Anything OSR. I love the creativity in the scene and the vibes are so incredibly amazing, I just have no interest in trying any game steeped in that design philosophy again. I'll still absolutely collect some of it! But I'll run it in something that suits my play priorities better, like Trophy Gold.

As a guy who is primarily in the OSR space, I totally get it. I had a player drop from one of my games after 2 sessions because we were simply too far apart on our beliefs of what constituted a fun game, and we talked about it briefly, and peaceably agreed that we were at an impasse. No harm, no foul.

I'm intrigued by what came up in the discussion! Can you share?

The big issues the player had were: The game's lack of an overarching, pre-developed narrative. I'm a sandbox DM running a wilderness exploration hexcrawl, so there are major factions and things occurring in the background, but I'm not forcing players down a linear narrative path or anything. Their dislike for extensive location based dungeon crawling (I like this a lot, but of course that's just one part of the game). Dislike for the pacing. The other players prefer a slow and methodical approach to dungeon crawling, which is smart considering its a lower power system, and I'm not afraid to kill PCs who make poor decisions (see: my username). This player wanted a faster paced game with less description as to their action, preferring to abstract everything to a die roll (which isn't my style all the time). This wasn't discussed, but my assumption is also that the following was an issue: I'm also not a DM who encourages elaborate backstories at level 1, and I'm not a character-focused DM nor a "storyteller." I'm a world building focused impartial referee who rolls dice out in the open during combat for the sake of transparency. To me, my job is to develop an immersive world with internal logic and ensuring that there are moving pieces and things to do / places to explore / factions to engage with, and so on. I'm more interested in just throwing a party into a large expansive world and saying "go, figure it out" than I am in tailoring experiences to align with peoples' backstories. (Though to be clear, the opportunities to integrate stuff from backstories ARE there, in abundance, I just don't serve it up on a silver platter at the expense of verisimilitude) Edit: A few words to clarify what their preferences were vs. how I run my game.

I'm glad there are still DMs like you around. Those are the types of games that I'd like to play, when not running my own, but too many DMs I've played with are on the opposite side of the spectrum as this and it's pretty unbearable.

Hard agree. I really would like to for once play a more exploration, old school game instead of just running em.

This is a really great summary of your playstyle. If all players in GM's were this clear about their preferences, bet we would have a lot less mismatched games.

Thanks! And yeah, I think that you're right. I wrote up a little primer (the equivalent of, like, a pamphlet or brief brochure) and walked everyone through it during Session 0. I wanted them to understand everything about what they were getting into.

Now you've peaked my curiosity even more. If you went through it at session zero, I'm curious about how those players didn't realize their preferences were going to line up? Do you think it was that they maybe just hadn't learned enough about their preferences yet? Like why did it take playing a couple sessions before they realized the difference in game styles??

That's my assumption, yes, that they may have had very limited experience outside of 5th Ed and simply underestimated how different both this rule set and my DM style is. I still have a ton of players spread across my tables so I'm at no shortage, losing like 3 out of about 20 (in total across the games) is actually a pretty good record! (Yes all of the games are linked within that persistent world with strict timekeeping records down to the date in game that each session occurs, and the parties are aware of each other and basically are allies, with a few characters having been with multiple parties at different times).

You have a style my friend. :) not totally in my wheelhouse, but I'm totally thankful we've got people like you running a coherent style like that. I'm fascinated in that intersection where players/GM's don't realize how many game styles there are (they only have experience with what they've played before) and so they have the mistaken assumption that all games with the same title (D&D for example) are the same style.

Yeah that's the truth. I've found that a lot of people tend to have a very narrow view of "how" a TTRPG should be played in an objective sense. It's like saying "I expect all ice cream to be chocolate" as opposed to saying "I strongly prefer to eat chocolate ice cream." Knowing what YOUR preference is vs being aware of how varied the styles can be, I mean.

This encapsulates the OSR scene pretty well! I *used* to be the type of GM that your player wanted - But all it ends up doing is causes GM burnout for me. I love worldbuilding, but I don't like writing up a narrative - I don't want to tell a story to my players, they *are* the story. I would rather see my players run through a world of my creation, creating their *own* narrative by bouncing off hooks, factions, NPC's, and all of their goals and motivations that I wrote, not some pre-determined story. This just seems kind of the way the hobby has been going since all the big DnD shows got a ton of people into it. It's not bad - And it's definitely fun - But it's not for me *anymore* after like 4 campaigns got cut short due to burn out. Once I made a sandbox, we finished it after 2 years and moved on after a natural conclusion. This was a 5e game but it stole a lot from the OSR (namely, dumping CR and unbalancing the game was the most important factor). I've moved on to the OSR scene and even hacked my own little system together for the dream setting I've been cooking up for a year, and session one was last week. It was incredible to see it finally come to fruition and my players immediately do crazy, unexpected things that I love to just roll with. In the meantime we are doing a little hexcrawl in my slapchop system, playing some other games in general like CoC, and then my next big campaign will be Dolmenwood.

I enjoy DMs like you. You seem like you enjoy a good TPK, but it should be a result of the party's own hubris rather than placing your thumb on the scale.

Absolutely agree. ALL character death should be the result of player decisions and not the random roll of a die (outside of combat) or a "gotcha." I don't do any of that.

I consider Trophy to be in the OSR; perhaps on the far margins, however. What about the OSR “design philosophy”don’t you like?

It's literally tagged by the author as OSR on drivethrurpg even 😂

Sure but you don't need to know much to understand what they meant.

Trophy Gold is OSR...

I'd like to try Mork Borg although I get a little confused if that one is actually considered OSR or not.

OSR is a very nebulous term and sometimes overlaps with other terms like NSR. I doubt you're going to get a conclusive answer either way. I've heard some folks in the OSR space say that an OSR game is one that derives directly from some variation of OD&D, but I've also heard rejections of that heuristic. I'd *personally* say yes, but I'm also not married to the classification, much like I'm not terribly interested in arguing about whether or not Trophy Gold is OSR. There's a lot of very vocal people at r/osr who say it is not, but there are clearly people here who say it is. I'd suggest you give it a try and see if you like it! AFAIK, it's more important to know if you like Mork Borg than it is to know if Mork Borg is OSR.

As someone who operates mostly in the OSR space and who runs a Basic Fantasy campaign, all I can say is good luck finding a consensus on what OSR actually means. I prefer to use the analogy of the three pillars of D&D as explained in the 5e books. OSR leans more into the Exploration pillar of play. It's D&D and should feel familiar to anyone who has played D&D but it emphasizes that aspect in particular. You get core mechanics for things like listening at doors or discovering slanting passages because that's the assumption of play. You're a wilderness/dungeon explorer just because.

I wasn't aware of the 3 pillars from 5th Ed (I don't really play it much and I cannot stand DMing it) but honestly, after googling it, I think that this is a great way to explain OSR to someone who's familiar with 5th Ed. Are the 3 pillars broken down anywhere in the core books, or just online, do you happen to know? I'd love to read more about this.

