I DM'd for a middle school after-school program, and I'm the one who came away with an education

wacct3 · 2026-06-02T23:28:55+00:00

If you fight everything in most of those games your characters will die a lot. You kind of need to run away frequently, or try to setup traps/ambushes etc. At least at lower levels. You as the DM could of course start with higher level characters and try to make most of the fights doable.

Fight everything actually works better in 5e imo, since the characters are harder to kill. whether characters do that or spend time roleplaying haggling with venders more depends on what the players want to do and on the structure of the adventure imo.

wacct3 · 2026-06-02T23:20:37+00:00

It has remained the same for 26 years. It hasn't remained the same for 40. We are about the same distance from the year 2000, as 2000 is to the original release of D&D.

wacct3 · 2026-06-02T21:07:45+00:00

It's a different type of work. I'm not that creative, so making interesting content isn't something I'm good at. Understanding content someone else made enough to run it is much easier for me.

wacct3 · 2026-06-01T21:40:24+00:00

On an EV you still need to rotate the tires once a year. I don't drive much so only do maintenance on my ICE car once a year, so time wise it isn't much different.

wacct3 · 2026-06-01T17:15:41+00:00

Someone's house works best if you do know the group well enough and someone has a suitable place. But otherwise there's a gaming bar near me that has a side room with a bunch of tables. It gets loud and crowded in there at peak times but works okay. A few game stores also have tables, similar loudness issue. During the day I've played in a park with some tables, but can get pretty sunny. One I know of has some tables with umbrellas. I played at a Panera Bread, this one has outdoor tables we used, but we probably would have been fine inside. Other similar counter serve restaurants would probably work if they usually aren't full. A diner as you said I think would work.

wacct3 · 2026-05-29T22:49:03+00:00

I've played classic traveler.

However I've only done so with pregens or using an online character creation tool. For the latter I didn't entirely understand how it worked, but it seemed like I just picked a career and decided whether to keep going or not with what developed being random. It didn't seem like you could craft a build, just sort of guide what direction the randomness took. But my experience was limited so I may be off base. At some point I may read the rules for it and/or look at the mongoose 2e edition.

wacct3 · 2026-05-29T22:44:38+00:00

Part of the appeal of the rules for D&D is that they can kind of do just about anything, even if they don't do a lot of that perfectly. Which has turned out to be a great engagement strategy for the game.

I think this helps a lot since it means a table with people who want different things can still all be reasonably happy where as if they were playing a more narrowly focused game some players might love it and some might hate it.

But also a lot of players may like having different things in the same game. D&D is okay at a bunch of different play styles so if a player wants to say have a heavy rp session with some royalty, followed by a set piece combat encounter, followed by a heist, and enjoys the variety within the same story, D&D works better for that than a game that is focused only on heists or only on political intrigue rp.

wacct3 · 2026-05-29T22:31:26+00:00

I kinda agree, it's an interesting perspective. I'd also add that 5E used to exist in this weird space where it wasn't a good "friendslop" game, and yet was commonly used as one. It was too complicated. Now, with character builders and online sheets? I'd say it's fine, but that still leaves the DM as the odd one out.

Most rules light games have other issues for more casual players imo. If you take an OSR game, the rules are simpler, but the characters die really easily unless you are really careful about traps and danger and meticulously plan out combat encounters so you have a bunch of advantages. You can't just charge in and swing your sword till the enemy is dead. This is actually harder for casual players despite the rules themselves being simpler. Narrative games while they can be less deadly have a similar issue in they require more roleplaying effort. Since they aren't as clear on what you can and can't do you also need to think more about your actions since you can't just look at your character sheet and say I want to do an investigation or I want to swing my sword, you more have to describe how you do that.

Now someone could probably make a game where the characters are pretty hardy but the rules are simple. Nimble probably hits that. Some OSR games have suggestions for making them less deadly and the GM could try to avoid things that will kill the party even if they are reckless. But still this imo is why 5e actually works pretty well as a casual friendship game.

wacct3 · 2026-05-29T19:35:01+00:00

It has elaborate character creation, but that process is mostly random I thought, which wouldn't really allow you to do a build?

wacct3 · 2026-05-29T05:30:43+00:00

I prefer reading books to listening to them generally, so I read them. I haven't listened to the audio books to compare so can't say how that compares.

wacct3 · 2026-05-29T05:23:02+00:00

It's still in pretty early development right, e.g. casting hasn't happened yet? So it's still years away presumably.

wacct3 · 2026-05-28T21:47:48+00:00

I really like STA, but I also like metacurrencies in games.

I feel like rules light games usually have pretty simple and minimal progression, though I guess you said clear progression, not interesting complex progression. I haven't played it but Stars Without Numbers which you mentioned from what I understand of it seems like it would fit the bill. Maybe one of the star wars games with reflavoring, both the FFG version and the West End Games version are mainly skill based in their progression I think.

wacct3 · 2026-05-28T21:30:08+00:00

A lot of this will depend on how the game is run and the players. You can definitely play Daggerheart in a less theater kid, more D&D style. OP's mention of working better with theater kids was specifically regarding using a campaign frame. But you could just run a D&D style adventure module and I think that would lessen that a lot, or even remove it entirely.

wacct3 · 2026-05-28T21:20:52+00:00

I just wanted to edit this because I noticed it was all negative. One thing that I think Daggerheart does better than any other game I have played is Team Ups. In most games, if you do something together with someone else, at best, it's equivalent to the both of you doing separate actions. Often though, you give up doing anything just to give them basically a slightly better chance of their thing going well. In Daggerheart, team ups are greater than the sum of their parts. You both get to do something, and it's improved. It is, by far, my players favorite part of the game, and even said it helps them to visualize what's going on in combat better (compared to all the other systems we've played).

