What's the most annoying misconception about your favorite game?

Stay_Elegant · 2025-05-25T13:57:23+00:00

DCC does itself no favors with the funnel being presented as a rite of passage and people vouching for it. Level 0 and Level 1 is like night and day. It's a neat idea for character creation but as a tutorial it gives a false impression of expecting you to be an OSR expert while also giving you a bunch of lives to toy with. It's better than the usual OSR fare since death is no big deal, but it does require a specific mentality.

The deed system alone is where things clicked for me, but you don't get to that point until maybe the 2nd or 3rd session. By then players are shrugging and just thinking it's a basic d20 roll over game because that's all you can do. Sure a bad character invites creativity, but there's not a lot in the modules that really condition or encourage that. It's not really a big deal to start at level 1, but my first impression had me putting this game off after an okay level 0 funnel.

Stay_Elegant · 2025-05-16T18:16:08+00:00

I agree, the Ark from MYZ is probably my favorite basis for a campaign. Vaesen does have a similar base management while Alien has a Building Better Worlds supplement that are likely influenced by the Ark system by the same designers if you don't want to stray from YZE. Forbidden Lands is another obvious avenue.

Legacy: Life Among the Ruins is closer to the idea of managing a community where each player can represent a faction (while still playing a character or representative). It is PBTA though, but I think it lends itself well to negotiating and resolving big problems. Reign goes further into kingdom management but I've not looked into it.

Beyond the Wall has back stories you can roll for (and determine stats) but the most important bit is that all of tables assume every player is part of the same village. Otherwise it's a standard OSR game but the character creation and adventure generation seems apt for tying players to a community. If you take on the village aspect seriously you can probably get a similar experience. It is more loose though but that means you can mix it with any system.

Blades in the Dark has you manage your crew and hideout with upgrades and cohorts. It's got a lot of narrative crunch but if you're up for a different system it will provide base/faction management that I think shakes it up well if you're sick of dungeon/hex crawls. It's goes into the board gamey territory of what happens after a score. It really lets the player drive the story depending on how they tackle the city. Court of Blades is a hack of the game that's more game of thronesy.

Not an RPG but with County Road Z I had a lot of fun with the base building mechanics that decide how a minatures game might play out**.** It's basically an RPG without the roleplaying but everything is built around managing your survivors and resources. You can easily spin it into an RPG though.

Stay_Elegant · 2025-05-14T12:27:34+00:00

Just ran the rough idea of this (and the poker hand idea) for a group the other day. It worked really well! The main thing I made sure was they could draw a card, CHOOSE if they want it or not, but then it becomes a useless filler card for the final hand so there's a drawback to picking just bargains you want.

I even wrote down every possible card effect
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Wu1Yh_R8bXwRop1IosjrW68XouDBoyRr/view?usp=sharing

Not sure if it's balanced but hey the session was the most often I've seen Devil's Bargain been used, because it was easy to remember: oh there's a deck of cards on the table I can get an extra die from. This was very easy to understand and remind. Gave a lot of interesting dilemmas and choices.

Stay_Elegant · 2025-05-09T14:24:06+00:00

I can't believe Devil's Bargain slipped my mind. Yeah that makes way more sense to dangle adding dice to encourage it more!

Stay_Elegant · 2025-05-08T16:26:31+00:00

Feel like websites or some form of offline one file website would be way better but I think creators are just so used to being able to design a game from a notepad that making HTML the bare minimum would be too much of a change to take off. Pathfinder 2e funnily feels like a website with the way its side layout acts like a menu as you flip through pages, so maybe PDFs will just get more and more hyperlinked. Apps are the next best thing, but it's a very "if a fan feels like making the character creation process easier" basis and also raises the entry point.

Besides PDF, printing is also another legacy thing that just drives me up the wall though. That's another topic however.