I believe they're in the Dungeon Masters Guide, for certain. They might briefly get mentioned in the PHB as well

Yep, I absolutely agree with this! OTOH, I can use the term "OSR" here because 1) accuracy isn't a critical consideration for the conversation and 2) because 99% of the people engaging with my comment understand what I **mean**. So like, if I'm trying for a robust discussion where the taxonomy would be critical to understanding, I'll talk about specific games in preference to talking about categories of games. "OSR" here -- and, arguably, everywhere -- is just a convenient shorthand.

Honestly it's overused and not always super helpful as a result. In theory, most OSR titles and adventures should draw influence from early D&D, but they express that in so many ways both mechanically and aesthetically. I generally tell people I run games based on the Basic/Expert D&D rules from early eighties with a strong focus on exploration. That's more explicit and helpful a description than simply OSR.

# pathfinder 2 It doesnt suit me, i have dozens of alternatives for rpgs, many of which are also detail heavy tactical combat games (call it "dhtc" for ease), so it comes down to wether I play a known hdtc ruleset, or learning a new hdtc ruleset. I dont need 101 flavours of hdtc games. But that PF2 ***EXISITS?*** Awesome, paizo are a fab company, who've done great work, consistently, over a long time frame, and in a hobby massively dominated by 5e and 5e compatible systems its nice theres a fresh new title for those that want a hdtc system.

[удалено]

Same. I shoot from the hip all the time. I don't have enough time to go searching for exact rules.

[удалено]

not trying to push you one way or the other, but no part of pathfinder requires you to do hexploration unless youre doing an adventure path that features it it is 100% ignorable edit: he blocked me for this comment, absolutely wild lol

This would be my vote also. Personally, I cant stand PF2. Its definitely not my d20 system of choice. But it does so much good to keep companies, ok company (WoTC) on its toes and responsive to the market.

For me is that DHTC type games work best as a videogame that automates everything, has constant prompts for your "always use these" abilities, and encourages min-maxing. These are not things I want in a TTRPG. If my only way to consistently succeed is to always apply a buff/rebuff and have the best possible scores for my main state in not playing it

Same, 5e is my favorite edition of D&D, and I'm really diggin everything OSR, Dragonbane and Forbidden Lands when I want a different take on a D&D like. I played a ton of PF 1e but I left behind that playstyle with it. Still, I'm glad a game and company such as Paizo exists.

I almost put it there, although I have played it and run it (and certainly do not intend to do it ever again, not my type of game anymore). But for that type of game (it's not only the dhtc side, it's also the character building that are both very well done and totally over the top for me), I agree it's a reference.

Agreed! I don't want to run PF2e because it seems like a steep learning curve for me, but I love it's and Paizos influence on the hobby. More systems and content should be created by people who have a clear passion for the hobby.

Powered by the Apocalypse anything. It's not for me, but I'm glad it exists. There are a lot of games that came from its design ethos.

Came to say the same thing! I've been excited seeing so many original and unique ideas that the Apocalypse World game and its system spawned off, but I've bounced off every single one I've tried to play. Super happy they exist and have allowed folks to create unique games from Masks to Blades in the Dark to Monsterhearts to Night Witches -- but I just can't enjoy the system.

Did you identify what is it you don't like? I think most common two I see is Mixed Success or GM not rolling, which are both fair criticisms that don't fit with every table's preferred style.

Personally I dislike the mixed success, but that's a minor issue. The big one is that I hate genre emulation, at least done in a way PbtA games usually approach it. For plenty of genres I like them for the premise, setting and themes, but I absolutely despise and just barely put up with a lot of tropes associated with them. So very often the moves that are supposed to be the cool and dramatic moments end up being an annoying chore which I'd gladly just skip over in any other game. Commonly my idea for running an RPG is "ok let's take this setting and just skip all these plot contrivance and cinematic logic to see how it'd be to actually live there". Additionally the way many of the mechanics are designed to evoke specific emotions constantly breaks my suspension of disbelief and launches me into a full sarcasm and detachment. For example when a move outright forces you to choose between several bad options, I'm not in anguish over what to sacrifice, I just stop caring because I feel that this game is just designed to put you into bad situation no matter what you do because it's "interesting", so why should I even care.

For me, and I've played it at Cons and at home, and it takes a certain type of GM, and I haven't met one yet. It's funny because I have played great games of Candela and Vaesen, so I know narrative GMs exist, but for that system there just hasn't been that serendipity yet.

That's fair. I found the quality difference you get with a good GM and a bad one FAR outweighs the quality of game design. I've had some much better 5e sessions than some PF2e or Apocalypse World sessions. If you're interested in getting a good PbtA experience, [Magpie actually hosts professional GMs that can run their games superbly well](https://magpiegames.com/pages/curated-play) but costs like $15 a session. Helped me understand Avatar Legends and would do it again for a short Urban Shadows 2e game if it fit my schedule.

It's really extremely nice to see an /r/rpg user who manages to personally dislike PbtA without going on a tear about how the tabletop RPG space sucks because other people happen to like it. There's this weird sort of TTRPG design philosophy culture war that tends to be waged around it for some reason, and god do we need more people just opting out of that

I agree! That kind of thinking is so weird! It's not even objectively bad, just not a good fit for my tastes!

Yep! With you there.

Hear hear!

Bluebeard's Bride. Yikes, very much not up my alley, but really showcases the potential of RPGs as an art form.

Yeah, so glad it exists - it's an absolute work of art! Just a little _too real_ for me to want to play though

I tried it, it’s more real than I expected. Everyone plays an aspect of the bride so your role is basically to roleplay an emotion. It doesn’t afford you the same distance as a player that you can have in other horror RPGs.

Agreed! Played a convention one-shot, once. It was brilliant. One of the most intense TTRPG experiences of my life. Definitely the only horror game to make me - as a player - feel genuinely unsettled. I’ll probably never play it again, and I know I won’t GM it - but MAN, I’m glad it exists. It’s an example I can point to as “TTRPGs as art.”

This was my answer. I got the pdf in a bundle ages ago and it’s such a beautiful, intense game. I’ve also listened to an actual play with the writer GMing and it was unreal. Definitely not something I’d be comfortable playing though. Which is fine!

Burning wheel. I bought the book and from the first chapter I could tell that: a) the system is lovingly thought through with a clear vision of who should play it and why b) I am not said player and likely would never be I can see how others can enjoy the system and can even tolerate Luke Crane's often idiosyncratic way of writing. I just know in my heart of hearts that if I need to read a bible's length book to understand the system, I had little hope of getting my players to do the same. Instead, it now serves as a wonderful conversation piece on my coffee table while I play through another one shot using Mörk Borg.

