Obsidian is a must have.

Since sessions are frequently run over Discord, I use HammerTime to make sure everyone is seeing the same time being displayed.

I’ve been running Lancer for over a year, so all my tools are very particular in their uses. Lancer Map Creation Tool has been extremely handy in, well, creating maps and RetrogradeMinis in making up PC and NPC tokens. I also use this Pixel Art Furniture Pack for human-sized encounters, as its the only one I know that’s more focused on modern aesthetics instead of vaguely medieval fantasy.

Never heard of that Map Editor before, I’ll give it a look, thanks for the rec.

Cool, but can your printer do this?

Cascades and unravel the fabric of space and time, its unclear what was supposed to happen

Alternative that one of my pilots shared the other day

They named the mech part “cockpit” and we’re the freaks? What is it for, if not for filth

Also this is great after my lancer session today

Its a lot of work to deal with it, but in theory I’m a huge fan of Avatar Legends’ Principles system. Basically, every playbook has an internal struggle between to extremes - compared to an Yin/Yang - and work to find their own Balance in that. The Center of this Balance starts on 0, but over the course of the game players will move towards one side or the other, to a max of +3/-3 (moving positively towards one side means you’re moving negatively towards the other)

The Guardian, for example, struggles between Self-Reliance Vs. Trust; They want to protect others not just to keep them safe, but also because they don’t believe they’re capable of doing so. A Guardian shifting towards Self-Reliance is more cynical, while a Guardian shifting towards Trust will rely on their companions more often.

Aside from the narrative meaning, the Balance can be used for rolls; if a PC performs an action in accord to their Principles - say, the Guardian attempting to Comfort someone not out of sympathy, but because they believe they’re the only ones capable of doing it - they would roll with that Principle instead of the Attribute that the Move requires. That way, if your Self-Reliance is higher than the Attribute, it might be a good idea to pitch the scene in that way.

Characters can also be called out on acting/not acting according to their Principles, or Lose their Balance (basically have a mental breakdown) if it goes past one of the extremes.

Unless Sensor Range is 5

To my knowledge, Burned Over is the PG-13 version that was made after 2e, but I might have gotten the order of release wrong

Which is very amusing, because a lot of PbtA games don’t really follow Apocalypse World that closely! Its a game that has intricate mechanics for driving and combat, not to mention running gangs/cults and being fairly deadly.

2e also has sex moves, which not a lot of people are fond of (and Burned Over/3e made off with those)

Lancer memes :3

This core power can only be used if the Pilot keeps the chastity cage on until the end of the sequence

There’s no easy way out of this, and the older your playerbase gets, the more often it’ll happen.

Having more players can give you leeway - I prefer to get a minimum of 4 in possible campaigns to be able to both split tasks and coordinate in case of missing people.

But the key aspect, and the one that will be harder to manage, is to not have a main character; Its easier said than done, as in theory all your players should be main characters, but if you find that a plot point hinges too much on a single person - your example of the King demanding an Orb that’s carried by a PC sounds like a key example - then it might be time to reevaluate how you’re treating everyone else.

If all your players have spinning plates, someone missing a session will be a lesser deal - all you have to do is go balance another event of the story with the others. But, again, like I’ve said - easier in theory.

Most times I see “Great D&D ideas” posts are scenarios better suited for any game that’s not D&D

This would be great in a more free-form, narrative TTRPG

Thanks for sharing

I’ve mostly run Lancer games since last year, so my go-to tools were Owlbear Rodeo VTT and WitchDice for rolls, and recently upgraded to Foundry. However, when it comes to Voice Chat, we were still using Discord.

With the recent news, I’ve been considering moving our channel to Revolt and testing out how its Voice Chat works, even if its not as good as Discord.

I read them as a couple, though now I’m not sure the artist intended that way

Amazing!

“If you want to make a racist and misogynistic game, at least make it fun” - Gygax, probably

My issue with horny RPGs is that if you can find people to play with that are into whatever kink the book is catering to, why would you bother to play at all? Just have sex.

Because the point is role playing. You might as well ask what’s the point of any kink, fetish or sexual situation that isn’t two married adults having sex for the purpose of procreation. Building up trust and eroticism is the point for a lot of people, even in plain porn¹

¹all porn media has a story, even if people like to joke that its pointless, but that’s a bigger topic for a very different conversation

I did a read on FATAL’s book in a Discord VC not long ago, and it just keeps going and going and going and going…the jokes about rolling for anal circumference actually do it justice. Would be hell to play, though, there’s definitely better horny RPGs to try any RPG is a horny RPG if you try hard enough

On an actual comment, mom could really be player 4 there, they clearly need someone to tank those hits

“Don’t split the party” never felt like an axiom to me, the more appropriate guideline is knowing when and for how long to shine a spotlight in player’s affairs, but also to maintain a singular objective across the party in your particular narrative. A lot of my time playing (outside of combat) has been with a split party, and with my current Lancer campaign that I’ve been running for a few months the players are also comfortable trying things at their own pace.

It helps to have a Common Objective that all PCs share and want to fulfill, so the “main” missions of the narrative will involve all of them together, but any kind of bonding scenes, Downtime, narrative hangouts and such, don’t necessarily need to have everyone together. You still should prod other characters about their thoughts on [X]'s PC idea/action/feelings, and give them a chance to intercede. Also when [X] talks about doing something, ask if they don’t want to take someone together - or ask someone if they don’t want to join.

Relationships between PCs will grow organically, so over time they’ll have more interests and goals in common, giving you ammo for any time they want to do something. If two players have a shared specialty and one of them wants to act on that, ask the other what they think. If two players share a hobby, and one of them want to make a show of it, ask the other player for their opinion.