I noticed that the community care a bunch about licensing, and since I moved to Linux I have been paying attention to that a lot, for both games I play and software I use.
So I am making a list of tools I use for my campaigns, in person or online, that still work on Linux, or that I found as an alternative to what I used before.

If you are a forever GM you probably have a licence for FoundryVTT, or are used to other online alternatives, or use those editable PDFs. There are plenty of tools out there for more permissive systems. Like my favourite https://compcon.app/#/ for Lancer.

But I think, on the top of my list, for playing and GMming D&D / Pathfinder PCGen is still king. It might also be a sign that I am old as the tool has been around for a long while.

It works the same on Linux as it works on MacOS or WindowsOS. As long as you have java, you just need to extract the release from github (https://github.com/PCGen/pcgen) and run the '.sh' (or .exe). (make sure you got a file like this pcgen-6.08.00RC10.zip that it comes ready to use, as there is a file called Source Code.tar.gz and you will need to take more steps for it to be usable.

I like that it is straightforward to create a char, PCGen helps you at every step. From this screenshot from the website, you can see there is a checklist "Things to be Done", that reminds you of the things you need to do to a given character.

You can use to manage every aspect of your player, and it gives you options to export if you would rather not use it for playing.

More screenshots here (http://pcgen.org/benefits/screenshots/). The website is old, so it does not have https.

There are also some features for GMing, but I never used, I usually print or use a digital file like PDF or HTML.

http://pcgen.org/benefits/gmgen/

Now, the negatives.

Licensing is a problem, it does not ship with less permissive systems. So you will have to add them yourself.

It comes with a bunch of stuff for Pathfinder, but for D&D you will need to fend for yourself on how to find/install PCGen D&D Data Set

Last, the Data Set file format, and the data format. It is daunting to look at, and a bit tricky to work it. It is just some sort of text file, but it depends on a lot of proper data format and indentation. And as the file grows, it becomes hard to manage. It takes some time to get used to it, if you want to create homebrew classes, items, etc...

Here is the wiki - http://159.203.101.162/w/index.php/Data_LST_Standards

It is nice that someone compiled a bunch of videos helping people do that http://pcgen.org/get-help/videos/

I have nothing to do with the development of the tool, I just use it and wanted to share and read about other people experience, suggestions, workflow, etc...

Paizo has announced a new horror RPG that will not use the Pathfinder/Starfinder 2E game engine. Announced today, 13 Omens is a new rules-lite RPG designed...

It's a distributed system for browsing fictional scenarios through LLMs that could be applied to TTRPGs. It still a work in progress, where lots of stuff needs to be fixed (I also want to add multiple playable characters), but you can get the idea. The core is that its an open system, documents can link to one another, also over different servers.

I am currently playing the new RE9 and got to thinking, what games are out there that handle mutations?

I'm about done getting the VTT set up for our next campaign, Blades '68. I'm pretty excited for this one, I love the Blades in the Dark system, and also the late 60's/ early 70's aesthetic.

I'm curious how other GMs here have their VTT setup, particularly for PbtA or FitD games, but really any system.

Here's the setup I made for the original Blades in the Dark:

Greetings, programs! With the MCDM community's help, I've prepared a survey of GM styles, so that I can use factor analysis to find the common variables underlying GMs' responses, and come up with a scientific answer to "what kinds of GM styles are there?" The survey has 43 questions and takes a few minutes to complete. The more people answer, the better the data we'll get.

EDIT: We got 101 responses and now we're analysing the data. First results: There are 9 dimensions of GM style! Not sure what they are, but there's 9 of them.

I buy a lot of digital RPG books - the shelf space in my apartment is ultimately limited, while the space on my hard drive is far less constrained (despite current storage prices). Furthermore, while the reading experience is still slightly better for physical books, I have a color e-ink reader which comes close enough for my purposes.

However, I do have a pet peeve with some RPG publishers: They refuse to give the files proper file names. Paizo is the worst offender among them, though not the only one.

I mean, I don't mind if the file name includes the product code. It's fine if a "PZO13008E" somewhere in there.

But please, for all that is unholy, make the file name "PZO13008E Hellfire Dispatches" instead of just leaving it at that! When I am making large purchases of multiple books - which I do frequently - I have to go on a renaming orgy:

1. Open the file
2. Check what product this file represents
3. Close the file
4. Rename the file

If the file name included the actual product title, I could skip steps 1-3.

Hello (tt)rpg people!

Easter is coming and so is my get-together with my friends to play TTRPGs for ~three days straight this weekend.
Last time we played one of the Mothership RPG stories and while there was a bit of friction ("you are not the almighty hero") it was still pretty awesome for me as a DM.