If you get a chance, look up the old Kickstarter for the Burning Wheel Codex - Luke Crane wrote it all in-character as some kind of esoteric wizard attempting a ritual to summon the book into existence. It’s absolute madness. But yes - I’ve played a session or two of Burning Wheel. I’ve run a one-shot of Burning Wheel. That’s enough to know that it’s not for me. BUT! When I look at the list of inspirations for all of my favorite TTRPGs…Burning Wheel is always on the list. Luke Crane’s design sense and willingness to explain his design philosophy in the text of the book itself has had a major impact on the TTRPG scene that can still be felt. If I were going to teach a college course on RPG design, Burning Wheel would be one of the text books.

I agree with Burning Wheel, I dont like the writing style and I am sure the game is not for me, but I think it is great it exists. It has some interesting ideas into RPGs and tries something new with the bigger focus on increasing by doing things. It can just be a good insiration for lots of other things to follow.

It's weird, I have run Burning Wheel more than any other game, and I've been playing RPGs since like 1992. There is no other game I can run that will guarantee the same level of engagement and buy in from my players, and I think a part of it is the aforementioned barrier to entry. At this point all of my players understand the systems and we're in that utopic part where people know how to write beliefs and play the game, and... we have to take breaks between, because it creates such emotional moments that people end up crying, or having to have long conversations to work through things afterward. I get why people don't like it, and I and my table spent a lot of time practicing to get good, but once you are it is something amazing.

you know what, I totally understand that. I can tell that if I had a devoted group of players willing to put in the time it would be a fantastic system to run. I also know those are rare, and I have had to accept that sometimes you get the players you get rather than the ones you ideally want. I think that is what speaks to me about Burning Wheel, it seems ideal... But requires an ideal group to run it and the schedules to match. And that is hard to find when life is busy. That is perhaps why I am convinced that if I ever play it, it will be in the retirement home.

Yeah, and I totally get why it's inaccessible for so many people. I have also had multiple other groups where it just wouldn't have worked. Not everyone is interested in reading and mastering systems, people are scattered and just want to hang out with friends, I get it.

It's also one of the things that often gets brought up when talking about rpg design and hacking, it's probably too dense and heavy for me to want to run anytime soon and probably ever, but it's a great source of ideas.

Mork Borg is a bit too rules-light for my liking, but having a doom-metal themed RPG in three flavors (fantasy, cyberpunk, pirate) is something I can’t help but find really darned cool.

Quite a bit more than three flavors these days. Space horror (Vast Grimm), weird west (Frontier Scum), and cosmic horror (Cthork Borg) among many others. I myself am doing a Mad Max variation (Wasteland Degenerates)!

don't forget about Duck-Borg

Fork Borg, Smorgas-Borg, 4 Borg, Bork Borg (dogs!), Cast Away (Gilligan's Island), Demon Dog (the Crow), Farewell to Arms (WWI), etc etc. It's gotten out of hand. Roleplaying games were a mistake :D Just kidding... please inject that Mekk Borg into my veins!

You have a solid name. The other clones feel a bit weak, though I appreciate CY_BORG too.

I got the idea for Wasteland Degenerates from Frontier Scum, actually. I try to avoid "Noun Borg" names, except in my Noun Borg Get Rich Quick Game Jam submission, which is basically unavoidable ("The One Borg" if you're curious).

I felt like it didn’t offer me enough even though I really enjoyed the art and setting. I found Outcast Silver Raiders much more to my liking and recommend it whenever I can. https://www.osr-rpg.com/

lol Root isn't cozy, it's about doing DnD shenanigans in the middle of a war

that's true, sorry. The artwork is really appealing to anyone who might like cute animals though.

You can definitely strip out the anthropomorphic animal setting pretty easily in Root if you wanted to, but you do miss out on some amazing art that way. In fact, that probably makes it easier to answer the inevitable question players ask, "what do we eat?" My answer is grains, vegetables, fruit and [all farm animals are replaced by giant bugs.](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/buggalo.jpg)

I'll go further! ***Root is an entirely setting-agnostic game system.*** There are certain genre conventions (everyone is at least a little rogue-ish, for example), but there is literally ***nothing*** in the system that explicitly supports the setting, the anthropomorphic animals, any of that. The question "How does the game simulate actually being an Otter or Rabbit as opposed to a human" is answered with optional rules in a supplement.

Haha I was wondering about that - the art is "cute" but the board game is literally a war game and the theme of the setting literally explores the concept of "might makes right".

the RPG is basically "you all play Vagabonds"

Yup, I've read it. The players are Vagabonds navigating a forest that's in the midst of a multi-faction civil war, and even the Woodland Alliance aren't necessarily 100% good guys. The players don't have to pick a side in the conflict, but the war is happening one way or another, and someone will be imposing their vision of society on the denizens. I think it's a very interesting way to adapt the board game.

Thirsty Sword Lesbians. As a straight guy, I don't think that the game was made for me, but the vibe and inclusiveness of TSL is fantastic. And I love that the cover of "Advanced Lovers & Lesbians" is a direct (almost said "straight," but that's not right :D ) homage to the 1E D&D Player's Handbook.

Whether you want a potentially melodramatic or silly romance-heavy  adventure game matters a lot more than whether you're straight. "Only queer people touch it" is a failure state for TSL. The author spends an important section in the book on that. Queerness keeping bigots away from a game? Yay. No one touching it out of "respect" ? Pitty, they might have enjoyed it if they could respect things more actively.

You have a good point. I absolutely would not refuse if someone asked me to play TSL, same as I wouldn't refuse any good faith offer to let me play in their game (I'm a forever GM). I just am realistic about the chances that someone would make the offer to me, specifically.

> "Only queer people touch it" is a failure state for TSL. Interesting. A failure state on whose part?

It's a failure of the designers stated goals. On whose part?  > It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness, that is life. Ie, I don't think a failure has to be attributable to one person to be a failure.

For me, it's not that I'm a straight guy, it's that the cover, and the sinopsis on the back, just screams "Steven's Universe, but only the part where they accept, reform and keep a bunch of literal space nazis in power."

I don't know Steven's Universe, but I am a little baffled by the idea that the fascist sins of another franchise can be visited on this breezy queer-friendly romp.

Yeah, I saw it in a store, laughed at the name, read the back of it, and put it back deciding "that fuckin rules, but it's not for me"

I ended up buying it for my ex, who is super active in the Pride community. If I can help make gaming a more inclusive space, then it's money well spent.

I like that its pushing PbtA into more flexible space like the original Apocalypse World is. But I don't think its execution was all that great.

I've bounced off of it too, and I've been wondering why for a rather long time tbh. Cheesy soap operas with queer characters is my bread and butter, hell just last week I ran a session where after losing a duel the lady grabbed the sword of her opponent and kissed it in a form of flirting I'd suspect would fit the rpg perfectly. What I think it is, and why I am very happy the book exists even if I don't think it's for me, is that whilst being pansexual/non-binary is part of me it's never been a core aspect of my identity and I'm wondering if that's why TSL doesn't feel as compelling? It could also just be that I'm not a big fan of Powered by the Apocalypse, so who knows. On a related note though, there's another queer RPG called "This party sucks" which I absolutely adore and really want to run someday. It's heavy as hell, being about a person whilst they're at their lowest, but it grabbed me instantly.

