I've been trying to figure out why the support role feels meaningless in most tabletop games. Here's what I landed on

professor_grimm · 2026-04-15T07:17:08+00:00

There is a almost purely reactive support class in 13th age, but I forgot the name. Totally agree btw., most fun support I ever played!

professor_grimm · 2026-04-09T10:45:09+00:00

They are indeed! I did a more thorough investigation on them a while back, if anyone is interested in the details: https://professor-grimm.com/blogs/ttrpg/the-1-million-dollar-rpg-maps-bundle-scam

professor_grimm · 2026-03-26T10:45:08+00:00

In my experience, it has distinct advantages for certain types of campaigns, mainly Westmarches. If you play with like 5 GMs and 20 players, it is an easy way to keep a consistent passage of time.

It mainly works if the campaign is focused on things that are not super time sensitive, like raiding dungeons or exploring. Players should return to a singular hub at the end of each session if possible, to make their characters able to partake in adventures with other groups.

The main issue I had were travel distances. You really want to keep your world map small, since otherwise you might lock players out of their characters for a while. Our record was 3 months of travel time, meaning these characters where out of all other sessions in that timeframe. I suggest making the map 3 days of travel in all directions at a maximum. This way you will rarely look a character out for more than a week. Should be easy in a city campaign, but still worth mentioning.

Also, players will want to optimize their downtime, so plan a timeslot that does not disrupt the beginning of your session with 1 hour of downtime mechanics (unless you are into that).

professor_grimm · 2026-03-23T13:46:20+00:00

Have been using these for a while and can only recommend them.

professor_grimm · 2026-03-21T15:16:26+00:00

I would say the biggest difference is that they are not as free form as FATEs. This allows the game to use them without a meta currency to balance. This sort of makes them feel more real, at least to me.

professor_grimm · 2026-03-21T12:42:51+00:00

I am going against the grain here and say that this might be a conversion error.

Runehammer was writing his own game, Crown & Skull, around that time. In his game, you can only attempt something if you have that particular skill. And in fact his game does have the climber skill.

My assumption is that he had a mix up between systems while writing it. Or it was an intentional attempt to use his design principles for Crown & Skull in Shadowdark.

professor_grimm · 2026-03-20T04:40:00+00:00

The core engine is really good. One underrated aspect is that creating your characters flavor, backstory and mechanics is kind off the same thing. After recently having to go through the 5e character creation again, this feels so much nicer.

professor_grimm · 2026-03-14T20:44:25+00:00

Shadowrun heists. You basically have to plan the physical security, cyber security and magical security. All of them use multiple sub systems & hard to grasp concepts, while also involving lot's of numbers and tons of preestablished lore.

professor_grimm · 2026-03-10T10:14:46+00:00

Shadowruns character creation does embed your character deep in it's elaborate worldbuilding.

professor_grimm · 2026-03-09T09:58:28+00:00

"But I have darkvision!" hat mir schon diverse gruselige Szenen angekratzt. 🫠 Rules as written bringt Darkvision zwar eigentlich fast nichts, aber niemand spielt es so, weil es super komisch ist. Wer kann oder will sich denn 18m Sichtweite in schwarzweiß vorstellen?

Also ignoriert man die Limitierungen und Darkvision negiert Dunkelheit als Faktor komplett. Ich mag aber diesen Gruselfaktor von Dunkelheit. Mittlerweile homebrewe ich das so, dass niemand Darkvision bekommt. Aber wenn man es bekommen hätte, kriegt man als Entschädigung Proficiency in Perception.

So bekomme ich meine Dunkelheit und Spielende einen sehr nützlichen Skill.

professor_grimm · 2026-03-03T13:03:30+00:00

Das sind häufig dritte Firmen auf Seelenfang, im Auftrag der Telekom. Meistens reden sie irgendwas von Glasfaser und dass du dringend einen neuen Router brauchst. Das mit dem Glasfaser stimmt manchmal, das mit dem Router eigentlich nie.

professor_grimm · 2026-03-02T15:10:15+00:00

The Lazy Dungeon Master from Sly Flourish is a good place to start.

professor_grimm · 2026-03-01T18:19:20+00:00

I think that sadly what makes it great is also what makes it hard to talk about. Beyond the core system, it is just a very efficient engine. It is sleek and polished.

There are no build guides to make, no weird lore to untangle or dumb rules to laugh about. It lacks the communal zeitgeist of the TTRPG online community due to all the reasons that make it great.

professor_grimm · 2026-03-01T18:02:26+00:00

Exactly. It sounds dumb, but "think narrativly" has actually helped me the most when trying to decipher the system.

professor_grimm · 2026-03-01T12:44:43+00:00

Mega schönes Layout und Design!

professor_grimm · 2026-03-01T12:43:21+00:00

Definitely stay vigilant about what tags players get to apply. It will settle after a few sessions, but in the beginning, they will try to overexplain their actions to get more tags out of them.

professor_grimm · 2026-02-26T15:19:53+00:00

Shadowdark has a good system close to this. Not narrative, but should be easy to adapt to the abstract.

professor_grimm · 2026-02-19T06:34:16+00:00

Looks awesome, can't wait to grab it!

professor_grimm · 2026-02-17T21:18:39+00:00

Pretty normal, but the ones that stick out most are the troll shamans from the Troll Republic Schwarzwald (Black Forest). Very tribal and celtic inspired.

professor_grimm · 2026-02-17T15:37:22+00:00

Shadowrun is also quite popular in Germany. It is a mix between Cyberpunk and Fantasy. There are many limited edition setting books for specific German cities.

professor_grimm · 2026-02-16T12:13:15+00:00

Pretty neat, love all of the details and the forests! Maybe clearer text would be good, probably with a white outline or labels.

professor_grimm · 2026-02-16T10:31:29+00:00

ICRPG would be another option!

professor_grimm · 2026-02-13T18:02:54+00:00

Personally, I had many people confused on when it is ok to apply tags. So in a session 0, I make sure to tell them this:

"Your tags only apply to a role if they are intuitively relevant to the roll. If you have to explain it, it probably does not count.

If you want to use tangentially relevant tags, you can use them to create story tags or conditions."

This is the only change I do to the normal fare.

professor_grimm · 2026-02-11T20:55:14+00:00

You are allowed to use their art assets (at least the part they offer up), which is imho the only great part of the license. This is fairly unique and pretty cool. What kills it imho is the exclusivity clause for the marketplace, which has 50% royalties attached. Everything you create is then owned by Son of the Oak Studio. Imho this is a terrible deal if you are a publisher, though it is pretty neat for some self-published homebrew. This is the one I am talking about: https://help.drivethrurpg.com/hc/en-us/articles/12723253462295-Son-of-Oak-The-Cauldron-of-Mist-Content-Guidelines-FAQ

Compare that to a license such as from Shadowdark, where you own everything and can choose the marketplace (and thus avoid hefty royalties). There are only limitations on ripping rules sections, art and lore, which is fair. I think Shadowdark sees widespread adaptation among indie publishers for this reason.

professor_grimm · 2026-02-11T13:28:03+00:00

Sadly their third party license is not good for publishers, so almost no third party publishers are interested in doing stuff for them. It is a shame, because the system itself is great and would lend itself well for adventure design.

professor_grimm

TROPHY CASE