r/TTRPG

So basically like the title states, I've been wanting to learn how to DM for a while but don't know where to start. I've been a player for years but never got the courage to DM until a few days ago. So what do I need and where do I start?

Does anyone know any scifi ttrpgs they can recommend? Not looking for a particular kind of gameplay, but if you know a game where the combat, exploration or roleplay mechanics are really unique or just well- made I'd love to hear about it.

For reference I have played LANCER, Delta Green, Wrath & Glory, Star Wars 5e, haven't tried Cyberpunk Red yet but my friends have if I want to try it.

Bonus points if it fits into a cyberpunk or grimdark setting (not just 40k or 2077, but those genres).

Dressing an encounter! Otherwise known as set dressing (or other terms I may not be aware of/ remember), this is used to describe details to make what your players engage with the world rather than feeling like a blank canvas in some places. I know personally the appeal of worldbuilding, and how much fun it is to mold gods from clay and to fill journals with the political gambits of the little monarchs in your mind. But, most of the time, what you show your player will be the mundane. Dirty caves reeking of stale and drying moss, villages bustling with activity and noise. Even if you have your game set toward the grand goal of overthrowing a mad deity, a world will almost never feel lived in if you ignore the smaller details, and this I know well.

Let's put this to a test- A brief description I would give players who come across the hut of a witch in a bog.

"After hours of trudging through gnarled branches sticking through the shallow water, after nearly losing your boot to sudden muddy patches, you see a thin trail of smoke leading up from the tops of the trees ahead of you. Focusing your gaze, you see a small wooden shelter, no larger than a small house. You continue to walk forward, and see the tell-tale signs of a witch littering the entrance to the shack. Carefully, with hands ready to drawn your weapons, you open the door and enter the domicile."

This tells a lot to the players. The party is tired and maybe irritated at having to cross difficult terrain, the bog gives them an ominous sense around them, and they enter the hut with trepidation. However, we can make this better. Take the line from above, "You continue to walk forward, and see the tell-tale signs of a witch littering the entrance to the shack". This line alone tells the players what kind of encounter they are looking at, whether you want it to be roleplay or combat is up to the player's actions. But if you elaborate some more, you can play out an entirely different theme and tell the players how to feel before they even open the door and speak to the witch. I'm going to give three examples of such, all with the simple idea of 'skulls surrounding the shack'.

Perhaps the witch is pure evil and covetous, hoarding the trophies of the slain and mounting their skulls on polearms sticking out of the muck, with chipped swords hanging from ropes covered in gristle. There are marks of dark gods etched into human mandibles that line the simple porch, bleeding thick gray smoke that pools around the door, forming a protective ward that alerts the witch if someone crosses it's boundary. As they approach, the players hear wailing and shrieking as the witch restrains a hostage for a dark ritual inside.

But maybe, the witch is not evil, but rather a neutral protector of the forest. Skulls still line the boundary of her home, but none are human. All of them are of animals, deer skulls with carefully braided grasses that web across the antlers and hang them from a tree, where runes of protection hang beside them. A skill check can tell the players that these runes spell out an ancient spell that is meant to bring departed spirits peace. The skull of a squirrel suddenly animates itself, with a ghostly body forming around it to run around the feet of the players and chitter playfully.

Maybe the witch has done dark magic, but only because it is for a good cause. Maybe she was not able to save her village from a disaster, and so communes evil forces to keep them at bay. The skulls around her house are from men and women, but the players notice none are misshandled. Each was reverently laid across a strip of velvet cloth with prayer beads laid before them in offering. Even after finishing her dark rituals, the witch will lay the remains of those slain to rest and vainly attempt to return them to the gods they prayed to. The players can hear crying, but this time it is the witch in sorrow.

A story can be told a million different ways, but sometimes the introduction to an encounter can guide the players to interact with it in the way you want, allowing the plot to progress seamlessly.

Note, just had this idea and wanted to jot it down someplace where it way help people with this issue. Lord knows I have in the past. I hope this is helpful to anyone who reads it, and happy roleplaying!!

