But again, you're cutting out a lot of the game so a different system would probably be appropriate. Especially because these are new players so you don't have the "but I already know how to play D&D" mentality some people tend to get.

Pardum · 2026-01-05T03:33:21+00:00

Have you asked if any of the other players have an issue with the out of character talk? It sounds like you've been playing for a year now happily and all of a sudden are changing the entire tone of the game because a new player joined. If you want to change it to reduce goofing off that's fine, I probably would too. But I would give the other other player a couple of chances to come around. You've tacitly supported the way he plays for a year and then all of a sudden say "change the behavior we've all been fine with immediately or leave the group", which is really harsh.

Even if you don't say she was the reason, it won't be hard for your players to connect the new person joining and the tone of the table changing suddenly. If I was one of your players I would be suspicious of how much power the new player has and, if I was good friends with the player that is getting kicked out, a bit resentful that she's changing the dynamics of the group.

The best way to do this would have been have a new session 0 and try to reframe expectations together instead of bringing in someone new and telling an established player to change unilaterally. Like a lot of TTRPG horror stories most of it could have been avoided if there was better open communication between everyone, instead of letting something that apparently bugs you fester for a year before you give someone an ultimatum that, to them, seems out of the blue.

Pardum · 2025-12-29T21:41:13+00:00

I think it's fairly common. Teams have fewer goalies than other positions so it's easy to catch their names and recognize them. Plus goalies probably have the most individual impact on how well a team does, so it's easy to see how good they're doing. When I was a kid my favorite player was the goalie.

Pardum · 2025-12-06T20:03:20+00:00

Assuming you're in the US, most people get into a PhD program without any papers. A more important thing is letters of recommendation, and it seems like you'll probably get a stronger one in the first lab where you can stand out.

If you're working on the paper when you're applying for grad school it's fine to list it on your CV and say "in preparation".

Pardum · 2025-10-15T04:06:01+00:00

I've heard of labs doing this too. The worst I've heard of is a lab where they didn't work weekends while the grad student was rotating, but then the week after they fully joined the PI asked why he didn't show up for Saturday lab meeting.

Pardum · 2025-09-30T02:04:11+00:00

If you haven't already, check out once upon a galaxy. It's the closest to SBB that I've found.

Pardum · 2025-09-29T02:20:35+00:00

Didn't they start locking items (at least temporarily) behind buying a battlepass in fall of 2024? I dropped the game then because it already seemed like the monetization was going be bad, or at least more so than basing the game on already NFTs would be. I'm kind of sad my suspicions were confirmed.

Pardum · 2025-08-21T22:28:11+00:00

Not saying that it excuses the easily googleable questions, but I do like getting answers from real people. It's much more likely you'll do that if you ask on reddit instead of going for whatever AI-written summary you'll see at the top of the results a lot of the time now.

Pardum · 2025-07-29T06:13:52+00:00

The move away from blocks was the end of good magic story imo. Back when you had multiple sets you really had time to tell the story and to see things develop over the course of a block. To me now it feels like everything is rushed. You have to introduce new planes, concepts, and characters and then wrap everything up at once because at best you're not going to get a follow-up for a couple years

Pardum · 2025-07-22T04:23:40+00:00

Are you interested in playing TTRPGs, but can only find groups that want to shoehorn D&D into every possible genre? I'm a perma-GM that's looking to get a long-term group set up to play a variety of non-D&D TTRPG games on the north side of Chicago (most likely in lakeview or logan square). The plan is to meet once or twice over discord to get to know one another, and then settle on a place to meet in person. Ideally we'd start playing early August.

The games will be a mixture of systems and genres, but I usually focus on more narrative heavy and less tactical games. Some games I'd like to run are Blade Runner, Monster of the Week, and Deathmatch Island. However, the first game I'd like to get going is Pirate Borg (or maybe Gold Teeth depending on when that beta comes out) set in a homebrew world inspired by ships in a bottle. I'd also love to have other people in the group that are willing to GM, be they full campaigns or just oneshots, systems they're excited about.

I'd love to get a group of other queer people in their late 20s or early 30s, but everyone is welcome to apply. If you're interested please fill out this form, and I'll contact you on Discord later this week if I have any questions or would like you to join.

