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Tier 1-- Anything that A) you're likely to play and B) is going to be used by players, you 100% keep. Tier 2 -- Rules, settings, adventures that you are likely to use for reference, or regularly use for inspiration or adventure planning. Everything else, truthfully, you can live without in...

Ironsworn "wowed" me from first read, through 8-10 sessions of GM-ing. Not one time was I ever disappointed. I honestly kept saying to myself, "At some point, is it ever not going to be awesome? When does the letdown happen?" Hasn't happened yet. I also have to agree with FFG Star Wars. I was...

Absolutely a kid on a bike. Age 10-13, can't tell you how many times I packed up a roll of quarters, biked 3 miles down the hill to the local gas station, because they had a pinball machine and a Double Dragon arcade game. Rode the bike trail along the river, rode up to the local golf course to...

You know I have absolutely zero issue with PbtA / FitD play principles, and in fact am now a strong proponent of them after many years of being the opposite. But I still have to question what it is you're actually saying. When you say, "choices, in play, that say something," what is that...

How soon before your typical FLGS will have it available for direct order through one of the usual distributors?

It's about a half-hour drive from Boulder, but Black and Read in Arvada, CO has TONS and TONS of new and used RPG material. http://www.blackandread.net/site/ 7821 Wadsworth Blvd Arvada, CO 80003 I go there every time I visit my sister who lives in Arvada. Good stuff.

I think I've commented on a thread elsewhere that if RPGs hadn't started from war gaming, they'd likely have started from something along these lines. A parlour game, with cards + dice + other randomizers, with roles and modes of play, with the intent of telling a story or just enjoying the...

Agreed. Unless for some reason Starforged didn't qualify for the 2022 awards (2023 instead?), this is a massive, glaring omission.

@Grendel_Khan --- I need about eighteen more heart emojis for that post. Incredibly, dare I say even beautifully well stated.

I think the big point of your thought is in bold. The biggest hurdle as a GM I had to overcome for Ironsworn was to stop immediately negating the "how" just because I had thought of something ahead of time that would make me say, "Oh no, the players can't do that, that's impossible because I...

This is also golden advice. Especially the bold part. You'll find lots of new areas where previously as a GM, you might have prepped something ahead of time that would negate the players' intended course of action. In PbtA / FitD, in most cases your job as GM is to adjust the fiction to account...

@Reynard -- this advice from @hawkeyefan is pure gold in terms of approach.

*Edit: I love Ovinomancer's post just before this, talking about how the score is set up. He's exactly right, in that the players are setting the scene, and it's assumed by principles of the game that what they say is true. As a GM you're very, very rarely going to outright declare something...

I've noted before that the biggest thing that made PbtA / FitD style games "click" for me was playing Ironsworn solo. As both player and GM for the same character, the mindset of "taking things as they come" and extrapolating from established fiction in the moment, rather than prestructuring...

To chime in on the Reckoners (which I have read all 3 in the series and enjoyed), in the story the effectiveness of the non-supers still largely hinges on the narrative conceit that every superhero has a hidden weakness that can potentially be activated and exploited. In my mind that general...

@Reynard -- The old Savage Worlds GM in me is trying to think of a way to balance what you want. Savage Worlds really does ground itself around "action hero++" style gaming, but I've never pushed it up a notch to superheroes. To make a SW game that allows "muggles" to go after the superheroes...

IMHO, "highly recommended" only scratches the surface of how great Starforged is. Unless you're the most grognardic of OSR grognards or utterly refuse to try anything other than D&D, you need this game in your library, period, end of sentence.

Can also recommend Tiny d6, especially for Sci-Fi. It's ultra lightweight, but has just, just enough player-facing rules to be fun to play. Requires a GM willing to make rulings for nearly everything, but if you're comfortable with that, it's great fun. Tiny Frontiers is the Tiny d6 Sci-Fi...

Ironsworn: Starforged sounds exactly what you're looking for. Sci-Fi with an assumed setting, but you and your players build it together. If you want to get a feel for the base system, the original Ironsworn system PDF is completely free. Starforged is the sci fi expansion/update. A buddy and...

I'm kind of sort of only "drive by thread-skimming", but PC capture is universally unfun. Had a GM who did it twice, once running 3.5, once running GURPS. Both times we banged our heads against the wall for 90 minutes or so, trying to read his mind about how we were going to get out. If it...