With any VTT (including obsolete rolisteam), you can load an image as a map, and set up some fog of War.

No need to rebuy a dedicated module. Vanilla roll 20 does it

I am a bit surprised by the premise. Indeed D&D misses a good faction play, but it’s one RPG among thousands of others.

Many if not most RPG do have faction/reputation mechanics. Vampire or L5R comes immediately to my mind. Playing any kind of cyberpunk game involve a form of faction as you need to manage not being arrested by cops or corpo, if you move to the 2010’s Eclipse phase has this pretty interesting reputation economics, and then Blade in the dark came with fun faction/downtime rule at the point for some players it’s mostly a faction management game

Eclipse phase has a pretty cool reputation economy. You don’t use money but network and reputation to get things (mostly info and access to fablab, it’s a post abundance economic)

Never heard the : Psychotronic term. But all of these are solid advices, that are a big part of modern RPG. Even for a reasonable campaign length. I am surprised that they even still need to be said. Keep the setting consistent (and time), have the player driving the action, and let the player action have consequences. I am less fan of the multiple character, but if even Blades in the Dark and adjacent games push for it, I would see-it as a good practice.

I am split on that one.

A known setting an do a lot for engaging with the player (the cliché about the Vampire players having long discussion about the lore), and the setting is definitely a reason why i would join a game over another, if I see a GM promoting a collective setting creation I wouldn’t apply for that game.

However, even in rigid setting, there is a lot of room for player brought element. So you’re a Noble ? What does your fief look-like. So you’re a robber ? How do you sell your loot ?, what does your favourite tavern look like which ease the GM job and gives players some control on the game world.

So While I don’t agree with Build the whole setting together, I definitely expect the players to bring their own elements to the table

Take your time, do not show anything supernatural or gore ab initio. Start with a very mundane plot, the first victim is a lawyer who has tie with the mafia, and an affair. So at first something banal and ordinary. Then add minor uncanny elements, that and drift very slowly to the supernatural mystery.

If everyone believes ab initio that there is supernatural and monsters, you’re not anymore in the fantastic/horror genre

Do people really use these kind of sound board for their game ?

A part of me is like Cool I need that and a part of me is more like this is a big immersion killer so curious to get feedback of people who would use that. Is it just a fun stuff for the Lol ? or can you use SFX on a way which bring something to the game ?

Give them what they want, against an eternity of slavery and suffering. Looks like a nice final episode for a campaign

IMO, the big American bias in heroic fantasy RPG including D&D is how empty (most) settings are. If you travel (nowadays by car) in rural Europe, you’d find village every 5-10km, turns out that people walking to their field don’t like to spend more than 1h commuting. While on some high fantasy map, you have like 3 day of walk through a dangerous forest, or an endless plain without much settlements.

Also it’s worth mentioning that many European major roads/highway have been built at first by the Roman, and have been modernized through history. So again, middle age wasn’t as empty, salvage as many D&D settings. Which indeed looks more like frontier era US.

A lot of pretty classic but good advise, There is already a discussion on PvP, but here are two cool ones

Don’t overprepare. I have an inexpensive egg timer. My partner hates its ticking sound. So I use a watch instead. 30 minutes for a session. That’s how much I give myself.

That one is the biggest killer, beginner GM carefully think about tonight tavern, the innkeeper has a name and a description, the bard is going to tell a story about missing kids, there is even a menu for the night. Except that the PC are like There something weird in that town, May-be their food in poisonous we shouldn’t stay too long in the tavern, you’re right let’s camp in the wood and keep watch Tons of stuff prepared by the GM end-up in the garbage (Or for another session). So keep an outline, and as the author said, everything is a bonus.

Keep the game running and review rules after.

Looks like one of the most basic advice. May-be you forgot about how black-smithing works (To take the kind of rules you won’t use any time). But at the end, just find an appropriate skill/mechanics and problem is solved. May-be you missed a point and were too nice/harsh, but at least you didn’t spend 15 minutes re-reading a rules.

Be consistent and predictable.

This is IMO the best way to fix 90% of game planning problem, session occurs at a fixed date, not matter who’s there. Worst case, you do a board game, or have a drink. but if you wait for everyone to be available, you won’t play much

A quick check shows me that there is also !osr@ttrpg.network which is also kinda unactive.

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

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

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

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

A few idea pointers,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is a pretty hot take.

Why would I care about the Goblin attacking a remote village, or the kids vanishing from a summer camp ? I have a job to do, don’t want to die. Why would I cooperate with person I didn’t know a before the game start ? Sure, it’s a game, and we all want to play, but when both the player and the GM have to make a lot of compromise to make the scenario playable, it just breaks immersion.

However, where OP is right, is that very often, the plot hook cannot be written by the scenario author, and when they do, it feels artificial (So you were arrested by the cops and are offered a deal to get out , or you dream about a mysterious jail which is now a mental hospital) a GM crafting plot hook based on the PC backstory and the discussion in session zero. Another big question to ask : Why do the PC want to work together ? There is tons of horror stories about our families have been hating each other for generations, I don’t trust you which can make campaign complicated, hence things like Camarilla archonts in Vampire or Emerald magistrates in L5R, or even Delta green for call of Chtulhu it gives both plot hook (it’s your job to investigate) and reason to cooperate it’s your fucking job

Some games do have pregen characters, it’s great because you have a character fitting in the story (I tend to prefer games relying on character background and goals rather than on NPC to get the story running). But if not sometimes a classic cliché works better than an big OC

Regarding role-playing, sure there is moment where it gets more sloppy. But in general the whole ambience pushes you

Out of curiosity, as I don’t play D&D, does it includes character and their helpsheets?

I fill like that the most complicated part of a lvl 20 OS would be the character creation and management. And I assume that GM who bring their PC that far over a campaign have so much ongoing plot that they can just sit down at the table and let the PC do all the prep work

I feel like you misunderstood my question,

I talk Forged in the dark mechanic (FITD) which have a mechanic called “clock”. It’s a bit similar to long term action on traditional games where you stack success points / failure points until a long term goal is reached except that FITD uses it really everywhere no matter whether we talk about “HP”, “opening a door” “being seen by the guard”. An So it’s not about general “time in RPG” which is also an interesting discussion (especially in a game like Vampire, the threat of the dawn coming can add a lot of pressure to the PC). And like other so called “rule light games” you end-up with large rule books and mechanics that you need to follow.

Regarding the asking question, I am not talking about meta-gaming, but question that would drag attention story wise. Without going asking question about the Kim family in North Korea, if you start asking about the local mafia, it’s likely that at some point the local mafia will hear about these persons asking questions. I took that as an example of a threat which isn’t immediate (You’re spacesuit is running out of air if you don’t make it soon to the ship you’ll die) but which is present. In a more traditional game, I could use what make sense in the story to plan the encounter with the mobsters.