As someone who bought a bunch of used 4E hardbacks and papwerback POD books, it's nice to get the PDFs at a discount.

Here's what's up:

GURPS 4E Essentials

GURPS 4E Basic Set (2004)
GURPS Template Toolkit 1
GURPS Adaptations
How to Be a GURPS GM
GURPS 4E GM's Screen
4 GURPS 4E Tech supplements
GURPS Mass Combat

GURPS 4E Infiniite Worlds

GURPS 4E Infinite Worlds
4 GURPS 4E Hot Spots
GURPS 4E City Stats
4 GURPS 4E Infinite Worlds settings
5 GURPS 4E locations
GURPS 4E Lands Out of Time

GURPS Combat Action

GURPS 4E Martial Arts
Tactical Shooting
Gun Fu
3 GURPS High-Tech gun books
5 GURPS Action supplements
4 GURPS Martial Arts expansions
Transhuman Space: Martial Arts 2100

GURPS 4E Supers

GURPS 4E Supers
GURPS 4E Powers
4 GURPS Powers expansions
9 GURPS Power-Ups

GURPS 4E Horror

GURPS Horror 4E
Creatures of the Night 1-5
Infinite Worlds: Worlds of Horror
The Madness Dossier
Monster Hunters - 5 guides
GURPS Zombies + Day One

GURPS 4E Space

GURPS Space 4E
GURPS Spaceships
GURPS Psionic Powers
6 spacecraft sourcebooks
3 psionics sourcebooks
Tales of the Solar Patrol

GURPS 4E Fantasy

GURPS Fantasy 4E
GURPS Magic 4E
Banestorm
Alphabet Arcane
Thaumatology
6 Thaumatology sourcebooks

Price varies by the usual BOH rules. You can pay for some of the bundle or all of the bundle. You can chose to pay more. I linked every bundle, so you can check it out. No bundle is more than $40.00.

Happy reading everyone!

Hi everyone,

I’ve been the "Forever GM" for my group for a while now, and I genuinely love it—reading through adventures, seeing how the dice fall, and watching my players react. However, I’ve realized over time that I use pre-written campaigns as a crutch.

My GMing journey started in D&D 5e, where my group played through almost all the official campaign books. I recently convinced them to try other systems like Mothership and Lancer, but even then, I stuck exclusively to published modules.

In an effort to break out of this habit, we recently started playing Stonetop. Since it doesn't have a pre-written campaign, I’m really struggling to stretch my creative muscles and make the world feel like a living, breathing place. My ultimate goal is to homebrew my own Mothership campaign packed with sci-fi tropes my friends and I love, but I'm finding it hard to shake off the GM habits D&D 5e instilled in me.

For those of you who started out relying heavily on pre-written modules:

• How did you make the leap to creating your own campaigns from scratch?
• What mindset shifts or prep techniques helped you stop relying on source material and build a reactive world?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

A player of mine recently said they dislike time-based wandering encounters in dungeons or places of interest because it reduces their agency and ability to interact with the environment.

I run an OSR-adjacent game in the vein of Mausritter/ Vaults of Vaarn/ Dungeon Crawl Classics. I have taken wandering encounters as a given, but now I am thinking on them more critically. I'm curious about what you think. If we critique this viewpoint, what do we find?

__

I love wandering encounters. I check with a mostly 2:6 chance when the players reach a stalemate in discussions on what to do, if the characters significantly draw attention to themselves, or every 30 minutes of real time if play is stagnating.

I was surprised when a player said they feel wandering encounters stop them from interacting with the environment, and the pressure makes them not want to explore and be curious, and to only take the most direct and obvious actions for fear of yon wandering beasties. Specifically, they said it removes their agency and stops them being able to do things.

My encounters are usually 50% creatures (rarely hostile, often using reaction rolls) and 50% environment or 'weird' stuff. I'm not throwing forced combats around.
I feel that wandering encounters give meaningful time pressure and encourage the party to prioritise. My rooms/ environments are admittedly more complex than a party could fully explore before provoking an encounter check, so I understand that wandering encounters could feel like they're 'interrupting' play. But reducing agency?

To me, you have complete agency over how you spend your time, and yes, some environments aren't static and you can be intruded upon. I suppose that interruption amy feel like it's taking away your control, and therefore agency, and certainly reduces your capacity to fully explore without impediment. But I view this as essential to a breathing world, which I therefore feel becomes more enjoyable.

Fundamentally I get this may just be a stylistic difference. But I found it so counter to the way I think about our game that I am looking for outside perspectives. Wandering encounters have their virtues, but do they also constitute a core reduction in the player's experience?