Every fanfic author knows this moment:
You start writing Chapter 47.
Then you realize:
- You forgot your OC’s birthday.
- You can’t remember when two characters first met.
- Your timeline contradicts Chapter 8.
- You have 37 Google Docs, 12 notes, and one mysterious text file called “LORE_FINAL_v7_REAL.docx”.
That’s why You should consider using The World Architect.
Instead of treating your story like a document, it treats it like a world.
Keep track of:
✓ Characters and relationships
✓ Locations and lore
✓ Timelines and events
✓ Magic systems and factions
✓ Canon facts and headcanon additions
✓ Creation of interactive maps
Whether you’re writing a 20k one-shot or a 1-million-word epic that rewrites an entire universe, everything stays connected and searchable.
Less time hunting through notes.
More time writing.
(Promotion allowed by mods)

My name is Zach Destael, and I make tabletop games. This post is an observeration I've made about Pokémon's business side, and what I think both I and other small creators can learn from it. I'm not saying that I'm right or wrong about anything, this is just what I've noticed

TLDRs - Each section of this post has a TLDR at the end. If you want the genrral gist of everything, but dont want to read my introspectives and study, skip to these.

Table of Contents

The Simplicity Trap — Why Pokémon's simplicity is a feature, not a flaw, and what that actually means for anyone building something more complex.

The Ecosystem — Multiple entry points, multiple audiences, one world. Why the architecture matters more than the marketing.

The Release Cadence — How Pokémon coordinates releases and why the pattern matters more than the products themselves.

What I Actually Did With Any Of This — Where my own work intersects with these observations, for better or worse.

The Lesson I Learned From My Own Work — What building in private for a long time actually buys you.

The Simplicity Trap

Pokémon is not a simple franchise. The competitive meta is genuinely complex, the lore runs thousands of entries deep, and the card game's inter-card interactions and techniques take years to master at a competitive level.

However, the base rules of the Pokémon TCG, the plot of any one anime episode, and the core loop of any one video game are simple enough that a five year old can play them, watch them, and genuinely enjoy them.

The complexity is layered on top of a simple foundation rather than baked into the base. The depth is opt-in once you're inside.

Compare the onboarding experience of Magic: The Gathering Despite MtG being the first TCG (or maybe becauze its the first), its base product carries significant complexity and generally speaking, its player base is older (teens - adults). I am not commenting on how good or bad either game is, I'm simply saying that MtG is more complex to start than Pokémon, and that it affects accessibility.

The lesson I learned from comparing Pokémon TCG to MtG is that, adding things on top of a complex system doesn't open new doors, it tends to make existing ones harder to walk through. The issue isn't the crossover concept. or that the game isn't fun, it's that complexity compounds.

TLDR - If you can explain your thing to a fifth grader, you probably understand it. If you can't, you might want to re-examine how accessible your product's front door actually is.

The Ecosystem

Pokémon operates across so many product categories, it's unrealistic to examine them by myself. So i focused on the three categories most relavent to me: video games, card game sets, and anime arcs.

Each functions as a complete standalone experience and a potential gateway to the others. Someone who starts with the anime might become a card game player. Someone who starts with the card game might pick up the video game; or they stay in one lane their entire life. Either way, they are in Pokémon's ecosystem.

What makes this worth studying isn't the number of products. It's that each entry point is simple enough to stand alone. The simplicity of each individual product is part of why each door functions as a door rather than a wall.

When a base product is already complex, adding another entry point doesn't automatically expand the audience. It can just as easily fragment it. The strength of Pokémon's ecosystem comes partly from each component being genuinely accessible on its own.

TLDR - The advantage of multiple entry points is resilience. If one product doesn't resonate with someone, another might

The Release Cadence

Pokémon doesn't just release products consistently, it releases them in coordination.

Sun and Moon the video game came out alongside the Sun and Moon card set alongside the Sun and Moon anime arc.

Those aren't three separate launches happening around the same time. They're one launch across three entry points simultaneously. Someone who buys the game is primed for the cards. Someone watching the anime is primed for the game. The timing creates cross-pollination between audiences that a staggered release wouldn't.

