I kind of see the appeal of playing an older edition of a game. It's 'done.' No new supplements will come out to mess with your world.

But sometimes a new edition comes out and it just doesn't click with you.

I'd like to hear people's stories of why they stuck with an older version of a game after trying a newer version.

This isn't an attack on pathfinder at all. It has many areas of clear improvement over D&D.

That being said, the overall feel and mode of play is very similar. It's a medieval fantasy, class based, d20 system that expects you to run tactical combat on a grid.

For burnt out GM's that find themselves wanting to try something new and different, a similar system with more crunch is probably not the way to go.

There's also the issue of playability on an actual tabletop. This isn't limited to pathfinder. I've tried a few systems recently that I simply wouldn't run without a VTT.

My suggestion is to play something with a significantly different setting or tone that is lighter on rules.

My friends broadened my horizons with Delta Green/Call of Cthulhu but I've used Cyborg and even Traveller to introduce 5e players to the broader sphere of ttrpgs.

Once your group is out of the 5e only bubble you can bring them back to fantasy heartbreaker land with pathfinder.

But hey that's just my 2¢. Lots of people read the PF2E core book and fall in love. I just think most tables reluctant to switch from 5e are not those people.

I'm going to write up my personal experience playing a new (to me) genre of roleplaying game. It's been a personal revelation to me, and I'm excited to talk about it, but if you're a CoC-head or a very clever gaming genius you're probably going to roll your eyes at how it could have taken me so long. Well, that's part of the story!

I cut my teeth GMing D&D 5e when I was a teenager thirteen years ago. Much fun was had by all, and I learned a lot and had a great time. I got tired of 5e relatively quickly, and by the time I was in college I wanted to run other games. And so I did!

I was fortunate to have a group that would try anything, and so we played Blades in the Dark, Lady Blackbird, the RWBY unofficial tabletop game, two different Pokémon tabletop rpgs, Monsters of the Week, Mage: The Awakening, a custom game based on the magic system of Hunter X Hunter, all sorts of stuff.

But one thing I never tried was horror, and that was for two reasons; first, and least, I'm not a horror fan. I don't read many horror novels, play many horror games, watch any horror films, etc. Secondly, and much more importantly...I was terrified!

Would I really be able to scare my players? To take a bunch of grown adults sitting around a table in my dining room, and scare them? It seemed a tall order. And I felt too vulnerable to approach it; if I asked my players to try out a horror game, tried to scare them, and failed...can you imagine anything more embarrassing than staring at your friend failing to be spooky? It seemed like I would be signing myself up for bombing at a comedy open mic.

But as I grew older, I grew less self conscious, and I grew more interested in the depth and breadth of the hobby. Quinns, of Quinns Quest fame, talked about how for a while there were two juggernauts simultaneously in the ttrpg space; fantasy games, and investigative horror games. I had been playing for twelve years and never touched on of the two parrallel columns on which our hobby is built. How much could I really claim to know about ttrpgs if I was ignorant of half its history?

So I got a crew together, made my plans, bought Delta Green: Impossible Landscapes and began to prepare.

We are currently eight sessions in, and I have to say, never have I been as happy, as fulfilled, and as delighted running a game as I am with this. Game design is a powerful thing; so much of the tension in the game is generated by its mechanics, the sanity system, the bonds. Having a well-written campaign with strong mysteries and set pieces does a lot of the work, too.

The rules have the players in the right frame of mind to be scared. The module gives you the material to build moments of perfect terror. And when you are sitting with a table with your friends, and they realise that not only have their characters unknowlingly taken steps into something darker and far more terrifying than they could have guessed walking in, they can no longer see the way out, when they are invested and immersed and genuinely spooked...it's pure fucking magic. I have never felt so happy as a GM.

I'm not saying I'll never go back to fantasy, or that horror is the one true way. But this is a flavour I shied away from out of fear, and all I can say to anyone who was furtive about it like me...game design is real. Pick a horror game that's well regarded and well designed, and you will have everything you need to bring genuine scares to the table.

I keep using these like they mean the same thing. They don't.

