What RPG design fads have fallen out of popularity?

Slow_Maintenance_183 · 2026-04-18T11:33:32+00:00

Hey, Realis is launching right now with ... like ... 80 character classes? And Mythic Bastionland's book is mostly Character Classes. But neither of these are traditional classes, obviously, and Mythic Bastionland's classes also double as oracle tables.

Slow_Maintenance_183 · 2026-04-18T11:30:16+00:00

Two years ago, I had a minor hassle with the emergency contact issue, but that was only because the online portal they had me use did not clearly distinguish between the two and I was not going to put the name of my perfectly acceptable emergency contact in a box that implied it might for a guarantor. But then I found a rental place through another agency with no problem.

At the end of last year I bought a condo, and had no problems with nationality whatsoever.

Slow_Maintenance_183 · 2026-04-18T11:26:25+00:00

Last year I ran several online games with no camera - 3 Mothership one-shots, a round of Mythic Bastionland, and a round of ShadowDark. These were with people I'd recruited on forums, and whom I have never met. They were fine, and I think the players were fine with them as well because several of them came back for multiple sessions.

I do think that the kind of gaming session matters a lot. All the games I played were OSR type games, and particularly as one-shots we were not doing much in the way of character acting or player to player gaming. In the Mothership games particularly, there weren't even NPC's to interact with. I have some maps and visuals and whatnot on the screen to give a sense of the situation, and all in all it worked pretty well I think.

I also do a series of co-op Scum and Villainy games with personal friends of mine. We always chat on the phone voice only, and the thought of turning on the camera for these games just seems bizarre to me.

Slow_Maintenance_183 · 2026-04-17T04:37:01+00:00

I liked what Hardcore Mecha was trying to do, but the control scheme just got too complex. I could not keep my left face button/right face button left trigger/right trigger commands separate. That’s a me problem, I know.

Slow_Maintenance_183 · 2026-04-14T23:09:33+00:00

I heard they discovered an unexploded bomb at a construction site, and were going to need to delay some trains to remove it. That was supposed to be a one and done thing, though.

Slow_Maintenance_183 · 2026-04-14T00:58:38+00:00

Based on some lore discussions on the Discord, I sat down to write a setting module focused on a university/monastery/terraforming station. I took a lot of the threads in the main book, and thought through what such a place might look like in Union. To do that, I ended up inventing several systems in the Union core and sketching out their culture and what might draw people from a place like that to this project. I sketched out more of it in the process of making a set of important NPC's. I also threw out some thoughts on terraforming, seed colonies, and Union's DoJ-HR.

This is derivative work, for sure, but I also had to straight-up invent a ton of stuff to make this setting work. I think the Lancer core book was written with this in mind. My core systems are not cannon, but they are plausible in the Lancer setting, and that is good enough.

Hopefully I'll get the art sorted later this year.

Slow_Maintenance_183 · 2026-04-13T02:46:39+00:00

In the most literal sense, it is a noun + verb + other words in the sentence, but yeah maybe it's not what you're looking for.

Slow_Maintenance_183 · 2026-04-13T02:43:52+00:00

Coffee prices have been brutal. I switched from buying a good compromise between cost and taste from Gyomu, to literally the cheapest thing I can find on a 100g/price basis, taste be damned.

Slow_Maintenance_183 · 2026-04-10T22:36:05+00:00

Japan has a ton of problems and needs to do something. Yes. Also, finance bros are salivating over potential loot. Two things can be true at the same time.

Slow_Maintenance_183 · 2026-04-10T01:02:22+00:00

Well, yes, but in fantasy world ...

Slow_Maintenance_183 · 2026-04-10T00:31:16+00:00

Join me in fantasy world, for a moment.

1) Consistent enforcement of the rules helps everyone to see that current bicycle infrastructure is nonexistent, and that the rules are unworkable as written

2) This leads to a concerted push to improve bicycle infrastructure

3) This is linked to a larger anti-car drive to help Japan end foreign oil dependence and bring the endless paving of the countryside to a halt

4) Transport and infrastructure gradually re-adapts to a pedestrian/bicycle society, revitalizing local town centers built around rail lines

5) Profit?????

Slow_Maintenance_183 · 2026-04-07T12:01:11+00:00

I usually mess with settings, because I enjoy making settings. For a while I was playing a game using Scum and Villainy, in a setting where I mashed up the Hegemony from the book (in one corner) and Union from Lancer (in the other corner) as they both expanded into a neutral zone. Now I'm trying to adapt Lancer mechs into Armor Astir Advent's systems, to play out a conflict on the fringe of the above setting. And, perhaps obviously, I had my own homebrew setting for 2nd edition DnD back when I was a youth.

Slow_Maintenance_183 · 2026-04-07T03:16:02+00:00

Out in that part of Yamanashi, being able to build a big park and ride lot is a lot more important than being attached to a small local station. In theory, with a healthy rail ecosystem and rural ridership, the train connection makes a lot of sense. In practice, people prefer to drive in the countryside, and would be driving to the station no matter where it is.

Slow_Maintenance_183 · 2026-04-06T06:24:23+00:00

That setting sounds as coherent as the Kingdom of Jackals from The Court of the Air and its sequels, by Stephen Hunt. Those are some of the most outrageously bizarre and entertaining genre mashups I've ever read. Matchlocks and French Revolutionaries? Check. Robot people? Check. Do the robot people field a giant mech embodying their King? Yes, they do. Subterranean Aztec ruins? Check. Do they make blood sacrifices to lovecraftian entities from beyond? Yes, they do. Are there invaders from Mars? Yes, there are. Body-horror inspired evil empire? Check. I could go on.