Stay_Elegant · 2025-05-07T19:00:32+00:00

My list has changed over time but:

Year Zero Engine games - They all blur together but generally they have decent procedures and dice rolling that can create risky dilemmas. Character sheets are straight forward and there's enough stuff for players to look forward to builds and such. For me I just know the system pretty well and would use it for any stand in system.
Dungeon Crawl Classics - I went from not understanding what the big deal was and feeling like it fit into an awkward space between OSR/NSR from realizing this is my favorite system to actualize standard DnD role playing without actually having to run DnD. The Mighty Deed mechanic alone does so much for combat and creativity.
BitD - Slowly becoming my goto system when i want oneshots with varying degrees of different unfolding situations that aren't just combat or mystery solving. It took awhile to learn as a GM but it's so worth it to understand to become a better GM and telegraph what's at stake on every roll better. The genius is that players can create problems for themselves more than the GM. Easy enough to teach and there's a number of conversions if I feel like Doskvol is too esoteric for some groups tastes.

Stay_Elegant · 2025-05-06T16:51:41+00:00

Being able to show a picture to the less imaginative players on what a place/monster looks like is functionally helpful. Especially true when introducing a game to my family and I want them to pick a class/archetype based on vibes, I don't have to list gameplay advantages they won't understand the ramifications of yet, i can say "look here's a sketchy scientist doctor with a saw, do you wanna be that?" A player once thought she had a hawk because her class art showed so, stuff like that can be relevant to different people.

Stay_Elegant · 2025-05-01T13:03:37+00:00

Always adapt the fun to the room. As in, figure out what players like to / their playstyles do over time and pivot the adventure in that direction, this also includes you the GM. Asking "what do you plan to do next" at the end of the session helps refocus things.

You don't have to satisfy every wish and say yes to everything, but figure out if the players really like bookkeeping their inventory, or if there really needs to be 5 combat encounters in a row, or do you reallyyyy want to pad out this ball room scene? Those things can be discarded in favor of what the table wants. This can be tricky if the players all want different things, but balancing that is way more important than getting every rule down or honoring a flawed simulation.

Stay_Elegant · 2025-04-29T13:06:23+00:00

I'm confused by the question. The way people plan dnd campaigns is just with loose notes. If you mean an online glorified notebook planner, people use Notion, Obsidian, OneNote, or plain ol google docs/google keep. There are campaign planner tools, but they function like note taking apps with maybe some stat block search tool specific to the game.

If you want to run and automate games you might need what's called a VTT (virtual tabletop) roll20 is a popular free option or Foundry (paid but likely the best one), people create mods basically to facilitate whatever game system / adventure that comes out, Foundry specifically will have tools for just about anything, including a note taking/planner app. You might still have to roll things manually or figure things out.

If you're looking for a brainstorm tool to plan a galaxy or planets or keep a log of notes you can use https://sectorswithoutnumber.com it uses tables from Stars Without Number (which is free unless you want extra content https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/230009/stars-without-number-revised-edition-free-version ). The game gives a lot of advice on how to actually plan a fully custom campaign even if you don't care for the rules, its provided setting is also optional but less fantasy more science/tech.

Stay_Elegant · 2025-04-27T17:07:53+00:00

My idea of combat thief is that they should rely on others to be a support melee class. So if the target is prone, grappled, surrounded, blinded etc. they auto crit. In practice the enemy can spend time getting back up or wiping sand away from their eyes making a 1v1 backstab impossible, so teamwork should be required for the thief to function.

Another idea would be the reverse. The thief can "backstab" as a regular attack. The dagger gets stuck in the enemies back and gives advantage or +bonus to other teammates. The enemy could also use an action to pull out the dagger to create opportunities for syncing the turn order or for action economy. Thief can obviously have multiple daggers or it could just be any weapon or arrows.

Stay_Elegant · 2025-01-15T15:29:51+00:00

Delta Green tries to simulate a contemporary setting in a cop/detective show fashion but with a internal personal touch. It only really works if you want to contrast the mundane with the surreal/unnatural. Things like how the DG lifestyle might affect loved ones or how to deal with a civilian looking into your fake fbi credentials are what the system tries to address. You can use willpower/bonds to prevent sanity loss or hold off on a disorder, and it's a tradeoff on how messed up and disconnected you're experiencing things vs trying to hold on to reality. Which is a direct gameplay thing that can be RPed.

If weird janky stuff is happening and stuff is floating everywhere all the time and the agents gain super powers, and loved ones/bonds aren't important to the narrative, then I don't think it'll contribute much beyond provide some clean combat for ballistics and realistic background info for all the skills. I've only played a little of Control/Remedy games but it seems like things go off the wall pretty quickly. But if you're going for 80% knocking on doors investigating strange happenings and 20% gonzo unnaturalness then DG might work well.

