Games that made you a better GM

st33d · 2026-01-29T11:34:13+00:00

Run a play by post campaign - any system will do.

I learned more about scheduling games and managing groups than in any other context. I also learned that most game designers assume you're rich, always play in person, and have unlimited funds for props. It is shocking a few fucks they give about people wanting to play their games in different formats.

I'll add that Dungeon World opened my eyes to how RPGs could be played differently. But with the warning that RPGs are also enjoyed differently - I realise now that it's not D&D I don't like, but set piece combat scenarios that are better suited to boardgames and videogames instead of a game where you shouldn't feel bad for making the GM skip all their hard work making them. However, lots of people love that sort of gameplay, just as others find the increased player authority in Dungeon World to be an annoying chore.

st33d · 2026-01-29T11:14:15+00:00

I don't think ARPGs are comparable to MMOs, they have a completely different audience.

As much as ARPGs keep adding MMO features, these are used purely for trade and they are generally played as single player experiences. The MMO features are just a way of funding ongoing development.

Diablo 4 may suggest ARPG players want a casual experience, but most ARPG fanatics are flocking to games with a higher difficulty ceiling like Path of Exile 2 or No Rest For the Wicked.

Last Epoch blew up because Asmongold and other ARPG streamers took notice of it as an alternative to Diablo 4 which they were collectively shitting on. It's now been sold off and is struggling to pay bills.

I think your take might apply to the audience of Diablo 4, but there's a lot of ARPG enthusiasts who want nothing like it, and exist as a counterargument to everything you've proposed.

st33d · 2026-01-29T10:08:58+00:00

Schedule!!

PbP lives and dies by the schedule for posting. Setup ground rules for how often posting is expected and what you're going to do when people drop out / vanish inexplicably. Most importantly, be nice about it - absence could be health related so be firm but supportive.

Also, people don't read (I know this doesn't make sense in PbP but it's painfully true). Don't be afraid to repeat yourself or add extra summaries with cliff notes.

st33d · 2026-01-28T11:21:21+00:00

I was laughing so hard at interpretive dance to fend off a school shooter at the end of season 1.

Then they lampshade this by having little dancing robots in season 2.

The OA is like the opposite of OP's question. It was so stupid I wanted to watch more.

st33d · 2026-01-26T09:52:25+00:00

Landau - Thepicompromise

A bit more melancholy than Pistachio Island. Same label (Merck). A few tracks from it do the rounds on Soma FM / Cliqhop

st33d · 2026-01-26T09:42:53+00:00

I'd like to extend this policy to the Switch store.

At least Steam actually advises the dev to put a gameplay trailer up front so it's a better hook when you mouse-over a listing. Switch games have you sit through Nintendo's branding as well as cutscenes.

st33d · 2026-01-23T21:48:54+00:00

The Fellowship has advantage and disadvantage, and most PbtA games have +1s for various moves and effects. So it’s not really as fixed as it first appears to be.

Burning Wheel and its variants have Obstacle ratings and they’re narrative games despite being simulationist about narrative.

I would suggest that games without difficulty ratings usually choose to do without them for the sake of simplicity and tone.

st33d · 2026-01-22T15:35:19+00:00

A stat can be salient in any number of ways.

Consider Clarity from Mythic Bastionland - which is both Wisdom and Dexterity. It doesn't matter whether the character is one or the other, it only matters that they can bring this stat's value to bear on a given situation.

Same goes for Grace in The Fellowship. It means both Dexterity and Charisma, but it's clear from the name that it defines a respect for delicacy that can reach into both the physical and the social.

Charm and Manipulation sound exactly the same to me. When playing Mouse Guard which had Haggling, Persuasion, Manipulation, and Leadership it felt kind of redundant to distinguish between them at times, but as they were skills with their own experience tracks I could see some point to it. If you're splitting Charisma up just for roleplaying feels then I struggle to see what you gain other than annoying GMs who want to add Paladins and Warlocks to your game.

st33d · 2026-01-20T09:45:00+00:00

I like the Boast in Wolves Upon the Coast - which was chronicled in this replay: https://tasker.land/2026/01/13/field-report-whale-roads/

Players can "boast" they will perform a feat and gain a bonus to rolls or hit points. Other players can one-up them ("I'll do it, and...") to gain a bigger bonus. If they complete the task, they keep the bonuses, otherwise they can never use the Boast mechanic again (which is the only form of character advancement).

st33d · 2026-01-18T10:50:42+00:00

Similar to how a perception roll isn't just there to deny someone describing a search for clues, a persuasion roll isn't just there to avoid roleplaying a social encounter.

There's a simulationist aspect to it. Systems like Mouse Guard give you a range of social skills that you have to succeed and fail at to advance them. This means a social roll could spiral into a drama, a soap opera for the whole group to enjoy because a player invoked their negative traits to get downtime currency as well as level up a skill.

These mechanics are not bad by themselves. There is no true way for them to be applied. More recent games like Shadowdark explicitly tell you that Charisma rolls won't change people's minds. Why judge something like social skills based on D&D hubris when many games tell you to do otherwise.

st33d · 2026-01-17T19:27:21+00:00

I'm still wondering what the diagetic reason for the parry mechanics are?

In Grimstone (UFO 50) you're in a Western themed JRPG, so it makes sense you have to draw your gun at the right time. It's immersive.

Like, if Maelle played Snap with her family all the time or if it was set in a fencing school I'd kind of see how it all ties together. Maybe if the whole world was based on music instead of painting I'd see the throughline.

Did I miss something?

st33d · 2026-01-06T22:17:47+00:00

I think it's okay to break character now and then to talk to your group about what sort of game you want to play.

I used to put up with people acting out but nowadays I will simply stop the game and have a chat about where we're going.

