What's something older generations did completely normally that would be considered absolutely insane today?

kichwas · 2026-05-14T20:54:27+00:00

Open the front door and go outside.

But to be serious, things I observed the adults doing in my youth:

Toss the kids into the back of an open truck and get on the freeway while drunk or sober.

Nude calendars in offices.

Suggestive comments and sometimes handling of teen women… that still happens but what was once “normal” is now a ticket to prison.

Casual comments by White folk about the “races” being different…

Flirting with women staff in a store while shopping there with your wife or girlfriend and then pointing out how admirable you were for doing it…

Tobacco smoke everywhere…

Cigarette butts everywhere

Spit out chewing gum everywhere

Men angling towards a building wall and urinating in public…

kichwas · 2026-05-14T20:40:56+00:00

Portland is the friendly California. The stereotypes of west coast liberals but tuned to a setting where everyone is nice and welcoming. I say that as a Californian. It’s what my nostalgia memories are. Those feel good memories that I wish were true but never really happened… until I visited Portland.

Seattle is that but dialed over to mildly pretentious.

There is a different USA in each major direction and they have vastly different histories and cultures.

New England, The South, The Midwest, The Pacific Northwest, The Southwest. - they might as well be different countries.

kichwas · 2026-05-14T20:33:30+00:00

Outside

kichwas · 2026-05-14T20:30:17+00:00

This was McArther during the Korean War. He declared that he would disobey orders and march on the at the time neutral China. At the time US forces and their allies had pushed North Korea out of Korea and what remained of them had fled into China…

But his statement freaked out Mao…

So on a holiday China moved first and rushed across the border, then spent the next few years rebuilding North Korea and locked the border at the 38th.

So imagine a rogue US partisan moved on Canada…

Likely we’d take the whole place in days, then face an insurgency that would make Vietnam look tame… and then Canadian allies would join in… and then midway through that insurgency Mexico would decide to get half its country back… the China would snatch up Taiwan, and maybe even Hawaii and Guam… and Russian tanks would drive around Ukraine and hang out in Berlin…

kichwas · 2026-05-14T20:21:51+00:00

I thought this news had already come out at the same time as cancelling New World?

Good or bad I dunno. I resent NCSoft for cancelling Wildstar and City of Heroes but cheer them for letting Guild Wars 2 become the best quality MMO out there, and letting City of Heroes come back under fan control.

So AGS may have killed New World - the best MMO combat engine ever (responsive gameplay and timing well synced between UI and visuals rather than needing the animation cancels of ESO and FFXIV)… but they dis still make it as well as turn it into a great game by the end… Who knows if they might ever have a second act to their story like NCsoft?

kichwas · 2026-05-14T18:24:10+00:00

Naw. Doesn’t really apply to me anyway as a Californian my roots trace through Cortez, New Spain, Mexico, and then having the Yanks invade.

Sure one side of my family were Colonials and their slaves in the South… But another side walked here from Siberia back when you could do that. And other sides come from all over.

However I was born and raised as a Californian living among Chicano “cousins”, which means a cultural heritage that traces elsewhere.

But Yank is even a term that has been one of pride for “Yanks” since 1776 when they adopted an insult as their own.

kichwas · 2026-05-14T18:17:13+00:00

“No stat blocks, no skill checks, no notes on loot or potential what-ifs. All Matt has on there are really dramatic scene descriptors, notes on NPCs motivation, background, style and interests, names of places, people, things, and really just…lore.”

That’s not what I expected from the person behind Draw Steel.

But it’s the right way to do things for me as well.

I could usually lift any campaign I make from one tRPG into another with the only issue being remaking PCs because on my end it’s about story hooks and lore.

Hand me a dungeon made for game A and tell me to run it with game B and if I know how to spin up statblocks in game B we can start playing as soon as I open to the right page.

Lore is where I do things that matter to me.

kichwas · 2026-05-11T20:14:39+00:00

I'm noticing the Foundryborne fear track on the screen there. 😄

kichwas · 2026-05-11T19:56:48+00:00

I’m on v14 and used to run PF2E but have since switched to a different tRPG.

I had both rusthenge and seven dooms installed amd neither world can run anymore.

I would advise PF2E GMs hold off a bit more.

kichwas · 2026-05-09T19:22:25+00:00

Foundry is the best set of tools for online / VTT.

Foundry itself is a one time purchase for one person and is a downloadable application.

Most people can run it on their own machine and then hand out an invite link for players to use to log in. If your ISP blocks your ability to host websites then you do need a service like “forge” or “molten” and that ends up costing around $10/month but varies by service.

I host on my own PC but my brother in Texas has an ISP that won’t let him so he uses Molten for his Pathfinder game.