The specific lesson is not just "release things on a schedule" but to coordinate releases so they point at the same world at the same moment.

A community that gets multiple things pointing at the same world simultaneously tends to go deeper into it than a community getting those same things one at a time. The simultaneous release creates a shared cultural moment rather than a series of smaller individual ones.

I'm not saying to manufacture coordinated releases that don't exist yet, (shipping bad work on a schedule is worse than shipping good work slowly). What I am saying is if multiple things set in the same world are already in development, the timing of when they land relative to each other is worth thinking about deliberately.

TLDR - If you have the means, and the product(s), a coordinated release creates multiple doors into your ecosystem.

What I Actually Did With Any Of This

I didn't start by studying Pokémon's business model and working backwards, it was kind of the opposite.

I built things that felt right and were fun to build, looked up at some point and noticed the structure. When I noticed it, I went looking for precedent, and found it in Pokémon.

The free entry point into my system existed before I thought about Pokémon's accessibility philosophy. A card game emerged from one of my character classes before I thought about Pokémon's TCG. That card game is now in standalone development. The actual play series I'm producing is another door into the same space.

A novel set in one of the worlds of my multiverse is also being written. It started as a dream, became a story I needed to tell, and the setting chose itself because the world I'd already built was exactly right for it. The fact that it functions as another door into the ecosystem is incidental to why it's being written, but the point of its eventual existence is its another door.

None of this was planned as an ecosystem strategy. It emerged from building something with enough depth that it naturally generated multiple ways in.

TLDR - What studying Pokémon gave me was confidence that this kind of structure has precedent and that the simplicity of each entry point matters as much as having multiple entry points at all.

The Lesson I Learned From My Own Work

Pokémon is a useful model, but possibly an even more valuable lesson came from studying my own work.

If you build deep and broad enough, you eventually have the freedom to present a door from any level. When someone looks through the peephole, their imagination can infer the world behind it without you having to show them everything at once. The door doesn't have to open onto the whole world. It just has to open onto enough that curiosity does the rest.

For me, that required building in private before releasing anything. It required being fairly honest with myself about how deep I've set the entrance, and whether what's visible through the peephole actually suggests the depth behind it or just looks like a door to nowhere.

It also required patience. The reward for studying your own work well enough to present it from multiple angles at multiple levels of depth, is real; but in my case, I built over 15 years, and am still building. It's a long time, and I think a lot of creators can agree, it never really ends. The point is to take a step back, and look at what you made, and ask "Where is the clearest and easiest entrance for the door?"

TLDR - Building a deep world gives you many possible entry points. The challenge isn't creating more doors, t's choosing which one people should walk through first.

Thank you for reading and listening to my autistic ramblings.

Game/system name, links, etc. in the comments. Questions or anything you want addressed, feel free to ask there too.

Okay this might sound silly but I'm looking for a TTRPG that has to do with like....Supernatural beings in hiding and normal people in a modern time period setting.

Like not mutant-like / superhero themed but more so like maybe... Supernatural creatures like vampires, werewolves, eldritch beings, witches, cursed, ect ect all in the disguise of a human to fit among other humans to live among them while also doing their own thing (feeding, fighting, ect)

I could of sworn there was a TTRPG that was SIMILAR to that kind of feel that I've purchased but I can't remember what it's called and I've tried looking it up to no avail. :( It's not deeply horror themed in terms of madness and stuff but more so other players could be what they aren't expected to be?

Sorry if this doesn't make any sense. I wanna try something like it or similar again!

Apart from Dialect, which I already know about, do you know of any games that are about language or code-making?

I always wanted to play Root. The boardgame I mean. I always found it quite alluring, I always loved strategy games and the art and concept always seemed right on my alley. Unfortunately, I did not get the occasion to play it yet. However, I learned that the boardgame also received a TTRPG adaptation, made by none others then Magpie Games. For those who are not aware, Magpie are the reigning kings of PbtA RPGs, with titles such as Masks, Avatar Legends, Cartel and many many others. So when we approached them for a partnership, Root was at the top of my wishlist. They were gracious enough to send a review copy our way and with the occasion of Playcon, an amazing local con which held its first edition back at the end of May I got the chance to run a couple of public sessions there.