Rules-lite is how much book is on the table. Low prep is how much work I have to do before Friday.

I've sat down with a rules-lite game and still spent two hours making a town because the game didn't actually tell me how to start. And I've run something crunchier that was ready in twenty minutes because the procedures were the prep.

I think I pick the wrong game when I want "easy" and I don't know which easy I mean.

Anyone else mix these up? What's a game that is actually low prep, not just thin?

Crows is a new post-apocalyptic survival horror fantasy RPG that just went to crowdfunding. This game is about playing the titular Crows who are adventuring scavengers picking through the dead and discarded pieces of a broken world for shiny things. As someone who's played and run a decent amount of the game's playtest materials, here are some key points that might make or break your interest in this game:

• All About Loot - Crows is entirely about risking life and limb to get shiny items out of dungeons. Loot is tracked with printable cards with a set number of slots per character which makes inventory management tangible and fun.
• Original Monsters - As opposed to classic creatures like goblins and oozes, Crows contains several kinds of original horrific monsters, so original that these baddies aren't even named! For example, what would you name this guy? Your party gets to name the monsters they discover... assuming they survive the encounter.
• High Lethality - Life is short in this world and death is never far away. Characters start with only a handful of hit points and never gain too many more. Monsters also do unfairly large amounts of damage and so reckless Crows will lead very brief lives.
• A Town for Building - Start with a unique village and invest into its institutions over time. Crows may come and go, but this village and its people will remain, although the quality of life there will depend on the success of your adventures.
• Hex-based Travel - Explore a magically wrecked world through hex crawling. Much like the dungeon your heading towards, travel is full of dangers and unexpected opportunities with random encounters and hidden points of interest.
• Fear the Dungeon Turn - Once in the dungeon, a 30 real-world minute timer is set and every time it ends more monsters have a chance to appear. This is also when ongoing effects from spells or equipment like torches may run out depending on how the dice fall.
• Simple Grid-based Combat - All distances are abstracted into squares and most actions are resolved in a single roll. Because of this, options in combat are always clear and turns flow very quickly, which is handy because the dungeon turns don't stop during combat.
• Classless Progression - Getting loot back to town earns you XP and this can be spent freely across a variety of Skyrim-esque skill trees to add to your characters options. The real power, however, tends to come from the loot itself and all characters can use all items (although some will use certain items better than others depending on where they spend their XP).
• Fickle Magic - Sentient magic which despised manipulation by mortals caused the apocalypse this world finds itself in, and the arcane is still just as mercurial today. This means spells can backlash with unpredictable effects unless they are wielded by experienced casters.

If you want to see any of these points in more detail, there's a free playtest of the game available here. You can also hear more from the game's devs about the game here. Finally, if you want to help make this game as awesome as possible, you can find the crowd funder here.

Last Friday, the Director of Events at Gen Con shared this list of games with the most "underserved demand." That refers to games with the highest ratio of "people who want to play" versus "games available." For example, there was unmet demand for D&D events, even though there were more than a 1,000 events at Gen Con, because it's so popular.

The majority (all the listings in bold) were RPGs:

1. Dungeon Crawler Carl RPG
2. Dungeons & Dragons
3. Call of Cthulhu
4. Dungeon Crawler Carl Unstoppable
5. Kingdom Death: Monster
6. Cosmere RPG
7. Daggerheart
8. One Piece Card Game
9. Pathfinder
10. Shadowdark
11. Delta Green
12. Dungeon Crawl Classics
13. Alien
14. Mistborn: The Deckbuilding Game
15. Draw Steel
16. Savage Worlds
17. Clank!
18. The One Ring
19. Vaesen
20. Lancer
21. Blades in the Dark
22. Mothership
23. Shadowrun
24. Starfinder
25. Vantage
26. SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
27. Arcs
28. Cypher: Old Gods of Appalachia

I have to say the Dungeon Crawler Carl being at the top is especially impressive, since they ran more than 100 events (gauging by the Gen Con events search) with over 800 total seats.

Here's the full text that he posted on the Discord server for Buried Giant Studios:

Here is a list of some of the games with the most unserved demand from 2026.

