NarrativeCrit

I'm a social creative GM who likes to run games with little to no prep. I use a lot of player input. If that appeals to you, you might use this style of "rumors," you can improvise at the table. If you prefer simulation or random generation, this isn't your cup of tea.

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I call it folklore because my system is in the folktale genre. Folklore expands on the flavorful true/false OSR rumors we know and love with a dash of "unreliable narrator." It's very similar to the tables from Ultraviolet Grasslands. Here's the bones of it:

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TAKE FOLKLORE WITH A GRAIN OF SALT. Though it blossoms from a seed of truth, folklore is re-imagined in retelling as common folk exaggerate and misre

Does anybody have experience doing this? I've brewed with the Pulsar 4 times and love it, but want to brew a concentrate to dilute for a big group of friends.

My grinder is the Timemore Sculptor with the biggest burrs and it produces a miniscule amount of fines. I also have a Kruve sifter set to refine the grounds for 4 cups at once.

What have you tried to make as much coffee as possible at once with the Pulsar?

I'm a social-creative GM and designer, so I designed rapid and conversational combat that gets my players feeling creative and/or helpful (while experiencing mortal danger). My personal favorite part about rapid combat is that it leaves time for everything else in a game session because I like social play and collaborative worldbuilding. Equally important is that minor combat lowers expectations - experience minus expectations equals enjoyment.
I've played big TTRPGs, light ones, and homebrews. Combat in published light systems and homebrew systems is interestingly...always fast! By talking to my homebrewing friends afterward, I learned the reason is, "When it felt like it should end, I be

Imagine cheat sheets, cards, art, tokens, gimmicks, and other visual cues on the table are undervalued because they're inaccessible.

Imagine they are easy to get, sell, and mail affordably. Something like great print on demand. Picture the value it adds for adopting your system.

Teaching a game is SO much easier with a cheet sheet for each player, even one the size of a business card or even a playing card. It solves 80% of player uncertainty and questions, which feels really good. Tons of board games do this.

If I print 500 player-reference business cards for less than $100 US, and include 4 per unit, the cards cost me 80 cents but add much more value than that. Let's imagine $2 of value

I'm a social-creative GM and designer, and I'm extremely curious. That's why I developed and refined this series of questions to help the GM (me) learn after every session, in a way that's fun, not formal.

These questions supplement "Reading the room," while you playtest, which is wonderful. Essential. Hands down the best way to learn. Listen to what players say, how they say it, and care about why and you'll go far. These questions let you read the room when the game is finished, so that you can give your players your undivided attention. Maximum listening, zero teaching or need to respond.

Let me restate that. When you get feedback, drink it in with a thirsty brain and offer no re

I'm a social-creative GM and designer, and I'm extremely curious. That's why I developed and refined this series of questions to help the GM (me) learn after every session, in a way that's fun, not formal.
These questions supplement "Reading the room," while you playtest, which is wonderful. Essential. Hands down the best way to learn. Listen to what players say, how they say it, and care about why and you'll go far. These questions let you read the room when the game is finished, so that you can give your players your undivided attention. Maximum listening, zero teaching or need to respond.
Let me restate that. When you get feedback, drink it in with a thirsty brain and offer no resist

I'm a social-creative GM and I design for it. I playtest to smooth social friction and hear as many good ideas from players as I can. My initial design constraint was 15 minutes to start play, but that's how I got there.

The GM is a player in a special role—bigger and potentially more engaging than the role of a normal player. But some rules and expectations burn GMs out.

What spoils GM fun:

1. Prep is laborious, frustrating, or uninspiring. (Just-in-time decisions fix this)
2. Running the game is cumbersome or frustrating. (Delegating and just-in-time decisions fix this.)
3. Disconnect between player and GM expectations (setting, activities, roleplay). (Collaboration, culture, an

With this perspective, you can better understand total complexity of a game. And fun!

The GM teaches the players rules, and the players use character abilities the GM has to learn and abide by. Grrat player abilities are easy and fun to GM for!

Honestly, the GMs fun is paramount! When he has fun, he becomes more fun for players. When he's frustrated or bored by player abilities, the table dynamic suffers.

When you make a game crazy fun and easy to GM, players want to have a turn GMing! It happened for both my play groups. When a player GMs, they become WAY better players too. GM-players master the system, RP better, and are more likely trying to help the GM and their teammates.

Imagine a

"The Art of Game Design; a Book of Lenses" is a phenomenal read to get a fundamental grasp of games, play, choices, and designer mindset.

I've seen more posts lately asking about good games to read. Anyone have more general Game Design books that are great?

A lot of designers here share this interest and express it in similar ways so I'm curious how it's meant.

The most obvious answer is we can role play lots of things and combat isn't king. What else do you like to take the forefront? Exploration? Social interactions? Puzzles? Character development? Setting development (as in changing it by playing)?

I personally emphasize social play and building a legacy of friends and connections. We use fictional slang, play up culture and sense-of-place, all with stakes and risks.

What do you like that makes you want games that are less about combat?

Background is the most prominent character detail in my light system, and I let rolls canonize details in a PC'S background during play. Helpful and harmful details such as being good at negotiating or bad at cooking. The first time a PC rolls to attempt something, we rationalize the outcome actually reveals an aptitude or weakness in that PC. If a Player does well in RP, same thing.

The GM uses these details to adjust the difficulty of rolls for these activities later, or not need rolls at all. It creates consistency. I tend to scribble down the harmful ones and let players invoke helpful ones. I'm also telling players "write that down," here and there. But write what down?

Having side-

The question, "What if xyz was alive?" is low hanging fruit for TTRPG hijinks. Its up there with, "What if xyz was magical?" and, "What if xyz was large and dangerous?"

Recently I decided enchanted items would have consciousness and motive in my lore. In fact, items grow stronger as the owner builds loyalty by aligning motives and actions with the item.

A misused or long-abandoned enchanted item may grow hateful (the opposite of loyal) and maybe even compel the owner the way The One Ring does in LOTR. Do as the item wishes to decrease its hatred, which decreases its power and its hold over you in equal measure. Or you can pass it off to someone else whom it will accept.

That's it. Items n

Out of necessity, the first playtest I did of my system, I used my phone's timer app to set the total length of the session. Someone needed to leave at a certain time. Since then, I've integrated it into combat and even as a general GM technique pacing scenes.

Timers can both ratchet up tensions and relieve them. Players have enjoyed the clear expectations timers set for the whole table and gaming the clock (such as, "My brother is going to goof off for no reason, but only for 5 minutes." It also turns boundless debating into bounded debating.

I'll tell the players, "Let's set a timer for this scene. Does 10 minutes sound right?" When the timer ends, whatever has been set in motion I'll na

My system works a lot better in person and I can fit a better read on new players that way. Has anyone had experience running games at a board game shop or something as a way of getting more playtesters?

My goals for the system are:

1. Session 0 takes 15 minutes for new players with 0 other prep
2. Gentle learning curve. Beginner friendly.
3. Collaborative gamefeel (the fellowship element of gaming is prioritized)
4. Improvisation replaces most GM prep
5. Minimal bookkeeping and zero arithmetic required

I've edited the following GM advice loads, but I'd like to identify what I could ax. My vision is that a brand new GM will pick it up and feel as confident as possible running her first game. Is that unrealistic? Or is it dumb that I think a 15 page book is way more approachable than a 23 page book? Something tells me I could chop this advice WAY down.

My game uses *mostly* generic terms