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TTRPG Wiki — Compare Tabletop RPG Systems

Browse and compare 130+ tabletop RPG systems including D&D, Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, Mörk Borg, Shadowdark, and more. Filter by genre, play style, complexity, and accessibility to find your perfect system.

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Is This Anything?

Thelma & Louise as a D&D adventure.

Two players and a DM. No map or dungeon. Just a road, a bad decision that made sense at the time, and a growing list of people who would very much like to speak with the characters.

Hijinks escalate. The law gets involved. The friendship gets tested. The horses are fast but the kingdom is not that big.

Structurally it's a two-player road campaign with a ticking clock and a moral compass that keeps getting knocked off the wagon. The DM's whole job is to keep putting interesting people and problems in the road and seeing what these two do about it.

I think i'll move this from "Just a whimsical note" to "an adventure i'll actually author". Maybe.

#iTA #isThisAnything #DnD #TTRPG #Homebrew #TwoPlayer #RoadCampaign #DMing

Stem-based battle music for D&D: run all tracks at low volume throughout the fight, then bring up the instrument that fits each character when it's their turn -- horns for the fighter, crunchy guitar for the barbarian, pennywhistle for the rogue. When the BBEG acts, swell the foreboding oboe. Same song, different voices.

#iTA #isThisAnything #DnD #TTRPG #Homebrew #BattleMusic #TableTopTips #DMing

Uggg, I spent ages trying to download a PDF of handouts for The Haunting off of Scribd, before noticing the Miskatonic Vault logo and tracing it back to Drive Through RPG: Somehow my search for The Haunting on it had missed one handout pack, so I paid another $2 for that pack and will print it out at work tomorrow.

Then I can go through all four packs I've bought and pick the best version(s) of each handout.

#CallOfCthulhu #FuckScribd #CoC #DMing #TheHaunting

Gamemastering a tabletop roleplaying campaign is a lot like being a TV showrunner, I suspect - or at least, GMing the kind of campaigns that I run. I find myself recognizing plot arcs and twists in shows, and coming up with alternative or better options as I watch.

It comes from years of handling long-term story arcs and overlapping shorter-term stories with continuing characters. After a while finding new plot twists and arcs becomes second nature. I've been doing it so long that I do it in my dreams!

It's a little frustrating, because I have the skill...but I'll never have the option to make use of it outside of a roleplaying campaign.

#TTRPG #GMing #DMing #roleplaying #Gaming

Rebellion Themed TTRPG Campaigns: Guerrillas, Freedom Fighters and Pirates

I've been wanting to get back into writing campaign settings and ideas down, so thought I would once more blow the dust off the blog. Yesterday I encountered some really interesting blog posts about trying new ways of writing D&D to avoid some of its western and colonial tropes. The general idea that has been kicked around for, well, pretty much forever at this point is that D&D is about killing things and taking their stuff, and that is generally a bad idea with a lot of really unfortunate […]

https://canageek.wordpress.com/2026/02/08/rebellion-themed-ttrpg-campaigns-guerrillas-freedom-fighters-and-pirates/

Rebellion Themed TTRPG Campaigns: Guerrillas, Freedom Fighters and Pirates

I’ve been wanting to get back into writing campaign settings and ideas down, so thought I would once more blow the dust off the blog. Yesterday I encountered some really interesting blog post…

Ruminations of a Canadian Geek

Long ago I ran a tabletop role-playing campaign that included a problem player. Okay, so far there's nothing unusual about that; most gamemasters have had to deal with problem players, I'm sure.

But this one was REALLY nuts. And by that I mean he was seriously mentally ill. He ended up diverting the whole campaign into a private war between himself and all of the other players - not just their *characters*, mind you, but the players and myself as well. If we didn't obey his slightest whim, he took it as a personal attack. And he really knew how to hold a grudge.

Now, I'd put a lot of effort into this campaign. So had the other players. None of us wanted to just kill it. But I wasn't quite tough enough to kick him out, much as he deserved it. So after trying to talk sense to him, after group meetings where we all tried to talk things out, I finally tried to run a session to essentially psychoanalyze him - to try to bring him back to some sort of sense of reality. It was an all-night session, and it was grueling. Obviously I was young and overconfident.

It didn't work, of course. He pretended to see reason for the moment, but instantly returned to trying to openly murder every other player character. Which, by the way, was exactly what I had said up front I didn't want; "no inter-party conflict" were my exact words.

He even tried to kill them in ways that I had specifically at the outset of the campaign listed IN WRITING as things that I would absolutely not allow.

He pushed me to the breaking point and I finally kicked him out of the game. Should have done it years before.