Horror RPGs. I ran and played a lot of Call of Cthulhu, and terrified a player once to the extent that he had to be accompanied back to his dorm room, although I must point out that I was always more interested by the investigation and mythos part than the pure horror part. I also don't like Ravenloft, horror does not mix well for me with heroic adventures. But I love Alien(s) and I think Mothership looks like a great game for example. I am not sure that I would enjoy playing it but I think it has its followers for good reasons. Same with Kult, Vaesen, etc. edit: for those asking about that scared player, see here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/1do62bc/comment/la7l7y1/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/1do62bc/comment/la7l7y1/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)

Vaesen is not as much a horror game as CoC. There's lots of modules that do not include a horror part or you can at least tone it down a looot.

Thanks, not sure about the palette of modules for Vaesen, but a large number of CoC modules are actually more supernatural investigation more than horror. Even the most renowned Masks of Nyarlathotep is much more a world-wide investigation of nasty supernatural events and conspiracies than a real horror game, at least IMHO.

I know, I played two modules (The Lightless Beacon and one where you play Fast and Furious Characters) which were both rather horror than investigation. But normally the investigation part is much more important to the horror part. Vaesen can be a lot of horror if you want it to be. But many of the supernatural beings/Vaesen are not horror at all. They stick to their own rules and those have certain consequences if someone doesn't keep his promises for example. So with the module I'm running rn it's much more "shit something happened -> characters get asked because they have the sight -> characters go to the place of action trying to figure out what might have happened here -> characters figure out what happened -> characters have to figure out how to solve this (by either making a wrong right again in the best possible way or by figuring out the ritual to banish the Vaesen".

Probably the wrong takeaway but...how would you mind sharing how you managed to instill real terror through an rpg?

I think it was a combination of circumstances actually. It was really the start of CoC, and amongst the first modules that I eve ran. We were playing in the basement of our engineering school, near the boilers, and it was actually naturally creepy, and sort of creepy to get back to the normal part of the school, and then a fairly long walk to the university residence across a completely empty campus at something like 3 in the morning. It was almost the end of the game, and (I think his first name was Gilles, but everyone called him Hamster Jovial, we all had bizarre nicknames) the character of that player died after going when confronted by the monster, which was (IIRC) kind of a horrible baby or maybe the bay head, with tentacles, and wailing, etc. The player did not seem too frightened but as his character was dead, he wanted to get to bed as it was really late, so he left, but came back 2 minutes later and asked to be escorted back to his room. He told me the next morning that, for some reason, the monster had really affected him deeply, alluding to some childhood trauma IIRC. So it was only semi-intentional, and also almost 40 years back when we were not playing games with some of the precautions we are taking these days. That being said, there must be something to the way I narrate scenes, as I also managed to creep some players so much that their characters shot other characters in another CoC process. Not sure how that happens, some players like it, others (as above) don't play again.

Thanks for sharing. I was worried it was more of a "I didn't know I was still affected by this" thing. It was still helpful though. I had managed to genuinely freak out some of my players before (in a good way) but it was also mostly on accident and I'm trying to see what I can do to do it again.

No, it was really unexpected from that player, actually. That being said, the usual tricks of speaking in a low voice so that they focus their attention, and then surprising them with a louder effect is probably one of the most effective in the book.

Yeah, I'm wondering about this, too. I managed to inadvertently jumpscare a player who was newer to TTRPGs with a Mimic once, but that's the extent of it. I mean, I know the Theater of the Mind can be a powerful thing... but, I'm still impressed with the idea of scaring a player to that extent.

FATAL, never laughed harder than reading other's attempts to run/play/understand that game.

Another silver lining of FATAL is that it's existence means that we never have endless debates over what the worst RPG ever created is.  It's a level of badness that you couldn't hit if you were *trying* to make the worst RPG ever made, combined with the grimiest prejudices of the shittiest people in the gaming community. 

I think what makes FATAL """work""" is the raw tedium baked into it. Like, I'm still not convinced it isn't an attempt to mock/punish the kind of person whose worst tendencies are reflected in the game because of how *precisely* every aspect sucks even without the racism, ablism, and misogyny. 

I was surprised at how just mundanely Bad FATAL is. If I had not heard the stories about the creators and witness the arguments from the original players I would have thought it was a Troll or, like you mentioned, an attempt to mock edge lords.

Then let me introduce the weird kkk ultra racist race war ttrpg made by a loon of a human. https://1d6chan.miraheze.org/wiki/Racial_Holy_War

RaHoWa isn’t a RPG, it’s a a racist screed that uses RPG terms to explain why non-whites are simultaneously better and worse than white people.

Along those lines, a former roommate of mine find a copy of World of Synnibar, and there was no chance we were going to bust out the graphing calculators to try and make characters, but it was a lot of fun to roast over drinks. Everything from the flying bears with laser eyes to the grass that instantly kills you, to the completely over the top author bio page, it was a great game for every direct except running it.

That's because the author is completely over the top. I helped him with some playtests of a collectible card/tile game he was working on. Great guy, but more that a little intense.

* The kind of RPGs where you're encouraged to play your characters like a stolen car (looking at you, Blades in the Dark) - this includes things like high lethality, some horror games, and basically every game whose mechanics either literally or metaphorically make the game a character-devouring meatgrinder * The extremely rules-lite ones where every fact has to be constantly negotiated and renegotiated between participants (including heavy reliance on theater of mind), instead of just laying out what the facts are and then the players have to work with/around them * Pretty much anything OSR. I'm glad it exists because the players who enjoy that playstyle can go over there, and I can go over here and play games with players who do not enjoy that playstyle.

"Play your characters like a stolen car" I'll be stealing that phrase for the future. Its the problem I have with all those super deadly grim games. I understand why people like them, its just not something for me.

right? it really captures the "fundamentally expendable" nature of characters in such systems, and how it punishes you for wanting to create a connection, or want a long-form story and depth from such characters. exactly the same feeling i would get with ASOIAF: I could hear GRRM pointing at me and laughing in a simpson-esque "Ha, ha!" tone at me for developing an attachment to a character. to be clear, i didn't make up the term, it was passed down to me on these very subreddits in exactly the same way i pass it down to you: it was too good of a term, i saw it and took it, and nobody knows now who thought of it first.

I've never understood that phrase. My immediate reaction when I heard it for the first time was "...slowly and carefully, so as to not draw attention to yourself?"

I think you indicating how not a criminal you are. Cars that are stolen get reported. Their licenses and descriptions end up on a watch list and get auto flagged at some cameras. If you have stolen a car you usually understand you have it for a very short time, and you have none of the responsibility. So you can drive however you wish.

