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

Moreover, i would be more interested in it actually getting ongoing support/supplementation/etc.

IMO, even though, it would be great, it would be unlikely. Indie Rpg tends to (at best) barely break even on core books, and loose money on source books.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing to not have source book contradicting your house rules/lore, but can be also confusing for many people.

I almost never use battlemaps and when I do, it’s more a way to provide some decorum and structure informations rather than as a tool for battle. I don’t really get how so many people online are obsessed by the idea of battlemap. Looks like kids this days have it too easy and didn’t started playing at the time where RPG magazine was publishing 3 scenario a month, with sometimes one for a game they play, and had to do without map in general.

A few idea pointers,

• I played Ryutama only once, but remember their concept of battle egg which just tell whether you’re in contact, second-line, ranged distance or away using a few circle. Nobody care about your exact distance, but just use some adjective to describe your position.

• As usual, PBTA and forged in the dark, can use consequences to generate danger, like you open a chest but choose one : Someone has seen you/ A trap trips/ Move to a worse position

• Even in traditional game, you can describe the dungeon with a few adjectives, and by thinking what it’s for and answer the players question when they ask-it rather than in advance: Can we enter by the sewage ? Well there is a garnison in this castle, it’s near a river, people need to piss and shit, so most-likely there is a pipe going directly to the river, let’s say yes. However people are not stupid so there is some metal bar to block the access, the player can try to break them works as well as doing a map and thinking about the 5 possible way to enter while the player will use only one.

I’ve always been joking about playing an “orc poet” in Shadowrun as a way to do something totally sub optimal :) TIL that you can also play orc in D&D. And cute orcs can definitely change the world building

Now, there is room a plot-twist, where the PC hear about a monster looking for healing potion for his brother, and who murdered their father. Monsters have feeling too, and adventurer are awful murderers

Assuming that their victim will seek for revenge and that authorities will hunt them is a good way to force murder hoboes to calm down

This is making planning ever more complicated, I try to have 4 or 5 player, so the game can run with 1 or even two player not showing. Sure if someone just don’t show on a regular basis, I’ll re open her place to a new player. But people are abroad for work, have to deal with their kids, or have a peak of work, they let us know, and we find an in game reason for their character so not be available and the game runs fine.

Even when the GM miss, we all have ready to play one shots lying on our computers, so not that of a big deal

Player cancelling aren’t that of a big deal comparing to GM cancelling. In the first case you keep playing while shit talking about Bob, in the other, you have to change your plan for the evening

It’s a nice idea, human are way more frightening than monsters. They’re smart have their own agenda, and will use violence to “defend themselves”

I’ve run a two rivalling PC party table, pretty fun, but more workload for the GM and less game for each player party.

Indeed, practice any sport, you have like 2h training twice a week, add commute and shower and sometimes third half time at the bar, the session becomes a 3h or more activity.

I used to play a lot, nowadays, I rely on shorter campaign, they’re fun too

Which is technically the whole point of an ambush.

However, for the players it means that when not expecting a combat, (tavern, camp) they don’t have to carry 15kg of metal, without blocking the other players every time someone needs armoured fighters

Iam right back from a larp. But players from a mercenaries company wearing full plates are looking for squire officially so people can discover that playstyle without buying a full plate armour. Unofficially, because with help, they can put their armour in less than 5 minutes instead of 30. So having squires would mean they can remove their armour without needing a lot of time to put it back

Ah the good old "don’t go there, it’s dangerout* finishing in TPK

Well, Remember why boomer are so conservatives ? Because they were young in the 70’s where these things were “normal”.

RPG needed years to stop being a boys club, and if you go to wargaming and video-game it’s even worse. Add that many of us, are at least “socially awkward”. So not surprising that Gigax was sexist and provocative.

If you look at some old D&D imagery, it was half naked sexy girls prisoner in a dungeon, which was perfect to appeal the uncomfortable teen audience.

Actually, I am not sure which game really brought women to RPG, feel like the LARP scene have always been way more feminine than the RPG one. But it may be my impression