So why do I bring all this up? Because it pretty much reminds me of what Trump is doing right now. Reading out private messages from world leaders. They are desperately cringing and scraping and bowing to him, trying to get him to see reality. But they don't realize that like that crazy player, reality doesn't EXIST for Donald Trump. Never did, never will.

But I don't think the world leaders will have the guts or integrity to kick him and the US out of the group.

#TTRPG #Gaming #DMing #Trump #Davos #Politics

@elmiko Michael, I think you're absolutely correct that to run a game, you must have at least played the game. 👍

Run a brief adventure where the aspiring DMs experience it as a player first, then do it again letting them see how it was prepped and how it's run from behind the DM screen.

#dnd #ttrpg #dming #dungeonmaster

Looking Ahead

The weather is trying to decide if it’s August or October, my allergies are all over the place, and my social calendar has been busy. But, the coffee has been good and I’ve got books to read! These are some random TTRPG thoughts, let’s roll it!

  • We live streamed an actual play of Monty Python’s Cocurricular Medieval Reenactment Programme this week. My character submitted a letter of complaint to the BBC, annoyed the Head of Light Entertainment, and was shot by Bolsheviks. It was amazing.
  • For the past year I’ve been dropping hints about what I’ve been slowly prepping for my Numenera group. This week things began moving in that direction. I’m kinda psyched, to be honest.
  • I’m getting ready for GameHole Con! I just hope there’s air traffic controllers working when it’s time for me to go. That is not a drive I’d care to make. I hate driving.
  • I used my Kobo Libre Color to take my notes during my Numenera session. I enjoy that process even though my hand-writing makes it look like I’m a drunk doctor. Why did I take notes on my Kobo? Well, first, my iPad is too big at the table so it gets in the way. Second, if I write on paper my hand gets stained and I’ve had enough of that in my life. This is one of the small burdens left-handed people face. I mean, the whole world is backwards.
  • So an ICE raid, featuring Black Hawk helicopters, was unleashed on a Chicago apartment building. There are reports of folks being dragged out of their homes naked and of kids being zip-tied together as they were led outside. Now, those things are monstrous, but they are a symptom of the threat rather than the threat itself. ICE emptied an apartment building with no warrants—just to see who they could arrest. Folks, if a law enforcement entity can bust down a door and drag you outside, without a warrant, just to see if they can arrest you—we are all less safe. And if you are thinking, “Well they wouldn’t do it to me,” then you have missed the point. When rights, which are the assumed pre-existing defaults for human-beings which guaranteed protection under the Constitution, are snatched from anyone then we are all harmed. Oh, and you’ll hear people pointing that that “some of these people were US Citizens.” That is both irrelevant and dangerous. Protected Constitutional rights are guaranteed for everyone who lives in any territory in which the Constitution is the law of the land. Do not allow any of this to become normalized.
  • My EZD6 “Howlmark” mini-campaign continues on Monday, October 12th, at 8:30 PM! Come on out and see what the heroes of Hobgoblin Falls get up to! If you want to catch up the first session can be found at this link.
  • I am enjoying my read through of Star Trek Adventures 2e. There are bits of it which are very progressive and, I admit, some of the editorial decisions had me cocking my head in confusion a bit. But then I remembered the Star Trek had two bridge officers whose presence was radical in the 1960s—a Russian and a black woman who was a commissioned officer. Star Trek has always been progressive, but the bits from the original series were things I was already used to by the time I was growing up. Similarly progressives idea being presented nowadays are newer to me, so I notice them more. We live and we learn.
  • Most of the games I’m playing at GameHole Con are two hour sessions. This is helpful because I end up with more time to roam around doing interviews and recording reflections. I am not sure, however, when I’m going to eat. It’s the little details which vex me. I’m also an introvert so I don’t know who I’m eating with because I always feel like I’m intruding on groups. My psychology is…we’ll call it “interesting.”
  • One nice thing about going to PaxUnplugged is I can commute to it. This means I don’t get the “full experience” because I do try to get home in time for my little’s bed time, but I also don’t need to worry about bringing any purchases home from the convention. I’m trying to pack light for GameHole Con and probably won’t be picking up a lot of stuff. Unless I pack really well, that is.
  • I have somehow managed to almost reach the 1000 follower mark on TikTok. Now in the world of Tiktok that is nothing but,to be honest, even reaching that milestone confuses me because I am just not cool enough for a platform like that. Still, some folks seem to like it so that’s nice.
  • #DMing #DnD #DungeonsDragons #dungeonsAndDragons #GMing #RolePlayingGame #RPG #TTRPG

    Dumbfounded

    I’m rather tired of having a year’s worth of crazy happen over the course of a week, the trees don’t appear to be trying to kill be right now (which has me worried), and I’ve been enjoying a lot of yummy coffee. The world may be spiraling, but there’s good things to spark hope. These are some random TTRPG thoughts.