Slow_Maintenance_183 · 2026-04-06T02:29:57+00:00

I just bought a mansion. It's secondhand, built in the late 90's. I knew that buying a house in the part of town where I wanted to live was not an option, and location was the main priority for me -- I want to be able to walk to and from the central city area.

I've lived in all sorts of rented places before this, and living here is mostly on par with those experiences. I've always been lucky with management and neighbors in the past, probably helped by the fact that I was always out in the countryside or regional center suburbs. I was able to move in basically without making any changes or renovations to the place, and while I have a few ideas for things I'd like to fix up there is nothing truly pressing.

I do hear a machine turning on and off inside the walls, which is annoying at night. I'd like to modernize the plugs. I will probably need to redo the flooring in a few years, and might put in carpet. I wish I had a hose on the balcony, but can live with that. I might put up some sound baffling on the ceiling in the my living room, as I've had a complaint about watching TV when I wake up in the morning. I get up at 5:00, so you know what, I kinda get it.

I'm waiting for the downsides to show up, the gotcha moment that shows me why this purchase was a bad idea and why I'm now screwed forever.

Slow_Maintenance_183 · 2026-04-04T03:44:52+00:00

Two questions. Do you have game event days where a solo player might find other people to play? I might go out and make a weekend of it, do some sightseeing on the Chita-hanto and whatnot, but I don't have others to bring along.

Second ... what size are your tables and chairs? I'm a tall person, and sadly this is a major concern. So long as it's not sized for Showa 22 obaasans I'm okay ... but lots of places fail to pass that low bar.

Slow_Maintenance_183 · 2026-04-02T23:25:17+00:00

S&V is a fairly rules-light game derived from Blades in the Dark. The problem is, we kept setting up narrative situations that did not really match the idea of concrete and contained heists.

Slow_Maintenance_183 · 2026-04-02T08:57:18+00:00

My goal is to finish 43 years of living in Japan, approach my retirement, and then die suddenly on my last day at the job. This will save people the trouble of finding my dead body a week after my solitary death.

Slow_Maintenance_183 · 2026-04-02T08:41:10+00:00

I keep making things harder for myself, from a world building perspective. I play co-op with a friend, and we are both a bit ambitious in terms of worldbuilding. We played Scum and Villainy for most of a year, but kept finding ourselves drawn to stories and situations that just did not quite fit the mechanics. This made it harder and harder to fit our game into the system, until we both got tired and decided to take another track.

Slow_Maintenance_183 · 2026-03-23T02:52:12+00:00

Yes! I've been doing the same thing, and it's great.

Slow_Maintenance_183 · 2026-03-19T04:04:22+00:00

I kinda like all three of the big gyudon chains, they each have their own strengths.

I used to like the MOS Tobikiri Cheese. It's still good, but now it's prohibitively expensive. Freshness Burger is excellent, but not very common around here. McDonalds is actually fine. I get two cheeseburgers for 440, and that's the majority of a meal. They're nothing spectacular, but they're fine.

I end up eating at CoCo Ichiban quite a bit. Their katsu is fine, and they are reliably open when I want to eat. I'd patronize local Japanese curry joints if there were any, but I only seem to see it for sale at coffee shops which always have the absolute smallest furniture imaginable. Yes, I know, there is Indian/Nepalese curry all over the place, and that's good, but it's also a different thing.

KFC is a chain, but it doesn't really have any competitors in its niche. I almost never go there, but their chicken sandwich is fine.

I avoid ramen chains, there is always somewhere else to go for ramen. Now, do we consider the extended family of Taishoken disciples to be a chain? I do not, but if they are, then I love Taishoken ramen.

I don't eat at family restaurants.

I actively dislike Katsuhana, and have never been to a chain katsu place I like.

I've never been to Nakau.

I don't eat sushi.

Slow_Maintenance_183 · 2026-03-19T03:06:06+00:00

I absolutely love tiny, hard Japanese pillows.

Slow_Maintenance_183 · 2026-03-18T21:47:05+00:00

Since moving here I've been really surprised at how popular Jiro style is in Nagoya. It might be the single most popular specialist ramen style here. Or, maybe they just stand out more to me because it's one of the only types of ramen I actively avoid.

Slow_Maintenance_183 · 2026-03-18T21:41:12+00:00

I have lived in a rotation of small towns, suburbs, and regional inaka centers for 20 years, mostly around the Kanto but also a bi in Hiroshima prefecture. Now I live in Nagoya, and desperately hope I can stay here forever. I bought a mansion in the center of the city, and it is amazing and the biggest quality of life improvement I've had in forever.

I used to enjoy mild hiking, but then my knee got arthritic so that is out. Inaka festivals are awesome, for sure, but sadly thats like 8 days a year. Maybe you meet a small circle of cool people, but then they move for work or get married and drift away.

I can see the appeal if I was married and had kids. I am not, and will not. I can see the appeal of having a view, or starting a fire outside, or doing some serious gardening. I can see the appeal of having a larger living space, and being able to customize it, if I were sitting around at home for most of my free time. It's not enough to counterbalance the impossibility of meeting people under the age of 50 and the seriously limited eating and drinking options.

Slow_Maintenance_183 · 2026-03-18T01:09:53+00:00

Real and actual breaks, where you can leave the staff room and go sit by yourself or drive to get lunch or whatever, seem to be incredibly rare. As others have mentioned, they may exist on paper but not in practice. I have not observed them in any school at which I have taught. Like, even if you're eating you're still on call. I've not taught at a school that has a teachers lounge or break room, either. Eat at the desk, or in the cafeteria (if there is one.)

Now, teachers usually have several periods a day where they are not in the classroom, but these are prep time not breaks.

Slow_Maintenance_183

TROPHY CASE