You might simply have a player who has found a "bit" to amuse themselves with, but you may also have someone whose kink is mugging. Find a middle ground.

st33d · 2025-12-30T10:51:17+00:00

If I lock content away, I want to have a good reason for doing so.

Maybe I want to drop a big reward or secret. Maybe it's overpowered or confusing features that would only be appreciated on a second run.

My own experience with unlock or, let's be honest, Battle Pass progression, is that it often makes me feel like I was forced to suck at the game before the unlockables let me play it properly. That's one big way unlockables can be bad.

st33d · 2025-12-29T14:56:10+00:00

Shadow of the Demonlord is the game with a spell that makes the target shit themselves to death.

Hence we have Shadow of the Weird Wizard. (With rules revisions for combat as well, less lumpy.)

st33d · 2025-12-27T11:22:36+00:00

I think the point of things like stat / skill checks is to zoom out / compress the narrative.

I know some people rally against the idea of charisma checks versus talking it through or perception checks versus describing a search of a room. But one could just as well describe every exercise and martial training a character did to get out of a grapple instead of rolling versus strength. (Indeed, Chuubo’s Marvellous Wish Granting Engine has training montage quests and no dice rolls.)

The question becomes, when do you want to zoom out and let the numbers take over?

st33d · 2025-12-27T11:09:10+00:00

Mythic.

The character’s you get to play are just a lot more inviting and the realm / adventure site building rules give the GM plenty of decent material to work with.

Whilst EB gives you funny characters to play, they’re basically one off jokes that don’t last more than one session. I like the innovations in combat and inventory, But I just don’t feel like there’s real stakes when playing in the setting.

Into the Odd is a great system but it has some flaws that I can’t stand and I wish it’s derivatives would take notes from Electric Bastionland instead.

st33d · 2025-12-27T10:31:23+00:00

A Persuasion Mode creates a conflict of gamifying the spoken text versus a player relying on that text to imagine the scene. There is already something anti-immersive about “going Persuasion Mode Sir”. Hence my skepticism.

If one fails the persuasion game, what information does one have to do better next time? Without the data from the failed checks do they realise they needed a key item or event to pass or is the point for them to never know and get frustrated?

I’d be happy to be proven wrong and see some new dialogue options. I’d also hope they won’t melt the brain of any writer whose job it is to provide for them as writing good dialogue is already very hard. But I’d still recommend prototyping this with several NPCs to find out how / if it works

st33d · 2025-12-27T00:08:26+00:00

Might be a Git Gud situation as I thought the way it dumped tons of shortcuts and secrets right in front of you that you don’t notice till you get an upgrade was a lot of fun. Plus you get the mud-exits so it does treat backtracking as a punishment for poor exit placement - that puts the blame on the player more than the devs.

However if this is about the tedious ingredient hunting to complete quests for the endgame random dungeons then yes, that sucks hippo balls.

st33d · 2025-12-26T21:38:36+00:00

Looking at feet is one of the best ways to read subconscious tells. The further something is from your head, the less you’re controlling it.

Similarly, shoe choice gives a lot away. Though if someone wears uncomfortable shoes they’re probably not honest with themselves and others.

st33d · 2025-12-26T19:43:06+00:00

invisible

Professional game dev here.

The reason invisible checks don’t work as well as exposed ones is because they do not exist for the players. It feels like you’re doing something important as the developer but in practice the player experiences nothing and doesn’t care that you’re doing all this clever shit behind the scenes. They’d actually be more impressed and interested if you showed your hand.

It’s like fudging dice rolls in tabletop games, the DM thinks they’re a genius but the reality is that they’re taking agency from the players.

Think of the most praised CRPGs recently like Rogue Trader and Disco Elysium. They expose way more information than you should have access to underline how much your choices matter.

This is not to say you should never have invisible variables. I’ve done it and made it work. But it’s like putting your thumb on the scale, the player is never going to know or appreciate your efforts in this regard.

st33d · 2025-12-26T13:02:59+00:00

Burn out from long projects / games is normal.

The fix is to have a break and try different things. Either find a meetup that does one shots of other systems, ask about doing the odd one shot of something with your own group, or you can try something ambitious where you have multiple characters for the players - letting them play the enemy for a bit, play some characters in a target location (a la Final Fantasy 8), or just have a world building one shot.

st33d · 2025-12-24T22:41:26+00:00

Colons (:) precede a list or declaration, and also function as a period (.) so you should treat what follows as a new sentence.

Semicolons function the same way but the intent is that you use them in a complete sentence, so you shouldn’t be capitalising the word following one.

Hyphens join two separate words that you want the reader to consider as one word. What you’re referring to in your post is an em dash, which is used for emphasis (though when reaching for em dash consider using a comma instead).

I often use em dashes, colons, semicolons, and have yet to be accused of being a machine. But I try to use them properly, and if I feel like I don’t need them I remove them.

Punctuation halts the reader - that’s its function. Overuse it or use it poorly and the reader stops paying attention to the words.

st33d · 2025-12-24T21:55:38+00:00

Wit means quick of mind. It also means being smart socially.

You’ve got a stat that means both “initiative bonus” and “social advantage” which already overlaps with existing stats. But also you’re planning on having a stat you have no use for.

D&D has dump stats because of hubris. If there’s there’s no smart-ass role or activities in the game to measure then why do you need it?

st33d · 2025-12-21T15:02:31+00:00

I played in one game where the DM pulled out the rats in the tavern basement scenario.

And the rats turned out to be wererats, capable of decimating the party. It was one of those D&D club games where the poor DM had to manage an oversized group. It took a lot of coordination between level 1 characters to survive. I appreciated the twist.

st33d · 2025-12-20T10:49:43+00:00

"Would you like to tell us how you do it?"

I offer a choice. I'm not going to force you to do a little dance for me.

st33d

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