  • Congratulations to Monte Cook Games for breaking the million dollar mark with their recent Cypher Backerkit campaign. And now, it looks like Numenera is going to be revisited as well. Fun times! Question, should I start complaining that Numenera is being ruined now or should I wait until the campaign actually begins?
  • I was so excited to run the first session of my Howlmark actual play campaign. It’s an EZD6 campaign and we’ll be running through my Hobgoblin Falls trilogy. The fun happens every other Monday, beginning at 8:30 Eastern US. Check it out!
  • I visited the PA Renaissance Faire for the first time and it was a lot of fun. I was so close to dropping a lot of coin on some actual gemstone dice but wound up holding off because I’m heading to GameHole Con this month and need the cash. One fun moment was when a random Eagles chant echoed along one of the streets and most of the patrons joined in. I love being a Philly sports fan, even when the Eagles blow a huge lead in the 4th quarter.
  • My sci-fi horror adventure, The Orshin Incident, is going to be hitting Backerkit next year! This is all thanks to my friend, Dave Ward from Grimwood Games and I’m having a hard time believing it’s actually happening. The adventure was written for Indexcard RPG but we’re going to try to offer conversions of EZD6, Ironbound, and Mothership. Dave, thank you so much.
  • In a year where a year’s worth of absurdity happens every week, the last few weeks have been a doozy. The President gave a rambling fit of a speech at the UN. We had another church shooting and the only thing the talking heads are concerned about is the ideology of the shooter (because if he was on “their side” it’s…ok then? I don’t get it). Then we had the Secretary of Defense call every general officer in our armed forces so he could vomit his bloviating ideology to everyone, during which he used the phase “any war we choose.” Which is not getting enough attention because that’s a radical shift in how the armed forces are going to be used. Then the president got up to speak and was shaken by the fact that the disciplined general officers didn’t become a campaign rally crowd, during which he talked about using US cities to train combat troops. Oh, prior to that he bleated out in his fake twitter account about “war-ravaged Portland.” Now the government’s shut down and the vice-president just lied out his butthole about the Democrats demanding free health care for illegal immigrants as a condition for funding the government. the HUD website as a message blaming the shutdown on the “Radical Left in Congress,” which is a violation of the Hatch Act but laws don’t matter any more because we don’t have a functioning administration—we have an endless election campaign running the government. Oh, and the president shared an AI video about some fake medical technology to his fake twitter in which he appeared. And I feel like I haven’t even scratched the surface. Also stop shooting people.
  • My friend, Dave Ward (he keeps popping up, doesn’t he?), was able to interview the creator of the Questline VTT. Questline is a lightweight VTT that can be accessed on any device and be usable, which is huge. Last week Dave and I kicked the tires on the setup and came away impressed, while also pining for some features to be implemented to make the VTT feel more functional, and during Dave’s interview with Aelfric, the platform’s creator, addressed our reflections—which was a cool outcome from that rambling stream. I encourage everyone to watch the interview, and maybe go check out Questline for yourself!
  • I love helping folks connect to each other and finding community in the process. I love how—through this channel, my campaigns, and events I’ve run—real friendships have formed that have make folks lives just a little bit better. Two things about this. First, I recognize this may just be an extension of my pastoral vocation—but it could also be part of why I’m a pastor, I love to see folks connected to each other. Second a strange psychological quirk about folks who enjoy connecting others is that, quite frequently, we either don’t feel like we ourselves belong or we think we haven’t done enough to connect folks in community. I don’t bring this up as a pity party for me. I point it out so if you’ve got someone who helps connect you to others in your lives—a GM, a community organizer, a friend who plans all friend group get-togethers, or religious figure of some kind—give them a thank you. Most of them will not know what to do with it and will probably try to deflect the thanks to someone else but, deep down, you’ll warm their hearts.
  • I finally remembered to order my “I liked these dice before they were cool” shirt, featuring the mighty d12. I want to have it for GameHole Con and I hope it gets here. The squirrel brain can be a problem. That moment of focus also prompted me to get both my covid and flu shots so, hopefully, I can keep some of the con crud away. Oh, if you want to pick up that shirt for yourself the link is right here.
  • One of the most enjoyable TTRPG YouTube channels, in my opinion, is “A Squirrel Plays.” Skrat’s reviews are beyond entertaining, and his humor and kindness are things I so appreciate. His game system, NUTS, is also a ton of fun and I’ve been privileged to play it in a couple of actual plays. Go check out his channel, you will not be disappointed. And, Skrat, sorry I keep running out of time to get your interview done, I’ll get you out of the green room soon.
  • #DMing #DungeonsDragons #dungeonsAndDragons #GMing #RolePlayingGame #RPG #TTRPG