This year I have an idea for a (for us) different one-shot - Ghost Busters but its just a party full of paladins maybe getting hired for odd jobs in a fantasy setting?
maybe even phantasmagoria - a cross between parts of a modern world and fantasy (e.g. embracing the Sending Stones as phones trope etc).
I am keeping the definition a bit loose in my head and not strictly focused on being a parody of the GB movies so basically anything goes, it's supposed to be really light and just funny.

If you have any potentially funny ideas, be it bits, custom spells, "combat scenarios" or puzzles please share! I am running a bit dry :D

Also, still not sure if I want to use our usual system Pathfinder 2E for this.
My players default to being (red) button pushers - but are always open to try different things, I wouldn't do this if that was not the case.
They like to build characters to primarily try out the class combat features & combos, but with this being a one-shot I want to try a more narrative heavy approach - a collective story-telling thing (though my players will definitely need RP hints).
The alternatives I got are either D&D 5e for being simpler then pf2e (and actually having a Paladin as a simple class compared to PF). My searches led me to Shadowdark being a super simple system but I have never tried it.
Either way my current idea is to just pick the core ideas of pf2e/d20 systems and then go with the flow after that.
If anyone can recommend or has an idea how to handle the system when it comes to rules-light, narrative gameplay please share.

Thank you!

This is a set of house rules and tinkering I've done with the D&D 5e rules set, nothing in this set of rules are entirely mine, but I compiled the house rules I've been using into this "book-like" format.

I've used this for the last almost decade, and I intent to keep changing and updating these rules. There is parts of it that I haven't yet finished, there is tons of markdown in my notes that I need to compile into better parts and split the sections, so there is more in the way.

All feedback is welcome. If you use these rules and need some clarification on some parts of it let me know.

Create and publish supplements for Dragonbane, Forbidden Lands, Symbaroum, and both editions of Coriolis.

I've heard the system referenced a few times and it's on sale currently

So I'm wondering what it is exactly. I understand it's d6, low crunch, more or less Planescape
But I'd like to know a bit more. Anyone has played it and has some more verbose take?

While fantasy is a many-varied genre, religion in fantasy RPGs is often some mix-up of polytheism with Christian notions - including of the afterlife. The common assumption seems to be that while there are a multitude of gods, if you dedicate your life and belief in that god in particular you will end up in the specific afterlife of that god.

In Christianity, the situation is of course a bit more complex than that. One major precondition for entering the "good afterlife" (i.e. Heaven) is that you need to get baptized. For a long time, this left a rather awkward question mark for what happens to the souls of infants who died during or soon after birth - before they could receive a baptism. Folklore sometimes comes up with its own answers for that, but this was certainly a thing that people worried about.

RPG fantasy religions tend to deemphasize baptism since it's such an iconic Christian rite - but this only further emphasizes the question of what happens to the souls of children who died before they could actually express faith in a particular deity. Does any particular deity claim these children then? Perhaps a deity worshiped by a parent - and if so, of which parent (are there "afterlife child custody" court cases)?

Of course, a fantasy setting does not need to have an afterlife people believe in. But if there are multiple afterlives maintained by different deities (or at least, if people believe that such afterlives exist), then people will worry about that.

As the title says, I'm looking for a nice template to create adventure modules in LibreOffice. Something generic (not made specifically for D&D) with text boxes to read to players, frames for maps, etc. I can't seem to find a single one, and I lack the skills and/or knowledge of how to create one on my own. Can anyone help?

I've been looking at leasing a space for a potential business idea, but I wanted to see what others thought of it. What I'm thinking about is immersive play spaces. A tavern setup that looks like something out of a D&D game, or maybe a spaceport bar for those into SciFi games. Even thinking about a possible Cyberpunk styled bar. The idea is that they would be member driven with guest passes, and alcohol would be supply your own. What I'm asking is if one of these spaces was in your area, would you pay a nominal monthly fee? I'm thinking between $25 to $50 a month with five guest passes.

I’m musing with the idea of buying Obojima : Tales from the tall Grass and I wonder if someone here have played it ?

The potion system seems interesting but it could also a dud (for me)

The practice of using fantasy counterpart cultures - cultures and societies that are very similar to real world cultures of specific times and places - has a long history in fantasy in general, and fantasy RPGs in particular.

And, in truth, there are good reasons for that. Fantasy worldbuilding is a major task, and fantasy worldbuilding for RPGs in particular requires that not only the GM understands any given culture, but the players as well - but understanding a culture requires a lot of effort, and there is only so much time everyone at the table has available for that.