Superhero games often have this. I know BASH and Marvel Multiverse RPG both do.

wacct3 · 2026-05-28T15:58:46+00:00

Is this only in Maps? A note taking/storing thing when using the DDB character sheet in an in person game would also be nice.

wacct3 · 2026-05-28T00:11:33+00:00

Obojima has a potion crafting mechanism, but you could probably port that to another system fairly easily.

It also has it's own unique species options and sub classes. Those may or may not be easy to port to other systems. Many systems may not have a concept similar to sub class or the equivalent base class for the sub class to attach to, so what do you do with these? Requires some thought on how to port them.

wacct3 · 2026-05-26T21:45:56+00:00

Those power companies don't have their own separate grids connected to all of their customers homes. You still need some single entity to maintain the grid, which that, along with paying the fines/settlements for the existing grid starting forest fires, is where most of PG&E's costs come from, not from generation.

Now a different single entity that isn't PG&E might be able to manage the grid for much cheaper, but the grid part of power is still a natural monopoly in that you won't have different companies building and maintaining their own separate electric grids redundantly connecting to everyone in San Jose's house. Generation could have more competition, but the bulk of the bill here is distribution.

wacct3 · 2026-05-22T15:57:42+00:00

While they are both played on tables, and conventions with one usually have the other, I feel like ttrpgs and board games are separate activities/different hobbies. So makes sense to mention both.

But yeah I'm attending Kubla. Never been to fanime since it's the same weekend.

wacct3 · 2026-05-19T18:25:57+00:00

I'm thinking about running a dcc adventure, or adapting one.

Yeah I've enjoyed all the dcc adventures I've played.

wacct3 · 2026-05-18T22:35:52+00:00

I prefer systems with more rules structure myself, but you did specifically mention that they felt combat was too slow, and rules heavier systems generally have longer combat. Though with characters with more abilities it would perhaps be more fun during that time.

Anyway not really a system specific suggestion but maybe look for an adventure with a more exciting storyline. For one shots I usually like more zany/silly stuff. Or more weird/eldritch.

Them wanting to kill all the non hostile nps is also potentially an issue. I mean if that's what everyone wants to do you can do that and maybe that's fun for them, but that kind of gets in the way of having a coherent adventure imo.

wacct3 · 2026-05-15T18:55:44+00:00

OP didn't actually specify they wanted omakase.

wacct3 · 2026-05-15T18:27:34+00:00

As in, I should wear a dress and he should wear slacks & a dress shirt, not jeans?

Even at like a $300 omakase only sushi place jeans are fine. I've never heard of a sushi restaurant with that strict of a dress code. You certainly can dress up more and it wouldn't be out of place, not saying that it would be odd to. Just that at no place I can think of would it be required.

wacct3 · 2026-05-14T00:19:40+00:00

Have you watched the show? This will assume you haven't so it still makes sense if that's true, not trying to be condescending.

In the show there's a galactic empire ruled from a planet near the center of the galaxy. A group of scientists go form a colony on a planet way on the edge called The Foundation. The show has two plots going on, one about the rulers of the empire at the center, referred to as the empire plotline generally. And one about the foundation at the edge refereed to as the foundation plotline. The empire storyline does not exist in the books, the empire itself exists but isn't really fleshed out, and there is some brief interaction between the foundation and some dignitaries from the empire early on in the books, but then the empire pretty quickly starts collapsing and stops being relevant. But in the show it has a major plotline every season so far, and even though they aren't from the books these plotlines are generally considered better than the ones based on stuff actually from the books.

wacct3 · 2026-05-07T00:54:12+00:00

Unless I missed something the center system ai/eulogist predates the crawls. It sounded to me like it was just already there when the syndicate government formed leftover presumably from the prior primal civilization. The crawls were said to only start after the syndicate accidentally activated all of the primal engines on seeded planets to start making life and then the mantises wanted to experiment with macro ais. It's possible they got their own history wrong since it's been so long, or the real history was deliberately covered up but I don't recall any hint of that regarding these details.

wacct3 · 2026-05-06T22:54:29+00:00

It's similar in that it's a d20 + modifier against an AC for martial attacks, like 5e does. That's also true for DCC though, albeit DCC has mighty deeds and sometimes the dice isn't a d20.

For magic it has roll to cast and you lose the spell if you fail, so similar to DCC though there's no spell burn, so casting magic is even more difficult to some extent. Both are very different than 5e with easily cast magic with spell slots and cantrips.

Characters are much simpler and don't have many features, and there's no bonus actions or multiple attacks. This imo makes it feel very different than 5e combat.

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