I just came across this. It's an awesome, extended version of The Game Master's Apprentice Deck, which is an oracle deck which is excellent for solo and group TTRPG.

This online version, however, has lots of extra features. Look at the buttons across the middle (it's easy to miss that they are buttons) that let you randomize NPCs, dungeon rooms, encounters, etc.

I found this really helpful. I hope you do too.

I've been looking at padfolios to use to store all my solo RPG things in one place for easy transport. Has anyone found something suitable for this? Ideally, I'd want something like this:

• Pocket large enough to store a standard 7 dice set
• Clipboard to hold a dungeon page or character sheet, etc
• Possibly a four ring binder to hold multiple papers
• If, against all odds, there was somethine padfolio-like product that had something that could be used as a dice tray, that would be ideal.

I don't need a builtin calculator which many of them have, though. Also, I don't need card holders.

Any ideas?

I came across a site / blog called Ezora Chronicles, which has a number of interesting articles related to hexcrawling. For example, this article seems like a good starting point.

I want to run a multi-session supernatural mystery adventure in my game. Evil forces are trying to learn the forbidden arts of witchcraft, in order to get the attention of a long-lost god who is considered by many to be "the devil." The PCs will have to learn and delve into witchcraft themselves in order to stop this from happening. A mysterious mentor will teach them how to use a Tarot deck (Raider-Waite-Smith, if anyone cares) to learn the lessons required to be able to use witchcraft. Seven cards of the Major Arcana (this is Tarot terminology) will provide the vital clues on how to do this.

I think I've got the mechanics of this down. I know about Justin Alexander's Three Clue Rule, and so on. What I'm struggling with is how to elicit the athmosphere I want. If you've seen the movie The Ninth Gate, read the DaVinci Code, or seen the Netflix show Archive 81, I think you know what I'm talk

I love stuff like this - hexcrawl combined with dungeon crawl. I continue to be surprised by how much Four Against Darkness stuff engages me, depite its simple mechanics.

My friends and I have been playing DnD 5e for a few years now, but now I've decided to start GMing PathFinder 2e. We've played through most of the Beginner Box, and now I want to continue with my own homebrew content. As part of my world, I want to introduce a fighter "subclass" (probably the wrong terminology for PathFinder). What I want is a tribe of warriors who fight without armor (starting at level 2 or 3), and to compensate for the lower AC they get magical tattoos which increase their AC. It will also be possible (when you advance in levels) to choose to add other tattoos with other magical effects).

So my question is: Is this what archetypes are for? Because I don't think "subclasses" are a thing in PathFinder? Or how would I go about this?

For those who aren't familiar, Four Against Darkness is a solo pen-and-paper dungeon crawler. You control four characters of various classes at a time. You roll dice, a table shows you which dungeon room or corridor to draw, then you roll again for its contents, etc. In the base game, all combat and all actions are resolved with a simple d6.

Normally, I would balk at this. A d6 simply doesn't permit sufficient resolution. It leaves little room for depth of mechanics. And to be fair, the base game isn't really all that interesting (to me) because of its lack of depth.

But - and here's the thing - there's so much extra content you can get for this game. Adventures, new classes, new mechanics (some of which involves other dice than the d6 although the base mechanic of the game is always based on the d6 as far as I'm aware), etc. For example, the excellent Treacheries of the Troublesome Towns supplement (which comes in two books) adds the ability to enter towns where you will meet all

The Monsters & Mazes blog has suggested #Hexplore24 to replace #Dungeon23. The idea is to solo play through a newly generated hex each day for a year.

I'm making a fantasy-based TTRPG, and I'm pondering whether or not I could make foraging interesting.

I have a hexcrawl system with rules for what happens when the players traverses a hexmap using random tables. One of the things that can happen (besides random encounters, finding locations, etc) is that they can come across "resources", which for now is only different types of food (mushrooms, edible roots, etc). But I wonder if I could extend this system in a meaningful way, to make foraging fun? As in, can I make a system where players think going out to forage for herbs or spell components in the wild is more attractive than simply buying them in a local magic shop?

The most simple and obvious solution is to extend what I already have in the same way that it already works. That is, one of the things that can happen as players traverse hexes on the map is that they can come across resources in the form of "herbs" or "spell components", etc. When that happens, there could simply be

In order to reduce the amount of times you have to update your number of torches (etc), and also to introduce some random uncertainty, some people suggested an alternative method. Instead of putting "10" in the number of torches you have left on your character sheet, you could put "1d8". This means that every time you need a new torch, you roll 1d8.

If the result is anything other than a 1, then you don't have to update your character sheet at all. But if you do roll a 1, you change it from 1d8 to 1d6. And if you roll a 1 on the d6 in the future, it goes to 1d4. And once you roll a 1 on the 1d4, you're out of torches.

Again, the point of this is to reduce the amount of times you have to change the number of torches you have on your character sheet. Also, it introduces tension - you're several levels into the dungeon, and you only have 1d4 torches left; will it be enough?

This is all fine. I like this system. But it does have a small problem, I think.

Let's say you have 1d4 torches

This channel is shaping up to become a really interesting resource in the #TTRPG space. They've already got some good videos from which I've learned a thing or two. I encourage you to check them out.

This is an interesting blog post by @[email protected] about how to weave multiple stories/plots together in an interesting way, which makes it possible to organically "catch" the players even if they wander off in an unexpected (read: unprepped) direction.

This can be used in any #TTRPG, but it can also be turned into a mechanic, built into an #TTRPG. It reminds me of Fronts (I think they're called) in #DungeonWorld.

Hello there, fellow RPG designer!

If you're anything like me, you too love to discuss roleplaying game mechanics, and how they affect gameplay. That is precisely the kind of thing we'll get to do in this community. Personally, I'm currently working on a roleplaying game that I'm so far calling Unified RPG which I sort of think of as a "rules-lite, GURPS-like" TTRPG. So don't be surprised if you see me creating posts about that here in the near future.

But what about you? What brought you to this community? What kind of game are you working on, or what do you want to make in the future? I'd love to hear all about it!

Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Part of what made the 2017 game Zelda: Breath of the Wild so popular was its travel and exploration element. This aspect of the game was exceptionally well designed.

Climbing

The game has a climbing mechanic, which means that you can basically go anywhere in the game world; there is nothing to stop you, not even mountains. Once you have reached the summit of a mountain, you are often rewarded with a beautiful view.

Spotting something interesting in the distance

Everywhere you go in Zelda: Breath of the Wild, you will see something interesting to do or explore. Once you have climbed a mountain, you typically see several other interesting places you could go. And once you go to them, you will spot other interesting things in the distance.

Flying

Once you have altitude, you can fly forwards and slowly downwards by using a glider. This means that it is often easy to get to interesting locations once you've spotted them from your mountaintop van

It's the obvious question, isn't it? Everybody knows that roleplaying games are a group exercise. The fun comes from the interaction with other participants as well as untangling the plots of the Game Master. That's not something you can do alone - you can't have interpersonal interactions alone, and you can't have both players and a Game Master if it's just you. So why on earth would you even try to engage in an inherently group-oriented activity on your own?

I'm glad you asked; let me explain.

What are the most common problems of group roleplaying games?

• Scheduling issues is THE number one killer of roleplaying campaigns. It's hard to find a regular time slot that everyone can commit to. This is not a problem when you play alone. When you play alone, you don't need a regular time slot - you just play whenever you want.
• Interpersonal drama in group games is a common complaint. It is not uncommon for people to disagree and become upset around the game table. **This is not