With any VTT (including obsolete rolisteam), you can load an image as a map, and set up some fog of War.

No need to rebuy a dedicated module. Vanilla roll 20 does it

I am a bit surprised by the premise. Indeed D&D misses a good faction play, but it’s one RPG among thousands of others.

Many if not most RPG do have faction/reputation mechanics. Vampire or L5R comes immediately to my mind. Playing any kind of cyberpunk game involve a form of faction as you need to manage not being arrested by cops or corpo, if you move to the 2010’s Eclipse phase has this pretty interesting reputation economics, and then Blade in the dark came with fun faction/downtime rule at the point for some players it’s mostly a faction management game

Rolisteam was very popular in the pre-roll-20 era, let’s say 2008-2012, I used it a lot at the time, it was way easier to use than maptool.

it still has the essential function for a VTT : share a whiteboard or a map, move a token on-it, have common and private text-chat, roll dices However, it’s a bit more complex to set-up than a centralized app (open some port on your router), the character sheet manager is complex (not that it’s easy on roll-20 but you’ll find sheet for most games)

Life pro tip,

Get a reccurent planning, eg every second Wednesday from 19 to 23or first Saturday from 14 to dawn ., and play with missing players. Solve most of the planning issues

Eclipse phase has a pretty cool reputation economy. You don’t use money but network and reputation to get things (mostly info and access to fablab, it’s a post abundance economic)

Never heard the : Psychotronic term. But all of these are solid advices, that are a big part of modern RPG. Even for a reasonable campaign length. I am surprised that they even still need to be said. Keep the setting consistent (and time), have the player driving the action, and let the player action have consequences. I am less fan of the multiple character, but if even Blades in the Dark and adjacent games push for it, I would see-it as a good practice.

I am split on that one.

A known setting an do a lot for engaging with the player (the cliché about the Vampire players having long discussion about the lore), and the setting is definitely a reason why i would join a game over another, if I see a GM promoting a collective setting creation I wouldn’t apply for that game.

However, even in rigid setting, there is a lot of room for player brought element. So you’re a Noble ? What does your fief look-like. So you’re a robber ? How do you sell your loot ?, what does your favourite tavern look like which ease the GM job and gives players some control on the game world.

So While I don’t agree with Build the whole setting together, I definitely expect the players to bring their own elements to the table

Take your time, do not show anything supernatural or gore ab initio. Start with a very mundane plot, the first victim is a lawyer who has tie with the mafia, and an affair. So at first something banal and ordinary. Then add minor uncanny elements, that and drift very slowly to the supernatural mystery.

If everyone believes ab initio that there is supernatural and monsters, you’re not anymore in the fantastic/horror genre

Do people really use these kind of sound board for their game ?

A part of me is like Cool I need that and a part of me is more like this is a big immersion killer so curious to get feedback of people who would use that. Is it just a fun stuff for the Lol ? or can you use SFX on a way which bring something to the game ?

Give them what they want, against an eternity of slavery and suffering. Looks like a nice final episode for a campaign

You should cross post to !forumlibre@jlai.lu I believe some francophones would enjoy that one

I don’t get group who can’t play when one player it missing. We all know that life happens. If a player miss, we play without them, if she GM miss, we do a one shot

Might be worth checking !thelyricsgame@lemmy.ca if you like that kind of puns/images/challenges

IMO, the big American bias in heroic fantasy RPG including D&D is how empty (most) settings are. If you travel (nowadays by car) in rural Europe, you’d find village every 5-10km, turns out that people walking to their field don’t like to spend more than 1h commuting. While on some high fantasy map, you have like 3 day of walk through a dangerous forest, or an endless plain without much settlements.

Also it’s worth mentioning that many European major roads/highway have been built at first by the Roman, and have been modernized through history. So again, middle age wasn’t as empty, salvage as many D&D settings. Which indeed looks more like frontier era US.

A lot of pretty classic but good advise, There is already a discussion on PvP, but here are two cool ones

Don’t overprepare. I have an inexpensive egg timer. My partner hates its ticking sound. So I use a watch instead. 30 minutes for a session. That’s how much I give myself.

That one is the biggest killer, beginner GM carefully think about tonight tavern, the innkeeper has a name and a description, the bard is going to tell a story about missing kids, there is even a menu for the night. Except that the PC are like There something weird in that town, May-be their food in poisonous we shouldn’t stay too long in the tavern, you’re right let’s camp in the wood and keep watch Tons of stuff prepared by the GM end-up in the garbage (Or for another session). So keep an outline, and as the author said, everything is a bonus.

Keep the game running and review rules after.

Looks like one of the most basic advice. May-be you forgot about how black-smithing works (To take the kind of rules you won’t use any time). But at the end, just find an appropriate skill/mechanics and problem is solved. May-be you missed a point and were too nice/harsh, but at least you didn’t spend 15 minutes re-reading a rules.

Be consistent and predictable.

This is IMO the best way to fix 90% of game planning problem, session occurs at a fixed date, not matter who’s there. Worst case, you do a board game, or have a drink. but if you wait for everyone to be available, you won’t play much

Nice, Missed the previous episode, I tend to like when the PC find out they put themselves in a political mess by messing with the wrong person, suddently the game prep becomes so All these persons hate you, you’re remaining friends start to doubt, and both the city guards and assassins guild wants you, what do you do?

And indeed, in general sitting down crying and doing nothing isn’t a solution

10 years? , on average, I change game yearly

Eclipse phase does even better

You wake up in a resleeve pod, you start to slowly get the feel of your new body, you’re a thin girl with butterfly wing? Looks cool you never got used to the smell of that Gorilla hybrid morph you used before. Looking at your arm you see a large tattoo Wang body rental and start to think about how the triad will make you pay while wondering what you do here. You’re muse tells you that they restored a backup from last month, as you&ve been missing for over 2 weeks.

In EP, a TPK isn’t the end, but the start

Sometimes, especially in fun one-shot I prepare pretty wild pre-gen, and always think I hope a therapist won’t read these characters :)

This is a classic issue on world building, you plan a whole and dangerous continent, but moving the PC means loosing reccurent NPCs and track of the ongoing conflict where PC are involved.

So you end up focusing on one city and it’s surrounding