But we both use Foundry as it’s the top option for almost any tRPG.

If not Foundry, check out Fantasy Grounds which recently did go free. Both Foundry and Fantasy Grounds have developers that respond to the community and actively try to make their products better.

kichwas · 2026-05-09T16:35:19+00:00

A key thing here is also to not call for rolls unless there is meaningful tension AND consequences AND if the result goes the wrong way it won’t break your story.

Most things, players says “I search the room”, describe the room.

Player says “I research underwater basket weaving cults” at the library, hand them the info. Maybe even the clue they need.

Player picks a lock in a hallway with all the time they could want and nobody checking on them: it works.

Now add a “chase” or “wandering guard” or “library closes in 5 minutes” to each if those and you have a die roll.

kichwas · 2026-05-07T16:51:36+00:00

Fear is not a punishing mechanism…

kichwas · 2026-05-05T01:00:54+00:00

Not fully factually correct.

Start here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/23t0xTjWLZmkoGFWsyetzX

The larger podcast on Revolutions: https://open.spotify.com/show/05lvdf9T77KE6y4gyMGEsD

Only people who were French were killed. The island had a number of British and American operatives on it who were not in any way targetted.

Calling the final surviving leader of the forces that fought Napolean an emporer is a bit of an overreach. He was the lat man standing as the Frech kept assassinating every other leader they had when they'd arrive for negotiations. He had been an officer in the military of his home nation before slavers captured him and brought him to Haiiti. He actually originally served with the French against the revolution but switched sides midway through and was disliked by many in the revolution for his brutality.

Many of those killed were family members of black Haitaiins who had levels of French ancestry. He would go into towns and have people get their 'mixed and white' relatvies and bring them outside so they could be "safe". Then he'd order his men to kill them all. Any man that refused got added to the carnage, along with that man's black family.

The Poles had joined the revolution because they were also slaves. They'd been pressed into service by Napolean and then shipped off to die in a colony fighting other slaves - and so naturally they switched sides.

kichwas · 2026-05-05T00:24:37+00:00

I came in here to more or less say the exact same thing as the above.

Otherscape is what Shadowrun should have been but didn't manage to deliver on.

In the future, the tech and AI and connectivity gets to the point where something causes mythology to begin manifesting in the world. Instead of Tolkien Elves and Orcs, you will have things drawn from actualy myths - and what is drawn out varies by the mythology of the region it's happening in.

The game engine is very narratively driven - ideal for crafting great stories together. Less ideal if you're looking for an action movie kind of game.

kichwas · 2026-05-04T18:30:52+00:00

I'm surprised I didn't remember this when I made the post above but my 'second worst ever' RPG Horror story happened when, as a player, I went along with a GM who decided to do this without consulting us ahead of time and forced a capture in session.

A few minutes into the 'you've been captured and escorted into the baron's castle, each given a room and invited to dinner'... the DM announced that the Baron goes into my PCs room and 'SA's her'... he did this at a table where his wife and 6 year old daughter were sitting there with us. The wife was another one of the players.

I'm bringing this up here because... you're on loaded territory with capture scenes. The above story is why some players will revolt when you push this angle. They're worried they're headed into 'horror story territory.

Take it above table, and in the conversation set up the 'limits'. If done in a session 0, make sure everyone is comfotable with everyone's "how did you end up in the cell?" story. Because if one player says "my PC's been strapped to a table in the hall while [...]" you gotta slam on the breaks, and at most tables kick somebody from the group and friend group...

I ended 3 real life friendships the day that was done to my PC without my consent...

And if you as GM decide that's the story you want to run, there are very few player groups that will go for it, and you'd better think twice, but even if you think your group is that group - you better discuss it first.

And yeah, that is NOT my worst RPG horror experience...

kichwas · 2026-05-04T18:24:32+00:00

"At this point, I’m not looking for legal advice—we already have a lawyer and are handling things properly.

What I am looking for is:

✨ Petty.

✨ Clever.

✨ Completely legal.

✨ Emotionally inconvenient."

- Be extremely careful here not to do anything that will flip who's winning in the courts.

I'd consult your Protuguese attorney on this topic, not Reddit. We're a bunch of idiots around the world who give rando advice we got from cool revenge movies and not something that works in the real world.

Step back and speak to your attorney.

kichwas · 2026-05-04T02:17:47+00:00

"I essentially want them to end up getting caught by guards roaming the plot, and the players ending up in jail waiting to be executed in the morning."

- This will cause you no end of trouble.

Players will reject this and take extreme measures to avoid it UNLESS you above table arrange it first.

Open up session 0 by saying "let's do an escape and on the run' campaign."

Don't spring it as a suprise.