Needless to say, I had a blast, I adored the art, the setting and the implementation of PbtA (between us, I actually enjoyed this one way better than Avatar Legends). And it wasn't just me who had a blast with the system, but also my groups of players! So I knew that I had to make a review and explain at large why you might enjoy this little gem. Unfortunately, life is sometimes a bitch and some personal stuff delayed said review, but I am proud to tell you that it is now ready and published!

So if any of you have even the smallest amounts of interest towards lite-political games, fun low fantasy adventure, a nostalgia for series such as Redwall or Guardians of Ga'Hoole I think you should give this game a try! My thoughts at large are found in the review, I hope you will enjoy it and I hope you will give this game a try, I assure you, it will be a fun time!

Almost every ttrpg I've played has either been d20 based, ptba (2d6), or a few using percentile dice (warhammer, mythras).

Are they any other systems used by multiple different ttrpgs? Conversly, what are your favorite one-off systems, and do you think they could work for other games?

I like looking at different systems and seeing what cool ideas they have, and lately the biggest thing I've judged a system for is how they handle "Fighters" or "Warriors" or "Soldiers" or whatever they call them. Like, if your basic-bitch weapon expert is nothing more than a brain-dead attackbot, I feel like that shows some fundamental flaws in the rest of game design. Do the designers actually respect every player and want to give them all an enjoyable experience? Is there something fundamental to the system that's fun instead of depending on the class chassis to be interesting enough? Does everyone get to do neat things both in and out of combat or just some people? I really think the Fighter is the canary in the coalmine for good or bad game design in games that feature it.

I know they made some improvements in 5.5e but when I rolled my first character as a fighter with the 2014 rules I honestly felt like my time was disrespected by the designers. I don't think there should be any class whose entire contribution to the party was "Roll attack, maybe roll damage" every turn. I kept thinking my contribution to the team was so small I could've easily had someone else roll 2 dice for me and go home and do something more fun. This suspicion was confirmed when I later played a caster, actually had fun, and realized the summon elemental spirits spell was almost the same as playing both a sorcerer and a fighter on my turn. Except the summon had more variety and abilities.

That's why I fell in love with Pathfinder 2e. Athletic maneuvers don't do next-to-nothing like in DnD, even a sword and boarder has interesting choices about when to raise their shield vs make another strike, skills like bon mot or intimidate let me moonlight as a debuffer and give my character some personality while doing it. I could go on and on.

3.5E/Pathfinder 1e Fighter seems pretty neat from what I've experienced. Getting a shitload of feats and being responsible for being a versatile, dangerous weapon master or a toothless, inaccurate sword swinger can be really frustrating but also really rewarding, and making decisions each turn about sacrificing accuracy for damage or defense is pretty cool!

DCC and Daggerheart show that combat doesn't have to be crunchy or complicated to give martials a fun and varied experience and a meaningful role at the table.

What other games should I look at for how they treat their "basic" martials?

I have a friend who wants to run a game set in a stone age world. Low-magic, and all of the "races" would be reflavored into different proto-humans, if applicable. But we've hit a bit of a snag, as we aren't sure what system would be suitable for this. Some people say DND or Pathfinder but those systems are very magic-reliant especially at later levels and we would have to butcher them so heavily to get it to work with his vision that we might as well play something different anyway.

Thoughts? Advice? Suggestions?

Hey all, I have designed a ruleset that I would like feedback on. Where is the best place to submit a simple PDF to get feedback on rules clarity and such?

Currently working on a difficult cosmic and body horror style D&D like TTRPG system. it’s low fantasy, has a few 18th century guns, and is far into development enough to be played. However, I’m struggling to come up with a lot of enemies. If anyone has some interesting monsters, enigmatic entities, small beasts, or even human abominations to share or provide, I would be very thankful and intrigued to hear them. Thanks in advance.