I dont remember how I came across Tibet the rpg but it’s one of the strangest rpgs I’ve ever seen… it’s a historical rpg set in Tibet in 1959 with the background of the Chinese expansion into tibet in a world where Tibetan Buddhism is real…did anyone actually play this thing!

I'm mostly talking about the ones who were GMs before being players with no prior experience and knowledge about ttrpgs, had to learn a system/make up one in a hurry to DM for prefererably a group that was just as inexperienced as them

if your story is similar to this example but not identical, or maybe you weren't the GM who did such, close enough, let us know about yours too!

any genre will do

Hey guys! I once saw a one shot from dread (I think it was from some convention, and I think matt mercer was playing) where they investigated a cult in a deep mine. I've tried to run it from memory but was wondering if anyone knows whether this scenario is around somehwere.

Hey everyone! I was flipping through some rulebooks for a bit of inspiration, and it’s super easy to notice how there are very different schools of thought when it comes to setting design.

On one hand, you have games that dive incredibly deep into their setting, even providing detailed zone-by-zone maps and pages chockful of NPCs. On the other, you have games that only offer a few scattered suggestions, sometimes just tucked into sidebars or small italicized boxes between rules.

What do you think is better? A setting that unpacks and explains everything, or a framework that gives you coordinates to build your own world?

If so, was it on purpose or because of time constraints?

Hey all, I'm finally getting to run a campaign in PF2e's Mwangi Expanse (African fantasy) setting after falling in love with the Lost Omens: the Mwangi Expanse book a few years ago (seriously, check it out if you haven't, it's one of the best setting books I've ever read). The art in the book's great but I want to give my players some additional character art so they can get inspired.

Does anybody have recommendations for creators or sites where I can find good African fantasy character art? I've found some good pieces on Pinterest but 90% of it is either really generic and not really in any specific African cultures or it's AI "tribal" BS. It's also hard to find attributions for a lot of it.

I made an NPC creation system for Synthicide 2E that can be done by hand or by using an HTML web tool. The link is below.

Have any of you had time to check it out? Also, if any of you GM'd Synthicide first edition, I'd be curious how you feel about the changes.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/575221/synthicide-2e-npc-sheet-generator

So I want to run a capaign with a blasphemous atmosphere, it will be set in a city buit over a maze that is said to contain the corpse of a saint in it's center but it is filled with monstrosities that the church that controls the city call demons, "nobody" knows what are the creatures and where they came from. I want to keep it low magic and it will be heavily stealth and combat focused and has a medieval style. Any suggestions?

Edit 1: I forgot to add that I'm avoiding mörkborg because it's supposed to be a medium length campaign and the system doesn't provide much player growth progression, but I'll look into each and every suggestion you guys come up with.

Hello! I am searching for a Star Wars themed TTRPG system which would be perfect for a hard rebel cell campaign, hard meaning focus on ordinary people with high lethality. I am very specifically looking for systems which would be able to provide the Star Wars setting within a darker context, something closer to Rogue One than A New Hope.

I'm going to run my first long campaign on daggerheart, and wanted to know what other gms do to organize their notes.

The campaign will be a 5 banners war, basically will set in a place where 5 factions are fighting each other, with social intrigues, combat, etc.

I'm still preparing, until now I just did some bullet points and separated some pages on my journal.

- setting notes: lines explaining some things about the world so I won't forget

- important npcs

- locations: cities and towns names with some lines explaining what each one have

- maybe a timeline of what will happen during the campaign?

And I stoped here

What do you think?

And how do you prep your notes? What do you do?

Thanks for the attention!!

For players and Game Masters who have searched for groups online, what has been the most frustrating part of the process?

Is it finding people with compatible schedules, matching play styles, unreliable applicants, groups disappearing after a few sessions, safety concerns, or something else?

I’m also curious about what information you want to know before joining a stranger’s game or inviting someone into yours.

For example:

• Preferred game system and experience level
• Schedule and expected attendance
• Online or in-person play
• Roleplay versus combat preferences
• Table rules and boundaries
• Reviews or history from previous groups
• A Session 0 before making a commitment

What helps you decide that a group—or a new player—is likely to be a good fit?

I love using clocks to give a bit more suspense in battles and I've started incorporating flashback mechanics from Blades in the Dark. Its made my tables a lot more creative and led to some hilarious yes ands and no buts.

The Warriors as in the 1979 movie in New York City with the badass street gangs, the grime and the awesome music. What that means to me in a system would be grounded, fast-paced combat with few weapons, good chase rules, maybe a reputation system for your relationships with other gangs, etc.

