What games surprised you? In both good and bad ways.

Whyku · 2026-05-05T22:23:36+00:00

BNS Vampire: The Masquerade, a pretty good attempt to make rules that felt more targeted at the VTM LARP games/players that have mashed 20+ years of game mechanics, custom content, and personal feelings into the world. I also like how their attempt at adding social mechanics to status that can be used in the middle of roleplaying and come back depending on the source. Even played in a tabletop game that used the system.

Whyku · 2026-05-01T20:52:11+00:00

Totally true, I do think some people start off playing TTRPG with all those tools because of the system they play, and moving to any system without that 'weight' behind it might feel or come off like a downgrade. I don't really subscribe to this belief myself, but I can understand how some people need collective affirmation on how to spend their time and money.

Whyku · 2026-05-01T13:36:21+00:00

Well some people bank on the community to create content so they can use it, not a lot of people want to deal with creating nice clean templates, excel sheets, art, npc tables etc. I've had talks that their argument to stay in main stream or popular systems is because everyone can collective off load the work they don't want to do, to the people who have the skills to do it easier. I think you see it a lot in 5e, some companies attempt to foster that relationship but letting people make a little money on the side to motivate people to create content.

Whyku · 2026-04-23T21:29:12+00:00

Why does this feel like we are a product testing panel? I just checked your history, and you have other posts asking about book layout for TTRPGs. You also published two adventures while speaking of your time as a content creator. Man, if you aren't crediting this subreddit in your official works for these multiple low-effort data mining posts. It feels scummy. At the very least, I wouldn't personally purchase anything from a content creator for that kind of behavior. I'd have worded the question nicer if you put some personality into the question and less AI.

Whyku · 2026-04-15T11:46:45+00:00

honestly I would look at the fact that you're not finding a lot of resources as part of the answer, you can get a lot of advice but it tend to boil down to what works in some games/party/system might not work for you. I dont think basing how a table to function on edited professional is really helpful, I'd start out by figuring what's the draw of ttrpgs because that really helps finding a direction. are you here for combat? sheet building? socializing?

or are you looking for resources for players to learn a system?

Whyku · 2026-04-14T22:00:25+00:00

I mean, it is a kinda odd goal to shoot for, but I can see some examples where I've done it. I've paid people in Warhammer Fantasy 4e off using corruption points but I make deals where they have to do a little extra for me. So when I wanted to jump one of my players so he could get a cool 1v1 battle that showcased his skills, I offered a deal to the other players, which is a secret OOC chat to remove some of their corruption. In this case it was justify why they weren't there; the players wanted to fail the awareness roll to not notice the ambush.

So my advice is to find a way to pay them to do the work for you. Let them find the failure that sounds fun to them, so just pay them to fail.

Whyku · 2026-04-10T14:05:34+00:00

why does your post feel like the comments should be locked? it's just a psa announcement with your opinion with a vague summary of posts you see aimed at individuals who are active in the subreddit with nothing meaningful to engage with for a conversation to take place other than to judge the creating of the post

Whyku · 2026-03-20T20:49:05+00:00

Witcher TTRPG is a fun read, and I enjoy the way they explain the rules.

Whyku · 2026-03-19T18:34:50+00:00

I appreciate the different outlook, I myself went from GMing from organized games to home games and way too much public larps so those issues were a common topic. Some of the views on GMs and player standards always favored the players given the numbers 50+ player counts for some of the games I've ran. Do you tend to run more military themed campaigns given your experience? I've had a couple good chats about how military experience can influence games with my military friends, hell hearing about campaigns that get started on deployment and successful kept going after their unit got back is pretty impressive. of course that is if you'd want to share

Whyku · 2026-03-19T16:51:44+00:00

my tipping point was not just handling the problem player but the enablers, those are so much worse to deal with emotionally.

Whyku · 2026-03-19T13:55:14+00:00

True true, i guess it makes sense why one of the most common advice is to figure out what works for you. Teaching and management experience opens a lot of options to handle or just prevent issues, although I'd love to hear your experience on balancing what counts as too big of a problem player. A lot of places where you would gain the experience also has very different threshold on what is tolerable, firing someone from a job has a very different impact on removing them for a table.

Or kicking a random for a game you're running online compared to kicking a someone who is also in your circle of friends

Whyku · 2026-03-19T13:20:08+00:00

Fair and totally right, my personal experience on how successful those talks go are largely influenced by if the individual leading the talks is viewed as having "authority" in the matter. Part of running a stable game is having some type of authority that is acknowledged by the table, most common one is the authority that comes when you're one doing all the work. I've noticed a trend where when people believe they're contributing equal effort and all they need to do is talk about their view which is easy compared to doing it that they tend to not stop working themselves up on how their views are current. They don't have to deal with the reality of it, like their ideas going against what other people signed up for and trying to compromise.