Thus, using familiar elements is a great time saver. The main reason we see the same Tolkien ancestries over and over again (elves, dwarves, halflings, orcs...) is that most players of fantasy RPGs are already familiar with their basic concepts, and thus only have to learn what is different from the norm. But you create fantasy ancestries from scratch, you need to convey all that information to the players.

The same applies to fantasy counterpart cultures - if you have a vague familiarity with the real world culture, then familiarizing yourself with a fantasy culture will be a lot easier.

However, there's also a lot that can go wrong with using fantasy counterpart cultures. Misrepresentation is always a danger, especially with marginalized groups and if the developers did not consult with members of that culture. Likewise, if you are building a fantasy counterpart culture of a nation that has some ugly history, then you risk whitewashing that history.

So what are your thoughts? Do you like to have fantasy counterpart cultures in your settings, or do you prefer to avoid them? And what are some good examples of fantasy counterpart cultures done right?

The Storypath system is descended from the systems used in Vampire: the Masquerade, World of Darkness and other stuff from White Wolf publishing. There's already games published by Onyx Path that implement Storypath (such as Trinity Contiuum & Scion), but this is a generic version with example settings included.

This finalized version actually came out over a week ago, but today I noticed that despite the apparent interest in Storypath on Backerkit, nobody on r/rpg or here had posted about the announcement. I haven't played it yet myself; does anyone here have experience with or interest in Storypath?

Note: While the PDF is available now, it'll be some months before the hardcover ships.

I've heard a lot about Burning Wheel that made me interested. But is it only good for playing in the included fantasy setting?

How hard is it to hack/reskin it into some other setting?

For me, it was: "If it's going to help your players have more fun, cheat. Fudge a die roll. Make shit up. The dice don't tell you what needs to happen, your players' reactions do."

Obviously, many people will disagree with this, but I've always appreciated this advice, and I believe it has made me a better GM.

Hello everybody, our game is finally out on KS: [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/weirdplace/residue-rpg

It is called Residue®, and it is a love letter to Mothership RPG and Fighting Fantasy books. I always loved reading those books when I was younger and following an adventure, and I wanted to bring that same solo experience into a sci-fi horror setting. The easiest way to describe it is Call of Cthulhu meets Mad Max.

In Residue, you play as one of three characters and try to survive the environment while exploring ruins of past civilizations in search of quartz that contain memories. Places twist and turn, geometries change, and spacetime is shattered, so learning and understanding is one of the last purposes left. You manage resources to stay alive and fight the corruption of the land. If you ever lose your resolve, you become Corrupted permanently, which unlocks special items but changes the narrative, NPCs become hostile, and the ruins push back harder.

My plan is to do a Box Set. The game has a dual-layer player board, tokens, cards, and custom dice.

You can also download a free quickstart guidebook here to feel the vibes and mechanics. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1efJh94DwDM3bsZox6t1FB8OrM2DLKJLJ?usp=sharing

If we get funded, it will be a dream come true to make this thing. Thank you for checking it out.

Ive been in the TTRPG Discord since the beginning, and was also an early backer for the Neopets TTRPG Kickstarter. I have also read the playtest in its entirety.

It's... not good. I don't just mean the playtest, either, I mean the entire situation around the Kickstarter is really bad. PUBLICLY-DISPLAYED internal fighting among the developers at Geekify, and also the people developing the game have no RPG designers -- or at the very least none who have come out publicly as being an actual RPG designer in the 2 years this has been developed.

It's a very messy debacle and the project manager seems to have no idea what to do about it.

Also, I give my opinions on the actual playtest itself, which is indeed mostly just the D&D open-source rules slightly reworded.

I've never made a video where I'm upset before, and I'm always extremely supportive of indie or more-obscure projects like this, but having backed with over $100 and waiting 2 years just to find out the mess this situation is has really gotten to me.

What do you guys think of the situation in general? Do you still feel hopeful for the project? Have you read the playtest and if so what do YOU think?

Just a reminder for everyone to recognize and appreciate all of those amazing, fearless, tireless and creative people who exhaust themselves every week to provide a few hours of entertainment for a group of friends whether online or face-to-face. Do something nice for them or even just give them a pat on the back and tell them you appreciate them!

I seem to do this a lot - I'll find a game whose setting I really like, but dislike the ruleset it uses, so I end up converting it over to the ruleset I prefer (usually Cypher System). I've learned that to some people, this is blasphemy of the highest order, which is surprising. I still do it, though. 😬