rpg

Hi, for the past 3 years I've been developing and using my own VTT, that until then it was only accessible to me and my close group of friends, but now I've decided to make it open to everyone else, open-source it, and distribute it under aGPL license.

What's the pitch? Basically I'm not very much into remote playing but sadly it's most of the game I play due to schedule problems, friends moving away and many other reasons that we all know that make in-person games scarce. So for me VTTs that always been kinda of just homework, I already have the game ready to run now I need to setup the environment to play, not the biggest fan of that, and I've tried many VTTs before and although some fit my requirements, I live in Brazil and a common reality here is of that of people that only have smartphones (and not good ones) to play online, so even the VTTs that fit my requirement were often too heavy on their devices, so for a long time I played using only shared Google Sheets or even just Discord and each player managed their own sheets however they wanted, but none of these approaches left me very happy so I decided to make my own VTT with a few points in mind:

• Markdown based sheets: Sheets are basically Markdown notes (thus the name Tabledown), this allows me to quickly customize sheet templates for any games I need;
• Super lightweight: This entire application is built with vanilla HTML, CSS and JS, it runs natively on the browser with no frameworks and libraries, this is mostly a choice to remove any overhead that comes with opinionated frameworks, so every render, every event listener, every request in the application is intentional to be able to squish performance out of this thing;
• Mobile friend: Everything is built first on small screens and scaled up to allow for a good experience on mobile;

This application has changed a lot of the past 3 years and I decided to make it public now, I don't charge for anything obviously but I do have a ko-fi page for donations at the landing page.

At the landing page you can also find self-hosting guide, tutorials, more information about features and so on. I am fully aware that this is likely to be a very niche VTT since a lot of people prefer more features while this focuses on less, but if this is something that makes me happy to use I'm pretty sure there must be other people out there that will be happy to use it too.

Anyways I've publish it on my own domain but it's also published to be played embed on Itch in case anyone prefers that:

• Landing page;
• Main application;
• Itch;

Anyway, thanks for your time!

The Secret Origin of Free RPG Day

...thanks to never tell me the odds for hosting a great experience and also to harbormaster redbush for running a masterful pirate borg quick-play!..

Last time I discussed something more technical on this community, this one is closer to that open view on the topic of how to use metaphors in the game, and how to include this in the RPG. This is closer to a personal view than a tutorial, so keep this in mind when reading.

All feedback is welcome.
and thanks for reading.

Hi y'all, my players have voiced concerns about the amount of time between combat rounds, I was wondering if anyone else has experienced similar problems and how they gave players more agency in combat when it's not their turn.

Thanks in advance!

Looks really neat and unique. Will keep an eye on it.

Hi folks, I'm looking to run a game with folks interested in whimsical and silly style of play, I think everyone is planning on playing Gnomes or other smol characters, so anything with those vibes would be great.

Thanks in advance!

Just to clear up, this is related to a virtual space for Card Games, not for RPG. For RPG, I've the Freebeegee.
Please read the blog for more information.

I know that this isn't perfect the right spot, but it's adjacent enough for me to thing its relevant. I've used multiple tools for playing D&D (and GURPS) online, and for some reason the simplest tools attract me more than the more robust ones.

So would you think that a tool similar to this one would have your interest? If a friend of yours would invite you to play some Card Game over a tool that is focused in the table, not on the rules, would this be ok? Is my line of thought "okish" in this?

Thanks for all the feedback.

Edited (21/jun): I notice that lot of people didn't read the blog and suggested a VTT. So I updated the original text.

Back in the 1990s and the Oughts, I loved conspiracy-based RPG settings and material. I devoured GURPS Illuminati, Delta Green, Kenneth Hite's Suppressed Transmission columns, and so on.

But in the last decade, I've moved away from them. Part of it may be that I realized that how many conspiracy theories ultimately originated in antisemitic slanders. Part of it might be their mainstreaming by the resurgent fascist right and their supporters. And, of course, the great villains of our day perpetrate all their villainy in the open, rarely even bothering to hide what they are doing.