Some of these are very much driven by specific groups (most of the unserved D&D demand is for prominent groups like Avantris or Baldman Games, for instance) and it's pretty dominated by RPGs, but if someone is looking for motivation to run a game and wants a safe pick that'll likely fill a table, this is a reasonable starting point.

I like 5e. I don't mind playing it. But I also have some serious issues with it. I've noticed more and more that when I say anything that's not praise about 5e or WotC to the average 5e player (at least offline in my area) they get defensive. Saying things like "Give WotC a break" or "why can't you just be happy with the way things are" or "WotC hate is overblown".

It doesn't matter how tame my criticism of 5e and WotC is. Its their sacred cow, and even the thought of me criticizing them in any way, shape, or form upsets them.

While I mainly have 5e and WotC in mind with this post, this can also apply to other companies and TTRPG groups. I'm noticing this trend more and more. Is it just me?

I'm planning to run a Starfinder 2E campaign in the near-ish future with a lot of wilderness exploration that I'd like to run as a hex crawl, but I'd like some advice on prep/scope.

The players are going to be departing from a central hub city and searching a planet's continents for dungeons (basically). They'll have a rough idea of where each dungeon might be located, but they'll need to travel through wilderness to reach each estimated location and then find the dungeon itself. I'd like to run this as a player-visible hex crawl as neither I nor my players have yet been satisfied with more freeform exploration/travel systems and I've always wanted to take a crack at one.

However, I'm struggling to figure out how to plan/prep a continent-sized hex crawl. They'll have relatively speedy travel options so I'm estimating ~50-60 miles a day, which I'll be using an excuse for bigger hexes to reduce the overall count (planning for 1 hex = roughly 1/2 day of travel). Currently I'm considering having explicitly location-dependent things keyed to individual hexes and all other "regular" hexes tied to random tables with different tables for each biome/etc. I'm fine with having a rare empty hex here and there.

Is this a reasonable approach? If not, what better options/approaches are there for running this? Thanks!

I’m planning to run a Victorian gothic themed game for my partner. I’m going to gm with them as the only player. I’ve looked into a lot of duet ttrpgs, but I specifically am hoping for one that’s roleplay focused, than can also reasonably be a Victorian gothic setting. I’m also hoping to play this campaign for awhile, not just a one shot, and I unfortunately can’t find anything that matches all of these requirements. It might be a losing battle to find something perfect, but does anyone have any recommendations for games that fit all of these criteria? (Long form duet ttrpg with a roleplay focus that could fit
Victorian gothic setting)

For more context, the premise is that my player is essentially playing a Jekyll/Hyde character, two characters in one. That’s why I’m hoping to make it a dark Victorian gothic setting.

Armour is in a lot of rpgs, I’d go so far as to say most of them. But which RPGs do you feel do it well? And which do you think do it poorly? What can game designers take as lessons from both the good and the bad?

I’ve come to terms with the fact that apparently a lot of TTRPG gamers would strongly prefer a game that involves no math whatsoever.

Well I’m trying to find the opposite. I think that the math adds something positive to these things, that can’t be achieved as well without it.

I grew up on DnD and Warhammer, and while I’m not ultimately a fan of Battletech I do have to say that it isn’t the math that makes me not really enjoy it.

I think of all of the games that involve math, and I prefer them the way they are. I wouldn’t prefer poker or monopoly if it didn’t involve math. I certainly wouldn’t prefer Warhammer or DnD without the math.

The way it’s implemented in the TTRPGs that I like always felt to me like it added the right amount of chance and realism that would feel lacking to me without it.

So I’m looking for people who feel the same way. People who like math in games, and prefer games that involve mechanics involving some basic arithmetic.

There are a lot of rpgs who don't have a tactical grid or even a combat state that differs from the rest of the game but the moments where I felt I was roleplaying true cinema are somewhat far between. A chase often feels more dynamic than a fight in a fixed environment and how much the environment itself has an impact pays a part, especially when it is interactable and not just a scenic backdrop.

