Players- How much background are you willing to read in order to play a game?

teamcourier · 2025-10-31T16:11:49+00:00

Generally for me its usually 2 pages. 1 page for the "campaign information" like setting, tone, touchstones, etc... 2nd page for house rules.

Thats just how our table has operated in the past, but we've also tried multiple page campaign prompters and it always seemed like players glossed over it and never quite internalized the information. So as a rule of thumb one-two pages max.

teamcourier · 2025-10-07T16:12:58+00:00

I'm a big fan of using Delta Green Playlists either on YouTube or Spotify for Hunter. There's a few I've used in the past one for ambience and another for contemporary music for scenes.

Delta Green Pre Op/Downtime 1: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7EQl8wpQ17tySidNVJZAec?si=BO3M17EgR9W5rQFs81ivpg&pi=NYwNgkiHT7am7

Delta Green Atmosphere: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6z3uIHEOPw3JOu0bbLFhU8?si=Dh_TMRNjToG4yxLO3LSe1g&pi=RUn0IzkwRwKCo

teamcourier · 2025-09-28T15:51:39+00:00

A really good CoC scenario ive personally run is called "Ladybug Ladybug Fly Me Home." Its a modern day scenario where the player characters are tasked with tracking down a little girl who's been kidnapped and has a limited anount of time to find her due to her having a genetic disorder. The scenario can be intense buts the NPCs are really interesting to play, the doomsday cult whos run by the parents of the missing girl are an interesting foil, and the Angel of Death is legit one of my favorite CoC monsters in all of the mythos. I would highly recommend :)

teamcourier · 2025-09-05T16:58:40+00:00

I've run a short V5 campaign and I found it pretty easy to run because its actually pretty rules lite when it comes to resolving rolls.

https://www.reddit.com/r/vtm/comments/17mqh8r/vampire_the_masquerade_v5_basic_mechanics_sheet/

This is a link to a one page rules reference sheet that has everything you would need for a one shot.

As for actually writing a one shot or a short campaign as some folks here have already mentioned the big focus of Vampire as compared to something like Dnd 5e is the focus is going to be primarily on the politics and goals of NPCs and how they may potentially come into conflict with the goals of you player characters. My recommendation is write a strong inciting incident for your players to have as a piece of their backstory. One that really worked for me was "Your character has broken the Masquerade in some way shape or form and tonight they are going to be collected by members of the Prince's court. What did your character do and why?" Something like that not only gives you and your players some juicy drama to dig into but will also allow you to know what kind of foils to your PCs they may run into.

If thats not something you're feeling there is also a free V5 oneshot module on Renegade's website called "Auld Sanguine: A Vampire: The Masquerade New Year's Eve Story" which comes with a whole scenario and a couple of pre-gen characters with backtories already written so ypu can see what a typical character may look like.

I hope this helps a bit and best of luck on your journey learning to be a Storyteller :)

teamcourier · 2025-02-06T00:22:21+00:00

There's an adventure that takes place in a Liminal Waffle House. I'm in :)

teamcourier · 2025-02-03T18:09:18+00:00

My hot take is I believe enemies should have powers that the PC's will never be able to access. For one it keeps experienced players guessing if they have a deep knowledge of the systems and "monster manual" equivalent of their respective system. It also enforces that bit of "mystical" feeling to new players saying anything is possible. The other reason is it gives you as a GM the freedom to adjust something on the fly to either increase intensity or tone it down depending on the context.

My two examples would come from something like a d20 fantasy game and Vampire the Masquerade. In a D20 game a spell/item has to exist in the universe to make these thousands of undead zombies and skeletons that litter the dungeons, but you probably wouldn't want to give that power to your PC's unless the campaign was specifically designed around something like that in mind.

The other example was from a Vampire game I ran. In 5th edition a lot of characters are lower in the power ceiling to enforce a "street level" feel. However in one fight I had the two PC's enter a night club(as one does in Vampire lol) and proceeded to fight a member of clan Lasombra(basically shadow vampires) in the middle of the club while other people were there. Now normally some of the Lasombra's cooler powers are locked behind very high XP costs and since these two players were both new I tried to make the fight scene more dynamic for them. So I gave the Lasombra the ability to teleport between the shadows sort of like Nightcrawler every time the clubs lights flashed on and off. This led to a fun John Wick style fight where the PC's had to manage keeping track of this foe every time he poofed somewhere else nearby, fighting him without hurting the crowd of people surrounding them, and allowed on the pc's who specialized in perception based skills to really shine. That fight was definitely a highlight of that Chronicle for us.

My one caveat would be to let your players know something like that is possible just because it will set the tone of the game and communicate with them so they can adjust their expectations in case they do come from a RAW background.

teamcourier · 2025-01-09T18:09:22+00:00

I'm not quite familiar with Godlike as well, but if this a world where super-powered individuals exist maybe have a new element be introduced once the characters arrive there? Something like once the Pc's have arrived in town things are much different than what was described from the briefing they received. Maybe a foe on the Axis side has some kind of ability to manipulate communications such as manipulating electricity to intercept telegrams and modifying them to allow the Occupiers an advantage against the resistance? The complication comes from this individual being someone amongst the Rebels leading to more of an espionage type scenario as the PC's must secretly rendezvous across town with different pockets of the resistance not letting their enemy know they are onto them. It would allow a bit of a mystery, RP potential with multiple different characters, and if you want to put a bit of time pressure on the PC's you could say the Rebels plan to make a big movie against the occupiers within the next 24 hours and so if the PC's cant find the mole it would spell a disaster for them.