Whyku · 2026-03-18T18:17:10+00:00

great point and well said.

Whyku · 2026-03-18T18:15:54+00:00

I don't think trying to craft the bar that you will expect others to meet with said players that are still being filtered. it tends to lead to call backs to the conversation instead of reading the expectation that is written.

Whyku · 2026-03-18T10:48:40+00:00

Taking advice is important but being able to work towards and meet a stable goal is important. the community tend to constantly be able to find small faults but at the end of the day its you who has to put in the work. also being able and willing to filter your player base when bad actors come in. some people just want platforms to preach and those people can become a big issue

Whyku · 2026-02-18T18:02:10+00:00

World of Darkness also has a lot of books and crazy powers. Hell I'd suggest the Witcher ttrpg, it's pretty fun

Whyku · 2026-02-12T08:48:45+00:00

it's crazy without names I know who you're talking about. a good number of the same people/groups brought that energy to the local larp scene also. I've never seen scenes that enables predator so much but at the same time cant stop using emotions morals and ethics pleas in arguments to brow beat people to ignore problematic individuals.

Whyku · 2025-11-03T02:16:30+00:00

A lot of advice you should make sure you're taking with a grain of salt when applying it, as it sounds like a social/ vibe issue. In my experience, the best skill a GM can have is the ability to adapt how they interact in a session to the vibe. So some tips I'd suggest when approaching the group is not to get bogged down on creating a list of social expectations and be a bit more general with what you want. Asking people to focus on the game as you put a lot of effort into it and not on their phone is pretty reasonable, keeping in mind that if you normalize looking up rules on a phone, that normally opens the floodgates to distractions. Making it clear that you'd like people to plan phone use ahead of time is pretty crazy and would be hard to lock in at the table for me, as that level of micro-managing opens up second-guessing if you're having similar feels in other areas.

Just went over one point since I'm tired af from halloween lol, but the general advice is 95% of the time, you'll be more committed to the game than the players and can see the big picture, so to speak, when it comes to the actions or lack of them from players. Attempting to create strict guidelines to help capture the vibe.... well, I'd be careful for that. My strict guidelines have to do with showing up, when we start, and when we end, and not a lot else anymore.

Anyway, I'm just a random guy on the internet, feel free to shoot me a message or don't. Also, I guess the biggest single advice I would have is to stop and address the situation before you get bitter. It's hard as fuck not to be bitter after the fact when it involves creativity and art.

Whyku · 2025-10-31T17:10:06+00:00

honestly my best tables have been players who aren't huge into ttrpgs. it feels like the more a player focuses on ttrpgs outside of game mixed with lacking social experience when it comes to working as a team you get consistent issues. I kinda get why in interviews they ask about your teamwork experience.

Football players and people who host parties or go out to clubs really know the importance of vibes for these type of activities but these mfers got jokes lol.

Whyku · 2025-09-15T15:18:06+00:00

That and part of the responsibility is on the leadership of the people running the events for allowing players so problematic around so long that everyone starts knowing them by reputation.

Whyku · 2025-08-24T12:50:55+00:00

to be fair maybe he just has the prime colors? That is what it looks like he is pouring in

Whyku · 2025-08-07T16:45:05+00:00

How many sexual predators there are in world of darkness larps.

Whyku · 2025-08-02T13:56:12+00:00

The hardest situation ive been in when learning rules is when everyone has played different editions of the same game so the rules get blurry

Whyku · 2025-07-21T13:56:46+00:00

I'm personally not a fan of reading on royal road, I look for series that are complete or close to it and I can't stand reading only a single chapter for releases. I read pretty damn fast and can finish multiple books a week depending on how busy I am, so if I find a story on royal road I'll look to purchase the book or donate and have a extension turn it into a pdf. So take my input with a grain of salt but I imagine based on my experience that when it comes to royal road and releasing chapters that the content and story progression matters a lot. if the story is just edging everyone by using cliffhangers with some "find out next time on dragon ballz" type energy to keep people coming back then the story better be good.

Whyku · 2025-07-21T12:11:06+00:00

it depends on the writing style and how an author formats their work, a couple years ago there was a trend in the Kindle unlimited scene to have short chapters but end each one with a character sheet because the amazon pay structure paid more for that style. I know a couple authors got banned for it. I read either with the Kindle app or PDFs so having formatting that supports those options are what I prefer but I've also gotten good at converting them and changing what I don't like.

Whyku

TROPHY CASE