Like, can't a guy play medieval fantasy with a little bit of roleplaying without having to hear your shitty jokes about femboys or outdated memes

Ever since I started playing rpg's a few years ago, I noticed every single GM I've had had some sort of cult plot that was central or in the background of a campaign. Additionally, when I run games myself, there's always at least 1 player that wants their background to include a cult. I'm usually playing traditional fantasy games, and I'm not very interested in cults myself. Where is this huge interest coming from?

Some context: My game stemmed from AD&D 2e, and so I’ve been building my game as a class system. But I use talent points, which allows characters to have their skills, weapons, abilities, and spells to be upgraded with the talent points. I’ve been using my game in a campaign for over a year, but I just had a recent level 1 play test, and I found that my system doesn’t do a good job at using my talent points at level 1. It got me thinking about what my level 1 should actually look like.

Here are some existing rules.

• There are character levels. The levels go from 1-20, but the highest level spells and abilities stop at level 10.
• Starting talent points = charisma score (~10). Players should be gaining a talent point each session (can give more or less depending on what occurred that session). Aiming for every 5 talent points to be a new character level.
• There are classes and subclasses for (almost) each class. You can buy a class or subclass for 10 talent points.
• A character’s main class and main subclass increments its level every character level; however, you have to pay 1 talent point to upgrade the level for each other class or subclass. For example, for a priest (class) of life (subclass). Their character level is 2, and so their priest level is 2 and life subclass is 2. If they purchased a priest of death subclass, it would cost 10 talent points, and the subclass would be at level 1. They would have to spend 1 extra talent point to increase to level 2.
• Spells need to be purchased with talent points to learn, from a pool available to the class/subclass. Spells range from levels 1-10.
• Abilities are automatically learned when the character has the appropriate level of that class/subclass.
• Spells can be upgraded at a cost of 1 talent point. Abilities range between 1-5 talent points per upgrade, and there are some limitations to amount of upgrades some abilities may receive (for balancing purposes).
• It’s expected that each subclass and class receives a new spell/ability at each level.

My Question

• To reiterate the problem, there’s not much to actually upgrade at level 1.
• If I were to change the class system to be that you start the game classless, but have to buy your class and first subclass, would this be good?
• It would slow things down, and definitely make early game feel low fantasy, which I actually want.
• I worry that it will be too slow, and leave players frustrated that a game that ends as high fantasy is too low fantasy to start. There’s of course the question “why can’t I just start with the class I want to play?”
• However, purchasing a first class and subclass may allow for more freedom for the characters. With this type of change, I would be more willing to make the class and subclasses a bit more independent of one another, and turn the main classes into more of a “core subclass”, where players can opt into a subclass without taking the main class. Is this freedom worth it?

Out of all the systems, who do you think either does melee combat the best, or creates the best gameplay for a melee combatant? I'm trying to find a system where the melee characters are resourceless and aren't in the shadows of their magical counterparts.
Edit: I probably should've also asked why it was the best/your favourite

In my rpg, I'm measuring most things in tiles. The first reason I do this is so that it works for both imperial and metric users. I think it's maybe to say "2 tiles" rather than "10 feet" or "3 meters", even though 1 tile = ~5 feet or ~1.5 meters. The second reason is that I think it might be easier to count tiles than count feet or meters.

When I write spells (or abilities), I'm often talking about range and area of effect of the spells. For wordiness purposes, I don't want to write out "tiles" every single time, but is this a good assumption? For example, if I write "The caster creates a circle with a radius of 5, which must be within a range of 9 of the caster." Should I write tiles following both of the integers, or do you think players can assume I'm talking about tiles, unless otherwise stated?

I’m having a bit of a problem with naming my game. My game is in the traditional heroic fantasy genre. A lot of what inspired me is D&D and World of Warcraft, but also other games and shows I’ve experience. I have the standard fantasy races, and common classes and subclasses. The setting isn’t fully developed but the system should be able to incorporate multiple settings and genres such as dungeon crawls, city settings, exploration & survival, and obviously the heroic fantasy.

I needed a placeholder name when I started to work on my game, so I called it “World of Roleplay”. I feel like this just isn’t a strong name? I’m also just drawing a blank for other names that are unique. Does anyone having any ideas?

My system uses a Talent Point system for upgrading skills, abilities, and spells. What are your thoughts on ”Talented”?

Edit: Thanks for the responses! I probably should have went more in-depth about the system itself and what makes it unique, since the name should reflect the system. I’ll probably lean on something with “Talent” in the name, since I think that’s my most unique and core mechanic.

As I'm getting back into classic wow, my biggest complaint is that the vendors of the world feel flat. 95% of the time, you go to a vendor to sell your goods and repaid your armor. You really only care about what they're selling if they are in the cities right beside your profession trainer. I think the world would be even more immersive if most vendors sold 1-2 good/useful items.

For example, if there's a butcher at the back of an inn, they should sell a few copies of raw meat, as well as a cooked dish which gives good food stats for its level. This way, if someone wants to work on their profession and has the recipe for the raw meat, they can buy only a limited amount to work on their profession a bit. And then, they can also buy the food so they have a real reason to go trade with the vendor. In general, I think each vendor should sell at least 1 copy of 1-2 green gear that is good for the level. I know they do it sometimes, but I wish it was more consistent.

I think it would also be nice if vendors would buy back certain types of equipment at a better price than other vendors, and a worse price than a "general store" (traveling merchant, trade goods, etc.) Overall, it just feels like there's no reason to ever go to some vendors when I think classic wow can really use vendors as an opportunity to make the world more immersive.

Hello everyone,

I‘m making a d20 class-based system with some of the iconic classes, each containing their own subclasses (very original). This system has class abilities and spells go from levels 1-10, although the game intends to be played from 1-20. Currently, I’m trying to have all of my priest subclasses have abilities at level increments 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 10; and 2 subclass-specific spells per level from levels 1-10. My classes include Warriors, Rogues, Mages, Priests, Rangers, and Druids.

I’m unsure where to put a necromancer-style subclass. In theory, I could give it to the mage class since necromancers are typically evil wizards (e.g., liches). However, unholy priests are also known to be necromancers as well. My system doesn’t really have any evil or good priests, it’s all about perspective. My death priests are about necrotic energy and blood magic; they have a lot of selfish healing and damage in their kit. The lore reason why I wouldn’t want them to be necromancers is that they death priests represent and uphold the end of the life cycle, and undead creatures deny this cycle.

But I also have life priests, and their abilities center around healing. I find that the stereotypical priest, especially life priest, is a support character, which caters to more supportive-style players. I’m not sure if someone who wants to play a life cleric wants to also sign up to be a necromancer. I don’t want to force this vision on this type of player, but at the same time, I’m finding it difficult to build a kit outside of just healing. So I want to know the community’s thoughts on priests, and particular holy or life priests, and if they think this is a good idea? What are your expectations when playing these types of characters?