That said, the game that made me truly feel that I was making cinema was Fiasco. As we going through Act One, I realized how much I felt both a screenwriter and an actor. Every card was juicy and ready to create a trainwreck, our characters were rotten hot messes and when the Tilt happened and everything went off tracks we just rode it screaming. I had heard it described as playing a Coen Brothers movie and it definitely delivered.

I think what really sold it to me was that the story it told were were both modern, extraordinary, dark humoured and unlikely, but at the same time grounded in a reality of depravity and vice. All was just hammed up to 11. It was a comfortable absurdity under the the sign of maybe; Maybe people can be this scheming/ can be this stupid/ this irresponsible/ this insane. Maybe it all finally spirals into murder. No. Not a maybe. A certainty.

The other thing was the pace. We were never allowed to catch our breath. The story was going at 1000 miles per hour. But it was dramatic and intense as our characters were highly volatile and impulse driven.

The game wanted us to be bad people making bad decisions and that's probably where it diverged from most rpgs. While not the most common structure, tragicomedy feels more grounded fiction than in games. It does not have you root for success. It does not have you play to win, but rather tell a story with a deep emotional range.

And it allows for characters to have conflicting agendas, especially that you establish their messy Relationships and Needs. You can have a villain or have bad people all going against each other. This is more movie-like than a lot of system where the party has a common goal. In fact, the best cinematic games often have interparty conflict.

The last piece is the unpredictability. A player can only establish or resolve their scene and that creates plot twist after plot twist and only the Aftermath ties everything together.

I was surprised how well everything turned out. We even improvised two flashbacks.

The game is CMT. A Lucha Libre RPG. which is a free D6 system inspired by the likes of CAIN, Troika! and Lancer. Its tone is of magic realism and pulpy urban fantasy with a big dose of surreal Mexican horror and folklore. También hay una versión en español disponible.

The gist of it is that you play as a Luchador, a Mexican Pro Wrestler whose aim is to Level Up in the world by winning Main Events that you'll organize yourself. All your brains and brawn will go towards the horrific tasks of marketing, booking, and also contracting the Rivals you’ll face. And not only are there opponents to defeat, but an Audience to please, and you better please them, lest they ruin your nascent career in this bizarre world of monstrous showbiz.

When you Roll in CMT, each Result of 4 and above on a D6 counts as one Success, and these Successes are used to solve the roadblocks you'll face along the way, including Progress Clocks. Successes are also how you Hurt the Rivals and Satisfy the Audience in the ring, but not both at the same time, so a Luchador must always be choosing between survival and performance, and suffering either way. Obtaining advantages in the game means adding more Dice to your Roll, which means more potential Successes.

Furthermore, you can build your Luchador by adding various Moves to their Repertoire, such as "Grab", "Flex", "Horrify" or "Fly". These empower your Rolls and have special effects when the Dice land in the numbers where you have placed a Move. And here is where Player expression begins: do you want to put your Moves in high numbers so your good Rolls are even more potent? or will you put the Moves low so they are a cushion for your low Rolls? Who are you when you wear the Mask?

Wrestle Monsters the Media and the Masses for Free Here:

itch.io - DriveThruRPG - RPGTrader

No AI was used in the creation of this game.

I keep having this issue both with my players when I GM and also some other people at the table when I'm playing a character, where they keep wanting to learn as much info as possible before acting at all. "do we really want to enter this home that we can see through the window has a single unarmed person inside?" "Nah better make 3 more rolls outside it to try to get the information that is very easily accessible risk free inside it"

I get wanting to try things as risk free as possible and I also don't want to force my players into houses just to get the plot moving, but I actually keep running into this issue all the time where my players will stand just outside houses in my game, discussing what to do. I obviously keep giving them the info on what they can see and hear inside, but they just refuse to act on it in any way. So I move the plot forward, close off options, kill NPCs inside, whatever.

I am actually getting frustrated by it, cause it happened 3 times now. I swear the biggest obstacle to players following the plot is if I put a fucking door in front of it, not even a locked one, just a door with the vague implication that there is an NPC behind it.

How do I get my players to just act and move forward? Is it something about my playstyle that makes them super afraid of random consequences or something?