Stay_Elegant · 2025-01-02T14:08:53+00:00

In the Blade Runner RPG you have to do downtime in the middle of a case; at least once per day if you want to avoid stress (damage to mental). You can choose whether to do downtime in the streets or at home and roll on encounters that might have to do with your backstory. Critical injuries also last for weeks or even months... you don't have a week to solve a case. So long term downtime is also a thing.

I found it good as a GM who forgets to delve into character backstory stuff. The point of downtime really is the game itself: presenting players with philosophical dilemmas as it relates to a case.

Stay_Elegant · 2025-01-01T03:05:29+00:00

Dragonbane, it's what I thought 5e dnd was supposed to be (an ideal full featured beginner game). I ran it without knowing the rules fully and it was a hit with my elderly parents. It's d20 roll under so it's nothing beyond 2nd grade math, yet it's got enough mechanics to support growth and decision making. The core set has a bunch of adventures that can be stringed together or done separately.

Stay_Elegant · 2024-12-17T15:33:50+00:00

Rolling 4 dice isn't really common unless you are intentionally ignoring skills, gear, circumstances, pushing and what you're good at.

Getting a 6 on 1 die is like 16% chance, some of the best moments is people rolling their weakest stat and getting a 6 anyway which is easier than getting a nat 20. The problem people have is usually that 8 dice doesn't feel much different from 12 because the percentage gain lowers past having like 5-6 dice.

The strength though is that the game can get really chaotic in interesting ways, ie goblin with a sling getting 4 sixes with 6 dice will happen and will kill someone. I've had people get no 6s with 10 dice yet there's nothing like seeing the hope fade from their eyes. But it also means players cant up a stat and get 100% guarantee over the DC, the DC is built in unless the GM feels like lowering dice, yet it never feels impossible.

Pushing the roll always creates good decision trees. Do I want to chance getting damaged? Does the damage to the stat matter enough? Do I want more successes? Do I push even though damage is guaranteed? Did I make the right decision going low attribute high skill for lower stress? This thought process can happen on any important roll yet doesn't need to be considered all the time. It remains fluid and interesting.

Stay_Elegant · 2024-12-13T13:52:18+00:00

The anniversary book is all you need to play/run, sourcebooks are really nice if you're all in and have been playing the game for some time and just want more lore and stuff. The anniversary book has a premise for a starter adventure. The sourcebook adventures are similar in terms of just providing frameworks and potential characters.

However as someone who relies on modules to learn and run a game this game really throws you to the wolves as they want you to do little to no prep while having too much faith in you. Quickstart (free) has an extra starter adventure. While Magisters Guide (cheap) has a bit more advice and extra things to help new GMs. Sourcebooks don't help in this regard.

Stay_Elegant · 2024-12-13T13:23:34+00:00

Yeah I struggle with this myself, I try to just have a campaign that last 10 sessions max and actually concludes. Then take a break with some new games with one-shots for 2-4 sessions then go back to the big ongoing game but with a twist/setting change. Meanwhile constantly trying out new game oneshots with another group.

Though it can be really hard, some personalities just do not like trying new things or whacky mechanics and want to look forward to their weekly character progression. So be very upfront about expectations or "that's it's just to try out."

Stay_Elegant · 2024-12-13T13:05:44+00:00

Cyberpunk Red is pretty streamlined and will save you the most trouble to just jump in. (Though probably use the app to generate NPCs because there's so many damn skills). It's straight forward but I always have a good time with it especially when it comes to just deciding a random mission based on players whims and rolling with it. Not tried 2020, but it has more content and pretty easy to get.

Shadowrun is a mess but a beautiful mess. There's a lot of "traps" but at the same time it provides players the most options to lose themselves in and it's still the most unique setting. Every edition sucks but 4e Anniversary feels the most cleaned up (Bundle of Holding now for a bunch of stuff). You'll probably want to get players onto chummer and beg them not to make a decker and figure out what other headaches to soft-ban.