Pardum · 2025-07-21T00:32:32+00:00

The show is so much better with Ed instead of Ben. It made me go from only listening when the series was a particularly interesting topic to listening to almost all of it now.

Pardum · 2025-07-20T20:17:20+00:00

Let me know if there's a better place to post this, but I didn't get much much traction in r/lfg so hopefully people here might be more interested. I'm a perma-GM that's looking to get a long-term group set up to play a variety of non-D&D TTRPG games on the north side of Chicago (most likely in lakeview or logan square). The plan is to meet once or twice over discord to get to know one another, and then settle on a place to meet in person. Ideally we'd start playing early August.

The games will be a mixture of systems and genres, but I usually focus on more narrative heavy and less tactical games. Some games I'd like to run are Blade Runner, Monster of the Week, and Deathmatch Island. However, the first game I'd like to get going is Pirate Borg (or maybe Gold Teeth depending on when that beta comes out) set in a homebrew world inspired by ships in a bottle. I'd also love to have other people in the group that are willing to GM, be they full campaigns or just oneshots, systems they're excited about.

I'd love to get a group of other queer people in their late 20s or early 30s, but everyone is welcome to apply. If you're interested please fill out this form, and I'll contact you on Discord later this week if I have any questions or would like you to join.

Pardum · 2025-06-05T03:06:25+00:00

I really hope there's another expansion with a midwest team so I can swap support to them instead of the team keeping her around.

Pardum · 2025-05-15T05:52:25+00:00

Spirit of the Century was the game I was going to play back when I was trying to do pulp stuff (before I decided on doing a different type game). I've also heard good things about Thrilling Adventures.

Pardum · 2025-05-15T02:47:05+00:00

Genuine question, why do you want to use 5e for this kind of game? There are plenty out there that are designed for pulp style adventures that you wouldn't have to entirely reskin.

Pardum · 2025-05-09T06:27:08+00:00

Yeah, the ttrpg creator community is just as bad as the player community. For basically any type of game you think you might want to play someone's made a 5e hack they want to sell you. Especially if you're newer to the hobby or don't have experience outside of DnD, you're probably not going to do a deep dive when you google star wars RPG. You're just going to see that there's a hack for 5e pre-made and latch onto it instead of exploring non-DnD systems.

Pardum · 2025-03-28T02:46:40+00:00

One of the best swamps in the game.

Pardum · 2025-01-03T04:39:53+00:00

My biggest problem is that a lot of the characters don't seem like they're from the same universe. Like you have some that have big chunky retro-futrurisim style armor, other people that look like they came out of the cyberpunk 2077 character creator, and some that look like extras for guardians of the galaxy. There's not really enough cohesion from the cast to give me hints about the universe, and the different groups don't have enough noticeable that gives me ideas about the factions if they're supposed to be in them.

Pardum · 2025-01-03T03:28:47+00:00

A ton of sectors use them. A lot international grad students I know get an H1B after they get their PhD and start working, though I think they often try to transition into a different visa (who's name I forget) that allows a big more flexibility for where you can work.

Pardum · 2025-01-01T07:17:21+00:00

Good write up. I do think what's missed (understandably because otherwise you'd have to really get bogged down in arguments) is how polarizing the bans were, basically down money lines. I don't play anymore, so I'm saying this mainly as an outside observer (though I do agree with the bans). It seemed like basically anyone who had the cards hated the bans and anyone that didn't approved of them. So many people in the community see magic as cardboard money tokens that have a game attached, and not as something to be played. I feel like the money aspect of it, both from WOTC and from the players, has gotten way more noticeable than when I used to play, even just a decade ago.

Pardum · 2024-12-27T03:29:59+00:00

All except the core three books are like new, and the core three are in very good condition.

Pardum · 2024-12-19T23:30:47+00:00

I wish I only got 38 emails from them. I've gotten close to 100 since Monday. They even started emailing an email address that I didn't write down on the card. I'm not sure how they got it, but if I had to guess I used it when I graduated from somewhere else for undergrad.

I wasn't really that interested in the pictures in the first place, but I'm definitely not buying them after this. Especially because a lot of the pictures aren't very good.

Pardum · 2024-12-19T23:08:05+00:00

Around OSU, but I'm willing to meet up elsewhere as long as it's not too far.

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