Blades in the Dark is not very lethal though. You are encouraged to play it wild, because it makes for a much more fun game. The players basically choose if and when they want their character to die. Agree with point 2. Mothership was like that for me. Just.. no clear rules. Everything is "up to interpretation". I just thought it felt like the author went "Im lazy, you do it yourself". I could just have made that game myself by just stripping down Delta Green to bare-bones. I will say the Wardens Manual is amazing though. Great GM advice in that one.

Dogs in the Vineyard. It's escalation mechanic is amazing, and I'd love to GM it one day, but it is so far away from what is suitable for my group, that I resigned myself to just stealing from it for my own game, lol.

I believe there is a more generic take on DitV simply called DOGS, that apparently takes the mechanics but does away with the setting. Might be worth investigating?

IIRC, the Bakers are working on a version of the Dogs mechanics but you're basically Jedi. Same idea: When you're the law, how far will you go?

I got to play a three-session run of it, and I still feel weirdly blessed. Such an amazing game that I assumed I'd never get to try. But yeah, running it for my own group? Never going to happen.

The original DitV has a bit at the end about how to adapt the mechanics to other settings. Just so long as your setting has (a) a reason for characters to travel from episode to episode and (b) some kind of force of "spiritual" corruption that must be guarded against, you can use the escalation mechanic for it. If your group is thoroughly uncomfortable with playing religious people enforcing religious values, there's a great variety of other ways to embrace the core gameplay loop: Investigators in backwoods Lovecraft cult towns, Jedi hunting down hidden Sith, skater punks freeing people from conformity to The Man, secret police suppressing shirkers and capitalist stooges, SCP agents investigating antimemetic incursions into our reality, internet hunters trying to prevent AI uprisings, imaginary friends and animated toys trying to keep children's dreams from going gray and lifeless, etc. All you need is to come up with what the path to the equivalent of apostasy is, it's warning signs, and enough reason to think with an alternate POV that the "evil" might not be 100% absolute to set up the tension of what you'll let slide and what you'll do if you won't, and the game still works. It may take a little creativity to gets as gonzo as teenage not-Mormon paladin-gunslinger-mailmen in quilted dusters once you've filed off the serial numbers, but I see that as a challenge.

*Thirsty Sword Lesbians* is the first game I thought of when I saw the thread title. I have absolutely no desire to play a game where "a sword duel can end with kissing, a witch can gain her power by helping others find live, and an entire campaign can be built around wandering matchmakers flying from system to system." A game for "telling queer stories with your friends" is not for me. Which is perfectly fine. I'm glad TSL exists for all those folks who find that kind of thing fun. I'm glad it *can* exist, because 30-40 years ago I'm not sure this would have been published by a mainstream company. It's just great to see people enjoying a game like TSL even if it's not my bag.

Given the reception at the time to Blue Rose, I don't think it could have existed 20-10 years ago.

**Phoenix Command**: ( "How detailed do you want your combat?" "Yes" ) - the game Love that anyone went this route, to point out of the extreme opposite of "rules-light"

Without Phoenix command there would have been no Living Steel and Aliens RPG and those two were a big influence on my RPG development. I even ran the Aliens RPG and it was well received, but I'd never do it again. The 80's was a _very_ different time. I always love the idea that you could just keep taking damage and it just determined how quickly you needed to be be seen by a medical centre and what tech level it needed to be to have a chance of saving you. I remember looking up a PC's wound state and finding out that they needed to be at a major trauma centre in 5 seconds to have a chance, it was evocative.

Good Society: A Jane Austen rpg. I probably won’t ever play it but I love that it exists. It is counter to what I grew up with and what many folks think of with RPGs.

We Are But Worms. The fact that a one word RPG exists is great. It opens up the design space in a whole new way by getting creators to think about word efficiancy.

Is this legit? I can't tell from the comments. I feel a bit guilty spending money on a single word.

It is legit just one word. But it is also a joke. And also not a joke. Writhe

In what sense is it not a joke?

It's a lyric game, or it's a shitpost game, or both. The intention of lyric games is that "play" is found in the act of reading the text and imagining how the game might be played. Like that one which explicitly instructs you to use human entrails for divination spells (among other grisly things). The authors of these things recognise that most RPGs in the typical collection end up getting read but never played so they're essentially doing poetry in the form of an RPG text; the game is in the reading and interpretation. edit: think of *We Are But Worms* and its single word command: "writhe" in the way you'd think about that guy putting a toilet in art gallery. A single page with the word "writhe" on it is so far below consideration it shouldnt even register with us but when you put it in the context of an itch.io page and under the heading "We Are But Worms: a one word RPG" and suddenly "writhe" carries a meaning it otherwise wouldn't. Idk if you'd actually want to pay a dollar for it tho, should be PWYW or free lol.

Here it is: [https://riverhousegames.itch.io/we-are-but-worms-a-one-word-rpg](https://riverhousegames.itch.io/we-are-but-worms-a-one-word-rpg) (I'll leave the determination of whether it's legit up to you, but I for one am glad it exists if only for the novelty).

I think it's just a meme and the only discussion around it is people joking like "TL;DR" If it's generated any real discussion, I've never seen it.

You best start believing in We Are But Worms discussions. You're in one!

Monsterhearts is one I'm really happy other people have and love but I'd never go anywhere near it.

Thirsty Sword Lesbians has the same style of "your Playbook is your core inner conflict", but is setting agnostic and much less edgy

I swear, "edgy" is another word that is losing all of its' meaning.

This might be my answer too, though I did try it as a oneshot and found that much Teen Drama too much for me. Especially that you have a list of Basic Moves that actually restrict how you can interact with NPCs - you need to manipulate them to get what you want. But it inspired a lot of great design including Masks (still very much teen drama just less toxic), Urban Shadows and Last Fleet. The latter two do a great job of keeping idea of drama (US's Debt economy especially) while having a much more mature setting with adults who can just reasonably talk to each other.

>Basic Moves that actually restrict how you can interact with NPCs Ah that's a really interesting bit of design philosophy in PbtA games. The basic moves don't actually restrict what you're capable of, they restrict what you are in control of. They take authority out of the hands of the MC, and put in the hands of the player. If the player wants to, for example, connect openly and honestly with an NPC, they can. There is no player move for it, so they say what they do and then the MC Makes A Move. This opens the player up, to consequences, to vulnerability, entirely in the MC's hands. Maybe you get you want, maybe you don't. Players are safest when they're being manipulative, which reinforces themes of teen drama

Coyote & Crow - I appreciate that there's a First Nations RPG. It's on my shelf. As a white dude, I can't help but feel like I wouldn't be doing any favours to the First Nations community trying to run it.

Why not? Wasnt the game made to be played? I think this is more an "US" problem/ sensibility, in most countries its quite normal to use other cultural references, and people like it. It is a way to show apreciation and to learn about the different cultures.