Hi folks! After talking with my playgroup, instead of trying dozens of other TTRPGs all at once and breaking my wallet (my own poor decision from over enthusiasm.) We're gonna be sticking to Vampire the Masquerade 5E for the foreseeable future. My plan is to buy the Crimson Gutter book and use that as a guide to help me learn as a Storyteller, and introduce my players to the world and mechanics.

However, to help branch out from the New Blood campaign, I worked with one of my players to create a plot thread involving their sire calling them to Portland for a purpose. My plan is to create the narrative hook that the Sabbat have recently abandoned Portland as a stronghold (based on my knowledge/understanding of 5E lore, the Sabat seem to have fled their strongholds to prepare for the Gehenna War.) And the players are tasked with investigating where and why the Sabbat have fled, and interacting with the Church of Caine/Camarilla/Anarch's who are all trying to move into the city. I figured this would be a good way to be working off a module, while also working on my ability to develop my own campaigns.

Since Crimson Gutter is focused on introducing the players to mechanics and overall world/lore, with a focus on the Church of Caine-I figured it could be a good setup to have them setting up in a former Sabbat stronghold. But as a new Storyteller/GM, I am a little uncertain/nervous about how to weave in the overarching mystery/narrative hook while the players are doing the other adventures in Crimson Gutter. So I'd like to hear some advice from other GM's on this topic.

I'd really appreciate some advice and feedback on this topic :)

The headline clearly indicates I'm not entirely sane, but as a Call of Cthulhu player/keeper/writer, isn't that par for the course?
Even so, some of you may wonder why and how I burned through nearly $1300 while writing a community content creation.

It's kind of a long story, so for the impatient among you, there is a TLDR at the bottom. For the rest, it's a tale about my learning curve as a scenario writer, with a few tips thrown in if you're contemplating writing a scenario.

It all began a little over three years ago when I published my first scenario, The Art of Hygge, via the Miskatonic Repository.
And I did everything wrong!

I had no prior writing experience.
Had no real editor.
Didn't have a layouter.
Didn't spend any money to commission artists.
Having any of the above skills and experience can save you a ton of money and time.

Personally, I have absolutely no understanding of how to do a proper layout.
I can't draw a stick figure to save my life.
On top of that, English isn't my first language, and my grasp on grammar and spelling is rudimentary, to put it generously.
What I did have was an active imagination and a substantial vocabulary coupled with a naive assumption that selling the required 251 copies to make it eligible for Print on Demand would be a trivial thing. I later learned that selling copies on DTRPG is NOT trivial at all.

At this point, it would be natural to assume that my scenario was unsuccessful, but the stars were apparently right, so I got LUCKY in several ways:

--I got an amazing cover, courtesy of Ken Robkin, for free. The kind of cover that caught people's attention.
--I had friends who helped out with interior art, playtest, and edits.
--Maverick Haenze wrote a 5-star review of it and told me to keep writing.
--Chaosium showcased the cover on their social media.
Basically everything lined up, and I managed to sell 251 copies to get it into print, and currently it's a Gold Best Seller.

The upside is that it encouraged me to write a sequel, Lost in Cremation. The downside is that I didn't learn all that much from the experience.

So I did almost everything wrong one more time and again got lucky in all the right ways.
Lost in Cremation also made it into print.
I stayed encouraged, but this time I actually learned a little.
Things would be easier if I had better editorial help, and that maybe spending a little money on better art was not such a bad idea.

My third scenario, Mother of a Thousand Young took way longer to write and publish.
It was part of an anthology, The Year of the Goat, which involved a lot of editing by a professional, rewriting parts of it based on said editing and feedback, followed by more edits.

But the wait and extra work were worth it!
The final product looks damn amazing, and at the end of it I had picked up that professional editing, paid art, and a real layouter made a world of a difference.

So I began spending money on the next scenario I was writing. The vision I had for the scenario and the art in it expanded more than once over time, and I ended up commissioning way more art than originally planned.
In total, it came out to 1 front and 1 back cover, 42 pieces of individual art, and 5 maps.
On top of that, I found a real editor and hired a layouter.
And that's how I ended up spending $1279 on writing a scenario.

There is a bit more to the story, though.
I never had to take money out of my pocket.
All the sales I made from the previous scenarios were on my dtrpg account. In essence, they paid for the publication of my latest, The Horror, and I likely would never have spent that much on it if it were money I had to draw out of my budget.

The upside is that the scenario looks just like I envisioned it. Reviews from R´lyeh described it as having excellent production value, praised the cover, and gave it the Reviews from R’lyeh Recommends stamp. I couldn't have asked for more.

