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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...

I totally appreciate this, and have to say, I'm still waiting for the light to come on for me when it comes to Fate. I've purchased Fate Accel, Fate Core, and the Fate tool kit, but I'll be darned if I can figure out what its play principles really embody.

So, to comment on this --- Even when I was a die-hard "trad" GM running Pathfinder and Savage Worlds, I personally never found the rhetoric of the Forge to be offputting. I think Ron Edwards had a clear idea that he wanted to get the principles of "narrativist" play solidified, and it was...

The thing you're forgetting in all this is that the principle of the innovation adoption curve is a very real thing. And that exposure to any fraction of the principles surrounding RPG theory is something that only a small percentage of the player base ever experiences. And why is this...

Interface Zero 2.0 for Savage Worlds. The Deus Ex series of video games are my all time favorites. This gorgeous hardcover is pen and paper Deus Ex and it is amazing. Star Wars Edge of the Empire. It really hits all the right notes in terms of the setting. The background information on the...

Savage Worlds Adventure Edition Ironsworn Genesys Core Scum and Villainy Burning Wheel Gold The hardest items left off were Interface Zero for Savage Worlds, Lex Arcana, and The One Ring 2e.

You mentioned a couple of months ago that you're also primarily running games online. https://www.enworld.org/threads/how-do-you-tell-a-group-maybe-this-isnt-for-us.686578/ I have to say, online gaming is HARD. I've found you kind of have to limit the timeframe to be much shorter. 2-2.5 hour...

I've been in this situation before, and can commiserate. For me, I basically decided that if the players couldn't be bothered to be engaged, that I couldn't be bothered to participate. If the group was to continue, that change was needed. I can be pretty blunt when the situation suits. I...

Hmmm, @TheAlkaizer , how to sell you on Ironsworn? Imagine you liked the general theory/concept of Apocalypse World / Dungeon World / Powered by the Apocalypse games, but could never quite get "into" it / understand it / make it work. You tried AW, or Dungeon World, but it just never clicked...

Some of you may know how big a fan I am of Ironsworn. Just wanted to give a shoutout that the PDF of Starforged landed on DriveThru. I've already played 2 sessions of it (a friend of mine backed the KS), and it's without a doubt an improvement on Ironsworn, which was already fantastic. The...

@Reynard If you don't have it already, the Interface Zero 2.0 campaign setting for Savage Worlds is fantastic just for the gear, bioware, and gene mutation rules alone, even if you have no desire to use anything else in the setting.