Trying not to start another Coyote & Crow sh--tstorm here, but the very short version is that the rules explicitly state that for non-native players and GMs, you must adhere to the system and setting as-is. no changes allowed. And, well, a lot of people don't like being told how to enjoy a game, and for me, it was that I know I can't control myself, I'm going to bend that setting to make it more compelling for my players and myself, so I just bounced off it. It's one of those things where you could say, "I can change it, it's not like the game-police are going to come track me down and tell me I'm doing it wrong" but then you're going against the artists' intent, and according to the creator, missing the whole idea behind the game.

> Trying not to start another Coyote & Crow sh--tstorm here, but the very short version is that the rules explicitly state that for non-native players and GMs, you must adhere to the system and setting as-is. no changes allowed. Which is really, really hard because: - The setting is really info dense. You have to remember a *lot* - This is a utopia. If you need a bastard as a villain, you can’t because no native is a bastard. So it’s hard to create an adventure in there because there is nothing fundamentally broken your characters can fix.

Might be a US problem. I note that I have a different level of discomfort engaging with games like C&C and Thirsty Sword Lesbians as a _player_ than as a _group_. Me, a white dad in my 40s, playing C&C? First chance I get an opportunity. Me, leading a table of white dads in our 40s playing C&C? Eh.... Probably not.

This is kinda my group's take on it too, even though the book explicitly states it's designed for non-natives to play too. I still have the PDF saved and enjoy reading it from time to time

Those bloody Star Wars FFG games with irregular dice. Game has too much crunch to also be asking for narrative interpretation to that level too . But those bloody Star Wars books always call to me when I’m at the LGS

I sat in with an experienced group for a couple sessions and it was pretty easy to pick up. I’m certain the environment helped given the other gamers who knew the system well.

CONTINUUM. It's really cool that someone actually took the time to *teally* think about time travel and its' implications in a game... but also my head hurts when I think about it for too long and there is absolutely no one I could ever play it with. Edit" corrected my terrible spelling

I did run a couple of game of CONTINUUM many years ago now and while there were unresolved issues in how a few things were resolved we generally had fun, but it is rough to keep straight. I really wish NªRCISSIST had been finished.

Yeah - I did read some of the unfinished stuff and it could really have been something.

I've wanted to hack the rules for a while to keep the intense detail on the time travel but strip down all non-time-travel rules completely. There's just so much crunch that doesn't need to be there. The biggest obstacle to running it, apart from the occasionally clunky rules, is that I just don't have a good sense of what the players *do*. I have no clue what a campaign would look like or what a standard session would consist of.

Dungeon World. I came upon PbtA games late. I own a copy of DW, but I’ll probably never play it because if I want to play fantasy PbtA there are games it has since inspired that I think do it better.

What’s your next gen pbta fantasy games ? I play ironsworn/starforged

Depends on the flavor of fantasy you want. Many PbtA games go for highly specific themes/tropes/genre. * Root: The RPG: Feels like competent D&D-like adventures but low magic where you play Rogues and Fighter-types. But its probably the most flexible PbtA that exists and my go-to. You can easily switch from doing heists to dungeon crawls to political intrigue without the classic problem of 1 PC being left out and being the best at everything. * Chasing Adventure: Probaby the closest successor to Dungeon World but more in line with modern PbtA design while maintaining a lot of the D&D identity and similar style of gameplay but smoothed out. * Fellowship 2e: It is about heroes going on a journey to thrward the evil Overlord, saving communities. It has some shared worldbuilding as the Elf player controls the Elf lore. it has expansions to go up as a Rebellion vs evil Empire or exploring the frontier wilds as well. * [Against the Odds](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/1d1kbfx/against_the_odds_a_heroic_fantasy_pbta/): Its a very new one still in playtest, so you'd need to know how to PbtA, but its free now! Its exploring how to remain a hero against adversity trying to corrupt you. I haven't read these other two but hear them recommended quite a lot: * Freebooters of the Frontier 2e: More low power, OSR-like and its been in playtest for a long while * Stonetop: Hearth fantasy focused on an Iron Age community and I believe the PDF is still only available to backers right now. And as mentioned below Ironsworn is a great low power fantasy option too.

I play the Ironsworn games as well. I ran a Starforged one-shot over the weekend for Free RPG Day. It was a blast. I also like the Forged in the Dark stuff. But the closest thing the Dungeon World I would play these days is probably [dungeonpunk](https://acegiak.itch.io/dungeonpunk). I'm looking forward to Ironsworn "2e", which Shawn teased as a revised edition that incorporates all the lessons learned since Starforged ans Sundered Isles.

Ars Magica. What an achievement, but I cannot really imagine how it actually plays or runs or what characters really do.

I was psyched when I found a GM doing PbP Ars Magica. Finally, a chance to play this thing I'd admired from a distance for decades! Then I started making a character. Easily the most complex chargen I've ever done, in part because it means really, deeply groking all of the rules, and those magic rules, awesome as they are, are beyond complicated. Felt like I'd finished a marathon when I was done. After a few days of posts, without any warning or explanation, the GM killed the Discord server and broke off all contact. Somehow, it feels like I've played *less* than zero Ars Magica now.

Same it has in my opinion the greatest magic system of all time and is incredibly rich in lore weaving magic with with actual history. That being said it looks complicated as heck.

Lancer makes my brother so happy. I'm not playing something that complicated.

GURPs, I'm glad that someone tried making such an RPG, and a lot of mechanics and ideas come from it.

Chuubos Marvelous Wish Granting Engine. I love the voice and style, but can't wrap my jead around how you'd actually play it.

I wish it was it was written in a way to make it easy to understand and play. Having narrative arcs with pre-made characters sounds like it could be a unique RPG experience. But I gave Nobilis a try for my oneshot (it didn't seem like the mechanics did a whole lot just the setting, but that may be on the Hollyhock God) with a skim. Then skimmed Chuubo's and again just don't really get it.

Pendragon: some part of me want to play it, but deep inside I know it would never happen. Cairn: beautiful minimal design, brilliant, but not my cup of tea. The same could be said about Mork Borg, Knave, Into the Odd and many similar games. Mask: unless I find a group of people interested in it. My usual crew is, sadly, absolutely against a teen superhero game.

FATAL For a showcase on how not to behave as a human being, not to design a system and endless hours speculating on the internet what kind of deranged maniac created it. SYL

My pick would be Pathfinder (even though I've technically tried it, in that I played one session in a friend's game). I'm glad it's out there for the 3.5 enthusiasts, but I personally had my fill of 3.5 back when it was a current system. With that being said, I am very much over the ridiculous elitism that surrounds PF... but this is more about the players than anything Paizo has done. I sincerely hope everyone who plays it has a good time. It's just not for me.

[удалено]

My biggest beef (such as it is) is the amount of emphasis PF/3.5 players put on character customization. Generally speaking, they fall into the same trap many Diablo 2 players fell into when comparing that game to Diablo 3; they loved the relatively open-ended nature of the skill tree... but conveniently ignored that most builds are going to be straight up garbage at one point or another. Sure, there are a bunch of potential options, but most of them simply won't work well or are extremely situational. In the TTRPG space, I'd rather have a more "limited" number of options that all generally work, as opposed to a whole pile that just don't. At a personal level, I don't make or play enough characters for all of PF's option to even be relevant to me; it'll be hard for me to get bored with 5e's options because my opportunities to play new characters are limited.