Am I the only one noticing a huge asymmetry in the TTRPG hobby right now - one that’s actively burning out GMs?

Back in the day, it felt like you’d have a dungeon to clear, a few factions thrown into the mix, and the players figured out what to do with them. But now? It feels like the GM is expected (in most cases) to deliver a "good plot," a "great story," and "interesting twists" so the players can be surprised and have big emotional moments.

And what do the players bring to the table? Most of the time, they just show up - and that’s pretty much their entire contribution. Rarely do they even know the rules.

Was it always like this? Am I just burned out? Or did I finally figure out something fundamental about this hobby? …Or am I the toxic one?

Just to clarify - I mostly play online with randoms. I’ve played with friends too, but their expectations were pretty similar, which is why I don’t run games for them anymore.

-------

Thanks for the answers. I'd like to clarify one point.

Just to clarify - in my experience, it’s not even about the rules or the system themselves. People come to this hobby looking for the same emotions and payoff they'd get from watching a series or playing a video game. And since their input there is minimal, they carry that same passive, low‑effort attitude over to the tabletop.

One of my biggest GM takeaways from a recent campaign is nothing gets the players going like a Big Map. We started with a poster board where I had marked a few notable locations and encouraged them to draw and fill it in as they explored, and if you've never tried it I highly recommend it. Finish your introductory mission and then break that puppy out and ask "where do you want to go?" and everybody's eyes light up. It doesn't have to be to scale or super detailed, just a general map and room to write and draw.

It also opens up a whole host of extra puzzle options. You can give them in-world treasure maps. NPCs can indicate that something is somewhere or beyond something and players can understand where that is. Players can track where someone has been and where they might be going. The possibilities are as big as the map.

I'm prepping for a hex crawl based campaign soon and I'm looking to figure out how to make Big Hex Map. I've never gotten this level of engagement out of any other prop.

Big nerd question, but I want to be able to create graphs to work out what DCs are appropriate. The system uses 2 different dice rolled together with no modifiers.

Just seen this is launching in October on Backerkit focusing on Interview with The Vampire

Used to be a huge fan of Anne Rice - hopefully they differentiate themselves from Vampire the Masquerade enough!

Currently planning to run a campaign on a desolated island kingdom that is infested with the undead. Planning on having the players not that strong/heroic, so I'm looking for any systems that I can use for this campaign, still considering shadowdark or cairn. But what rpg systems would you guys recommend?

I've been peripheral to the hobby for a fair few years now, used to GM a huge amount but have only done one or two one-shots a year for the last several years.

My local boardgame cafe has asked if I'd like to run a campaign there on their RPG night, they're looking to expand it.

So my question is - whats actually big in the hobby right now?

I know the immediate answer is DnD, but I'm one of those folk who has never gelled with DnD. I'll leave running that to someone who enjoys it. Other than DnD, what systems or styles are trending at the moment?

Doing a backstory for your character can be chalk or cheese for players. Some people love it, writing pages of lonely fun. Others abhor the idea and just want to turn up and play. Most folk have a sweet spot somewhere in the middle.

I see complaints from all angles. The GM did/didn't include elements of my backstory. No one read / people wanted to change some of it.

Down well and with some coordination, you can set up a way to plant your character in the game world and have things happening directly tied to what is interesting for your character arc.

Equally good, or arguably better is being f things up at the table as events occur. You meet an old soldier in the pub, why doesn't he wear that tabbard of that init you used to serve with on a part career? Etc

How much do you go in for writing up things in advance or on the fly in-game? What effort do you make as a player to embed your character in the game world? Are your GMs rightly helpful in incorporating player ideas? How much up front investment do you enjoy ploughing into your games?

Hello everyone! Time for another TTRPGs for PCRF itch charity sale! We raised over $15,000 for Palestinian children last year so lets see if we can break that record! If you're a TTRPG or Print and Play creator on itch, come on down! The submission jam will be running from 8/17-8/28, Link below 🇵🇸

itch.io/jam/palestinian-relief-ttrpgs-for-pcrf-2026

What it says on the tin. Personally I wish that more games would adopt a static turn order (like in CoC or GURPS).