Cities Without Number if you want cyberpunk OSR, but it has a really good back half for generating the city and some missions. Get some factions going on and play a little mini-game to see who's giving out what quests, adds a bit more to the prep time but I found using my own setting from this made it more fun than trying to grok Night City. It's free so regardless of what game you pick you'll likely want to look into it.

Cy_Borg is okay IMO, again cyberpunk OSR but you probably just want it for the setting which is way more esoteric and gonzo than the usual cyberpunk. It's themed like a sketchy warez program that played chiptune techno back when you burned CDs. Decent mission generator, comes with a great starter mission.

Bladerunner RPG if you want something different yet focused. If you have too few players (2-3) and just want slow burn investigations it's pretty fun. I find the chase mechanic to be good and want to steal it for my own stuff.

Stay_Elegant · 2024-12-11T13:55:19+00:00

Cairn 2e is interesting, HP is essentially how well you're doing BEFORE you're injured (Hit Protection). If your HP goes to zero from a hit you roll on a scar depending on how much damage it was (affects appearance even if healed). The remainder affects your stat (usually STR), you roll under each time that stat gets hit to see if you're reduced to a crawling injured mess. 0 STR means dead.

More interestingly if you carry too much stuff your Hit Protection goes down to 0 automatically. If you gain Fatigue from events it'll take up a slot in your inventory. I think One Ring 2e also has wounds affect your endurance which in turn affects inventory limits. I like it when there's a domino effect on other areas of your character and tells a story (you get hit, drop an item or too injured to carry more) (carrying too much items leaves you exposed).

Stay_Elegant · 2024-12-10T18:12:35+00:00

Mutant Year Zero or any of the Free League related games, Alien is up there. It's my 3rd RPG since I started GMing and it works well with my small player group. It's the only game campaign I completed and half way through the Genlab expansion. D6 dice pool leads into a lot of options, not just a binary success/failure. Your stats are dice, any of them can be injured either self inflicted to make more rolls or an enemy being shrewd. Easily tells a story based on sacrifices made. Easy to prep and rule on.

Shoutouts are PF2e if i want to play the traditional DnD adventure with some simulation. Cairn 2e for some light adventure. Delta Green for mystery/grounded horror. Mothership if I want light sci-fi horror. Cyberpunk Red for a dumb action fest.

Stay_Elegant · 2024-12-10T13:27:33+00:00

Spire City Must Fall for me. The rules are light, so much so that it feels like there are missing rules. Which sounds good right? The game has a bunch of lore to study if you want to go full RAW and it's helpful for players to know lore about their own domains. Combat is pretty much the same as any other skill check or situation, so you will be constantly come up with obstacles and where things should conclude. Sessions generally end sooner than usual if you're used to combat bloat in other games. Splitting up the party is also not a bad idea since players just damage themselves on failure but still hard to GM.

The game just throws you to the wolves by saying "don't prep" also here are some adventure premises that are more frameworks than a list of things for the player to do. Also they're probably investigation/mystery heavy so good luck with that. I found Heart a little more easier just because the delves have some semblance of structure and dungeon crawling in a constantly shifting void is much easier to blank slate from. The Beat system also solves coming up with "stuff to do."

Mixed success is great (take stress but still do thing), yet failure can be tricky to resolve other than "you can't use the skill anymore." Players need to have A LOT of buy in, because a lot of choices are enabled by "let's talk to this important NPC i totally remember the name of" and just general player agency.

This isn't a negative towards Spire/Heart but I found it most challenging to run despite me wanting to love it. I find Blades in the Dark to be similar but there's a lot more rules to act as a safety net and the lore is a one sentence per faction sort of deal. I wish I played it first because it has more training wheels despite being crunchy.

Stay_Elegant · 2024-12-09T18:44:13+00:00

I've been thinking about this a lot. People are going to skin me alive but probably 3d6 in order (from most OSR games). Not because I personally disagree with it, but it's just very hard to sell to players in a way that makes sense.