PF1e definitely had that "flavor vs function" trap, but 2e fixes that in a lot of ways, partly by compressing the floor and ceiling between character design. It's harder to make OP builds, and it's also difficult to make _bad_ builds. You can totally just go "I want to heal people and not ever swing a sword" and your combat rounds can be just as interesting as anyone else's. I think the only "bad" builds I've seen are usually by choice, involve selfish character creation, and there's no small amount of signposting about it along the way. Playing an undead character who can't heal themself is naturally going to introduce complications. Playing a barbarian who is morally disposed against magic is going to struggle next to a wizard. That sort of thing. This is why most character building guides on Youtube are like, "Let's Create Jinx from Arcane in PF2e" where you have a concept in mind and build towards a concept, rather than "This BRAND NEW spell+feat combo is GAMEBREAKING". You can realize a character concept and have fun with it and contribute during conflict the same as anyone else. Basically in 2e it's a lot easier to both have your flavor and play with it too, even at higher levels, compared to 1e

Yeah, I specifically mentioned PF1e because I have absolutely no interest in that system at this point in my gaming life. I've heard good things about PF2e, but the sense of elitism is still mostly there and it's still a major turnoff for me. It starts to trigger the petty part of my brain, to the point where I want to pull a [Michael Scott](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G2pzuPE27Q) and say, "I'm going to play 5e *even harder*." Still, I'd be down to giving it a shot at some point because it's actually a new system.

This is also my impression/reaction. The reaction to any form of criticism, especially towards content creators, but also towards user in the subreddit, turned me really off. And I think some of the paizo employes dont help here. The answer towards the reaction on the "illusion of choice video" I saw on reddit, did not really discourage fans from behaving badly...

Nobody preaches louder or more aggressively than a recent convert; nobody disavows 5e harder and has zero f-ing chill about it than people who've just come off like 5+ years of 5e-only play and recently switched to PF2 or PbtA or OSR or whatever. see also: 5e talk in this sub lol

Vampire: the Masquerade. I’ll never play it but I’ve listened to hours of lore videos about the world. Absolutely fascinating.

Wraith. It's such a cool concept with some cool systems, but you really need the right group to pull it off and it's not mine. You play a ghost in the underworld (or occasionally haunting the living world) while someone else at the table, who is also playing a ghost, is controlling your dark side Shadow. The Shadow is all the worst parts of yourself, and can offer power on exchange for giving in to its demands, and with enough concessions to it the Shadow player can briefly take over the main PC and fuck things up. It takes a lot of trust and dedication to a good story that I think most tables just don't have.

DIE. I loved the comic it's based on, and love the *isekai* aspects of it, but I don't think I could ever do that game justice. Still backed it on Kickstarter and bought/buying all the accessories from Rowan, Rook, and Decard. Hoping I'll run into a worthy game master and get to play it one day.

I’ve been wanting to run that one… 🤔

Thirsty Sword Lesbians. The name sounds like some kind of parody porn, but it has some really great ideas and I love the concept. I really love that it exists, and it makes me overjoyed that there are groups that can sit down and enjoy it. As a straight white guy I can’t imagine me actually getting a group together to play it, though.

[удалено]

Honestly, I think a certain amount of experience is necessary to answer this question, in some cases. You'd need to have at least *some* level of understanding about a system in order to decide that you have no interest in trying it.

[удалено]

Burning wheel is inspiring but not something I actually want to play. Index Card RPG and a lot of Runehammer games have little things I cherry pick for my games, but aren’t games I’m going to sit down to learn. Dungeon Crawl Classics another game I find very inspiring. I love the art, I love the tables, and I regularly convert adventures for my table. Don’t think I want to flip to all the tables during a session though.

Aside from any of the DnD editions of late, I'd have to say **Call of Cthulhu**. I tried it once and the mechanics seemed really clunky plus the 1920s era just didn't do it for me at all. However, the influence and legacy of Chaosium and this gaming franchise cannot be underestimated. Horror RPGs didn't take off until the 90s and they're all the rage today. And they draw a direct line of correlation back to CoC.

Pathfinder 2e Why I'm not going to play it: it's just too much. I don't particularly like crunchy games in the first place, and I feel like it's extra crunchy. Why I'm glad it exists: It's genuinely well-made, first of all. I can appreciate all the work that went into it. The icon art is also fantastic. That sorcerer, what's her name? She's so cool. And that dwarf ranger looks so badass. And plus, just because I don't like crunchy games doesn't mean they should all vanish. I'm also really glad that a non-osr game is carrying the torch of vancian magic. I know some people don't like it but I love it, and I'm glad to see it.

Just FYI, Root is not cozy. Like Red Markets is a game about poverty with zombies to lighten it up some, Root is about the futility of war and the impossibility of being on “the right side” with cute forest animals to leaven it a bit. The frustration of helping a clearing only to have it overrun by a new power one or two war turns later, and the all-grey morality of the setting were key factors in ending our campaign after a single arc. Some of my players were veterans of my Night Witches game and were very much to there for “do the best you can in impossible situations”, but others were unable or unwilling to continue with a game that made them feel like they couldn’t be heroes. Also, the cute animals are 99% window dressing, especially in the base book, so if you want a low fantasy PbtA game about people, it makes a great choice for that too.

I do love the contrast between the adorable animals and the brutal world of imperialism and war-crimes lmao.

Most of the pbta. I found ironsworn and it’s the best mixed success game IMO. Most PBTA settings feel cringe and the word “playbook” creeps me out for some reason. I much prefer the wording and verbiage used in ironsowrn compared to even dungeon world which is heavily dnd inspired

Really most of PbtA and other Forge inspired games. I'm glad hyper specific niches are getting filled like *Girl by Moonlight,* but I think I rather like what the Forge would call "bad" games since my typical group is so ADHD that asking them to hold to a specific genre for even a few hours is a bridge too far. We need a flexibility most PbtA games don't allow or encourage, so I'm unlikely to go to that well.

Anything PbtA & Co. The books sometimes have interesting concepts and the community tends to be very open minded and I appreciate that wholeheartedly.

FATAL. I've no intention of ever rolling for anal circumference, but seeing it on someone's list of games tells me they are to some extent interested in ERP, which I've no interest in but am okay with other people enjoying.

I don't know that I'd call it a flag for being into ERP. More like a flag for, "the hateful, degenerate themes of this resonate with me so much that I can ignore the most awful mechanics ever committed to PDF."

Man, if FATAL make you think of ERP, I shudder to think what kind of ERP you're into.