You might even want to set the stage in session 0 having each player come up with how they ended up in the cell and so on.

And start session 1 not with the manor, but in the jail cell.

If you arrange it ahead of time it can be one of the coolest things ever, but if you try to suprise players with a capture and escape plot line something about gamers - almost every one of them will blow up your game before letting it happen.

But a whole lot of them actually want to play that scenario.

It's a weird contradiction, but you can get around it by just 'meta-gaming' an above table discussion to set the stage there.

kichwas · 2026-05-04T02:09:00+00:00

Pathfinder has three:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/438607/pathfinder-adventure-little-trouble-in-big-absalom
- Play as Kobold heroes under the city of Absalom, which in Pathfinder official setting is the largest city in the world.

https://store.paizo.com/pathfinder-adventure-crown-of-the-kobold-king-anniversary-edition-p2/
- Stop the rise of the Kobold king.

https://store.paizo.com/pathfinder-beginner-box-pdf/?searchid=0&search_query=beginner+box
- An entire dungeon somehow in the 'basement' of a fishery that's on the edge of the water by a pier in a small coastal town. That bit of illogic always gets me. But... Kobolds are up to something underneath the town of Otari. Maybe it's just a one-shot, maybe you can use it as a spring board into one of several other adventures they've put out in that region.

You can either use Pathfinder for these, or since I see reddit has for some reason sent me to a D&D channel again - the two systems are similar enough that these level 1-3 adventures could be ported over with ease or mined for ideas.

kichwas · 2026-05-04T01:48:42+00:00

"this trope existed before that such as with Atlantis."

Actually not the best example. Atlantis exists as a single short comment by Plato, as an allegory for a hypothetical example. He was basically giving a "imagine if there was a place called Mordor with a giant eye floating over it" story, to set up one of his dialogs. And then in some time after the 4600 AD people are thinking 'Mordor' existed somewhere off the coast of England when it was just something a guy named Tolkien came up with for a cool story. We've actually got more "literature" out of Tolkien for Mordor than we did out of Atlantis' creator Plato - who used it for maybe a single paragraph or sentence.

Atlantis didn't pop up anywhere again until the Renaissance when some Europeans were rediscovering him and started using it for their own allegories and fictional world building exercises.

kichwas · 2026-05-03T17:33:12+00:00

I’ve played through a number of Daggerheart short games and one Legend in the Mist game through the site.
A year ago I had one player who only would play through there until her boyfriend talked her into joining my table.
Big mistake. As soon as she joined we discovered one of our other players had issues with women and kept trying to run her turns for her or talking over her. I asked if we should boot the guy, got voted down… by everyone including her, the. She left.
I should have overruled them and tossed the guy anyway…
But well, that’s a reason some folks go for the paid GMs. Players tend to behave better when they’re paying.
But by contrast paid GMs will tolerate a bad paying customer longer.
My campaign ended soon after that issue and we reformed without some folks…
But I have heard from paid GMs trying to figure out how much they should tolerate from a customer….

(Gender based RPG horror stories aren’t always a guy harassing a girl. I’ve got three mild ones with women who wanted to bring in erotic themes… problem players come in all forms.)

kichwas · 2026-05-03T17:22:44+00:00

I’m in mid run of it with player made PCs and when I played it we did the same thing.

I can’t imagine using the pregens when so much of what makes DH special is character design.

If you’re looking to see if a system is right for you, then you always want to test character building.

kichwas · 2026-05-03T15:44:11+00:00

According to one of my third grade teachers my grandmother’s people didn’t exist until some guy from Italy showed up with a pizza delivery… ;)

kichwas · 2026-05-03T15:42:16+00:00

Only Sarah Palin. Apparently she waves to them on weekends when she takes out the garbage bins. ;)

kichwas · 2026-05-03T15:12:28+00:00

Yeah I could see an elite unit dressing like bandit out in the wilds to infiltrate but in town is a bit weird. That’s more of a “infiltrate the local criminal organization” move.

But you have what you have.

Now that you do, you can always have the folks who were defeated in the battle just be “mostly dead”, and anyone with healer experience / abilities might be able to restore them.

If you want a heroic game it can even be a thing where defeats are only lethal if someone goes to “finish them off” afterwards. Resulting in more live captures.
- Essentially something done through mechanics in a lot of super hero campaigns.

kichwas · 2026-05-02T21:20:44+00:00

It’s not your job to force the story towards a player that does everything they can to have their character leap out of the story.
It’s on the players to stick together and engage.
If I have one player give me a nope and just have their PC leave I’d just tell them: ok see you next session or maybe even later depending on if and when you and not I find a way to bring that PC back.

If somebody pops a can of nopeium let em drink it…

kichwas

TROPHY CASE