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Alright, @zakael19 is interested in possibly running a 4e game for his home group, so I'm running a one-shot, solo PBP for him to help him get a feel of both sides of the effort; GM and player. This will be a solo game, so my combat encounter budgets will feature monsters/NPCs leveled down to 6...

Alright, running a 4e No Myth (minimal setting at the outset and it will accrete and firm up as we play), Story Now game for @darkbard and @Nephis . Below is character information, Minor Quest, and rough setting information chosen by the players to help inform initial scene framing: CHARACTERS...

Well, it’s been awhile old friend. Looks like we’ll be getting back together again. At some point in the coming months (when ever my Torchbearer game resolves), it looks like one of my groups wants to play 4e. Awesome! Except…while I can run pretty much every game under the sun mostly without...

So I've been chatting with some friends lately about this subject. Some friends I diverge with a little, some I diverge with a lot, some I diverge with not at all. These are all thoughtful people with a lot of consideration on the subject so, that means, there is a lot of stuff that goes into...

CHARACTER INTRODUCTION AND SPRING BREAKS FORTH Stonetop is a significant hack of Dungeon World (PBtA) such that it is clearly its own game written by Jeremy Strandberg (Perilous Wilds supplement for DW which is ported significantly in this game), illustrated by Lucie Arnoux, arranged by Jason...

The 27th will be the first full session of my Torchbearer 2 group. The below is the excerpt on page 225 of Torchbearer 2's Scholar's Guide. It beautifully puts out (a) what this game is about and (b) how it achieves it. Gears and Springs We designed this game as a series of tight...

I was having a conversation with @Campbell about important GM Traits. I thought it might make for an interesting conversation and it might be interesting to see where ENWorlders come down on this question. There are a lot of traits that make a good Gamesmaster. I'm certainly not going to...

I'm going to use this thread to do proper post mortems on my game. I was hoping to have an expedition take place tonight (that is what the PCs planned for after the first session revealed looming airlock gasket failures in all of their habitats) in the second session of my Aliens game so I...

This has been a recurring conversation with myself and others: "What constrains GM complications (in various games)?" One game that has come up a lot as of recent is Blades in the Dark (due to some comments by a not-so-well-loved-by-ENWorld TTRPG analyst...whom I overwhelmingly agree with in...

In a thread asking “what does D&D5e do well(?)”, I responded with the below: 5e is “the best D&D” at the most common form of D&D: * Adventure Path/metaplot/setting tourist play * which enables GMs to use Force/Illusionism + heavy content curation + spotlight tailoring/management to (a) keep...

A Scene Bang is the technique of introducing events into the game which make a thematically-significant or at least evocative choice necessary for a player. The term is taken from the rules of Sorcerer and its also the used in the backstory scene in Dogs in the Vineyard character creation. This...

Question for 5e GMs out there. I proposed this in another thread, and I'm curious about the community at larges' answer. Consider the lead question (and the question in the poll). 5e (by design) possesses significant asymmetric power relationships and authority distribution disparity. It...

In the early 5e era of 2014-spring 2017 when I was posting on the 5e forums, Success With Complication and Fail Forward were enormously controversial (just like they were in the 4e era). In that same era, pretty much no one was using the Social Interaction conflict mechanics (when I posted...

I've been thinking about this a lot the last few years. A poster on here, @loverdrive , recently wrote a beautiful game that is a marriage/hack of these two games, but it doesn't do exactly what I've been thinking about. I figured I'd put a thread out there where I can (a) put my ideas, (b)...

This has been a ongoing conversation for decades. GMs talk about how mid/high level (and certainly beyond) Spellcasters (lets say level 9+) are not relatively overpowered (compared with their martial counterparts and the obstacles the PCs face) because a GM is capable of either proactively or...

Pretty sure there isn't a repository for this on here, so figured I'd start a thread. * Discovery is from Perilous Wild (I use this outstanding book for my games; Journey moves and Hirelings/Companion/Fortune rolls). Think of it like a 7-9 Spout Lore move. Something interesting to be...

On Tuesday, I'm starting a new game for 2 friends (late 30s and early 40s) who have never played TTRPGs in their lives (though they both have or do play video games and the love the genre). Something about Dungeon World has always bothered me: * The limits of the Parley Move (in general, but...

This was said in another thread recently: It seemed to me that the general bent of the thread's participants either actively agreed with this or didn't disagree with it enough to voice opposition. I thought this was interesting. Therefore, a poll. Is this commonplace among 5e GMs on these...

Alright, simple thread. Tell me/us about the machinery of a focused moment of play in your game. Format-wise, not looking for story-time. Looking for the following format: The Game: The Situation: The Decision-Point: The Mechanics’ Role in Resolution: So I'll start with an example The Game...

Immediate Disclaimer: This analysis is going to have to span a few posts. I'm going to examine my last 5e play Excerpt which was at level 18. That Tier is "Master's of the World": "...characters have superheroic capabilities, and their deeds and adventures are the stuff of legend. Ordinary...