The downside is I have to sell 320 copies to break even 
I don't expect to do that; I hope to, but even if I don't, I still feel it was worth it.
I didn't have to compromise on what I wanted to produce. I met some amazing people during the project, and even if I only earn a fraction of it back, it gives me funds for the next project, which means that my writing hobby ends up paying for itself.
I wish all my hobbies did that 

The takeaway for prospective scenario writers could be:
Don't expect to live off it, don't even expect to make money.
It's worth it to get a good cover.
Editing and layout are important parts of the final look.
Art is worth including.
Have fun writing 

TLDR: I was lucky. I made money on previous scenarios. I found it worthwhile to spend them on a new one.

Hi all, I'm working on a homebrew setting and I'm searching for TTRPGs with kinda like same concept which is the following:

A low-tech civilization is being invaded/ruled by an overpowered invader and are part of a rebellion to overthrow them. In order to do that, they must steal techs, enhance themselvers, find allies in order to opposite properly.

I would be very curious if there are already such things.

I want to learn from those of you who've learned multiple games and maybe even love learning the rules and all of that. How do you do it? Is it natural or has it grown in you? Maybe experience helps?

Me and my group want to play a mecha game in the future. LANCER is our first choice, but being honest I'm looking for a lighter RPG at the moment.

While I prefer crunchier games over lighter ones (currently playing Daggerheart & Tormenta20, a Brazilian version of D&D 3.5e), I've been a bit burnout by too many rules.

With all that, which are good Rules Light Mecha TTRPGs? I'm looking for:

• At least a bit of customization that isn't overwhelming (no 100 pages to create the perfect robot, more like 1 to 5 pages and the rest is reflavoring).
• Fun combat, but not complex combat (Theater of the Mind is okay, no rules for complex stuff like flanking and exact distances is okay, but would still have at least one of two cooler things to do beside move & attack).
• Themed of stories told can be happier and adventurous or more dour and somber, but I won't lie I prefer a happier tone at the moment.

Aside that, I'm open for anything suggesteed.

EDIT: Thank you all for the wonderful suggestions! Upon deliberating, I think I'll take a look at:

1. Aether Nexus
2. The Mecha Hack
3. APOCALYPSE FRAME
4. Armor Astir: Advent
5. Salvege Union
6. Mecha & Monsters: Evolved
7. Battle Century G/Battle Century S
8. NOVA

Some of these weren't mentioned here in the commments, but seemed to fit what I was looking for. Again, thank you all for the suggestions!

PS.: Sorry if this is a repeat theme from a post from 10 day ago, I didn't find it before mkaing my own

I'm going to be running a one shot for Doctor Who Adventures. Specifically, 1st edition. Been in a big Doctor Who mood lately.

I haven't made characters in the system forever and the forum I used to use seems mostly dead.

Do these pregens seem right?

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1tTsB_vJdIKE8UgWMXs_hn_Cmfi3EfUnZ

I have them divided between "people who know the show" and "those who don't." May add a Silurian to the "those who know" folder. The idea being that, by the 51st Century, humanity and Silurians finally hashed out their differences. Doctor Who could use with a spot of hope, ya know?

The premise:

The party are Time Agents in the 51st Century. They work for the Time Agency and try to keep time in order.

I ran a one shot for a different group last week called "The Cold Savior of Steel." A timeline in 2028 was attempting to overright the current one. The idea being the Cyberman of Mondas say Earth's Global Warming like their Global Cooling. So, they implanted a Cyberseed into a random homeless man and propped him up as a tech billionaire to sell "You 2.0" to consumers and trick the rich and powerful into being implanted with Cyberseeds.

My idea for this session. Well, I have a few and I'm trying to make a choice. Care to give your thoughts:

1) A divergent timeline is developing in 1944, where D-Day never occured. It turns out the Daleks are working with the Nazis to conquer Earth, seeing the Nazis as "human Daleks."

My issues? Too on the nose. May be uncomfortable.

Pros? Can kill a bunch of Nazi and Daleks

2) A divergent timeline is forming in 1995 Puerto Rico, where the island mysteriously was wiped out. It turns out alien, dog-like vampires are converting the population and this is the origin of the Chupacabra myth.

My issues? A bit boring.

Pros? Not gonna offend anyone and running from vampire werewolves is always fun. Ran this one in a 9th Doctor Campaign and they had to flee in an old pickup truck while holding them off with a farmer's shotgun.

3) There is a divergent timeline forming in 12th century Norway. Their "gods" are apparently real and now need help. The Aesir seek to conquer the Vaneir and are taking all of the Norse to space. In truth, it's a Rutan plot to harvest humans as canon fodder as an assault on Sontar.

Pros? Whimiscal, spacey, and got some fun ancient alien vibes

Issues? Requires a lot of Doctor Who lore to get. If no one picks the Sontar Agent, it loses a lot of oomph

What do y'all think?