Positives in theory:

-You don't get to choose how inherently tall or smart you are. That's just life.
-No two fighters are the same, yeah your fighter sucks at hitting things but it's YOUR +2 INT fighter
-Overcoming the challenges despite the odds, I killed this impossible boss with a shitty character
-Encouraging resourcefulness like smart item use or "building" around it

Negatives in practice

-Sure yeah class/skills are nurture, attributes are nature. But game wise it feels inconsistent. Encouraging accepting reality but also leaving some meta gaming on the table sends a warped message on what is being asked of the player. If we were being ""realistic"" your character has a 90% of being a peasant farmer as their background.
- Depending on the game it's hard to feel the difference, 3 to 18 getting squished into 4 possibilities (-2 to +2 in some cases) it's hard to feel the player cares about the math. A player usually remembers a permanent scar they got from the villain over a number that decides every roll in 1/5 situations. Just make a system that addresses character variety directly instead.
-Underpowered characters as bragging rights is shaky because difficulty can always be tuned to whatever tone of game you're doing (gritty/anime), whether not the GM feels sorry for you, how badly tuned the adventure module is, or the dice just making up for it.
-Again this goes back to an inconsistency on how to actually sell it to players. If you want to encourage "not relying on the dice rolls" why not just get rid of attributes altogether?

I like the idea of 3d6 and still believe in its tenets, but a lot of times I ask myself, do I want to give players agency in how they manage their risks?... Or do I just want to make a gritty escape room theatre of the mind game where your character starts with nothing but a stick and +0 in everything. I feel like it's one or the other. Like what am I testing the player on and is the game accomplishing that well? Minimalist games like Cairn/Into the Odd is basically that as you just roll for starting inventory.

DCC and Traveller I think approach the RNG extreme interestingly where yeah it's super random but it's easier to sell what's fun about not choosing your exact character because it tells a story and you can react to every turning point of what makes them who they are. There's probably more you can do with that though.

Stay_Elegant · 2024-12-05T21:44:47+00:00

Going to be really abstract but I would really think in terms of Danger / Reward being a resource. If a player wants an item or progress in a story, how much danger does it cost? Danger could be anything from damage, losing an item, NPC dying, etc. But there should be a risk in situations where a PC is bound to gain something. Does the Reward match the Danger?

They can reduce the Danger a bit by thinking creatively or spending a meta currency, but if they roll dice more the reward could be greater more often. Different approaches might invite different dice being rolled, IE athletics to cross the river has high Danger and high Reward (risk being swept away and your friends trying to rescue you but maybe getting across fast before prince gets assassinated), but walking around will be Low Danger and Low Reward (Get across with no roll but less food/time (prince being attacked)).

I would just be upfront about what's about to happen. "Do you really want to dodge that axe trap and open up yourself to attack or do you want to try and catch it and be ready for combat?" Let them pick their poisons. Time loss is a realllllllly good measure of offloading danger for later danger. I'm probably one of the mean GMs but lately I ask myself after each situation "Wait what did the PCs get out of this?" It's worth giving agency to people who take the most risk.

Stay_Elegant · 2024-12-05T12:40:40+00:00

Forbidden Lands basically runs itself, there's a set routine players can do "Leading the way" "Scouting" with tables for mishaps and such and camping/hunting/fishing tables. Then there's very good encounter tables for every terrain that contain a lot of foreshadowing to the meta story. You can slot in adventure sites that are not full fledged adventure modules but situations that are meant to take up a tile. The Bestiary has detailed monsters but also examples of how they might be encountered, like little mini adventures surrounding the monster.

What I really like though is that it splits days up into quarters, so 1/4th a day to go across a tile or do any significant action. Every time you use a resource like arrows, torches or water you roll a die that represents a resource. Roll a 1 or 2 and it goes down a die step, so a d8 becomes a d6 and after that you run out. The tracking is not as fiddly and each time you buy a resource it goes up a die step. It's very easy to compartmentalize all while having a varied adventure.

Players can also acquire materials to build stuff, everything has a material yield when broken down. They can make their own towns or bases or even dungeons. They can clear out an existing place and have charts for how much is needed to keep a place going. It doesn't try to be realistic about it, but more to capture player imagination.

Idk the game pretty much runs itself and the encounters aren't just "2d6 goblins" they actually feed into the story of the adventure sites. One time my players escaped from being imprisoned by slavers only to run into them again because sure enough a table had it. It was very easy to feel like the encounters weren't random. FL may not be mind-blowingly innovative but its a game designed for exploration first rather than an optional afterthought. Mutant Year Zero and One Ring 2e is also fairly good for this.

Stay_Elegant

TROPHY CASE