So I no longer enjoy settings where "The Conspiracy" and their schemes are the main focus of the setting. While I don't mind having "small-c" conspiracies in a game, I don't like it when there is a secret cabal of conspirators running everything.

How about you? Do you still enjoy Conspiracy-based setting, or have you lost your taste for them as well?

Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster is a stand-alone book for lazy and aspiring lazy gamemasters. You don't need any of the previous books to get tremendous value out of Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster. It stands well side by side with other Lazy GM books, bringing new angles to the concept of lazy gamemastering and new tools to help you prepare and run awesome games.

This book isn't a rewrite of Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master. Return focuses on three main lazy GM activities: preparing your game, running your game, and thinking about your game.

Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster breaks down the concepts of lazy gamemastering into the following topics:

• The eight steps of Lazy GM Prep expanded by eight years of experiences and feedback.
• Single session, short, and long campaign prep and execution.
• Adventure types – what works well, where the traps lay, and how to customize the eight steps based on the adventures you're running.
• Quest models – those that work well and those that don't.
• The Lazy GM's Toolkit with sixty tools, tips, and tricks to run your games.
• Example adventure scenarios using the eight steps.
• Piles of random tables and maps to inspire your adventures.

I really liked "the return..." I think that one also might be worth reading

I've been playing TTRPGs online with a group of friends for close to a decade and later this year we are planning an in-person meet up. I'd like to find some options for rule-light games that can be learnt quickly, and would play at least mildly well with upwards of 12 players for a mega-session, for 6+ hours of game.

Open to any suggestions to get the ball rolling. Rules-light, big group, go!

Edited to add:

Some suggestions I have received from other places. I haven't looked into any of these but wanted to add for discussion's sake:

• Everyone Is John
• the Borg games (Mork Borg, etc)
• Fate
• Tiny D6
• Kobolds Ate My Baby
• Daethmatch Island
• Dream Askew
• Shadowdark
• Perils and Processes

If you have any experience with these, your input is appreciated!

I've got a bit of a weird situation going on here, and I want to hear what the fellow transes and the fellow RPG players have to say about it. So I'm crossposting it to both communities.

So I started a new Beam Saber campaign, and one of My players came up with the idea of playing as "Egg James Bond". A womanising super spy who still thinks she's a cis guy, and is externalising all her gender dysphoria into being a terrible person to those around her. It sounded like a fun story to tell, especially the moment where she comes to accept herself and transes her gender. So we've played three sessions so far, and Egg James Bond has been exactly the kind of misogynistic A-hole we were promised.

Except, a complication: The person playing as Egg James Bond is the host of a plural system, and Egg James Bond accidentally becomes her headmate. Her brain adapts to playing as this fictional character, and suddenly he's another person inside her head. Believe it or not, this is a pretty common experience for plural roleplayers.

One of the other players is really bothered by Egg James Bond out of game, because Egg James Bond is a complete A-hole. She's mean, petty, doesn't respect women, etc. Personally, I'm not bothered by this behaviour, because we all discussed the character at session 0 and agreed to make it part of our game. And for Me, the behaviour is staying inside the game. But this other player is deliberately antagonising Egg James Bond out-of-character, receiving exactly the kind of replies I'd expect, and seems bothered by them.

So this other player goes to Egg James Bond and their player/host between sessions, and forcibly cracks her egg. Confronts her and makes her realise that she's a woman inside. Guides her through choosing a name for herself. And this other player seems really proud of Themself, and says they've "fixed" ~~Egg~~ Trans James Bond. And that we can still play through the egg cracking moment in the game, Egg James Bond is still an egg in the game.

But I'm unhappy. I feel like our story has been spoiled. What's the point of playing the story if we already know the ending? So I want Trans James Bond's host to make a new character to play in the game. I don't want to put up with the eggy bigoted version of the character to get to a story moment that's already happened out of game. I feel like the character's story in the game I'm running has been ruined. I wanted to play to find out. But now we've found out, and most of us didn't get to play. And I'm bitter that we put up with the misogyny and pouting without getting the payoff. I was fine with it when it was in service to a story we all wanted to tell, but I don't want to tell that story now that it's already been told.