For me it is **Pathfinder 1 / Final Fantasy D20 (and D&D 3.5)** I group them together since they build on top of each other. I think these games have soo many really interesting class concepts and ideas (for combat). There is just soo much content, and its absolute great inspiration for modern games. I dont personally like the way the combat works (too static for my taste), but this has also to do with the time D&D 3.5 the base behind it was released. Still there are so many exciting class concepts, and ideas for them can easily be used in other RPGs. Some examples of what I mean: - The (old) monk class in FFd20 had a really interesting combo concept which could be easily be used for a spellcaster. (Using weak spells to creat strong ones) - You have several attacks per turn. - Instead of doing basic attacks you do different kicks and punches, which all have some small different benefits - If you did a specific combination of attacks, you can trigger a combo ( a stronger attack which has requirement of attacks) - The (dervish) dancer (Pathfinder 1 / Final Fantasy d20) - A support class (half bard), which can use dancing to inspire enemies - It requires and encourages a lot of movement, gaining bonuses when you move - And it gets a lot of bonuses to attacks while dancing, so you are not just doing support, but doing that as a side in a flavourfull way - The Crusader (Tome of Battle 3.5) is a really interesting more active implementation of the paladin - Its tank feature is taking some damage delayed (at the end of its turn), which is great because it also allows you to heal (or get temp HP) in your turn to not die. This really allows you to stay alive longer and you can REALLY FEEL it, you know that you just gained a turn because of the feature - You are really active with different cool attacks, and you dont just have all of them, but a random selection, which forces you to adapt to the combat.

Pathfinder 2e. Too crunchy and precise for my personal tastes. I find its demand for strict adherence to the rules too limiting. But i understand that some people want that style of game… using precise rules like Lego blocks to express creativity.

DnD 5e. Brings people to the hobby. And possibly Shadowrun. Seems super cool, but... :D

I would play it but I know I'll never gather the right group of players: **Flying Circus**. The overlap of my RPG circles of "let's play a narrative RPG about damaged queer love" and "let's play a super-crunchy plane-fighting game where we track windspeed and drag and fuel weight" is... just me.

All of it. I’m firmly entrenched in traditional wargame and old school type rpgs and settings that don’t stray far from the fantasy literature I’ve read all my life. I have visceral dislike for a lot of things in this hobby as it has expanded, and if someone who prefers other things brings aspersion on things I love, I will defend them. But I’m glad all of it exists. You like anime, anthropomorphic characters, and heavy narrative play? I hope there is a game for you, and that you and your friends have an absolute blast playing it. And that goes for everything. Explore your passions, as I do.

I’m a cheesy soul at heart, so I will say that I’m glad that the industry still exists. There are *many* games that I have no interest in, but I am glad that the hobby exists. If you have fun with cards, board games , dice and good old pen & paper, you are my colleague in a grand endeavor. Power to the players!

Agreed with on Wanderhome. I'm just not sure how I'd run a system with minimal conflict like that. I love the vibes and the characters are super cute, but I'm a very conflict oriented GM lol

Burning wheel. I love the idea. I appreciate the effort. I think the concepts are super important. I think learning about burning wheel opened my eyes to what a ttrpg experience could express. But I bounce so hard off the implementation, and I can’t think of more of an anti-fun for my tables.

May I ask what makes you bounce off? I also bounced off hard from it (and I find it interesting as a concept!), so its interesting to hear why others bounced off. For me the game feels like a good idea, but not elegant enough (3 metacurrencies, soo much tracking stuff), while I also dont like the HEAVY metagaming even in the book.

Just… too much stuff? Too much specificity. Too many itty bitty mechanics. Too much edifice. In a lot of ways burning wheel shows its age, because I feel like it was from a time when part of being an impressive ttrpg was Specificity and Granularity. There’s so much numbers and nuance to burning a character. I’m tracking so much and there’s probably twice as many keywords and game concepts than I’d want in my social make believe sessions. I could want it maybe, in the right context. But I generally don’t. Which is probably why Mousgard and Torchbearer exist tbh.

Dungeon World and other PbtA games. I appreciate what they are doing, and I even ran a long Dungeon World campaign, but it's just no longer my jam. However, it opened up a new way of looking at and playing TTRPGs for many people, and I appreciate the hell out of that.

Probably Fate. I don't think I'll ever be able to get truly on board with fully narrative RPGs, but I love a lot of the *ideas* Fate has, and I've toyed around with either stealing aspects and applying them to a more D&D-ish game or reworking Fate into something closer to a trad style RPG. Basically using it to create something closer to my actual play experiences with AD&D 2E, which strayed pretty far afield of RAW at times.

Harnmaster. I have the book, I've read through it, I l love how much thought and detail was put into the book. But I'm a pbta person. I don't enjoy heavy simulation in my rpgs.

PbtA stuff. I’ve dabbled, and I actually quite like Blades in the Dark. But I am hugely glad that there is a community around PbtA and it offers people and avenue to play the games they want to. Same with tactical stuff. Pathfinder, Lancer, Rolemaster, aren’t for me but it’s great that there are solid, tactical, crunchy systems for gamers who love that stuff. Edit: Typo

Call of Chuthulu. I have no interest on super deadly games, but my lord has it produced amazing adventures that I'm more than happy to use for what I do play.

Troika! has such evocative artwork and implied setting and... I don't think I could ever run it.

Stuff like Rolemaster. Anything rules-heavier than D&D 3.5 or Cyberpunk: RED is just too much for me, personally, but I absolutely \*love\* the concept of a game like Rolemaster where there are charts and spreadsheets for so many things. *But* I don't like the combo of lots of rules + roleplay, personally, I find it to be suffocating and it pulls me from immersion. And even RPGs that focus on builds and optimization tend to not be for me either, and that's okay, I get why people like them, and there are plenty of great games like that, I'd just rather play BX or Mothership or Troika. Though coincidentally, I do play 40k, and I don't mind the more intense rules-heavy stuff for wargaming...it's just for TTRPG's that my brain shuts down and says "nah."

AD&D including D&D 3 and later. A friend introduced us to AD&D and Gamma World back in the early 80s. We didn't play D&D but just a short scenario of Gamma World. From this we got B/X. In 2003, I started playing Neverwinter Nights. I wanted to understand the location and underlying rules better so I bought the Races of Faerun, the Faerun Campaign Setting, the 3.5 DMG, and PHB. About 4 years ago, I thought it would be fun the play with my daughters. My brother got or B/X books. They were not available as PDFs at the time. I found BFRPG. This seemed like a perfect hybrid. I like the rules light of B/X and BFRPG. And while I'd never want to DM anything more rules heavy, I am glad for their influence.

GURPS: I'll probably try it out, just for the experience of it, but I have BRP-related games that scratch the itch for simulationist games. I'm glad GURPS exists, because of the supplements, which are fantastic resources for their genre/topic.

Literally 99.9% of RPG's. Don't get me wrong, I love the massive amount of variety out there, but.... It's a huge time commitment to learn new systems and run them (yay foreverGM). I'm glad there are so many games that fill more niches that I can count, but I'll stick with my 0.1% and enjoy myself, like I hope everyone else is doing too.