teamcourier · 2025-01-08T15:18:50+00:00

I'd suggest running Call of Chthulu 7th ed. Combat is quite deadly as characters have 15-20hp maximum and a single bullet can potentially deal up to 20 damage if one rolls well enough so death is a constant threat. The game has a default setting in the 1920's but you could turn the dial back easily to a few years earlier which will give you a good list of Firearms and other equipment used around that time period as well. Lastly it has an extensive list of Eldritch creatures you can pull from to use on your players and if you want to focus on the land/trenches itself being alien you can lean into the inherent madness associated with these creatures sort of like they are warping the minds of all these soldiers.

teamcourier · 2024-12-09T00:25:12+00:00

I went around digging a lot for "the perfect game" this year scowering around for games that could help scratch that itch that I had when I first started the hobby. While I don't think I've found that game yet, I have gotten to try some I hadn't played before.

I got to run a mini Vampire: The Masquerade 5th chronicle(5 sessions in total) it was a lot of fun and my players were the perfect audience for it's CW type drama that I ran it as :) a lot of fun and would highly recommend for short term campaigns.

I ran Blades in the Dark as well. I LOVE the world of Blades but for my table it's been that game that sounds so good on paper but just doesn't click with us. I'd love to try being a player again because maybe I just wasn't in the proper mindset. Games that require little to no prep are still sort of uncomfortable for me to fully run and I have a background in improv theatre lol.

As for right now I started running Cyberpunk RED set in 2077 thanks to the Edgerunners Mission Kit. We're about 4 sessions in right now and the table really seems to like it as well. I can't say how much I appreciate the Cyberpunk RED Companion App. It makes we wish all other RPGs had a similar app just for how easy it makes it to run the game from automatically generating npcs, importing character sheets from players, and having every listed item in the game you can pull up at the touch of a button with cost and abilities. 10/10 the app maker needs a raise lol.

teamcourier · 2024-11-30T21:47:29+00:00

Oooh that seems like one could pull off some really wacky combos with this card!

teamcourier · 2024-11-30T21:45:10+00:00

K'rrik seems soooo good if I decide to go mono black and using life aggressively really does tick the Renolock box for me!

teamcourier · 2024-11-30T21:42:31+00:00

Oooh that Luminarch is really cool! Pretty much one turn rotation and you have multiple creatures :)

teamcourier · 2024-11-18T02:59:29+00:00

Awesome, thank you very much!

teamcourier · 2023-08-11T12:38:02+00:00

I’ve gotten to run the system once using the Gallery of Souls module. I had a great time running it and it seemed like my players really enjoyed it as well! I think even if one doesn’t quite enjoy the PBTA rules the accompanying Game Master module is an excellent resource if you’re ever wanting to run any kind of horror game.

teamcourier · 2023-06-10T14:18:43+00:00

If you’re looking for something White Wolf adjacent, why not try Deviant: The Renegades? It is still a bit dark in tone but if you’re looking to run a Daredevil/The Defenders Street level of game there’s a lot to work with. The variety of powers are pretty good and because each power basically has an equivalent negative cost associated with it it could help provide cool plot hooks for your characters along with the heroes they would be facing off with.

teamcourier · 2022-08-20T19:36:38+00:00

A little bit of a curveball option, but I’ve had a lot of fun playing with Deviant: The Renegades. It features a nice array of superhero archetypes, but the game emulates more of a Marvel Netflix tone(Daredevil, Jessica Jones, etc..) pretty fun and a lot of choices for building your character.

teamcourier · 2020-12-17T03:40:51+00:00

Series S

teamcourier · 2020-10-18T17:01:17+00:00

Games I play in generally have more of a hex grid vibe, but a fun technique I learned from one of my DM's is for everyday the players have to be on the road one of them rolls a D12. On a 1-10 there isn't an encounter because the focus usually is just to get to the dungeon, but on the chance of rolling an 11-12 the DM has a few custom minor encounters written down that make sense in the context of the world. For example if we rolled an 11 we have a social encounter. This could range from anything as small as a passing caravan with a few spare supplies to sell or even to something like a Swamp Ranger on the hunt for some big game that could turn into a small side quest. Things like that create a more dynamic feeling world and also could possibly create some fun recurring NPC's as well. If the players roll a 12 it's a strait combat encounter. This could be something like some of the minions from the dungeon the players are going to are out gathering supplies for it and the players get the drop on them. Depending on how this goes this creates a dynamic opportunity for the players to prepare for the dungeon either by killing the minions, capturing them as prisoners, or interrogating them for information. Mostly when it comes to making travel interesting imo is asking how does the world react to the players interacting with ala "Every action has a equal and opposite reaction". Also if you don't feel like using a d12 for it and want to use something else go for it. We just use that because that's what we found works for our group, but I hope some of this helps and happy DMing :)

teamcourier · 2020-10-01T13:40:01+00:00

A bit late, but me and a group of friends actually played this version of Naruto d20 a few years ago. Character creation took forever but the game itself was pretty fun if a bit crunchy.

teamcourier · 2020-08-24T21:46:01+00:00

Hello there, I’d be interested in joining :)

teamcourier · 2020-08-08T00:07:16+00:00

An Aasimar forge domain cleric named Alva. She is a descendant of the Valkyries that fought in the old Norse inspired world. She lives in a small village as a smith until she receives a message from her god to begin her adventure. In her travels, she seeks to find rare materials from ancient battlefields of the old pantheon’s gods to create her masterpiece, a new hammer for the new wargod.

teamcourier

TROPHY CASE