Here are the results from the poll posted in May. (https://lemmy.ca/post/64421437)

Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/12yFvkpWgWpSsx200KUUnyVsW2wbfwowf

YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/V7khLevB3wU

Top 7

1. D&D (all editions)
2. Pathfinder (all editions)
3. Daggerheart
4. Shadowdark
5. Draw Steel
6. Nimble
7. Call of Cthulhu (all editions)

Special callout from Bob to Cottagecore Goblin Lesbians Destroy Capitalism RPG.

This popped up in my RSS feed and I found it a good read

For some time now I've felt that D&D-like d20 mechanics is cursed to have the problem of inflation. But it was refreshing to see someone else point it out too

I'm currently at a boardgame convention and while I'm pretty ignorant about the hobby, I've seen some nice looking tokens here.

I love the setting of Brancalonia. I love the humor, I love the folklore, and I am currently learning Italian in evening classes to boot, so this is basically a perfect mix.

But I do not love that the authors picked D&D 5E as the rule system for this setting. Don't get me wrong, I find D&D 5E perfectly acceptable for heroic fantasy campaigns (and, in fact, I am running such a campaign right now). And I can understand this choice from a business perspective - it makes a lot of sense to tie your setting to the most popular RPG system out there.

However, Brancalonia PCs are not supposed to be great heroes, but fairly unimpressive never-do-wells. The rules deal with this by capping character level at 6, but I feel that this leaves the PCs with too little room to grow and removes much of the proper D&D experience. I'd rather use a rule system that was intended for weaker protagonists, rather than trying to distort D&D into something that is not.

So, what alternate system would you use for Brancalonia?

That things rarely go according to plan is part of running an RPG. The players will surprise you, and often this is entirely fine - in fact, it might result in a more memorable experience and a better game.

But sometimes, things go off the rail in a bad way - and you, as a GM, did not see it coming until it was too late, resulting in disaster and a non-fun experience for all concerned.

And contemplating some of my past mistakes, I am curious about your biggest GMing regrets. What went wrong, and what would you have done differently if you had the opportunity for a do-over?

I've been running a little RPG meetup group for last two years, and it's been going quite well. We've been using Discord and Meetup to schedule events, and the group is growing.

One thing I'd like to do for the group is set something up where GMs could propose games, both one-shots and campaigns, that they'd like to run. Some kind of online site where GMs could explain what they wanted to run, perhaps adding a few links about the game, and what days they'd be available to run something. Also, players could respond with their availability. Perhaps a polling system to see what games have the most interest. This would just be for face-to-face games in our local group.

Neither Discord or Meetup really work for this. Discord messages fade away too quickly and Meetup events are fixed to a particular date and time.

I was thinking of perhaps cobbling together something using Wordpress, but I thought I'd ask around first.

Has anyone done something like this before? Is there a web service already set up for something like this?

My RPG group just started a new Beam Saber campaign and we already committed war crimes on session 1!

Beam Saber is a game about giant robots and the people who pilot them. Our "heroes" are an asshole secret agent, a bioengineered super-ace, a living airplane, and a mechsploitation hound. We're calling our campaign BISEXUAL DISASTER MACHINES!

First session, command said to go murderise an Exodus Republics Incorporated fireteam and leave no witnesses. Simple enough, except the Exodus fireteam were protecting a building full of Independent civilians from a Jovangellian Empire attack squad.

The team start blasting and lasering the Jovangellian and Exodus mechs, and everyone gradually realises that the building full of civilians are witnesses, so they need to go down. After a brief argument, Hound and Jack Danger start doing war crimes, while Gizmo and Grace use their giant robot laser sword and super missiles to utterly destroy the enemy AWVs (Armoured Walking Vehicles).

I had lots of fun! Can't wait for next session!

Here's a fillable version of the official character sheet for Dicey Tales, the pulp adventure RPG.

It's the same system as Everywhen and Barbarians of Lemuria.

https://polyhedralnonsense.com/2026/05/18/a-fillable-character-sheet-for-dicey-tales/