After years of decline, economic profits rebounded with a vengeance—driven by tech companies, performance in the energy and materials sector, and capital growth in China and North America.

To be clear, this seems like nonsense to me, in a systematic sense. Most of that profit seems to be off the back of shrinkflation, enshittification, and AI hype, all of which is rent-seeking, and none of which is based on any meaningful material increase in real underlying value..

Do these people ever think about the connection between finance and economics and real, underlying value?

What campaign archetypes (e.g. defeat the dungeon boss, rescue the princess, heist) exist that can work in a really short campaign, ideally a one-shot?

Interested in stuff that can be used for any system, but suggestions for cool game-specific campaigns that can be generalised are also welcome.

What interesting mechanics exist out there?

I don't mean just "here's a new way to roll combinations of polyhedral dice", or "here's a new theme overlaid on a standard progress tracker", or "here's stress with another name".

I mean, actual new conceptual mechanics that produce new and interesting behaviours in-game. Things like CoC's push rolls, or Slugblaster's Beats/Character Arc, or Blades in the Dark's Flashbacks (these might not be the first games that those appeared in, but the point isn't the game, it's the mechanic).

Interested particularly in what those new mechanics bring to the table in terms of player interactions or story development.

There are games that have a "big fish in a big pond" feel - e.g. sandbox D&D games, or a "big fish in a small pond" feel, e.g. games with contained campaigns/missions.

There are also games that do a "small fish in a small pond" feel really well, e.g. Fiasco.

Are there any games that do a "small fish in a big pond" feel well? e.g. games where the players are not outstanding heros, and where the world feels big - not only spatially, but also socially and politically?

Edit: lots of good suggestions so far, but maybe I could have added:

• it's fine and good if the small fish somehow end up having a big effect
• it would be amazing if the big-world had well fleshed out other goings-on. Ideally some mechanics that let all players contribute to this feeling, so it doesn't depend entirely on the quality of the DMing

Edit 2: title, to avoid all the computer game suggestions. I guess the community name isn't hint enough, huh?

Have you ever learned things from playing table top RPGs (or other story games) that you've been able to apply in other areas of life, outside of gaming?

What books or articles have you read recently that fundamentally shifted the way you think about the world, and how you interact with it (work, social, play, whatever)?

If someone was interested in understanding as much as possible what the world of TTRPGs and story games had to offer, which 5 games would you suggest they play first, and why?

Ideally this would include a broad array of mechanics, themes and settings.

Inspired by a discussion over at !rpgmemes@ttrpg.network : https://lemmy.world/post/33918016/18604654

Seems like there's a butt-load of GM-guidance material out there. In particular things like the Lazy GM's Guide. But it's harder to find good, accessible and reasonably comprehensive guide for building good players and player arcs.

I'm a new GM, and have a few new players who having fun, but are not feeling feeling like they know how to develop their character well. Any useful material I can give them would be appreciated.

We're currently playing a game that's mechanically a bit more like PbtA (not crunchy), but advice for any game/system is welcome.

https://www.allplay.com/board-games/the-defenders-almanac/

An extensive illustrated guidebook to the besieged lands of the Commonwood and a rules-light tabletop roleplaying game for collaboratively telling short stories of animal resistance to the machine invasion ~ from T.L. Simons, creator of Defenders of the Wild and Bloc by Bloc with fantasy author Margaret Killjoy, game designer Henry Audubon, illustrator Meg Lemieur, and writer Patricia Noonan

Anyone played it? Got any tips? I realise it's pretty recent, so maybe not..

I'm about to start a session with a new gaming group (of old friends). I'm new to DMing and TTRPGs in general (have played one session of pathfinder), two of my 4 players have a fair bit of experience playing and DMing.

I realise this is way more rules-light than pathfinder, though that's probably not saying much - it also seems a fair bit lighter even than some PbtA based games I've looked at..

General advice for DMing rulse-light RPGs also welcome :)

Some games are complicated - they have really complex rules. Examples of this are games where you have to track many different types of tokens, with different rules for each.

Other games have really simple rules, but still manage to produce extreme complexity in they way they are played.

Go is the perfect example of this. It literally has 2-3 rules, but because you can play anywhere, the complexity it can produce is wide and deep, to the point that tomes have been written on how to play it.

What other boardgames exist that have very simple rules, but produce complex and interesting game play?